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Posts Tagged ‘Lord of the Rings Online’

LotRO: A class made just for you

May 1, 2010 Articles Recommend, Lord of the Rings Online|522views

In some MMORPGs, picking a class to suit your taste and playstyle is as uncomplicated as buying your favorite beverage. Do you want something fizzy? Then get a soft drink. Something to make you think you’re way more witty than you actually are? Beer will do. Something to fill your bladder in under 0.2 minutes? Ice tea, baby. So it is in many MMOs, where players find that game’s version of their favorite class and hit the “play” button without thinking. It’s a sad commentary on the tired and bland class design that’s come from the Holy Trinity of game design, but that’s a discussion for another day (or column).

Instead, I want to devote today’s Road to Mordor to sorting out the nine playable classes of LotRO, because they are very often not what you’d expect from MMORPG class stereotypes. I’ve met a lot of players who end up playing — and falling in love with — a class that they would never touch in another game, due to that unique Turbine Twist™ that’s put into each class. So whether you’re rolling your very first character in LotRO or thinking about taking a walk in another class’ shoes, hit the jump for a handy guide to these nine classes.

The Burglar

  • What you might expect: A dual-wielding, high-DPS rogue with stealth capability…
  • The Turbine Twist™: …who also is a wiz at crowd control and at starting Fellowship Maneuvers at will.
  • Signature Ability: Hide in Plain Sight, which lets you drop all aggro, vanish into stealth even in combat, and regain control of the situation. Or, y’know, just avoid dying.
  • Fellowship Role: Burglars may be one of the least-played classes in LotRO, but they are always welcome into groups. They do decent damage, are able to lay down a bit of CC to manage multiple mobs easier, and can trigger FMs when the group needs them the most.

The Captain

  • What you might expect: A typical paladin, with heavy armor and healing abilities…
  • The Turbine Twist™: …who has a pet and absolutely incredible buffs.
  • Signature Ability: Last Stand, which makes you undefeatable for a short period of time. Couple that with In Harm’s Way, and suddenly you’re absorbing half of everyone’s damage — without it killing you.
  • Fellowship Role: As buffing hybrids, Captains are extremely group-friendly and can fill the role of a DPS, tank or healer depending on one’s build. As with most hybrid classes, Captains give up being the best at anything for a well-rounded balance of abilities.

The Champion

  • What you might expect: A heavy weapons, heavy armor DPS warrior…
  • The Turbine Twist™: …who is terrific at AOE damage and has the ability to fill in as a tank.
  • Signature Ability: Relentless Strike, a whopper of an attack that not only does big damage, but can’t be blocked or parried.
  • Fellowship Role: Damage. Damage, damage, damage and more damage. Occasionally, a Champion might step in as an off-tank, but DPS is where his strengths lay.

The Guardian

  • What you might expect: A solid, heavily-protected tank…
  • The Turbine Twist™: …who uses a lot of reactive abilities and shield strikes.
  • Signature Ability: Protection, which gives a nice defensive buff to another member of your party while enabling you to react to attacks against them.
  • Fellowship Role: Guardians are almost as typical a tank class as they come, so expect to be up front and center in all of the fights. They also have the ability to start Fellowship Maneuvers, which is a welcome ability for a tank to have.

The Hunter

  • What you might expect: A bow-wielding ranged class…
  • The Turbine Twist™: …who can melee a bit, lay down traps and has excellent travel abilities.
  • Signature Ability: Find the Path, a nice 15% speed boost to both the Hunter and her entire fellowship.
  • Fellowship Role: Massive gobs of damage, which is always welcome as long as you don’t grab aggro and quickly die thereafter. Think of Hunters as LotRO’s mage class, weird as that may sound — a glass cannon.

The Lore-master

  • What you might expect: A mage…
  • The Turbine Twist™: …who isn’t a mage at all, but a conglomeration of a pet class, a debuff class, a crowd control class and a healer/buffer all in one.
  • Signature Ability: Share the Power, which transfers power from you to an ally. Need more power yourself? The suck some from enemies with Power of Knowledge.
  • Fellowship Role: Lore-masters excel in groups by juggling multiple roles — using their pets, recharging healers’ power, mezzing mobs and throwing down some damage while they’re at it.

The Minstrel

  • What you might expect: A healer wrapped in a weak, granny-like shell…
  • The Turbine Twist™: …who uses music to heal — and lay enemies to waste.
  • Signature Ability: War-speech, which throws you into a lesser healing mode while making your Piercing Cry a truly awesome offensive weapon, as well as unlocks other offensive abilities.
  • Fellowship Role: Healing and buffing — what, did you think you’d find a magical PUG where they’d want a healer to do damage instead? Ha!

