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The Road to Mordor: Why nothing stacks up to Shadows of Angmar
I'm putting all of my cards out on the table here: I am in a massive Lord of the Rings Online slump right now. It's perhaps one of the biggest that I've had in years, which is made baffling by the fact that it was triggered by a new patch. I was pretty psyched about Update 13 until it came out, at which point I felt my enthusiasm drain away as I picked at the remainders of the epic story and a frustratingly boring Fangorn zone. I tried not to swing into bitter burnout mode and calmly backed away to give myself a sabbatical from the game. Hey, it happens to all of us no matter how much we love a game, right? But during this time off from LotRO, I've been wondering a lot why for all of the improvements to story, questing, and art in the recent expansions, when I think of what I love about the game it's always everything pre-Moria. So I'm going to start today's column with a bold hypothesis and then see if I can back it up: Nothing in this game can stack up to Shadows of Angmar content. Nothing feels as right as it does and did in those zones.
Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep breaks beta records
Will Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep break records when it launches next week? Only time will tell, but Community Manager Rick Heaton said that the expansion has already done so in beta. On the forums Heaton posted, "It's the first expansion that we've had since Shadows of Angmar that required us to add servers to the beta world to match the number of players trying to log in and participate. It was the first beta since Shadows of Angmar that actually tripped our login queues on the beta world and forced us to raise the max player population." Helm's Deep launches on Monday, November 18th.
The Road to Mordor: The Age of Men
There's a movie poster tagline that I've seen copied numerous times. It goes along the lines of, "No matter who wins, they lose (or we lose)." This implies that the best-case scenario in the film -- the heroes emerging triumphant -- will still result in a bittersweet moment of defeat, despair, or doom. This is how I've always thought of the Lord of the Rings in regard to the Free Peoples. Even through this enormous struggle against the Enemy, we know that winning still means losing something precious. In this case, it's the ascension of Men during the Fourth Age and the fading of the other races: the Ents, the Hobbits, the Dwarves, and the Elves. This grand fight for Middle-earth ultimately will preserve and strengthen just one of the races, and the most boring one at that. For Tolkien, this is because LotR is a mythological past history of our world, and we just don't see a lot of Elves walking around today except at Starbucks. In a way, I feel as if we're starting to get into the Age of Men a bit prematurely in Lord of the Rings Online. The time for Hobbits, Elves, and Dwarves is past; the time for Men is just beginning.
The Road to Mordor: Helm's Deep calls!
While I'm quite excited to hear the news of this year's Lord of the Rings Online expansion, Helm's Deep, there are two small nits that I must pick, two little peeves that I must pet before moving onward. The first is that Turbine could not have worse timing; I've been prepping for a vacation and pre-written a couple of weeks of this column, and now this announcement's forced me to scramble last-minute to write a new one. The other issue is that Turbine's abandoned the "[something] of [place]" title structure it's had ever since Shadows of Angmar. A vain, egocentric part of me thinks that this might've happened because a developer read my expansion prediction column and decided to spite me. With that out of the way, let's digest the official announcement and see what we'll be doing this fall when LotRO's fifth expansion hits!
The Road to Mordor: Looking at PvMP from the outside in
The other day I was making a mental list of aspects of Lord of the Rings Online that I generally avoid. Raiding was one, mostly because I don't have the time and the acquisition of gear isn't that important to me. Crafting was another because the end results have little personal appeal. But topping the list was LotRO's version of PvP, PvMP. I think I made a monster character three years ago and ventured out into the Ettenmoors once, but that's the extent of my adventures in that area of the game. As a result, PvMP has received very little coverage in this column during my tenure at Massively. For one thing, it's not a good idea to talk about something of which you have little experience in doing. For another, I'm fairly sure that the PvMP community, while dedicated, is a small minority of the game's population. It's always felt like a weird vestigial tail to me, an anomaly that exists within our game that many of us rarely mention or see. So today let's talk about it. I would like to, from the perspective of a player looking from the outside in. Why is PvMP so strange to me? What purpose do I think it has in the game? And how could it become more compelling so that I would actually want to engage in it?
Jukebox Heroes: Chance Thomas talks about scoring Turbine's expansions
For many Lord of the Rings Online players, the name Chance Thomas is synonymous with the feel of virtual Middle-earth. From the earliest days in the game, explorers have traversed the Shire, Moria, and beyond listening to Thomas' melodies. So we were excited to hear that Turbine is bringing Thomas back to score not only Riders of Rohan (his first soundtrack for the game since Mines of Moria) but also Dungeons and Dragons Online: Menace of the Underdark as well. Thomas is an Oscar- and Emmy-winning composer who's been working primarily in the field of video game music since 1998. Being a huge fan of MMO soundtracks, I made it a personal quest to talk with him about these two new scores and how he feels about working in this genre. In the weeks ahead, I'll be reviewing both Rohan and Underdark's soundtracks, but today I wanted to focus on the man behind the music. Join me, then, as we embark on a voyage to worlds far away, sailing on the wings of a song. Geez, that's cheesy, ain't it?
