LotRO at PAX: Monster, Legendary and Critter Play – Oh My!

Turbine may have three products on the shelf (Asheron’s Call, Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online), but only one of them made the cut at the Penny Arcade Expo. The winner of this duel was Turbine’s most recent release: Lord of the Rings Online. Their four-sided booth, in the exhibition hall, had a total of eight stations set up for play. Behind each station was the banner of the epic characters we’ve grown to know and love through Tolkien’s tales of Middle Earth and Peter Jackson’s directorial vision of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. The larger-than-life character in front of my station was none other than Frodo Baggins. As I created my demo character, a dwarf by the name of Thelemorin, I felt as though I was betraying the Shire under Frodo’s watch. I kept imaging him inquiring: “Why aren’t you playing a hobbit?”

Luckily for me, I quickly became immersed within the content of my screen – the insecurity of Frodo’s gaze drifted away. The last time I’d played LotRO was on a system far below minimum specifications; playing it on a more than adequate system was quite the treat! The controls were very intuitive and the game’s introductory quests, which acted as tutorials, were a breeze. It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with LotRO and my avatar.

Since its release, the game has gone through a number of changes: primarily the addition of more end-game content. That being said, the developers aren’t just focusing on level 50 players – they’re also taking care of the casual gamer. One such instance is Evendim where players fight for control of Annuminas; this area is widely available and players as low as level 30 can greatly contribute to the fight.

One of the recent additions that I found most interesting was that of “Monster Play”, “Legendary Play” and “Critter Play”. In the area known as the Ettenmoors players face off against each other in Player vs. Player Monster combat. Players can choose whether they enter the Player vs. Player combat as their avatar or as a monster. If they choose the monster then they are immersed with a whole new experience: playing a whole new class – one that isn’t available to player avatars.

What makes the Ettenmoors even more interesting is that the losing faction, whether that is player or player monster, has Legendary Play available to them where a player, or a number of players depending on how badly the team is losing, gets to play as an extremely powerful character. Those characters are the “ranger” for players and the “troll” for player monsters.

But why stop at Monster Play and Legendary Play? There’s also a joyful little play-type known as Critter Play where players can play as … a chicken! As a chicken you can’t speak to anyone except for the crazy guy. You know; the crazy guy or girl that makes an appearance in virtually every game? Turbine figured that’s the guy that chickens can talk to! Essentially the goal of Critter Play, as a chicken, is to go through a series of quests to get back to your chicken coup. The reward: a prestige “chicken cloak” that comes with a unique emote (think chicken dance with flying feathers). The cloak graphic and emote are extremely humorous and the reward very fitting given how Critter Play was conceived.

Critter Play was first introduced in Beta and the idea was as simple as, “wouldn’t it be funny if people could play as chickens?” Sure enough, it was funny in beta! Players could play as a chicken and other players could kill them with ease. Ironically Turbine received a number of bug reports reporting that there were chickens moving sporadically and cruising across screens outside of a chicken’s logical area. Those chickens were players. Turbine didn’t have time to refine Critter Play, and at the time didn’t ever anticipate actually bring it in to the game, but months after release, Beta players started requesting that Turbine bring Critter Play back! So Turbine refined Critter Play, added a number of chicken-quests, and voila: Critter Play was introduced to the live environment. This just goes to show that the player community really can make a difference! If you want chickens, you get chickens.

Lord of the Rings Online’s next update, Book 11, introduces housing. To be quite frank, their housing system doesn’t sound like a cut above the rest; it just sounds like the rest.

The game really is amazing and brings Tolkien’s world to life. Tolkien and MMO fans should do themselves the favor of giving Lord of the Rings Online a fair shot – I know I will.

Thanks go out to Cardell Kerr, Creative Director and Meghan S. Rodberg, Online Community Relations Manger who took the time to chat with me at PAX!