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The Destiny of Lord of the Rings Online
An anonymous reader writes "Julian Murdoch over at Gamers With Jobs posits that the recently released Lord of the Rings Online, for all it's flaws, is a new kind of game — the Destiny-Locked RPG: 'The reason that Story sets LOTRO apart is because you know how it ends. This is a luxury World of Warcraft simply can never have. There is no logical end to WoW, where the evil WoW faction of the Horde is victorious, and every member of the good-aligned Alliance dies. The viciously PvP nature of EVE Online means that the story can only sit on the sidelines and inform, not take center stage. But in LOTRO, the game is the story. In this, the game has far more in common with Oblivion than it does with WoW.' The argument here is that a game in which the outcome is known is fundamentally a different (and possibly better) form of gameplay than that the current rage of emergent-gameplay sandbox weak storied games. A challenging idea." It's not so much that the game's ending is already known, as that there is an ending.
I think Star Wars Galaxies qualifies, as it's set between two pre-existing movies.
I also think the fact that the story was already written was part of it's downfall. The developers had no room to work with because they would keep bumping into canon.
You got an extra http, Zonk.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
I'll remember that the next time I'm in SWG, getting a mission from the Emperor... ...who gets thrown down a shaft by Vader... ...who dies just before the second Death Star blows up.
BTW, did you know he was Luke's father? Really!
The horde is not evil in WoW, the alliance isn't good either.
Wow has had 3 maybe now 4 large world story events that were pretty hard to ignore. I thought that they were pretty fun, usually they opened up a new area or a new instance.
You mad
Unfortunately, the well-defined "end" to LOTR has resulted in the first licensed game I can think of where you can't actually go to most of the cool locations from the book (and movies, though Turbine doesn't have that particular license) because the plot hasn't advanced that far yet. They CAN'T expand into Mordor because once they do, that's Game Over. They can't expand to the White City or Rohan because that would make the game half over. They're not even adding the Mines of Moria during the game's first year of release (according to a recent dev chat), cause that would make the game 1/4 over.
The challenge for Turbine is that, with the "ending" (and so much about locations in the middle) already known, players want to actually get there sometime. That's a problem when your business model is, essentially, stalling the players for time as you continue to collect your monthly fees.
To put it another way, and to quote a very fine show -
BOOK: 'Cause how you get there is the worthier part' [Firefly]
Right, because Star Wars Online was also based in a world without a pre-developed ending.
Isn't the whole point of a company making an MMORPG to not have a ending? I mean if they want to rack in the cash, why would they ever think of making an ending to their game? Like WoW they just keep adding new areas to give more quests to make more cash. The only possible ending for WoW would be that they open up northernd and you have to kill Arthas on on the frozen throne. That is where warcraft 3 left off was evil technically winning. So knowing the end is ok but it's better to not have one if you want to make money.
Today's Tomorrow is Yesterday's Future! --- "Where Ever You Go, There You Are" -- Diablo 1
I find LOTRO to be nearly flawless when compared to other MMOs. LOTRO had about as smooth a launch as one could hope for and put other MMOs to shame in this regard. Also, allowing characters to transfer from Beta to Live, and discounted pricing for pre-orders, is a welcome "innovation."
The Epic quest series, which follows the hobbits progress in the books, is amazing. The scripted story events are highly immersive and impressive.
Sure, the economy could use some work, and other tweaks can be made. But, a more polished MMO I have not seen on launch, and the potential for expansion is huge.
As a preface, I spent some 10 years as an administrator at a LOTR based MUSH. With a time ratio of 3:1 It meant 3 years in Middle Earth (ME) went by in 1 year of real life. For you hobbits, that means that you give a birthday party every 4 months. Having started to play just a few years before the third age yr 3000, there was little real concern about what would happen in the 5 or so years when we had to actually stage the War of the Ring. Original founders had not really considered this an issue as the point was to create an environment for RP in the Tolkien world, not to play out the script of the books. However there was always some pressure from various philosophies of role play and game play in general, on whether we should in some way develop the long term story arc and whether to allow deviations from the general thread of events. This becomes pretty complicated as Tolkien had a sort of longer story arc than most, with events that occurred thousands of years before, in books some of the players had never read, having some impact. In fact, the more a player knew, and cared about Tolkien, the harder it was to play the game, knowing that on the one hand they might realisticly play their characters role, and on the other hand, they might run into situations where quality role play and story making conflicted with the actual plot in ways that only an expert might detect ahead of time.