The Rune-keeper

  • What you might expect: A controversial break in Tolkien’s lore…
  • The Turbine Twist™: …who can do terrific damage and healing, depending on the situation.
  • Signature Ability: Essay of Exultation, a two-in-one package that protects the Fellowship while healing them at the same time.
  • Fellowship Role: Like Minstrels, Rune-keepers can fill both DPS and healing roles in groups, but more often than not will be called upon to heal first and foremost.

The Warden

  • What you might expect: A tank that relies more on agility than armor for defense…
  • The Turbine Twist™: …who uses a flexible combo system to do ranged damage, DPS, tank and heal.
  • Signature Ability: Wall of Steel, which interrupts enemy abilities, causes you to attack three times in a row, and boosts your parry rating. Schwing!
  • Fellowship Role: Typically, a Warden will tank, although they’re perfectly capable of being an off-tank or a straight DPS fighter if needed.

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Happy 3rd anniversary LotRO!

Apr 24, 2010 Articles Recommend, Lord of the Rings Online|190views

Three years ago, I was leafing through a computer gaming magazine and found myself intrigued at a multi-page spread for a new MMORPG called Lord of the Rings Online. The very thing that pulled at me was that LotRO, as they described, was blissfully low magic in a way that World of Warcraft’s glitzy shinies was not. Instead, here was a world that was a little more realistic in scope, a lot more beautiful, and connected to a killer IP to boot. I was hooked.

As we celebrate LotRO’s third anniversary this week — don’t forget to log on to get your Writ of Virtue — it’s amazing to reflect on just how far this game has come. It may not be the multi-million subscriber hit that some had hoped for, but it’s more than respectable in player numbers, community growth and general respect in the field of MMOs. Two expansions and several content patches later, we’ve walked with the Fellowship of the Ring from Bag End to Weathertop, down the long road to Rivendell, through the dangerous Mines of Moria, and out into the beauty of Lothlórien. We’ve experienced two new classes, housing, fishing, the skirmish system, crafting dungeons, a new player experience overhaul, the Lone-lands revamp, several major holidays, and the successful reestablishment of the Shire’s postal service.
It’s been a terrific three years, and I sincerely hope the next three will be even greater. As a way to celebrate this milestone, I trekked over to the official LotRO forums and put forth a simple question: what is your favorite memory from this MMO? Six pages later, I have a wealth of personal anecdotes to share with you (and a header graphic, courtesy of Jadzi). So sit back with your favorite Inn League-approved beverage, and enjoy a trip down memory lane:

