posted on Wednesday, November 30, 2005 1:10 PM
by
Endie
Camping the Nazgul Spawn
I have been looking forward to Turbine's Middle Earth Online virtual-world-or-online-game (I hope for the former, suspect the latter) since a loooong time before they decided to try and make it. And the world that they are displaying in screenshots does look tempting.
But the latest post by Timothy Burke at Terra Nova does point out the dangers that the common tropes of MMO design pose to the enjoyability and immersiveness of such a world. As he mentions, the activities described by Tolkien tend to be straight into the level 60 raid territory: kill the dragon; get through Moria; destroy the one ring; escape nazgul (only after levelling up in the previous quest: elude farmer Barleycorn. Quelle short treadmill).
I actually don't mind that much. I'm a Bartle-Explorer, so I'm far more interested in exploring the Misty Mountains than six-manning the Goblin King instance. What really worries me are the players.
There will be RP servers, I am sure, but that won't help. Half the people will just take that to mean representing as a human woman of dubious morals and speaking in Everquestese (a mainly US bastardisation of Shakespearean English): a lot of thee and thou, and generally used in the wrong cases. But how Tolkeinesque would Tolkein have been describing his world when shrunk to a six-mile-by-six-mile play area and packed full of three or four thousand levelling players?
Gandalf turned to the halflings. "I must leave you now for a while, for tasks call me from the Mirkwood that will not wait upon the affairs of hobbits, and if I fail then even the Shire will not..." He paused to buff Araporn the ranger as he ran past.
"Tx," said Araporn.
"Np," replied Gandalf.
"Where was I? Ah yes... even the Shire will not be safe for very much longer should I fail." He realised he had said this in global chat, to everyone in Breeland.
"Ack, sorry, mt..." The halflings had, in any case, read the rest of their mission quest. They were now running relentlessly in the direction of Weathertop, drinking Kingsweed potions and buffing each other as they went.
In group chat, Alfrodo said "I prithee hurry up, guys, for there are many miles to Weathertop and verily it is getting dark."
"Yeah and the nazgul spawn doth be camped to hell and back after 5 when the kiddies log in," SamGanges replied.
They silently ran the rest of the way to Weathertop, avoiding red-conning Frenzied Worg spawns on the ranger's radar and spotting four other groups sprinting on the way to other quests or farming Orc Captains for mithril drops. Hairyfoot was distracted by a flamewar on general chat about whether it was for strictly in-character messages, and ran straight into a Breeland Bandit's aggro range, almost causing a wipe.
"Thou art a noob," Alfrodo told him as he ran back from Bree to rejoin the party.
I know, it's a cheap one, but I am suddenly worried that I'll be constantly hopping from new server to new server in order to find quietness sufficient for my immersion. Though I'll do that anyway, for i am an altaholic.