Developer Q&A Part 2

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 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.)

MMORPG.com SoM Preview

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.

Theme Park vs World

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.

Old Content Revamp Dev Diary

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

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.

Yesterday's WarCry Dev Chat Commentary

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!

The Golden Woods

I have a few more screenshots for you all today. I spent some time yesterday afternoon in Lothlorien, taking more shots of the beautiful scenery. And questing of course. Can't wait till I can actually get into Caras Galadhon, instead of just being able to look at it from the outside. And then seeing The Great River (Anduin) for the first time was a moment for me. Oh to actually see those waters flow through Osgiliath and into the harbor...

Caras Galadhon
Covered Bridge
Golden Woods 1
Golden Woods 2
Shores of the Anduin

Interview with Patience

The resident community manager over at LOTRO, Patience has to live up to her name on a daily, hourly, moment by moment basis. An unforgiving job and one which I don't think I could ever accomplish with as much enthusiasm as her. ZAM.com has an interview with her from the recent LOGIN Conference in Seattle, WA (Hey, that's home!). Anyhow, some nice talk about all three Turbine games, but I'd like to bring up a couple things said regarding LOTRO:

"We're working on making MyLOTRO, the new social network we created, much more connected to the outside world, so you can hook up your MyLOTRO page with, say, Twitter, and tweet whenever your character levels or you post a new blog entry."

I like the idea of connecting the players to the game outside of the game itself. This blog is a primitive (relatively speaking) means of doing just that and I wholeheartedly encourage innovation on this front. I like the idea of linking it with twitter and I'll be investigating that in regard to this blog. I already have a personal twitter account, but I'd love to make a Middle-Earth Adventurer twitter account to update with the blog as well as activities I complete in-game.

"Definitely, because you could do, for example, Rohan in an expansion - that's a huge area. Or Minas Tirith! That also brings up new mechanics you know, you'd have to ask "are we going to have mounted combat?" Well, when we go to Rohan, it makes sense. No promises, of course."

I didn't post the question, but you can get the gist of it here. The fact that she refers to Rohan as an example, despite the disclaimer at the end, really makes me think Rohan is the next expansion, especially with all the other information we're getting and where the current game is positioned. Mounted combat would be a really neat big mechanic to add - quite a draw for new and returning players.

"Later this year we go into Southern Mirkwood, to the city of Dol Guldur and we'll be increasing the level cap, which is big news for our level 60 players!"

Okay, I posted a little while back about a level cap increase outside of an expansion. Patience didn't say that here, but I actually give it more than a negligible chance of happening. We'll have to see.

All around good interview. The sushi gimmick was amusing.

Loth Shot

I've been doing some quests in Lothlorien recently. Taking it slow, enjoying the scenery. It's supposed to be a relaxing location, so why try and hurry and do all the quests? No, I'll bide my time and savor the moment. And there are some great moments in Lothlorien. Yeah, the distance impostors are borked, but it's still beautiful. Such as this night-time shot of the sky and the trees, one with a flet where Legolas and Gimli wait. And a short distance from where I was standing, so did Frodo and Sam. Good to see the gang have made it through Moria (like I didn't already know). These are the moments in the game I treasure the most, where suddenly Middle-Earth the world comes rushing back into overwhelm Middle-Earth the game. I live for these, when I can forget about grinding IXP or deeds, or even quests. The more I think about it, the more I believe I would have enjoyed a less structured Middle-Earth. But enough lamenting what did not happen. Celebrate the quality of what we do!

Emotional Impacts

As I'm thinking about the burn out period I'm currently in, I wonder if some of that has to do with the emotional impact of the game's world design. Being stuck in an enclosed space, especially when it's dark and dank can lead to severe psychological problems after a while. If Moria were a real "cave" and we as people spent months in that cave, I think we'd begin to feel a bit worn out. Us humans need sunlight to stay healthy. Perhaps part of the burn out is because the world is designed well enough to impart a bit of this type of impact on the players.

