Disney plagiarizes… itself?

LotRO Fast Travel Options

Lord of the Rings Online has a huge, immersive world, and the designers have chosen to limit travel options there in keeping with the lore, and to increase the players’ perception of the world’s size.  I agree with this concept in theory, but in practice I often find that I really want to be able to get places faster.  Consequently I pay a lot of attention to the various travel options in-game.  The zones of Forochel and Eregion treat travel rather differently from the zones that came before, and I’ll focus largely on these two zones here.

First, how did fast travel work before these zones were introduced?  Basically, there were five options for fast travel.  First, all the lowbie zones can be accessed by any character at any time for the low, low price of 1 silver piece (or 80 copper with the new discount for longtime players) by visiting an NPC stable; said stables offer normal travel to close locations and fast travel to all newbie hubs.  This is a spectacular idea and one I warmly welcomed when it was implemented long ago (I think it was in closed beta, might have been shortly after launch though).  This means e.g. a player in Bree can spend 1s and travel very quickly to Michel Delving in the Shire, which in practice means lowbies can easily and cheaply join up and adventure in any of the lowbie zones.  Second, the larger mid-to-high level quest hubs (e.g. Esteldin, Rivendell) have fast travel options that are gated by level – e.g. any character lvl  40+ can fast travel between a stable in South Bree and a stable in Rivendell.  Third, all races have deeds available from lvl 29 onwards that allow characters to jump to their racial home once per hour (Dwarves to Thorin’s Halls, Hobbits to Michel Delving, Men to Bree, Elves to Rivendell).  Fourth, all characters have a map they can use to jump to their bind-spot once per hour; pretty much every quest hub in game offers a milestone one can bind to, so characters can quickly travel to more or less any place they’ve been before.  Fifth and finally, home-owners and members of kinships with kin halls can jump to their homes or kin halls once per hour as well.

While these options are nice, more options are desirable, and with the advent of Forochel, Turbine experimented a bit with a new process.  Subsequently, they decided they didn’t like this idea and scrapped it in favor of a new one, which is found in Eregion (and Moria as well).  I’ve not spent enough time in Lothlorien to be sure what fast travel options exist there so I’ll leave that out of this discussion.

When visiting Forochel, one is quickly struck by two things: first, the zone is massive, and it takes a loooong time to run around, or even to ride from one quest hub to another using the stable horses (NPC travel options).  Second, the zone is blindingly white and full of snow and fog, which increases the player’s perception that travel takes a long time.  Objectively, it’s not really larger than several other zones, but it feels like it is because the player’s view of distant objects is obscured.  Turbine chose to make the fast travel options in Forochel all bound to reputation – so initially, characters have no fast travel to, from, or within Forochel, and options open up the more reputation a character gains with the Lossoth of Forochel, and with the other factions surrounding them.  That is to say, if you want to travel within Forochel, you’d better befriend the Lossoth.  If you want to travel to Forochel from somewhere else, or from Forochel to somewhere else, then you’d better befriend the people in that said somewhere else.  So e.g. to travel between Forochel and Bree-land requires befriending the Men of Bree; travel to and from Rivendell requires befriending the Elves of Rivendell, etc.

How well does this system work?  In practice, all the characters I took to Forochel (which is incidentally a lvl 42-50 zone) failed to significantly benefit from the fast travel options.  By the time they had enough reputation with the Lossoth to gain fast travel there, they didn’t need it; in the process of gaining that reputation they’d completed all the quests already, or all I cared to do.  Few of my characters had enough reputation with surrounding factions to benefit from the fast travel to and from Forochel, either, and it didn’t generally seem worth my time to grind rep for that purpose.  There is one exception here: completing all the quests at the first two quest hubs in Forochel yields Acquaintance standing, which in turn unlocks fast travel between Ost Forod in Evendim and the second quest hub in Forochel, which is smack in the middle of Forochel’s icy wastes.  That’s convenient if one continues to quest there.  By and large though the fast travel concept in Forochel didn’t work all that well for providing greater convenience to players – it took a lot of time and work to unlock the options and the fast travel rewards came too late.

