LOTRO musings

If you may or may not be aware my current MMO is Lord of the Rings Online or LOTRO as it’s web alias. I continue to be somewhat surprised with the level of talk or lack thereof on this title. It’s really a decent game. I know it’s bashed everywhere as a WoW clone but that in and of itself can’t explain the lack of “chatter”. I think Turbine has been doing a pretty decent job on this one with their level of updates especially the Evendim area that addressed one common complaint of the lack of 30-40 range quests and content editions such as player housing. The crafting system is beginning to grow on me. I am interested in crafting as a light gaming pastime and not a crash course in economics that many other games have turned it into. The few subtle changes they have made has in my opinion enhanced this feature very quietly with the change to the shard elite drop option to make single use recipes more accessible and adding the different races lower level recipe items added a lot of need diversity as well as expanding the player made jeweler options. In any MMO I play I tend to be alt heavy which makes the crafting in LTORO much more palatable with the interdependence model. I have also found contrary to other’s comments that every profession has useful crafting items including cooks. As a mostly solo player the bonuses food offers I feel are too often overlooked. I do like the inclusion of the reputation system even though it is a grind pure and simple it is a grind catered towards solo and small group players which is a niche I fall into with the time commitment of raiding not being an option for me and the inclusion of crafting rep items also I thought was a good idea.

I have to differ as well on what many people feel is the weak point in this game. I am the first to admit I am not a hardcore pvper but I have been in the past so I do speak from experience. The Monster play option is just fun and an excellent way to add pvp as an option without breaking the story canon. The most complaints on this front I believe come those that relish the intensity a pvp world can add to their game experience, that’s not a bad thing but it also doesn’t fit in this game.

I had a bit of a hiatus recently due to some RL commitments but I also had the opportunity to play the beta for PoTBS and went through the 3 day trial for Tabula Rasa so I have something for my next update