This meant the typical uses of comic book/soap opera/RP retcon techniques (retroactive continuity...) which, ill used, creates a hostility so fierce that the term retcon in the MUSH gained the status of fighting words, i.e., if you did not intend to cause someone to freak out and begin an anti-fascist march at your home, you said things like 'we might want to adjust the outcome to match the theme a little more closely, and perhaps there is some backstory we could RP out to clarify why your character suddenly had to NOT slay Boromir as a 12 year old for kissing your pig. (That never happened... Or did it! Retcon!)
Anyway, the point is that, there were legitimate arguments to let things play out as if we got to year 3000 and let things diverge. There were others that said, lets get to year 3008 or so and then freeze until we figure things out, allowing the game clock to advance but maintaining the pre LOTR environment. Others wanted to move towards a sort of scripted version of the war, but of course focus also on the places that were not described, to explore how such a big event effected the other populations. (Places mentioned in a sentence have a whole life when you have 2000+ active players trying to play their favorite characters)
As an admin, alot of my effort was aimed towards providing guidance in resolving conflicts both operationally and thematically.
Now LOTR Online is not a MUSH. Players do not drive the content the same way. Most folks just want to see the sights and participate in the battles, and get that Tolkien feel. But the fact is that I won't be playing this game, having spent a decade of my life trying to combine fun, Tolkien, role play, and computers. I will never be real happy watching hordes of hobbits wandering around, making Frodo and Bilbo seem like homebodies, nor will Noldo elves dancing topless on mailboxes make me happy.
I prefer original works of fantasy. I love to read Tolkien. I first read the hobbit when I was 6, and was done with all the books (including Silmarilian which had just recently come out in soft cover) by the time I was 8.
I am glad more people are buying the books, and are excited by what I consider some of the greatest examples of story telling and most graceful uses of the English language. But to claim that knowing what will happen makes a game more playable, or that such an idea is new, is really quite absurd. There have been 100's of games in which we know the story. And if you really expect LOTR online to END for plot purposes, rather than because they are no longer making money, you are in the gardens of Lorien, dreaming away.
Come on, the destruction of the ring is NOT the ending of the story! Look at what happened after the ring was destroyed: Hobbits go home, and find the Shire enslaved! Just because Sauron is gone doesn't mean that there is nothing else to do. New enemies come and go. Really, the destruction of the ring is merely the end of the Third Age. Fourth age begins. Once you get there, you have a HUGE world to add all sorts of fun stories to.
I would say that the story in WoW is pretty front and center. Yeah, there are a heck of a lot of people who pay little attention to it, but it's there and everywhere. Major characters from the previous games appear and get offed (truly dead or not, who knows). We just don't know what the end of that story is yet. I suspect the Blizzard lore folks don't completely know themselves, but they've probably got a good idea at a high level.
Anticlimactic much?
In case anybody wants to RTFA: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/31807
They can have mordor, and the mines of Moria, and Rohan and all the other lovely cities and still keep to the story.
We dont know exactly when the mines were overrun (maybe it's in one of the books), we just know they were at some point within a few years. They could simply have the mines open with some quest to get inside. Key rooms should remain sealed to preserve the "books" timeline showing undisturbed bodies and the journal.
Rohan and the white city can all be in the books. You're questing during a time of an uneasy peace. Work for Wormtongue, unkowingly aiding Sarumon. There are so many directions you can take with these locations pre-trilogy. It was a troubled time and there was always a war going on.
Dont forget the time frame the Hobbit took place. That, in itself was a huge area and took place roughly 50 years prior to Fellowship. There were huge epic battles in the Hobbit's timeline and chances are there were many in between.
Turbine has quite a bit to work with. Many locations (Tom Bombadil's moore mounds) and vast settings. To put middle Earth into a game is great if they can do it right, and creatively. There are tons of weird monsters, and there can be many "undiscovered" things that the books never mentioned.
The Fellowship, and Bilbo before them, only took a path of least resistance. The other paths can be rife with dangers and adventures. I'm excited thinking of all the alternative locations.
"There is no logical end to WoW, where the evil WoW faction of the Horde is victorious, and every member of the good-aligned Alliance dies."
The Horde is actually only trying to survive, they only defend themselves from the Alliance.
The Alliance is full of evil people who are trying to gain more power, at any cost, and they brought the Demons into the world to begin with.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
> The argument here is that a game in which the outcome is known is fundamentally
> a different (and possibly better) form of gameplay than that the current rage of
> emergent-gameplay sandbox weak storied games. A challenging idea.
