Introduction:
Well, I finally got some inspiration for a post. I have been playing Lord of the Rings Online recently - well, for the last couple of days, and it was certainly an experience.
It's very similar to WoW in some ways, but in other ways, not as much. The main difference being that WoW is far better with pacing, and that's why I'm writing this post.
My thoughts on Lord of the Rings Online:
I originally had here a full run through of what happened during my playing experience, and how I felt about it - but it ended up as being extremely long, so I'll just make a simple list.
Things that surprised me in a good way:
- It's a free to play game, with solid graphics, and stable gameplay.
- Each character has a very unique play style, and the ones that I tried were all very strong when you got their core abilities.
- A strong crafting system.
- A lot of quests and instances.
- The game gives you a quick taste of power from the start by giving you some Novice items, and a free Rental Mount (that lasts for 24 hours)
Things that surprised me in a bad way:
- A lot of awful quests, with very few fun and rewarding ones.
- In fact, too many quests full stop - leading to a grinding game style.
- Sprawling zones full of lots of little towns, with lots of quests - it's impossible to decide what to do first, or at all. It's overwhelming.
- Too much running, (often) not enough action.
- The game has you completely strapped for cash in the beginning, as your expenses for gaining new class skills gets too high for your level.
- An unstable GUI.
- Many limits on even basic features without using Turbine currency - which can be paid for with real life currency. (Fair enough, the team has to make money, right? Still... it annoyed me a bit)
The main things I want to talk about ais the Pacing. So yes, expect me to be criticising LotRO a lot in this post - but, before I do, I will clarify that when it comes to free MMOs (that are legal - not private servers), Lord of the Rings Online is probably the best I have played. And I don't mean - "No monthly subscription", I mean, free all over - you don't even need to buy a serial key.
It's a great game, so if you don't want to be forced to pay for an MMO - I'd go straight for it.
Pacing Problems:
Lord of the Rings Online has some pacing issues as I described before - mainly that you're often running around aimlessly just trying to complete the crazy number of quests - and most of your quests are based on talking to people across the map. Then when you find them, you find 20 more quests.
It's overwhelming - badly structured, and as you run from place to place - somewhat boring. Towards the end of my recent play time, I spent most of my time with Auto-Run on, just avoiding monsters as I gazed up from MSN and saw I was running into them.
Similarly, every quest you get is often a part of a quest line - so it's hard to just skip one because you may have done 3/6 parts of the line, but you have not yet gotten your final reward. Similarly, it can be kind of infuriating to be finishing off a quest that has had you running around for an hour, and then talk to who you think is the final NPC only to have them send you back to the other side of the map again.
A map of what my time in "The Shire' probably looked like is as so:
Most quests are in red, the particularly annoying quests are in other colours.
Light Blue: You run around as a chicken, you cannot fight or anything - you simply have to run slowly from waypoint to waypoint. You have to do this twice-3x, with no difference really except for the waypoints.
Indigo: You have to talk to the man in the lower left, then the woman in the lower right, then the man in the top right, then the woman in the lower right, then the man in the top right, then go to the top left to find an item. Show it to the man in the top right, show it to the woman in the lower left, go back to the man in the top right, go with him to an instance in the top left, beat the instance, go to the man in the lower left, talk to the woman in the lower right, talk to the man in the top right.
And I'm not joking.
Yellow: You have to carry pies from all over the region to this one woman while avoiding particular hobbits (who steal pies). You usually have to go a long route, through enemy infested territory, and, while you're holding the pie, you can't attack or ride your temporary horse.
Green: Similar to the Pie-Carrying, you have to carry mail all around the region and avoid a different kind of hobbit that steal mail. Again, you cannot fight/ride a mount.
Pink: A crazy quest like Indigo - a lot of talking and running, with a tiny bit of fighting in the middle.
And as said, the Red are all the other quests - which, heavily outnumber the other colours. I think, if I had have truly represented Red, it would have been more of a smog than a bunch of lines.
Now, this would be... somewhat okay... if you could run from one end of the map to the other in about a minute. Well, unfortunately I timed it, and it took me nearly 10. So you can see how I spent about 15-20 hours in the last few days on this game, and only finished this area.
Now, you certainly have the option of doing the good quests - and then leaving the rest, but as a newbie - you cannot make the distinction, and, there are a lot of rewards for finishing a lot of quests in a region - so you feel that it's what you should do, while my friends have had a lot more success just picking and choosing.
It's also a lot hard to compartmentalise the quests when so many have nearly 10, or even more steps in them.
How World of Warcraft does it:
This is where WoW comes in. WoW has similar areas (where you start out as a newbie, get your professions, and leave the Novice level, choosing where you go next)
But, their areas are always (or at least, almost always) far better designed.
Let's take a look at how you'll traverse the starting area of "Durotar".
Your spawn point is the Purple X, then the green is your starting zone - for levels 1-6.
After that, you are asked to go to a little camp just outside the starting zone where you start getting some more quests - after you finish the key ones, (you don't have to finish them all to progress), you're asked to go to Razor Hill (Red), where the Yellow X denotes that you can set your teleporting (Hearth) stone to teleport there - which is useful when you've just finished many quests in the one area.
Once you've finished the key quests there - you're asked to go to Orgrimmar (Purple) again, you can set your Hearth Stone.
The key things to note is that all areas are somewhat self contained. The Starting area only ventures out when you've finished it. The Camp deals with the areas outside the starting zone and the Echo Islands. Razor Hill, being the main object of levelling inside the area covers the most ground - but even so, most quests are roundabout in the same area (meaning, you can complete them at the same time). Orgrimmar deals with the North.
Also note that all quests expand out, and then return to the single 'Town' in which you got them. They rarely go between towns - and all of your valid quests in the one area, meaning you can see them all rather than finding new ones everywhere.
I always like to praise WoW on pacing, but this is why - it's so easy to understand, it's well encapsulated - if you know the quests, you can do many of them at once to save on time. As the quests don't roam the country side, and aren't all quest chains 10 long, you can just do a couple, and then go to another area if you want - which is used a lot for speed levelling (example, if you hate the small camp outside the starting zone, you can travel to another starting zone, and finish a few quests there before returning).
Note:
At this point I'd like to recognise that a couple of weeks ago, The Shattering happening in World of Warcraft - and many zones were changed. And, Durotar is even faster, and designed better than the picture shown, if you would believe me.
Conclusion:
In closing, both World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online are great MMOs - but, in order to be more competitive with World of Warcraft, LotRO has to work on its quest pacing and over all progression.
The most important factor with MMOs is getting players to play for long periods of time, so that their characters are strong enough to utilize end-game content, and when it comes down to it, I feel that for most players, LotRO is missing that gripping factor.
To improve, it should:
- Cut down on the number of individual quests in each zone, so players are less bored by the end.
- Shorten some quest chains, and split some up into individual quests so players can pick and choose easier.
- Restrict quests' objectives, so, for the most part quests are all in a small area. If they do move to another area - prohibit them from moving backwards. Players should be able to draw a line from questing hotspot to hotspot.
This means that a player will likely feel like they are progressing faster, and they likely will be - as they won't be wasting time running from on end of the map to the other, and doing boring quests.
To put this into perspective, in 16 hours I can:
- Get a character from 1 to 15 in Lord of the Rings Online, or
- Get a character from 1 to 25 in World of Warcraft.
Which would players likely prefer?
