The Middle-Earth Adventurer

Social Scientist as Game Designer

2010-02-09T17:11:00.000-08:00

I have wondered for a while now if a social scientist, given the proper training, would make a good game designer. Heck, give him a double major in psychology and I think one might have the next super dev.

This thought sprout out of my recent break from LOTRO (and blogging). Why did I just drop the game? Well, I started getting bored. I played LOTRO since August of '06 when I was invited to the closed beta. That's three years to the point that I stopped playing (a little longer). I don't think anybody could fault someone for taking a break after that sort of investment. But why was I bored?

It's that kind of question that speaks to a social scientist. I happen to be one, or my degree is in social science. Perhaps armchair social scientist is a better term for what I do. I'm certainly not employed in the field. I digress. If we can answer those types of questions then I think MMOs can be designed to with greater sticking power.

This type of discussion came up in the latest Shut Up We're Talking. Interestingly enough, this is the latest episode after Darren (the host) took a break from MMO playing and podcasting/blogging. Coincidence? I don't think so. Every guest agreed that there is (was?) a general discontentment amongst the blogosphere about MMOs through no fault of the games. Instead, it's the player's attitudes that are changing, rather than the games themselves. Perhaps that's the problem? Shouldn't the games adapt to what the players want?

I speak in generalities, of course. Not every MMO player is burned out. The industry is still going strong. And MMOs do try to cater to what their population wants. So what's the missing link here - the muscle tissue, bone structure, that can lead the way to better design?

I think the answer lies in understanding how people think, particularly players. One way they think is that not all of them think the same thing. SUWT touched on this and I think they're right: MMOs cannot cater to all audiences. WoW is the exception to the rule, the fluke, the unrepeatable success (well, maybe another Blizzard MMO). Instead of sending a dev team off with 50 million dollars to make the next WoW how about a few million and focus on a particular playstyle? Darkfall anybody?

Seriously. Darkfall did that. So did Fallen Earth. Both are successful in their target audience. And those who don't like PvP or post-apocalyptic worlds don't care. That's fine. Ideally there will be a MMO for you.

So what does all this have to do with LOTRO? Yes, this is still a LOTRO blog and I will not post without somehow linking it back to my beloved game. And yes, I still love this game. As a wise parent once told me, love is a choice, not an emotion. I choose to love LOTRO even though I'm not feeling it right now. Eh, more digression.

LOTRO seems to be lacking something for me - I'm not quite in their target audience. Oh, sure, I look like it on the outside. I love the Lord of the Rings. I love RPGs. I'm a completionist. I can't stand PvP. Still, I'm straddling the line.

I game for story. LOTRO has an awesome story. But all the other mechanics have impeded me in my quest to experience the story. Not because they're bad mechanics, or cumbersome. No, they're just required to use in order to play the story. So am I complaining that I can't just watch the LOTRO story passively? No. That wasn't what LOTRO was designed for. My increasing appetite for story out of my games is my own problem, not LOTROs. But I think games can be designed for people like me: The Longest Journey for instance. Or even the Bioware RPGs - heavy on talking and story (which is what I have been playing instead of LOTRO).

Those are single-player examples. Can MMOs focus on story to the extent I want? Sure. The better question is "Is the target audience large enough to sustain such an MMO?" Let's go back to that money thing: Yes, if the budget and development take into account target audience size. What would that MMO look like? Good question. One I'm going to save for later.

In any case, a social scientist understands personal and group motivations (or attempts to understand them). Considering MMOs deal with both motivations shouldn't we consider the value of such perspectives when developing these games?

Of Fading Journeys

2009-10-30T19:52:00.001-07:00

If I hunted as much as my character hunts in LOTRO, I'd either be the world's best hunter or spending my life in prison for single-handedly killing off the world's food supply. Or both. You've all probably heard the gripe before - why do we kill so much wildlife? It's not just predators. We're slaughtering flies, deer, elk, neekers...

I'm not really bothered by this. I just bring it up to illustrate a larger point about LOTRO being very much a game. I think now that I've been playing for a few years the magic has worn off and the virtual world skin has faded to reveal the true game beneath. There's very few MMOs, if any, that can truely be called a virtual world. That's because when we say MMO, or more correctly, MMORPG, we're stressing the G. The loss of the G is probably a side-effect of taking out RP. Very few of us actually role-play and there's hardly any structured support for that type of activity in the game anyway.

Back to game vs virtual world. Beyond any other reason, I picked up LOTRO because I wanted a virtual Middle-Earth. With Shadows of Angmar, I got that, in so much as what was in at release. Now we're moving away, and while we see more of Middle-Earth, it's simply because that's where the fellowship is going and where we can introduce fun and cool and engaging content. The space serves the game rather than the game serves the space. I'm not arguing that this is not the way it should be. Indeed, LOTRO is a game and should be developed towards a game. Furthermore, the recent and future content is and will be engaging. But it's not what I came to LOTRO for. I found fun, but not quite the fun I wanted. Only now that I've nearly exhausted that fun, have I seen this.

To that end, the very gamey nature of LOTRO stands out for me more and more with each passing moment (boars, boars, and more boars). There will come a time, and quite quickly I'm afraid, where I'll cease to see it as a virtual representation of Middle-Earth at all, but rather a MMO with a Lord of the Rings skin. This saddens me in a way. First, because I really do love this game. And second, because despite such love, I cannot be sustained by it.

All this, I think, is at the core of my recent apathy towards logging in and keeping current with this blog. It is with deep regret that I make what might seem like an abrupt about-face with The Adventurer, and say good-bye to blogging. It is not that I do not have anything to say, or that I'm quitting LOTRO, or the community. This blog cannot be maintained at the level of my current interest and investment. One should not feel forced to write, or pressured to keep up with the news enough to post every time a new bit of information is released. It might be said I've lost the passion that started the Adventurer. I don't think that's the case - rather that passion has been redirected. Strike that, the passion has continued on its course, the Adventurer and LOTRO simply didn't follow.

Insert a lamentful sigh. I started writing this post with a completely different end-point in sight. I honestly did not start with the intent to make this a good-bye. But that's where it naturally flowed.

What does that mean for my future as a LOTRO player? As I said, I will not stop playing, but I won't feel compelled to play for blogging, or to keep up with what's going on in the game. I will not disappear from the community - I still read the fellow LOTRO blogs, and will comment more often now that I'm not posting here. What this does offer me is an opportunity to pursue other forms of writing. I've aspired to be a professional fiction writer since high-school and yet have done little to further that goal. Perhaps now is the time to revisit this.

Take care my fellow adventurers. May your journeys be forever blessed. I leave you last with a blessing from Elrond to the Fellowship as they departed:

"Ála tira acca haiya! Mal si a vanya as márë órelyar! Namárië, ar nai aistalë Eldar ar Atani ar ilyë Léralieron hilya le! Eleni sílar antalyannar!"

LOTR Day

2009-10-25T19:58:00.001-07:00

This isn't LOTRO related except for sharing the mythos. Yesterday (Saturday) I had my 6th annual LOTR Day. The previous 5 years comprised solely of a movie marathon, the first culminating with a trip to the midnight showing of Return of the King. This year, however, I decided to do something a little different. Instead of sitting on the couch or floor for 13 hours straight, I thought we'd mix it up a bit. Inspired by a post on another blog, I set up a menu of 8 hobbit meals to have throughout the day as we watched the movies. The list went as followers:

Breakfast - Omellets with various filling including cheese, bacon, chives, and red peppers
Second Breakfast - Berries with whipped cream and/or yogurt
Elevensies - Bread and cheese (sharp cheddar and Gouda)
Luncheon - Chicken stuffed pastries
Afternoon Tea - Assorted teas and seed cake
Dinner - Green salad including spring mix, carrots, cucumber, egg, olives, and tomatoes
Supper - Lamb stew with potatoes, carrots, and onions
Dessert - Vanilla and peanut crunch cheese cake

We also had games going, predominantly LOTR Risk. The event was a huge success. 17 people attended, most for the whole duration - starting at 7:30 with Breakfast and ending at 10:30 with the completion of Return of the King. Of course, with 8 meals we ate every 2 hours or so, but the portions were small. Actually, they were perfect. Small enough to not overfill us but large enough to keep us satisfied until the next meal. With different people bringing a different meal, no one person was stuck in the kitchen the whole time or dropped a lot of coin on a lot of food. It's hard express in words how pleased I am with how everything turned out - everybody had a great time. Both pictures and video do not do it justice either, but I have both: a photobucket set and a YouTube vid. Enjoy.

Middle-Earth Chronicles

2009-10-20T21:14:00.001-07:00

I've found another LOTRO blog. I saw it linked in two separate places tonight so I definitely need to mention this before I call it a night. This one is called Middle-Earth Chronicles. They've been blogging since June this year, so they're pretty new, but the more the merrier I say! Do check them out.

Hearing My Voice

2009-10-20T20:47:00.000-07:00

I know I've tweeted about it, but I don't think I've posted anything about my recent podcasting guest spots here on the blog. Over the course of three weeks I appeared on three different podcasts. Two were LOTRO related, one was not. The links are below if you're interested:

I definitely recommend the last two if only because they're LOTRO related and this is a LOTRO podcast. When guesting on SUWT, I was a little "star struck" and nervous. Hence I talked way too fast. And I cannot recommend A Casual Stroll to Mordor enough. Merric and Goldenstar are just hysterical. And I'd be remiss not specifically pointing out the awesome guys over at the Reporter - excellent podcasters, those two. Enjoy!

What is Content?

2009-10-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

I got into a lively discussion on Twitter the other morning. And by morning I mean 5:45 AM. I like to check my overnight tweets before work (I follow quite a few people significantly outside my time zone). Anyhow, since I didn't ask permission to give out the name, this follower shall remain anonymous, but had a few gripes about Orion's post on some improvements to the rep system. The contention, if I didn't misunderstand, is that additions to the rep system, notably deeds for completing rep, doesn't constitute "content" where content is new activities for the player to partake in. Of course, we're arguing about the definition of "content." I assert that content is anything added to the game. My follower would prefer a more narrow reading of the term. I don't think this definition needs to be hard and fast. I can accept his opinion. Where the discussion became more dynamic was in the idea of too much non-content. And by non-content, I'm using the narrower definition.

Indeed, the whole of Orion's post was about improving the reputation system, in some cases with what could be termed fluff content. That is, rewards that don't directly affect your ability to combat mobs or complete content. This is not to say the improvements won't include useful rewards, but Orion wanted to also implement these fluff items as well - albeit a ways in the future. Notable in my Twitter conversation was deeds for completing reputation. Not trying to put words into my follower's mouth, but it seemed that he would prefer resources devoted to more significant content. As a completionist, I would love deeds/titles for reaching kindred in rep. But I can understand why someone would be disappointed at seeing effort devoted to this type of content.

On the whole, the reputation absolutely needs a steroids shot. It's pretty flabby now, and I think that's a relic of it being added post release, and with limited resources amidst a host of other content additions, many more significant or impacting than rep. The later rep "factions" (for lack of a better word) such as Forochel and Lothlorien implement reputation much better and more fluidly with the rest of the world - quests, deeds, gear, etc. But we're getting a piecemeal system, visible in the game. I would love to see Orion take putting all the reputation factions on the same level. This is especially important regarding rewards. Breeland and the Mathom Society, off the top of my head, have utterly useless rewards, almost entirely comprised of fluff. And this brings me to my last point: I agree with my follower that fluff is disconcerting - but only if all we're getting is fluff. Orion's post clearly points out we'll be seeing the more significant and impactful improvements first, and fluff stuff such as the deeds/titles much later on. He's got his priorities right.

Content, whether fluff or not, is always welcome so long as it's well designed. I think we've seen some hiccups lately with some content, but Orion's work on the early zone revamps gives me supreme confidence that the content improvements we see in the reputation systems will be of excellent quality.

Developer Q&A Part 2

2009-10-17T18:04:00.001-07:00

Not sure if I linked to the first part of the Q&A, but you can find that link here. This post will pretty much be a run down of the questions I personally find interesting and my thoughts. To simplify, I'll just quote the answers. So, here goes...

AMD’s recent announcement of their first DirectX 11 video cards included a mention that LOTRO was adding DX11 support. You will not see it with Siege of Mirkwood, but you should expect it to arrive sometime next year.

I'm really stoked that the dev team is putting effort into adding support for the next gen technology in an previously existing game. There's no doubt LOTRO has some amazing graphics. Anything to further enhance that is good, so long as it doesn't seriously hamper performance. The great thing about the DX10 support is it is activated via check boxes in the graphics options. There's no forcing players to use DX10 cards. I hope their comitment to their graphics engine continues as the game does - perhaps a ways down the road we can see a graphics overhaul similarly experienced in Eve and Ultima Online. This kind of work can certainly prepare them for such an endeavor.

Mirkwood is roughly 75-80% of the size of the Northdowns.

A little disappointed in the size, but oh well. I guess I'm just partial to a grand experience in size and scope of Middle-Earth.

Not for Siege of Mirkwood, though we’d love to revisit [housing and guilds] at some point in time.

Vague enough that I'm pretty positive they do not have any plans in the works yet. I too would love to see this "at some point in time" but previous posts from the dev team have pretty much said housing isn't a priority because it would require enough resources to cut significant work in other areas of the game. Still, at some point in time that priority has to change.

Many of the questions are very specific and reminiscent of dev chat type responses, rather than a press release. That's a good thing. I hope to see more of these types of articles in the future. Perhaps a better method then a dev chat? Maybe that's where they're going. I haven't seen a dev chat in quite a while, now that I think about it.

Skirmishes Dev Diary 3

2009-10-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

Here's the part I was most interested in regarding skirmishes: randomization and scaling. These two features combined offers so much potential for content that will retain players beyond the typical instance or raid progression. I'll let the dev diary speak for itself, but I have to mention I'm not keen on the idea of the fellowship leader being required to set the group level (i.e. solo, 3-man, 6-man, and 12-man). I'd rather see it auto set. Why? Because it puts the UI and system in between the player and the world/content. Certainly setting the difficulty, if you will, is a small and painless step in the process. That isn't the point. Instead I think a philosophy of transparency is better. Completely subjective design opinion on my part so long as the UI interaction is as painless as I'm assuming. I'll leave the thought here, but I have a post in the works that delves more into this design philosophy. For now, know that I'm still excited about skirmishes. It's my biggest anticipated feature. Well, the horse change too but just because I want to collect all the horses. It should be a pretty awesome system.

Skirmishes Dev Diary 2

2009-10-13T17:08:00.001-07:00

To sum up this second part of the Skirmish dev diary series: "Skirmishes are..." Zombie Columbus (author of the dev diary) details exactly what skirmishes are and the goals behind which they were created. In a nutshell, the War of the Ring is advancing into Eriador at the current time point we leave off the story: In Lothlorien with the resting Fellowship. However, Eriador as a persistant zone in LOTRO does not move beyond the time frame assigned to it and its quests when it first entered the game. As such, we cannot see Bree come under assault, for example. With skirmishes, we'll be entering an instanced space where we can move time forward (i.e. winter snow in Bree). And the world immersion factor isn't broken by suddenly having an assault while quest NPCs continue to direct you away from their location to fight evil.

In reality, we're not seeing much more information here than we already know. Part 3 will delve into the technology and systems used in skirmishes. This is actually the part that interests me the most. I'm very much excited about how Turbine is handling their randomization and scaling. I think these two techs/approaches can be applied in other arenas to great benefit. I won't go into detail here (save it for a separate post - gotta get my count up. Hehe.)

A Year in Review

2009-10-13T16:36:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it. Today it has been exactly one year since I started blogging. A lot has happened in that one year. Let's take a look:

Personal

Got a new computer
Got a job
Turned 24
Sister moved out

LOTRO

Mines of Moria released
Three festivals
Two book updates
One new zone
A double birthday party
Pirates invade Middle-Earth
Next expansion announced
Two-year anniversary
I've played the game for over 3 years

Blogging

Total Posts: 427 (counting this one)
Average Posts Per Month: 32.8
Slowest Month: July 09 with 12
Busiest Month: March 09 with 77
Three new podcasts found (with blogs)
Appeared on three podcasts (not all same as above)

Where I've Been

I started The Middle-Earth Adventurer because I couldn't find a good LOTRO blog. From then my blogroll has grown by leaps and bounds. There's an amazing and active group of LOTRO bloggers and podcasters out there. From humble beginnings as a newbie blogger to a member of a vibrant community.

Where I'm Going

With my life changing and going to change some more, I can almost guarantee that I'll be blogging less frequently. Indeed, we've seen this at the present. However, I fervently hope The Adventurer continues strong for another year. You might see me less frequently, but hopefully none of the quality is lost. However, there is one area of growth that may be of interest: podcasts! After participating in two podcasts as of this writing (three by the end of tonight), I've been infected with podcast fever. In that vein, I'll be creating a podcast version of The Middle-Earth Adventurer.

Now, I go into this new medium with the goal of not doing the same thing as the other great LOTRO podcasts. Instead I'll be using the video medium. No, you probably won't get to see my ugly mug, however, my voice will be forever ingrained into your brains... muahahahahah! *ahem* The podcast will be called MEA Monthly. Clearly I'll be only releasing one every month (my schedule cannot take any greater frequency). The exact content is yet to be determined, but expect fancy flying text, screenshots, and video capture. Also expect a fairly short runtime (10 minutes max is my goal). And of course there will be more info to come as the release gets closer (aiming for end of October).