I should like to point out the only reason this is true is because the gods cheat.
Lord British: Dead
The Sleeper: Dead
As long as the game mechanics allow it, people will figure out a way to do it. Hence the only reason good will win is because good will cheat.
And this isn't the first time. Star Wars Galaxies also has a destiny, though I have no idea if anyone has killed Darth Vader or Luke (to say nothing of Wedge), but is that because they're tough or because the game cheats making them not attackable?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
One MMO that I play frequently is ATITD, or A Tale In The Desert. Sort of like Civilization, with building, exploring, politics, and no combat.
One of the more interesting aspects is that this is actually ATITD 3. Each game is designed with an ending in mind. So each iteration, called a 'telling', goes from the empty desert to the end-game where monuments are constructed.
The game doesn't have all the heavy action such as MMORPGs, but it's different, and has some interesting design choices to look at. Such as the endgame. Starting out, everyone is equal (aside from insider knowledge from betas and previous tales). As the game progresses, you have a spread between casuals and power-gamers, doing the ingame tests, learning the tricks of the telling, and handling some of the events that are run. At the end, everyone tries to build those monuments, hopefully affecting the next telling.
The mid-game, that of the spread, is always a problem. New technologies are unlocked which are out of the reach of the casuals to dabble with, and the power-gamers get bored because the content can't keep up with them. That happens with a lot of MMO's. The difference is, with an established ending, you get a reboot to restart everyone. Some people will balk at losing their Uber-l33t characters, but the recreation of the game, with tweaks, allows for a mostly-new experience for all.
The article writer doesn't even know the story of WoW. The horde are not evil, neither are the alliance good.
I agree- This is the first real, playable Middle Earth we've ever seen, next to Lord of the Rings monopoly. I have been so many cool places that were either not or barely referenced in the books/movies. I am enjoying this far more than WoW, and the idea that all players are on the good side is awesome in my view as well.
Charlie
What about A Tale in the Desert (ATITD)? Explained from the start, the game was to run for what was it, 9 months to a year in real time - called the First Telling. After a coupel months, everything starts over from the beginning in the 2nd Telling, with some engine changes I think, some gameplay changes (I only played for a short while in the first telling). I think they're on the Third Telling now. Any ATITD players have more insight?
Much of WoW's story is riding on the popularity of Warcraft's pre-existing story and extending on that, and it still is to this day. The next two raid instances are based on non-new material. Illiad and the recreation of "The Battle of Mount Hyjal", a very lore heavy stage from Warcraft III. The 2 current high end bosses, are again, pre-existing characters prior to WoW. Kael'thas Sunstrider and Lady Vashj.
There is some new figures and faces, but many are more oohh-ahhh, rather than notable figures worth remembering past this expansion. I foresee this remaining the same till we get to kill 'Arthas'. Which I do believe will be the beginning of the end of the World of Warcraft (not a bad thing, and still a ways off).
If you mean Azeroth, sure.
Draenor? It was the Orcs who brought the demons there.
I'd also hardly call the Forsaken Plague Research Department "defensive".
When the ring is destroyed, the server "resets" and we start again, now knowing alot more than when we first played. I would consider playing the game if this were the direction the game was headed.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
The Tauren live a peaceful existence in tune with nature. The current orc ruler Thrall was enslaved as a child by humans and forced to fight gladiator-style battles by his captors until freed. The undead are a group that freed themselves from control by the scourge and merely attempt to survive against the "Alliance" that would do them harm. The trolls ruled an empire until the Night Elves delved into destructive magic and destroyed it, luring the Burning Legion to Azeroth in the process. The high elves created a kingdom on the sacred ground of the trolls, and the trolls would have reclaimed it if not for the aid of the humans.
The original orcs that came to Azeroth (with the help of a human named Medivh) were corrupted, but what makes you call the current members of the Horde evil?
What draws many people to an MMO is the ePeen, competitive factor. They like to see their character grow in power, and succeed beyond others. They like to tally their victories, accomplishments, and loot. Most people would be deterred from a "definitive ending & startover" kind of game, if it meant the loss of all that they had earned. However, a game could have a definitive ending, reset, and start over and still be successful, if it provides a suitable avenue by which the player (and perhaps others) can view their past, completed characters and characters' accomplishments in glorious detail.
