LOTRO: The Further Adventures of Bilbo Baggins
I was hoping that 2021 would be a good year for the MMORPG, The Lord of the Rings Online. New owners, along with hints at a revised community relations policy and a recent roadmap for future content have all been positively received by the game’s stoic community. Furthermore, the recent demise of the LOTR based MMO by Amazon Game Studios has eliminated any immediate competition. Sadly, two things have occurred recently indicating that developer’s Standing Stone Games are still tone deaf to the player feedback and lacking in any tangible long term vision for the game. The first was a statement made by Executive Producer, Rob “Severlin” Ciccolini, regarding Legendary Items in the game and the subject of grind. The second was the new “Further Adventures” quest arcs, as described in February’s Executive Producer’s Letter, which uses the “missions” system that was added to the game in Update 28.
According to Mr. Ciccolini you cannot remove Legendary Items from LOTRO for the following reasons. “We want players to have things to do while they are leveling. I know that some players are ‘Oh, this is too grindy and sometimes we overdo it,’ but ‘grindy’ doesn’t scare me as much as ‘I don’t have enough to do.’ ‘I don’t have enough to do’ is worse because players want to play the game but they don’t really have goals to pursue. [If the LI system is removed], a couple things happen: One, players become much more reliant on weapon drops and if they don’t get the weapon drop they want, their DPS will lag […], and two, a weapon drop is one-and-done; we want to make sure that when [players] get a weapon they can then develop it”. (This quote was taken from Q&A with Severlin live stream on Friday April 16th)
There’s a lot to unpack in that statement and none of it is good. LOTRO players can be very innovative with regards to finding things to do in the game. Levelling alts, crafting, role playing, completing deeds, trading on the auction house, furnishing their homes, min-maxing, exploring the world, enjoying the festivals and hanging out with friends are but a few I can think of. So claiming that without grind there would be no “goals to pursue” is spurious to say the least or alternatively a statement of unparalleled ignorance of one’s own game. However, even if we accept this statement, offering grind instead or real content is hardly laudable. Plus as fellow blogger Wilhelm Arcturus said in comments left on the YouTube Q&A video, if SSG pursue a course of action justified by this erroneous supposition, it simply proves that they’re “committed to bad game design”.
Frankly, I often get the impression that SSG simply does not understand what attracts people to the MMO genre per se. They seem to see their own games as far more of a live service rather than an example of a massively multiplayer online game, in the classic sense. I also feel that the major decision makers over at SSG are somewhat behind the curve with regards to modern developments and changes in the MMO genre and are possibly very entrenched in their ways. Their attitude toward community relations certainly seems archaic. It may also be a case that the ebb and flow of staff over the years has left them with serious skills gaps. All the new content that is added to the game has a tendency to be very formulaic and simply variations on existing themes. I don’t think that the staff actually know how to create certain content anymore and integrate it into the game.
Which sadly leads me to “The Further Adventures of Bilbo Baggins”. This is the first of a series of self-contained, episodic story arcs that use the “missions” system. Launched yesterday and currently available free using the redeem code SAVEBILBO, this new content is simply underwhelming and lacklustre. It is entirely built upon existing game assets and offers nothing new other than the very simple narrative. Each instalment requires the player to port to an instanced section of the existing game world and kill a few waves of standard mobs. It is not especially difficult or fun to be honest. It’s all somewhat disappointing and mundane. I find it most concerning that SSG intends to charge for this content after the promotional period ends and have more material of this kind in development. Overall this is a very inauspicious content update and does not bode well for the remainder of the year. Let us hope that the imminent 14th anniversary celebrations are more creative.
