Tag: LotRO

Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online has popped to the top of MMO news many times, most recently due to its switch to a Free to Play model similar to the one that revitalized Dungeons and Dragons Online. That switch has been extremely profitable for Turbine, and the fans of the game (both newcomers as well as the game’s “lifers” and VIP account holders) have adopted a warily cautious attitude about the necessary changes that came with Free to Play.

“Money is nice,” say the masses, “but show us what you’re going to do with it. Are we going to see any of that new income going back into the game?”

This winter, LotRO’s developers are providing what might be the first real answer to that question, and it’s coming from a strange direction: the annual in-game Yule Festival will feature fairly predictable (if enjoyable) new seasonal content (snowball fights, new quests, eating contests, et cetera), and something that sounds altogether different: a one-act play in which the players can participate both as actors and audience. The play features flexible outcomes and a new rating system that meant the developers had to entirely abandon the standard MMO quest mechanics with which we are all so painfully familiar.

The Festival Theatre was built outside of the quest system in order to get past some of the limitations that would have restricted the event. While overall it was the right decision, it was most definitely a double-edged sword. The upside of going rogue was the freedom of choice and varied responses that make this event so unique; […] the downside being that all of the feedback the quest system provides had to be recreated.

To that end, players entering the Theatre will find helpful announcers and ushers willing to explain how the event operates. [They also] carry a full stock of Rotten Fruit and Flower Petals — two very important items for an audience member to keep on their person at all times.

The event is (mostly) controlled by a single, all-powerful NPC called “The Audience.” [Any readers with acting experience may have just cringed.] The Audience picks actors for the event, records what emotes have been chosen, tells NPC actors what lines to perform, and hands out rewards. It was a challenging project that took a significant time commitment from many members of Turbine’s staff, and that may be the first place where some of the new free-to-play revenue has been visibly reinvested in the game.

Behind the scenes, all of his logic is controlled through a script system. Because of its complex logic (and the fact that some of the features had never been attempted in LOTRO before) designers from across the company […] helped review, debug, and offer suggestions on its implementation.

The rating system for the play is noteworthy for rewarding both actors and audience members as well. Aside from the NPC “Audience”, the players who don’t get picked to play a part still have jobs to do — they’re the actual, critical audience, able to throw rotten fruit at bad actors (or a kinmate who needs a good tomato-to-the-face) and rose petals at the good ones. Turbine’s developers boast that the play will be highly repeatable content, thanks to the ‘choose your adventure’ style of the choices the actors get on stage that’s meant to ensure that no performance is ever exactly the same. True or not, this certainly sounds like a fresh new step in MMO content design, and we’re excited to see what Turbine (and others) are able to do with it in the future.

So we’ve got to part where we decide if we’re going to cowboy up and do this tanking thing.

Below are the tanking vows, all of which we’ve already talked about.

We never really say them to anyone out loud, and no one really knows about them.

Except us.

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I, the Tank:

1. Will, before all other things, get myself and my shield between you and the bad guys.
2. Will, once interposed, turn the enemy so that they face entirely away from my fellowship, thus protecting my friends from Area Attacks, and allowing my friends to freely smite the baddies.
3. Will normally be the first to pull, but will not be too stubborn to use crowd control.
4. Will learn how to use corners to lure in ranged enemies, to allow for a Good and Proper Mugging.
5. Will (as much as possible) stand still (once the battle ground is established), so the melee can tear it up.
6. Will make sure that I and my fellow melee friends are placed so that the healers can Do Their Thing, and will move myself, the enemy, and my melee friends out of the Burning Stuff On The Floor, knowing that these needs must overrule the whole Standing Still thing.
7. Will watch the enemy, my melee friends, my ranged friends, my healers, and the area behind me, so that we don’t get surprised by Something Bad.
8. Will remember that my job is to hold aggro and survive.
9. Will learn the capabilities of the enemy, who are legion.
10. Will remember that I am merely one member of a team, and that we all contribute to our success.
11. Will know (privately) that if we succeed, it’s because the DPS and healers were excellent… and if someone dies, it was my fault.
12. Will never bitch about repair bills, because I picked this class, and I can always reroll if it gets too hard, diddums.
13. Will remember that I can’t learn all this at once — being a tank means getting knocked down seven times and standing up eight — I will keep trying til I get it.

