Book 14, Summer Festival and other stuff

I've been really busy at work lately so I haven't had a lot of time to make up stuff to post.

Book 14:
Without giving too much away, I completed the Book Fourteen Epic quest – it does get better and more interesting as things progress than my original experience. The final battle instance has some neat features in it such as taking the camera control from the player so the NPCs take over some drama in front of you. Overall I thought the Book 14 quest line could have used some tweaking. There is an instance in the first part of it which I thought was too difficult for an Epic Book quest. The Epic Books are something I'd like to see within reach of all players not just those used to raiding like the kinship I'm in. I thought the cut scene in the last battle was too long but the story line advancement was pretty cool.

One of the things I really enjoyed seeing in the Book quest and in the game in general is the use of session play to step into characters and to experience the story from their point of view. One example of session play that’s been in the game a while is the chicken session play where you can assume the role of a chicken and do some quests related to chickens (getting worms, talking to other animals, etc). The chicken play thing was a neat distraction but I always suspected there would be more to session play. I mean, technically, you could play a Nazgul flying around looking for the One Ring or Aragorn fighting in Helm’s Deep. By involving the gamer in the story, they can identify better with the characters and the storyline. Since the game is bound by its IP, player characters cannot, for example, actually take the Ring to the mountain for Frodo or beat up the Balrog of Morgoth or be Gandalf. Through session-play, however, you could be Gandalf or a Balrog or a Ring Wraith or whatever the devs can dream up. The session play section of Book 14 didn't have the player appearing as Gandalf, but you got to fight as an elven ranger-type guy and be a bad guy cleaning house for the arrival of the Book quest's chief baddie Amarthiel.

Summer Festival:
The Summer Festival has come and gone. It was the first festival which there have now been two of since the launch of LotRO! Just like the last Summer Festival, there were quests you can do to get various goodies, recipes and such, for each race: The Elves in Dulliond, the Hobbits by the Party Tree in Hobbiton, the Men at the Breeland Festival Grounds above Bree and the Dwarves in Thorin’s Hall. In addition to the old stuff, Turbine added a bunch of new stuff too. One big one is the fishing competition. After an initial quest, I was able to fish in the lake on a timed quest. The fish I caught could be used for tokens or special items from the vendor. Most of the items were housing related. In particular, I got a banner, an herb garden and hobbit and elvish wallpapers for my house. I got the elvish doormat too. It’s kind of neat to be able to put some new stuff in your house from time to time.

There were some new dances introduced as well. They actually had a patch today which fixed them - they were broken during the festival so they appeared the same as the old dances.

WAR:
I'm not in any sort of beta nor am I getting the game at this time. Just reading up on it from some fellow blogger's sites and keeping an eye on things as they progress. From my view, not having played it, it seems like a neat game but a lot like others I've played. The public quests and siege play concepts certainly seem innovative, however. Hardcore Casual, The Ramblings of Jobildo and Tobold's blog (to name but a few) are following the release so you may want to check them out (see links at the right-hand-side of his page).

And that's what's going on.

Happy gaming!

Gaming News Update of Information

EQ2 – the Last Hurrah
I have stopped playing in the EQ2 Living Legacies campaign. It was cool to take a look around again and try the different options. EQ2 has a great crafting system and I really liked the housing. Other than those things, it’s pretty much a standard MMO and I’m already playing one of those (LotRO). If you’re tired of WoW and didn’t like LotRO or AoC, I would recommend taking a look at EQ2. Free trials should be available so other than download and update times, it’s cost-free just to try it out.


LotRO – Book Fourteen Released
The Lord of the Rings Online has released it’s latest free content update: Book Fourteen! I ran through some of the new Book stuff last night with my Hobbit Burglar. I LOVED the Book Fourteen Prologue: you help the Fellowship pack up and leave on their perilous journey. In the last stage, you’re there on the steps of the Last Homely House as the fellowship enacts some of the events from the Fellowship of the Ring and walks down the path towards the Misty Mountains. As a total Tolkien nerd, I enjoyed it a lot (and will probably use the reflecting pools to redo it a couple times just ‘cause that’s how I roll). :)

In contrast to the Prologue, I also ran part of Book Fourteen proper. One part has me going to Michel Delving to get honey for some rations for a guy leaving from Rivendell. I’m no expert on the Lore, but it seems the elves were pretty self-sufficient when it comes to food and could make lembas without having to go grocery-shopping in the Shire to do it. I have a real love-hate relationship with the book quests. Book Nine was mostly solo and told a great story along the way. Book Ten was a traveling nightmare as you had to cross the Lake in Evendim again and again and again. Dragging the books out with huge travel times doesn’t make them feel epic, it makes them feel tedious. I’m only part way through the Book Fourteen epic so maybe it gets better along the way. Last night’s romp through part of it though kept giving me Book Ten flashbacks. (Bringing a hunter friend along to help with ports helps a lot for the first couple in this chain.) Overall, I really like the Book quests - it's basically a special story arc for players that makes us part of the goings-on in Middle-earth without messing with the main story too much. Sometimes though ... grr.

In other Book 14 news, Turbine added tokens you can get by helping other players out with their Book quests if you've already run them. I really like this idea! It's a reward for those that stop to help other folks out. I ran a kinshipmate through Book 8.5 (the final instance) and got a token which I spent on healing potions. I've been taking those things like candy in the Rift lately. They've also added coins to collect in Urugath and Carn Dum ... two large instances that most players will have to go through for their final class quest items. Both the Book tokens and the coins help move the player-base back through the instances to help people in the process of leveling up. I think it's a great addition and nice to see that Turbine is forward-thinking enough to realize that even a year or two from now, someone will start the game and have to make it through those areas just like those of us that started a long time ago.


Wizards!
I’ve been looking at a game that Tipa over at West Karana has been playing in beta: Wizard 101 (https://www.wizard101.com/). Sounds like a new take on a couple of things in the MMO genre. It also sounds a tad close the Harry Potter IP to me, but an interesting game nonetheless. Though I’m not in their target demographic, I just may sign up for the beta to poke around for a bit.

Book 14 on 7/22

LotRO's Book 14 free content update will go into effect tomorrow. The servers will be down from 6AM until 12PM Eastern for the updates.

You can follow the links from the LotRO forums to get the uTorrent info or other download options. I highly recommend the uTorrent - seems to work faster than the standard updater gizmo included in the game.

The full release notes are also available and include such tidbits as:

1. A new area: Eregion where the ring-forges are located.
2. Another epic book quest.
3. Prelude quests to Moria!
4. Upgrades to loot found in several dungeons.
5. New character animations.
6. Monster play changes.
7. Crafting changes, class ability changes and a bunch of other stuff.

Stand by your game

Tipa over at West Karana has an excellent post about fans in MMOs helping their games out. (And for the record, most of her posts are awesome - I recommend checking her blog out if you get the chance.) She makes a lot of sense. If you really, really like the ideas behind the Age of Conan (or LotRO or whatever game it is that you like) then don't just bail on it except at dire need. Try to help them out. Fill out those bug reports. Inform the devs, politely and in clear English (or whatever language they speak), about the issues.

On the subject of error reports, there are a number of things you can do to make sure they're taken seriously. As a software developer, these are the things I take into consideration when prioritizing bug reports / complaints and it may help you help your favorite MMO improve. Granted these are the things that I look for. If the game company has a format they want you to follow besides this one then use theirs.

