Defying the Shadow in the North!

It Will All End in Tears...

Well, it was bound to happen. Some evil genius finally released a Lord of the Rings massively multi-player online role playing game. And my life is no longer my own. It was released in May, so I actually did pretty well resisting its evil influence. I bought it on Tuesday and it took until Thursday for me to get it running properly. I've played every day since and am up to Level 11. The level cap is 50.

I can't even begin to describe how satisfying this game is, especially for someone, like me, who immersed themself in this world from the time they were 9 years old and had only very recently emerged when the movies were released and dragged me right back in.

I've only seen the beginning sections of the game, which for elves and dwarves are the mountains west of the Shire, and I poked my nose into the Shire itself and I just have to say... wow. This area is not very fleshed out in the book, besides references to ancient dwarf mines and the seaward elvish country of Lindon, site of the Grey Havens. The developers have done a great job breathing life into this area. Elf refuges, dwarf cities, ancient ruins, they've definitely filled the Ered Luin (the Blue Mountains) with Tolkien-appropriate content, despite his largely ignoring the place in his published works.

My one gripe so far is the choice they've made to have a rogue tribe of dwarves allied with the goblins, although this early in the story is probably too soon to start quibbling before I really get to see how they incorporate this element into the larger world. And I keep coming back to this question: How else could you explain the intrusion of goblins into this area, so far from their traditional strongholds? So, even on that minor gripe, I am provisionally giving them a pass.

This is the first MMORPG I've played, apart from Final Fantasy XI, so it's hard for me to compare it to other games in the genre, other than the aforementioned Final Fantasy XI, which is probably somewhat unfair. FFXI appeals much more to the hardcore, I'm told, and is 4 or 5 years old to boot. But, I find this game to be much more enjoyable to actually play then FFXI. All the reviews compare it more to World of Warcraft. Apparently a lot of the game play ideas, although by no means all, were cribbed from that source. Which, naturally, cribbed them from a variety of other sources. But the main differences from FFXI I've seen so far is that the various little errands the NPCs give you in this game give you experience and that the combat is not nearly as difficult.

In FFXI, the various missions, even the ones to advance the storyline, are strictly outside the leveling grind. The only exp you receive is for defeating the various monsters you encounter in the course of the mission. And for missions that don't ever take you outside of the town... you don't get exp. And the combat starts out tough and quickly becomes psychotic. Fighting rats and bumblebees at Level 1 is no pushover. If you pick on a bumblebee to tough for you, you could be headed back to your home point more quickly than you anticipated. And sacrificing a percentage of the exp that you already have managed to earn. This is taken to an absurd degree, you can actually level downward!

And after the first 10-15 levels or so you cannot get exp from monsters weak enough for you to defeat by yourself. This mandates finding a party, and there are only so many combinations that will work in exp combat. And the fights are still absurdly tough. 6 players taking on one monster and even the weakest in your level range can still leave you too depleted to take on another without a lengthy rest. And of course a tougher than expected monster can wipe out the whole party.

Now granted, it's not fair to compare LOTRO to FFXI since FFXI is so atypical and apparently WOW is much more lenient (read: fun) and user friendly. And I'm only level 11, but so far, playing the LOTR equivalent of a mage/pet class (light armor, limited to low damage staff weapons, buffs and debuffs, pet to assist you, with a few nukes) I've been able to battle several monsters at once, with my pet fighting one while I kill the other. And the downtime between fights is almost non-existent since you regenerate life and power IN and out of battle, although much more quickly out of battle obviously (at a rate unheard of in FFXI, frankly). In FFXI you not only have to be out of battle, you have to actually sit down and rest. And even then it's not exactly a quick process. Apparently these are all WOW inspirations.

And when you die in LOTRO? There's no exp penalty. Instead there's a progressive hp/healing/damage penalty. Dying once gives you a minor penalty to your hp, heals are marginally less effective and you take marginally more damage from enemies. But if you die again while the penalty is still effective, it's compounded. Up to a maximum of 5 times. It's mainly to deter idiots from pursuing objectives out of their range then to punish players for not noticing an enemy spawn right behind them while they're fighting three other enemies (which has happened to me, and yeah, I died).

And since I was speaking of classes earlier... they have really done a great job with them in this game. My main fear was that they'd have a bunch of classes that were completely inappropriate for the material, like Shamans and Paladins and Wizards and so forth. But no, you've got Burglars (think Frodo or Sam), Hunters (Legolas), Champions (Gimli), Captains (Boromir, Aragorn), Guardians (the Tolkien equivalent of a tank character again think of Gimli or Boromir), Lore-Masters (Gandalf) and Minstrels (a healing class with no real Fellowship analogue unless maybe you count Pippin, who sings for Denethor and is comic relief for the Fellowship early on...?). This is in keeping with so much in the game that is designed incredibly well to take advantage of the material rather than work against it.

For instance, minstrels are a healing class (and Lore-Masters and Captains also have some healing ability) because in LOTR you don't actually "die" you are "defeated" and you don't have "life" you have "morale". Minstrels can restore morale by performing. Captains restore morale through inspiration and loremasters through... knowledge? This is a very elegant solution as in LOTR if you die... you're not coming back. However, Minstrels (and Captains) can "resurrect" players from "defeat" through an amazing inspirational effort. And there's more examples where that came from. This is one of the best licensing efforts I've ever seen. Man I love this game. Okay, that's probably too much. Oh well.



Big Aristotle to the rescue!