A Last Word

Thank you all for reading and subscribing. Thank you to the LOTRO blogging and podcasting community for being such awesome people. I hope you'll continue to read The Adventurer in the year to come. Now, time for some cake.

A Bit More Legendary

2009-10-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

A legendary weapons dev diary was released today and I must say, I'm excited. This is a much needed boost to a system that, after a while, felt worse than some of the upper level slayer deed grinds. Here are some of the highlights:

All Weapons Lvl to 60
Legacy Modifying Scrolls
IXP Curve Altered
Crafted Relics
4th Runic Slot

All these features combine to do a couple of things. First, the grind is significantly lessened. Second, we will have a good idea of a weapon's value to use right at identification, instead of after leveling it 20 - 30 levels. Third, less pressure to have a 2nd or even 1st age weapon - 3rd ages, at 60, should be pretty decent, especially if you used some of those scrolls. Fourth, crafters play a better roll in the legendary system.

What this means is that we're seeing this system closer to what a "legendary" weapon really would be. While not perfect, we should be hanging on to our swords and bows and javelins a little bit longer now that we can foresee where they're going and significantly alter them at any point in the process. This is an excellent change to the system - and one that many have wanted for a while. Some of the changes were predicted, and others were a pleasant surprise. Quality work, Turbine.

Cor Pethroni

2009-10-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

Hey, it's about time I mention the third kinship I'm involved with, and let all you readers know you can join! The folks over at the LOTRO Reporter created a new kinship on the Brandywine server called Cor Pethroni. It's Elvish for "Ring Narrators." Perfect for what this kinship is all about - we're full of LOTRO bloggers and LOTRO blog readers. So, if that fits you, you're welcome to join up. My character is Sharrien, an Elven huntress (yes, technically a "hunter" but I thought I'd indicate gender in my chosen class). I'll be on every Tuesday from around 7 to 9 PM Pacific Time in case you want an invite; just send a tell. However, there's a host of others that can recruit you as well. Check out the my.lotro page I linked above for who's an officer - they'll be able to conduct your hazing... er... entrance ceremony.

While I won't be able to be on very much, many of us will have more time, so it shouldn't be a ghost town. Come on in. We don't have any big agenda or plan except to connect to our readers and each other in-game as well as in the blogosphere. But don't let our casual nature cause you pause. Perhaps you can be the one to organize some events, instance runs, or other group content.

A Skirmish Overview

2009-10-04T07:31:00.001-07:00

This starts a series of dev diaries about the new skirmish system to launch with the Siege of Mirkwood expansion this December. While the first installment is just an overview, I think it gives a nice picture of how long a development cycle a major system like this requires. Zombie Columbus and Rhidden started musing about skirmishes just as Moria was launching last year. And even then, they were just under the deadline for getting something new into the next expansion.

The overview here doesn't really give us any new info about the specifics of skirmishes. The Ten Ton Hammer interview with Jeffery Steefle does a much better job of that at the moment. However, if any of the previous dev diaries are an indication, we should be getting a lot more juicy tid-bits soon.

Shared Storage Overview

2009-10-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

This dev diary is small, as the system is quite straight forward. However, it is one of those much desired "extra" features that polish the game even more. I'm not the type of player this is catered to, though. Altoholism isn't my vice in this game. Rather I'm a completionist. There's no help or hope for that one. Anyway, the shared vault space is great for those of you who love your alts, specifically crafting alts. The coin to send stacks and stacks of mats in the mail adds up quickly, and it's a pain to have to retrieve all of those mats one at a time from your mailbox.

One nice feature is the ability to put bound items into the shared storage. At first this might seem unnecessary but in effect the shared storage space becomes extra vault space for your characters. While only the character that an item is bound to can retrieve it from the shared storage, having it there means it's not taking up space in your regular vault, and visa-versa. Yay for more vault space!

Mounts 2.0 Dev Diary

2009-09-29T20:35:00.000-07:00

It's the little quality of life improvements that make me the happiest in LOTRO. And seeing the new changes to the mount system gets me almost as excited as trying out the skirmishes. I doubt any dev would call what they did for mounts in SoM a "little" update, but it is a refinement of content.

And that's the best way to describe it. We can talk to NPCs on our mounts, go through doors or "portals" on our mounts, emote on our mounts, use certain skills on our mounts. It makes mounts less of a simple point-A-to-point-B device and more a part of our character. And as a skill, mounts no longer take up space, so that means we can collect as many as we like without having bags or bank space devoted to our stable. I know this will give me a new money sink on Jaxom. A horse of every color and variety for me please!

One last thing: the dev diary has a little blurb at the end pretty much trying to say that this mount system change was not designed to take on mounted combat. However, despite this, they do say the system was designed for expandability and flexibility. I think mounted combat does fit into that design feature.

And lastly, at this point in LOTRO's life, it's a little known fact that mounts weren't going to be in release until quite late in the development process - the dev diary alludes to that as well. I for one am supremely happy they did make it in, even limited as they were. It would suck to run all the time and could have been a serious stumbling block to player retention.

Siege of Mirkwood Release Date

2009-09-29T20:12:00.000-07:00

Hayo! We got a launch date for the Siege of Mirkwood digital expansion. And it is *drum roll* December 1st. This is actually a bit later than I predicted. I would have figured on a pre-Thanksgiving release. However, in hindsight the Thanksgiving shopping rush isn't as important to a digital only product as it would be to something in retail outlets. Black Friday is very much a traditional shopping event and digital distribution tends to even the field when it comes to when something is purchased. Indeed, if Christmas were earlier in the year, Turbine might have even passed up that holiday - gifts residing solely in a computer is hard to put under the tree. Really, the supreme guiding force for this was to stay in Fall (Winter beginning Dec 21st) and in 2009. December 1st is a perfect fit.

Now, here's where things get a little chaotic. If you check out Turbine's official press release, you'll find a host of pre-order options. Yay for pre-orders! But what the heck is an Adventure Pack and how is it different from the Siege of Mirkwood expansion? Seriously, could they have made this any more complicated? Don't even bother trying to figure it out from Turbine's release. Check out A Casual Stroll to Mordor's overview of the whole thing; they do an excellent job of cutting through the marketing BS.

And that's what it is. They're selling the Adventure Pack, which is basically the bonus goodies normally included with a pre-order and offering SoM for "Free"... if you buy the AP under certain conditions. Now, the AP is 19.99, the price-point previously stated for SoM. And that little similarity can lead to the question: is the AP the same thing as the expansion? Nope. It's not. And what if you don't want to pre-order (in other words, by the AP) but want to buy the Siege of Mirkwood when it releases? Well, apparently they'll now throw in the AP (minus one of the bonus perks) but tack on another 20 bucks.

So really, the Siege of Mirkwood expansion is 39.99, not 19.99. What this should have looked like is this: Pre-order the Siege of Mirkwood now for a 20 dollar discount and a bonus item. Regular price is 39.99. The whole reason this Adventure Pack thing exists is so they can use the word "Free" in their advertising. We all like free. We jump at free.

Seriously? Selling us the bonus stuff? And "lying" about the price? Cut the crap, Turbine marketing.

And just because I hate ending good news on a bad note, I've got to say "Yay! We have a release date! And pre-order goodies!"

Falling Behind

2009-09-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

I've not been able to make the last few Massive Hobbits events due to other things being scheduled during the play times. This Saturday again finds me busy. And I'm starting to fall behind - especially since the group is moving to Book 3.4+ and I haven't even started Book 2 yet. Not that I think they wouldn't mind catching me up, but I just feel less motivated to play when I know I'm behind. And that's sort of where I've found myself with Jaxom on Elendilmir.

Perhaps I'm suddenly moving away from being hardcore casual to just casual. With a new job, my time is even more limited now. I have a host of activities I used to fill up my excessive free time and now I need to make the choice of which ones are most important. It would seem from the outside that LOTRO would be high on the list but even high on the list doesn't change the amount of time in the day. I also want to get into the habit of regularly writing fiction, which I've dabbled with on and off for years now to no finished projects. Indeed if I could discipline myself enough to push a piece or pieces off for potential publishing, that would be fantastic. That means a lot more time spent writing rather than playing.

There's some other life choices I need to make soon, which I won't get into here because it's not important for the gaming side of this. Regardless, I'll be blogging less, and playing LOTRO less. the idea of having two kinships (three with the blogger kinship The LOTRO Reporter has been discussing.) is out of the question. I'll have to stick with my first. I just cannot devote the time and effort (I'm a big believer in helping the kin as much as possible). I'm already torn about missing so many Massive Hobbits events.

A Job

2009-09-24T17:51:00.000-07:00

Just to let everybody know I finally have a job. It's not what I'd like to be doing, or in my field, but it's what I need to be doing because I need to get some money into the bank and to fill the gap in my resume. Not sure yet on my long term goals, but for the short term, this means I'll be pretty busy during the day and as such blogging less - not that my rate has been high lately anyway.

Siege of Mirkwood Summary

2009-09-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

Alas, I never got around to summarizing all the news and information about the Siege of Mirkwood expansion. Instead, I'll point you to LOTROLife for that. They've got a nice run-down of all the features revealed so far in SoM.

Docholiday's LOTRO Blog

2009-09-21T11:41:00.001-07:00

Found a new LOTRO blog for you all. Seriously, my blog roll and reader are fast filling up with LOTRO related content. But that's not a bad thing! Docholiday plans on focusing most on end-game content and classes he plays, specifically the Warden. Do check out the blog as it looks like he has some great ideas for future content.

MMORPG.com SoM Preview

2009-09-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

There's nothing really new in this preview. Not even new screenshots. So, it wouldn't even rate mentioning except for a line right near the beginning that's a bit ambiguous:

"This expansion ends the epic story of Moria and the land mass that players will be able to explore is Southern Mirkwood. Dol Guldor, Elves and Olog Hai, oh my! What about Northern? Well yes, if there's Southern Mirkwood, Northern will follow. Soon. Okay, it's not Rohan, but we'll get there eventually."

The question is, does this comment reflect something said to the interviewer or did MMORPG.com just assume that Northern Mirkwood would be soon because Southern Mirkwood is coming soon? I'm inclined to go with the latter myself, because I'm hard pressed to see Turbine deviate so far from the Fellowship's journey. Then again, if we're a year out from the Rohan Expansion (i.e. next fall) then there should be one or two landscape additions from free Book updates between now and then. Where would these landscape additions go? They could be south along the Anduin to prepare for Rohan. Or they could be north farther into Mirkwood, exploring more of the evil there. Or maybe into the fields of Gladden.

It's an interesting question, at any rate, and based off of the MMORPG.com quote, there's very little to point us in the right direction. It actually just confuses the matter even more.

A Blogger Kinship

2009-09-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

The LOTRO Reporter has come up with the idea of forming a LOTRO blogger and readers of LOTRO blogs kinship. They have a poll up on their site for which server people would be interested in. Go ahead on over there and vote if you're interested in such a kinship. I know I'm a fan of the idea. Not sure how much I'll be participating since I really want to get back to Jaxom on Elendilmir (poll is leaning towards Brandywine or Landroval at the moment), but it's a cool idea, similar to Massive Hobbits except there's no choose my adventure part of it.

Massive Hobbits Take Weathertop

2009-09-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

Alas due to those client crashes I was unable to attend the Weathertop night. However, there's an excellent write-up, probably the best yet, over on Massively.com. Do check it out for some screens of the event. It's an interesting read not having participated in it. Seems more adventurous reading the narrative without having gone through the gameplay motions of the event. If I were reading this as someone who hasn't played LOTRO, I'd be completely sucked in and very tempted to subscribe. Kudos to Gibbi/Shawn for the superb presentation.

And due to a crammed schedule this week, I wasn't able to attend Wednesday's, last night's, and this Saturday's event. Which kinda sucks, but ya know, that's the sacrifice we make when trying to catch up with some friends I haven't seen in a while. Real Life (TM) has to be the priority.

Theme Park vs World

2009-09-16T21:52:00.000-07:00

I haven't touched on the topic of the world in LOTRO for quite a while, which is surprising considering that's one of my favorite topics. In any case, I'm mentioning it today because I'm starting to see a pattern I'm not 100% pleased about.

Today while out gathering journeyman tier ore (silver for my tinker) I traveled from Bree across the Brandy Hills, through the woods, and down to the banks of the Brandywine. If I was so inclined, I could have made a boundless journey from Weathertop in the Lone Lands to Needlehole in the Shire with my only moment on a road being the crossing of the Greenway in Breeland. In other words, that journey would feel like I was in a world, rather than a collection of zones in an MMO - a theme park if you will.

What I mean by theme park is a series of zones where the travel to and from is fairly strictly channeled and the experience highly organized and planned. We're seeing much more of this in LOTRO lately. From the Trollshaws into the Misty Mountains or into Eregion to Moria to Lothlorien to eventually Mirkwood, the process becomes an exercise in changing themes, rather than actually moving about a landscape. Oh sure, these zones are very good sized, and within them the world is very well crafted. Yet I can't escape the feeling that I'm on the greatest hits tour of Middle-Earth rather than a summer long backpacking trip through the countryside.

The fact that a seamless connection between zones (Shire, Breeland, Lonelands, Northdowns, Evendim) exists only heightens the sense of what's missing in later developments. Forochel itself is wide open, but the connection between it and Evendim is like two triangles precariously balancing on their points together - it's tenuous and contrived, not altogether stable. Or the trip east after the Trollshaws.

Middle-Earth has so much potential to be more than just a series of zones following the Fellowship. There's the key, though. Following the Fellowship. That's the main idea of the development pattern. And it's one that makes sense. It's the most famous set of places in Middle-Earth. It's where the peak of the story takes place. It's where we can really connect with the core journey and struggle.

I do hope we will go back and visit the rest of the landscape at some point. It'd be a shame not to. An awful waste of space. Middle-Earth hovers on the edge of theme park territory. Perhaps when the game expands into Rohan we'll see a more broad and seamless set of zones. This adventurer can only hope. For him, Middle-Earth is a world, not just set of zones.

The Other Bounty Quests

2009-09-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

We've had a discussion about bounty quests before, but did you know that in addition to the IXP bounty quests in Esteldin, there's crafting related bounty quests in Breeland (and perhaps other places)? While adventuring with Massive Hobbits in the Barrow downs I ran across three repeatable bounty quests that reward single-use recipes to whichever type of crafter you are. One of them even rewards the particular shard (in this case sapphire) that you need to complete these recipes. Of course, that means you'll have to find two other shards for the other two recipes you get, but that's not unreasonable. Indeed, these quests are an excellent way to get some good recipes for some nice jewelry early in your tier when you couldn't otherwise make a crit item with good stats. I do hope to see more of these for the later tiers.

Just An FYI

2009-09-11T17:49:00.001-07:00

If any of you follow me on Twitter you'll know that my LOTRO client has been crashing. So, this is just an FYI to the rest of my readers that I haven't been able to log into LOTRO for the past week or so beyond a few minutes (the time it takes for the client to crash). I'm in contact with Turbine Customer Support but this can be a lengthy process and right now they're studying my problem. Hopefully I'll be back up and running soon. I unfortunately missed the Massive Hobbits storming of Weathertop. Oh well.

EDIT: I needn't have bothered with this post since I think I found the root cause of the crashing tonight. With excellent help from the Turbine Customer Support team I managed to track the problem back to the anti-aliasing setting. The in-game AA setting interferes with the Catalyst Control Center adaptive anti-aliasing setting for my graphics cards. Or rather visa-versa. So, I just disable the AAA card setting and bam, no more crashing.

Why did I suddenly get this problem after the windows reinstall and not before? Well, I thought I those settings had been activated before, when they really weren't. At least all is now well in LOTRO land for this adventurer.

Psychochild's Legendary Evaluation

2009-09-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

Psychochild, a game developer named Brian Green, has put up a blog post evaluating the Legendary item system in LOTRO and what could change to make it better. I thought I'd point it out and respond.

He points out two problems with the system. First, its randomness, and second its negative affect on crafting. I whole heartedly agree with his assessment visa-vie crafting. Lucky for us, Siege of Mirkwood will expand the current craftability of legendary items. Depending on what is implemented, this could be a moot point. On the whole, I feel the randomness is generally well balanced, especially with the most recent changes to allow the choice of legacies (out of two) to add or upgrade. In essence, legendary items as a system actually aren't that bad right now. But I do think I would have preferred a different approach, one that would have required implementation of legendary items from launch. Such wishful thinking, however, is futile since the past cannot be changed now.

Despite the system being "not that bad", could Psychochild's suggested improvements help? First he advises to make legacies slottable instead of inherent to the weapon. Like the relics. This immediately eliminates any difference between relics and legacies and therefore should become one and the same - slottable stats. I like the idea but there needs to be a way to keep the current level of randomness present. If we can choose our legacies out of a pool like the relics, then we have too much freedom to create "uber" weapons. Now, of course legendary weapons should be some of the best weapons in the game, but not to the point where freedom to customize will lead to them being overpowered. Psychochild doesn't have any ideas on keeping the randomness, but that's because he thinks there's too much randomness at present. I would suggest that once you slot your legacy, it cannot be removed - only leveled, like present. There is mention of removing the legacy, but I think that keeps the pool of legacies too powerful and perfect. Perhaps removal is permanent - you lose the legacy. This is really only delays the inevitable super collection of legacies. Players will eventually quest enough to get any legacy the want. And since it's not random on the weapon, they will gain the "perfect" weapon relatively quickly.

Honestly, I don't think changing the legendary item system in this manner will bring about any improvement from a game mechanic perspective. From the player's point of view, they'll certainly like it better because they can now really get the weapon or item they've always wanted. But because the grind is virtually eliminated (aside from collecting legacies/relics and leveling) it has less utility for keeping players engaged.

