The future is bright for MMO enthusiasts...time for sunglasses?

At least among MMOs I follow, a lot of exciting stuff is coming down the pipe or has recently arrived. I am a bit sad that Everquest Online Adventures is closing down at the end of the month (I have a retrospective on it planned), it's where the namesake of this blog lived after all. However, given that I couldn't even log on the last time I tried, [Edit: I was able to get on for the last week, and the website has been fixed] he closing is not much of a loss to me personally. Apart from that, there has been a lot of good news. In no particular order, here are some of games I am currently following:

Everquest: EQ recently went free to play. Really long time readers (there must be at least none), might recall that I wasn't really a huge fan of EQ back in the day. EQ is not a game I'd ever consider subbing to. But would I log in for free to beat down some Kobolds in the Steamfront Mountains for old time's sake? Oh yeah, you bet. Although word on the street is that the newbie experience on Vox isn't quite ready for prime time yet, I do plan to stick my head in and see what's changed in EQ soon.

Lord of the Rings Online: a lot of neat new stuff has come to LoTRO as of the last patch. Monster play got some tweaks that I'm looking forward to trying out. Notably Weavers got some buffs. It's a class I've always been meaning to try. How many other MMOs let you play a giant spider? You can also now summon your skirmish soldiers nearly anywhere. It's a neat idea, but unless you happen to have spent enough time skirmishing to have a soldier near your level it's pretty useless (Syp has a great post about this issue).

However, far and away the biggest addition is the The Great River. It's a new adventuring area roughly the size of Mirkwood that all subscribers and lifers get for free. I have yet to set foot in it, but previews of it look fantastic. I intend to hit the level cap on my main there in the next few weeks.

Star Wars the Old Republic: I am still enjoying the heck out of it. I hit level 50 on a Bounty Hunter a couple of weeks ago. Without going into spoilers, his story ended on more of an "ok, cool I guess" than a bang (the real climax of the BH storyline comes roughly half way through, imo). But I've had a lot of fun finishing out the storylines of all of my companions since then.

As for the end game, I barely touched it. Instead I started over on a new server with a new class. Though the storyline isn't blowing my mind, the Sith Assassin is simply a joy to play. Stunning a NPC with lightning, to then step behind and backstab them with your double bladed lightsaber (often a deathblow) just doesn't get old. Being able to sneak around NPCs I don't feel like screwing with on the way to a quest objective is also awesome. Finally, the ability to switch between a tanking or DPS stance as the situation warrants is quite handy. It's rapidly closing on the LoTRO Hunter as one of the most fun classes I've played in a MMO.

Oh yeah, and 1.2 is coming in the next few weeks. There's a lot of stuff in there.

Guild Wars 2: with GW2, ArenaNet promises the sun, the moon, and the stars...and all some time this year. A full featured sub style MMO that has no sub fee! Also promised are innovations (compared to WoW/ LoTRO/ Rift/ SWToR) in almost every area from questing to character development. From all I have read, it looks to be a hopeful monster among modern MMOs. If the game delivers on only half of what ArenaNet plans, it will still be one of the best MMOs ever released. I can't wait to try it out.

Secret World: also coming out some time this year is Secret World. I know jack all about the gameplay, but holy cow that setting seems awesome. Hell, look at this video. That is one of the most boring presentations I've ever seen, and my big take home from it is still "Holy f-ing cow, I want to play that!" [Also "Holy f-ing cow, I want that cop to stop talking" at about five minutes in]. Funcom is known for craptastic launches. However, Funcom is also known for recovering well from crappy launches. My guess is that two or three months after it launches, Secret World will be one of the best MMOs on the market.

From where I stand, this is a great time to be a MMO enthusiast. I leave you with the obvious pop reference.*



*Geez, I really don't remember that video being so odd.

LOTRO: the latest developments

Lot's of new content coming down the pipe:

Massively just posted a story that has a ton of interesting LoTRO news. The next full expansion will be called the Riders of Rohan. It will include mounted combat and raise the level cap to 85. Not very surprising so far, we all pretty much knew this was coming. However two items did come as a bit of a surprise: (1) players will gain the ability to use skirmish soldiers as companions while out questing, and (2) eastern Rohan is going to be bigger than Moria. On companions, I've become a big fan of full NPC companions both in DDO and now SWTOR. Leveraging the current companion system to add this feature to LoTRO makes sense, and should be a lot of fun. However, I also have to wonder how well it will work in a game that is largely already tuned for soloers. On the size of the coming expansion, Moria is a really big place. If the first Rohan expansion really is bigger it will be a heck of a lot of new real estate.

In the mean time, Turbine is on the verge of rolling out a new adventuring zone, the River Anduin. That's good news for me because I somehow managed to run out of fresh solo content half way through the last level on my main in LoTRO. I could finish the level doing daily quests, but if a whole new area is coming down the pipe I'd just assume wait a bit and hit the cap there. More generally, Turbine claims that they are shifting to a model of more frequent and smaller content updates, ala DDO or Asheron's Call. I personally would certainly prefer that to the current model where we get a couple of months worth of content every year or so.

The Turbine Store and the State of Crafting in LoTRO

I've also been meaning to comment on the fact that Turbine recently started selling armor in their item shop. Based on comments in this thread on the official forums I had assumed that it wasn't as good as gear you can craft, so it was really no big deal. However, based a comments on this post over at Bullet Points, over the weekend I logged in to check out the items in the shop and compared it to what I can craft on a maxed out Tailor. What I did not realize at first is that the gear in the item shop is for very low level characters.

The tier III item shop armor can be equipped by level 20 characters. Even critting one shot recipes, there is no way a tailor can make gear that good for a level 20 character. They can make gear that is on par, but not quite as good, for a level 22 character of any given class (keeping in mind that AC doesn't matter much at those levels). To get into crafted gear that is solidly better you are looking at critted gear for characters in their late 20s or early 30s.

While I'm not going to go on a wild rant about it, I have to say this has a several implications I don't like. First off, this is exactly what Turbine said they wouldn't do when FtP was first announced. If this gear sells well, expect to see sets for higher level characters in short order. Further, the fact that the gear is arguably superior to anything that can be crafted for characters of those levels is yet another sign that Turbine just doesn't care very much about crafters.

