Monday, December 7

Lotro anyone?

That title is a very obscure reference to a commercial for Southern Comfort. Actually too sad I even mention it. But since I am such a crappy updater lately I think I can make crappy titles *grin*

So where is this all going? A couple of days ago Zubon over at KillTenRats made a great post about static grouping. He talked how much fun it is to have a fixed weekly time to play with a fixed group of characters. He mentioned how much fun he had with such a group in City of Heroes, and later in Lord of the Rings. The posts that followed the days after that pointed out more of the good bits of City of Heroes, and good bits of Lord of the Rings as well. Especially the post City of Skimishes makes me getting a bit itchy, and really wanting to try out LOTRO.

The problem is time. Playing three MMOs at the same time is just crazy. Last week I played some City of Heroes during the week and had loads of fun with that still. Our Sunday static group feast only made that feeling stronger. And although I had the feeling I got a bit stranded in Fallen Earth I got excited about that too over the weekend. Saving myself and Lifenet was good fun. So LOTRO only makes sense if there is somebody to play with. Maybe something for the new year?

PS. The Ulimate Sandbox MMO

5 comments:

  1. Didn't I post sometime ago that if I had a more regular schedule I so would call dibs on Thursday Night for Static grouping in Fallen Earth? Where actually Fallen Earth is replacable with CoX or LotRO or Ardoll(sp?).

    I wouldn't mind giving LotRO another twirl either.

    I think Cuppycake has a pretty good argument in that Ultimate Sandbo post. Also before realizing he was describing Second Life I was reading each bulletpoint and thinking of the way each of those either has negative aspects in Second Life or are rife for exploitation as seen in Second Life.

    # Open-world player housing with the best decoration system of any MMO ever made.
    - Open world, with Simulators and sim-crossings which will bring a tear to the eyes of any first day Vanguard veteran. No, not a tear of joy. The houses clash with the environment half the time, cause lag the other half, or are just butt ugly, and a lot of people use malignant devices to assure some kind of privacy which hamper innocent people more.
    # A crafting system more powerful and advanced than any MMO out there
    = More powerful, more obtuse, more technical, resulting in 90% crap, 5% mediocicy and 5% decent products. Since people are allowed to write their own highly inefficient scripts, thro on textures with 20+ different compression methods there's no way to optimize for them so just about every player created object adds to lag.
    # Player run stores and casinos
    = with the latter shut down for a year now due to US Federal law. Odd that he forgot to mention the brothels and escort services.
    # Player run economy
    = Which is why instead of forums full of bile about people h4x0ring their PvP builds, you get forums full about people screaming Copy-Cat, unfair competition methods, nagging that Linden Labs should enforce DRM systems and those are the more benign "discussions". PVP players are sweet lovable darlings compared to market players. Especially when a few real Dollars are mixed in.
    # The ability to stream music from internet radio stations directly into the game to play at your player-run dance clubs
    = Which is a huge licensing violation problem, until Linden Labs signs the same kind of deal with the RIAA that Youtube was forced to enter.
    # Mature areas where kiddies are not allowed to hang out.
    = Which surprisingly often results in more childish behavior than in games, mostly because in games the kiddies are focused on achieving goals whereas the mature people in SL half the time have nothing better to do than chat and behave childishly.
    # A game where over 40% of the player base is female. (as opposed to 19% in WOW)
    = if every lesbian in SL really was a female and not say a guy who doesn't want to get physical with other guys, and the numbers were representative for RL, we don't have to worry about food supplies and other natural resources for the next generation, we have to worry about who's going to produce that generation. I.e. it's still Mostly Men Online Roleplaying Girls even though SL isn't an MMORPG....
    # No Level Grinding.
    = Also no goals or victory conditions. Actually, there is grinding. There is store camping for 10 Linden Dollars per hour, so you raise the traffic rating of a store for less than 2 dollarcents per hour.
    # No Loot Camping
    = Nope, but there are money tree camping/lotteries for those who want it.
    # Free to download and play
    = except that most of the good stuff costs money. Sure, you can wade through the seas of crappy, second rate freebies until you find something halfway decent, or spend RL cash which rapidly becomes more than say $15,- a month if you're not careful. Oh, that player housing? You need to pay rent to lease the land to put them on.
    # No Monthly fee unless you purchase land
    = Purchasing land is not even an option most of the time. You rent from other "players", land barons. That 'wonderful' player driven economy that has some professional componaies and entrepreneurs running most of the show.

    I do like Second Life, but it's not an MMORPG and certainly not ultimate anything.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You did post about a fixed group date. I just wanted to post something. And had nothing more exciting to post.

    You have a cunning skill to give people the impression that something you enjoy is absolutely crap. I know you well enough to read it through my Lani-to-Phedre translator.

    What I sort of concluded is that SL is a weird mismatch of everything with is causing a little bit of lag here and there. And just like all F2P you really have to spent quite a bit of money to truely enjoy it. But if you give it time there is a lot fun to be had. (Second) Life is what you make it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sorry, that's just my natural reaction to anyone trying to make something out to be First and Last and Always like the Ten Rats poster did. :-)

    In many ways Second Life is like the World Wide Web. If you're interested in something, there's bound to be some representation of it in SL.
    So you're more taking part of some activity you like, which you happen to be able to do through the medium of Second Life rather than 'playing' Second Life itself.

    But mostly it's about online people, anonymous people at that, with all the pro's and con's.

    ReplyDelete
  4. But mostly it's about online people, anonymous people at that, with all the pro's and con's.

    Without actually been there that is exactly what I think SL is. Although I love role playing I never got into just idling around at a tavern or guild hall. I am not much for idle talk, I guess. And I suspect that that is where everything starts in SL.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ehm, yeah. Makes you wonder how I got into it huh? Cause I am the same way.

    I think I spent the first month or so with barely a word spoken to anyone who didn't adress me first :-)

    Another way to describe SL is as communities. Ranging from religious groups to RP communities to racing fans to BDSM clubs and escort brothels. SL is the platform which allows those to form. In that way SL is a means, not an end, not a game.

    ReplyDelete