1) Take a step back. Is it really game breaking that the maroon shield of blocking is actually burgundy? Does the thing you noticed really matter in the grand scheme of making a better game? The devs have finite amounts of time to deal with many issues. Don't sweat the small stuff. When your game has reached a level of refinement to the point where there's only small stuff left, then start in on the little things.

2) Setting. Where were you when the event happened and what were you doing? In a town? In a field? Using a mailbox? If it was a mailbox, which one was it? (Orgrimmar in WoW, for example, has at least two mailboxes; Bree in LotRO has four - one by each gate and two in the AH.) If you were out in the middle of nowhere, try to get the location coordinates of where you were. At the very least, provide the time when it happened to you. Most games log everything that goes on and when so you'll be helping the devs narrow down on the events as they happened.

3) What was the expected outcome of what you were trying to do? Errors are deviations from expected behaviors so what you were trying to do matters a great deal. I expected to open the mailbox and read my mail. I expected to ride across the open field. I thought I would hit the mob for x amount of damage.

4) What actually happened? Do NOT say "it just didn't work" or "can you look at it" without providing more information. Once I was told there was a problem with a database and "could I just look at it." I asked for more information and was told again to "just look at it." So that's what I did. I confirmed that it was still a database. Given the lack of information in the original request, that was all I could really do without spending months of digging. If the problem really was an error, perhaps someone more articulate than the original requester would notice and I'd be able to fix the bug (if that's actually what it was). Give the developers ALL the information about the error that occurred. Was there an error message? If so write down the text as best you can. If something happened, describe it in as much detail as you can. "I got an error that reads 'object not found'." I expected to keep riding but was suddenly dismounted. I thought I would hit the mob for x damage but instead regened the mob's health.

5) Reread before you send. Did you speak in plain, clear, descriptive language? Did you put in all the information you have? Edit as needed.

6) Say thank you! Be sure to thank the developers. They don't get paid nearly enough and they also have lots of stress and crap to deal with on a daily basis. Don't add to it by being an ass.

Game developers have a mission to provide us consumers with an enjoyable gaming experience. Through our support, not only by voice but by our actions, have it within our ability to help them make our particular favorite games better. In other words: if your game of choice is messed up and you did nothing to try to make it better then you're part of the reason it's broken. If you did your best to help out and it's still messed up, then there may be bigger issues going on which may be out of your control.

Alt Night

The more I’ve leveled him the more I’m enjoying my Hobbit Minstrel. Minstrels are an interesting class. With traits, you can equip medium armor. At level twenty, Minstrels can use shields and get a stance called “War Speech.” War Speech reduces your healing to fifty percent of normal but decreases the cool down on your main cry skill (the name of which escapes me at the moment). Around twenty-two or so I also picked up an AoE damage spell which works only in War Speech stance. Not only does the new AoE do damage, it also debuffs the target to light damage – a Minstrel’s main damage type. The end result is an exceptionally good healing class which, with the stance change, is also a nuker. While changing stances to change the way a class functions isn’t new, WoW did it for their Warrior class among other games, it’s nice to see the concept at work in the healing class – often a type people will shy away from because of the low damage and the resulting slow leveling ability.

Without War Speech, the Minstrel is a powerful healer. My kinmates and I took on the Great Barrows at level (we were all twenty-two and twenty-three level-wise) and we did very well. Only two deaths, one of them mine, and we managed to complete the whole thing. It was interesting to see the fight from the perspective of a healing class instead of my usual melee class preferences.

If you’re playing LotRO and like DPSing, leveling a Minstrel seems like a decent option. In groups and instances, you’ll probably be the healer, but with the War Speech abilities, solo content is likely to be a lot easier than when playing a strict healer.

The stance change to War Speech for LotRO’s Minstrel is a lot like the stance change for the Warrior in WoW: it changes the abilities of a class towards another area of expertise. In the case of WoW’s Warrior, they can be a dps machine (berserker), defensive juggernaut (defensive) or a decent combination of both (battle). In the case of the Minstrel, the War Speech stance makes up for the low dps of the class under normal circumstances. I wonder if more games will pick up on stances as a way to allow a greater range of flexibility for their classes and a way to help ones with notable problems get a leg up to complete their leveling process (ex: low dps tanks and healers).

LotRO Update

I’m still enjoying my time in Middle-earth. I’ve been making the rounds of Arda with my level fifty Hobbit Burglar. Most weeks will include a trip to Forochel the newest zone in the North; a raid, either Helegrod or the Rift; some exploration of old zones; and delving into one of the rep dungeons for fun (Goblin Town, the Great Barrows or Sarnur). Being a total Hobbit fan, I still love sneaking around on my burglar, stealing from orcs and then beating them up before I slip off into the shadows again.

Raiding in LotRO has remained low-key and enjoyable. My kinship only recently took down the Balrog in the Rift (not to be confused with The Balrog that Gandalf fought in Moria). Many of the kinship members have armor sets from the Rift and even lightweight raider me has a couple of pieces. The end bosses of both Helegrod and the Rift are tough but it’s neat that the rest of it is farmable. (The first two bosses are the key for the Rift – get them down and the rest is relatively simple right up to the guy before the Balrog.).

The dungeons of Goblin Town, Sarnur and the Great Barrows are a lot of fun to sneak around in as a Burglar. The map “fog of war” refreshes on a regular basis so it really does make it interesting to try to get around in them – you actually need to get a sense of where you want to go and how to get there. I’m glad to say that I can usually get to Gollum’s Cave without much fuss and that’s pretty far back into Goblin Town. All three zones feature mobs of different skills and toughness making it so most players can solo as well as group up for some of the harder content.

My interest in Forochel as a whole is waning though I’m enjoying the dwarf mines in the West of the zone. It’s like a smaller, more densely packed version of Goblin Town making it a challenge for my to get around in undetected. Plus-to-stealth items help a lot as well as the occasional HiPS (Hide in Plain Sight – vanish for Burglars).

I haven’t done much in the way of PvP at all. I’m not really much of a carebear, it’s just that MMO PvP is rather clunky (in both WoW and LotRO) so I dabbled in it a bit and haven’t really felt compelled to revisit it. At some point, I suppose I may hop back in. The real strength or interest of PvP in WoW and LotRO is group verses group. Get a Freep raid verses a Creep raid and it’s pandemonium. Problem is those kinds of raids don’t happen that often and it’s usually a large group on one side hunting down individuals of the other. There’s a lot of waiting around and “what do we do now that the one guy we were hunting is dead” stuff and I rapidly lose interest. It's Middle-earth and I'd like some epic battles!

And last but not least, I finally maxed my fishing skill to twohundred which got me the Lord of Streams title and the ability to go after the fifty pound salmon. I haven’t caught it yet, but I’m working on it. There’s one in the kinship hall and it’s HUGE! I’m not sure what I’d do with it if I caught it, probably give it away. I don’t need my smial collapsing under the weight!

