Navigating in MMORPGs
The Lord of the Rings Online was my first major MMORPG. I started playing in late 2008 and quickly discovered that there was a necessity to become familiar with the game world. Although the game provides quick travel options they were not ubiquitous at that point and often a player would simply travel on foot to travel costs down and to take the most direct route. Back in 2008 you could not own a mount until level 30. Hence I began “learning the maps” in the game and to this day still remember how to travel from one side of Moria, to another. The maps in the base game remain clear in my mind as they were so well trodden. Not so those in the regions. There are far more stables with fast mounts present in the game now and so convenience trumps any requirement to become so familiar with newly added zones. Nowadays Standing Stone Games designs new zones that tend to funnel players through them from quest hub to quest hub.
A Month in Gaming
I last wrote A Month in Gaming post in December. Quite a lot has changed over the last two months. I have abandoned Cyberpunk 2077 as it has totally failed to hold my interest. I just couldn’t get on with the first person perspective. I also stopped playing Neverwinter, despite the game having many appealing elements. Sometimes, when you start an MMORPG that has been running for years, you feel so “behind the curve” that the prospect of catching up with everyone at the endgame is too daunting. And because the Call of Duty franchise has a yearly lifecycle, a new iteration of the game was released in November. Black Ops Cold War subsequently replaced the reboot of Modern Warfare and a lot of the new games content subsequently bled through in the free Battle Royale version. I’d been playing Warzone since last April and it was beginning to get a little stale. So I didn’t buy the latest Battle Pass and decided to move on. And then there’s The Lord of the Rings Online. Let it suffice to say I have completed as much of the latest “mini expansion” as I require and the game is now “on hold”.
A Month in Gaming
November proved to be a very productive month, gaming wise. I had to self isolate for 14 days, due to coming into contact with someone who had tested positive for COVID-19. Hence I had far more leisure time than usual. For a second month I applied myself to progressing through the new “mini expansion” in The Lord of the Rings Online. The new zone is a two phase map. The first is Elderslade, a mountainous region to the North of the Wells of Langflood. This area contains mainly story quests. The second phase, called War of Three Peaks, is the same zone but during a period of open war between the Dwarves and the Orcs. Quests here are mainly repeatable slayer and achievement quests. I did not discover this until I had completed the first round, so to speak, only to be offered exactly the same quests again by an NPC. As I had reached maximum rank in reputation for this new faction and there were no rewards of any note for me to spend my barter currency upon, I simply stopped playing through this content.
Video Game Tutorials, Again
I’ll try and keep this post concise so it doesn’t sound like a rant. It is intended to be a legitimate complaint. I just find it dispiriting that this topic has raised its head yet again. I am currently playing the MMORPG Neverwinter, a game I haven’t touched for 7 years. I created a new character and am currently working my way through the low level quests. So far the game has had a few tooltips appear on screen and the occasional voice over pointing out issues of importance. Overall, I have seen neither hide nor hair of what I would define as a tutorial. I have managed to bluff my way through the game so far, by drawing upon my experience in other MMOs. As this is a game developed by Cryptic, there are elements of the interface that are similar to Star Trek Online. However, this and my general knowledge of other genre games can only help me so far. I knew that sooner or later, I was bound to be flummoxed by something and today this finally occurred.
Return to Neverwinter
I originally tried the MMORPG Neverwinter during its beta test in early 2013 and having checked my original notes I wrote at the time, I enjoyed it. I think the main reason I didn’t persist with the game was due to not having a major connection to the franchise and that there was a lot of competition from other MMOs at the time. If memory serves my only niggle during the beta was that you couldn’t use your skills while moving. Combat is therefore a question of running, attacking and then repositioning your character. Although you can dodge or perform a variation thereof, fighting in the game is not what I would define as “action combat”. It is more of a hybrid of old and new MMO fighting styles. However, that notwithstanding, I decided to finally re-install the game and give it another go. A lot has happened in the intervening 7 years and Neverwinter is now more polished and has a lot more content to offer.
MMO Tropes: Shipwrecked
I have played more than “a few” MMORPGs over the years. It’s an enjoyable (and accessible) genre of video games. But like any other type of game, MMOs have a fairly standard formula based on a handful of game mechanics. There is levelling, gaining experience and the acquisition of skills and points. Gear such as armour, jewellery and weapons come and go as you progress through the game. Then there’s crafting, trading and gaining “gold”. Another key aspect is the social dynamic. Often there’s content specifically designed for groups to complete. But this homogeneity also extends beyond the systems that underpin the games. The MMO genre is rife with its own set of tropes; recurring themes and motifs that have become established and ubiquitous. All of which are ideal material for a hastily produced, lazily conceived, recurring blog post.
A Welcome Return or Just Repeating a Mistake?
When I first started playing MMOs, it was very easy to maintain a degree of “gaming monogamy”. The Lord of the Rings held my attention for two years, without any distractions because everything was new to me at the time. But eventually, the allure of other genre titles became too great that I moved on to pastures new. And so I spent between 2009 and 2014 trying numerous other games. Star Trek Online, Age of Conan, Aion, Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Secret World, Neverwinter, WildStar and The Elder Scrolls Online to name but a few. If a game took my fancy, I would invest a great deal of time and make substantial progress. Conversely, if the “shoe didn’t fit”, it was quickly dispensed with. For example World of Warcraft never “clicked with me. It’s no reflection on the game itself. I just didn’t warm to any aspect of it. Similarly, the reality of EVE Online was vastly different to what I had imagined and expected.