Crafted items for characters over level 50 have been marginal since Mines of Moria launched. With this latest move, Turbine seems to be signalling that crafters soon may not be the best source of 1-50 gear either. That said, even for 1-20 crafted items it's not yet the Apocalypse. The store sets only include a chest, legs, and boots. You still have to get gloves, shoulders, and helmets someplace, and crafters still make the best ones (barring the occasional epic from a group quest). However, there doesn't seem to be much stopping Turbine from putting full armor sets in the item shop if these new limited sets prove popular.

Edit (update): at some point today Turbine made an official post about the item shop armor issue. Apparently reactions have been stronger than they anticipated . . .

LoTRO News Tidbits

A lot of little news tidbits have been piling up around Lord of the Rings Online lately. First off, the next expansion has been announced, the Rise of Isengard. Ardwulf posted a preview video on his site earlier today. Details include a level cap increase and a major revamp of monster play, including a new PvMP zone. My experiences with monster play in LoTRO have always been a lot of fun, I'm glad to see it getting some attention after all this time. I also can't wait to see Isenguard and Orthanc.

In other news that I can't believe I missed, back in September it was announced that Radiance is going to be removed from LoTRO. All I can really say about this is "thank god." The radiance system single handedly made high end crafted gear and the gear you can earn doing PvP useless for end game activities. Not because the stats on Radience gear are really all that much better than other gear that's available, simply because they have a "radiance" stat that is needed for end game instances. The entire radiance system struck me as a baldfaced attempt to stretch the limited endgame content of launch Moria. Presumably due to the addition of scaling instances, such system is no longer needed in current LoTRO. Endgame options now abound.

Finally, the upcoming Yule festival activities are generating some controversy. An entire new town is being added just for the event, which I am very much looking forward to. The contoversy has arisen because it is possible to complete the main quest chain either via normal heroic options (feed the homeless, give money to the poor, ect.) or by being a complete bastard (e.g., destroying a man's source of income and then stealing from him). Some players that have tested the content on Bullroarer feel a quest chain which rewards you for being a selfish jerk is out of place in LoTRO.

I have mixed feelings about it from what I've read. The option to act like an evil bastard certainly goes against the feel of the rest of LoTRO. However, I think that choosing to solve a problem through kindness doesn't mean as much if you don't also have the option of being a selfish jerk. Being a hero isn't nearly as heroic if it's your only choice.

Edit (Update): Blue Kae and Syp also have posts up about Rise of Isenguard, and Massively published a story with many details not mentioned in Turbine's press release. One thing that really stuck out is the mention that the Legendary Item system is also being revamped to make it less random and focus more on player choice. While I am delighted that the system is getting a revamp, I have to say that it's about freaking time they did something with it. The current LI system is more like a really grindy take on roulette than what I envisioned when legendary weapons were first announced pre-Moria.

News from LoTRO

I finally got around to trying the new glory system in LoTRO, and I have to say I think it's brilliant. "Glory" refers to a massive buff that you now get when you attempt to solo epic quests meant for a full party. These quests are some of the best content in the game, and a lot of players that aren't in big kinships simply aren't able to get PuGs going for them these days. Turbines' solution is to give players the stats of a raid boss when they try an instance solo. In the first instance I tried with my 65 hunter, she went up to over 20K morale and was hitting for over 1000 damage per shot. My qualm with the system, was that I figured that it would force everyone to either get a full party together or solo all their epic quests. Thus, it would become even harder to find a group if you wanted to, since most players would opt for solo.

What I did not realize is that the glory bonus scales to larger parties. It is now possible to solo, two man, or three man the epic quest chains. The more players you bring, the less of a glory bonus everyone gets. However, the advantage of having another player along more than outweighs the reduction in your glory bonus. I two manned several quests with a member of my KS, and it was a lot of fun. All in all, I think that glory is a great system.

In other news, PvP is still happening in LoTRO (at least on my server) more than a year after Turbine made it almost utterly pointless for freeps to engage in it. Last night was our weekly Kinship night, and the players that showed up were too spread out in levels for us to organize anything. Someone had the bright idea to roll wargs on the moors and quest there. We ended up with a full party of freshly minted wargs, and headed out to see what we could do. There were several quest chains to kill hobbits for their limbs, which was pretty fun in a demented way. However, the big surprise is that there was a full freep raid out there trying to take keeps and a full creep raid harrying them.

Rather than join the main raid, we decided to hang at the edge of the battle and pick off stragglers, as well as use stealth to disrupt their keep boss attempts. Several times we popped out of sleath in the middle of a boss fight and disrupted their healers and crowd control just enough for the boss they were fighting to murder everyone. We also suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a hunter/ burgler pair. We later managed to take them both down, but being two manned the first time we came upon them was pretty embarrassing. Live and learn (hint: take down the hunter first!) It was a lot of fun, and not of the type I normally associate with LoTRO. There is really almost no incentive to PvP in LoTRO these days, I was honestly surprised we were able to find so much action.

Age of Conan versus LoTRO as an Homage

There are a lot of areas of Lord of the Rings Online that really perfectly evoke the feel of the books. If you are remotely familiar with the books, this scene of the Shire at night will look familar:


And of course this image of three stone trolls you will recognize if you have read the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings recently:



Complete with bird nest in the right place if you go back and read the precise description from the Fellowship of the Ring. Even this image from Foreschel looks straight out of the books if you are anal enough to be familiar with the appendices (notice the guy moving over the ice on blades of bone):




There are certainly some elements that stick out like a sore thumb. My hobbit on a goat seems more than a bit out of place:




And this scene of my Runekeeper smiting the hell out of a Dour hand nearly breaks the lore over it's knee:


However, all in all, most of what you will find in LoTRO seems like a perfectly valid extrapolation from the books. Very few of the details of a given zone occur anywhere in the books, but they generally feel as if they could have if Tolkien was given time to write more. While still remaining a compelling game, I think that LoTRO does about as good a job with the source material as you could expect.