This of course begs the question - is a grind with this system the best way of engaging the players? I would argue no, there's got to be a better, more fun, way. And I think that way can be in part linked to the crafting. Incorporating more playstyles into the legendary system will help it, regardless of the grind. If we can get crafted legendaries to speed up the grind a little, we'll see a little bit more fun.

The root problem, I think, is the dichotomy between randomness and an actual legendary weapon you would keep with you, like Sting or Glamdring or Anduril. With as much randomization as we have, it necessitates burning through legendaries we don't want to find the one that will suffice. Retaining a weapon for a long period of time, as a truly legendary weapon would, requires it be less randomized to ensure desirability on first acquisition. The latter isn't good, as I said above, for retaining interest in the mechanics of the system beyond leveling.

I think the ideas would be good to put on hold till we see how exactly the legendary system improves (or doesn't as the case may be) with SoM. Still worth thinking about though.

Combat Analysis by 2 High Road

2009-09-10T10:06:00.000-07:00

2 High Road is starting an interesting experiment using a third party program to parse the combat data in LOTRO. There's a preliminary post up now outlining what exactly this program does, and some of the limitations. If you're at all interested in min/maxing your characters, do check out this post and the follow up ones as he continues to look at damage output, etc. I know that one lacking area in the LOTRO Blogosphere is "hardcore" analysis and theorycrafting.

I Need to Cool It

2009-09-08T11:01:00.001-07:00

I went a little nuts with yesterday's rant about TenTonHammer. Looks like the video is back up and is only 22 minutes long. All hints indicate it was merely a problem with how the video was posted to their site. I don't know for sure, but despite my tirade, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. It's the least I can do. Still, being wrong about this case doesn't invalidate my logic - I just hope nobody will be shortsighted in the manner I wrongfully accused TenTonHammer of being.

TenTonHammer Vid Blocked

2009-09-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

So there is a Siege of Mirkwood preview video over on TenTonHammer. Or there was. Now it's gated behind "Premium Content". Stroll to Mordor commented that this might be simply a way to fix the fact that the vid stopped at the 10.30 mark (out of a 40 min runtime). I'm not so certain that this is the case. A better way would to simply take down the page until it's fixed, or even just leave it be until it's fixed. So I honestly do think they intended to make the video preview premium content and just screwed up in the original posting.

Please forgive the use of profanity, but there's no better way to say this: I think premium content of this nature is bullshit. Why? Because the whole point of a developer talking about new content is to disseminate it to the players, fans, and interested consumers. It's a marketing tool and the best marketing is the marketing that sees as many eyes as possible. Making it premium doesn't do that.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not against places like TenTonHammer making money, but they've got to do it in a way that doesn't negate the time effort of someone like Jeffery Steefle taking to show off his game. Look at IGN. Their premium content is comprised of better quality video and unique content produced by them and them alone. I don't personally see a value in that type of content, but many do, and IGN isn't destroying a good marketing tool in the process. More power to them. Just don't ever hinder another company's efforts to make money and spread the word about their product by your own desire for a bit of cash.

I also need to say I'm not arguing that marketing should be free for the company desiring exposure. Rarely is marketing free, but the company pays for advertising in venues that reach a wide audience. It's worth the money because the money doesn't interfere with the goal of the ads. In this venue, where a majority of the information is disseminated in free-to-view forums, gating material only lessens the number of people able to see it, and thus the effect.

I'm not going to out and call TenTonHammer greedy. It's their right to do whatever they want with their content pending it doesn't violate agreed upon terms. But I don't think it's in the best interest of the company providing the material or the potential consumers of that material. And by extension, despite a monetary gain through membership, not in the best interest of TenTonHammer.

EDIT: YouTube for the win. Someone uploaded the TenTonHammer vid in its entirety.

Blind Adoration

2009-09-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

There's some question if 20 bucks is an appropriate price for what might be argued is a glorified book update. Before I even knew the price (though 20 was my guess) I knew I would pay it. I'd probably grumble if it cost 30 or 40, but I'd still have paid it. Why? Because I love this game. I love playing this game. But is that enjoyment translating into blind adoration? Is my willingness to shell out cash without question a sign I'm just a rabid fanboi? Indeed, I do not see 20 bucks as too steep; although I really don't want to spend money right now, I will, for this. I'd even pay five bucks for the book updates if Turbine charged for them.

Perhaps my loose pocket book for LOTRO has to do with my lifetime subscription purchase at launch. I've gotten my money's worth and more out of this game so far. Indeed, it paid off after the first year going by $10/month (the lesser known lifetime sub option). Maybe it's a case where I feel I've gotten a lot out of Turbine with this game and I'm perfectly willing to give back a little when I know my money goes directly into the product/service I'm consuming. I don't think a willingness to pay for well crafted content makes me or anybody else blind to where their money is going - we're just quick to decide it's worth the cost.

And for the record, nobody has called me a rabid fanboi, or said I'm blinded by love for LOTRO. This is a purely hypothetical post based off of comments seen on the forums in various places and a thought on Stroll to Mordor (see above link). I'm essentially ruminating on how I didn't even flinch at spending 19.99 on this new expansion.

PAX Siege of Mirkwood Preview

2009-09-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

The folks over at ignvault were lucky enough to snag a preview of some of the Siege of Mirkwood content, specifically more info on the skirmishes. I'm absolutely thrilled by what I read. I think this could be an excellent activity for those at the cap who aren't big instance runners and raiders (such as me and some of my kinship). We as yet don't know what the rewards will be for gathering skirmish points, but I'd imagine they'd be inline with the barter items from loth rep quests or something similar.

And, as I've said before, scalable content is the wave of the future. Seriously, having content that caters to the group size rather than being forced to either 1) find more or choose between your friends who gets to go or 2) ignore some of the content because it doesn't fit your group size is an better direction. We're always looking for a more living breathing world in MMOs. Usually this means wanting more of the fluff that fills out a world, but I think it can also mean content that caters to you, rather than you to it. We're removing a barrier to entry, a wall that breaks the player from the world and puts him into the game-side of things, and a stumbling block to fun. We need to see more of this - and again, I'd love to see this implemented for all instances/raids.

Pricing and Other SoM Clarifications

2009-09-04T13:26:00.000-07:00

Marketroid has a forum post clarifying some points about SoM, including the price-point: $19.99 US. And Volume III will start with the regular Book updates next year.

No Rohan?

2009-09-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

I wanted to handle this as a separate post because it brings up larger questions. First, though, why didn't we see Rohan? I think we need to look at the development pattern we saw post Moria. Book 7 released the whole of Lothlorien which was supposed to be included with the Moria expansion itself. Book 8 included quite a lot of work in fixes for Moria content. Neither were devoid of Moria slippage content, but it did indeed affect the release schedule. We've had two Book updates from November to (guessing SoM release) November whereas we saw three in the previous year.

Like I said with the announcement post, this is Turbine keeping their promise for one expansion per year. Will this be something we'll see more often in the future? I don't know. I think it's a tool in their box they can pull out when needed. Perhaps we'll see a retail expansion every 1.5 to 2 years with one of these "digital expansions" in the middle. Honestly, that seems a more reasonable schedule than producing one large expansion on the scale of Moria per year. And even with the year and a half from release to Moria, there was some content that didn't make it to MoM.

The content needed for Rohan also made seeing Rohan only a year after Moria unfeasible. First, there's a lot of landscape needed. Two major centers are critical to Rohan - Edoras and Helm's Deep. These locations are on separate sides of Rohan, which is the size of two to three Eriador type zones. Then there's the landscape needed for the lead up to Rohan: down the Anduin and into Fangorn. We also need to look at the idea of mounted combat. Rohan is the perfect, quintessential place to launch such a combat system - and it would require a lot of work: getting the tech built, reconciling the current skills onto a horse, then adding the animations. None of this even touches on the huge amounts of quests, the at-least six books of new epic story. All the instances and raid(s). It's a huge undertaking when the development team has been working overtime on finishing up the Moria content.

I hope that makes sense, and of course it's just my guesses. A dev would be better able to tell us why. Next dev chat or a blog post?

A Little Misinformed

2009-09-04T12:50:00.001-07:00

Remember that post I made about LOTRO podcasts not having co-hosts? I was definitely shortsighted and misinformed. Indeed, the majority of LOTRO podcasts have co-hosts or a significant part of the run time has a conversation/interview. So, apologies to all you LOTRO podcasters for ranking on you when there was no need. You're all awesome!

And, just for clarity sake, here's all the LOTRO Podcasts I'm aware of

A Casual Stroll to Mordor
LOTRO Report
LOTRO Reporter
LOTROCast by Moormur
LOTROCast by Sparthir
The One True Cast
RingCast
That LOTRO Show

Did I miss anybody?

Siege of Mirkwood

2009-09-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

The word expansion doesn't always mean paid retail box expansion. As is the case with the "digital expansion" Siege of Mirkwood coming to LOTRO. You can check out the nice flash animated page for the expansion as well. One last thought before I get to the feature break-down commentary: This is clearly smaller than a retail expansion, but bigger than the free book updates (glorified patches). So, Turbine can keep their quota of one "expansion" per year but stay within a more realized work load. I wonder what the price-point will be on this. Now, onto the features!

Conclusion to Volume II Mines of Moria

Really? The conclusion? This is interesting because it begs a question. It is unlikely that we'll see a retail expansion (Volume III) inside six months after this digital expansion release. And that period is long enough to see one or two Book updates, so what volume will those belong to if they're holding an epic story continuation? 3? Interesting thought, beginning volume three with free patches. Or I could be wrong about seeing a retail expansion not so close to Siege of Mirkwood (hereafter called SoM).

Level cap increase to 65

Sounds good. To be expected. Only five levels for a "smaller" expansion. Really, I'm using the word "smaller" pretty loosely here because I'm only guessing at the scope based on hints in this release. And I don't think any of the devs would appreciate their work diminished to "small".

Answer the Call of War - Skirmishes

Very intriguing concept. There's a lot here too. First, the idea of randomized instances. This has historically been a hard concept to implement because it is hard to replicate hand-crafted quality with randomly generated assets. And LOTRO shines brightly with the quality of it's world and art direction. Will be interesting to see how much a part that will play. Second, we're creating "customizable soldiers". How does that work, exactly? Could be like henchmen/pets (they better have fixed the pathing!). Could be more like a squad you give orders to and level up in games such as Mass Effect. There's so many different possibilities here. I'm excited about this concept for sure.

New instances and raids

A given, just like the level cap. 3-mans, 6-mans, and a 12-man raid. Something for everybody. Now, let's get these spaces debilitating-bug free with launch. We don't need another Moria and Book 8 fiasco. I don't mean to be mean here so I need to say I really am rooting for Turbine in getting this type of content nailed down. They've had a lot of experience correcting mistakes so far.

Other gameplay enhancements

Looks mainly like the Legendary weapon system is getting a bit of an overhaul. New legacies, new runic slot (nice!) The bit about players crafting their own legendary items is a bit ambiguous. Don't we already have that? And do they mean each player can craft his or her own weapon or only weapon smiths? And then there's combat tweaks that will "improve responsiveness". I don't know exactly what that means but I imagine it's responding to some critiques out there about combat feeling a bit clunky compared to some other MMOs. *shrug* I've not had a problem with it, but then, I play a halberd wielding captain so my combat is pretty slow anyway.

Now, onto what other people are saying...

Lots of forum threads. Lots!
The LOTRO Reporter (not to be confused with the LOTRO Report) offers some commentary.
Thallian offers his thoughts, ending a bit wistfully. I hear ya. I get caught up in possibilities too!
Stroll to Mordor forwards the announcement. Hope to hear them chat about it with their new podcast! So does Darren from Common Sense Gamer. Like StM, I hope it's a discussion topic on Shut Up We're Talking. Nerf the Cat laments that she's only cut and pasted the announcement (hehe!)
MMeOw.net is looking forward to hearing thoughts from the community (got you covered here!) And now they have their own thoughts up and a run down of some dev responses on the forums.
Yeebo Fernbottom's MMO Love-In (what a name huh?) offers some thoughts.
LOTROVault at IGN has a PAX preview!
Unwize offers a bit of commentary.

So, bloggers, players, let's get chatting. Will this be a paid expansion or free? Is it just a glorified Book patch? What do you think about the features? Are you disappointed there's no Rohan yet? Comment, make your own posts, or join a thread on the forums.

EDIT: Added a couple more round-up links and also want to ask what you all think about the price-point since we now know it'll cost us $19.99 US.

GB Run Finally Up

2009-09-03T19:49:00.000-07:00

Took me ages. Between beating my head against a wall trying to get some titles attached the first part to the time it took to compress and upload the videos to annotating them (not done with that yet) these have been a long time coming. Still, I hope the wait was worth it, for I give you Massive Hobbits storm the Great Barrow and defeat Sambrog!

And you can find the additional 4 parts in the related videos/more by the user, or by clicking the links below.

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Enjoy and happy adventuring!

Massive Hobbits Invade the Great Barrows

2009-08-31T17:58:00.000-07:00

As per player vote, Massive Hobbits stormed the Great Barrows yesterday in two waves. We had a total of 8 people that visited the GB, but with a fellowship max of 6 that presented some problems. So me and Gibbi sat out the first run. I chose to wait for the second run for a couple of reasons. First was food. I was hungry and dinner was on. (Mmm BBQ chicken!) Second, we have another YouTube uploader in the Massive Hobbits kinship - Guarigione. So he recorded the first run, and me the second with Kabbage.

It has been quite a while since I ran the Great Barrows with my kinship on Elendilmir. Over a year I'm sure, so remembering where everything was at took a bit of mental will power. And a map. This posed a bit of a problem for the first run - it's definitely an adventure to get lost in the Great Barrows. Despite this and a wipe, they rallied for the win against Sambrog. Lucky for me and Gibbi, we had four fellow hobbits who now were certified GB experts. Would you believe well-versed novices? How about Hobbits promised pie at the end? Yes, that was it, pie for a hard day's work.

Do check out Guarigione's videos. Mine will be up tomorrow at some point. I was experimenting with adding some titles and ran into a few hic-ups there.

Correction

2009-08-30T19:17:00.001-07:00

I mentioned that Sambog was nerfed. That's only in the Chapter 11 instance. He's still the same bad wight dude in the regular Great Barrows run.

A Casual Stroll to Mordor

2009-08-28T10:05:00.000-07:00

I didn't even know it was possible to casually stroll to Mordor. Someone should have told Frodo! Someone by the name of Merric and/or Goldenstar, the authors of the new blog A Casual Stroll to Mordor, and hopefully a podcast to go along with it. Yay! More LOTRO podcasts, and look, it's co-hosted as well. Always a plus when it works. Definitely check them out and I'll put them up on the blog roll. I look forward to hearing how it turns out. Good luck guys!

Bounty Quests Problem

2009-08-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

Rather than post the exact same thing as LOTRO Chronicles, I'm just going to direct you to that post. Basically, I (and many other people) were right that the Bounty quest rewards were "overpowered". Rather than nerf the IXP they're probably going to change the timer to 3 days instead of the 15 hours or whatever it is right now.

EDIT: As pointed out by a commenter, I was only half-right regarding the reasoning behind the upcoming bounty quest changes.

Random Screenies

2009-08-26T14:41:00.001-07:00

I got a stack of screenshots I've been holding onto, neglecting to post, so here is a random screenshot post for ya, in no particular order. The first two are from Jaxom, the others are my recent adventures with Kabbage.

Eregion at Night 1
Eregion at Night 2
A Tranquil Scene
Breeland Moon
Breeland Vista 1
Breeland Vista 2
Castle on a Hill
Fire! (Caught someone had lit a campfire on the West Bree Stables! Oh no!)

These last two are taken at the same time I made this video of the third jump. Unfortunately, that third jump was also the one where I went splat!

Don't Jump! 1
Don't Jump! 2

Hunt for the Ring

2009-08-25T19:37:00.001-07:00

Visions of the Ring, an excellent map-centric site, has a new interactive map up: The Hunt for the Ring. It's an excellent overview of Frodo's journey and the peripheral characters from Bag End to Rivendell. I highly recommend checking it out as it does an excellent job of geographically grounding that part of the journey. It can sometimes be difficult to place all the characters, where they traveled, etc.

What I'd really love to see is an overview of the game's sequence of events within this timeline. Unfortunately, I think there might be a problem considering the distances involved - i.e. the player travels a lot more than is physically possible within the timeline available. There is a bit of that for a portion of the timeline and it's an excellent way to relate it to what's going on in LOTRO's storyline.

Also, can't wait until that site's Expansion Map is updated as well. It's sorely out of date at this point. Regardless, well done over there at Visions of the Ring!

Bone-Man is a Pansy

2009-08-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

Heyo! What a blast Massive Hobbits had with Chapter 11. Then Monday night we went off into the southern barrows completing a host of quests, old and new. One of those was Bone Man, previously a fellowship quest, now definitely soloable, or if not that, in a duo. We had a full group blazing through wights, barghests, crawlers, rats, ect and Bone Man was no match. Indeed, this wight had mere seconds to see a horde of Hobbits before he experienced a second death.

What struck me at that moment was a bit of disappointment. I understand completely why some of this content has been made soloable. Indeed, a host of games from WoW to Everquest have done the same thing with old content - made it easier. Why? Because more players are at the cap and finding a group for harder lower level content is... well... harder. The very nature of the game makes the content fun at the beginning of the lifespan, and less fun later. And yet there are those rare occurrences such as with Massive Hobbits that a group does exist for low level group content - and there's little to none of it left. Even though I understand, and even agree with the way Turbine has changed the lower content, I still have to feel a bit of loss for an epic Bone-Man. Or Sambog in the GB.