I would like to point out that Guild Wars has a definite storyline with a definite ending too. That doesn't mean there isn't still plenty to do after the end of the main storyline. But it is evidence that a MMORPG can have a distinct storyline and still have the fun of side-quests, guild battles, group raids, new content, etc. Just because a game is massive, multi-player, online, and an RPG doesn't mean it has to be a complete sandbox.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I've never cared about the story line of a game too much, as long as it's fun to play.
Mario, space invaders, sonic... They all had incredibly ridiculous story lines (if you even want to call them storie lines). The early days of gaming didn't care a whole lot about writing a dramatic plaot line, when all that mattered was smashing buttons. It's only recently that games like Metroid or Sonic started developing complicated plot lines within the games
Guitar Hero has no story line, but that's a kickass fun game to play. What about DDR? What about pinball or billiards?
Aside from that... I happen to like playing WoW because it looks great, I love doing instances with my guild, and the combat system is easy to use. If anyone finds those elements in any MMORPG, then people will play it and stick around. The story line is seriously the last thing people care about in a game. Top of the list: "is it fun to play?"
Just because the story of Lord of the Rings ends, doesn't mean that the virtual world has to. It isn't as if the book ended with: "Sam took Rosy on his lap and suddenly the world exploded and everyone died." Or they could go back in time and fight the original war of the ring. Bottom line, if the game is successful they'll find a way to keep it moving.
the game includes emotes of the many different facial expressions of Frodo during the movies.
The Loremaster class does in fact sling fireballs. They are described as getting their powers from "ancient lore". Not all that different from a Wizard in Dungeons and Dragons. However you want to write it, the Loremaster is essentially the magic class in the game. They have abilities which can for example:
Transfer health to an ally
Throw a fireball
Weaken an enemies resistance to fire
Summon pets (admittedly a raven and a bear not the usual demon or skelly - but the effect sure looks like a summon spell)
Harness the power of the wind to slow enemies
Buff their pets
Etc.
They frequently wield staffs and can't use heavy armor. You can be an Elf or Human Loremaster - just as in most games which don't allow Dwarves to play Wizards.
The roll they play is more of pet class and crowd control than conventional nuking wizard. The ranged nuker in the game is the Hunter class.
A lot of die hard LOTR fans have taken issue with the Loremaster class.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Just like the Titanic was a new type of movie - a destiny locked movie. You know how it was going to end. This made it totally unique! (hopefully obvious sarcasm)
No, sorry, it is just an MMORPG like any other. It has classes, quest, XP, and loot. But instead of having a free universe where they can make up whatever they want, they are now constrained to Tolkein's world. But are they really? I am sure they can write their own lore if they have/want/need to. There aren't going to be a million one rings that people cast in to lava and then see "Game Over" flash on their screen.
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The Alliance and Horde factions in Warcraft are not distinctly good nor evil. Both factions fight to survive, and though they quarrel between themselves, there are other, clearer forms of pure good and evil in the Warcraft universe, such as the Burning Legion (evil) and the goddess Elune (good).
I'm surprised no one mentioned this...
In the book The Return of the King, which is part of Turbine's license, is the start of the 4th Age. That's the time of prosperity under the rule of King Elessar (Aragorn/Strider) after Frodo destroys the ring and all that (oops, spoilers). Some basic points are stated about what happens after that but nothing too specific.
Turbine can keep the game going indefinitely after the ring is destroyed and the story proper is completed. They'll still have a huge world to expand the game into and be able to make up more story almost as they see fit and still fit just fine within the established lore.
Making it the War of the Ring, instead of the Shadow of Angmar, where the Black Numenorean king of Angmar strikes out to destroy the other two fragments of the northern kingdom, which we hear about in the barrow-downs. That is a story mostly untold, and there was even a company of hobbit bow-men sent to help the king, and were never heard from again. Glorfindel was involved as well.
There is so much in Tolkien's legendarium that is only sketched out and has room for game play, though not typical MMPORG game play where everybody has magic and keeps improving their abilities and weapons, rather than having significant ups and downs and logistical issues, etc.
Alas, the installer wouldn't even try to install on my laptop. I at least wanted to hear the music, even if I had to look at stick figures.
No cash cow survives contact with business needs. LoTRO is built within a world that does not need to end, if Turbine doesn't want it to. It CAN end though, just as any other persistent world does. And even the LoTR story doesn't have a clean ending. There's always more going on in Middle Earth.
Blizzard's lawyers would rather have their collective livers eaten by weasels than even HINT a vaguely native-american race could be evil (at least for PCs).
/// Not a super-genius . . . yet. ///
Im just tired of WOW.I will stick with Lotro