Writers of Rohan
May 1, 2007
As many of you know, I'm an absolute lunatic for reformatting and reinstalling Windows. I've done it since high school and college out of sheer boredom. Nothing going on? Reformat! TV show uninteresting? Reinstall! Can't wait to try out this new game I just bought? Maybe in two hours, after the system's devices are detected. I got so good at this insane procedure that I memorized Windows's cryptic 25-character license key. It was only far later that I discovered those things were designed specifically not to be memorized.
Likewise, I've heard that moving, or helping people move, is supposed to be a nightmarish activity. I don't have a truck so I don't get this kind of action very often, but this weekend I remembered I promised a friend of mine that I'd help him move. So at 11am I knocked on the door, stepped inside and wondered if I had the right day. The TV was on, the computer was still out and the boxes of stuff... ah, yes, there appears to be things in them this time.
It turns out he was moving no more than a half mile away. No, really. Exit Gaffney Loop, turn 20° to your right and head for the opposite bank. Enter that small apartment complex, drive to the end of one street, turn right, then make a 145° turn (not easy in a 27' truck, lemme tell you) and you're there. If we could have found a raft big enough, we could have saved ourselves the trip to U-Haul. Since it wasn't my place on the line I actually had fun. I think I burned a zillion calories and twelve thousand spinal discs. And took four showers that weekend.
With a week of time invested in the Lord of the Rings Online I'm still not ready to deliver a final judgment, but I'm totally ready to start bitching. Note that the baseline game is World of Warcraft, not just because it's sold seven million copies and is the unstoppable juggernaut of its industry, but because LOTR Online can be described, in full, by adding or subtracting things to WoW's basic premise.
Subtraction #1 is the animation. You'll notice this in the intro cinematic, even before the game proper starts. WoW opens with its eight races in their native habitat, doing dwarvenly or elfish things. Notice how the bear shakes its body, or how the undead summoner shudders at its own footsteps. What you are witnessing is master animators at work, people who could make the fight sequences in Advent Children look like a school project. In LOTR's opening cinematic you see their four races square off against the armies of darkness. And I do mean square. These guys are doing the robot. Rotate right arm 45°, pull back on right elbow four inches... have they been watching Futurama instead of tweaking the animations? It gets worse: what you'll see is the pinnacle of their animation studio. What your characters do in-game is just atrocious. Lara Croft in the original Tomb Raider moved with more fluidity and grace than the lady characters wandering around Rivendell. I'd gladly pay an extra 5 bucks a month to fix my marionette's mechanical movements.
Subtraction #2 is the interface. Yes, my most favoritest thing in the world. It looks like WoW, but you get the feeling that the usability team lost control of a young graphic design team and those boys went to town. First off, the buttons are small. Real small. I'm guessing 24 pixels per icon. Far smaller than Blizzard's, where they at least had the brains to put a UI slider for people who like to click on things. What's the Morale (health) of this character? How many experience points does he have? You can probably guess where to find stuff like that, but you'll be squinting at your screen the entire time. You will also have difficulty: sorting your inventory; telling the difference between a short sword and a dagger; clicking on bags and other row icons; and figuring out which of the dozen icons-with-an-arrow-or-two-on-them is the particular hunter skill you want to use. You'll have a hard time at the vendors and thus a hard time enjoying the game period because you won't be able to see anything.
Addition #1 is the graphics, probably trying to make up for the tiny buttons. LOTR lets you cripple your machine with huge draw distances, bloom effects, environment shadows and high resolution textures for everything. The water is lovely and the armor and weapons you'll get look great. Best of all, the automatic performance setting is perfect: I got a great looking game that runs smoothly without me tweaking anything. And for those of you who enjoy that sort of masochism, all the options in the Advanced Graphics tabs have tooltips. It's a good thing.
Addition #2 is the bizarre achievements you get. I expect this thing was in development before the Xbox 360 launched, but it still looks funny. Got to level 5 without dying? You can be "[Your name] the Wary." Or you can kill a bunch of spiders and be "... the Spider-Bane." If you do one of your class skills five hundred times you'll get a small bonus to it. You'll stumble over lots of little bonuses and perks that pop up like ship building notifications in Galactic Civilizations II. I wonder how this affects things at the higher levels; 500 "set traps" can be gained in two weeks if you spend any time at all in the game.
So we're two for two. Can I get a tiebreaker? Um, maybe. One thing LOTR is definitely lacking is the floating question mark. When there are quests to be had you get the One Ring above an NPC's head. And when you're done with that person's quest and are ready to get your reward? The same gold ring. Towns like Combe are lit up like Christmas trees. I'd like to click on an icon for help, but I can't quite make it out...