At first glance, Age of Conan doesn't evoke it's source material as strongly as LoTRO. I have yet to visit a location I recognize from the Howard stories. For example, I sure as heck don't remember this place (as pretty as it is):



However, I think that's an unfair comparison for several reasons, not the least of which is the difference in the writing style of Tolkien and Howard. It's easy to figure out what to make a lot of the settings in LoTRO look like because Tolkien describes them in such detail that you'd think he was working from a set of blueprints or terrain maps. Howard, on the other hand, rarely has much patience for describing nitpicky details of his settings. The places he describes are meant largely to evoke a mood and provide a set piece for some action.



So what are we left with? Does AoC evoke the mood of the Howard stories effectively? Yes, largely I'd say. The combat is fast paced, and some of the crit animations are quite gory. This is in good keeping with the source material; Conan tends to send limbs, heads, and intestines flying around all over the place wherever he goes. If anything the game is tame compared to the books. And Howard spends as much time describing the action as anything else.

Further, even though we might not recognize many (or any) of the locations, they all look like they could have come from one of Howard's stories. This early view of Tortage certainly looks like it could have been from one of his stories to me:


The the game elements I've encountered so far are also mostly logical seeming extrapolations from the Howard short stories. Sure, there are a few glaring exceptions. Some of the casting classes feel almost as out of place in AoC as they do in LoTRO. For example, while there are certainly beings with amazing magical abilities in the Conan stories, you just don't see large numbers of (or any that I recall) fire spouting were-demons wielding giant two handed swords. Here's my Herald of Xotli "hulking out:"


While I can imagine that such beings existed in Howard's world, it's odd to see them as common as merchants and beggars.

Despite this and other quibbles, the Hyborian Age is overall a lot less restrained setting than Middle Earth and the developers can get away with more. And, to reiterate, all of the locations I've explored so far seem as if they would be right at home in one of Howard's short stories. All in all, I'd say it's an MMO literary homage right up there with LoTRO. It remains to be seen whether rumored MMOs based on harry Potter and other literary IPs can meet the bar that has been set by the first two big ones.

Mirkwood

This just in: Mirkwood is a lot of fun.

Maybe it's simply a relief to have a normal outdoor questing zone after spending a year in Moria and Lothlorian. Moria was an amazingly well realized dungeon environment, but it was also oppressive and at times stressful to level in. Lothlorian had to be the most anti-climatic final zone I have ever seen in an MMO. You spend weeks struggling through challenges of epic proportions, only to be told that you need to spend a few evenings cleaning up orc filth before you can be trusted to even set foot in Lothlorian. Once in Lothlorian proper, exciting tasks like picking grapes and meditating await. The 1-60 game ended on more of a whimper than a bang for anyone that wasn't a raider.

Mirkwood addresses this issue pretty well. Now, after spending some time recovering from Moria in Lothlorian, you have a new final high level zone to move on to. The quest chains you need to get through to enter Mirkwood are combat heavy and fairly challenging. You'll want to get into a PuG for them if at all possible. There is also a steady stream of NPC elves coming along to help you fight in most spots. This simple device makes you feel like you really are part of an invasion force, rather than some lone chump that does all the work while NPCs laze about in camp and come up with new missions for you. So far, Mirkwood is a much more satisfying cap to LoTRO than Lothlorian was.

A few of quick hits

No, really it isn't in my imagination. The free content additions since Mines of Moria launched have been positively meager compared to what we got during the first year of LoTRO.

Dana Massey over at mmorpg.com posted an opinion piece listing what he considers to be the top ten pre-WoW MMOs. I agree with most of his choices, though including Vanguard seems a bit questionable and I'm surprised Champions Online didn't make the cut. However, what I most enjoyed was the predicatable trainwreck of fanboy chimpanzee screeches and poo throwing that follows the piece. "WTF where is AoC!" "WTH is LoTRO doing on that list, everyone knows it's teh suxxors!" "Who the hell plays Club Pengiun?" ect. It's hard to believe how much I used to hang out there.

Finally, 1up has posted their review of Aion. The reviewer never got to the PvP endgame, which seems like a pretty important omission since the endgame is supposed to be one of the major selling points. However, I have to agree with his closing statement. If the game is so bland that he completely stalled out in the mid levels, he shouldn't be recommending it. The review addresses what I really want to know "Would I enjoy Aion enough to really explore it?" Based on the frequent content gaps he describes, probably not. Whether or not a MMO has a cool end game doesn't matter to me one bit if the leveling game stinks. I don't care if the endgame consists of Swedish models coming to my house to warm my bed and make me pancakes. If I'm not having fun a few hours into an MMO, it's leaving my hard drive. Plus the models might tick off my significant other . . .

The state of PvP in LoTRO

This post over at Mike Darga's got me thinking about the PvP system in Lord of the Rings Online. As far I know, the PvMP system used in LoTRO is unique among MMOs. The bulk of LoTRO is a rich PvE game that contains no PvP apart from dueling. One zone, the Etinmoors, is devoted to PvP. There you can enter and play as one of your regular characters, a freep (free peoples...i.e., a normal character) or you can play as a creep (i.e., a monster player). A creep is a character that cannot leave the moors, and exists solely to oppose the freeps.

There are six creep classes, some of them very odd classes like "giant evil spider" and "stealthy wolf [worg]" that have no real analogues in other MMOs that I am aware of. The creep classes start at level 60, but weak 60s. They can eventually grow to be as powerful as a decently geared 60 freep, but only through PvP. To advance their abilities to the highest ranks, they have to kill human controlled opponents. Because of this, if you are playing creep side LoTRO is one of the more hardcore PvP games on the market.

In addition, the PvP in LoTRO is set up Realm vs Realm style. By that I mean it's modeled after Dark Age of Camelot. There are keeps to take over, whoever controls the most keeps gains advantages. The most important potential advantage to holding keeps is access to a raid dungeon in the zone. From a freep perspective, this means they can take down bosses to get rare gear. From a creep perspective, this means they can take down bosses to earn abilities that are otherwise unavailable. Also, like DAoC, there is no limit to how many players can log on a given side, which means that often the outcomes of battles are determined largely by how many players show up to a given fight. In my mind it makes fights in the 'moors a lot more realistic and varied than battle ground style PvP matchups ala WoW or scenarios in WAR.