LotRO releases first track of Riders of Rohan's score
It's the old and new blending together to point to Lord of the Rings Online's future. Today Turbine released the first track for the upcoming Riders of Rohan expansion entitled LotRO Legacy. As the name suggests, it's a medley that combines several of LotRO's previous music tracks and then transitions into the original score. This is the first new composition for the game since 2008's Mines of Moria. Chance Thomas, who scored the core game and parts of Moria, has returned to create a full soundtrack for Riders of Rohan. Give the track a listen after the jump and let us know what you think!
The Road to Mordor: An Update 6 play date with Turbine
This past week, Turbine called my parents and asked if I could come over to play Lord of the Rings Online. "Sure he can," my mother replied. "As long as he wears his galoshes. What? It's wet outside!" And thus I ended up hanging out with the Turbine crew -- Aaron Campbell, Jared Pruett, and Jeff Libby -- as they walked me through Update 6 with the optional developer commentary mode set to "on." I highly recommend you rent a developer for the same experience, as it helps to have someone giving you a Cliff's Notes version of the game's complicated lore. Pruett first caught me up on the major PvMP changes of this coming Monday's update. The team wanted to increase rewards and turn progression into a seasonal mechanic to keep players coming to the Ettenmoors. As such, PvMP now has a universal currency -- that's account-wide, by the way -- that will allow players to purchase top-end gear. The team also tweaked down what the devs saw as a DPS race in order to give players time to deliberate and make strategic choices during fights. Beyond PvMP, the devs marched me right into the next epic storyline book that whisked us away to a strange new land: The Great River. What did I find waiting for me there?
Turbine enlists Chance Thomas to score LotRO, DDO expansions
If you were disappointed by the absence of new music in Lord of the Rings Online's last couple of expansions, then today is a good opportunity to break out the headphones in celebration. Composer Chance Thomas has announced that Turbine contracted him to create an "all-original orchestral, choral and acoustic ensemble score" for this fall's Riders of Rohan. It's not just LotRO audiophiles who have cause to rejoice, either: Thomas is also on board with creating the music for Dungeons and Dragons Online's first expansion, Menace of the Underdark. Thomas' career in video game music dates back to the late '90s with Quest for Glory V. LotRO players know him best as one of the composers for both Shadows of Angmar and Mines of Moria. Menace of the Underdark will release June 25th, while Riders of Rohan is scheduled for some time this fall.
The Road to Mordor: Getting the most out of your F2P account
We're going to step waaay back from Rise of Isengard today (screenshots notwithstanding) to address a question that I've seen pop up time and again. The question comes from players on the free-to-play side of the game who are wondering "What do I need to do or buy to get the most out of my LotRO gaming experience?" In my opinion, the lovely aspect of Lord of the Rings Online's hybrid model is that you, the player, have a wide range of choices when it comes to how you want to fund your gameplay. If you decide not to go the subscription/VIP route, it can get a little confusing, especially in light of just how much there is in the LotRO store. Do you need to buy anything at all? What are the essentials? How should you go about earning some free Turbine Points to finance these purchases? Unlike many other recent MMO F2P conversions, LotRO's offers you more flexibility than "just suffer with F2P restrictions or subscribe," which should give you hope that you can tailor the game to your exact needs. In today's Road to Mordor, I'm going to put myself in the shoes of a F2P player and tell you exactly what I'd do to get the most out of my account.
The Road to Mordor: Soundtrack bonanza!
One of the probably-not-very-interesting things about me is that I'm somewhat of a video game soundtrack aficionado. Ever since MP3s became all the rage, I've been collecting my favorite tunes from console and computer games, often replacing the in-game score with my own personal soundtrack. MMO soundtracks, as a whole, are hit or miss with me. While there are many incredible pieces out there, a bulk of what you find is low-key atmospheric stuff that isn't meant to be on anyone's Top 40 playlist. Lord of the Rings Online has its up and downs as a soundtrack, but overall it really does evoke the spirit of Middle-earth. It's hard to imagine playing the game, especially the early levels, without hearing these tracks. I've collected both the soundtracks to Shadows of Angmar and Mines of Moria and have been saving them for a special occasion. Today is that special occasion. These were composed by Chance Thomas (who's scored many Lord of the Rings-related games) and Stephen DiGregorio. Ranging from bombastic to sinister to folksy, this score covers the gamut of themes and emotions related to the journey of the Ring. It's cool to listen to it independently of the game, as you can appreciate the score for what it is -- and see how the pieces evoke memories of your times in LotRO. Instead of individually reviewing all 40 or so tracks, I'm simply going to pick my 10 most favorite to share with you!