By contrast, in Eregion, fast travel is unlocked by deeds, which are completed by finishing quests in the zone.  After completing the first 10 quests in Eregion, one unlocks fast travel to the first Eregion quest hub; one can then travel to Gwingris from any connecting stable, be that in Rivendell or one of the other Eregion hubs.  This option becomes available before one’s completed all the quests at the first hub, which means it remains useful in practical terms for the player.  Likewise, completing more quests in Eregion completes successive deeds, unlocking fast travel to the 3 other quest hubs there.  As one quests and spends time there, fast travel options open up organically over time, providing a natural progression that’s rewarding and useful.  By the time one’s completed most of the quests in Eregion, one can fast travel to all 4 quest hubs, or between those hubs and Rivendell.

This concept worked well, and is mirrored in Moria.  Moria is divided into the Central Halls, Upper Halls, and Lower Halls; completing quests in each of these areas unlocks fast travel to various quest hubs in these areas.  This requires a greater time investment than Eregion did, but then there are a lot more quests in Moria than in Eregion.  Moria’s fast travel options require a bit more deliberate effort on the part of the player than Eregion’s do, which I regard as a bit unfortunate; overall, Eregion’s fast travel design is the most enjoyable for me in game.

There’s another type of fast travel that doesn’t involve stables, which is available to certain classes.  Hunters can transport themselves and fellowship members to various places around the world, and Wardens can transport themselves only.  Both Captains and Guardians have abilities related to summoning fellowship members to each other’s locations, but that doesn’t really pertain to the type of travel being discussed here.  I’ll focus here on the Hunter since that’s the only class that can transport both the character and fellowship members from one place to another.

Hunters gain the ability to jump to various locations based on 4 different approaches: trainers, quests, reputation, and deeds.  Trainers will sell Hunters the ability to port to the more common places – that’s simple enough, and becomes available to all Hunters at various levels based on the locations in question.  Some locations, like Tinnudir in Evendim, require completion of a special local quest in order to unlock the Hunter’s port.  Both Forochel and Moria require a Hunter to gain a low amount of reputation with local factions (Acquaintance in both cases) before the Hunter is allowed to buy the skill to port there.  Eregion is however the only zone that has the Hunter port unlocked by completing a deed.  In this case, a Hunter must explore all the major ruins and major animal dens of the zone to complete two local deeds; completion of both deeds unlocks the ability to port to Eregion’s third quest hub, Echad Dunann, which lies at the western entrance of Moria.

Of the options listed above, the one I most enjoyed was Eregion’s.  It felt natural and fitting for a Hunter to simply explore the area and learn it well enough to be able to travel safely and quickly there.  This also encourages exploration, obviously, since one must travel all over the zone to complete the deeds.  One could, in theory, unlock the ability to fast travel to Suri-kyla in Forochel or to Moria’s 21st Hall without ever having been to those places (you can gain enough rep to be Acquaintance pretty easily in both zones, and a friend could buy the skill scrolls for the travel powers – you need only be Acquaintance to use the scroll and learn the skill, not to buy the scroll in the first place).  That’s frankly a little silly.

Sith Lords in Middle-earth

I’ve really been enjoying the Rune-keeper (RK) class, one of the two new classes added to LotRO in the Moria expansion.  The class is a bit like a Hunter and a bit like a Minstrel in gameplay; never both at the same time through really.  The class skills are divided into two main groups: massive damage or heals over time.  The more of one sort of skill one uses in a given fight, the more options become available – thus if e.g. I use my damage skills to kill something, as the fight progresses my more powerful damage spells get unlocked, but at the same time I lose access to my more powerful healing skills.  This process is known as attunement.  It’s a delicate balance and I think is handled very well.