It also opens up advanced strategies, such as having a small force serve as a distraction while the main force takes a keep or other objective. That's certainly not a dynamic you'll commonly find outside of MMOs that specialize in PvP. It's like a casual version of the PvP you'll find in serious PvP MMOs like WAR, DAoC, or EVE. I certainly don't have the patience to play something like Darkfall where deep PvP is the primary experience on offer. However, I thought it was great that a deep PvP experience was offered as a side game in LoTRO. I also thought it was pretty neat that there were six creep classes that are only available if you decide to PvP.

That is why it pains me that Turbine has seemingly stabbed their PvP game in the back and left it to bleed to death on the side of the road. For PvP to be fun from a creep perspective, a lot of freeps need to be out on the 'moors. Unfortunately, as it stands currently, a freep would have to be next to insane to engage in PvP for the primary reward.... gear. The PvP gear you can earn in the 'moors is the hardest set of level 60 gear to earn in the game by a wide margin. It takes hundreds of hours of killing out in the 'moors to get the full set. It is also the worst endgame gear for a 60 by an equally wide margin. The stats pale before even crafted gear, much less the gear you can get from Moria 6 mans. And the set has 0 radiance, making it well and truly useless for any serious end game content.

So why did Turbine do this? I suspect strongly that they are trying to consolidate their audience. LoTRO is arguably among the best PvE MMOs currently on the market. PvP was never anything more than an entertaining side game in LoTRO. Even in my kinship founded by hardcore PvP fans, PvPers were less that a quarter of our members. Development resources are limited. Do you devote 100% to your core strengths and try to become a market leader in that area, or dilute your resources on a side game to try and keep an additional small subset of your users barely happy? Turbine has seemingly made their choice.

Thoughts on the Seige of Mirkwood

The next major LoTRO expansion is going to be download only, and it will cost $19.99. You can find a full feature list here, in the official announcement. Major features include:

1. Five new levels, and new traits to accompany them. I really don't care much one way or another about the five levels, but new traits would be welcome. I liked the revamp of the trait system in MoM, but most of the new legendary traits seemed mediocre to me. Certainly not worth the insane rep grind you had to go through to get them for the most part. Hopefully the expansion will improve this situation.

2. A new skirmish system (more details here). A series of encounters that scale to party size, from 1 to 12 man. Anyone missing from your party is replaced by NPCs. As you complete skirmishes, you get "skirmish points" that are used to develop a stable of NPCs that you can use to solo or small party ever more challenging skirmishes. A really interesting system , that once again shows that Turbine is not afraid to experiment. The monster play system, the legendary item system, and now this are like nothing else I've encountered in MMO space. Whether it will ultimately prove to be any fun or not, who can say. But I'm definitely intrigued.

3. A revamp of the legendary item system, and a way to earn new slots for your items. All I can say is thank god.

4. A new 12 man raid. Assuming it weren't radiance gated, I'd be quite happy about it. However, as it likely will be this content is irrelevant to me.


There is a lot of wild speculation flying around right now, including that the expansion is a stealthy a way to ditch the radiance system before the next boxed expansion comes out (wishful thinking imo), and that it's an excuse to push out a major revamp of the legendary item system (well, since they say that in their press release...sure..seems likely).

There has also been a lot of complaining by some players that this doesn't seem like something we ought to pay for, and that we haven't gotten nearly as many free content upgrades post MoM as we got in the first year after launch. In terms of free upgrades, I'm sorry to say the whiners do have a point. Let me break it down:

New Geography: Last year we got Evindim, Foreschel, Goblin Town, and a big hunks of the Trollshaws and the Misty Mountains for free. This year we got Lothlorian, which we were originally expecting in launch MoM.

Instances: Last year we got the Rift (a 12 man raid) and numerous 6 mans for free. This year we got a 12 man raid, and two mini raids, as well as 3 mans and solo instances. Altogether I'd say that both years were about even on instances. The big difference is the focus on solo and 3 man content post MoM versus 6 man and up content pre-MoM.

PvMP: Last year we got several major revamps of the Etinmoors, a new monster class, and a Darkness Falls style PvP dungeon. This year we got nothing whatsoever for PvMP. Instead, the freep PvMP gear was rendered utterly obsolete by MoM. This glaring oversight was never addressed or even acknowledged by the devs. They murdered and abandoned one of the core pre-MoM systems.

New Systems: last year we got several upgrades to the music system, an appearance slot system, a housing system, a faction system, and chicken play. This year we got absolutely nothing I can think of.

So what do I make make of all this? Honestly, it's not as gloomy as I just made it sound. Obviously LoTRO has a smaller dev team and a smaller budget for updates than it did last year. The pace and quality of the free content that we have gotten since MoM launched pretty much proves that. I also agree with the whiners to some degree, LoTRO certainly has been much less of a value this year than it was last year.

Even given that, I'd say it's still one of the best values among MMOs if you enjoy solo and small party PvE content. The digital expansion that was announced sounds larger than anything we have gotten for free in the past. And in my mind $19.99 sounds like about the right price. I'll withhold judgment until more details emerge, but the sky seems firmly in place from where I stand.

Edit: If you would like to read more about the expansion, Middle Earth Adventurer has a a great post with comments on details I didn't mention as well as links to reactions from the blogosphere.

A-teams, live teams, and LoTRO

In the comments to a post over at Kill Ten Rats, Psychochild linked this article at Elder Game. It's a great read, and I think it yields some insight into what we are seeing in LoTRO right now.

There has been a noticeable shift in design philosophy in LoTRO since MoM launched. The most visible culprit being the radiance system. There have also been a lot of odd experiments, some of which worked out well (e.g., letting designers from DDO create new three man instances that feature puzzles) and some of which frankly haven’t (e.g., the first iteration of the Lothlorian gift box system). We are also seeing a lot more bugs creep into patches than we are used too. Finally, we know that Turbine has gotten a lot of outside funding for one or two “secret projects” that they are going full steam ahead on.