The Road to Mordor: Four more years, four more years!
While four years is not a nice round number -- or even a halfway number like five -- it's a substantial milestone for any MMORPG. Debuting in early 2007, Lord of the Rings Online introduced something we'd never seen before: a fully realized 3-D virtual Middle-earth where we could not only enjoy a deep MMO but explore the lands and meet the people we'd only read about before. It might not be a universal truth that all LotRO players are big Tolkien fans, but I'm sure enough that it's a sizable chunk of the playerbase. There's something special about the IP that gives a weight and richness to the game, especially when a long-time reader of the books is given leave to actually go on adventures through Eriador, Moria and Mirkwood. It's a giant sight-seeing tour of lore, a thrill with every brush one has with the source material. It's heady to consider that four years ago we were but starting on this journey, feeling out the mechanics of combat, crafting and pie-running. Four years later, LotRO has emerged to be one of the most significant MMOs of the past decade, growing strong with no signs of slowing down. Hit the jump as we reminisce about the ups, the downs, and the off-the-beaten-path hikes of our beloved game as it celebrates its fourth anniversary.
The Road to Mordor: Re-evaluating Moria
When I first left Lord of the Rings Online, it was early in 2008 and we were constrained to Eriador and Eriador alone. Angmar was the most dangerous spot on the map, level 50 was the cap, and getting your legendary traits was an almost inhuman feat. When I returned in 2010, I discovered I had missed out on the release of not one but two expansions and a huge amount of new content in the world. As a previous player, I felt as though everything I had known was completely different, and there was nothing as unknown or intriguing as the Mines of Moria. Expansions have a funny way of making or breaking MMOs, you see. They can exemplify some of the best qualities of the genre: they represent the persistent growing world; they give our characters new challenges to overcome; and they can introduce new features that significantly change how the game is played. Of course, they can damage the game's reputation by creating a worse endgame than before, by screwing up the good aspects of the game, or simply by being unpopular. So how does Mines of Moria fare two-plus years after its release? Today, I want to take a look back at what will probably be the single largest expansion that LotRO will ever see and examine how its purpose has changed from 2008 to 2011. Also, we'll probably make fun of Dwarves.
The Road to Mordor: Rise of Isengard is coming!
Tweet [Update: Made a clarification that there is no indication of "open-world" PvMP in the expansion.] Times are tough in Middle-earth, even after the inexplicable appearance of several hundred thousand new adventurers this fall. The Fellowship of the Ring is broken, Sauron is rising in power, and the White Hand of Saruman is marching across the lands. Even the bravest and hardiest soldier of the Free Peoples cannot be blamed for feeling disheartened, especially in the face of the monumental struggle to come. Welcome to the beginning of The Two Towers in Lord of the Rings Online. Welcome to Isengard. The rumors are true: Next year we will be venturing into LotRO's third expansion, titled Rise of Isengard, to confront evil in its own backyard. While this may not be the Rohan or Gondor expansion that we've anticipated, Turbine is fairly confident that it will be well-received by players and will represent an ambitious step forward on (wait for it) the road to Mordor. Turbine's Adam Mersky and Aaron Campbell were on hand to outline for us the company's near- and far-future plans with Massively, starting with the imminent November update and cruising all the way through 2011. Hit the jump as we look at interactive theater, busy bees, Monster Play improvements and, of course, Isengard.
PAX 2010: Counting down to LotRO's relaunch with Turbine
TweetWith the launch of Lord of the Rings Online's biggest patch to date a scant few days away, we touched base with Turbine's Aaron Campbell, Brian Aloisio, and Bob Hess at PAX Prime to see how their nerves are holding up at this point. It is, as Aloisio laughed, akin to launching the game all over again, and LotRO is definitely under close scrutiny because of it. Many players were surprised to hear that LotRO's free-to-play update was going live much sooner than anticipated, and we asked Campbell whether this was due to a preset schedule or better-than-anticipated beta feedback. He said that they weren't going to release it until it was ready, but by the team's reckoning, the beta process went so smoothly that there was no reason to delay any further. Compared to the betas for Shadows of Angmar, Mines of Moria and Siege of Mirkwood, the F2P beta -- according to Campbell -- was the most upbeat Turbine's ever had, with far more positive feedback than negative. Hit the jump to hear more and see the latest screenshots and video from PAX.