While there’s still enough content at fifty to keep me going, many people in my kinship are working on their second or third level fifty. I decided to try some of the other races / classes and see if I had much interest in them from when I tried them in open beta. Right now the contenders are my Man Lore Master, Hobbit Minstrel or my Man Captain. There are lots of neat abilities on Lore Masters. He’s squishy as all get out, but his tanking bear and stuns can keep most mobs off him and several of his abilities hit really hard. My minstrel is a lot of fun also, if not a little strange concept-wise. He goes into combat and most of what he does is play a lute. I realize the bard character is a staple in Dungeons and Dragons adventures, it’s just a little odd to see it in practice. The Captain is an interesting class, but he’s only level nine at the moment so it’s hard to tell what I’ll end up thinking of him.

Overall, LotRO has still kept my interest. It’s easy enough to stay current with friends as the leveling set-up is fairly fluid at this point (I haven’t seen the thirties in a while though, so I’ll have to see what that’s like). At the level cap, there’s enough content available to keep going also: either solo, group or in raids.

The Future of MMOs

Terranova had a posting by Bruce Damer recently asking if we are entering a New Virtual World Winter. MBP has also (jokingly) predicted the ending of MMOs and Tobolds also has a post up about dealing with game burnout. While I think the MMO market is certainly “stuck” at the moment with The World of Warcraft at the top and the rest fighting for table scraps, I don’t think this is the end of MMOs.

MMO Predictions:
Ok, here’s where I get out the crystal ball. Just so you know: reception on this thing has been hazy lately. In the future MMOs will involve:

- More flexible business models. Micro payments, or something similar, will be allowed in some games. Others may offer what is currently the box software via bit torrent sites, saving them a ton of money by not burning disks for game software, and only have monthly or other periodic payment plans. Some plans will also be pay-by-resource so that a casual gamer with no interest in raiding can play to the max level while hardcore, raiding gamers can pay for the extra raid instance access.

- Elements which have evolved into design standards (character inventories, bag space, UI elements, etc). There’s a tendency in software development that once something is standardized, it can be packaged and made extensible. Perhaps companies will spring up that build components that work between the different software layers in MMOs so large development companies can use the components and spend the rest of their money on other game play elements.

- More interactive and immersive NPC behaviors. EQ2 has voice-acting for NPCs and Oblivion’s AI gives NPCs daily schedules and behaviors which occur whether a player witnesses them or not. Combining these ideas, I think we’ll have more realistic NPC behavior including daily schedules. There would still be shops of NPCs for things like repairs, but NPCs would come and go. The repair headmaster may not be there at noon because he’s off to lunch – you’ll have to get your repairs done by one of the apprentices. Part of a quest may be to actually track down the quest giver. It would also be neat to allow more expanded social options – like being able to bargain with shop keeps and getting discounts if they like you.

- More interactive and immersive worlds. Not just a world free of instancing, though that would be nice, but one where there’s seasons. There are natural disasters and things related to battles occurring in the world. There would be mobs that don’t just wander – some run and hide while others are actively hunting players down.

- Improvements in story telling. In books, stories unfold by telling. In movies and television, stories unfold by showing. In MMOs, stories unfold by doing. Yet most story telling elements in the current crop of MMOs fall back on cut-scenes (showing) or quest text (telling). Improving the encounters to where the player is an active participant in a story and developing artistic techniques to alleviate the need to show or tell the player what role they are playing can help advance the player acting out what their role is in the story. Along with this, will be improvements in quest construction. We need to get away from meaningless kill ten seething thugs, then ten sneering thugs, then ten disgruntled thugs when they’re all bloody thugs in one spot. Streamlining questing and the storytelling that the questing is supposed to accomplish will improve games and make them less grindy, more interesting and more interactive for the participants.

In addition to improving the story-telling in MMOs with voice-acting for the NPCs, improvements in NPC body language and facial expressions can help. The NPC could talk to you in glowing terms but you could tell from their facial expression that they really don’t like you or are hiding something (and what they’re hiding, the player will have to discover themselves – again, by DOING).

Another way to get players involved more is too add branching for stories. Kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, player decisions have ramifications. If you help the king take out the leader of a trade guild, you get in good with the king but the trade guild hates you. If you help the trade guild instead, something else happens. I realize this may require instancing to accomplish. I’d go a step further and like to see general trends on a server have effect in the world. If more players help the king than the trade guild, something happens on the server (the trade guild revolts or helps an enemy kingdom gain a foothold on the king’s territory or something). Developers would have to be careful how they implement the quest lines. Basically, each player needs to feel like they had a hand in creating their world while at the same time not forcing too much conflict between players. Adventures may have to be divided into world adventures where everyone sees the same result and has access to the same parts and player adventures where each player decides their own results.

MMOs probably aren’t going to cease, however they will cease to exist as we know them today.

EQ2 - Continuing Adventures

I’ve been creating different alts in EQ2 since the opening of their Legacy campaign to get returning players. I’ve tried all three variants of the rogue class. Each has different but similar skills to use in combat (stuns, poisons, strikes from stealth, etc). While I have liked things about each of them, they all strike me as being a tad too much like the rogue in WoW and I lost interest. I tried an illusionist and a wizard and while the skills and play style of those classes seemed neat, I lost interest in those as well.

Then I created a halfling ranger. I had fun the other night peppering baddies full of arrows or stabbing the bejesus out of them. Seems like a class with a lot of solo power and would be somewhat useful in groups (though I imagine there’s a lot of rangers floating around). And, of course, his summon pie ability is awesome. (I kid you not: his racial trait is to summon pie, lol).

Playing EQ2 again lends itself to the inevitable comparisons to the other games I have played. One thing I like is the graphics style of the game. Yes, it is cartoony, however the characters and landscapes and objects are all well-integrated. In that world, everything that’s there feels like it belongs there. The more realistic game makers try to make their graphics, the harder it is to create items in games which allow for the suspension of disbelief. In the cartoony graphics of EQ2 or WoW, it doesn’t take much to create an item which fits. In a more photo-realistic game like LotRO, the slightest imperfection in a face, clothing item, or weapon can break the immersion factor. In addition to the graphics integration, there are little things that help the immersion along. When my hobbit burglar (LotRO) is speaking to a quest-giver, he’s basically talking to the NPC’s knees. My halfling ranger, on the other hand, cranes his neck and looks the NPC right in the face and the NPC looks down at him. NPCs / PCs actually looking at each other adds a lot to the animations and makes it feel more like they are really conversing. I’m liking the voice-acted NPC dialog as well; it adds to the feel of the place when I’m actually hearing what I’m being told instead of just reading it off a screen.

The only thing I don’t care for in EQ2 at this point is the boats. I love their travel system overall with the character sprint ability and so forth - just not the boats. In fact, there aren’t really even boats – just bells on the docks that you click on and insta-port to the next dock. There’s something to be said about the game tempo in WoW when you have to wait for the boat (or Zeppelin or Tram). You stand and wait for it and then it finally comes into view. You hop on board and eventually it will take off again. You can watch the place where you were float off into the distance as your ship leaves shore. Sometimes then you’ll get a loading screen though other routes happen in real time. It actually feels like you’re embarking on a voyage. You’re off to a new place to have great adventures. Same thing with riding the wyvrns / hippogryphs in WoW. Most fantasy books and stories tend to have passages savoring the place where the heroes are heading to. The feeling of place is served in games via the travel options. In EQ2, there’s no savoring the experience of travel. It’s just *poof* you’re here *poof* you’re there. It’s kind of like the train in City of Heroes (which I also didn’t care for).

Getting there is neat but the journey is important too.

