HOUSING CONTROL FREAKERY

Everyone bitches about LOTRO's inane housing system, which only allows you to place certain items in certain well-defined spots around your house, known as hooks. Since these are very limited in number, all LOTRO housing tends to look as though it has recently been visited by bailiff trolls who walked off with 90% of the household items. The limited number of hooks is bad enough, but what makes it worse is the daft design decision to classify all housing and decorative items as large/small/thin furniture, large/small wall items and the like, which can of course only be placed into the equivalent pre-designated slots. Note that while, logically enough, perhaps, large items of furniture cannot be placed into 'small furniture' slots, you're not allowed to do the opposite, either - that space may be large enough to take a billiard table, but you can't place a stool there!

Most irritating of all is the fact that the large/small designations are not dependent on the overall dimensions of an object, but appear to be entirely arbitrary. The image above is of the raised dais in a Breeland kinhouse, representing about half the total floor area of the main hall. Looks empty, doesn't it? That's because apart from items on the walls, you are only allowed to place two items of furniture on an area the size of a small ballroom. Furthermore, these two slots are earmarked for (wait for it!), 'special furniture'. What, you ask, is special furniture? So far, the game includes just three such items: a breakfast table, a map table and a reflecting pool. But the point is that if you try and place a normal large table of the same dimensions as the map table into one of these slots, it won't go in. LOTRO's designers have taken it upon themselves to dictate that your very expensive (to buy and run) kinhouse can sport a frog pond in its great hall - but not a dinner table. How far can control freakery go?

(Oh, and by the way, experiments have shown that just one of every LOTRO trophy available to date represents more items than a kinhouse can accommodate - never mind your average hovel. Nice going.)

MORIA TROPHIES

To be honest, the first couple of Moria trophies to come my way have been a bit of a disappointment - certainly not a patch on the Shadows of Angmar trophies. The Fire Orc Banner drops from the Fire Orc boss in the Grand Stairs instance, and Morhun's Gemstone from the final boss in the Treasury instance. Neither are exactly earth-shaking: the banner looks a bit like a traffic bollard, while Morhun's Gemstone reminds me of nothing so much as a fancy bell-push (it also underlines the inanity of hooks in housing: once in place, it stands in solitary splendour on that stretch of wall, to which nothing else can be added).

Hopefully, things will improve, but at the moment, it looks as though so much imagination went into designing Moria, there was none left over for the trophies...

EREGION & THE MINES

Mines of Moria, the long-awaited Volume II of Lords of the Ring Online, has been up and running long enough by now for us to get over the original high, take a couple of steps back and evaluate it as calmly as possible… First of all, there can be no doubts at all about the graphic design: this is by far the most impressive game environment I have ever seen. For once, the pre-launch hype didn’t lie. The Mines of Moria are breathtakingly grandiose and wonderfully imaginative; I almost wish I had a l.70 character whom I could take for a leisurely tour of the whole region, unbothered by orcs, goblins and other such irritants.

Unfortunately, for the first couple of weeks many of us couldn’t properly experience the game’s glories at anything better than the “low” graphics setting, since the huge numbers of players gathered in Moria, particularly at choke points such as the Deep Delving and the 21st Hall, slowed all servers down to a crawl or worse… Fortunately, measures seem to have been taken with the latest patch, and the situation is noticeably better - but it still isn’t advisable to log out in the 21st Hall, since coming fully back online could take minutes.

The success of Moria itself shouldn’t blind players to the less dramatic but still very effective design of Eregion, the region leading to the mines; once again the designers have come up with a wholly successful concept for a semi-desolate no-man’s-land, this time with the emphasis on eroded hillsides, boulder-strewn plains and dried-up riverbeds. Kudos also to those responsible for the final instance of Volume I, namely Book 15, chapter 12, to my mind perhaps the single most effective episode of the game so far, combining as it does a very tough fight, an extended follow-up and some very strong plot elements. Many (perhaps most) players skipped this entirely in their rush to enter Moria, and they would be well advised to go back and try it; if nothing else, a successfully completed instance presents players with the single best reward to date. Also highly recommended are the School and Library sequence of 3-player fellowship quests near Mirobel.

All in all, Mines of Moria has proved that it is possible to make a good game substantially better, and Turbine fully deserve the increase in player base which this upgrade has undoubtedly provoked.

MINES OF MORIA DIGITAL PURCHASE

Very much at the eleventh hour, though of course better late than never, Codemasters have announced that Mines of Moria can now, as of November 15th, be purchased online. Go to http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4656514#post4656514 for details.