None the less, we're not without hope. The Great Barrows proper is fast approaching, the quests only two or three levels above our own. And while the questing has been made more accessible (one run instead of two), the challenge has not necessarily been reduced.

I wonder if we'll see this trend continue, with only the notable instances retaining their group status and open world group quests going the way of the dodo.

New Experiences Reveal Social Gameplay

2009-08-25T13:25:00.001-07:00

This is a "sort-of" continuation of my Conflicted Kinsman post. I've realized that I'm currently having considerably more fun with Massive Hobbits than on my main. I decided to stop and consider why that might be and I've come up with a couple reasons.

First, Jaxom is at the end-game and yet is not participating in much of the end-game content. For example, he's currently off deed grinding out Trolls, Giants, and Bears in the Misty Mountains. That's pretty much a solo affair for a level 60, but not a very fast activity either. In other words, somewhat boring. Now, you may argue here that I could indeed participate in the Moria content if I wanted. And you'd be right, to an extent. But more on that in a bit.

Second, my play with Massive Hobbits is structured differently than my play with Jaxom. In fact, I'd consider it an opposite style of play. With Massive Hobbits, the premiere front running activity are the group nights. The activity in the mean time is to prepare for those (or crafting, as Kabbage has been preoccupied). With Jaxom, there is no set schedule of activity, and he mostly solos and will group when the opportunity arises. It's all spur of the moment.

Back to the argument that Jaxom could be having more fun. I think the overarching theme with that is missed opportunities. When I was leveling Jaxom, I was also going to school and was mostly lagging behind my kinship. Real Life (TM) got in the way. Oddly enough, it was the same case with going from 50 to 60 - except there was no excuse, per se, for me to not play as much or level as fast. I just didn't. Essentially, I missed the opportunity, largely, for playing in a more structured environment with Jaxom. Kabbage, on the other hand, got lucky and found structure that fits my play style.

None of this is to say that I cannot change my behavior with Jaxom. I could very well insert some structure into my play, and even a bit into the kinship. Perhaps I've never felt the need, or maybe the freedom to do so. Now, getting a second wind in LOTRO, and with a slightly different style, I do.

The point of all this is to do more that exhort my experiences, but also address the intangible, yet all-too-real social aspects of MMOs. The biggest difference, beyond the superficial play-style, between Kabbage and Jaxom is the social experience. This is not to say I'm more or less social with one or the other, but by the unique nature of individuals, the group is different. There's different personalities, there's different dynamics, and this leads to a new experience. It's purely a result of the people involved. Add a different dozen plus people and you will get a different experience.

Deeper than the alternate structure and play style is the social fabric of the group. It's ultimately this that will decide if a person will stay with an MMO or not. Sure we will use legitimate excuses like "combat is repetitive", "quests are poorly written", etc, but these only get in the way of the social game. MMOs have a greater challenge to not only get the game mechanics right for their own sake, but also for keeping their players within their created social circles.

It's perhaps easier to see this by looking at the opposite of an MMO - a single-player game. Let's take Oblivion, a fantasy RPG - something that can be argued as a good comparison to LOTRO. Both are strong on story, with the edge going to Oblivion because of it's single-player nature (a statement I ask you to take as granted because arguing it here would be tangential and make this post overlong), both are fantasy RPGs, etc, etc. There is no social gameplay in Oblivion. Replayability is in exploring different classes, perhaps different content. On the whole, not bad for a story-driven game. LOTRO does have social gameplay which essentially adds another dimension to the game.

Think of the potential to stick with a game as one would consider three-dimensional space. A point would give you one "unit of gameplay". You play it, you're done. Absolutely nothing new a second time. A line would give you, for the sake of argument and easy math, 10 units of gameplay. You can replay it ten times with there being a bit of new content, but you're still experiencing a lot of the same thing. A coordinate illustrates this well with one number always being the same on the line (0,0); (0,1); (0,2); ...

Let's move into two dimensions with an x and a y axis. Now your coordinates change in both numbers, but many times you see the same numbers for either coordinate. This is like adding more replayablity, more options. Instead of 10 units of gameplay, we now have 100. How about three dimensional space with an x, y, and z? We're looking at 10,000 units of gameplay - exponential growth. That's like adding the social game into the mix of other game mechanics. What's the difference between 10,000 and 100? It's gives us so much more gameplay that the only way the other game mechanics can factor is if they destroy the social experience.

Alright, let's take a step back from the esoteric. Simply put, the social experience rules an MMO. Where I once was experiencing burn-out, I'm now very much into the game. I'm doing all the same content and yet I'm finding new adventure. Why? Because it's a new group of people. Plain and simple.

Massive Hobbits Week 2

2009-08-24T09:41:00.001-07:00

Another week has past. Massive Hobbits are still getting fatter! Too much pie... wait, there can never be too much pie.

Anyway, this week the readers over at Massively voted us to do the rest of Book 1, culminating in the Chapter 11 instance in the Great Barrows. Turns out this quest was made considerably easier since most of us had last done it. Signature mobs throughout instead of elite. That meant Sambog's master elite status was greatly diminished. We owned him. Or rather, Bombadil did. Did you know he's a Rune-Keeper!?!

And that brings me to my next point: I made a video of our little escapade through the dank tombs of fallen warriors - as promised. So, if you're wondering why I call Tom a Rune-Keeper, just check out the video and you'll see. Or, if you've done the instance, I bet you can guess. But that's not all! There's bonus material too - an outtake. Poor old Kabbage, hardened Burglar, had his wits muddled not by brew, but by a prancing, dancing, dandy... er, Tom. Luckily he got the brunt of the jokes rather than Kabbage.

I definitely look forward to next week's adventure. Book 2 might not be on the docket since it starts with a level 26 quest (solo). Man, there's a big gap between the two. I think I might suggest waiting for the kinship. Not sure where the revamp to this part of the game is in terms of release (Orion was only just talking about it) but Book 2 does get a facelift. And perhaps we'll get to do a Rivendell run since that was number two in the vote.

Besides the grouping, Kabbage has also been burning as fast as he can through the Jeweler craft, leveling to make some appropriate level shinies for himself and his kinmates. Really, I have to comment on the wonderfully generous people in this kinship, sending on mats to Kabbage and even making him some armor. I really appreciate all the sharing.

Happy adventuring!

A Conflicted Kinsman

2009-08-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

I have a problem. I am now a part of two kinships on two different servers. And they're all a great bunch of people. I has assumed that I would probably go back to my original kinship on Elendilmir once the Massive Hobbits adventure was over in a couple months. (I still log into Elendilmir from time to time as it is.) However, like I said, Massive Hobbits are a great group. I would feel bad leaving them all. So, what's a LOTRO adventurer to do when he's got two adventures going on at once?

Massive Hobbits Week 1

2009-08-19T09:51:00.001-07:00

Looks like a week has come and gone since the last check in with Massive Hobbits. Well, not quite, but the next write up has been posted over at Massively. Do head on over there and read the wonderful narrative about Gibbi and his friends.

I unfortunately could not participate on Sunday when Massive Hobbits invaded Breeland. By the looks of the vote thus far (don't forget to vote on the next adventure), we'll be finishing up Book 1, although I'd love to see us make a Rivendell Run as well, since that won't take as long as the Book 1 questing.

Kabbage has been attempting to level his Jeweler profession in order to supply the kin with some nice jewelry. He'll be hard pressed to keep up with the leveling curve, however. I've been spending a lot of time during the week just gathering mats and crafting. We'll see how that works out. I'm not one to beg for mats from my kinmates, but if any of them read this, they're more than welcome to send Kabbage copper and silver ore. And any recipes too.

Last on the agenda is finding out where everybody is at for Book 1 and catch up. I really should run through the prologue in the Shire first, so it looks like I'll be putting crafting on hold for a bit.

Happy adventuring!

We Are Massive Hobbits!

2009-08-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

The kinship is born, with a good number of Hobbits and a couple men, dwarves, and a lone elf. Or maybe it was two elves and a dwarf. I can't remember. In any case, here's the portrait (before the end of the night we had a few more join). Floaty names are on so you can see who's who. The only name not shown is mine. Just in case it's too hard to make out the overlaping text, the group is, left to right, starting with the big folk:

Tarjareel - Man Loremaster
Guarigione - Elf Runekeeper
Binkylo - Hobbit Hunter
Gibbi - Hobbit Warden and our Fearless Leader
Bortho - Hobbit Hunter
Kabbage - Hobbit Burglar (that's me!)
Andyna - Hobbit Minstrel and apparently camera shy
Capeo - Hobbit Minstrel

And you can find the full kinship roster on MyLOTRO as well. By the way, the name was suggested by a reader over at Massively. And a brilliant suggestion at that.

Thanks everybody for turning out, it was a blast. Look forward to playing with you all again. And hopefully I'll have the presence of mind to take more screenshots. When we do some of the more... interesting instance runs I'll probably pull out the video capture.

Obsoleting Content

2009-08-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

With Book 8 Patch one, a set of level 60 bounty quests have shown up in Esteldin. A new Dwarven NPC will issue 5 different repeatable bounty quests to kill a particular named mob in five different locations in Middle-Earth. From these quest you get a set amount of item xp, plus a heritage rune with more ixp.

Yesterday I set out with a couple of my kinmates to do these quests. Three are soloable but two require a small fellowship. Unfortunately, a thunderstorm came through right then and blew out the power and I didn't get them done. (Amazing lightning strike right across the street, by the way.) Today I jumped back in to complete the three solo quests. From those three quests I managed to level my legendary weapon from 30 to 33. It would take considerably longer grinding the xp through kills and deconstructing trash legendaries. Or even running the ixp quest circuit in Moria.

These five quests have singlehandedly made obsolete all other methods of accruing item xp. I'm not complaining that I can get some mucho item leveling done (15 hour cool downs) but I have to wonder if these quests aren't a little "overpowered". New content is one thing, but when the new content completely invalidates the older content, I have to wonder.

Certainly the level 60 raids have made the level 50 raids useless in terms of tangible reward, but even then these raids are worth doing if you're a player who simply likes to see the content. Run through them once, or as many times as it takes to complete the quests. Repeatable content is a different animal.

Okay, maybe the ixp quests in Moria aren't totally useless. They do give you the weapon/class item modifiers, so if you need one of those, run that quest. I might suggest raising the rewards from those quest by giving out heritage runes as well so they can compete. I'll let the devs decide what value these runes would be to balance with the bounty quests vs time to complete, effort involved, etc. But I think they need a little beefing up. Or a scaling back of the bounty rewards just a bit to be more in line with the effort required.

Wait... Seriously... Did I just ask for a nerf?

Follow-Up Radiance Q&A

2009-08-14T11:29:00.000-07:00

Orion posted a follow up mini-Q&A on his blog today regarding the Radiance changes. Do check it out for even more information and perhaps one of your burning questions was answered.

Radiance Changes Coming

2009-08-13T16:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, yes. This is a good fix we've been waiting for. While not quite perfect (no alternate method/alternate radiance gear), taking a bit of the grind out of the radiance instance runs will help out tremendously. Amlug has posted a blog update talking about the new barter system for radiance gear coming Soon(TM). And as a wonderful tease at the bottom he mentions a change to the way Radiance/Gloom and Hope/Dread interact. I'd love to see a bit more detail on that one, but hey, we can't get everything all at once. I wouldn't have anything to write about tomorrow now would I? Do check out the post for more details.

Our Merry Band of Unnamed Adventurers

2009-08-13T13:46:00.000-07:00

Wow, I actually logged into LOTRO today. I have a good excuse though. I've joined up with Gibby the Hobbit played by Shawn from Massively. I figured it indeed was a good reason to get back into LOTRO for a while. Start fresh.

Getting involved in any activity in LOTRO is also a good excuse for blogging. I'll be chronicling my adventures with our merry band, hopefully to include screenshots, and depending on the situation, video. Furthermore, when I can, I'll be using Twitter to send out mini updates of what we're doing that very moment. Of course, be sure to follow the official updates over at Massively as your votes each week will shape the adventures.

Today saw the first day of the adventures, at least for me. I jumped in as a Hobbit Burglar named Kabbage. I've not played a Burglar before, beyond level 6 when I tried it out just in the starter instance last year. I've also not been into the Archet starting area since it was revamped and I must say, despite the previous polish, this area now gleams brilliantly. The flow is much better, with a series of minor tweaks making all the difference. The day brought us to the finishing solo instance and tomorrow will see the start of Shire adventures. I must say I'm looking forward to questing in the Shire once again. It's one of my favorite zones to simply look at, let alone play in.

Developer Clover was nice enough to stop by as we began our fun to take a screenshot of me and Gibbi. I'm on the far right, Gibbi's center and Clover is left. I believe she also gifted our fearless leader with a nice starter cloak similar to the one's Founders receive for new characters. Now he's all set to vanquish some boars (which is what we were doing when so kindly interrupted).

Joining us later was another Hobbit Burglar by the name of Rotolo (hope I got that right). Three hobbits venturing across the landscape had to inspire great feats of courage in all little folk. And indeed it inspired us to ponder "wouldn't it be great if everyone that joined us take a hobbit along?" Only the future shall see.

Happy adventuring!

EDIT: Add into the group a Hobbit Hunter by the name of Bortho played by @seanmc74 as well as Dwarven Champion played by @BlueKae of BlueKay.com.

Gibbi the Hobbit

2009-08-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

So I was rather late on the poll for Shawn's new character in Massively's Choose your Adventure. Gibbi the Hobbit, a Warden, will be trekking across Middle-Earth in search of adventure. There's still an opportunity to shape Gibbi, as he has yet to choose a crafting vocation. The poll is at the bottom of the page linked above.

Choose Shawn's Adventure

2009-08-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

Shawn Shuster over at Massively is about to begin an adventure into LOTRO. Beyond his normal LOTRO playing that is. This time he's doing it as part of a choose my adventure series, where the readers of Massively get to choose what Race, Class and server he will play on. Oh, and gender too. I'm surprised by that last one because I might have expected more votes for a female toon... just to mix it up, or play along with the typical gamer guy stereotype ("dood, I'll make him play a chick!!1!").

Anyhow, get on over there and vote for what you think Shawn should play in LOTRO and what server he should play on. And then keep watching for how the adventure takes shape. I know I will.

Book 8 Patch 1 Notes

2009-08-11T11:49:00.000-07:00

Most of you already know about the Book 8 Patch 1 Notes but I thought I'd link them here on the off chance someone does not know about these yet.

The big news, of course, is the crafting of legendary weapons, called "Reforged". That's not to say crafters can reforge legendary items as a gameplay mechanic, but from a lore perspective, it would be... less epic if everyone and their cousin could make legendary weapons from scratch. So we can merely reforge them. Still a tremendous feat in and of itself.

Not sure yet how these recipes are acquired, be it rep grinds, random drops, or the vendors themselves. Regardless, this is an excellent addition to the game. Crafters really got the short end of the deal with both legendary items and radiance gear. Now they'll get a little bit back. Can we see some crafted Rad gear though devs?

MMeOw is Going Big

2009-08-11T11:45:00.000-07:00

If you follow the LOTRO blogs, then you're already aware of this, but I have to mention that MMeOw.net is getting some more writers. How many? Not sure, but two new writers have introduced themselves already. I'm really excited to see what some fresh faces can do to MMeOw. Not that it wasn't a great blog to begin with, but when I see a blog like Kill Ten Rats, with multiple authors, I see a vibrant community within the blog itself. Then I see an even more vibrant community in its readership. MMeOw could become that specifically to LOTRO.

So, I wish the new writers good luck, as well as Tony and insist that everybody reading this keep an eye on MMeOw.

NPC Profiles

2009-08-05T16:16:00.001-07:00

Whole slew of NPC profiles up on the main page. Not all posted today, but I have neglected to mention them, mostly because there's hardly any worthwhile information there, but since there's a bunch, I'll just run through them:

Taskmaster Nursufum
Quartermaster Apsduf
Tyrant Tharbil
Tyrant Barashish
Taskmaster Raulik

The State of LOTRO Podcasting

2009-07-31T16:36:00.000-07:00

Today I ran across yet another LOTRO podcast, called That LOTRO Show. Doing so sparked some thoughts, or rather resparked some thoughts, on LOTRO podcasting and podcasting in general. In my limited observations (I'm only a podcast consumer, rather than producer) the most successful and engaging shows, for me, are ones with at least two hosts. Taking VirginWorlds for example, I find the most enjoyment out of shows such as Shut Up We're Talking and the VanHemlock Podcast because of the varied voices present. That is not to say solo hosted podcasts aren't well done, however there's something special about the hosts interacting with each other and perhaps guests that seems to elevate the production. Specific to the LOTRO podcasts, I find Moormur's guest segments (especially the dev interviews) the most interesting. Here there is more than one person talking.

Perhaps I'm pushing a bias of my own onto the LOTRO podcasting community. Certainly as a blogger I keep up with the news and patch notes so hearing it again in a podcast doesn't interest me. But that isn't necessarily true for other listeners.

Having a cohost on a show is both a blessing and a curse. The advantages are that you gain a bit of variety, and if the cohost is willing, you can split the work load of topic research, or even the production duty itself. The disadvantages are one of time constraints. Two people need to meet either face to face (impractical in this internet driven world) or arrange for a long distance recording session. There's not only the time commitments to work out, but also the tech behind getting both hosts recorded.

