Ring Ring!

I’m in my home office. It’s a quarter past five. “Ring ring, your iPhone is ringing!” says my phone. I answer. It’s Adam Mersky, director of communications at Turbine. He introduces me to Aaron Campbell, live producer of LOTRO. It’s a bit bizarre to speak to these Americans from my study in a small town in the Netherlands. It’s the same study where I spent an almost embarrassingly large amount of time in the world of  LOTRO. This is why my inner fanboy is taking his seat next to my professional inner journalist.

“This update marks the beginning of Volume 3,” says Campbell. “Until now, new volumes started with expansions. We launched with Shadows of Angmar, which was volume 1. Volume 2 started with Mines of Moria. We now move away from this patern.” Obviously, my next question is when we can expect a new full expansion. After two sem-sly attempts from me to learn more, Mersky intervenes gently yet firmly. There will be no announcements today about upcoming expansions. “But is Riders of Rohan at least still slated for this year?” I ask. Both men laugh. “No comment.”

Elrond

Of course Campbell is more than happy to tell me about book 1 of volume 3, in which the heroes of Eriador now must rally the rangers behind king Aragorn. This time Elrond narrates the story, replacing Gandalf and Galadriel. LOTRO tells its story through its ‘epic quest line’. Each ‘book’ consists of a series of quests. Several of these are special instances, in which the player experiences the story through scripted events. “We want to make the story more personal for the player,” says Campbell. “NPCs will respond to your previous deeds or lack thereof. If you finished or skipped a book, they will react differently.” I tell them I feel little touches like that can be a huge improvement over the standard “Only you, [insert name], can save us!”

“We are working hard to make these ‘book quests’ attainable for all players.” With this, Campbell adresses one of my personal frustrations. It becomes more and more difficult to finish earlier, low level book quests without other players.

Inspiration

“We are gradually introducing ‘moments of inspiration’ for certain Volume 1 quests. This allows players to solo certain sections that previously required a group, by temporarily boosting their stats.” My hopes of now finally clearing a series of ‘epic’ instances in Moria, in which I must defend certain halls from invading forces, are crushes when Campbell tells me there currently are no inspired moments in the Dwarven kingdom. Yet. “But there are several solo paths through Moria,” he adds.  Just not the epic story.

Playing with yourself

The increased focus on solo play is a response to changing MMO players’ tastes. Fewer people are willing to play many hours in a row to achieve something. To maximize fun in shorter sessions, Turbine introduced Skirmishes with their Siege of Mirkwood expansion. Skirmishes are instanced battles in which players (solo or in groups of up to twelve heroes) fight off hordes of Sauron’s minions. “We created new Skirmishes for this update. The great thing is, they allow us to go back to older areas of the game and reuse them to tell new stories. In this book, we go back to Angmar. One of our new Skirmishes takes place in The Rift, which many of our players remember as the setting for the raid on the Balrog.”

Campbell once again confirms the team’s intent to use Skirmishes for PvP (“No, we can’t say when…”). Player versus Player combat is the most underdeveloped part of LOTRO. Apart from (necessary) improvement in balance, not much has changed in LOTRO’s single PvP zone Ettenmoors.

Enough already

Keeping classes balanced is a challenge, especially after raising the levelcap. I ask the developer if they are now done with constantly resetting experience points on Legendary Items. Their laughter tells me I sounded more frustrated than I intended. “For now we are done,” is the rather unsatisfying answer. My further attempts to break through the friendly PR wall, to get a glimps of what’s in LOTRO’s future are expertly blocked. “We just have to be very careful with what we say,” says Mersky. “Before you know it, people think we ‘promised’ a new feature that might not be feasible.” At least Turbine isn’t suffering from ‘Peter Molyneux syndrome’.

Campbell is then quick to point out that the new book update will bring much more to players. The Spring Festival will be expanded to include gardening (“No this is not confirmation that Gardening is the new hobby.”) and new recipes are added for high level crafters. But players have come to expect theses things from the game. Turbine raised the bar on what subscribers can expect from free updates. And the fact they are continuing to support the game in this manner shows how determined they are to keep their subscribers entertained.

1. Storytelling
Not surprising, since LOTRO is based on one of the greatest Fantasy books ever written. But there is arguably more story in the game than in the books. At least more than in the movies. The Epic Storyline is a side-story to Frodo’s journey, and includes epic moments and wonderfully crafted instances and story sequences. Compare that to WoW, in which story is something that you notice vaguely in the corner of your eye while grinding out your next lvl 70.

2. Graphics
Even though WoW’s artstyle is fun and colourful, it hardly qualifies as ‘high impact’. And even though there are better looking games out there, LOTRO offers beautiful vistas and (at higher levels) impressive boss characters. This is one pretty game.

3. Raid access
You know how in WoW you have to grind and grind and grind to get all that epic gear to make any kind of useful contribution to that next raid? Even though WoW’s endgame offers some of the greatest team-based play in the industry, only a small percentage of players will see it all. Here comes LOTRO which has opened up raiding to any character of suitable level. No keys, no gear, just get a group together and dive in. This makes so much sense, it boggles the mind. Why keep players from doing the high end stuff? Just let them in and do it, already! Now if only Lotro offered raids of the same quality as WoW, but that’s another article…

4. Crafting
At a first glance, you might think WoW and Lotro are the same in this respect. Nothing is further from the truth. Players can get proficient in several crafting tiers, each with progressively better products. But mastering tiers offers the chance to crit items, that are even more incredible. Also, crafted items in Lotro are better than any other in the game. No drop can compete with the best critted craftwork (edit:except Rift Raid gear). It takes time, but the system is far more rewarding than WoW’s.

5. Updates
Even though WoW is updated often, and new content is added, it can’t hold a candle to Lotro’s ‘book updates’ that arrive every two months. Updates that contain substantial additions, including whole new areas. And more importantly: updates for all level ranges. It’s not just the endgamers who feel Turbine’s love. Everybody can join in. This keeps the game fresh and alive, even if you can’t spend 8 hours a day to play.