PDA

Hi All,

Fosooth, ’tis been an age since mine eyes gazed pon fairest keyboard. Aka I have been doing stuff. Stuff other than EvE. Blasphemy I know, but there you have it.

A good friend of mine plays Lord of the Rings, and I have been a big fan of Tolkein ever since a teacher read us the hobbit by installments when I was about 8 years old. Between those two influences (and not a small dose of bittervet mode), I’ve been playing LOTRO. It has shiny, but it is very much the do quest receive bacon kind.

You can do pretty much the same thing in different zones at different levels for different factions and in essence receive the same rewards. Higher level and more DPS to be sure, but really it’s the same. I’m nowhere near getting to legendary items, so don’t really know what the top end is going to be like.

There are some significant plusses to it however. The biggest imho is putdownability (which shall henceforth be known as PDA). When you undock in EvE, you’re committed to the game (or at least you should be… even in high sec).  This is even more important in low or null sec. Bottom line, if you don’t have situational awareness, you’re a sitting duck. A duck already plucked, glazed and sitting in the roasting dish just waiting for the oven to warm up.

In LOTRO, it just isn’t that important. You get killed? You can elect to revive right there. You may get some dread for 10 minutes (knocks your effective hitpoints down a bit temporarily), but otherwise it’s no problem. If you get killed again within two hours, you retreat automatically to one of the safe spots, and incur dread again. You are not losing a multi-million iskie ship and there’s no other penalty apart from some inconvenience.

This means that you can just drop in an out of the game whenever you like, there is no absolute commitment needed in time. Apart from doing things like Planetary Interaction or Market PvP, and possibly manufacturing and invention, you just can’t do that in EvE.

Another thing LOTRO does very well is skirmishes. These are similar to missions in that you have an objective to complete (usually kill the bad guys, get stuff you can trade for shiny), but you can join a skirmish from ANYWHERE at ANY time provided you’re Level 20 plus. Me like. Adds variety too. There is even a play as a monster option.

Lastly, it is entirely free to play if you wish. There are options to upgrade to a purchased account, buy the equivalent to plex or trade in in game rewards at the game store. It just pops up a window for you to shop to your hearts content. CCP could learn a thing or two from the way the store is run.

But for me, the biggest single thing is the PDA. I can’t sacrifice RL, and I certainly don’t have the luxury to block out the hours at a time that EvE sometimes demands, and that alone will mean that LOTRO will probably remain a real alternative for some time to come.

FS

H