All of these observations indicate that a new team is likely in charge of LoTRO these days, and that the "A team" that designed it is off doing something else. It's also very likely that some of the more experienced "live team" devs from DDO have been been brought over to try and take up slack from the departure of the A team. As an aside, the major revamp of DDO that is underway also implies that fresh blood is likely in charge of that product these days.

I don't see the fact that a new team is running the show as a bad thing in of itself. It does mean that we are likely going to continue to see surprising design decisions come down the pipe, as well as slightly buggier patches than we got in the SoA days. However, bugs in patches don't bother me as long as they get fixed quickly. And surprises can be good or bad.

The endgame of LoTRO considered as a stable limit-cycle (or potentially as an open relationship)

This post by Green Armadillo and this one by Unwize got me thinking about the end game grind in LoTRO, and MMOs in general. LoTRO certainly has some pretty baldfaced grinds, the entire LI system probably being the worst culprit currently. However virtually all non-PvP focused MMOs become grindy once you hit the cap. It's the nature of content that's designed to be repeatable.

To me the question is "do I have a wide enough variety of grinds to pick from that I can be entertained." Or put differently, is the end game structured so that I can make real progress by dabbling in a lot of different activities, and perhaps getting serious about one or two things I happen to really enjoy.

In the majority of PvE focused MMOs that has not been true for me. That certainly was not true of WoW. Both times I hit the cap there (once at 60, once at 70) the game fell flat on it's face for me and I ended up quitting. Repeating a raid dozens of times so that I can gear up and move on the the next one just isn't my idea of a good time. I didn't like that in EQ, I left when they tried to force that on us in DAoC, and I hated it in WoW (though 11 million players would presumably beg to differ).

LoTRO in the SoA era had a very good endgame to my tastes. There were so many useful activities to dip my toes into that I doubt I saw more than half of the endgame instances. These days not so much. The endgame is currently too contracted compared to what we had before, at least to my tastes. I suspect that the more grindy mechanics that have been added recently (e.g, the LI system and the Lothlorian gift box system) were intended to disguise this fact and distract us while Turbine broadens out the endgame to where it was before. The next major update will go a long way towards this by adding our first true raid and boosting some of the crafting professions. However, this makes me wonder if we are seeing a cycle of expansions and contractions that is going to repeat itself in the game.

In launch LoTRO there wasn't much of an end game. I think Helgorod or maxing your traits/ crafting were about all there was to do. PvMP didn't even reward gear sets back then as I recall. Superhardcore players that hit the cap pre-Rift left in droves. When I hit the cap, on the other hand (right before goblin town launched) there was a ton of stuff to do. Turbine continued to add to that at such a pace that I never even got around to a lot of the end game content before Moria launched. I was thoroughly entertained.

I think we are now seeing a similar process. With the luanch of MoM Turbine contracted their end game considerably. It's certainly nowhere near as bad as it was near launch. However, there isn't really enough available that I can consistently find something fun to to on my main when I log. I've already mostly burned out on the solo activities that I enjoy. I mainly log on to help other players out and work on alts these days. Turbine has been slowly but surely expanding the endgame, and I fully expect it to be as engaging as it once was by the end of the summer. However a few months after that the endgame will contract again when the level cap is raised.

If this turns out to be a standard cycle in LoTRO, I won't be weeping about it. I have a lifetime sub so I don't mind backing off for a while to wait for new content to be patched in. It actually suits my gaming style well. I have a stable KS that I really enjoy in LoTRO, and I can dabble in other MMOs without being punished for it by paying 15 dollars for a game I'm not logging into much. In a way it's great to have an MMO that doesn't mind if you to cheat on it.

Radiance Gear in LoTRO

This week there are two posts about the radiance system in LoTRO I'd like to highlight. This post by Unwise lays out pretty clearly most of the issues I have with it. This counterpoint post by Middle Earth Adventurer points out that Turbine will likely lessen the requirements for content as time goes on, and that casual players will get to see everything eventually. He is likely correct in that, and adding radiance gear that you can get in three man dungeons will make it fairly easy for even casual players to get up to 40 effective radiance. However, that still doesn't address my main gripe with the radiance system. It marginalizes crafted gear and the gear that your can get doing PvP.

In pre-MoM LoTRO, you could gear up for the Rift doing whatever you enjoyed whether it was standing in the woods farming thousands of hides from wargs (i.e., crafting), bashing creeps in the moors, or running instances. I'm very happy to see the variety of instances that radiance gear drops from being increased. It's a great change. But we are still forced to run instances repeatedly to gear up for the final raid in the game. I like to beat an instance once or twice to see it. I don't enjoy farming them for drops.

For me gearing up through crafting and then going through the Rift a couple of times to see it was perfect. I didn't even roll on drops my second time through, I never had any intention of running it enough to get geared. I liked that I could focus my major efforts on what I enjoyed (tailoring), and still get to dabble in the rest of the content. That simply isn't going to be possible with the new 12 man raid we are getting in Book 8.

In others news, as I am starting to sound like a broken record on this issue, I think this will be my last post on it for a while :-)

Book 8

The book 8 patch notes are finally live. You can read them all here. Below are the things that stick out in my mind.

Class balance changes: Runekeepers, and Minstrels to a lesser extent, are getting a damage nerf. Blackarrow DoTs will now be curable. Champions will get healed for less when in their highest damage stance.

Thoughts: The first two changes were needed. No-one should be able to out DPS a hunter on single targets, that is their primary class role. And Blackarrows apparently have been insanely overpowered since the last patch.

The Champion change is puzzling. No sane champion would use their high damage stance when trying to tank. All of your active defenses go to zero, and high AC is not nearly enough to make up for that in my experience. Even as an offtank, if you are in a situation where you are expecting to need frequent heals...again you aren't going to use your highest damage stance. You'll go for the middling one or for full defenses. This change ultimately makes little difference to the class, and I am not sure why Turbine thought it was necessary.

Lothlorian gift box changes: low end rewards have been removed, you will be guaranteed at least a rune worth 250K weapon XP. The possibility of first age weapons has also been removed. Instead, the chances of getting a second age have been improved. However, second ages that you get will randomly be 58, 59, or 60. The cost for gift boxes has also been reduce by nearly 40%.