  • “My favorite memory has to be riding down the hill and seeing Rivendell for the first time.” (KouklaGirl)
  • “I was just beside myself with joy the first time I met with Strider (and then Gandalf) at the Prancing Pony as part of the epic quest line.” (Dori Bolger)
  • “The RL feeling of Fear, when entering Carn Dum for the first time.” (StoneGaijin)
  • “Running to Rivendell at a very young level. When I finally arrived, I looked down on that valley and knew I found a new home. I stayed there quite a while.” (Doronlas)
  • “Frankly Moria was the most amazing time in this game for me — seeing all those iconic locations as they would have been from the books. Simply awesome! Finding Gandalf’s hat, seeing the Balrog’s corpse, etc etc etc.” (Musicman 2000)
  • “On a rainy day I walked up a hillside in North Downs and looked out upon the Fields of Fornost for the first time. I was so enthralled I had to sit there for like 5 minutes or more just taking it all in.” (Clovenshield)
  • “Finding Tom Bombadil in the Old Forest. I was so disappointed when he was skipped in the LOTR movies.” (LawLessOne)
  • “One of my favorites that I discovered on my own was the questline in Dwaling and finding J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbit in-game, Ronald Dwale. I still have his pipe as a reward from that quest, and I make sure that each of my characters that are able to do that quest when they are high enough level to do so, complete it and keep the pipe in honor of Tolkien.” (Valamagne)
  • “I only need two words for mine: Amarthiel Event. Nothing else in the game has come even close to the level of fun and excitment of that event.” (Phillbvi2)
  • “After battling the long dark of Moria for many months finally reaching the other side. It was night in-game and the stars on the water were beautiful. I stopped and took it all in for some time (being thankful to be out of the mine).” (Boat Drinks)
  • “My first glimpse of the game as I saved Celandine Brandybuck from the Blackwolds.” (Mines of Moria)
  • “The first time I was running around the Shire, I discovered the Party Tree (great excitement) and then Bag End (more excitement), and spent several minutes trying to get the perfect screenshot containing both Bag End and the Tree. Then I just sat on that patio area and stared out across the Shire into the cloudy sky beyond.” (Trilwych)
  • “One of my favorite places when I first subbed was Trestlebridge. I love the look and feel of it, as a besieged town, a town at war. The smoke filling the air as I got there at night. It has an eerie feeling at night with the smokey haze and the glow of the fires throughout town.” (Skigorn)
  • “Finding the Cat Lady’s house in Bree-Town” (SassyBrat)
  • “Early in the epic quests when you see the Nazgul turn Amdir into a wraith. I remember running up those steps and exclaiming to my friend on voice, ‘Holy **** there’s the Nazgul!’” (FlyinS)
  • “Hanging out with my friends in the ‘Moors back in late 2007 early 2008; those were really good times full of fun, for the most part. We had massive conga lines, jumping off various locations ‘contests’, 2-3 person keep attempts that were just silly fun; just lots of good, fun memories of what the ‘Moors used to be like.” (Cerridwyn)
  • “I went exploring until I found Hobbiton, then ran up the hill to Bag End. I threw open the door and that little hobbit hole just felt like home. I sat on the porch outside that looks out over the shire and imagined Gandalf sitting there next to me smoking his pipe.” (BerensBane)
  • “This may sound silly, but the first real jaw-dropping moment for me was when I saw a tree walking toward me.” (AmAvocet)
  • “Anybody remember at the end of beta we had a party in Hobbiton, and the devs popped a level 90 dragon on us there at the party tree?” (EricLewis)
  • “It is very difficult to select only one memory, but if I had only one, it would be Frodo’s Burden. Having Gandalf send you to ease Frodo’s mind as you walk with him around Rivendel is still one of the best Middle-earth moments for me.” (Bstrothe)
  • “The first time my minstrel did a low level death-run to see Weathertop and Rivendell: I was left somewhere between a wibble and a squee, in both cases.” (Umbrael)
  • “Getting lost in the Trollshaws and stumbling into Bilbo’s Strone Trolls” (Galahadur)
  • “Jumping down the well in the Chamber of the Crossroads and shouting ‘Fool of a Took!’” (Drogo1)
  • “Entering the rift, as my first raid ever, and hearing Barz’s voice, and watching him kick one of the Orcs/Goblins over the edge as he asked if anyone else wants a rest.” (Mesraic)
  • “After over 6 hours spent wandering Eriador as a chicken, I finally made it up to the gates of Helegrod and finished the Crosser of Roads quest on my first attempt to do the whole thing.” (Westernesse)
  • “I would have to say my most favorite thing has been the wonderful community, as a fellow kinmember said to me ‘LOTRO has this advice channel and people ask questions, AND PEOPLE ACTUALLY ANSWER THEM’….lol you have no idea what little thing like that can mean to people…” (MrsAngelD)

Tavern Talk: LotRO Community Discussion and Links

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LOTRO developer diary revisits the Lone-lands

Nov 26, 2009 Lord of the Rings Online|412views

The latest developer diary entry is from Lord of the Rings Online Senior Designer Allan “Orion” Maki, and takes us back to a very familiar area: The Lone-lands. While the region seems like a low-level walk in the park to the majority of players these days, Maki had always felt that there was a bit of a “disconnect” and that players were being sent to an area far above their level. The Lone-lands have been given what he describes as a “massive overhaul”, bringing them more in line with low and mid level players abilities.

Players will find changes such as a solo version of Weather Top, a new horse travel mount to make the initial trip to the Forsaken Inn less dangerous, and some new faction and quest systems. Those, however, are just the beginning. With Siege of Mirkwood only days away, players eager to explore the expansion will find their path in the earlier areas considerably smoother.

The full entry is worth looking at, as it contains four pages of great information on the overhaul — it’s a valuable resource for anyone still hanging out around Ost Guruth.

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Lord of the Rings Online:Improving Game Mechanics

Jun 18, 2009 Articles Recommend, Lord of the Rings Online|498views

Gamers have started paying attention more and more to the production of upcoming MMOs and discuss relentlessly on forums about the game’s structure, problems and how they see it functioning. As a gaming society, we have earned more and more respect out of the growing collaboration between developers and the public’s requests and needs. There are cries though that never get heard, cries which target crafting systems, PvP and PvE game play, computer requirements and many more. LotRO has been, in fact, a mark of such comments due to some missing features some players have expressed. Crafting is too boring and banal; combat becomes rather repetitive, not enough PvP and most of all not enough incentive to keep on playing for more than reaching the cap. In a way, we have to be realistic about what is possible and what forces the use of super computers as was the case with the release of Crysis. The battle we are fighting today is between complexity and computer power, and since it all come down to income, how can a game company produce something original, complex, fresh and most of all reinvented without burning a hole through our pockets?