The class has a nice daze skill, which takes a foe out of combat for 5-10 seconds (or 10-15 seconds if traited).  There’s also a short duration stun that works more often the stronger one’s battle attunement.  Otherwise, the options are overwhelming force or strong healing.  When soloing, that’s a pretty clear choice.  It is possible to throw a couple of heal-over-time skills up before a fight, then go heavy into damage, and using this approach my RK has been able to consistently solo ‘red’ mobs (~5 levels higher) when need be.  Correspondingly, my RK, whom I only started playing a couple of weeks ago, hit lvl 45 the other night.

<rant>There’s been some concern in the community that the RK violates the lore of Middle-earth by providing spell effects that are too flashy; one can shoot lightning from one’s hands (“your feeble skills are no match for the dark side!”), rain down fire upon one’s foes, or summon a hailstorm.  To those who say this violates the lore, I respond, “go read the books again!”  This is a pet peeve of mine; there’s actually rather a lot of overt, flashy magic in Tolkien’s works yet people so often forget this.  In the Silmarillion, the tale of Beren and Luthien has some of the most extreme examples of flashy magic of which I’ve read… multiple characters use illusion magic to change their appearances into vampires and werewolves, use songs to literally tear towers down and scatter stones, and charm even Morgoth into a magical sleep.  In the Lord of the Rings, Gandalf calls down fire from the heavens on the wargs who attack the Fellowship in Eregion, leaving the whole hilltop scorched (the location is of course in game: the Burnt Tor).  Later when Minas Tirith is beseiged by the Nazgul, Gandalf fires a massive bolt of light into the sky, driving them off and dispelling the magical fear they brought.  Elrond caused a river to flood, washing away the Nazgul, and Gandalf made the rushing water form the shape of horses just because he felt like it.  Hells, four of the main characters (or technically five, though Bilbo and Frodo shared the same weapon) had weapons that glowed!  Even Bilbo’s grandfather, the Old Took, had magical cufflinks that remained attached until removed, and could never be lost.  Magic in Middle-earth is neither weak nor hidden nor especially rare.  </rant>

Keep your hands off my Sith Lord wannabe!  He belongs in Middle-earth dammit.  Now excuse me a moment while I blast these orcs into cinders.

Shiny!

Ticking away, the moments that make up a dull day

I logged into LotRO last night with no plans for what to do.  I have a Champion who’s 60th level and could use some better equipment and some improved traits, and I have a host of alts who could use some leveling up.  I decided though just to log in and go with the flow, to be social and join some friends.  Often, this is a recipe for some fun and memorable times.  Last night, it was a recipe for boredom.

8:30 pm – A good friend of mine from back when I used to play LotRO (before my ~8 month hiatus) was online, and I sent him a tell to see what he was doing.  He and some friends were in a fellowship for chat purposes, and didn’t yet have plans – all of them were in different areas doing their own things.  I finished up a few quests in Moria while they debated what to do.

9:00 pm – My friend invited me to join the fellowship, and I accepted.  There were four of us at this point, but one had to go soon.  My friend indicated that we should meet in the 21st hall of Moria and we’d find something to do.  I headed there.

9:15 pm – The 3 of us were in the 21st hall (Champ, Champ, Hunter – all 60th level).  My friend got a Captain and Minstrel to join us.  Discussions were opened about things to do.  We didn’t have a tank (Guardian/Warden).

9:30 pm – We agreed that we’d give Skumfil a try.  This is a 6-man instance in the Foundations of Stone (one of the higher-level parts of Moria).  We still didn’t have a tank and started trying to get one to join.

9:45 pm – My friend told the group he’d be back in 15 minutes or so.  He and his brother went to get some food.  I sat by the stable master in the 21st hall and read while I waited.

10:00 pm – My friend returned.  The Minstrel and Captain were doing some quests together in Moria.  The Hunter was in Esteldin looking for tailoring recipes.  The other Champion (my friend) was in the 21st Hall with me.  I bought a ride to the Shadowed Refuge, in the Foundations of Stone.