Update

Changed the link for Bildo to the Ramblings of Jobildo - also linking to his shiny new site!

Revisting EQ2

I decided to take advantage of the Living Legends campaign for players (both full subscriptions and trial accounts) who had been members but left EQ2. It turns out I had completely uninstalled the game so I needed to reinstall from my disks. Once that was taken care of, I signed in and got all the updates I had been missing (it took roughly two hours).

I have since been playing around with my different characters. Per Van Hemlock's post, I promptly logged on to my Gnome Necromancer and proceeded to fly around in the new clockwork illusion form. Gotta love it! And a neat feature is that, when sitting, the little propeller stops spinning and you actually deploy landing gear. Too much fun. After zipping around on my Gnome for a bit, I went back to character creation and found I could roll a Fae. The Fae starting zone was a new one to me, so I got a Fae swashbuckler set up. After running around on him for a bit, I noticed that the Fae zone felt a lot less boxed in than the starting zones for my Gnome or other "good" races. They expanded the map area a bit more and successfully concealed some of its edges with terrain features. Rather than questing in a tunnel, I felt more like I was free to roam a bit more.

Another thing about the Fae is their free-fall ability. Falling safely from any height combined with my swashbuckler stealth had me leaping from every tree fort and outpost I could climb into without caring a whole lot about the level of the mobs below me. As long as I didn't land directly on anything that could kill me, I'd be safe.

Note to developers: Anytime you can put in an ability to cater to the easily-amused crowd (turning into a clock-work helicopter, enabling characters to leap from heights without damage, etc.) you should do so. The abilities add almost nothing to the character or the game but provide countless hours of play as we, the easily amused, activate those abilities to the fullest extend of silliness possible.

One of my gripes the first go-around with EQ2 is that I couldn't sample the housing areas with a trial account. Well, they modified that a bit and as a returning player, I can now get a cheap house. I got all set up with a one-room apartment on a couple of my alts and got the housing quest items (a chandelier, a table and a mirror) along with some other housing-related goodies (a couple of books and a /claim item of a bonsai tree). Compared to LotRO's housing system of furniture placement hooks, I like EQ2's system of furniture placement a lot better. I could place items anywhere they would reasonably go. I couldn't stick my chandelier on a wall or the floor, but it would go anywhere I wanted it on the ceiling. Another neat feature is the ability to put items on other items. My halfling wizard has a little apartment and I put my table in a corner and put two books and a little vase on top of it.

I would love to see LotRO adopt such a system. I'd like to be able to put chairs next to my tables and actually place items on top of them (plates, mugs, etc.). I would also like to see books in the game. It would be awesome to have, say, a readable in-game book of all the riddles from the Hobbit or books of elvish lore to keep in my smial. Oblivion also had books you could pick up, read and keep in your residence. In Oblivion you could steal books too ... not that I would ever do such a thing. *shifty eyes*

Anyway, that's what's going on in my Everquest two adventures thus far.

Warhammer PvP

Slashdot has an article covering an interview with Jeff Hickman, Senior Producer for Warhammer Online (LINK). The post references the interview at BigDownload.com.

A promising quote from the article:

We generally start everything in our game with a thought toward PvP. PvP isn't the first thing we think of, but it's one of the first things. We think of Warhammer Online as a PvP game that also has monster and PvE content. So, when we balance our careers, we balance the content around player verses player, not fighting monsters. We balance the classes against each other. Then, instead of balancing those classes against the monsters, we balance the monsters against the classes. Our philosophy is to make the best PvP game in the world and build the PvE content around it. We know how much damage each class can do and take, plus all the utility each class can provide. So, instead of balancing each ability, we just need to modify the overall damage output and absorption of each career.

One of the big gripes of many PvP players is that there’s too much balancing classes between PvE and PvP which sacrifices one or the other. From his PvP first mentality, Jeff sounds like a man who gets it. I don’t mind the balancing act, but in a PvP game, balancing the classes for PvP should always precede PvE considerations.

PvE in service of PvP aims (like troop movements in the World of Warcraft's Alterac Valley) suit me fine. Some PvE elements enhance the appearance of epic battles. Other PvE aspects though (like Korrak the Bloodrager, also in WoW's Alterac Valley) detract from the experience by being nuisances at best and a raid-squashing distraction at worst.

The interview is an interesting read for those contemplating a jump to Warhammer.

In other news, some kinship mates and I in LotRO that had also played EQ2 have been thinking of taking them up on their recent offer of checking them out again. We're not thinking of a game switch, just to poke our heads in and see what's going on. Our discussions turned to why EQ2 didn't do as well as WoW did and what happened to Vanguard (another Sony Online Entertainment endeavor). Genda over at the Grouchy Gamer has a series of posts about what happened to Vanguard. It was interesting to read and rather poignant too. I also had high hopes for the game and wondered just what had happened over there to release such a dud.

Niche Games and the Economics of blah blah blah 2 – System Requirements

When last we left my “Niche Economics” ramblings, I was yammering about how games were getting smaller and more focused on a specific target audience. There will be a WoW-killer … when Blizzard decides they’ve made enough dump trucks of money off of it and says “that’s a wrap, folks” or makes the next big game everyone wants to play and culls their own customers from one to the other.

Related to my observations about the market are recent comments by Syncaine and Bildo about the state of Age of Conan’s system requirements. AoC requires higher-end systems to run on. Unlike WoW, you can’t just get by with a cheap computer, you’ll need high end graphics with lots of memory.

Is this a problem?

No and yes. If the niche of gamers AoC is shooting for are the high-end PC gamer group, then no, it’s not a problem. Bildo actually bought a new PC for it (work-related for him as well). Sounds like Syncaine’s system is already set up to support it. I think my system would probably run it fine. Gamers that tend to like higher-end games also tend to support their hobbies by upgrading their machines regularly. I know I spend way more than a sane person should to keep my system running smoothly including new video cards and whole new PCs if I need them. I haven’t worn shoes in three years, but the trade-off it worth it.

Just kidding about the shoes … flip flops are shoes, aren’t they? :)

The system requirements are a problem, however, if Funcom is trying to get an audience the size of the World of Warcraft’s. Video game development is software development: a company builds a program for a set of users and hopes the money made in supporting those users and providing them with the stuff they built will far exceed the expenses the company incurred in creating it.

A long time ago, I was in the market for a new PC. Pentium IIs were in their heyday and Pentium IIIs were a newfangled technology. As a new PC buyer, I went with the Pentium III. It had an AGP video card in a special slot and all these high-performance widgets to make it run really well. Around the same time, a game came out called Heavy Gear II. It was brilliant. It had an engaging storyline, some really neat single-player missions and an online component where you could meet and fight other players in various combat maps. It remains the best PvP experience I have had to date and some of the most fun game play I’ve seen. And yet no one has heard of Heavy Gear II. That’s because Activision created the game which required PCs with the AGP cards, not the Pentium IIs which were still in full swing. Activision inadvertently doomed the game to a small audience by requiring the more advanced systems to play it. The lesson: most computer gamers will not upgrade their systems to play a video game. There were many titles to choose from and if a game wouldn’t run on the PC the gamer had, they wouldn’t buy that game. Activision took it that Heavy Gear II was a failure and thus never bothered with Heavy Gear III.

