big-battle
Latest
The Road to Mordor: LotRO's big battles are a big bust
Recently my journey through Helm's Deep came to a close as I finished all of the quests plus advanced the epic story as far as it could go. Overall, I loved the expansion: It had great pacing, beautiful scenery, memorable quests, and an obvious dedication to doing The Two Towers right. But there was one glaring fault that Lord of the Rings Online seemed to save for the last, which I discovered during my foray into the big battle system. Other than visiting them in a couple of press tours, I had been avoiding big battles (even though you can jump in one starting at level 10) because I wanted to experience them organically as part of the storyline. I wasn't necessarily anticipating them, but I wasn't dreading them either. "Mild curiosity" is perhaps the emotion that I identified within my breast, and as it turned out, that was wildly overpreparing for the experience that followed. Big battles are, I'm sorry to say, a big bust in LotRO. Sure, they have their positives and moments, but for a system that Turbine spent over a year to create and shoved aside instances and raids in favor of putting into the expansion, it should have been so much more. So what went wrong?
Charging into the epic story of Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep
It might not be anything as shocking (and, erm, incredibly slow) as hypothetical Ent play, but the epic story of Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep promises to be a grand experience to match or exceed what we've experienced before. Three new books with about 12 chapters apiece await those who dive into the expansion and charge into western Rohan. While the epic story has always been a mixture of Turbine's storytelling creations and Tolkien's canonical events, Helm's Deep will hew a lot more closely to the books than ever before. This is the penultimate part of The Two Towers, and the dev team wants to do it right. That's not to say you won't get to see your favorite secondary characters, so fret not if you're looking for more inspiration for that Nona/Horn romance novel you've been writing. It's just that they'll be taking a backseat to the major players -- and a few surprises -- as events lead us to the titular fortress and the most important battle in the game to date.
LotRO: Helm's Deep purchase required to continue the epic story
Lord of the Rings Online's epic story is one of the crown jewels of the game, and for the longest of time it's been available for free whether you subscribe or not. However, Turbine confirmed this week that purchasing Helm's Deep will be required if you want to see how the epic story plays out over western Rohan. On the forums, CM Rick Heaton explained the change: "The epic story in Helm's Deep is very tightly entwined with the epic battle system. The story in Helm's Deep is the epic battle we all know from the books. We've returned to the core story line from the lore and that line leads in a direct path, laid out by the Professor himself, into Helm's Deep and the battles and heroic deeds that occur there. As a result, this means the epic story requires the purchase of the Helm's Deep expansion." "Epic Story Guy" MadeOfLions also chimed in with a much more informative post about the decision. "It's a change that serves to reward the players that do pick up the expansion, and makes the expansion a better deal, more worth your time and your money," he writes. "This is just an expansion change for now -- I'm hoping we can keep the epic story free in other updates." Speaking of Helm's Deep, Turbine just posted the Champion class update dev diary for all to peruse!
The Road to Mordor: LotRO's big battles and you
So... does anyone else think it's a little strange the Turbine's more or less gone dark about Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep? The last we heard anything about the next expansion was back in April, after which we've had a chasm of silence. In the past couple of years, the studio was already into high promotion mode regarding its expansions come summertime, which leads me to believe that something is holding Helm's Deep up -- and I don't think it's looking good for a 2013 release. I have a hunch that this "something" is the big battle system, the brand-new feature that will be the cornerstone of Helm's Deep the same way that mounted combat was for Riders of Rohan. Recently, Turbine broke its expansion silence to deliver a series of 20 questions and answers about the big battle system, although oddly enough it kept this confined to the forums. Whether or not LotRO's fifth expansion is coming this year, Helm's Deep's big battles do sound audacious and worth the wait. Let's see if we can't get to the core of what this new system will offer and what the studio is trying to do with it.
