Presenting the first in what will hopefully be a long running series of me running my mouth off about “how I would do things better” in games. As an Armchair Designer I do not have access to any overall build data for the games I will be critiquing and as such anything I say should be taken with a grain of salt. Obviously there is a marked difference between musing about design in games and actually implementing those ideas and in no way do I consider myself better than the talented individuals who bring these worlds to life. Quite the opposite, in fact. Still, I do have some limited experience with game design and development and I know that it is important to be able to take a look at what others think about your work and (possibly) tweak the final design to incorporate these sometimes conflicting sentiments.
Ultimately I am doing this for my (and hopefully your) amusement and would love to hear your own ideas and critiques of my suggestions, whether you make them in the form of comments or your own blog posts. Let’s have some fun!
Now, Lord of the Rings Online holds a special place in my heart, even more so now than it had a mere month previous. A good part of that is due to my joining the Sons of Numenor, but even more integral to my renewed interest is the upcoming digital expansion, the Siege of Mirkwood. I’ve written before about the enticement of visiting Mordor and other revered locales in the long-established world that is Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, and a future Armchair Design session will involve some of these potential areas, so what better way to motivate me to continue playing than allowing me to visit Mirkwood and Dol Guldur?
Well, proposed changes to game systems that are currently somewhat maligned certainly helps as well. Turbine has had to bear the brunt of much dissatisfaction thanks to shoddy implementations of the Radiance and Legendary Item systems; systems that have had a negative impact on other established mechanics such as crafting. Turbine has heard the cries of anguish coming from their subscribers and they have some promising changes coming along with SoM, but is it enough? Obviously there’s always going to be room for improvement and so I will be taking a look at these systems and will attempt to connect them more intrinsically with the lore of the game so they no longer feel like arbitrary game mechanics. But that will be saved for a later Armchair Design session.
I will instead begin by addressing some of the little things that bother me about LotRO. Turbine has exhibited a great deal of attention directed towards what they term Quality of Life Improvements. From their major overhaul to the mount system for SoM to the impressive early zone revamps headed up by Orion all the way down to the admission in their patch notes from Book 8 that it’s the little things that count, Turbine is very much aware of how great an impact these little touches have on the way people play their game. They’re not perfect however, and most of the offending details that detract from my play time are very obvious remnants of aged MMORPG design philosophy that serve little purpose other than frustrating players. I’ll cover those next time as they mainly pertain to questing and grouping but for now I present a series of minor quibbles and little things I think the game could use.
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