This post is the first mention of my thoughts - I have not talked to any of the producers of LOTRO podcasts, but I thought I'd voice my opinion to the general community. So, in a rare direct address to the readership, what do you think?

Root of the Consternation

2009-07-30T10:17:00.000-07:00

There's tumultuous waters out there in the LOTRO community. Gear gating, hard mode instances, nerfed skills in boss fights, single-path progression. It's hard to sort out what people are really frustrated over and what are minor annoyances usually ignored but now blow out of proportion because of general angst.

Well, Orion, as an aside to his latest series of blogs, answers that question. First off, I want to link to the posts thus far. You can access any of the subsequent entries from the Day 1 post. I highly recommend reading these. In fact, if I would consider it required reading for all LOTRO players active in the community and interested in how this game develops.

Okay, onto the problem. Player Shibi commented on Day 1's post and had this to say:

"I am just suggesting that maybe, just maybe Turbine are going in a direction some of us don’t want and Turbine don’t seem to have spotted... Before you redesign the instance, why not actually ask people what they want, especially as Turbine seem have it so wrong right now... Some of us don’t want gating, we definitely don’t want hard mode, we want things to be accessible and FUN... [Y]ou are forgetting us and only thinking of the uber-elite fat-lewt WoW influx and sucking all the fun out."

That pretty much sums up the general argument from the players about our perceptions of the design direction. Orion had this to say:

"Some of you don’t want hard mode - certainly. Some of you don’t want gating - definitely. Some of you want things to be accessible - yep. All of you want things to be fun. A-ha! What is fun!? ...The answer is, it is subjective."

"It has become clear over the past weeks that the core of the gating issue is tied to the one way and one way only to acquire radiance loot - which is a necessity to participate in new raids. It is a combination of symptoms that combine to form the issue not a single case of “gear gating is stupid and horrible and damn you devs!”"

Creating content on the sole basis of an undefined, intangible, and as Orion puts it, subjective "fun" is a slippery slope. We have to define fun first, but again we run into the subjectivity wall. Still, I think it's possible if a majority of the players are clear on what isn't fun. And what isn't fun is exactly what Shibi is saying. Well, not exactly, and that's part of the problem, as Orion sees it. I think I might have said something to the same effect before.

The limited options present in the gear gating and radiance raid system limits fun. I greatly appreciated, and was sold to this game based on Turbine's commitment to giving players different options for completing the same or similar content. Before those options were seen in the different end-game gear. Now, however, we have only one type of gear that can be used in a raid. So, without destroying the radiance system, what do we do? We put the options in the methods of acquiring the one type of gear. Currently we have one option: hard mode. What about something to do with crafting , or monster play, or lesser raids? It's not any one of the systems that Shibi points out, but rather the limits that went along with those systems. And Orion sees this. And that makes me happy. And the next quote (from Day 2) should be proof enough:

"When you deal with a mass of people all spouting opinions and everyone keeps harping on one point or another it can be very difficult to drill through to the core of the issue. This has been the case with Radiance Gear. At first, it appeared that radiance gating was the only part of the issue because that was the breadth of the complaints. After drilling deeper and reading more and more from folks it became apparent that there were many symptoms to the problem.

Radiance gear is now required to enter raids.
The only way to acquire radiance gear is to complete hard modes.
Hard modes objectives are obtuse.

All good points, all taken to heart and all actively in the pipe for some form of retrofit to address the core issues. No time frame yet. Just and admission that we hear you, we understand you and we are committed to rectifying the issue."

Obviously this problem will take a while to rectify, but seeing Orion's journals gives me hope. Before now, I agreed with most of the griping, although not the incessant whining. I had given up posting on the issue further until something more substantial than the same complaining could be found. And at last I've found it. I do hope those of you who take issue with this... well, issue can see the same optimism I do.

Full Circle

2009-07-27T20:00:00.000-07:00

As I was listening to a gaming related podcast (Shut Up We're Talking, in case you're interested, I highly recommend it) I realized I have come full circle from three years ago when I got sucked into LOTRO. The thought actually came out of a comment about the Saga of Ryzom, which simply served as a memory spark. After my too-brief one week Alpha 3 experience in the LOTRO beta, I scoured the Internet for every single MMO type game out there. Why? I couldn't get enough of what I just experienced. It wasn't just the IP that I loved, but experiencing a new world and a new story. I needed more of that, for lack of a better word, high. Ultimately, I didn't end up playing anything during the interim between beta phases, but I came very close to downloading the Saga of Ryzom because it was free to play. (I know nothing about that game except that it's nothing like LOTRO).

What I mean by coming full circle is that I'm currently on a LOTRO playing hiatus. Actually, this extends to all of my gaming, as I haven't clicked on any of my game icons in weeks. I've gone from an insatiable hunger for anything MMO to a complete lack of interest in any game. And I, being both an introspective person and a blogger, have to ask myself why.

Now, I could post perfectly legitimate excuses like "I'm max level", "I've done all the content", "I'm burned out on LOTRO" etc, etc. Like I said, legitimate. But also not the real reason - mainly because I'm not playing anything right now. So what's the deal? Well, I think I'm in a dearth of new experiences. And that's my queue to cut to a bit of a personal aside.

See, I don't play games to game. It's not the game or game-i-ness of games that drives me to play. Certainly I'm a completionist which comes from some sort of achiever mentality, but the root reason for me stepping into games is to step into experiences. I don't care about if the fighting mechanic isn't as good as such and such a game or if the next game has more content. I desire to experience something. This often manifests itself as story, for story is the driving force behind compelling experiences - or ones that aren't superficial. But ultimately a game runs out of experience. One might call this simply burning out, and that's a way to put it, but what am I burning out on? Experience.

Alright, enough throwing around that word. It's already getting old. Next question: what do I do about it? Simple answer - nothing. I can't. A game is what it is and by it's nature isn't just an experience forever delivering to me what I want. Ultimately it becomes simply a game, even the ones that deliver additional content that often feeds experience. Okay, so I didn't stop with that word. I can't, just like I can't fix my problem. It's who I am as a gamer, as a consumer of entertainment. I love movies, TV shows, games, books - they all give me experiences.

There's something unique about games though. I haven't yet pinpointed what that might be, but I can make a guess towards the interactivity and unique ability to engage the consumer on a deeper level than all the other, what I'll term, passive entertainment. I play Railroad Tycoon because I love trains and want to experience trains. I play Roller Coaster Tycoon because I love roller coasters. I play Galactic Civilizations because I love space (that's an over simplification for brevity's sake). I play LOTRO because I love Middle-Earth and I wanted to experience it. It wasn't because it was a good game, though that helped greatly. It was because LOTRO being a game uniquely enabled me to enter into an experience more fulfilling than other media could provide.

The long answer to what I can do about my problem? Ignore it. Learn to live with it. Get over it. However you want to call moving beyond my futile endeavor to have a "perfect experience" and just enjoy LOTRO, and other games, for what they are. The idealist and dreamer in me makes that hard though. I see potential in games for so much more than they're able to provide now. As a storyteller I see opportunity for intense, moving, and impactful delivery of narrative and story. I see beyond the game.

LOTRO will always be with me and always hold a special place in my heart. I'm too loyal to forever abandon my first love. And too monogamous to cheat (or is it too cheap?). I have a lifetime subscription to this game and for me, that means exactly that. I will be a player, a Middle-Earth adventurer for the lifetime of this game.

Still Awake

2009-07-26T13:12:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let everybody know I haven't died or fallen off the earth or anything. I was house sitting the last week and away from my gaming computer, but I think I'm sort of taking a break as well. I do need to log in and see how everyone in the kin is doing though so...

Keep adventuring, I know I will, just after a respite.

Slowing Down

2009-07-16T22:27:00.001-07:00

Oh my gosh has it really been almost a week since my last post? I'm falling down on the job. Actually, that's the problem. A job. I really need to focus on getting out of this awful unemployment situation so I'm going to be taking more time dealing with that and a few other Real Life (TM) issues. I won't stop blogging, but they'll be less regular, like you've seen with the last week. Hopefully I won't disappear for a complete week again. I feel guilty if I do.

Orion Follows Up

2009-07-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

Not directly to me, which would have been cool, but generally to the playerbase. He thinks some of his ideas were misleading or misread and wants to set the record straight on his opinion. Do check out his follow up post clarifying what he said in his last post.

The Perspective Dichotomy

2009-07-09T12:39:00.001-07:00

Oooh, another fancy post name. Yes, I like fancy post names, and using my college accrued vocabulary. Anyhow, it's not mind-bending in any way, rather a look at the different perspectives between developers and players over game design, notably emergent behavior. This post is powered by Orion's latest blog entry on his MyLOTRO page. The post in and of itself is an excellent read and I found myself fairly captivated by the perspective offered.

Certainly we need to keep in mind his blog post is his own opinion and doesn't reflect Turbine's official... whatever. Still, a well-rounded developer in LOTRO will have influence over design directions (as admitted to in the post) and it's his opinion that directs his influence.

I want to do a comparison of his perspective on MMO design versus the perspective and perception of the players. There has been much talk about design philosophy, design direction, shifting priorities, ect in LOTRO by the various bloggers. Mainly this has been fueled by frustration over some of the end-game content. I think we as players would do well to read into Orion's post with an open mind. I don't think many of us understand the direction designers come from when approaching conentent. I think we take a more casual and biased approach to design. That is, each of us has our own opinion over what is good design, oftentimes not even awknowledging it in those words. Our opinion is framed more by what is fun for us, and it varies widely. The common thread, of course, is that whatever we find fun is the best design, regardless of other's opinions. Developers have to take a less self-centered approach. They know there will be a vast array of opinion on what is fun, so in order to remain sane and not jump on the endless treadmill of player satisfaction, they spell out design into a formal process, a set of guidelines to follow, principles to adhere to.

Where this fits into LOTRO is when Orion talks about the emergent behavior seen in the Moria instances, notably the Grand Staircase. That was his baby, so to speak. Emergent behavior is in a nutshell unanticipated player behavior - emerging on the scene with the content's launch into live. This type of behavior can be seen as strategic, innovatative, and creative, but on occasion, also exploitive. The latter, of course, is a no-no - you'll get banned if caught making use of exploits. So where is the line? One man's exploit is another man's creativity. This is where the different perspectives really shines. Orion arugues that in an MMO, most emergent behavior is exploitive because it takes advantage of a bug or error in the code. For example, being able to take a fall and still live, or using scenery to give oneself immunity from being hit but still able to hit back. And ultimately the developer has to be the one to say what is an exploit and what isn't, because they're the only ones able to access the code and give a difinitive data-supported definition.

We as players don't see this background data, or the original design intent, or any number of things that go into the operation of content. We're front end consumers, and yet we still want to be armchair designers. I'm guilty of that as well. I'm not saying our opinion doesn't count. It certainly has weight as we can choose to spend our dollars anywhere we please, but we as mature and intelligent people should consider that which we do not know or understand. Orion's post is an excellent opportunity to not only understand where a devloper is coming from on their design perspective, but also gives us the tools to frame our concerns. We can awknowledge a lack of data but at the same time speak to the matter with understanding.

I now have to ask myself, using an example from before, does the use of Enrage in the turtle raid contradict or negate the design philosophy of fun the developer had envisioned and put into that content. What was the purpose? What were the goals? What I saw as positive emergent behavior very well could be exploitive. Actually, in this case I don't think it took advantage of a coding error, but rather did violate the design principles behind the content. Same with the root immunity given to certain bosses in the Moria instances.

The one place where I feel Turbine dropped the ball, and this is based off of what I read in Orion's post, is not fixing the exploits quicker. He insists that emergent behavior requires, by it's vary nature, a swift address. The Moria instances went until Book 7 where they were truely fixed (for the most part). This created a set of false expectations and perceptions in the playerbase. Not only were we very tempted to use the exploits, we were learning the wrong behavior for those instances. We were enabled by the developers in our "bad" behavior.

I hope to speak to future concerns with more clarity and understanding now that I've gained a little insight into the mind of a developer. I again encourage all of you to read this article not only for the specifics about emergent behavior, but also for the different perspective. Two side of the same coin, if you will. One player, one developer, both wanting the best for the game.

Design-A-Horse

2009-07-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

There's a new contest in the LOTRO world today - design your own horse. I think this one is considerably more thought-out than the kinship contest. Too bad I'm not an artist, or I'd attempt to submit a horse. Although I doubt I could be as garish as Massively's Schuster's Shooter even if I tried. This contest applies to both the US side and European side, so everybody is welcome to be the next equestrian Rembrandt.

A Middle-Earth Fourth

2009-07-04T11:29:00.000-07:00

One of my few non-LOTRO posts... sort of. For the Americans out there, we all know what today is: Independence day. I wish everybody a happy Fourth of July. Enjoy the company of friends and family, BBQs and other good food. And of course fireworks (where they're legal). Middle-Earth of course doesn't celebrate an independence day, but I'll be lighting off some fireworks today in-game just because. And on a more serious and somber note, I leave you all with this touching video.

Forges of Khazad-Dum Video Guide

2009-07-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

LOTROinfo.com has created a video guide for the Forges of Khazad-Dum. It comes in four parts, with the first on up now, the other three to come. It is an excellently produced video explaining mobs, strategies, paths, boss encounters, etc. They incorporate both an overhead map to explain routing and encounters as well as in-game video of specific encounters so you can see how it's done in the field.

I have yet to see a guide this well made and in-depth with video. Excellent work over ther eat LOTROinfo.com. I highly recommend checking it out if you're interested in running the hardmode instances in Moria. I also suggest going to the actual YouTube site as you can get the video in High Quality there, making it easier to follow the in-game action. My only criticism would be to turn off the floaty names while videoing. The advantage to the names, of course, is knowing where everything is at, but it can get cluttered and confusing at times with so much going on. Still, hardly a nic compared to the overall production value.

Summer Festival Guide

2009-07-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

As always, the good folks over at Massively have kindly put together a guide to the summer festival. Interestingly enough, this year's guide is less necessary than last, considering we now have an in-game guide delivered to us by mail and which starts its own quest to seek it out. Cool stuff, but Massively always does an excellent job with their guides, so do check it out as well as the in-game, in-character, one.

EDIT: Looks like I linked to last year's Summer Festival Guide... Okay, brilliant move on my part, but hey, helpful readers FTW: LOTRO Vault's Summer Festival Guide.

Mobs of Middle-Earth

2009-07-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

A delightful feature article appeared today on the official site, discussing the types and varieties of mobs found in LOTRO. If you're new to LOTRO, this would be a wonderful article to read before playing, giving you a taste of what you could see in the game. Or, you might just like to be surprised, and surprised you will be, especially when in the deep dark of Moria, where nameless enemies of all shapes and sizes await.

I think LOTRO receives undue criticism for it's bestiary. Many argue that the mob types are boring and repetitive. I think that's a side effect of being in the relative quiet part of Middle-Earth, Eriador. When we venture farther into the east, seeing more of Mirkwood, Rohan, Fangorn Forest, and closer to Mordor, I think the mob types will become more intimidating. And, we have Moria at this point. If you care to venture to the deepest places, you'll find some pretty unique mobs.

I highly recommend checking out this article. For the veteran, you have seen what there is to see in Middle-Earth thus far, but for the new player, it's a great read. A good way to get excited about the kind of evil you'll face in your LOTRO adventurers.

Post Book 8 Impressions

2009-06-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

First off, I have done only one of the new instances given to us in Book 8, and that one bugged out. Haven't tried it after the hotfix. But I have been looking around at the revamped content in Breeland and Ered Luin, and I'm very pleased with the result. Not nearly so much running back and forth (which got annoying without a horse, if in such a small zone as Ered Luin), the quests are better written and more organized - they flow better. Great job Orion on the revamps. I particularly liked the tour of Bree, getting players familiar with the town. I remember being sent to the Prancing Pony and looking up where it was in my copy of the Lord of the Rings (kudos for putting everything in its proper place!) after I somehow managed to miss it. No missing it now with the pointer quest to the tour.

I've not participated in the epic book continuation either, as I'm a stickler for doing the books in order, and I'm currently on 2.5.5. Hope to catch up soon. Still, what I'm hearing is good. Rarely have I found an epic quest that sucked. They might have been hard, there might have been complaining, but the fact remains they're some of the most well-crafted content in the game.

There is one thing, however, that I have to comment on, negatively. The names of all the food items have been changed to include a container or amount in the name. Like "Jar of Mint Sauce" rather than just "Mint Sauce". That means that everything at the vendor is completely rearranged and the alphabetical order is no longer logical. If there are Jars of stuff, it's all together, if it's Bottles, that's together too. But it could be a Jar of Mint Sauce and a Jar of Vinegar. Those should be near the m's and the v's respectively, as before. It's almost like alphabetizing books or movies with the word "The" at the beginning all in the t's. It doesn't make sense because it's not the significant word. I can't find anything anymore at the vendors... Of course, I'll eventually relearn the order of things, but someone got a little overzealous on their modifiers this time around.

All in all a good patch. Book 8 of course fixed a lot of bugs, and the patch notes were extensive for this. I hope to see continued quality, with a little more forethought in some areas, such as the food items, or the larger issue of raid/instance design/rewards/progression.

EDIT: This is becoming a bad habit, post post editing. Anyway, Yeebo's comment reminded me that I have spent a good deal of time fishing for the summer festival deed. I tweeted that I now have the title "Sunshine" (with the requisite "Hello Sunshine" replies) which involved fishing in four different areas, a little over an hour real-time commitment. And these timed fishing excursions are repeatable, meaning you can get summer festival tokens simply by fishing. An excellent way to invigorate the fishing scene again.