Long story short (too late!): if AoC caters its game to high-end users and there are enough of them interested in playing the game, it will do fine. It won’t come close to denting WoW’s numbers but it will be a financial success and keep running for a good long time. Not every game should feel compelled to try to beat WoW’s numbers. Given the history of MMOs, someone will but I don’t think that’s going to be any time soon or with any titles I’ve yet to see.

Terrain as the Enemy

I’ve been playing around in Forochel, the new zone for LotRO’s Book 13 Update. I’m still enjoying it. Last night I adventured around the area a bit. Most days it’s pretty clear there but last night there was a giant snowstorm across most of the region. It was so thick, you couldn’t really see except about ten yards around you. It turned a relatively simple task (locate bad guy camps to set fire to) into a challenging time. I didn’t find the last two tents because I couldn’t find the off-ramp to the second camp in the raging white-out. It was brilliant! It’s like trying to survive in inhospitable terrain and the zone itself has a way of sucking you into believing it at every turn.

Here's snippet from a dev diary on the new zone:

The concept of using the Environment as an enemy has been floating around the LOTRO Dev team for a long time now - as far back as the Lonelands development period. We toyed with this notion a little bit with Tâl Bruinen (brambles and rocks in the road) and the High Pass (rare monster-driven blizzards). In Forochel, we're taking that concept a few steps further.

The other day I ended up with a chilled debuff. The debuff would make me susceptible to frost damage (which many of the mobs in this area have). Untreated the debuff would last an hour. The nice thing is the debuff could also be cured with a simple fire. Stand by a campfire for a short time and the debuff goes away. I suspect hunter campfires or the player-made kind would also work. You can also give yourself a resistance buff by standing next to a steam vent for a number of seconds (thirty or so, I’m guessing).

While zones in many games show a great deal of ingenuity in the visuals of the place (the restricted zones in City of Heroes or the tropical rains in Stranglethorn Vale in WoW) this is among the first I’ve seen where the zone itself is a dynamic adversary. It really helps immersion when you can see that storm coming and you can’t just ignore it. Where is the nearest town? Can I built my own fires if I need them? Where can I go for safety or are there precautions I can take to make life easier and still quest?

It’s important to note that the buffs / debuffs are not so overpowered that you can’t just keep trying to get things done. One of my gripes with the wound system they have is that they’re really too much like wounds. You’d be recovering for a week with a real wolf bite and some of the wounds inflicted by mobs in Evendim, for example, seemed just as lengthy and problematic. But dealing with the Forochel’s weather is part of the fun and makes being there is exciting as the climate shifts around you.

One gripe I have about many zones in LotRO are the positions of mobs along (on top of) roadways – stealthed mobs in-particular. Nothing sucks like spending a fortune at level thirty-five for a horse only to have Turbine snatch it away from you on a regular basis via one-shot dismounting stealth mobs on roads. Yeah, I know it’s not realistic to keep mobs off of roads – I don’t care. Either make it MUCH harder to dismount me or remove the bloody things: travel is already lengthy and expensive enough in LotRO without adding the insult of making me run on foot every hundred feet because of stealthed mobs. If dismounting is an issue for the Ettenmoors (the PvP zone in LotRO) then make it easier to do in there. I’d be fine with that. Fortunately, Forochel doesn’t seem to have the problem of too many mobs on roads. The mobs near roads are not stealthed and are fairly easy to avoid, making travel a ton more enjoyable for those of us inclined to ride the mounts for which we paid so much. Off-road travel is still a crap shoot, but that’s to be expected.

Forochel is not only a great zone in terms of visuals or topography (although both are great) it’s dynamic nature makes it an interesting place to be. The zone stikes a great balance between realism and game play. From he night sky in the north to the rugged forest in the south – there are interesting things to see everywhere. I’m looking forward to more exploration in Forochel and I hope Turbine keeps the great ideas coming for future zones.

LotRO: Book Thirteen and One Year Anniversary

On April twenty-fourth, the one-year anniversary of the Lord of the Rings Online, Turbine unleashed the Book Thirteen: Doom of the Last King content update. Book Thirteen is now the fifth (of six) such updates for which players didn’t pay anything beyond their monthly dues to get. The new expansion introduced players to the new region of Forochel, added the hobby of fishing to the game and added the Defiler class to players as a new healer for the monster (Creep) side in Player-verses-Monster Player content. (You can see the full release notes in the LotRO Lorebook).

The first thing I did was get my Hobbit butt out to Michel Delving to snag the new fishing skill. On the way out of the housing area I got lost as they have modified the housing area entry way. There is now a little access road and a small pond where before there was nothing. Once I got all switched around again, I got to MD, located the hobby trainer in the Bird and Baby Inn and got my hobby set up along with my first fishing pole. Turns out, fishing poles are available to crafters as well and a friend of mine in the kinship made me a really sweet one with +5 fishing skill.

After asking around, I found out there is a bait shop in Straddle so I could use bait with my fishing to increase my odds of catching something. So off to Straddle I went. Straddle is a ways outside Bree so it’s a bit out of the way. Conveniently, however, there is a small pond right next to the bait seller. I equipped my pole, which removes both on- and off-hand weapons, right-clicked the bait in my bag to get the buff and started fishing.

Fishing in LotRO is similar to WoW: you click the fishing icon and your character will cast a line into the water and wait. When you see the signs of a struggle in the water, you click the fishing skill icon again which will attempt to reel in whatever it is on the line. After ten minutes, I had little more than some junk fish, kelp and a couple rusty daggers. Later on, while exploring in Breeland, I managed to catch two large gold fish trophy taxidermy items which I handed in. One now hangs in my home.

Due to the content expansion, all of Evendim and a couple of other places such as Nen Harn (sp?) lake in Breeland appeared undiscovered to everyone. I’m not sure if it’s due to the amount of water in those zones (due to fishing) or geography changes. There are other areas in the game with large bodies of water (The Shire, Ered Luin) which were unaffected so I suspect it’s the geography changes.

The new zone of Forochel is awesome! First of all, the topography is varied and interesting. Beginning with an icy forest area, the zone rapidly gives way to some glacial crevasses to navigate with occasional paths on the sides to get up to other areas. Once out of the cavernous pathway, the road opens to tundra and hills. Then there’s the giant lake in the zone. Unlike Evendim’s lake, you cannot swim in the large lake here for long before you’ll die of the cold. While the lake’s position in the top-middle section of the zone could pose some travel problems, the roadways in Forochel were for the most part clear of mobs. Getting around on horseback won’t be half as bad as Evendim. One note of warning – swimming in the lake will kill you and you can receive damage by walking on the ice flow at the lowest point of the zone near the lake. The damage I got was about two-hundred points per tick – not significant but a pain if you’re trying to walk stealthed through the area.

I took time to visit several of the camps in the new zone and chatted with some of the quest-givers. There is a new reputation faction available – the Lossoth. I haven’t had time to check out the rep rewards yet, but there’s rumored to be a shaggy new pony and horse available. I’m still happy with my current pony so I’ll probably pass. I did complete a couple of quests, one of which resulted in some hip-waders I’ll be using while fishing!

One thing I found out today: if you stand next to one of the steam vents for a time, you will get a cold-resistance buff which lasts thirty minutes. It doesn't seem to work next to fires though, only the steam vents. I'm not sure how long you have to stand there. The last time I got the buff it felt like thirty seconds or so.