HICCUPS ON THE WAY TO MORIA

Poor old Codemasters! It really does look as though they need somebody new in charge of sales and distribution (or perhaps, just somebody in charge?)...

With the LOTRO community in a feeding frenzy over the coming of Mines of Moria, rather more than the usual distribution problems are cropping up - yet again. For instance, as of today, it looks as though anybody who pre-ordered from Amazon, and particularly from Amazon.uk, will have cancelled their orders. Why? According to the official Amazon response one anxious purchaser posted on the forums, "Sometimes unexpected fluctuations in supply can add time to our original availability estimate. We have learned that "The Lord of the Rings: Mines of Moria - Compendium" is now back-ordered and we now hope that your order will be delivered by early December 2008". December? You have got to be joking - this is a client base which develops acute anxiety attacks if its update is more than twelve hours late, and you expect it to wait patiently for two to three weeks for the game's first major expansion? Get real, Amazon... and by the way, Codemasters, why doesn't a major distributor like Amazon have sufficient stocks on hand, eh?

More serious, if only because failure here is utterly inexplicable, is the whole question of downloading the game (or rather, just the game key) online. This would be fast, practical, cheap and far more environmentally efficient than posting large cardboard boxes full of assorted land-fill fodder around the globe. It could also be implemented by a twelve-year old with an internet site, access to a decent server and a PayPal account. Online availability becomes particularly important when retail purchase is not an option - and according to forum posters, most games retail outlets across Europe are not and will not be stocking Mines of Moria (why they won't is another issue entirely - incentives, anyone?).

So it was a relief to find that on Codemaster's own e-commerce site, MoM could in fact be purchased for download - as it says, above, "ALSO AVAILABLE ON PC DOWNLOAD". Except that it isn't, because clicking on that little promise takes you to the second screen image above - the one that says "No Results". Yes, you can't get there from here, and we don't do that sort of thing in this company, no sir!

Maybe, just maybe, it's time for Codemasters to hire a marketing manager? I can recommend a smart, savvy twelve-year old who lives just down the street from here...

SILVAN (adj.)

The Silvan Frost Antler, as found across Forochel.

silvan (sylvan), adjective

Etymology: Medieval Latin silvanus, sylvanus, from Latin silva, sylva wood

1 a: living or located in the woods or forest
1 b: of, relating to, or characteristic of the woods or forest
2 a: made, shaped, or formed of woods or trees
2 b: abounding in woods, groves, or trees

Some mistake here then, governor?

LEGACY ARMOUR RETIREMENT PLANS

As MoM creeps closer and closer on little cat feet, insecurity and uncertainty haunt the sleep of many veterans of Angmar’s campaigns. “What”, they want to know, “is to become of our precious, paid-for-in-blood-and-sweat (not to mention hours and hours slaving over a hot keyboard) complete suits of Rift armour? Must they be tossed on the rubbish heap, unloved and unregarded, or sold for a mere handful of copper pennies? How will we protect ourselves against the perils of the Mines?”.

Relax. First of all, Rift-quality armour isn’t suddenly going to turn into soggy cardboard overnight; it will certainly provide adequate protection in Eriador, while we gather together the next set, with its improved protections. “But what”, some will answer, “of its patina, its associations, its many memories? Are you so blind to history?”. Well, it has now been confirmed that pre-MoM items, no matter how rare, cannot be be broken up to boost legendary weapons, so that particular retirement plan is no longer an option. Personally, I plan to hang on to mine, in the (hopefully not vain) expectation that Turbine will sooner or later recognise its folly in instituting a hook system for housing, and replace it with a grid or free system allowing players to place anything they want anywhere in their homes. There have been faint, elfin hints that something of the sort is planned for the not-too-distant future – perhaps a couple of books into MoM. Then, assuming that Turbine can also provide me with a simple armour stand, I propose to display the whole outfit, hideous shoulder pads included, in some corner of the snug. Ah, the memories…

BATTLEGROUND INSTANCES

I suspect that the design success of the three Battleground Instances has gone largely unappreciated and unnoticed, buried to some extent beneath the grumbling about the poor drop rate of the chest rewards and the silly linking of the three, whereby Rhunendin cannot be accessed until the first two have been completed at least 20 times each – which might be OK, if the whole sequence didn’t keep resetting at unknown intervals.