The Road to Mordor: Frugal free-to-play
Two weeks! Two weeks, people! Why are you just sitting there, all calm-before-the-storm-like, instead of following my lead and running around like a chicken with its head... well, you know. Two weeks until Volume III Book 2 launches (and a little earlier for current subscribers), and I am psyched. There certainly is something for everyone here: a F2P version, store options, a new zone, instance scaling, more dungeons, DX11, the wardrobe, a revamped beginner experience, three new servers, the next chapter in the epic story, class tweaks, a haunted cellar, and, of course, demonic goats. Did I miss something? I probably did, but it's kind of crazy around here. One of the highlights I'm anticipating is all of the new (and returning) players giving LotRO their time due to the multiple payment options, including F2P bliss. I'm always a huge fan of options in my games, and I truly feel that the implementation of this free-to-play model will benefit a wider range of players than the current subscription core. Mmm, that Kool-Aid tastes great! If you're thinking about heading into LotRO in two weeks but are unsure how much "free" will come with your F2P, when you'll be hit with the big catch, or whether you'll be forced to subscribe at some point, I have some great news for you. There are a variety of routes you can take to experience a good chunk of Lord of the Rings Online without denting your bank account. Read on for five valuable strategies to save a buck while saving Middle-earth!
PC Gamer's reader poll honors EVE as the #3 PC game of all time
Reader polls always tend to be an exercise in popularity, bucking conventional wisdom and surprise upsets -- and perhaps never so much as a recent annual PC Gamer poll that asked readers to rank the top 100 PC games of all time. EVE Online scored a surprising #3 spot on the list (falling from last year's #2 position), behind only Fallout 3 and Half-Life 2. This certainly is a testament to EVE's devoted and outspoken fans. Several other MMOs appeared in the top 100, including World of Warcraft (#10), WURM Online (#20), World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (#25), Lord of the Rings Online: The Mines of Moria (#31), Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (#36), RuneScape (#45), Guild Wars (#72), World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (#97) and EverQuest (#100). Of course, reader polls should always be taken with a grain of salt (mmm... salty goodness), as large organizational efforts and promotion from one studio or group of fans is often enough to create a skewed result. Still, it's a decent list, and terrific to see so many MMOs given the top honors.
The Road to Mordor: The highs and lows of Middle-earth
Every Friday, The Road to Mordor brings you the latest in Lord of the Rings Online news, guides and analysis. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was also the most trite way to open an article, especially if you were to be submitting it to your English teacher. Still, I've never encountered a week in LotRO that's given me such a bipolar experience, and I'm going to need your help to work it out. You with me? Good, then grab a cup of red tea and let us spin such a yarn that cats all over the world will be attracted to it. The week began with a switch back to my Captain -- I like to juggle characters, but my cappy (Captain Crunch, thank you very much) is the flagship character of my account, the one in which I've poured the most time and interest. Crunch had just hit level 45, which meant she was eligible to start Volume II, Book I. This is generally recommended at level 45, because the book nets you your first legendary item (and your second, by the end of it). I figured, might as well get cracking on that infamous LI grind I hear so much about, so away I went!
The Hillmen of LotRO's Ost Crithlanc want to kill you: read about it
Angmar is the source of most of the evil of the Shadows of Angmar volume of The Lord of the Rings Online. It's home to the Witch-king of (you guessed it) Angmar, the right-hand man of the Dark Lord Sauron. So it probably won't be surpassed in pure evilness (at least not lore-wise) until Mordor is added to the game in, oh, 10 years or so.Turbine's LotRO Lorebook has been updated with an entry for Ost Crithlanc, some ruins at the border of Angmar (all bad) and the North Downs (only mostly bad). The ruins have been seized by an army of Witch-king-serving Hillmen who are preparing to sweep through Eriador and slaughter everyone -- even those cute little hobbits. God, they're evil.The Lorebook has a little more detail on this Turbine-created, Tolkien-inspired location, along with a few pretty neat images. Enjoy!
LotRO-Europe website gets a facelift
Not that there was ever anything wrong with Lord of the Rings Online Europe's website to begin with, but they've recently decided to completely revamp their site to better accommodate the new expansion and future content. Codemaster Online's new website now features a separate branch for Shadows of Angmar and one for Mines of Moria, as well as the obligatory CGI trailer, free trial info, competitions and a link to their e-shop. Separating the two volumes like this allows the company to present news, features and contests that are specific to a certain expansion, which will become more valuable as the list of expansions grows in the coming years. They also promise that the community section will benefit from the creativity of their designers soon, and will be brought in line with this new layout.