Other improvements in the update included some animation changes (when my hobbit jumps he balls his fists and moves his arms in front of him now instead of to the sides) and some added sound effects. Summoning a horse results in both - instead of silently reaching for the sky to get your horse, you’ll whistle a couple times and look around. Some players were annoyed by the whistling sound. I don’t care for it but not to the point where I’d disable my sound over it. Standing in a town where there’s a group mounting up to move out sounds like a group of NY road workers with a convention of supermodels walking by but I just ignore it.

Overall, I’m very happy. I played about three hours last night and still have a large part of the new zone undiscovered. The stuff I have been through, I went through quickly. Looking forward to more sneaking, exploring and fishing! And a new Book quest!

For the anniversary, there are tokens which drop from mobs around Middle-earth. Get a number of these tokens and you can turn them into specific vendors (I spotted one in Bree and another in Rivendell) for gift boxes in the game.

Random blathering

Saylah over at Mystic Worlds had a great post about Why We Solo in MMOs. The post is a great read and the comments are also interesting. There are quite a few people that for one reason or other have to solo in MMOs and game designers ignore them at their peril. A large part of WoW’s popularity is its soloability. Many of LotRO’s struggles have to do with the difficulty of solo quests (both in finding them and in some cases doing them). LotRO has improved throughout the book updates (time will tell as I am now leveling a human lore master).

As I mentioned in my comments on her blog, preparing a game for solo content is necessary due to the leveling mechanics of most games. The whole server, when it first opens, starts at level one. Then, over the course of weeks and months, the level of the general population rises. What you end up with is a large number of people at the level cap and everybody else left behind. For those people behind the curve the game will need to provide some accommodations for solo play as groups will be few even if one were inclined to group; based on the feedback in Saylah’s article, the accommodations should be generous and many.
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A post by VanHemlock on his blog about the old AC terminal mission sliders (note: the link is not working at this time – go to the main page and look for the article “The Terminal of Empowerment” if the problems persist) provides some interesting counter-points. Terminals in AC apparently (I have not played the game) allowed for users to essentially create their own soloable instance depending on what they wanted / liked to do. In City of Heroes, a game I have played, NC Soft had some similar ideas where you could talk to a contact to attune your mission settings and then race around getting missions from other NPCs at the settings you chose. The result was some of the most monotonous game play I’ve seen. The maps were all based off of other, similar maps and it’s really no fun stepping into officer building model number four for the hundreth time and knowing that the big bad guy you need to take out is up three floors in the third office on the left beside the potted plant.

While I’m all for solo content in MMOs (I do spend a lot of time soloing) that content needs to be viable and feel like part of the world at large. It needs to be new and exciting in its presentation and carry the same possibilities of randomness that walking through an in-game city provide. Immersion in a video game, especially an MMO, requires the same kind of randomness real life provides (the same kind though not necessarily the same degree – watching a group of players suddenly racing down the street on horseback is random; having them run you over and kill you is also random but I don’t think players want to risk death penalties just for walking around in a city). The CoH instances, which were the death of the game to me, were too static. When you present people a puzzle they’ve heard a thousand times, it’s not really a puzzle anymore but just a question to which we already know the answer.

Dynamic content still has a ways to go in MMOs but the article is an interesting look at the way one game tried to pull it off.
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I created my first viable alt since my burglar. I have tried to get into the Hunter class (too much like every other ranger / hunter) the Guardian class (great defenses but hits like a tween-age hobbit girl) and the Champion (dps, more dps, wtf dps, rez plz). So in tinkering around I tried a class I had dismissed at first: the Lore Master. It took a fair amount of patience to get to level ten. I used my pet raven and hit my two or three spells per fight and thought it all rather dull. As I got to ten though, I picked up my mez (works on all but the undead and it’s cool down is less than the duration so I can chain-stun mobs). I also got some goodies to improve my pet damage or defense and some nasty debuffing spells. The Lore Master is very fragile, but the bear pet is a great damage mitigator.
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Bildo has some info on his blog about the upcoming Age of Conan. Looks like there will be an open beta coming May first.

Site Updates

I cleaned up the Usual Suspects links a bit. I removed some old defunct ones and added Killed in a Smiling Accident where Zoso and Melmoth are holding court these days.

When a game becomes a job

Tobolds had an interesting comment on this blog about gaming attitude.

The increasing acrimony [between casual players and hardcore raiders] is probably just an effect of burnout. MMORPGs are curious in that many people don't stop playing when they stop having fun; instead they keep playing with a more and more negative attitude, complaining all the time on the official forums. And as Ontherocks remarks, the negativity is directed badly at other players. Not only casuals vs. hardcore, but also mages fighting warlocks, or other classes crying for somebody else to be nerfed. It is an illusion that you could have more fun if only fun was taken away from somebody else. World of Warcraft certainly has balancing problems, but these are more due to the impossibility of balancing classes in a way that they are equivalent but different in solo play, group play, and all the various forms of PvP.

I’ve noticed this before as well. I think a lot of the drama that exists between players (or entire guilds) is in large part because they’re not finding the game fun anymore. Everyone loves when a game is all new and shiny. You have no idea what’s going on - around every corner there are new surprises and adventures. Leveling brings new skills and ways to play your character such that even when asked to kill yet another ten boars, you’ll race off to do it because you can kill them in New! and Exciting! ways.

Then you hit a wall.

The wall could be the level cap, or a questing dead end or a game mechanic that changes your class so you’re not able to do the things you used to. That’s when you start trying to rationalize continuing. I suspect that the longer a player has played a given character, the harder that wall will hit and the less likely they are to start over. Most players will just try to struggle through it … and get pretty irate in the process.

LotRO is my third MMO (after City of Heroes and the World of Warcraft) so I’ve been there before. As a result, I have made some general observations in an attempt to maximize my fun and not have to deal with turning a video game into the worst-paying job I’ve ever had. These won’t work for everyone, but they have helped me to keep my head screwed on straight.

1) Try new locations. When I’m starting to get down about leveling a given toon, I’ll start looking for a new place to play in. The North Downs was getting pretty old for me, so I went over to Evendim for a bit. Sick of the Barrens? Try some of the higher-level stuff in Silverpine or the lower-level stuff in Stonetalon. Sometimes all you really need is a change of scenery. I’m an explorer by nature anyway, so looking around in a new area can be fun all by itself.

2) Try a respec. This doesn’t work all that well in LotRO as the specs (traits) aren’t all that pronounced at lower levels, but in a game like WoW, it can make a big difference. Even if someone else says your new spec is totally stupid, who cares? If it’s fun, it was worth it. I respecced my arms / fury warrior to fury / arms and that’s what kept my interest alive through to 70. Flailing away with two weapons and near infinite rage was a blast. When you change the way your character functions, you change the way you interact with the world and it basically changes the game for you.

3) Read the quest text. Too often, I’ve caught myself just ramming through content. Depending on the game, there could actually be a lot of interesting stuff going on behind the scenes. So you were asked to kill ten boars. Why? Why boars and not wolves? Is there some other objective involved? Reading the text tends to get me more personally involved in the story. I’m not someone out grinding boars for XP, I’m killing them to save the good people of wherever from the dreaded boar disease of somethingorother.

