Thoughts on “Classic LOTRO”
Cordovan (AKA Jerry Snook), Community Manager for the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online, stated in the last Developers Live Stream that “the idea of a formal classic (server) is never off the table”. Naturally, this comment has led to a lot of speculation on the official LOTRO forums. Many players by inference have concluded that the original code does exist for the game as it was at launch or immediately thereafter. As you can imagine this has resulted in much debate as to whether a classic LOTRO server based upon the original Shadows of Angmar release could be created. Assuming that this is the case and technically developer’s Standing Stone Games can do this, it raises the question of whether they should or not. Because a classic server is a different beast to the previous legendary progression servers. 14 years has seen a great deal of change within the MMO industry and with LOTRO as well. Let us take a moment to reflect.
ESO: Choosing a House
This post is not intended as a player housing guide. There are plenty of those available already. Instead, it is my personal musings on the various factors that have determined my choice of player house in The Elder Scrolls Online. In fact, at the time of writing, I have not yet purchased the house in question. It is dependent not only on a large sum of in-game gold but also a substantial achievement. The house in question is Gardner House in Wayrest. As it is a large player house it costs 1,015,000 gold. Alternatively, it can be bought for 5,700 Crowns, unfurnished. If you want it furnished it will cost 7,100 Crowns. I shall not be buying this property with Crowns as it works out at about £36 or so. I think that price is a little exorbitant especially in light of what I want the house for.
ESO: Companions
The Blackwood expansion for The Elder Scrolls Online launched a little over a fortnight ago. During that time I have become accustomed to having an AI companion. Not only are they an enjoyable new addition to the MMO, they also have quite a significant impact upon PVE gameplay. Both Mirri Elendis and Bastian Hallix can provide robust support and cover a variety of roles. This is down to the flexibility of the skills system associated with companions. Gear requirements are simpler and a lot easier to manage compared to that of your main character. Levelling is driven by XP gained from combat. Thus, if you go questing with either one of your companions they will level accordingly. They also have personal quests associated with them, ensuring that both companions have an appropriate backstory. The rapport system means that it is prudent to be nice to your AI chum or they’ll leave you for a time.
“Do Try and Keep Up”
Justin Olivetti posed an honest question on Massively Overpowered yesterday. “Do you have any clue what’s going on in your MMO’s storyline?” he asked and I must admit that my answer varies greatly according to what I’m playing. Yet before I give a more comprehensive response, let me make clear that one of the aspects of the MMO genre that I enjoy the most is its penchant for complex and sprawling narratives. Both The Lord of the Rings Online and Star Trek Online are based upon intellectual properties with in-depth lore and an established canon. I was also drawn to the RPG Skyrim due to its enigmatic story which linked into a much wider history. It was one of the reasons I started playing The Elder Scrolls Online, as every quest seems to have a story that is connected to another. My enjoyment of these dense plots found in the MMO genre stems from my love of reading as a child.
Enjoying LOTRO Through Others
When you’ve been doing any leisure activity for a long time, there comes a point where over familiarity does become an issue. It tempers one’s enjoyment and impacts upon the way you experience that particular pastime. I’ve written about this situation before with regard to my relationship with cinema and films. More recently it has started to occur with my gaming activities, especially with the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online. I have been playing this game since December 2008 and I’ve had a long and complicated relationship with it over the course of twelve years. The game was a mainstay of my life at a time when I was living alone and doing contract work. Hence I had a lot of leisure time to sink into LOTRO and few other obligations whenever I wasn’t working. It was in many ways the perfect time to enjoy an MMO as I could “commit” to it. And so I embarked upon the same gaming journey that many others have taken.
When the Game Stops You From Playing
Last night, I finally had sufficient time to log into The Elder Scrolls Online and check out the new Blackwood expansion. The plan was to go straight to the new zone and complete the relevant quests to obtain the two companions that have been added to the game. Unfortunately, life seldom goes to plan as Robert Burns alluded to in his famous quotation. As I haven’t played ESO for a while, I’ve missed several major game updates. Consequently all my champion points have been reset, along with all my skills. So, I had to spend some time trying to remember how my Dragonknight was previously set up. I checked a few screenshots to see what skills were on the hotbars but as they don’t display the name, plus the icons change after morphing a skill, it was tricky trying to reverse engineer my prior build. Eventually I just winged it and managed to blag my way through the two quests.
EG7 to Consolidate All Titles on its 4Game Platform
EG7 is very slick when it comes to corporate communications. Earlier today the company posted their Q1 Report Presentation and Q&A on YouTube. Although specifically designed for the company’s investors, CEO Robin Flodin stated that he was aware that many gamers watch these presentations and are welcome. However, he did point out that any major game related news would always come via their appropriate outlets, thus making it clear that there was not any consumer information in his briefing. He then went on to discuss how well EG7 was faring financially and even to the layperson, it is clear that the company did very well last year. However, there were two nuggets of information that were interesting from a gamer’s perspective. The first was that EG7 is going to consolidate all of its games on their current 4game platform. The second was that the company was developing a new AAA MMO linked to a major intellectual property.