Thoughts: The odds of getting a first or second age weapon out the boxes is so low that there is little reason to even try it in the current game. The low end rewards that you can get are also so bad that they might as well be coal. This sounds like a good change. However, until this goes live it remains to be seen whether the entire Lothlorian gift box system is worth messing with. If the chances of getting a 2nd age legendary are still only 5% or so, I'd say it's still not worth it.

Crafting Revamp: all optional items will now tell you what crafts use them in the description. Optional items will only drop off of humanoids and crafting nodes. Teir VI crafted armor is getting stat boosts.

Thoughts: Being able to tell what a crit item is used for by reading the description is absolutely a needed change. Most of these items currently only say "this item can be used by crafters." I have high level crafters in most of the professions, and half of the time I haven't got the foggiest idea which character to send a given crit item to. I absolutely applaud this change.

The change in drop patterns of crit items honestly bothers me. One of the things I enjoy about the current game is that if you want certain crit items, you have to head out and farm specific mobs. I think it's great that crit items are now available from resource nodes. However, I don't think it's so great that humanoids are the only mobs that will drop crit items now, and that they will drop all of them. It seems like some of the depth of the game has been diminished.

Finally, the stat boost on crafted tier VI armor. As you might surmise if you have read any of my past posts, I feel that this is absolutely a needed change. The current tier VI armor is actually so bad that if you have the best crafted tier V armor there is no reason to upgrade. Even the best guild tier VI armor is barely better than the best tier V armor. As it stands currently, a maxed out tailor can make a few good cloaks and a maxed out metalsmith can mainly make tools. Other than that neither profession makes any gear at all that most characters would care about. I am very glad to see Turbine addressing this. If the new recipes are on par with the normal mode coin drop gear, I'll be happy as a clam.

Now if only Turbine would revisit the PvP gear, we might have an end game as good as what we had 6 months ago.

The many helmets of LoTRO

Got this link off from LoTRO chronicles, a very well written LoTRO blog. Be sure to check out the hats in part II, some really astounding designs. I'm honestly beginning to wonder if it's some sort of inside joke at Turbine to foist these things on us.

Housing in Wizard 101 versus LoTRO

I love having a house in any MMO. It's one of the things I really missed during the "year of WoW." When they added housing to LoTRO I was actually very excited. It's probably the most basic housing system I've seen, but that also means it's very easy to use. You get a yard and you get to pick where your house is in your neighborhood (meaning a wide variety of potential yards). There are four different architectural styles, one for each PC race, and four different neighborhoods. Any crafter can make at least a few housing items. My characters makes rugs, wall paintings, and wallpaper so far.

There are also a lot of "trophy" systems in game to let you get unique decorations for your house. All the major bosses in game drop trophies. I have one from a boss deep in Fornost that I'm especially proud of. Many regular mobs in game have a small chance to drop a trophy. And via the fishing system you can get some nice mounted fish trophies (I personally stopped once I got to the giant goldfish, that was the one I wanted). And finally, maxing out with any faction gets you access to unique housing decorations.

My one major gripe is hookpoints. Any given item can only be placed at specific "hookpoints" in your house. So, for example, a bed can only go in a "large furniture" hookpoint. Every other major MMO I have had a house in had a system where you can place items anywhere you like. This limitation seems a bit odd in a MMO that is otherwise so polished. However, overall I've been pretty happy with my house in LoTRO.

Then along comes Wizard 101. The full housing system was added in the most recent patch. And I have to say that for a micro transaction based MMO, I am impressed as hell. Unlike the system in LoTRO, you get a small dorm room for free (and so far that's all I have messed around with decorating). To upgrade to a real house is a one time fee (no upkeep). The housing system is just as easy to use as the LoTRO system, and considerably more flexible. No hookpoints! Extra housing items go into your "attic," they don't take up precious storage space in your bank (brilliant!). You are also tripping over trophies for your house as you complete quests. My dorm room currently has a very Egyptian feel to it because that's the theme of the area I've been questing in. The number of items you can buy to decorate your house with is pretty staggering, as well you might expect in a micro transaction based MMO. However, so far I haven't found anything so expensive that I couldn't buy it just with the gold I've gotten running around doing quests.

Overall the housing system in Wizard 101 kicks the butt of the housing system in LoTRO, which is not at all what I was expecting. There aren't quite as many ways to earn trophies, but the sheer volume of trophies you get doing quests more than makes up for it. In addition to free form furniture placement, W101 also has a much greater variety of furniture (though LoTRO does still edge it out in lawn ornaments). W101 has furniture that you can put on top of other furniture (e..g, books), which LoTRO lacks. There is also a greater variety of housing types, from dorm room to castle. Every character on an account can buy their own house if you are so inclined, and there is no upkeep. If you can just barely afford a given house type you can go right ahead and buy it. Finally, you get to keep any house that you buy. So, for example, if I decide to upgrade to a mansion from a house I still get to keep the house. I have to say I am very impressed, and I'm starting to wonder why LoTRO doesn't have a housing system as flexible as a MMO that's practically free to play.

The endgame of LoTRO

I recently went through a period of burnout with LoTRO. I backed off of it for a few weeks, logging mainly for kinship events. I am happy to report that the as of this weekend the burnout apparently has worn off, and I'm in a clam like state of contentment leveling alts again. The break also allowed me to gain a fresh perspective on LoTRO.

To my tastes, it's still the best PvE MMO by a pretty wide margin for any number of reasons. The tales you participate in are well thought out and evoke the tone of Tolkien's work very nicely. The graphics are amazing, especially considering the system I'm running it on (yes, it's a toaster). The crafting system is really well thought out, at least 1-50. It strikes a nice balance between utility and depth, and the addition of crafting guilds has only improved it. I also love the flexibility of many of the class designs. Nearly every class has at least two roles that they can perform well in. Even the Hunter (arguably the most myopic class, and the best single target DPS in the game) has unparalleled travel utility and can function as a crowd control specialist if traited properly.

