Skirmishes Dev Diary 3

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

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.)

PAX Siege of Mirkwood Preview

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.

GB Run Finally Up

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

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.

Bone-Man is a Pansy

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.

Radiance Changes Coming

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.

The Perspective Dichotomy

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.

Forges of Khazad-Dum Video Guide

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.

Content Bereft of Purpose

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

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.

Exploring the Halls of Crafting

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.

Some Book 8 Details

Massively has gotten the scoop on some Book 8 details, and even future updates to the game. Dol Guldur guys - just like I said. I like the sound of the "skirmishes" idea. Having an instance type environment that doesn't require a set number of players or class composition will be a great boon to grouping content.

One of the biggest hurdles to group play is the organization before the actual play. I would love to see this approach done for all instanced group play content. That means that there would be no content that could not be completed. Of course, rewards would have to scale to the difficulty of completing an instance with a duo versus a full group, or a raid with 12 people versus 18 etc. But still, the content and story within that content would be accessible to everybody. It also wouldn't be a mutual exclusive situation between "casual" and "hardcore" players.

I honestly don't see this type of system making its way into all the group content in the near future. If the older group content isn't a ghost town now, wait until all new group content is much more accessible - you'll never see groups trying to take on content that is harder to organize. Path of least resistance ya know? But if Turbine decided to revamp all the previous group content in some future that implemented this dynamic instancing, then we might see something far reaching in its impact - not only for LOTRO but for MMO gaming in general.

The last item I'd like to mention is the level cap increase by year's end. They didn't mention an expansion with that comment, but considering the previously stated goal of one expansion per year, we're on tap to see an expansion and level cap increase by year's end. Not a surprising development, but interesting to see the absence of expansion talk considering its mention.

EDIT: A nice forum topic on the subject can be seen here with some dev responses. Looks like the preview went out to a few press outlets, in this case, 1up.com.

Quite the Non-LOTRO Weekend

Wow, I sure had a lot going on IRL this weekend - so much so that not only did I not manage to get into LOTRO, but I hardly had time to sit down at the computer and check my e-mail, let alone blog. This is a LOTRO blog so I won't go into details but what I will do is make an update on where I'm at in the game.

I didn't make it to Lothlorien yet. I've been side tracked by my other method of reducing burn out - and that was play more with my kinship members. Last time I logged in it was mostly "hanging out" with them.

I've been camping the AH house as of late as well trying to complete my collection of the new soup recipes for the cooking profession. I got all the level 50+ recipes collected, working on lower levels. Hasn't been any for the Journeyman tier on the AH at all, and I have three or four total from Expert, Artisan, and Master tiers. I'd like to get these as soon as I can so I can update my cooking guide, which is woefully expired. My local version is more up-to-date than the one I linked but still... need those recipes.

Interested in getting a group together in my kinship to do my class quest (Hands of Healing) for the legendary trait, which is probably the only one I'd really use unless I was needed to tank. The last one, the Lead the Charge set, is fairly useless in my opinion. Got another 60 captain waiting on that quest too. Need to do a Fil Gashan run. Seems to be an unpopular instance with many of my kinmates so we'll see how far this gets any time soon. Might pug it when me and the other captain are around.

Lastly, I'm trying to get a local friend interested in the game. Been sending him screenshots lately and he says he's "really interested" but doesn't want to commit to a monthly fee and the lifetime membership is too expensive at the moment. I'm unemployed or I'd offer to pay it for him with him paying me back whenver he can. Oh well - his computer wouldn't let the game look nearly as nice as mine does - which would be a bit of a let down after the screen shots I've been sending him.

Oh, one more thing. Going to try and get FRAPS working one more time for LOTRO. I desperately want to create some video. Nasty out of memory crashes.

Skumfel Run

Yesterday some of the kin went to Skumfel, myself included (after some lengthy discussion of where we did want to go). The place has bugs, lots and lots of bugs. We had a full group for part of the run, but one of us had to leave so it was only five for the next part. We didn't get to the lower section because many of us didn't have the requirements met. Lower usually means worse, and I can't imagine what's worse than a pile of rotten flesh and bones lorded over by a gigantic spitting bug.

No wipes, so that was good, but we did lose our minstrel once. Only death though. He said it was his fault but I don't know precisely what happened. Otherwise a successful run. We did it on normal mode as far as I can tell because there was no drop for radiance gear. Either that or it's in the lower section that we didn't get to. This is my first time in the place so I wasn't completely cognizant of what was going on.

Which sort of leads me into a bit of a side topic. I'm an awesome solo player with my class. I know what I can do, can't do, what skills to use, when to use them, etc. Why do I excel at soloing? Because I've had practice. It's how I play most often. But when I get in a group, I'm much less competent. I felt like a sore thumb despite our general success. There was a moment where I had a poison DoT on me and I didn't even notice. Not until I was at 1/3 of my morale. I wasn't even watching the chat either, and two people had said I had a DoT that needed dealing with. I hit up a potion and our minstrel healed, but the fact that it turned out alright isn't the point - the fact that it happened is. Now, what's the best solution? How did I get good at soloing? I need more group play practice.

