Has
it really been two months since I was last in Lord of the Rings
Online? It doesn't seem that long since I ended my second run, but
it has been and I'm really pleased that the revised schedule I decided upon back then is something I've actually been able to
keep to.
Just.
I've written one blog post every two days, as planned, even if a few
of them came in very close to the wire, and a few others were written
when I was behind on my actual gaming time. Not that it matters.
The schedule has done what I wanted it to do in that it's pushed me
to get in some quality MMOing over an extended period.
Of
the games I've played over the course of this blog I'm now into
previously unexplored content in four of them – LOTRO, DDO, SWL and
STO (and was in Fallen Earth.) That I'm not ahead of that curve in either
City of Heroes or Neverwinter is no surprise seeing as those are the
two MMOs in which I've previously reached max level.
(Oh
and there's World of Warcraft, but I feel like I'm done with WoW.)
As
I kick off the third round of my six game rotation there remains
other MMOs I want to try (or re-try), so not every one of the last
six is going to be revisited over the next 2-3 months. At some point
I may stop adding games to the list, but not for a while.
So,
LOTRO.
The
first thing that struck me on my latest return to Lord of the Rings
Online is just how big the world of the game is. I'm coming
off an extended run of MMOs where the environments are relatively
small – the tight confines of starship interiors in Star Trek
Online, the self contained adventure zones and dungeons of DDO, and
the mostly linear levelling zones of Neverwinter, which are
particularly heavy on line-of-sight blocking terrain and clearly
defined and impassable boundaries.
So
going from that to standing atop a ruin that overlooks the entirety
of the fields of Fornost (and what lies beyond) in LOTRO is quite a
change, and this is only further emphasised when I get to Evendim,
which has the most sense of a wide open space I've experienced in an
MMO since Fallen Earth.
The
central feature of the zone is the lake – the reason for the zone
often being referred to as 'Everswim' – so there's little to block
the view across the entire zone, especially when quests send you up
into the surrounding hills to give you an even better view of the
scenery.
Said
scenery does have its flaws. LOTRO's landscapes are second to none,
but its structures are less consistent. In certain light some of the
stonework – mostly the statuary – is a little too clean, a little
too flat. As is often the case in this game the quality of the
visuals depends quite a lot on what exactly you're looking at.
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