LOTRO: Bullroarer Update 30 - Preview #1
On Wednesday evening, Standing Stone Games made Update 30 The Blood of Azog for the Lord of the Rings Online available on the Bullroarer test server. The preview includes the forthcoming raid The Fall of Khazad-dûm and the continuation of the Epic Story from War of Three Peaks. They are also testing some balance changes to all classes in the game. According to community manager Cordovan “we've had to reconsider the balance of certain major group buffs and debuffs that were overpowered in the context of large fellowships. This has led to the reduction of several of these effects in order to hopefully allow for a wider breadth of class compositions in such content. We are balancing this work by not just focusing on nerfs, but DPS increases and other buffs as well”. As ever with content on Bullroarer, it is subject to change and may be altered further before final release.
The Alts We Do Not Level
There are many factors that can add to an MMORPGs replayability. Multiple races, classes and factions can all potentially offer a new experience to the player. Some games even have unique stories associated with different types of characters, ensuring that rolling a new alt means that the player doesn’t repeat material they’ve already completed. Many gamers enjoy this aspect of the genre and will experiment with different builds, resulting in a character selection screen filled with numerous alts in various states of progress. However, irrespective of whether you get to experience a new story or if you indeed like the new character you’ve created, there comes a point when you look at your new alts progression and reflect upon the long, long journey to level cap. It is at this point that many alts fall by the wayside. The aforementioned character selection screen is often populated with unfulfilled potential.
LOTRO: Password Reset for Dormant Accounts
Here’s a nugget of information that passed under the radar, or at least it passed under mine. The following post appeared on the official LOTRO forums last week regarding resetting password on dormant player accounts. “As part of our effort to keep people's game accounts secure we have reset the passwords for all game accounts that have not been logged into in more than two years. Your game account and all of its data remains intact! In order to log in, you will need to reset your password through the Forgot My Password? reset procedure. To further help protect your account, we also recommend that you regularly update your password details, and never share your password with anyone. If you need further assistance, please contact Account Support”. Cordovan (Community Manager).
LOTRO to End Support for Windows XP
"The Lord of the Rings Online will be deprecating support for Windows XP and earlier operating systems as of June 8th, 2021. All of your characters and progress will remain, and you can continue to play the game by running LOTRO on a Windows 7 or newer operating system. Players who need to can contact Account Support at help.standingstonegames.com. Thank you" Cordovan. If my time working in IT has taught me anything, it’s that once someone has found a computer setup that works for them and that they’re comfortable with, they’ll move heaven and earth to keep it. Not everyone is an early adopter. Not everyone upgrades just because an upgrade is available. Money is also a major factor. £100 may be a trivial amount to one person but a month’s wages to another. Bearing all this in mind, it is fair to say that not everyone upgrades their hardware or software willy-nilly. Hence it is not unusual to find PC’s running Windows XP in peoples homes.
LOTRO: Five Things I Do Not Use Anymore
I logged into The Lord of the Rings Online today and started sorting through my inventory and vault on my primary character, which is a level cap Lore-master. After 14 years and a great deal of change, it’s hardly surprising that an MMO such as LOTRO generates so much bric-a-brac and superfluous items. Much of which is obsolete or only of use for a very short period of time while levelling. Much of this junk is linked to wider systems and mechanics in the game that are no longer relevant or at the least are no longer as important to the game as it has grown and expanded. In fact, off the top of my head, here are five aspects of LOTRO that were a big deal at one point during the games lifecycle (indeed some were major selling points) but now are not essential as you progress through the game. Certainly they don’t necessarily have any major bearing upon the average LOTRO player (follow the link for a discussion about this particular definition) with an alt at level cap.
LOTRO: EG7 Community Update
Last December EG7 announced that it had purchased Daybreak Game Company and its portfolio. It subsequently became apparent that DGC was not just the publisher for Standing Stone Games but in fact their owner. Something that many players had suspected for a while. After an investor briefing was published, it became clear that EG7 were not just another corporate body out to asset strip and make a fast buck but were in fact genuinely interested in growing and improving the games that they now owned. For players of the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online, a wave of cautious optimism spread throughout the community. Hints at a graphical overhaul for the game and a potential console conversion were well received. Further news and specific details have been eagerly anticipated.
A Month in Gaming
I usually write this recurring post at the beginning of each month, reflecting upon my gaming activities over the previous thirty odd days. I refrained from writing an instalment at the beginning of April as I really didn’t feel I had much to say. However, now that a further month has elapsed, I believe sufficient has happened for me to continue. I do worry that these posts get repetitive and simply writing “ I played MMO A or B” is not sufficiently engaging. Luckily, I do feel that I have more to say this time round as I’ve broadened my gaming horizons recently and feel that I’ve done more, compared to other months. So let me begin with my return to console gaming. Something I haven’t done since 1999 when I purchased a Sega Dreamcast. After some procrastination, I’ve finally bought a Nintendo Switch and it has proven quite a hit not only with me but my grandchildren.