Evaluating Legacies Continued

2009-06-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm finally getting around to this post. Took a while. Book 8 and the hotfix got in the way.

One of the comments in my Evaluating Legacies post mentioned that many of the bonuses for Legendaries give you the most reward simply by having them on the item unleveled. That is, the biggest bonus is the first bonus, with the rest giving only marginal improvement. I decided to look at a few of those I use.

First on the list is a series of critical modifiers: Relentless Attack, Devastating Blow, and Pressing Attack. The first is a tactics skill, a buff. The other two are melee attack skills. All three start out with a +245 topping out at +397. For the melee skills, I cannot say what percentage the increase is to the critical chance because that number is hidden. However, for Relentless attacks, I get a 34% increase with the first ranking. This goes up to 55% at rank 10. That's a 1.8% increase each rank. So, indeed having the first bonus is a huge increase and everything after that is quite small compared to it. Now we need to look at over all crit percentages to see the complete picture. With Mines of Moria, those became hidden in the critical modifier numbers, but if you mouse over your character sheet, you can see the actual percentages. Without the critical modifier bonus to Relentless Attack, I have a 6.4% melee critical chance. With the fully upgraded critical modifier (i.e. the 55% increase) I get a 11.4% melee critical chance. 5% is still noticeable, but barely.

Now lets look at another one I use, this time gained from my emblem. It's an increase to R allying Cry healing. This bonus is a lot more straight forward. The percentages are already on top. Initially I receive a 3% increase. The rank 10 bonus is 11%, therefore after the initial 3%, I get a .8% increase each time thereafter. Again, we're front heavy with the bonus, but not nearly so much as with the critical modifiers.

So, simply having the legacy on the item you're using gives you the biggest bonus. Any rank ups will give less of a bonus, but 11% healing or 55% increase in critical rating is still noticeable, so ranking them up is not a bad thing. What else are you going to do with those legacies? I think looking at the numbers gives more weight to using a crafted item, as the DPS on those tend to be much higher than all but an upgraded level 60 first age weapon. You'll miss out on the sheer number of bonuses gotten from the legacies, but if you're only looking for damage, you might consider it.

EDIT:

Thought I'd add a bit of info about what weapon I'm using. Currently it's a l evel 59 Third Age Halberd. I mentioned before I got lucky with this one, but even still, if it weren't for the runics and legacies, I'd use the Peerless Thain's Halberd I have in the bank for when I need something other than common damage. I think I'd be able to get the DPS on my Third Age up pretty close to the Thain's Halberd anyhow. I've also got a l evel 54 Second Age Emblem equipped, legacies I want close to max. I have to ask again, what would you do with the legacies anyway?

Raising the Shire Adventures

2009-06-26T12:27:00.001-07:00

New blog alert! By chance I stumbled upon a new LOTRO related blog. Not the usual game analysis, but rather a set of relatively small posts talking about their adventures as a character in Middle-Earth. If you're interested in something different from your LOTRO blog, do check out Raising the Shire.

Summer Daze

2009-06-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

So, looks like the Summer Festival is upon us, once again dropping useless (to level 60 players) platinum tokens... But I should really stop harping about those, and instead focus on the fun seasonal events Turbine throws into the game. The spring and summer festivals seemed to merge together this year with the inclusion of the 2 year anniversary celebration. Still, each one is unique. What I love about the festival this time around is that players are mailed (in-game) about the festival, which opens a quest guiding you to where you can find the festival events. This is a simple, yet genius way to direct players to some excellent content.

If you'd like to read more about the summer festival and all it's new activities, check out the dev diary explaining the events. Time to laze away the summer daze! Fun times had by all and happy festival adventuring!

Evaluating Legacies

2009-06-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

I read a thread on the Captain forums talking about strategies and merits of using the Relentless Attack legacy. This legacy increases our critical rating for the Relentless Attack buff. Some argue that this legacy is one of the most useless because the returns hardly make a difference at all. Others will level this legacy only a little bit, saving their points for what they consider more useful legacies. I think the return on investment (ROI) argument is a little fallacious.

Every legacy operates on very small percentages. 12% increase is the highest I've seen for a fully upgraded legacy, and that was on a level 60 first age weapon. 12% to 100 is only 112, not a big difference at all. It doesn't matter what number you use as your "principle" either because the effects are already balanced for not being overpowered (generally), regardless of the numerical value. That means legacies cannot give too much of a bonus, or the skill would become unbalanced. So, if one does argue the ROI isn't worth it, you have to carry that argument to all legacies.

The legacies you choose to level are generally worth it because you feel they're worth it. It all depends on how you play your class. Certainly there are some legacies more useful relative to others within a class, but none of them are completely useless. The better strategy discussion would be to evaluate the merits of the legacies based on a playstyle, rather than dismissing any one as having a bad ROI. They all do, considering the time sink involved in the legendary item system.

LOTRO Overview

2009-06-20T13:22:00.000-07:00

Looking for a good overview of LOTRO, not written by a professional gaming site giving artificial scores? Want some insight that only a game developer would have but one that isn't compromised by working on the game himself? Do check out Psychochild's blog post from earlier this month. It is a nice run down of all the basic features in LOTRO and gives a balanced perspective on the gameplay.

Book 8 Patch Notes Review

2009-06-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

I mentioned before I would wait to talk about the Book 8 patch notes until they were finalized. That time has come. This is going to be a epically long post. You have been warned. The format will be as follows. I'll hyperlink the relevant note I'm discussing, summarize what's necessary, and commentate. I'll not be going over all the notes, of course. That would just be insane. Instead, I'm picking and choosing what seems to be of most interest to me. Therefore, I'll be skipping much of the class specific information (aside from captains, because I play one), and a lot of the minor bug fixes. "Major" news is the idea with this post.

Epic Book Continuation

There's no surprise here. Like always, I'll say the epic books/storyline is one of my favorite parts of this game. Sounds like this book will focus on small fellowships.

Summer Festival

The seasonal content is a nice diversion for a couple days. I think we'll still be seeing the token drops. Really long period of that. I'm no longer a fan of the tokens since they're not scaled to level 60. Now they just take up space in my bags, if I even choose to collect them. Still, festivals are always fun, and sounds like there will be new activities.

Lothlorien Gift Boxes

This has been an issue since Book 7. The drop tables weren't right or something. Looks like these will be more friendly, though chances of a first age are completely gone. I like the changes, but I'm don't really care about first ages. My current third age weapon will be hard to beat as it is. And I'm not really grinding legendaries at the moment either.

First Age Legendaries

They're acquired by barter items now, gained through the instances/raids. Much better system as it eliminates getting first ages for the wrong class. Good change here.

Vendor Stacks

We can buy partial stacks from vendors! Yay! I always hated filling up to a full stack by clicking one at a time. Nice convenience change that just makes our LOTRO lives better. Like it says, it's the little things that count.

Boat Keepers

About bloody time! That lake is beautiful, but swimming across Evendim multiple times gets tedious after a while. Just like a swift travel route. Nothing fancy, but oh so nice. More convenience changes. Gotta love em!

FM Change

Hmmmm, I don't know if this will really affect things much. I don't play in fellowships often enough to really see what causes a FM induction - stun, knockdown, or on purpose (burg skill for instance). I guess it's not so nice we have one less option for FMs, but then again, we can induce them ourselves with the right class(es).

For your convenience (word of the day it seems) I've linked to each class's patch notes:

Captain Commentary

First on the list that interests me is we can once again rename our banners. Yay! I'm all for fluff changes and I like naming things. I miss it now that I no longer use Heralds (Ruth is so lonely).

Our Cry of Vengeance skill will now have a 10 second window of use and longer range. This is a very good thing. Nearly 2/3 of the time I use that skill, I'm either too late, or not in range of the downed player and it's completely wasted. Very helpful change, especially since the In Harms Way nerf. Makes up for that just a little bit.

Lastly, we can once again use Gleaming Striker, Flashing Bane, and Shining Star scrolls from the solo legendary instances in the Dolven View. When I saw that we couldn't use these post Book 7, I was annoyed. There was no longer anything to modify the Emblems. That was a mistake, obviously, not an intended change. Finally we're getting the fix. Good deal!

All in all I think the captain changes are good this time around. Repeated nerfs will wear on you.

User Interface

I'm happy to see that there is now a /ui command that saves your ui, which you can then load as a new character. Seriously, this is such an awesome feature. I hated going onto my alts (not that I did very much) and having to rearrange my ui all over again. I've done so many tweaks to it on my main that it takes way too long to change it all over again with another character. And then I don't even remember where I put half the stuff that's not visible all the time. Good stuff here.

More skinning options. I don't use skins, finding the default look satisfactory to my gameplay. But many people do, and unleashing the creativity of the player base is always a good thing.

Effect icons will once again pulse properly when running out of time. I don't know when they stopped pulsing, but it became hard to see when an effect was almost complete as sometimes the icons would stay opaque, and sometimes they would stay transparent. Makes it hard in high stress, distracting activities like instances or raids to quickly see what's going on. And that's important - getting the information to the player as fast and as efficiently as possible.

Quest Guide

Indicators on the map now pulse. I always made them pulse manually by moving my mouse on and off the item in the quest guide so I could more clearly see where it is I'm supposed to be looking, especially when I have multiple, large-area quests active and overlapping each other. Nice to see refinement like this.

Housing

Lockout fees will increase each week a house is in lockout (from not paying your bills, lazy bums!) until it reaches 90% of the purchase price. Not so bad for you normal house people, a bit expensive for the deluxe house. I did loose my house once before they were unloosable (That is not a word, I know) but I got my money back from that. I learned my lesson - pay my bills on time. Or rather, log into the game at least once per week to check on it. I got distracted by my school work at the time so I have a legitimate excuse for getting evicted!

Raids

Exploit fixes here. Good to see they're still working on this issue. I wish they had been faster at fixing the initial problems with the radiance instances post MoM release. Let's hope they've learned from that situation and will rapidly develop hotfixes for major issues like that.

Crafting

We're seeing a lot of changes to crafting here. The basic system stays the same, but things have been much more streamlined, such as use levels, crafting materials, tool tips, etc. There was an excellent dev diary talking about the changes, so check that out rather than these notes for the scoop on crafting re-vamp.

Adding a "make all" button is a good refinement, as well as fixing the stupid default to 0 thing. That is annoying.

I've included links to specific professions for your convenience:

Jaxom the Yeoman

Jaxom is quite happy to see the critical items for farming have been reduced to 1 instead of 3. This does come with a price increase, but that's understandable. Nice to use stacks of mats up equally.

Jaxom is also happy that farming fields produce optional critical cooking ingredients. Looking forward to trying those out.

And Jaxom is elated to see food can stack to 50, and crafting ingredients stack to 100. Less trips to MD for cooking as he can store much more food on his person. Must have one of those portable coolers.

Legendaries

Happy to see that auto-combine on runics will pull from the most populated items rather than randomly. That way mutiples are used up first. Just common sense here, but something easily overlooked. Glad it has been changed.

Loot System

Rare Lothlorien monsters now drop Mithril Flakes. About time! You mobs better look out. There's a whole host of levle 60 players that are now gunning for you... er, swining their swords and firing their bows.

Rolls on keys will only apply to players who have not added the key to their ring. Why someone would purposefully roll on a key they already have, I don't know. Accidentally, well, that makes more sense. Glad to see this "fixed".

Graphics

Elated, yes, elated to see the lighting issues in Moria have been cleared up. They were visually annoying, having the ambiant light at your feat and partially through the ground in certain places. I'm a oogler of nice looking graphics, and when things don't look quite so good, I get cranky. Well, not really, but I love it when things do look nice, and LOTRO is a nice looking game.

Creature Pathing/AI

The only reason I bring up this bit is because here we find the lovely humor of whomever it is that writes up these patch notes. I will, for lack of a name, attribute this to the company as a whole. Turbine has a wonderful sense of humor:

"Moose in Forochel will no longer stand around and allow themselves to be turned into Moose-burger."

"Burrow Mobs Take 2! Once again, monsters which "burrow" (Cave-claws, Shades, Dark-waters, Neekers) will no longer do so when they are near death, because that's annoying. Our first attempt at fixing this was equivalent to a 9mm; it should've been enough to get the job done, but it wasn't. *This* time we’re pulling out the Desert Eagle .50, that outta stop these jerks."

Conclusion

Yay! I'm done. Whew! What a set of notes. I heard one comment that LOTRO patch notes give EVE a run for it's money. I assume that means EVE has long patch notes. I've never played it. I don't know how helpful or entertaining this was. Probably not much. On the whole I'm quite happy with the Book 8 changes. It doesn't address some of the larger overaching concerns I talked about in the last couple of days, but that's not something you see in a free patch. More like an expansion scale, or over a longer period of time. And I think that's what needs to happen with a lot of the critiques - Turbine needs time to look over the data, feedback, etc and come to the conclusions themselves. I think they will, considering the past track record with this game.

I'm looking forward to the patch. I really need to get back into the game for the epic quest, which I'm currently sitting on 2.5.5, I think. It's been that long since I looked at it. The only "new" content that I would participate in this time around is the epic storyline. I don't raid, and I haven't gotten any radiance gear anyhow.

Keep up the good work, Turbine. Glad to see the effort in this patch.

Kinship Contest Complete

2009-06-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

Looks like the kinship contest has been finished and the winners are in. Were my predictions and pessimistic comments true or was I full of it? Let's find out...

What did I predict would happen? That a kinship created purely for this contest would be the winner. That it would be filled with characters created for the sole purpose of winning the contest, and completely defeating the purpose of a kinship. What really happened?

The overall winner was Order of Middle Earth on the Brandywine server. The kinship was created on 2/25/2008. Clearly not created exclusively for this contest. Neither were the second and third place kinships, the Old Timer's Guild on Gladden and Lords of Evening Twlight on Meneldor respectively (I wonder if that's a purposeful misspelling of 'Twilight').

Strike one for Jaxom...

What could be the case is that existing kinships were used to leverage/power level new players for the express purpose of gathering lots of points. Is that the case? That's impossible to find out. We just don't have access to the date when certain characters were created if their player is anonymous. If they're not anon, we can guess by scrolling through their character log, looking at the level up section, and going all the way back to the level 2 level up.

Strike two for Jaxom...

I of course didn't look at every kinship on every server that won... the MyLOTRO site takes so long to load pages for me that it would be time prohibitive to check them all out. Let's call that:

Strike three for Jaxom...

I'm out on all accounts. Indeed, the contest was a success, and while I still believe that that power-leveling new characters probably happened, if kinships were created only for this contest, they didn't win. I've thus eaten my own words. Congratulations all you winning kinships! And congratulations Turbine for being successful despite my cynicism.

Random Screenies

2009-06-19T12:34:00.001-07:00

No need for much of a preamble here. Have some random shots from yesterday's (or maybe it was the day before) excursion into LOTRO.

Northern Lights
Evendim Landscape
Moon and Constellations

I particularly love the northern lights in Forochel. Such a wonderful sky in this game. All three screens feature it prominently.

Book 8 Release Date

2009-06-19T12:23:00.000-07:00

Got this via Twitter. Those of you who use twitter and read this probably follow @Turbine, so you already know this, but Book 8 will be released on 6/23 in North America. I assume the NA qualifier means Europe will get it later. I think that's normal is it not?

The 23rd is a Tuesday, which is the usual day for releases. My guess would have been the 23rd or the 30th. So, we'll probably see the official finalized patch notes by Sunday or Monday. I'll be sorting through those when they release, probably dropping a massive post in the process.

EDIT: Totally wrong about patch notes release. They're on the lorebook now. Later today or tomorrow will see my thoughts.

A Design Philosophy of Fun

2009-06-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

This has been a long-brooding topic and now broadly covered by a number of people, both professional and amateur. I of course fall into this latter category, but I want to attempt to draw all the lines of thought together. There are two guiding questions: First, "What is LOTRO's design philosophy?" Second, "Is it 'good' design?"

Let's start with a catalyst: From Dusk 'till Dawn posted a rant clearly tinged with frustration about the choice to make the turtle in Filikul immune to the Burgler's Enrage skill. The turtle, named Nornuan, will give the player its attacking a stacking DOT debuff, eventually overcoming the healer's abilities. One strategy is to let the first tank die and a second take over. The Minstrel (or Captain) will rez the first take, whose death canceled out the debuff. However, another strategy would be to take a Burgler along and use the Enrage skill, which will cause Nornuan to attack players randomly. Given the number of players within this raid, no one player will usually have more than one instance of the DOT debuff. The minstrel will have to focus on more than one person, but using Enrage is a viable method towards completing the raid. Well, until Book 8 when Nornuan becomes immune.

Sweet Cherrie, Dusk 'till Dawn's author, asserts this is unacceptable constriction of player behavior - and the developers are trying to force the player into only one strategy - the one they approve of. I agree with her thinking on this, and I judge it to be poor design. Why? Let's get into that by bringing up an article link posted in the forums. There's a nice discussion going on over there as well.

This article is an interview of Craig Morrison, Director of Age of Conan, conducted by MMOGamer.com. The second page, second comment by Morrison, is where the relevant information comes into play. What is good design? Morrison contends that good design first and foremost is creating fun. If it's not fun, it's not good design. He goes onto criticize many developers of spending "90% of [thier] time on the last 10% of any design, preventing players from doing stuff."