I know one of the biggest joys for me was seeing Middle-Earth come alive in the world design. When I'm in places like the Shire, I just feel happy. One of my favorite activities in the game is cooking in Michel Delving. It's arguable just as boring as running repeatable quests in Moria, but I find the activity much more pleasant, maybe as a result of my surroundings. Before Forochel, I felt burn out when questing in Angmar. Angmar is another dark place like Moria and I hated to be up there. Combine these dark places with more tedious and time consuming content and it's a double-whammy. I just don't want to do it. I just don't want to be there.

I think it's a testament to the world design team for creating a virtual environment that fills me with an emotion that actually affects my playing habits. And certainly not everybody experiences this. My personality is just particularly attuned to that sort of thing.

So, I'll try to make a point of hanging out in more pleasant locals from time to time. Hopefully that'll mitigate some of the frustration I've experienced as of late.

Dev Response

I posted in a forum thread the other day, thought I'd bring it up here. The discussion revolves around world building and the methods and motivations behind the direction world building has gone in the game. I'm very much interested in world building, as a writer, as a highly imaginative person, and many of my topics here reflect that. It's always a joy to get a direct developer response to one of your questions. So check out the thread, join the discussion, voice your opinion. I'll be collecting my thoughts over the next few days and put together something a little more concrete than this pointer post.

Living in Middle-Earth

I've posted a few times now about how LOTRO has begun to feel less and less like a world of Middle-Earth and more like a game as I become more focused on the consumption of content rather than the building of the world. In other words, the magic has worn off. That's to be expected. To reinvigorate the idea, there's a wonderful thread on the forums asking "If you could choose to live in Middle-Earth..." The question asks for where, what race, and what profession and/or class, putting in the context of the "real" Middle-Earth.

Myself, I'd be a man living in Minas Tirith, preferably after the War of the Ring and under Aragorn's benevolent rule. I'd like to be a librarian, historian, and scholar. Such a profession would probably present opportunity for travel as well.

Hero's Guide to Forochel

The next addition to the Hero's Guide series has been released today, this time covering Forochel. I thought they had already done one for Forochel, but apparently not. I always find these read pretty well, particularly this one. I think that's because Turbine had the opportunity to create a fair bit of lore themselves for Forochel, being barely referenced in the canon.

As to the zone itself, I found it to be a pleasant diversion from the sylvan landscape of much of the rest of Middle-Earth. Moria was a similar diversion, but more intense. Where I enjoyed the transition from ice and snow to green grass and back again, emerging into Lothlorien felt like I was once again alive. It's a testament to Turbine's design team and artists that their worlds can evoke emotional and sometimes physical responses in their players. Forochel is no exception - when I quest there I actually feel cold. Good place to go in the heat of the summer months. Do enjoy this extra lore on Forochel.

Moria Evaluation

Now that I've completed a good portion of the Moria content, I'd like to take the time to evaluate the zone.

First, I have to say the visuals are stunning. I've always been impressed by the art direction in this game and add that to a very robust graphical engine and we can see some amazing spaces. Moria is definitely one of them, really emphasizing vertical space. However, traversing the space vertically is actually not nearly as prevalent as many previews stated, and what I initially thought. There are certainly places where you have to go around some obstacle by finding a way to go up and over or down and under, but overall there is not a lot of this sort of thing as one sees more and more of Moria. There is also forced verticality. For example, the Chamber of Crossroads should be directly above the Waterworks (if you've ever jumped down the well in the Chamber you end up falling into the Waterworks). However, how it's located and built in the game engine is actually not above the Waterworks. I understand why they did this from a technology standpoint but it is jarring when you realize what's going on. Having your technological limitations and "cheats" so obvious doesn't help immersion.

