The Destiny of Lord of the Rings Online 184
An anonymous reader writes "Julian Murdoch over at Gamers With Jobs posits that the recently released Lord of the Rings Online, for all it's flaws, is a new kind of game — the Destiny-Locked RPG: 'The reason that Story sets LOTRO apart is because you know how it ends. This is a luxury World of Warcraft simply can never have. There is no logical end to WoW, where the evil WoW faction of the Horde is victorious, and every member of the good-aligned Alliance dies. The viciously PvP nature of EVE Online means that the story can only sit on the sidelines and inform, not take center stage. But in LOTRO, the game is the story. In this, the game has far more in common with Oblivion than it does with WoW.' The argument here is that a game in which the outcome is known is fundamentally a different (and possibly better) form of gameplay than that the current rage of emergent-gameplay sandbox weak storied games. A challenging idea." It's not so much that the game's ending is already known, as that there is an ending.
Re:Not the first... (Score:1, Funny)
And then, she showed him her tits.
Re:Not the first... (Score:3, Funny)
Far greater than that. I know of no games where a topped out caster class could win a melee fight against a giant flaming demon.
And that's ironic because caster classes in games are far better at ignoring giant swords swung at them from point blank range by ogres. Isn't it odd that they can't wear armor because it "disrupts their delicate spell-casting hand movements", yet they can completely ignore a 10 foot tall, 4000 lb. ogre standing right in front of them, swinging a 10 foot long, 200 lb. sword, and not even flinch?
Re:Noone gets it right (Score:3, Funny)
The Orcs, for instance, are mostly interested in cleansing themselves of their demon taint and protecting themselves from external threats. However, these societies are not monolithic. Thrall's New Horde only has about 3 clans worth of Orcs (Most of the Frostwolf, Warsong and Shattered hands exist as clans, the rest don't have clans). And there are Orcs in the horde that are double agents for the demons. Demon followers, such as the False Warchiefs Rend and Kargath Bladefist exist, but are separate from the player organizations.
Trolls, as played by the players, are a tiny tiny fraction of the total numbers. The Darkspear trolls are a remnant tribe who are closest to the oldest tribes around, the ones that never fell into total barbarism. They have embraced the light and the power of shamanism. They are also some of the oldest demon fighting lines around. The Shadowhunters will be back.
Tauren are one of the few good races. There's nearly nothing bad you can say about them. They might be a tad naive, but they honestly believe they can cure the forsaken and heal the blood elves.
Forsaken are pissed off at life and their lot. They are former zombies that often enough remember not only their deaths, but the deaths of their loved ones at their own hands. They want to be free, and lack the moral limits they had in life. They are driven by the desire for revenge, and can only clearly feel hate. When you've killed part of your family, and the rest is driven off, they hate the humans very much.
Blood elves are addicts. They have cravings for magic large enough to do nearly anything for it. But they have limits. They don't actively consort with demons, they don't blow up planets, and they know their king went insane. They are also not monolithic in culture, with some speaking against magic, encouraging the use of holy rather than arcane.
On the flip side, Humans have been beaten down again and again. Their king got kidnapped and the queen rules over the 6 year old prince. She's also an evil dragon trying to wreck their society. They are tearing apart under the outside parties.
Dwarves are digging for their past as diggers for the ancient Titans. They have their crowned princess run of with the ruler of the dark dwarves.
Gnomes are insane, radioactive, and have no home having blown it up. They also didn't ask for help to keep the war against the demons going.
Night elves are arrogant mofos whose arrogance doomed us everyone else multiple times. They are also attempting to be the guardians of the world against evil.
Dranerai have awesome accents.