Here's what I see going on with the type of content development in Filikul - preventing players from doing stuff. And thereby limiting their fun. Poor design. Or perhaps misdirected design. Why is it necessary to curtail the creative use of the tools already designed for us? Good design is creating fun encounters. I cannot speak to Filikul being fun, because I've never experienced that content, but I know for certain that any content is more fun if there are multiple ways of completing it. It's replayability. If I can go through content mutlipile times without doing the same actions over and over again - without gettin bored, that content is fun. Morrison speaks to this in the interview as well.

The Enrage change in Filikul is ignoring part of your design to force your design ideals into the current work. Rather than embracing creativity, it's being constrained, and ultimately that curtails fun.

I would be remiss in this post to ignore our own developer's perspective on the issue so now I point to Orion's blog post on his myLOTRO page. Here Orion says he generally agrees with Morrison, but thinks that most MMO designers don't follow the 90/10 rule mentioned. He's more optimistic, if you will, and explictily states he does not believe LOTRO's designers to follow that philosophy.

On the whole, I agree with Orion. LOTRO has indeed been a bastion of flexibility, creativity, and good design. He has been personally further refining creativity and in essence creating more fun in the content revamps of the lower levels. I played through the new and old elven starter quests, and watched a LOTRO newbie play the new quests. The progression and storyline in that small part of the game has been improved. The design has been improved. The fun has been improved.

I think that in the post Moria exploit-ridden instances, we've perhaps seen an overzealous effort to constrict the playerbase in the Filikul raid. That's understandable, but an overcompensation. Using Enrage, by all accounts I've read, does not break nor exploit the raid. In some respects, it makes the raid harder as the healer must focus on more than one target. Like an overcompesation on the road may lead you to a ditch anyway, so too could the Book 8 changes to Filikul.

LOTRO's design philosophy is one with the primary goal of fun. Fun is freedom and growth within the rules. Fun is accessiblity, flexibility, creativity, and replayability. Too many rules and you lose those factors. Let's not lose sight of the fun factors in LOTRO.

Relating to Your Mates

2009-06-17T17:38:00.000-07:00

This is an unforeseen follow up to the kinship post today. Suzina, over at Kill Ten Rats, posted some interesting thoughts on kinship relations, this time looking at the phenomenon of new vs old. That is, what sort of gap is there between the newer players in the kinship and the older players.

For myself, I don't play regularly, so I struggle to even keep people's alts straight, let alone who's a new player in our kin. I try my hardest to be friendly to everybody who's on, even if I have no idea who they are. Heh. I'll usually ask, do I know you by another name or are you new? Of course, if I'm not ever on when they are, they might have played a month with us before I even met them, so then they're not really new are they?

I find myself relating to what Suzina posts but also not. I joined my kinship in beta, right when everybody else was new to the game. So there is the "old crowd" that I've known for a long time. Then there's the newer folks who I don't happen to share so many fond memories with. Not their fault, I just haven't gotten to play with them as much. But when I think of my kinship, I picture the oldies, even the one or two who don't play anymore. I have to wonder, is that a bad thing...

Not really, unless I make it a bad thing - like I look down on the "newbies" etc. I do think our kinship does do a good job in general welcoming new folks into the fold. Our kinleader is amazing at helping them feel at home by grouping with them, assisting with quests, passing on crafting items.

As a bit of a side note, many of the "core" kinship members, those that started in beta, came from StarWars Galaxies (like Suzina's group). With the new Bioware StarWars MMO, I know a lot of them will be headed that direction when it releases. And I think I'll be following them. I certainly won't stop playing LOTRO, and I don't think many of them will either (lifetime subs and all) but it really illustrates how strong a kinship can be in an MMO, and why belonging to one where you feel that kind of loyalty and connection will help your experience in any game, LOTRO included. To reemphasize the last post: find a kinship, but find one you can connect with. A kinship is merely a tool, it's the people that make it alive.

And if your kinship can overcome the new vs old barrier, more power to you - you've created a true community, not just a collection of avatars.

One Kinship to Rule Them All

2009-06-17T11:44:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not going to rant about the ill-thought-out kinship contest again. Actually, I am curious as to what that's looking like - if my predictions are true or it actually shaped up to how the devs envisioned. But anyway, I want to talk about the role of the kinship as a fun-inducing game mechanic.

I think one of the strongest parts of LOTRO is the community. Turbine has noted that our player base tends to have a more 1 to 1 ratio between males and females (not sure on the specific ratio, but guys still lead). It also tends to be older. Therefore, I think the LOTRO community is generally more mature. What does that mean for kinships? Well, a kinship is an integral unit to the community. Having the same group of people available to you and in close contact (via kinchat) is an invaluable tool towards enjoying the content. That's not to disembody the kinship as a group of real people, but like every game system, it's a means to your enjoyment.

Is the kinship necessary, however, to "getting the most" out of LOTRO? Many have argued indeed joining a kinship is the best (and maybe only) way to experience the game to its fullest. Why is that? We have to go back to the state of the community - it's excellent. So, by that logic, it's not necessarily the presence of a kinship in a player's experience that improves their gaming, but rather the presence of good people. I use that term losely to mean people who exhibit quality relationships with their fellow gamers. We can debate the precise definitions of all this elsewhere. Suffice to say, a kinship can be helpful or harmful, depending on the people within.

Here's where I really get into my point: what makes up a good kinship? I will be modeling much of my opinion based on my own wonderful kinship, but don't think what I say here is the only definition of a quality kinship.

First, the people need to be open. If you're not a people person, if you don't like talking, if you're not sociable, why bother with the social part of the gameplay? Just be the lone wolf out there, Turbine makes it easy to solo most of the game. And you can PUG when necessary, if you really want to. Then again, one might say go back to single player RPGs, but I don't want to be mean. Hehe. Seriously though, a good kinship is one that is accepting, open, friendly, etc. That doesn't mean the kinship has to take anybody into their ranks (lots of friendly kinships have recruitment requirments). It does mean that once within the group, the new player is as much a part of the team as the old.

Second, the people need to be sharing. This is another aspect of being open, but it goes one further. You're in a kinship to help each other with the game. It is a social group, but it's also part of an activity. If all your kinship does is chat, then you're not using the most of the tool, nor really giving each other any additional gameplay. Certainly there are purely social kinships out there that are a blast to hang out with, but I think the better kinship endeavors to help each other with quests, crafting, deeds, etc. You don't have to have a strict regimen of who helps whom and on what day, but it's the willingness that counts.

Third, the people need to have some semblance of organization. A good kinship needs, if it wants to participate in more organized content like raiding and instance runs, needs to have organization that reflects this desire. If the structure of the kinship is muddy, than chances are the same people aren't going to make a raid any clearer. When the kinship plays together, even in a less formal setting than raids, there should be a cohesiveness to their play - they ought to play well together, work off each other, communicate, etc.

I think these three things are a good starting point for a successful kinship. This is the type of kinship those that insist on joining one are members of. I think LOTRO is lucky to have a good number of these groups, but there's also lemons. No game is free of the leeches, the rude, the selfish. Take an average workplace and you will see the same general breakdown. People come in all shapes and sizes, so when picking a kinship, don't be afraid of floating from group to group, if it's possible. I got lucky on my first shot, but that's an exception. Be serious about your kinship scouting. These are real people, and a real group you're going to be associating with. And the key is fun. If the kinship is not fun, regardless of all other considerations, then it's time to find something new.

Good luck out there and happy adventuring!

Your Friends or The Game

2009-06-15T09:51:00.000-07:00

Why do I play LOTRO? To answer that, I have to first go back to why I play games. That's easy though, I love getting sucked into the worlds the games create. Why is Mass Effect so awesome to me? It does a very good job at creating a world you feel connected to. Why do I love Lord of the Rings Online - because it does a great job at linking me to a world I love so much. I started playing LOTRO because of the IP connection. From there, I discovered it was a good game. But what about now - what keeps me playing?

Honestly, I have to point more towards my friends than the game itself. No game can sustain interest forever, and nearly three years with one game is a long time (August 2006, closed beta). But in the process of playing LOTRO I gained some friends. I was extremely fortunate in running into the kinship I'm a part of. When I haven't logged in for a while, I don't feel guilty for not playing. It's not my monetary investment. That paid for itself already. It's not the game that I'm missing, or I would have logged in. It's the people. I feel like I need to keep in touch, let them know I'm still alive, kicking, interested, etc.

The best moments in LOTRO have been playing with my kinship. My first memory of grouping with a bunch of them was going through the Great Barrows. Such a blast, especially since previous PUG runs weren't successful. And every point thereafter where I would play with a kinmate, the game ceased to have any of it's faults. Well, that's not quite accurate. The faults were there, but they didn't matter, because what I was currently doing was fun. And it was fun because I was doing it with another player who I enjoyed playing with.

MMOs are more than just games, LOTRO no exception. They are venues to hang out at. I wouldn't continually go to the billiards hall and shoot pool by myself, even if the first few times were fun. I would go over and over again because I was hanging out with my friends. The same holds true for MMOs. There's the activity, then there's the society. It's the latter that holds our attention indefinitely. People are an endless resource of activity, and when you find people you like, your friends, it doesn't matter what you do, so long as your doing it together.

LOTRO is fun primarily because of the people I play with. It's secondary that it's a good game. Any MMO that can create the easiest system to play with friends will ultimately be the winner, so long as the activity within doesn't detract from the "hanging out". For example, let's say an MMO had City of Hero's/Villians sidekicking mechanic, arguably one of the best ways to bring friends together, but there was absolutely nothing to do except maybe kill things. Even playing with friends would get old rather quickly. So, there's a limit, a balance to this issue. No game will be endlessly fun, but a game must have a "reasonable amount" of fun in the first place in order to build the foundation for playing with friends.

So, is it the friends or the game that keep you playing? Maybe both? Which has more influence?

Content Bereft of Purpose

2009-06-14T15:26:00.000-07:00

Why would content lack purpose? A number of reasons. Perhaps the rewards aren't appropriate for the time necessary to undertake the content. Perhaps the content has no impact on the player or the world around them. Or perhaps the content simply is outdated. It's the latter I want to bring up as a discussion, pointing to a Kill Ten Rats post from today (barely).

Suzina brings up the fact that the level 50 end game content from Shadows of Angmar is no longer relevant to the current cap. First, I'd like to mention this has been a problem since the inception of a level-based MMO. Not even the 800 pound gorilla and most popular MMO in the world, WoW, has done anything to fix it. What's nice about LOTRO is that there seems to be a continual influx of new characters into the game. Visiting Bree on a weekend will usual greet me with a host of pre-40 players. This to me says that the level 50 content is still somewhat relevant to a certain set of players. At least potentially. I certainly can't say one way or another what their playstyle is like and if it will take them to Carn Dum, The Rift, Annuminas, etc when the reach 50. What is certain is they don't have to play that content to advance, whereas when the level cap was at 50, the advancement did come from instance "grinds" and raid runs for better gear and deed improvements. Add into the mix the content revamp currently in progress and I think LOTRO does offer better incentives to play and replay the older content. Just not for level 60s.

And there's the rub. I like the idea of getting more level 60 relevant rewards for the older content. But not rewards comparable to reward for level 60 end game content. It just wouldn't be fair, if the older content is easier. That leads to the idea of scaling the level 50 instances, raids, etc to the level 60 players. Here's why that's a problem: At some point, there will be so many options for end game instance runs and raids that the player base becomes diluted amongst the choices. It will make grouping for content harder in the long run. Secondly, many of the level 50 end game content is within a larger content progression starting before level 50, making it a challenge to scale the content unless it is completely revamped to stand on it's own. I prefer scaling of rewards rather than the content itself, but with some tweaks to make it fair.

First, do it with the existing barter system. We see something similar with the repleted epic storyline instances and reflecting pools. Add repeatable quests available only to players at 55+ (a reasonable overleveled point) that are exact duplicates of the level 50 quests in these instances and raids, but use this barter item as the reward. The turn in rewards for these barter items could be level 60 barter items like the Lothlorien leaves, crafting recipes, not-quite-uber armor (i.e. not the radiance gear, but perhaps something similar to the crafted gear), etc. These are just random things I've come up with at the spur of the moment. I'll leave more creative and adept minds to really ponder it... like the devs should they chose to go that rout. Require multiple barter items for the rewards because the level 50 content is relatively easy compared to the level 60 content - in other words, ensure the reward matches the effort for fairness. Never should the reward be equal to what could be gained through current end-game activities or that would render that content purposeless, ending us back where we started, only in reverse.

In the mean time, if you haven't experienced the level 50 end-game content and you're a level 60, do so anyway. It's fun stuff, and it doesn't take nearly as long with the extra 10 levels. Who cares if the tangible rewards aren't worth it - the experience is. Do it with buddies, people you like to hang out with. Friends make or break a game. And that's a topic for a future post...

Raid Accessibility

2009-06-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

I was excited, having heard about WoW's raid progression, attunement requirements, gear requirements, etc that LOTRO was going a different route with high-end content: casual is king. The Rift proved this. Anybody that was at level cap could conceivably run a successful Rift Raid (with some experienced players guiding the way, of course). As long as you weren't still wearing your level 15 armor at 50 (exaggeration) you were good to go. Like I said, that made me happy. But I never took advantage of the ease of access. I discovered that I didn't really like tuning out the rest of my world as I played. Live games cannot be paused, so when your in the thick of it and the phone rings, the dog wants out, your mother is hollering... well... that's a problem. So I like to play solo mostly, or casually grouped so I don't have to worry about the various interruptions that come from living with others and a dog.

But I liked the principle behind "easy" raid accessibility, even if I don't actually raid. It sets LOTRO apart from the pack. However, with the advent of radiance, we have a paradigm shift. Maybe that's a bit melodramatic, but Unwize's latest post gives a good rundown of the situation.

Now let's turn to a blog entry by Amlug, one of the devs over at Turbine. Posted to his MyLOTRO page, Amlug talks about raid accessibility a bit. And I see a pattern emerging. The earlier raids are getting some of the restrictions reduced (i.e. less gloom requires less radiance), and the increase in instances to get radiance gear provides more options, and a potentially easier set of instances to run for the gear (skip the harder ones). I imagine that the new raid for Book 8 will see a relaxing of requirements in 4 to 6 months as well. Why? Not because we complain about it, but because it makes good business sense. If your hardcore populatin has moved onto the next bit of content, why keep hardcore requirements for content the hardcore aren't playing? If you can extend the lifetime of your content by pushing it through stages reflected on your customer's style of play, who not? The only draw back is the rest of us are doing this "watered down" content after the rewards are relevant.

For me, the casual, I just like seeing the content. For me, the accomplisher, I just like getting the quests and deeds done. Who cares about the gear/rewards? More will come, and I suspect the causuals interested in raiding have a similar mindset.

So, let's not despair over radiance and raids. We're still going a different direction. Perhaps the effect is the same in the short term, but it could be worse - we might be playing a grindy "Asian" style MMO.

Old Content Revamp Dev Diary

2009-06-09T10:43:00.000-07:00

Orion is continuing his quest to revamp the older content in LOTRO and make it much more accessible. I'm quite excited about this process, if the Elven starter zone is any indication. This is some quality work. Of course, as a high level player with no alts that I regularly log, I'm a bit bummed I'm missing all this good stuff back at the lower levels. New quests you say? I'm a completionist. You say new quests, I have to do them... on the same character... no matter what level. Yes, it might be very strange for me to take my level 60 back to the starter zones and do content 40+ levels lower than me, but darn it, I'm just not an alt kinda person.

Honestly, I play this game for the awesome story and environment. Game mechanics, while important (and ironically take up much of this adventurer's bloging) are secondary. Let's see Middle-Earth... oh, yeah, and it's a game.

I think this whole process is one of the best investments of Turbine's time and resources into LOTRO. They certainly had the Shire and the early Breeland areas well polished, but the rest did feel rushed in retrospect. Hindsight is 20-20 no? Strengthening the draw that newer players will get from this refurbished content will only strengthen the game. I'm excited for when some local people I have recently found out will begin playing this summer. I'll be rolling my first ever serious alt (got all my character slots taken up by getting my feet wet with other classes) and playing with them as a static group. And that's great because, if I don't manage to get my 60 back to the newer low level stuff, there will be new stuff to me too! Good times and happy adventuring!

The Mirrors of Khazad-Dum

2009-06-09T10:36:00.000-07:00

There's another "Exploring Middle-Earth" article up, this time pointing to a player-created lorebook entry about the mirrors in Khazad-Dum. I first have to mention that I love the idea of an official LOTRO wiki, that combines both the developer's entries, as well as the players. Secondly, and this time about the lore, I think the idea of putting mirrors into Moria is an excellent means around the whole "long dark of Moria".

When I read those passages in the game, I felt the inky, tangible black. When the movies were created, I had to wonder how in the world they could spend so long in total darkness. Of course, it wasn't total darkness thanks to "movie magic" but they did well enough. And once again with the game, I wondered how we as players could operate in such a large expanse with so little light. Then there was the mirrors. Dwarven ingenuity is something glorious. Of course they would have a way to light their own halls. It only makes sense, and that legacy system still should have something in place when and if they decided to return. I think Tokien probably envisioned roaring fires, but that's a lot of fuel for a relativley small band of dwarves looking to retake Moria. I'll let Turbine's invention slide simply for its elegance.

Twitter Updates

2009-06-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

When I mentioned the creation of a Twitter account and that it was linked to this blog, I neglected to mention that I would be posting little "MEA Update" blurbs from time to time. These comments and thoughts are too small to merit a blog post, so Twitter is the natural place for them. Where this really shines, is when I'm actually playing the game and something interesting happens. I will still do the progress reports when I accumulate enough game-time and activity of import, but I tend to forget little details. MEA updates are awesome for that. Of course, if you follow my Twitter feed, the actual blog posts will get a "MEA Post: ..." and the title/link.