The quests in Moria are abundant. I mean, there are a ton of quests, many stories, but the predominant theme is purging Moria of the orc infestation. There are some nice jewels of quests such as the riddle quest line which breaks up the usual "kill 10 orcs" but on the whole most of the quests are more of the same - a quest line that sends you back and forth to the same area two, three, or even four times to kill, gather, or otherwise run errands for your quest NPC. This isn't a criticism because a lot of games do exactly the same. There are a host of general blogs out there that deal with this issue. For the purpose of this discussion I will just say that we're seeing more of the same, albeit very well polished, particularly the quest text. Each NPC has a personality and a story behind why he's where he is, what he's doing, and oftentimes you'll get flavors of relationships to other quest givers. I try to immerse myself into the this lore side of the quests to mitigate the somewhat repetitive nature of the quest structure.

The six-man instances in Moria have garnered a lot of attention - mainly because a lot of them were broken and players could use exploits to complete them easier than intended. They're all finally fixed (I think) at this point but there's still a bit of grumbling about the amount of time it takes to run through all of these enough times to get the radiance gear drop. I once had a goal of getting the radiance gear but realizing that I'm not that into repeating content over and over again, decided to drop the goal. I do want to run these instances insofar as finishing the deeds and quests within them, however. My impressions with the instances are fairly slim given I've only run two of them and none all the way through. There's nothing that stood out to me in particular, good or bad. Like any group content, you get a good thrill from a successful run and burned out on failures. What I did run seemed well constructed and challenging. Overall, good content to delay people from finishing the content too fast but not necessarily fun after you begin farming them over and over for your gear.

Ultimately any zone is made or broken on how I subjectively feel about it's place in Middle-Earth by the time I'm done. Before seeing Moria, my impressions of the place was dark and predominantly empty. Coming out I feel like I've been in a wholly separate and living world. Both of these are accurate assessments - particularly since the Fellowship's passing has stirred up trouble in Moria. Over all the feel of a dwarven kingdom in ruin is there but can be easily lost in the mechanic of questing. The quests should support the lore and atmosphere, and while they do, I think there's almost a quest overload. Not the number of quests per se but rather the repetition of similar themes over and over again pushes the player to slowly begin to ignore the flavor of what they're doing. I remember most of the questlines in Eriador, particularly the beginning quests since I've done those multiple times, but once in Moria I seemed to hit a wall of information that didn't stick nearly as well as the stories outside. I sort of got brain melt with all of it.

Overall, Moria is a wonderful zone, full of quests and beautiful spaces. There's a host of activities to keep the player moving through the halls. Well designed but the fact that it is in an MMO versus Middle-Earth is hard to miss. I think that's true for a lot of this game, now that I've been playing for so long. It's increasingly hard to push me into the wonder of experiencing Middle-Earth versus the excitement of experiencing more of a game. The latter isn't bad, but the reason I came to LOTRO was the former. I essence, my reasons for playing have been tempered and changed. My feelings about more are a good example of this. I think at one point I would have been more in awe of experiencing the space - and that was there in the beginning, but now I find I'm more focused on experiencing the content.

Moria verdict - Well designed space. Tried and true mechanics.

What Zones?

Again it's back to the future world speculation post, this time inspired from a post at Kill Ten Rats. In this post Suzina speculates that we'll see 12 new zones by Christmas 2009 based off of what we see on the Rhovanion map. Before I get into what I think of the prediction I have to bring up something that has disturbed me from the first time I saw this map: It's oriented too far south. Take a look at this map of Middle-Earth. Rhovanion, based on the position and orientation of the name, implies that area extends all the way to the Lonely Mountain but not as far south as Mordor. Rohan might or might not be included. It's on the border.

Now, I understand why they chose to picture this farther south - in preparation for moving further with the fellowship, who doesn't go north. However, I'm bothered by the fact we're missing some of the far north areas of this region, which is mentioned in the Lord of the Rings in reference to Bilbo's previous journey. As such, I've always felt this map would be redone at some point to better reflect the region - to be more in line with the books. It certainly wouldn't be the first map that has been redone. Interestingly enough, the Shire map was re-done with the release of Moria and nearly all the other maps save Evendim and Forochel were reprocessed as well.