10:05 pm – I arrived in the Foundations of Stone.  I continued to read as I waited.  I had my headphones on and was listening to group voicechat so didn’t need to watch the screen.  I asked if it’d be long, and everyone seemed content to do their own thing while we waited for a tank.  I shrugged and continued reading.

11:15 pm – We got a Guardian!  There was much rejoicing.  The rest of the group started to get ready to enter the instance.  I indicated my concern that it was getting kinda late and I’d have to go soon.  I was assured that the instance wasn’t a very long one and that we’d be able to blast through it.

11:37 pm – We entered Skumfil.

12:48 am – After 3 (three) total party wipes and untold individual party member deaths, I reluctantly told everyone that I really couldn’t stay any longer and had to go.  I thanked everyone and logged off.

*********

So what went wrong there?  Clearly this wasn’t an optimal playing experience.

First off, the other members felt pretty dependent on getting a tank, obviously.  Now, personally, I’d rather go in with fewer players or get someone from another class to fill the hole, than wait for several hours.  I used to have great times doing 6-man instances in LotRO’s old endgame instances (Carn Dum, Urugarth, Barad Gularan, etc) with 4 or 5 people, so it can be done.  I have very little experience though with the new instances and didn’t know what to expect, so I didn’t push for us to enter while underpowered.  This illustrates one of the things I like least about the holy trinity of classes – every group becomes dependent to some degree on having tanks/dps/healers, and sometimes it’s hard to find them when you want them.  My guild had about 20 people on at the time but only one was a lvl 60 guardian and he had to log off by 10:00 or so, so was unwilling to commit to anything.  I was grouped with members of two other guilds and neither of them could get a Guardian or Warden for, literally, hours.

Second, there were some coordination problems once everyone did join up.  I won’t point fingers but I will say that of the 20+ deaths we collectively suffered through, at least half could have been avoided with skill and preparation.  I don’t mind dying in LotRO… the penalty is item wear and my characters always have enough cash to deal with that.  I like facing tough challenges and dying can make the eventual victory all the sweeter.  We weren’t however on the path to eventual victory when I had to log off… it seemed likely that it’d take a long stream of additional total party wipes before we defeated that boss.  Again, not pointing fingers, but a full party of lvl 60s can most evidently conquer that content.

My feeling at the end of the night was one of frustration.  Don’t get me wrong, I love reading, but if I’m just going to read for most of the night, I won’t do it in my computer chair – I’ll instead sit somewhere more comfortable for that purpose.  When I sit down to play, it’s because I feel like playing.  I waited around for 3 (three) HOURS last night and felt like I’d made a mistake in joining the group, which is unfortunate.  I appreciated the invitation and enjoyed grouping with my friends, but… with just over 4 hours of playtime, I spent around 30% of that time actually doing something, and the rest of the time reading.  Now, admittedly, I could have gone off and soloed instead of reading, but the whole time I was waiting, I was given the impression that the group would be ready any minute now, and we’d all start the instance.  I didn’t want the rest of the group to wait on me so I made sure I was ready and in place once we agreed on the plan.

Sometimes, as was the case last night, grouping can be a pain in the ass.  The other Champ and the Hunter are friends, and the remaining 3 members were all nice enough people – very chatty in voicechat, and overall were fun people I’d definitely group with again.  I wouldn’t however rush out to wait for them again… I’d wait until they’re ready and in place and then ask for a summons.

A Capella

This is pretty impressive stuff.

Hidden UI Features

I was thinking this morning about all the hidden features MMOs offer, that only become available to users who are willing to ferret them out, whether by internet searching or asking another player.  I realized that most if not all MMOs have these features, and further that they’re damned annoying.

Case in point: in LotRO, if you want to see how many frames per second your computer is currently generating in-game, you hit Ctrl-F.  I mean, that’s obvious, right?  There’s no UI checkbox, no in-game hint to lead you to this knowledge.  As I recall, the devs told us about this during closed beta.  When I used to play I knew all these hidden features and so they didn’t trouble me, but upon returning to the game after an extended absence, I found myself struggling to recall how to access some things that are well and truly hidden.