Anyway, I would be happy with these instances even without any rewards; they are fast (average time for a good team should be 30’, 35’ and 60’ respectively), increasingly challenging and place a premium on tactical thinking. Indeed, I would argue that they are perhaps the first instances in the entire game to require true tactical thought (Annuminas perhaps excepted). Both Helegrod and above all the Rift have a steep learning curve and demand experience, careful timing, discipline and a very precise sequence of moves by the raiders – but these are not purely tactical considerations. Rather, they require raiders to have knowledge of often very particular circumstances, and act accordingly; you have to know what happens in specific cases (for example, what happens when Barz shouts “I’ll gnaw your bones!”), and your options are thereafter very limited indeed.

On the other hand, the Battlegrounds present players with an essentially tactical challenge: you must defend, or defend and attack, often simultaneously and with limited forces, and all against the clock. There are several ways of achieving this, depending on the makeup of the fellowship, and all have a chance of success; and you can and indeed must vary your tactics as the logistical situation changes. There are clear trade-offs: you can play safe at the probable expense of speed, you can balance the (eventually critical) loss of NPCs against a faster rate of enemy attrition (i.e., you gamble on killing them faster than they can kill you), you can form a weak defence and a strong offence team, or vice-versa.

Whoever was behind the design of the little gems, I very much hope we’ll encounter more of their work in MoM.

MARKING TIME

Three weeks, more or less, till Mines of Moria is released. Turbine have been very clever about building up expectations, releasing little bits of information here, dropping hints in dev chat there, and generally winding everybody up. It helps, of course, that by all accounts vol.2 of the LOTRO saga will include a mind-blowing amount of content - almost enough to qualify as a brand new game.

In the meantime, we are all - particularly us grizzled level 50 veterans of countless battles with Thorog and Thaurlach - marking time. Useful (and even less useful) traits have been long-since maxed, our complete sets of Rift armour are showing the ravages of time and combat, we peacock about in all-teal splendour and try to occupy our time as constructively as possible. Those who enjoy that sort of thing struggle to reach the dizzy heights of rank 8 in the Ettenmoors, the obsessive collectors amongst us are well on the way of acquiring one of each of the boss trophies (I have all but the two skulls), fishermen curse and spit at the seeming impossibility of ever completing the fishing deeds, while tacticians plot and plan how best to conquer the Rift with a six-man raid, or Hellegrod with a mere dozen.

There is of course always the time-honoured occupation of building up alts, and many players are doing just that - some of them, indeed, creating entire families. Personally, I've always found the idea of alts oddly schizophrenic, but to each his own. I'll be working on taking down Thaurlach with a five-man team of Hunters on skateboards - that should fill in the time nicely till MoM turns up and we have to understand exactly how the legendary weapons system is supposed to work...

LATEST NEWS FROM MINES OF MORIA

Whether officially or unofficially, a number of interesting screen shots from the Mines of Moria beta have appeared on www.lotrolife.com. Things in beta are always subject to possible change, but nevertheless, some useful hard facts can be deduced from these images.

MOUNTS
Player mounts in MoM will be, yes, mountain goats. It can now be confirmed that not only will the game’s Pony Express service (sorry, Goat Express) be equipped with them, but it will be possible to purchase one as well, albeit after some considerable time. To acquire a Redhorn Goat you will have to have reached Friend Standing with the Iron Garrison Miners, while the faster Nimble Redhorn requires Kindred Standing (both going for 6G, 24S).

Incidentally, the enemy will have access to mounts as well – in their case, fighting mounts. Moria Warg-Riders are a formidable-looking skeleton-giant warg combo.

QUICK TRAVEL/PORTING
Hunters will continue to have an edge in the taxi profession in MoM, but once again, it may take some time to acquire the relevant skills. At l.56, for instance, Hunters can purchase the ability to “swiftly travel to the Twenty-First Hall of Moria”, taking a party with them. Wardens, on the other hand, can also acquire a corresponding skill at l.56, but can only travel solo.

THE ECONOMY
I have long suspected that in-game finance will suddenly become important again with MoM, partly simply through inflation, but also because the various procedures associated with identifying and manipulating legendary items may well incur (probably high) charges. Certainly the first assumption appears correct: Tomes necessary for the acquisition of various Traits appear to be on offer for 2G, 500S. Various other items on sale at faction shops appear to be priced up to twenty times higher than their current equivalents.

LOADING SCREENS
Judging by the example above, the MoM screens will be considerably better drawn than the weirdly distorted and downright ugly images we have put up with so far – think of the current Rivendell loading screen, with its dwarfish and club-handed Legolas.

http://www.lotrolife.com/news_full/new_mom_screenshots/294/