I don't agree with the argument that new zones can be inferred based on a map not being redone. However, based on the good chance that the new expansion will be Rohan, we can infer from that what we'll see - and it does line up fairly well with what we see on the map. Here's my take on the new zones to be seen in Rohan:

• Fangorn
• The Wold
• West Emnet (West Rohan)
• East Emnet (East Rohan)
• Emyn Muil
• Isengard

You'll notice I differ fairly strongly on a couple - notably the loss of Wilderland and the inclusion of Isengard. Why? Well, I discounted Wilderland because it's too far east. There's no reason to go way out there in the initial expansion. We might see an excursion similar to the one north into Evendim and Forochel back in Eriador but even then I'm wary. I also include Isengard because I'm not buying the argument about map redos. Evendim and Forochel weren't listed on Eriador's map before they became zones. Isengard can just as easily be listed and it would be a major oversight excluding the primary antagonist zone from a Rohan expansion. The only reason they might not include it is they didn't have enough time - like what happened to Lothlorien, and it'll be added to the following book update.

Dagorlad is missing because it figures more importantly in Return of the King material and Frodo and Sam head south after the Emyn Muil, not east. I also combine some of the zones mentioned in the Kill Ten Rats post because I think that my divisions are more in-line with the previous overland zone sizes. Moria zones are actually almost mini-zones within the overlarge zone of Moria. Basically, they're smaller than a normal overland zone and as such the 12 count doesn't need to be replicated in a Rohan expansion. The only advantage is one of marketing - keeping up the zone count is in a sense inflating the numbers to make them look good. I don't think it's necessary though. Not with the great publicity from Moria and Turbine's content record with this game so far.

So, Fangorn will include all the forest - at least the important parts. The Wold will be the link between Lothlorien and the rest of the expansion - like Eregion was for Moria. (I would like Fangorn to be accessible from Lothlorien, but I doubt it because the developers like to have greater control on content progression than I feel is necessary.) East and West Rohan is pretty self explanatory. The east will include the transition to Isengard as well as Helm's Deep and Edoras will be on the border between east and west. West will be the transition back to the Anduin, which is a nice eastern border. Emyn Muil will be a zone to shadow Frodo and Sam's journey. Back to Isengard - this could even be a smaller zone within East Rohan but I think it deserves its own treatment seperate from Rohan.

Even with 6 zones, this is probably more space than the Mines of Moria expansion gave us. I'm a little wary of speculating this much into the expansion but it makes sense from a world continuity and thematic perspective: all the zones are needed to inclued all the material Rohan would concern. And the beauty of all this is that either one of us may be right, or either one of us may be wrong. Time will tell.

Exploring Mazarbul

The Chamber of Mazarbul is an iconic location in Middle-Earth. Not only is this where the dwarves under Balin took their last stand from the unending tide of goblins, but the fellowship was nearly cornered in the very same place. The room is steeped in bloody history. Check out the Exploring Middle-Earth article to learn more.

Mountains Discussion Continued

So I was fairly accurate in my assessment of the reasons why we have what Scenario terms "valley-itis". However, I wasn't aware that in the beginning of LOTRO as a project, the technology of the game limited the zone transitions to choke-points rather than wide open movement. The technology has evolved to where we can see things like the Weather Hills in Breeland becoming passable, the ability to travel to the North Downs via the big lake in Breeland, etc. I'd like to see more however the caveat brought up by Scenario is one of content control. That is, choke points offer more control over what content the players experience when first entering a new zone. A valid point, however I'd like to offer a counter point:

Is it necessary to control the content experience that much? We're certainly playing in a content heavy PvE environment, but one of my most memorable and lasting experiences was running into elites trolls considerably higher level than me when going through one of these wide open zone borders (Breeland/North Downs). I certainly wasn't turned off by the encounter. On the contrary, I found I had a new goal. Level myself up properly so I can finally explore that area I knew existed but was too dangerous. This type of zone transition was new and fluid content in and of itself - it was self-created and highly invested into the player. I look at it this way: the quests are content I invest in because I take it from the game into myself. The goal I set above is content I take from myself and put into the game. And yet it all stems from how the world is designed. Both are good, but the latter is lacking in quantity.