4) Establish “for me” time. It may seem odd in a video game to set aside time to do what you want to do, however, so much content is driven because the company is telling you to do something that sometimes it’s just nice to tear off and do something because you want to - even if there’s nothing in it for you other than to say you did it. In LotRO during Open Beta, we couldn’t go beyond level fifteen. One thing I really wanted to do is see Rivendell. To get to Rivendell, you need to pass through mobs that are level thirty-five or more. I went anyway and now it’s a regular thing for me. All my alts make the trek to Rivendell after the level fifteen class quest. Go places you’d like to see and see them. As a burglar, I’m constantly going places just to go. I was sneaking around Annuminas (a level fifty area) at level thirty-five. I sneaked my way out to the Council of the North base in Angmar around level forty-two. It’s fun to push the boundaries of what should be attainable and go places you want to go just because you want to.

5) Hang around / level with friends. One thing that I enjoy a lot is gaming with like-minded people. They can motivate you when you’re down and the company can help make dreary things fun. Killing 500 wargs gets old fast, unless you’re also chasing around your silly minstrel friend who doesn’t seem to realize she’s not a tank.

6) Know when to let go. If you’ve tried to make things fun and it’s just not working out, maybe it’s time to try something else. Even if it’s just for a little while. I know too many other players that will cling like grim death to a toon just because it’s their highest one. “My main is thirty-five so I really should focus on getting him to fifty before rolling another one.” Says who? I got my guardian in LotRO up to thirty-seven and decided I didn’t like it. So I created a hunter and got him to thirty-three and THEN created a burglar who became my first fifty. You can’t always tell right from the get-go what class / race combo you’ll really enjoy so don’t be afraid to experiment.

It also could be the game itself. For better or worse, LotRO is what it is. I find it fun and that the good outweighs the bad. I roll with an awesome kinship on a fun server. Not everyone is so lucky in their friends and not everyone will like the game. WoW is a great game, but when you've played all the classes and the races and seen what there is to see, that's pretty much it. Many people are not fond of the PvP system they have or the raid-till-you-drop stuff at endgame. For many, level seventy equals done. I’m always a fan of trying new games - by all means keep looking to find one that’s fun for you.

And while I’m on the subject, video game companies should make accessible free trials available for their creations. I don’t mind chat restrictions to keep the spammers at bay, but make sure your trial is open enough that I can actually see everything in the game. My biggest gripe about my EQ2 trial was that I couldn’t get a house. Not a huge deal, but at the same time it would have been cool to see how a “house” in EQ2 worked. Even if it had limited furniture options, I could still mess around and see what kind of system it was. Got a game involving space ships? Let me fly one! Now! I don’t care if it disappears after I log off or it’s underpowered or whatever. Give users a taste of how cool your game can be and they’ll plunk their money down for subscriptions.

It’s also worth noting that players will likely have to let go of the games you’re playing at some point. Either because you’ve done all you’re interested in doing (like me in WoW), because the game becomes a hopeless grind (like CoH became for me) or because the game company says “that’s it folks, thanks for playing” and then closes it down.

7) Listen to what others say but listen to yourself first. It's your money. It's about to become the gaming company's money. The only important question is: are you having fun? If you’re not having fun, then it’s not a game anymore. Following the advice above, you may find the fun again. If not, it’s time to let go: either of the class you started or of the game itself. There’s nothing wrong with playing a game and then deciding it’s not for you. There’s something fundamentally silly though about sticking with a game you started hating a long time ago.

Mines of Moria Release Information

Information about the Mines of Moria paid expansion for LotRO has been released.

From the site:

BIRMINGHAM, UK - March 14, 2008 - Turbine, Inc. and Codemasters Online today unveiled Volume II of The Lord of the Rings OnlineTM, the first retail expansion for the award-winning massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG). Announced in Birmingham, the childhood home of J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings OnlineTM: Mines of MoriaTM will expand the online world of Middle-earth to let players explore the ancient underground cities of the dwarves, battle epic characters in the depths, face off with the Watcher, be a part of the fateful release of Durin's Bane and more! The Lord of the Rings Online expects to open Volume II of its epic story in the fall of 2008 with an increased level cap, two new classes and the introduction of a unique item advancement system.

What’s in an Appearance?

What with my blathering on about the outfit changes in The Lord of the Rings Online, it got me to thinking more about appearances in MMOs. One of the best appearance-related systems is that of City of Heroes. Right from the beginning, you can create a very distinctive appearance for your character. As you level up, you also end up getting the ability to change your appearance and get new outfits. The appearance changes in CoH have no impact on your character’s stats – it’s just what you look like.

In contrast, the World of Warcraft is fairly limited in the appearance modification department. Your character looks like your base model, which does have variations, plus whatever gear you are wearing. Two tauren warriors in full Imperial Plate armor will look practically identical.

A happy medium appears in the Lord of the Rings Online. At level 20, characters get appearance slots in addition to their standard armor slots. People can equip their toon and either show the equipment they have or opt to show whatever equipment their outfit is.

So what’s with all the appearance stuff and why is it important to players?

I think a main reason people like appearance systems is one of distinctness. My character is different from others and you can tell because I look different. My Dark Scrapper (CoH) or Hobbit Burglar (LotRO) doesn’t look like someone else even if they are the same class, race, etc. People like feeling different from the crowd, especially in games where they are supposed to be a hero doing great deeds. Aragorn, the ranger-to-be-king, didn’t look like Barliman Butterbur, the balding, portly bartender of the Prancing Pony. Heroes are distinct from the general population and the most obvious way to be distinct is appearance.

Another reason for liking appearance attributes is status. LotRO or WoW armor gained by raiding looks very different from other armor sets. You can tell from across the street that someone is wearing Rift armor. Rift armor can only be attained by going to the Rift in a raid and killing a boss that drops the barter gem for that particular piece. Right away, you can tell that the person wearing that armor is a raider and has been fighting through some difficult content. It’s the same in WoW. You can’t just purchase Ashkhandi (sp?), Destroyer of Worlds (a giant two-handed sword), you have to kill the boss that drops it. The only thing similar in CoH is the badge album through some badges give you access to neat trinkets like a freeze gun (the name and conditions of getting it escape me).

Role players in particular enjoy the ability to change ones appearance. As a sometime-role player, I like that I can be off fighting orcs while wearing full armor and do my farming crafting wearing something more appropriate (like coveralls). Farming while wearing my whole combat set seems odd. Are the pests after my crops really that tough? Same with hanging out in a tavern. I don’t wear the coveralls or the combat stuff, I tend to have my Hobbit dressed like a Hobbit going to a tavern. If you saw a SWAT operator wearing their full gear in a bar, you’d probably want to leave immediately so as not to get caught in the crossfire. You probably wouldn’t think he was just there for a drink or to chat with friends.

Another benefit of an appearance system is to create an established look – if you get a look you really like, why change it? A friend of mine has a thing where she always wears red armor. Red dye is expensive as is heavy armor (she plays a Champion in LotRO). With appearance being separate from the actual equipment, she can keep the armor look she has no matter what pieces she wins in other instances or quest lines in the future. Just because she gets new items doesn’t mean she has to change if she likes the stuff she has.

While appearances attributes in a game are merely cosmetic, they are all too often overlooked even though they can help create a better sense of attachment to a character and a sense of immersion in the world in which the character resides.