Combat

Most of the Fantasy MMOs on the market today base themselves on a dice roll combat system which gives the user only the freedom to choose which spell/action he wishes to cast. It would be very interesting to have a change in that paradigm and introduce a more FPS approach to combat even in a game such as LotRO. If you are a hunter, you should have the ability to aim and shoot the arrow by yourself, taking into consideration the arcs of the shot, distance to the target, wind, movement and other possible factors. Whether it is PvE or PvP, combat is at the base of the game and its importance has to be taken into account. Parrying with a shield should also depend on user based reactions and foreseeing of blows as well as weaknesses in the enemy. The NPCs could be programmed to have weak spots, such as the heart or the head which take more damage and less time to kill. Movement in general is limited to a WASD/spacebar system which has so far been commonly seen in any game of any genre. Characters should be allowed to use movement to parry shots, attack and even to interact more fluently with the environment.

Imagine being able to dodge some of the enemy arrows by doing a roll to the ground, or by simply turning your body to the side at the last moment. At least the projectiles shot should not be triggered to follow a target but have them keep their trajectory without anything else except gravity and air resistance influencing it. Another feature I would see as necessary is mounted combat, or even mounts attacking along your side. If they attack, they have to stand still, therefore avoiding the two causing exploits. We have seen ammunition and such have an exhaustible trait in past games such as Diablo 2, Dark Age of Camelot or World of Warcraft. LotRO does not offer much in that field and ammunition is in fact disregarded as a useful tool in increasing damage or speed of firing. The durability of weapons is the only concerning factor when you are thinking of death penalty, yet this can be brought to be a bit more meaningful as most of us enjoy a challenge. Have the user be able to take a Hobby/Profession which allows him to repair the weapons himself. For example, your axe is at 0 durability, therefore it is either broken or is dull. You can now, interactively of course, sharpen your axe back and even take a risk in breaking it by overdoing it to increase your damage. As the axe gets used, the damage it deals decreases and by sharpening it you can get it back to full durability, yet by taking that chance of going for more damage you can ruin the blade by either making it too thin and having it break or having it distort and performing worse.

Crafting

Now the realm of crafting is a completely different beast that needs to be dealt with. There is no interactivity, no actual manual control and most importantly no variants. Going back to Diablo 2, the horadric cube allowed crafted items to have some variation, therefore making some items much more valuable and rare than others. The forging and building process should also depend on one’s skillful ability to construct and keep measurements exact. The better his/hers ability to do so, the better the variables of the item should be. Farming should be carried out through the days, having users be responsible for pouring water regularly on the plants as well as depending on seasons and weather conditions. The skill points can be awarded accordingly and the time it takes you to reach Artisan level, for example would be the same as before. Cooking would also be influenced by one’s ability to maintain temperature, cooking times and of course measurements and such. Some of the creatures that are hunted could have their meat be used for such purposes and you could select what parts of the animals are cut for you to keep.

A very complex, but nonetheless ideal, system for the end game experience would be the creation of weapons and clothing. Players who have managed to reach their final level and acquire the skills necessary should have the choice of installing a separate mod which allows them to create weapons by their own designs, however, the enchantments have to depend on his manual dexterity and functionality of the item created. Thusly, the mod or a GM could assess the weapon and decide whether it can be put in the game’s inventory for a while or not. This will encourage some to learn software that allow modeling, texturing and animation of such aspects of the game’s architecture and also enable the developers to have a much more game production savvy gamer database.

In the end I like to believe that it all comes down to the people that play the games, and what they want out of what the pay for. With the rise of machinimas and other user generated content players can be trusted more and more to change the game more to their liking. Pulling the Diablo 2 example for the last time, some of you can remember the duped Shako with two sockets instead of one, the duped Oculus, Oculus and Constricting rings or the Ith Bow. It is such content that make a game superbly rendered and alive for a decade. We all need to see more successful projects and fewer disappointments from the gaming industry and I believe the solution is in the gamers themselves. On that note I would like all of you to take the time and write in this thread what you would like to see done with an MMO such as LOTRO, no matter how crazy or how unrealistic it sounds. Be honest with yourselves, since we are the ones who populate these virtual worlds.