Content gated by being too-low-level is just as formidable and solid as impassible terrain. Add in the fact that there are vector quests readily available and easily found to guide you through this boundary and you have a much more personal connection to the game and world around you. It is in human nature to rebel against "artificial" boundaries. A scenario like my experience above seems much more spontaneous and integrated - much more a part of my journey rather than a certain quest's journey. I think the intangible quality I'm dancing around here could be termed adventure. It is the adventure of discovering the boundaries rather than simply seeing them in front of you that compells one to move past them.

I certainly understand why the world is built in the manner it is and that the work to undo that now would be counter-productive to moving forward, but most MMOs revisit old content at some point. That would be the time to consider altering the landscape to be more conducive to the "adventure" talk about.

Mountains, Mountains... Not a Rock to Climb

A frequent criticism visited on LOTRO, particularly by old school MMO players, is that LOTRO has a lot of mountains that aren't climbable. Furthermore, these mountains create a "fishbowl" type atmosphere where we're always stuck in valleys and we cannot get out of our little "aquarium".

Is this a valid criticism? Partly, but let's look at it. There is no denying that the zones use mountains/impassible terrain as a means of bounding the zones. And often times it does feel like we're in valleys all the time. On the surface, these arguments are perfectly valid because they're true. However, we should look at why there are mountains, mountains everywhere and not one is climbable.

First we have to understand from which direction this game came from. LOTRO is not starting out with an MMO and building a world around it. Rather, it's the opposite. Turbine started with a world - Tolkien's Middle-Earth, and built an MMO around it. The nature of MMO world building is different from that of a normal world - which is how Tolkien tried to build Middle-Earth.

Let's look at a few maps to illustrate my point:

• World of WarCraft
• Everquest
• Asheron's Call
• Middle-Earth

What are some of the commonalities between all these maps? Well, the most obvious one is that the three game maps are pretty much comprised of large islands versus the continent seen in Middle-Earth. The nature of the island-like game worlds is that they don't require as much time create - that is, the can be created all at once and the ocean offers a very normal, natural, and non-confining boundary. Middle-Earth, however, is much larger. It is a world, rather than an island. Each game has zones, but the zones in middle-earth are bounded by land, rather than water and all that land isn't built yet. So, there has to be some way to keep the players within the playable space without breaking immersion with an invisible wall and nondescript landscape beyond. Mountains offer the greatest ability to do so, particularly non-climbable mountains. Climbing the mountains would defeat their purpose.

Basically, we have a necessary evil in our non-scalable mountains. Because the world isn't bounded by oceans - because it was built from an already existing world not designed around MMO principles, we have to compromise.

Another item of note is the linear nature to the zone progression. Not in leveling (although that exists to a degree), but rather in physical placement. Lord of the Rings is a story about a journey across the continent - in one direction. Taking that as the main focus of the MMO story forced a straight-line approach for the most part in the zone creation. As such, there is only one place in the game where we see zones adjacent to each other in more than one direction: Evendim, The Shire, Breeland, Northdowns square. Largely these zones are seamless (less so with Evendim) and that would be the standard should additional adjacent zones be built.

Between these two issues, we have a more closed-in feeling in LOTRO. And for me, understanding this doesn't alleviate my desire to see a more expansive world than our linear travel pattern we have now. But I've got to accept what is now with the hope of more in the future. It's not like the current development is not quality work.

Lastly, I think the Google Maps type map over at Arda-Online offers the best example of what we see in the game.

EDIT: This post was inspired by a topic on the forums which was just today commented on by Scenario.

Exploring Chetwood

The Exploring Middle-Earth articles aren't nearly as comprehensive as the Hero's Guides but if you can't get enough of this game, I guess these will whet your appetite. The latest is looking at the Chetwood.