Unfortunately, it is now also glaringly obvious to me that Turbine seemingly doesn't care about one of the core strengths of pre-MoM LoTRO: it supported many routes to gearing up in the endgame. You could get gear through crafting, PvP, or six man content that was almost as good as gear from the Rift. And in terms of performance, you could handle any content that someone decked out in raid gear could handle. Once you spent time gearing up doing whatever you enjoyed, how well you knew your class counted for far more that what gear you had on. That just isn't true any more.

Let's leave aside the issue that you have to have a full set of radiance gear to do the watcher raid (and thus have access to one of the primary sources of first age weapons). The gear that you can get doing six man instances utterly outclasses the gear you can get doing anything else. I have the full three piece sets from coin drops (I only currently have one piece of radiance gear), and even that makes the best gear I could craft look completely stupid. Even worse off is the fan of PvP. The PvP gear is arguably the hardest gear set in the game to get, and by a wide margin. Yet it's also the worst set of level 60 gear you can get in terms of stats. Only crafted "epics" give it a run for the money (i.e., in terms of sucking).

We have exactly one path to high end gear right now, six mans. Presumably, with book 8, we will have two paths: 6 man content and raiding. If the raid gear is worse than the radiance sets, nerdrage on the LoTRO forums would reach to the heavens. I doubt anyone at Turbine is that insane. However, that will still do nothing to address crafting and PvP. We have gone from a game that rewarded at least four different play styles roughly equally, to one that may eventually support two playstyles. That is a major contraction.

What irks me the most is that the only "fix" that's needed is for the stats on the crafted and PvP gear to be revisited. Replace all of the stat points on crafted gear that are wasted on funky resistances with power and morale buffs. In other words, make the 58 crafted gear analogous to the old 48 gear. And up the stats on the PvP gear by 10% or so across the board. Let someone that enjoys crafting or PvP at least earn gear that is as good as the coin drop gear. A simple (in terms of developer hours) change that would make so many players happy. Yet Turbine seemingly has no intention of doing so.

Hunter Nerfs in LoTRO

Along with a lot of kickass new content, the latest patch in LoTRO had some major nerfs for the most popular class in the game: Hunters.

I've always been a fan of ranged DPS classes in MMOs (i.e., nukers), and the Hunter is by far my favorite of the bunch (though Engineers in WAR and certain Blaster comboes in CoH are also way up there). They do a screaming ton of damage to single targets, are far from helpless in melee range, have pretty good crowd control if you specialize for it, and get fantastic travel abilities. A group runspeed buff in the teens, and then a series of group teleports. By the time you reach 60, you can teleport to nearly every zone in the game. As "taxi cabs with machine guns" they have no parallel. My main has been a hunter since the open beta, and I've rarely been as happy with a character as I am with her.

All that is why I saw the coming of the last update with a bit of dread. The primary role of Hunters, ranged DPS, got a huge nerf in the last patch. As nearly as I can tell something like a 25% damage reduction, perhaps more. At first I was horrified. However, now that I've had a couple of weeks playtime post nerf I have come to the conclusion that it's not that big a deal. I can still do everything solo I used to, and I still do very noticeable DPS in a party.

If I have any lasting complaint, it's that our stances outside of the high damage/ high threat stance have been rendered pretty borderline. A guardian that is on the ball can now hold aggro against a hunter going all out in their highest damage stance. Save for a long boss fight where power management might be an issue, there's not much reason to ever drop out of strength stance now. It seems a bit silly, and reduces the dimensionality of the class. However, on the whole still one of the most enjoyable classes in any MMO to my tastes.

Thoughts on book seven

Major changes coming down the pipe in book seven. Not going to do anything like a comprehensive review, but there are a few highlights that stick out in my mind.

1. Lothlorian.

All I can really say is hell yes. I also think that this content will be an important test case for Turbine. Until some time next fall we are all going to be sitting at 60. Even slow ass casuals like me that started when MoM launched have at least one 60 by now. Will this area be fun for us even though we won't be getting any XP? Since I went through Foreschel for the first time at 50 and had a blast, signs point to yes for me. However, I'll be interested in seeing how the community reacts.

2. Faster leveling.

To me the current pace of leveling in LoTRO seems to be about right, with the exception of the 30-42 or so doldrums. I have two alts that have stalled out in the mid 30s, one of which I actually enjoy playing quite a bit. If this will help me get over that hump with alts, I'm all for it.

I just hope that Turbine hasn't overdone things in other level ranges. Leveling to 25 or so flies by as it is, I don't think it needs to be any faster. For me 42-50 also seems to fly. 50 to 60 was a lot slower, but since that's the last ten levels I think it should happen at a measured pace. In addition, after hitting 60 with my first toon over the weekend I seem to have done far fewer than half of the quests in MoM. Especially with Lothlorian coming in, there really will be a lot more 50-60 content than any three characters could do and get Xp from.


3. Quest radar.

Some commentators are enthused about this feature. In other communities, it's less popular. I have to admit, I'm having a cranky old man reaction to this feature. One of the great things about LoTRO is the stories that emerge from the quest chains. If you simply follow little arrows around your map, you are going to completely miss out on that. Further, the kinds of players that a feature like this will appeal to are also players that I simply don't think are patient enough to get LoTRO. I'd really just assume most of them lose patience and move on by level ten or so. I'm enjoying the (by and large) mature and helpful community that inhabits LoTRO.

That said, clearly I am in the minority on this issue. The red blobs in WAR absolutely hammered my sense of immersion (of course the fact that most of the quet text was so poorly written didn't help much either), but most players seemed to like them. Quest Helper, which adds the same feature to WoW, is an extremely popular add-on.

And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we should go back to the dark days of launch EQ. However, I personally feel that LoTRO has always nailed the balance between a sense of discovery and lack of frustration. Clearly Turbine does not agree, and has decided to move things more in the direction of WAR and WoW.

4. Creep enhancements.

The final big news as far as I was concerned is that creeps are starting stronger, it will now be easier to level them, and cheaper to buy new abilities. I think this is absolutely a needed change. It is currently a serious six month grind to max out a creep. There is no way it should take longer to max out a creep than it takes to run a new freep from one to the cap. Considering that the entire horrific grind has to be done in the same zone, the current requirements are insane. If Turbine really wants creep play to be a fun "RvR light" experience, then they need to make it easier to progress. Easier progression lures more players to try creeps, which leads to much more fun for all involved (warm bodies on the field makes PvP happen).