Another example: the deed log, which tracks progress towards various deeds, is accessed via Shift-L.  Again, irony aside, this is anything but obvious.  Whenever I sit down to a game whose UI I don’t know, I systematically test (literally) every key on my keyboard to see what they do, then I typically open up the keybindings control panel to see what else can be done that isn’t assigned a key.  Neither the deed log nor the FPS meter are listed in the LotRO keybindings though – players learn about these either from reading the manual, checking online, or asking a player.

This is a design failure, plain and simple.  The game should give us one clear means to discover, within the game itself, how to access all elements of the UI that exist.  It’s especially galling since LotRO’s UI tends to be quite elegant and well-laid-out.

In WoW, if you want to hide the UI (e.g. to take a screenshot) you press Alt-Z.  In WAR you press Shift-Z to do the same.  I mean, come on.  In what way is this readily apparent or user-friendly?

To dungeons deep and caverns old

Well, I’m back.

I’d been growing dissatisfied with EQ2 for some time now – the world was huge and there was a ton to do and see, but it felt somehow empty to me, and I never really had any goals except the most basic of achievement-related ones (e.g. level up in adventure or crafting).  The EQ2 crafting, while unique and admittedly challenging, felt tedious to me, and none of my characters ever had AAs close to what I’d read they ought to have at their level.  All in all, it felt like a lot of work to field characters who weren’t gimped by poor equipment and paltry AAs.  So after some soul-searching, I resubscribed to the MMO I have the best memories of – Lord of the Rings Online.  Buying the expansion (and base game again) for $9.95 was a compelling bargain (digital download for the win!), as was paying $9.95 per month to subscribe.

You Better Run, You Better Take Cover

I’m frankly unsurprised that the movement by the Aussie government to censor all the dangerous and subversive material on the internet is now reaching its greedy hands out towards online gaming.  This is after all the natural next step, if you’re a repressive regime bent on mindlessly preventing consenting adults from any exposure whatsoever to sex or violence, or for that matter entertainment in general.

I lived in Brisbane for 2 years 8 months, returning to the States last November.  I can attest firsthand that the internet access there was already fairly miserable, with outrageous ping times and frequent DNS problems.  Now the Aussie government is proceeding with its (frankly insane) plans to filter more or less everything crawling through the pipes connecting the Land Down Under with the rest of the world.  This will inevitably add to the already-terrible pings there, making even “legitimate” internet use more cumbersome – this serves nobody and hurts the nation at large.  I wish I could say I’m shocked but I’m not; the Aussie government is sadly all-too-much like the American and British governments, in that it’s often run (or controlled, or heavily influenced) by ultraconservatives who lack a fundamental understanding of how people have lived for the last 30 years.

The latest twist in the scheme involves filtering content in online games.  The obvious problems here, beyond the simple and compelling evils of censorship in general, include the difficulty small indie games face in getting a rating, as well as the unpredictable nature of all online games.  When you log into any MMO, you’re warned that the game experience may change during online play – which is to say not only that the game’s developer might patch in changes to the game, but that other players are unpredictable.

What does this mean?  If this plan is consummated, it means Aussie gamers likely won’t be able to play games like Spore or Sims 3, because if even one user creates content that’s objectionable and unsuitable for 15-year-olds (hello, penis-shaped aliens!), the whole game will be refused classification.  It means that small indie games like Plants vs. Zombies will likely be unavailable to Aussie gamers because they’re not rated.  It means games like AoC are very likely to be unavailable in Oz (boobies and blood!), but this could even extend to behemoths like WoW (which does, after all, have plenty of ultraviolence as well as drug and alcohol use).