I am the wall.

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Okay, that came across as super serious, and it really isn’t — whatever the situation or the class or the MMO, this is a game.

Put crudely: If this tanking shit ain’t fun, don’t do it.

But if it is?

Welcome to the party. 🙂

You came back. Okay then. Let’s talk about the real challenges of playing a tank class.

First thing: the challenge is not in the skills.
The actual mechanics of playing a tank aren’t any more difficult than any other class; you can easily grok the basics.

A successful tank, expressed in the most simple terms, holds the attention of all the mobs, and can get their attention back if they lose it. (Also, you try to be hard to kill, but that’s (almost) as much about gear as it is about using your skills.)

That’s the simple description. Let’s break that down a bit more.

You are the Wall.

This isn’t so much a skill as it is a calling. This is the default, from-the-factory setting: absent any other information about a fight, an enemy, or even which classes are in your group, you know that you must get between your friends and the bad guys, and get them hitting you and no one else.

Start from that. There are exceptions and yeah-buts and what-ifs, but this your baseline.

You are the bad guy’s dance partner.

In LotRO, facing matters; you only block and parry stuff that’s in front of you (and more importantly, the bad guys can only block and parry attacks that come from in front of them); if you have any ‘hit many targets’ melee attack, it usually only hits stuff in front of you (again, more importantly, the bad guys usually only hit multiple targets in front of them, so being behind them is safer).

So this is part of your job: when you engage the enemy, turn them away from your friends in such a way that (a) you keep your front to the enemy the whole time, (b) the enemy ends up with their back to your allies.

There are so many benefits to this it’s hardly worth listing them, but aside from the mechanical benefits of exposing the bad guy’s back to your damage dealers and keeping them from getting hit with his Great Cleave of Bloody Destruction, there’s the fact that this move leaves you looking back at the rest of your group, so you can easily see where everyone else is at and if anything bad is happening in your backfield.

You can practice this even when you’re not in a group. When you start a fight with a bad guy (assuming it’s safe(ish) to run in toward them instead of pulling), run in and turn them so that you’re facing back the way you came.

Do it every time. Build the muscle memory.

You are the puller, except when you aren’t.

Whenever you can, be the person who starts the fight; that’s what ‘puller’ means, however you accomplish it.

The main trick to pulling is knowing what is going happen with each of your enemies when the fight begins.

See, there’s basically just two types of mobs; melee and ranged guys — that’s it. If you want to get picky, you might break it down into melee, ranged, and ranged casters, but that difference is really only relevant at higher levels in specific instances, and in most cases the binary “range/melee” labels works just fine for predicting how a mob will behave when combat starts — if you taunt or shoot an arrow or whatever into the crowd, the ones that are melee will run to you, and the ranged guys will stand in place and shoot at you. It’s really that simple.

So what do you do about it?

Once you learn which mobs are melee and which ones are ranged, you’re going to be able to move confidently at the start of every pull. Knowing that the melee guys will move to you and the ranged guys won’t (regardless of what, specifically, they’re doing), the most basic manuever is to run into the group, target a ranged guy, and use some kind of Area Effect aggro/threat skill once the enemy melee guys run up to hit you — your goal is simply to get within melee range of as many mobs as possible, especially the ranged mobs. Build your threat on all the mobs, and burn them down.

(Casters get to die first, generally — especially if they do something annoying like rezzing their friends or summoning more bad guys.)

Congratulations, that’s how 90% of your pulls will work.

A word on your ranged pulling skills. Get really familiar with your ranged pull methods. I really suffered for awhile when leveling my guardian on LotRO because we don’t get a ranged attack until level 30, and we don’t get a ranged taunt until level 34 — that makes practicing ranged pulls REALLY difficult. See if you can find alternative options. In LotRO, for example, you can buy stacks of consumble throwing axe or throwing knives. The range isn’t great, but it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing at all. Barring that, you’ll need to get really good at peeling aggro off of your friend who’s doing all your pulling for you.

As soon as you can pull using your own skills, however, do so.