Now if only the PvP gear were on par with the Radiance gear, Turbine would have something really great going. The exact same stats, save without radiance, would be a good start. PvMP has always been a hell of a lot of fun. The problem with it currently is that you earn rewards steadily for about a month, and then your progress completely stalls out. Over and over again I have seen players lose their minds in the moors for around a month, and then get completely burned out on it when they stop making reasonable progress for the time they put in.

A guide to the better looking headgear of LoTRO

Between the appearance slots and the dye system, it's possible to get some very nice looking outfits together in LoTRO. However, one of the biggest challenges can be finding a hat or helmet that doesn't look dumb. For whatever insane reason, LoTRO has the the overall worst headgear designs I've encountered in an MMO. I thought I'd show off some of the better headgear I've stumbled across, and give hints on how to find it.

Also, please excuse the compression and lighting on some of the shots. This is my first attempt at posting screenshots here, some turned out much better than others. Expect improvements in any future "photo essay" style piece. This post was inspired by the conversation here at Wilhelm's. Ok, on to the gear.

For cloth wearers, my favorite is this guy:

It's a brimmed hat with a feather. Here is a close-up:



Hats that use this model come as rewards from a handful of quests, including a quest in the elf starter instance. However the most reliable way to find them is to check monster drops. It's actually fairly common to find hats that use this model as drops on humanoids.

For heavy wearers, so far this is my personal favorite:
On a close-up you can see it has some nice details:

So far as I know the only way to get this helmet is by searching the bodies of your foes. I found it on a random goblin in the North Downs. It does not appear to be part of any normal armor set, crafted or otherwise.

For a leather wearer, it's hard to go wrong with these mid level crafted helmets, seen here with the outrider's armor set as depicted at Darzil's equipment guide:



Pretty much any tailor can make them. It's the model used for teirs II-IV of crafted leather gear, with only minor changes between tiers. Until you get to the "bunny ears" in teir V the differences in decoration are pretty subtle. While arguably a bit boring, it at least looks functional and won't disrupt your outfit.

The Lossoth helmets, also look very nice if paired with Lossoth gear. You can see the cloth, leather, and heavy variants at Darzil's excellent website. Admittedly they can look odd in non Lossoth outfits.

Another thing to keep in mind is that no headpiece looks good with every outfit. For example, I have a dwarven runekeeper that I conceived of as being a bit of a fop (well, for a dwarf anyhow). The hat that he is using doesn't look good with most outfits. However, dyed correctly I feel that it really brings together his current outfit:


My main character has been using an admixture of dwarven and elven style armor for quite some time now. While I don't normally go for the "bunny ears" helmet, the plain leather helmet above just didn't fit in well with the rest of her intricately detailed gear. In her outfit, the bunny ears seem to fit right in:


Seen here again in a higher rez screenshot and an earlier outfit:
Finally, if all else fails, there is always the ever popular hooded cloak. There are actually some very nice ones to pick from. Even if you don't have founder's bonus gear or the like to pick from, any tailor can very likely make you something much more interesting than the two tone cloaks you get from quests. For example, this is one of the eight or so hooded cloaks my tailor can make:
If you are at least 35, a tailor can hook you up with something you'll probably like well enough to wear until you start finding rare cloaks in high level (48+ for the most part) and epic quests. For that matter, if you don't want a hooded cloak a tailor can make you an interesting cloak that dyes well at almost any level . . .but now I'm starting to ramble. Happy hunting!

High end crafting in LoTRO is borked

From level 1-50 (the first five tiers of crafting), the crafting in LoTRO is more fun and usefull than it has ever been. Crafting guilds are a brilliant addition.

Unfortunately, as it currently stands, the crafting pretty much falls on it's face in tier 6. As an example, I'm going to focus on tailoring. In tailoring, tier 6 is gear isn't as good as gear from 6 man content for two reasons. One that can't easily be fixed (and I accept) and another that certainly should:

1. High end armor sets tailored to specific classes are available at 60. Tailored armor has always been a hit or miss proposition, as it is "one size fits all" for every class that uses it. For example, Burgs, Wardens, Hunters, and Minsterals can all use leather. There is no way one set of recipes is going to serve all of those classes equally well. For this reason it's inevitable that (for example) a level 60 hunter set is going to be a bit better for a hunter than what a tailor can make. I accept that, and can live with it.

2. The stat allocation on the crafted level 58 armor stinks. The level 50 one shot recipes had logical stat allocation for a generic armor set. Each piece added to two primary stats, and then had a big morale or power bonus. That makes sense, and is about as good as you are going to do with generic recipes. However, the level 58 recipes have for the most part replaced the morale and power bonuses with random ones I can't imagine anyone wanting. For example one piece has large amounts of poison resistance (!?). Even if you can't just cure poison outright (i.e., hunter), poison cures are cheap and available in unlimited quantities from vendors.

When you stack up a set that has points wasted on a lot of funky resistances against a set that is easy to get and tailored to your class, the crafted gear doesn't just seem "not quite as good." The crafted gear starts to look pretty stupid in comparison. So far, it looks as if I will be wearing a crafted cloak at 60, and the rest of my gear will be quest rewards.

It's not just tailors, most of the production proffessions have serious issues in tier 6. For example metalworkers are pretty much reduced to making crafting tools in tier 6, and weaponsmiths have been relegated to offhand-weapon crafters due to the new legendary items.

To readers not familiar with LoTRO, that might not seem like a big deal. However, it is a big deal because it's not the LoTRO I've been playing for nearly two years. One of the best things about LoTRO has always been that you could get gear that is roughly on par doing whatever you like:

-crafting

-six man party content

-PvP

-raiding

You pick!

That freedom is one of the big reasons that I've been happy as a clam in LoTRO since it launched. I am never railroaded into doing one thing. Unlike some games ("cough" WoW "cough"), the designers decided at the outset to support a variety of playstyles in their end game. Unfortunately, the gear from 6 man party content currently makes the gear you can get doing anything else look pretty stupid. That's not what I signed up for.