LotRO Book 12 Review

Book 12 is here, woo! The latest free expansion, Book 12 offers a number of changes in the game including clothing, housing items, Angmar changes, new quests and more. They started with Book 9: the Shores of Evendim. Then came Book 10 with its expansion of the epic books and some more questing areas. Book 11 brought us the new areas in the Trollshaws, housing and the Gollum quests along with Goblin Town. That’s a lot of updated content being churned out and I for one appreciate the expansions and the care with which Turbine releases them.

So what’s new in Book 12 and what do I think about it?

Clothing Changes
The first thing I did was check out the character tab. There are now, at level fifty, three tabs for appearance. The first tab is my equipped items tab – it’s the standard paper doll showing the items I have in my toon’s head, shoulder and other equipment slots. The second and third tabs are outfit tabs. To load an item into the outfit tab, simply drag an item for the into the appropriate slot on your paper doll. You will also need to select the radio-button to activate whichever outfit you want visible. Once you select an outfit to display, the items you have in your outfit paper doll will override any other items in those slots. It’s also worth noting that some outfits have overrides within them. One suit-looking chest piece I got as a rep reward from the Mathom House, for example, overrides gloves automatically as well as adding shoes. Items can be made visible / invisible by using little click-boxes next to those items.

I liked the variety of the clothing items available. New NPCs called “Outfitters” are available near where many of the other standard vendors are in major towns (Michel Delving, Bree, Rivendell, Celondim, Thorin’s Hall, etc). You can purchase a number of hauberks with different patterns and default colors. You can also get simple clothing items like coveralls for the farmers out there or a simple suit or robes, etc. All of the clothing items can be dyed to different colors if you wish as well as remove dyes with a dye wash available from suppliers in towns. (Note: dyes have become VERY expensive with the clothing changes.) Also available are backpacks: a day pack is available from most of the outfitters above and also a prospector’s backpack from the Michel Delving vendor. To get a quiver of arrows for your character find the Outfitter in Rivendell in the marketplace there or the one in Trestlebridge in the North Downs.

In addition to the standard, vendor-purchasable items, you should also swing by any areas where you have reputation points. There are a number of new clothing items (hauberks, suits, dresses, etc) available from the reputation factions. For example, there is a suit available from the Mathom House group (at Kindred, I believe). There are also a number of backpacks available – one from Thorin’s Hall and a couple from Breeland rep that I’ve seen thus far.

The new clothing options are very well done and I’m enjoying the changes. The outfit system hearkens back to my City of Heroes gaming days where you could modify your appearance separate from your stats. Nice work, Turbine!

To see pictures of the different clothing items, you can visit Vonabor’s guide on the subject.

Housing Changes
Housing changes were less pronounced than the clothing changes. You can now rotate free-standing items 360 degrees. I changed the position of my cushioned bench so it actually faces my fireplace. I’ll experiment some more with positioning in the future. Another nice feature is the ability to actually light / extinguish the fireplace and candle furniture items. You can click on the item, go through an animation and the object will light if it’s not lit or visa versa.

I haven’t seen any new furniture or furniture recipes yet. There is a Spring festival coming up and a continuation of a Pirate quest line in Western Breelands that may expand on the current offerings though. Of particular interest are the trophy items available from bosses. I don’t have a comprehensive list but there is a helm from Sambrog (sp?), a tentacle from Helcham (sp?), a banner from Ivar and a dress from the Red Maid in GA.

I can’t say I’m a fan of the boss trophies. The Sambrog’s helm is too small (but the smoking effect is cool). The banner from Ivar is a corpse on a stick (we have jokingly begun referring to it as “Corpsie” in our kin). Helcham’s tentacle is bizaar and the Red Maid’s dress is just … disturbing. I mean, we, the heroes of Middle-earth, defeated one of it’s evils and then, in a display of our righteousness … stripped her dead body? Eeeeww! Did we at least put a towel over her after we got the dress?

Tally thus far: cheers on clothing, /shrug on the housing stuff and a resounding ‘meh’ for the boss trophies.

One housing point of interest: when you buy a house all of your alts get a fast travel skill to your home. That’s a cool change – all of my alts can now enjoy the neighborhood discount.

Angmar Revamp
The map and quest structure in Angmar has been revised. I didn’t have much of a chance to go over the changes, however I did head over to Himbar in the North-East of the map and took a walking / sneaking tour between there and the camp in the far South-West. One point of interest: there are now horse paths from Himbar to the dwarf camp in the South and over to the South-West camp making the entire zone MUCH easier to get around in. The Himbar horse path is rep-related however requiring riders to at least be an acquaintance (the lowest rep level) of the Council of the North. The topography of the zone has changed somewhat and there is a new dwarf camp in the center of the map near Imlad Baratheon (sp?) above where all the wights and skeletons are walking around. Gone are the boars but still present are the stealthed wargs, drakes, neeker-breekers and other common mobs from the original. I’ll be spending some more time on this map in the near future.

Class Changes
My burglar got eleven new skills to the tune of two-plus gold. Ouch! One of the changes was a new burglar stance called Mischief which keeps the burglar from stealthing but significantly reduces the power cost of tricks. There are a couple of new abilities tied to this stance such as an aoe damage over time effect with a nice stun once the dot disappears. There’s also a new ability, similar to Touch and Go which, instead of increasing my evade abilities, adds damage when I get hit. I’ll have to do some playing around with the changes as my toolbar is now filled with icons that are unfamiliar to me.

Champions and Guardians also received an overhaul in the latest expansion. Initial reactions from friends of mine that play those classes have been favorable though training was also pricey for them.

Book 12 Epic Questline
Another installment of the Book quests! A group and I had a chance to go through this. There is a new feature in this set: insta-travel to where you need to be. Rather than having to trek all over the place to get to the place where you can start, you are teleported there in the regular game world so you can start fighting. The teleport changes vastly reduce travel time and are much appreciated! The quest line itself is also interesting including a screenshot-worthy finale for us RP / Lore nerds! I won’t spoil the details but the story which really got going in Book 9 is getting better and better. There are some very nice items available for completing the quest line including a neat teal cloak from Elrond at the end.

While the boss trophies are kind of a low point in the expansion, the rest was excellent. If Turbine follows it’s usual MO, there will be several non-expansion additions to the content they already added to this expansion (more clothes, more furniture, more trophies) before another expansion (which I believe is set to be a paid one).

Other Expansion Stuff:
In this expansion, Turbine apparently decided to update to the latest OpenAG dll [????] This is the dll file (or one of them) that affects in-game sound. Some folks were getting BSOD in Windows XP and had to do some odd things to their sound to get the game to work without crashing for certain sound cards. Well, they fixed it … and broke the sound for my card. I was in Helegrond and ended up getting three blue screens before I decided that it was enough for one night. Situations where I got the blue screen were times when I was grouped with other people and there were a lot of in-game sound and animations occurring at once. I was also in Vent during the crashes. The solution, on my PC anyway, was to enter the game and change the sound settings to all generic instead of using the FXI sound card which was the default. I haven’t crashed since and, at least to my undiscerning ears, the sounds were about the same. I also switched the driver for my Vent settings to be on the safe side.

Another change I haven't looked at much is a new instance in the PvMP zone. You can check out more information about it at the Book 12 site, however, I haven't been there and really can't comment on it much.