Technical Problems

2009-06-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

So, if you follow my Twitter feed you already know that my internet was down for two and a half-days. That's the reason I haven't updated the blog. At least on the surface. Not sure if I would have had anything to say over that time anyway. I've been taking a bit of an informal break from playing regularly - taking my own advice, really. That's okay. I'm still keeping abreast of the news, which, combined with my commentary, is really what this blog's purpose is anyway. At the moment, there aren't any news items needing my attention in the game itself.

I'll be still playing though, and not abandoning the blog. No worries on that front. And I have some rumblings from a couple people in my family that will probably pick up LOTRO this summer, so I'll definitely dive back in to play in a static group with them. Always wanted a static group. My kinship is great, but we are pretty loose when it comes to when we're on and group activities. That has its advantages, namely I can take my current break without judgment or disrupting the other members, but it does add challenges too.

This adventure isn't nearly done!

Yesterday's WarCry Dev Chat Commentary

2009-06-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, this adventurer finally has a moment to sit down and check out the dev chat from yesterday. I'm usually always a day late with these things because I find it easier to just read the transcripts, which usually come out the next day. I'll not be addressing every question in the chat, but the ones I felt were answered well or presented new information. I'll be truncating a lot of the answers to dig to the meat so do check out the link for the full transcript.

"Completely redesigning [the legendary item system], no... [I]n that regard, we're going to be making some solid changes. [O]ur main goal is to make it feel less grindy, to better maintain the feeling of advancement and progression. Will we be able to address all of your complaints? Nope."

I'm glad to hear they see the current legendary system as too grindy. I've been putting grind on one side of a line and epic on the other, where the two are mutually exclusive. If there is less grind in the future, I think we'll be getting a more epic feeling system, as promoted pre-Mines of Moria. And of course there's the requisite disclaimer that not every complaint will be addressed. Not every complaint is... doable. For example, let us pick our legendaries. That errs too far on the side of overpowering the weapons/players and diminishing the uniqueness garnered by a randomized system.

"One of the cool features we are working on for "the Future" is the ability to exchange legacies on Legendary Items."

Hmmm... this will be a toughy. One one hand, you don't want the player to have complete freedom to change his or her legacies to exactly what they want. As before, that results in a loss of uniqueness and too much power. Then again, the current system is very much like a casino... people win on occasion, the vast majority lose, and if you play long enough, everyone, even the winners, will lose.

"There will be a method to reset the legacy points on a maxed out Legendary Item very soon."

Nice. They already fixed the relics not being refunded, now to be able to redo legendary points will be another good thing. Perhaps you have a situation that calls for a different build and your legendary weapon is statted for something else. If you have the right legendaries, it would be great to reset the points for the new build. Couple this with however they manage to trade in legacies, and you have a nice customizable system like the traits. That would feel more legendary to me. Perhaps this can work after all...

"We definitely want to bring crafters into the LI system more than we have."

That's good to hear. I know many of us have commented on how crafting seems so pointless now with LIs and radiance gear. I did have a kinmate make me a Peerless Thain's Halberd which has 6 more DPS than my LI, but there's so many other bonuses on my LI that the crafted halberd would only be useful in situations that need something other than common damage.

As to crafting radiance gear, the devs did not comment on that portion of the question. Something tells me radiance is reserved for the raiding circuit, which has stepped outside of the realm of crafting. I don't see it coming, but keep on harassing them. I want crafting to be more meaningful too. Funny I say that though, as I don't craft all that much, except for food, which doesn't have any of those issues. It's always relevant as a consumable.

"We are working hard on Mirkwood at the moment... We plan on going to new areas after that, but that is a bit too far in advance to fill you in..."

As I've said before, I'd love to see an alternative advancement to the North Downs and the Lone Lands, perhaps by opening up another path south of the Shire, Breeland, and Lone Lands. Or even the Gray Havens? Not sure how that would fit in the current story, however. If it were anywhere, it would be either in conjunction with Rivendell (we saw that wasn't the case) or Lothlorien (we still have time here) because the elves are going west. There was a briefest glimpse in one of the elven starter area quest lines, but that's it. This comment only solidifies the expected pattern: Follow the Fellowship.

"As many know Book 8 continues our re-vamp plans and furthers them into Breeland. Breeland will now cover levels 14-22 and be the current, don't read into that too much, single track for getting to 14-22. The next stage is to get two tracks from 22-32, three from 32-42 and four from 42-52. More on all this as we move forward with these changes. But the long and short is that the Lone-lands and North Downs will bother service 22-32. Complete with more quests and a stronger version of the second Book of the Epic story."

Hmmm, so just a reworking of the levels of quests within the current zones it sounds like. Glad to hear they're working on cleaning up the progression. More polish, more polish. SoA was considered a very polished experience when it released. We'll be positively gleaming after all this, but still, I'd love to see new zones as progress options.

More quests... that's a good thing. Can't have enough quests, as long as they're well written. If the Ered Luin revamp is any indication, they will be. But that means me, as a completionist, will have to revisit these areas and do the new quests, just because. GAH! Hey, at least I'll have some more content to consume, despite it being vastly outleveled.

"When we get to Helm's Deep there will be some truly significant changes to the game. We cannot comment on what the players' role will be in the battle because we are not there yet, but be assured, we have done all we can to make the tale of your journey through the early parts of the War of the Ring very important and I think that we will continue to do this in all of our future content."

I like the sound of "truly significant". Rohan is a perfect place for mounted combat. Helm's Deep is a perfect place for implementing siege mechanics and epic army-sized warfare. It'll be hard to wrap the story of our own adventures into something so confined and explicit as the Helm's Deep sequence, but perhaps there will be a way around that. Turbine has bent the rules before (Rune-Keeper).

"I am a big fan of the general environment and the little surprises you come upon while questing. That being said, would there be any chance of having a type of treasure hunting quests, i.e. while fishing you "catch" a map and then have to go and find the location it leads you to claim your reward?"

This isn't a dev response, but rather the question. The dev who answered, Orion, took it as a desire to see more riddle type quests. I like those quests as well, but what I think this question is asking is more comprehensive: A Middle-Earth-wide scavenger hunt. Only problem is that it needs to grow as the game grows, so how do you make it expandable? Perhaps just make it an ongoing deed, with various parts as the game grows. The idea is awesome though and I'd love to see something that highlights certain places in the world.

"...[R]adiance certainly has a mixed reaction from the game populace. Many dislike this as it is a stiff gating requirement and certainly draws hard lines between the casual and hard core players... [W]e are making certain that we are cautious about the way that it is used in the future. For the Book 8 release I can confirm that the smaller instances will not require radiance and that diligent players can utilize a smaller set of radiance gear to enter the new raid. We still want to give the system some more time to shake out before we make any major changes to it..."

The gear check and radiance raid requirement has been a huge topic of discussion in the blogosphere as well as on the forums. I do not see in this statement that Turbine is going to go back to a more "casual raiding" seen in the Rift, for example. Never say never, however. Turbine has shown malleability in the past.

Why is radiance currently in the game? First off, it expands the hope/dread system to be more versatile for conveying the Middle-Earth concept of good and evil. It also, more mechanically, allows higher dread encounters with appropriate mitigation. The use of gear to mitigate the dread does play into the concept of epic encounters with amazing armor (mithril was a concept in the IP was it not?) but it turned into too much of a grind, like the legendary system, and erased the epic feel when it came down to actually getting the gear.

"We are very happy with the way the Warden has turned out. I think the Warden is very close to where we wanted it to be as far as class roles. The Runekeeper seems to be doing pretty good as well but has needed a few more tweeks to get it to the right place."

Good to hear that they're fairly satisfied with the two new classes. At least on the surface. "A few more tweaks" constitutes a DPS reduction. Not sure if that's "pretty good" but oh well.

"Are there plans in the works for a new PvMP zone?"
"I am going to be coy: Not in the immediate future, but there is something that is in the works that could lead to some very interesting PvMP moments in the mid to distant future."

This was something we expected, as the level cap was raised, so were the PvMP zones expanded. Perhaps giving some variety like WoW's battlegrounds. Seeing how much effort has gone into the current zone to balance it, creating a new one would be a major undertaking. And for myself, I don't feel that PvMP is the primary focus of the game. A fun diversion to those who enjoy that type of play. There's a lot of more pressing things to deal with, IMO.

"The Amarthiel events were a huge success and we had a lot of fun with them. It's certainly something we want to do more of but there are not immediate plans to do so. But I'd keep an eye peeled."

I'd love to see more Amartheil like events as well. That really helped contribute to the epic feeling of what was going on in Middle-Earth. It was an event, it happened, then passed. It gave the world a sense of history beyond the inherent design. The world feels lived in, but having immediate events that can be talked about from different perspectives (i.e. different players) is really great. Quests are the same for everyone. Live events are different for everyone.

"We would love to do more hobbies, and we're always bouncing ideas around about different things. Unfortunately, hobbies aren't the highest priority."

Oh, that reminds me. I've not yet finished leveling my fishing... guess that's why it's not so high a priority, if some of your players completely forget it exists. Still got the hobby skill on one of my hotbars though.

"Game stability and server performance is our number one priority at the moment. We've made some great strides in that direction and I'll think you'll see more of that when Book 8 is released."

Interesting that it's not expanding the content. Then again, what good is content that can't be experienced smoothly? Glad to hear they're really focusing on getting the servers to a more reliable state. I'd love to see a continued boost in graphical tweaks as well as the server side fixes. But I love me some eye candy.

"End game and the journey there, the journey around the journey there and the time that you spend with friends and the family that you make inside the world are all equally important. Playstyles vary from person to person and we must, as designers, do what we can to try to appease all different playstyles. Thankfully, we have time to try to get to as much as we possibly can to attempt to make everyone a little happy along their own journey."

I have to commend them for trying to make sure each part of the game is approached equally, journey and destination. However, I think the IP really points to the journey as the important part. It's what changed the characters, made them stronger, showed them their true hearts. The destination was just one place on that journey. A matter of perspective, I know, but too many MMOs neglect the journey (leveling) once so many of the players are at the destination (end game). There is evidence of journey love in Orion's revamping process, and I very much look forward to all that.

I hope my commentary was worth reading. The dev chat certainly was. One of the stronger ones to date. Do check it out and leave comments here or on the forums or both and let us all know what you think. Happy adventuring!

Exploring the Halls of Crafting

2009-06-04T09:37:00.000-07:00

Want to know more about the new Halls of Crafting coming in Book 8? Well, be sure to check out the official article and the subsequent Lorebook link for some basic info. Then check out Massively for some awesome screenshots.

Imagine the Future

2009-06-02T19:40:00.001-07:00

Imagine a future of MMO gaming where we can take technology like the XBox's Natal and the type of application developed by Peter Molyneux and create a world to be intimately experienced and interacted with. Characters that feel as alive and immediate as a friend standing beside you. This isn't exactly a LOTRO post, but the IP of LOTRO is based on one of the greatest stories told. I think the supreme application for something like Natal is what Molyneux did: character and ultimately story. What would be more awesome than an interaction with Aragorn or Gandalf along the lines of Milo in that video? Nerdgasm.

Book 8 Crafting Dev Diary

2009-06-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

Perhaps one of the best dev diaries ever written, the Book 8 crafting diary is full of wonderful new information about the changes to crafting coming with the Book 8 update. I'm very much looking forward to this overhaul, not that I craft much. Indeed, I'm a cook, but it looks like cooks (and farmers) are getting some love. We're such a neglected group, especially the farmers. Do check this out - there's a wealth of information and it's even something you might want to bookmark for a while until you memorize the changes. Nice tables included!

Unfortunately, I did not see anything about crafted gear becoming better in relation to the higher end gear. I think we're never going to see that again with the whole radiance level gear check going on with the raids. Adding radiance to crafted gear would negate all the hard work done on the instances giving the radiance gear as crafting would be easier. Unless they somehow made crafting harder, which would be... well... hard. Still, this is a much needed upgrade to crafting

Ten Ton Interview with Jeffrey Steefle

2009-06-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

This will be a short post with little commentary because it's already been done so well over at Epic Book. I honestly don't think we're seeing anything new here that we already don't know. Level cap increase (expansion or patch?), Dol Guldur is coming soon, Book 8 is almost out, there have been server problems and they're working on it, PvMP is hard to balance, new system called skirmishes, etc. Still, check out the interview. Might be something I missed.

Justifiable Disgruntlement?

2009-05-29T17:25:00.000-07:00

I don't wish to belabor the subject of negativity towards LOTRO, but I constantly find myself at a conflicting crossroads - I love the game, but I also identify with many of the recent criticisms. I remember a time where I might have been considered an adoring fanboy, unabashed in his love for this new thing he discovered called MMOs. Add in a dash of LOTR favoritism and you got me. Now that I've been out for a while, perhaps I'm going a bit stale. The sugar has fermented and I'm a bit crumbly. Okay, enough with the food metaphor.

I'm not a hardcore player, but I do play enough to reach the level cap and complete most of the content before the next expansion. Is it the nature of where I'm at to be cranky? There's just not enough stuff to make me happy anymore. Like the kid who wore out all his Christmas presents and says to mom "I'm bored!". What does the kid do? At mom's behest he finds new games to play, new toys (or old toys rediscovered), or even uses his imagination to come up with something on his own. It's understandable that he's cranky, but there's a reason for it, aside from the immaturity of being a kid.

Maybe I'm that kid (hopefully more mature) and I just need something different for a while. Take a break. My criticisms aren't really my anger at the game for doing something wrong, but simply an outlet to the fact that I'm out of stuff to do. Boredom isn't fun and makes people grumpy. So, while I have valid concerns about the game, I'll try not to harp on them too much. I guarentee I'll be posting positives when the Book 8 patch notes are finalized.

In the mean time, I think all of us that are at the level cap, who have completed the content we find fun, should take a collective breath and understand what's fueling our disgruntlement. LOTRO may indeed have flaws (what game doesn't?) but realize it's our boredom that's causing our grief. Like beer goggles make the ugly beautiful, boredom goggles make the paper cut seem like a gaping wound.

Massively Book 8 Dev Tour

2009-05-29T10:31:00.000-07:00

This is a dev tour of screenshots, and it's great to get a look at some of the stuff in Book 8. There's a couple interesting 3-man instances being added, which sound quite tough actually. Giant pistons you have to avoid or you'll end up a freep pancake. Wow... I like the puzzle element of these too. Not sure how much of this book I'll actually be participating in but we'll see. I think I might just be looking more forward to the continued balancing this book provides, moreso than the new content. I've said this before, but I have trouble sitting for hours on end completely ignoring the outside world when I'm so focused on an instance I'm running. Still, there are many players that run the instances and will enjoy the update. I don't think it'll last them as long as the next update will take, but that's to be expected. No game updates fast enough for some of the playerbase to continually find content. Nature of the beast.

Destiny Points

2009-05-27T16:37:00.001-07:00

Destiny Points, at least on the side of the Freeps (normal players, versus the creeps, which are monster players), is a rarely used system. Perhaps that's because people aren't aware of what destiny points are all about. To remedy this, Turbine has released an official article talking about destiny points, from how you earn them to how you spend them.

My opinion on why freeps don't use destiny points? Well, despite the argument that any buff is a good buff, I honestly don't think the bonuses gained from spending destiny points are worth it. Save them for your creeps, if you're inclined to play PvMP. If not, well, I suppose you could spend them on the free buffs since there's no other place to spend them. Me? I ignore them. I supose that speaks to a problem.

Variety of Content

2009-05-26T14:12:00.000-07:00

I posted about how happy I am about the bit of luck I got on my current Legendary Third Age Halberd, and before that about the uselessness of crafted items now that gear acquired through other means is significantly better rather than marginally and perhaps an alternative. But after grabbing myself a critted crafted Halberd, if it weren't for the legacy and relic bonuses, I'd use it instead of the legendary. A trade off between overall better DPS and the bonuses... it's too bad it's so unequal and that DPS for a captain isn't everything. Maybe if I were a champ or hunter, but then again, there's so much to lose without a legendary item. Now there's a new one that'll be available through the Galadhrim rep, better than the crafted ones. Why bother putting in these weapons anyway?

I don't mind variety, don't get me wrong, but variety needs to be useful. Having options that aren't worthwhile is pointless. It is true that there are opinions about variety and that an item deemed useless by one player will be embraced by another. At the moment we have an overwhelming opinion towards one option, because it is proven to be the most effective all around.

We're seeing this kind of thing in the raiding structure as well. Take a look at the latest post by LOTRO Chronicles. It seems Turbine is going for one direction in raid design and playstyle. Seriously, this trend needs to be rectified or at least tempered. We need variety, options, choice, free will. Within structure, yes, but Shadows of Angmar was well received in many ways, one for the multiple was to advance your character and be sucessful at whatever end-game activity you wanted (PvMP, raiding, instance runs, etc). We're sliding away from that right now.

The LOTRO Report

2009-05-26T12:53:00.000-07:00

So, here's another LOTRO podcast that slipped by me. Actually, it didn't. I ran across it some weeks ago and filed it away under "post about that tomorrow". Well, tomorrow came and went and I forgot about it. Now, browsing around I ran across it once again and I need to give a shout out. I think this is a well-produced and informative podcast covering, so far, the end-game instances. But that's not all they plan on covering. Every aspect of the game is up for grabs. Do check out The LOTRO Report.