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The different factors that make lotro be a visually appealing game

May 8, 2009 Lord of the Rings Online|438views

The term “graphics” has been widely identified with a number of aspects of a game’s engine and game play since the creation of the first coin-operated arcade machines. In the 21st century, the era of MMOs, we can identify some specific traits which correspond to a concise definition of what makes a game look good.

Modelling is the first step of creation and that leads to the general sculpted shape of sets, characters and weapons. The rigging and texturing allows for the characters to have a “skeleton” and a skin through which they can be manipulated into moving. Finally, the animation allows the movement, fighting and interacting between players and makes the game immersive. It is necessary for a development team to master all of these steps in order to make a game aesthetically pleasing to the public and, so far, LOTRO has done a tremendous job at keeping Tolkien’s legacy not just in the storyline but also in mood and visual impact.

To be able to look at LOTRO as objectively as possible and be able to appreciate its graphical features, you must take yourself back to the first hours of interaction with the game. Yes, the game has improved since then, yet that first impression is the one that I regard as most genuine and true to what originally appealed to you.

The modeling itself must have been arduous work, yet you can appreciate the care and detail portrayed not only in the characters but also in the environment in which you play. All MMOs deal with factions, and each faction is unique in its look, feel and actions. Hence proportions had to be established and many races, such as hobbits, require adjustments made not only in housing and infrastructure but also in regards of weapons and clothing. If I were to choose the best-sculpted scene in the game it would have to be Bree Town, and it is not only for its size and busy mood but also for the tiny details in archways, décor, guild spaces and interior architecture. The only critique I would make so far is the rigid edges kept in some of the clothing, lamps and fountains especially. It is important to allow for some smoothness as light and texture seams will clearly show later on in the development process.

Now the texturing and lighting process is of the utmost importance to creating a realistic set up of whatever you are attempting to simulate. In the case of Tolkien’s novel, the battle between the Dark Lord Sauron and the inhabitants of Middle Earth was purposefully contrasted in symbolic imagery in both the aura of the characters but also in the battlefields and the homes of the people involved. LotRO, in my opinion, has done the best job in keeping that emotion and tension throughout the game and engaging the players to recognize and sense land that is “safe” and land that is “hostile”. The flickering candle lit interiors offer another great view of the simple rigging that allowed such an authentic feeling and how it directly affects the appreciation one gives to these places.

A suggested improvement would be directed more into the technical application of texturing and the use of “bump mapping”. A bump map is an image the same size as your root texture file which tells how “deep” the shadows should be in the texture. The light is used therefore to create a sense of depth and grain on a certain object without modifying its actual geometric structure. The bump map contains black and white areas, black for “going in” and white for “going out”. Going back to LotRO, we see many cases where bump maps could be used to enrich the architecture as well as some of the clothing. Bricks, wooden poles, roofs and walls are just some of the areas that can be given a bit of touch, especially with such good lighting going around.

And lastly, we have the animation practice which is the most complex and elongating of them all. From the very start the characters themselves showed quite a bit of personality, especially in their walks, and allowed for some good contact with the environment. I have played recent MMOs that have depended on their gameplay so much they forgot about putting some consistent effort into making these aspects work. For example, in one of these games, after gaining a helmet that I had been waiting for, it appeared that the character’s hair would go through the model of the helmet and create this intertwining mess of geometry, as if the back of the helmet was going in my head. Of course I wrote a bug report and nothing got fixed, not a surprise, yet the animation field had some issues too. Shooting arrows was sometimes misleading as they would freeze in the air while being shot and sometimes late even with the damage reports on the hits.

On the other hand LotRO for me has been the most visually complex fantasy MMO I have ever played, with an abundance of benefices. Clothing follows movement on characters, the mounts have well founded offset motions, weapon actions are fairly varied and with no flaws or glitches and there is a great attention to detail such as the interaction of clothing to wind as well as the constantly moving sky. There is also a harmony in the synchronization of the sound with all sorts of actions from pure city life noise to a substantial battle depiction.

I have to say that having all of these layers upon layers of simulations works great in the context of this game. Even if you are walking alone in a city you still get a sense of action, of people chatting to each other and always up and about. It is as if no one ever sleeps, and it keeps you going. There are numerous aesthetic freedoms given to the player too, from selecting your own costumes and clothing to choosing a house and decorating it as you please. The artistic side adds complexity, but also flexibility and choice. It allows each of us to differentiate each other even more and create unique identities in this world where appearances can sometimes go unnoticed.

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