I have no objections whatsoever to a government seeking to educate its populace about becoming responsible, mature adults.  If a government feels it’s necessary to censor materials available to children in order to protect them before they’re old enough to be educated, that’s also fine and reasonable.  I do however object in the strongest possible terms to any government censoring the content available to consenting adults “for their own protection”.  The sweeping and general nature of the Aussie internet censorship movement deeply disturbs me, and the extension of this movement to include games available online is frankly ridiculous.

Please spread the word.  Our Aussie friends are at substantial risk of losing access to a lot of games that are not only harmless to adults (and even to children), but that are by their nature educational and help to form social bonds.  This is a grave injustice.

Thanks to Ysharros for the heads up.

Krabnor! Barsnit tem do. Neep neep!

I picked up The Sims 3 this week and have played it a fair amount.  It’s more or less what one would expect if one’s played The Sims 2 – not a wholly new game but a welcome update to the old game.

Character creation is more flexible than ever, especially with the amount of control one has over appearance.  I was suitably impressed with the available options and was quickly able to make my sim version of Tobias Fünke (yes, from Arrested Development), which was a pretty good visual approximation if I do say so myself.  Sims have life goals which are chosen at creation, and the life goals available are based on the traits (up to 5) chosen for the sim.  Tobias is a never-nude of course, and is also a couch potato, but he’s friendly and flirtacious.  Sadly, he’s a bit of a loser as well.  This combination of traits allowed him several life goals, of which Network Anchor was the closest fit to the “real” Tobias’ goals.

Much of the game was very familiar and doesn’t require introduction if you’re familiar with what’s come before.  You can let your sim(s) do their own thing or you can micromanage everything.  You can build/modify as well as decorate your home.  The furnishings and furniture options are similar to what’s come before, and nothing really stood out there as being terribly new or different.

What is new is that the game isn’t about your sim household anymore, but now includes the entire town.  Your sim can walk/jog/run/drive anywhere he/she wishes, from a quick trip to the supermarket to pick up some fresh produce, to a trip to the community pool for a swim, to a jaunt to the local bookstore to pick up some light reading or training manuals for skills.  The added freedom here is very welcome and makes the sim’s life feel much more organic and realistic.  I was disappointed that with the advent of all this freedom, I still can’t micromanage my sim at work… but I can at least pick how my sim passes his work days, choosing from options like “business as usual”, “work hard”, “take it easy”, “chat with partner” (for some jobs), or even “use workout room” to get some exercise in and develop the athletic skill while on the job.

Lifetime goals are supplemented by transient goals, of which a sim can have up to 4 at a time.  These come and go pretty quickly, and I’ve been able to complete a large number very quickly, doing things like increasing a skill, making a new friend, etc.  Completing these goals gives points which can be spent on lifetime rewards; the first such that my sim purchased was “steel bladder”, which literally made it so he never needed to use the toilet again.  I later followed those up with rewards to make hunger and hygeine drop more slowly, making it much easier to keep my sim in a good mood all the time.

Sims have 10 skills they can work on: athletics, charisma, logic, fishing, gardening, writing, painting, handyman, and guitar.  As in previous games, these skills lead to faster promotions at applicable jobs, or in some cases (painting and writing) can be jobs in and of themselves.  You can learn the skills from practicing them, from reading books about them, or in some cases from watching TV shows about them.  You can even take classes in each skill at the appropriate place (e.g. restaurants for cooking skill).

Skills have been supplemented in Sims 3 by some new skill masteries.  There are 3 masteries per skill, and each is unlocked by performing a lot of actions with that skill – e.g. if you use Handyman skill to repair 10 plumbing objects, then any objects that sim repairs subsequently will never break again.  The masteries allow a bit more development and customization and are a welcome addition to the franchise.

To sum up: it’s a fun game, but doesn’t feel all that different in most regards from The Sims 2.  If you liked the previous games, you’re likely to enjoy this one as well.  It’s not revolutionary but it’s well-produced and fun, with the same light, silly aesthetics I’ve come to expect from the franchise.