As a captain, my role in groups, aside from buffing, isn't always the same nor always clear-cut. Depends on the fight, depends on what other classes are there. Honestly, I'd rather just take orders and hit what they tell me to hit and watch what they tell me to watch. Funny that, because the definition of a captain is the one who gives the orders. And I was the only one using voice chat (they all could hear me though) so theoretically, if it weren't for my inexperience, I should have been the one calling the battle. But I have trouble seeing everything that's going on. My class roll requires that I do most of the time. I'm uncomfortable not knowing how to play my class the best in group settings. I feel like a noob sometimes. Here's hoping I get more practice in and can improve my game.

Crafting Instances

There are 6 new solo instances in the game now targeted towards crafters. They are located in three different locations, two per: The Redhorn Lodes, Zelem-Melek, and Durin's Way. If you turn on traders on your map, you'll see new blue icons specifically where these instances are located. That's the easiest way to find them.

I ran through these yesterday to get a taste of what they were like. Each instance has a bunch of crafting nodes in them for forester, scholar, or prospector. They are in Zem Melek, Durin's Way, and the Redhorn Lodes respectively. The nodes are on a cooldown timer completely seperate from the three quest givers (per instance) you'll find outside the crafting instances. These quest NPCs have repeateable quests, every 12 hours, that reward you with barter items that can be traded for Lothlorien gold leaves, which themselves are barter items that can be turned in for goodies in Lothlorien. A little complicated, but whatever. This is where those trader icons come in - they're the guys that give you the leaves for your quest rewards.

The instances themselves are well designed, artistically, and fairly linear. There are little deviations in your path that lead to dead ends that frequently have those crafting nodes. The quests are straight forward. Kill 20 of the invaders, find 8 of the lost objects, and kill the leader. The instances will have three different random mob types that will be the invaders: cave claws, grothburg (the bugs), or goblins. The bugs and cave claws are the easiest, with the latter giving you Extraordinary Hide drops, which are a pleasant side crafting oriented side effect. I don't use them myself so I'll either give them to kinmates or sell them on the AH. You can get a stack of 50 and a bit more if you get two instances with the cave claws. The goblins are the hardest because of their ranged attack type mobs. As a captain, I have no ranged weapon so I have to get in melee range. This can be a pain sometimes, but that's the nature of my class and not anything against the crafting instances.

Like the IXP instances, these can get just as boring after a while, even with the variation in mob types. If you're a crafter, it's worth going through if you need materials. If you're not a crafter, or one who can use wood, scholar nodes, or metals, it's not really worth your time except maybe for the barter items. I haven't been out to Lothlorien yet to see what exactly these can be turned in for and if that is worth the grind.

All in all, a good addition but nothing really spectacular.

Urugarth Run Complete

For the first time I've gone all the way through Urugarth. The kinship had a semi-spontaneous run this evening (plus one member from another kin that many of us have played with before). I said I'd like to tag along because I had deeds and never did quests in Urugarth or Carn-Dum. Well, I got all the boss slayer deeds done, finished the orc and troll slayer deeds, but have a couple more Urugarth-specific ones. These deeds also gave me one more max quest in my log. I'm at 47 now with about 30 of them occupied.

The run was fun, but long. We started around 6, 6:30 and ended a little after 10... so about 3 and a half to four hours. Took a small break in the middle. Quite a bit of fun getting that stuff done. I'd hate to do it too many times. I'll go again if there's ever a group again and I'm available because I still have uruks, beasts, and marching orders off orcs for more deeds as well as more quests. My silly completionism. I'm not really pushing to get these quests done though. If they don't get done, I won't be upset. Now, I'd love to say I got all the moria quests done...

A Veritable Plethora

Today is the big day, as you all know. Book 7 is released. I'm currently about half-way through the patching process. I didn't use the pre-patch method and I usually don't mind waiting for the client to patch itself on release days. There seems to be a veritable plethora of posts today. You can find many of these posts using the combined blog feed linked on my sidebar, but Kill Ten Rats has also posted some about LOTRO. Three posts to be exact. Two of them are commentary on issues they see in the game, particularly with the instances and the changes to those instances. The third is an outline of the instance progression, containing spoilers.

As I haven't played through any but one of the instances, I'm not able to comment well on the issues within them, however I did hear they were fairly buggy and had some exploits. However, as Kill Ten Rats points out, one person's exploit is another person's creative thinking. I have to err on the side of the development team however, as it is their definition that ultimately counts. They are the ones defining the game, and while the player base is experiencing that definition, everything is ultimately in their hands. I think we as players get too caught up in an entitlement mentality at times. And here's where capitalism comes into play. If we as players don't like what we're experiencing, we go elsewhere. So the development team's job is to strike that balance - guiding the game where they think it needs to go but in a way that the players like. This doesn't change who is in control, however, who sets the agenda. The developers choose to listen to the players because it's good business, but that doesn't mean they're any less responsible for the direction the game goes.