LOTRO: The Further Adventures of Bilbo Baggins
I was hoping that 2021 would be a good year for the MMORPG, The Lord of the Rings Online. New owners, along with hints at a revised community relations policy and a recent roadmap for future content have all been positively received by the game’s stoic community. Furthermore, the recent demise of the LOTR based MMO by Amazon Game Studios has eliminated any immediate competition. Sadly, two things have occurred recently indicating that developer’s Standing Stone Games are still tone deaf to the player feedback and lacking in any tangible long term vision for the game. The first was a statement made by Executive Producer, Rob “Severlin” Ciccolini, regarding Legendary Items in the game and the subject of grind. The second was the new “Further Adventures” quest arcs, as described in February’s Executive Producer’s Letter, which uses the “missions” system that was added to the game in Update 28.
LOTRO: A Golden Opportunity
Back in Summer 2019, Amazon Game Studios announced it was co-developing a new free-to-play MMO set in Middle-earth, along with Athlon Games. The latter was at the time a subsidiary of Chinese publisher Leyou Technologies. However, in December 2020, Tencent bought Leyou Technologies which led to a series of contract renegotiations and reviews of ongoing projects. According to Bloomberg these negotiations did not go well and as a result, the new MMO has been cancelled. A spokesperson for Amazon recently stated that “we have been unable to secure terms to proceed with this title at this time. We love the Lord of the Rings IP, and are disappointed that we won't be bringing this game to customers”. Hence, Amazon will not have a complimentary game for their upcoming $1bn Lord of the Rings television series. At this point, possibly the only people who are happy with this outcome are Standing Stone Games, the developers of The Lord of the Rings Online.
Star Trek Online: Delta Recruitment Event
Consider any MMORPG that has been around for a few years or more and you'll often find a game that is weighted towards the endgame and the players at level cap. New content often overlooks or even excludes players just starting out or those at intermediate levels. Furthermore, players that have drifted away from a game are often faced with the dilemma of returning to a character that they have forgotten how to play. The most practical solution to this is to simply create a new alt and start from scratch. However for a lot of players this is not a particularly inviting option. Repeating old content can be dull and singularly unrewarding. And for the new player, starting out and trying to catch up with the rest of the community or their friends who are at level cap, can frequently feel like an uphill struggle. It can be very frustrating when friends, colleagues and guild mates are playing the latest missions and you’re still mixing it down in the starter zones.
Same Meat, Different Gravy
Seeing Raph Koster back in the gaming news headlines has proven a timely reminder that no matter how things change, they remain the same. The video games industry has moved on in many ways with regard to technology and now enjoys mainstream appeal. However there are also areas where virtually no progress has been made. Hence Mr Koster’s protestations that the MMO genre has not yet reached its full potential. I started blogging about MMOs and other games around 15 years ago. I have an archive of my previous posts and spent some time recently looking at material I wrote back in 2007 and 2008. The subjects ranged from bad game launches, broken mechanics, staff redundancies, questionable business models, poor community relations and that perennial favourite, toxic communities. Many of which were written from the perspective of someone who was very invested in the genre and who had a degree of optimism for the future. Silly me to quote Paul Chuckle.
Do We Really Need "Living Worlds"?
There is a cogent argument to be had that the MMORPG genre has never really hit its full potential. Too many of them do the same thing and there is a long list of features that are conspicuously absent, that players habitually complain about. The debate is further “complicated” (like so many pop culture “debates” are) by one’s own relationship with the genre and what is best described as “personal baggage. Some players will eulogise about older games such as Ultima Online and EverQuest, extolling their lack of features and grindy nature as some sort of character building form of gaming self flagellation. Players with a more contemporary experience of MMOs are subsequently ambivalent towards social interaction and content gating. Hence if you ask a broad spectrum of MMO gamers what features they’d like to see in a new game, you’ll get a commensurate broad spectrum of answers. After 15 years of playing MMOs I’m not sure that I can adequately articulate my own thoughts on improving the genre. We all seem to want some sort of change but beyond that it all gets rather vague.
Choosing a New Game
I want to talk about how we choose a new game from the countless titles that are currently available. I am going to be candid about how I do this as well as my own personal biases and prejudices. Because I am not open to playing any type of game. Like so many other aspects of life, I have very clear likes and dislikes that can only be tempered so far with logic and rational thinking. Video games as far as I’m concerned are supposed to be engaging, entertaining and inherently enjoyable. I don’t mind a degree of challenge and I’ll grind to achieve a specific goal, if I feel the reward to effort ratio is acceptable. I will on occasions attempt to step tentatively out of my comfort zone. However, there are some things that I simply don’t like, so they will not be considered. I think the best analogy for this is food. There are certain meals that I have tried (sometimes several times) and disliked, so they won’t ever be eaten again. Then there are other meals that contain ingredients I dislike or that are cooked in a style that I don’t enjoy. These are also off the proverbial table (no pun intended).