Okay, now it's time to get personal. I have a goal of getting the radiance gear from these instance runs. I haven't done many so I'm not experientially familiar with the timesinks involved. I only know that by educated guessing and second hand conversations. Despite my goal, I'm conscious that it's unlikely that I'll experience this content in full. I just don't play often enough and don't have the patience for what's involved in getting groups together. I prefer to group with my kin because it's relatively painless and I don't have to work hard to do it. But getting a static group of six players together for six hours minimum for one of six instances is hard. It's not hard because the content is necessarily hard. It's hard because it takes time. Game time is part of free time and free time is a luxury. Most of us have to ration it, myself included, despite my current unemployment. I have to face reality hear and realize I'm not the type of person this content was designed for. I'd like to be the type of person, because I'm really am a completionist, but when it really comes down to doing the deed, I just don't have the will to make that time commitment. Quite frankly, there are more entertaining and fun things I could be doing with my time, some of which don't even involve LOTRO. So while I'm a big fan of the game, I think I'll use my time to push for completing the epic storyline. I love story so that's where I should focus. Gear, instances, what does it matter? I'm experiencing Middle-Earth am I not? Is a 36+ hour gear grind really Middle-Earth or just a game mechanic for those of us with more time and the personality to push through such things?

And with this realization, I also have recognized that I'm not doing the activity that I've gotten most enjoyment from - grouping with my kinmates just because we want to do content. Many of my recent play sessions have involved solo experiences, and those are not the most memorable moments by and large. Where I find most joy is playing with my friends. So, I'll drop the goal of getting the radiance gear and put in it's place play with my kinship. If they're doing instance runs for gear - sure, that's what I'll do, but if they're doing the epic story, that's what I'll do. It's a game for goodness sake. Play it, don't work it. Right?

Sunday Progress Report

Looks like I've abandoned Thursdays. Oh well. I said I would. Probably would. And I did. Yesterday's playtime ended up being not what I was anticipating. First off, when I logged in, it was a slow night for the kinship for whatever reason. Only three or four of us on. Not even enough to do an instance run. And I didn't feel like PUGing one because there would be no guarantee that the same six would stick together and get all of us the barter coin for the armor. I ran three or four runs last time with a PUG (the only time I did an instance run) and there were at least that many ins and outs of the group, one of whom did get the drop. Actually, I think they did one more run after that but then left. And then I had to go due to some real life obligations. I don't blame anybody for that, and I don't know their situation, but it seems like it happens more often in PUGs because there's less communication before the run about where everybody stands time commitment-wise. It's just the way it is.

So no instance runs. However, I did do some solo quests, one of which is part of the level 58 Captain quest for the Hands of the Healing legendary trait. All solo so far and I don't know what the future holds for that quest, so it's all new to me. Did a bit in the Flaming Deeps and then talked to three NPCs scattered in other parts of Moria. I also worked on part of the epic quest: 2.3.x. I got to chapter 9 which is a session play: We Cannot Get Out. I forgot that was the session that was borked and you cannot complete it. Figures, so I had to quit the session and at that point I took a break for dinner. Unfortunately, I got side tracked watching TV and didn't log in the rest of the eveing. For all I know more of the kin could have been on and I might have gotten some instance runs in. There's always another day.

And in between all that I did some exploring, particularly in Nud-Melek and the Flaming Deeps to find some of the exploration deed locations. I love exploring, particularly if I have an objective in mind (like a quest location). For example, I know A is here and I am at B, here, so how do I get there? Moria is awesome for that because of all the multiple levels. You might be underneath what you want to find but have to figure out first, if there is an underneath, and how to get there. One quest I did out of the Redhorn Lodes was like that. Good fun.

I'm still purchasing my Sublime Jewelry set. I have two more pieces to get (one if I win the auction I bid on yesterday). I really should take a break and save up for another chest in my vault so I have more space for my food stuffs but I guess I'm being vain. Besides looking pretty (yes, I know you can't see the jewelry on your character) they give me nice stats. Speaking of food stuffs, I've been using my guild recipes to cook stacks of critted restoration food (morale and power) and selling them on the AH. I'm making a profit so that's really a first for me with food and the AH. Thank goodness for guild recipes. And with the lowering of the cooldowns with Book 7 (yay Tuesday!) I'll be able to put them up more often and get coin even quicker.

So here are my goals:

• Purchase 1 more vault space
• Complete Sublime jewelry set
• Run instances for Radiance armor set
• Clear out (complete) lower level quests and deeds in old zones

I have quite a load with just those four. We'll see how things work out.

A Bit More About Crafting Instances

Want to know more about crafting instances? LOTRO Life has some answers. Looks like they've been doing some testing on Bullroarer. (See, so many people are testing that I don't even need to. I can just point to these excellent resources!) They explain how it works, although it's a bit confusing and I had to read it a couple times through to really get the gist of it. Check it out!