Also…

A word on mezzing and “CC Pulls”.
As you start grouping, more options for pulls will open up to you, one of which is the Crowd Control or “CC” pull. Basically what this means is that one of your group members will start the fight by mezzing one or several of the bad guys. The bonus to this is that whoever gets mezzed is utterly and totally out of the fight until the mezz wears off, which may be a huge benefit if their abilities are really annoying.

The downside is that you aren’t generating any threat on that guy while he’s mezzed and forty yards away, so when he does break free you’ll have to make an effort to grab em before they eat someone. Find out how long the mez is going to last so you know what to expect and can keep some taunts ready; most of the time, a single-target mez can be kept up much longer — sometimes indefinitely (assuming some skill on the part of the mezzing player) — while group mezzes are really only going to delay a large group for a little bit.

I generally don’t like to pull with group mezzes, simply because they really just delay my ultimate goal, which is to get as many baddies into melee range with me as fast as possible, but single-target mezzes can be invaluable: use them like the excellent tool they are.

Now, if you can’t get all the casters into your melee range in one shot, then you’ve got more decisions to make from there…

You are the lure.

In any fight that involves ranged-attack enemies, your first option is to take the fight to them; do that, if you can. If you can’t get at all the ranged guys right away, or if charging into melee with them would be a bad move tactically (you’d end up pulling in other nearby groups), you can get them to come to you with a line of sight pull.

See, most any mob will move to get their target within line of sight to continue attacking. Their line of sight can be blocked by things like walls and corners and pillars. A LOS pull just means you aggro the mob or mobs, then duck around a corner. The bad guys come running in until they can get you within their optimal/preferred attack range, which usually means the ranged guys can be safely mugged by the rest of your group, without any fear of pulling any other baddies.

(Unfortunately, many groups get too antsy to let you do this without their screwing it up somehow. There’s a good chance someone will either shoot the approaching group as they’re running in (which means they’ll probably switch targets, because you only had a little aggro), or the healer will stand in line of sight of the mobs and, inexplicably, heal you, thus pulling aggro and getting smacked like Leonidas at the end of 300. You will have to train them not to do that.)

You are the anchor.

The basic rule of damage-dealing is this: we do a lot more damage if we don’t have to move much. This is especially true for melee guys, so once you have yourself situated (aggro is focused on you, with the maximum number of bad guys in front of and in melee range with you), try to sit still. Pan you camera around as much as you like — I recommend it — but the less the fight moves, the sooner the fight is going to be over.

You are the Choreographer.

Location, Location, Location.

You need to keep the bad guys hitting you, and perferably hitting you from your front arc, so that parries and blocks are… parrying and blocking. You need to keep the bad guys’ backs to your friends.

But you also need to make sure you’re in range and line of sight of the healers.

And you also have to move yourself (and the enemy) out of any Burning Stuff On The Floor, and do it in such a way that the melee guys still have some safe place to stand, and the ranged guys and healers can still reach you.

(Game developers love Burning Stuff On the Floor, because it keeps the group moving, and moving groups do less damage, and less damage means longer fights, and longer fights mean More Challenge.)

All of these movement necessities TOTALLY TRUMP the rule about standing still. Stand still if you can, but move whenever you need to, and do it quickly.

You are the Spotter.

One of the first things I mention is turning the bad guys around. The best non-mechanical thing this does is give you a wide view of the rest of the fight. Watch the enemy. Watch the melee guys to see if any of them are getting hit by AoEs they can avoid. Watch the ranged guys and tell them to get out of the Burning Stuff on the Floor. Watch the healers to make sure they don’t get mugged. Once you’ve got all that down, start panning the camera around and watch the area BEHIND you so that you don’t get surprised by Something Bad.

You are the Tar Baby.

Your job, first and formost, is to hold aggro (which requires smart use of skills) and survive (which requires smart use of skills and diligent acquisition of decent gear).

You want to be a tank that other people will want to run with again. A good tank is one that can hold threat on all appropriate targets, can regain threat when it’s lost as soon as possible, and who can take a hit. Period. You can rise to higher aspirations than these — more advanced tricks — but that’s the core: aggro is the primary measure of success.

Again, you can practice this without being in a full group.

Take a friend who has some patience and is fine with experimenting and drag them out somewhere with packs of reasonably challenging mobs — most importantly, a place where there’s a mix of melee, ranged, and caster-types.

Then you tell your friend “I need you to make with the killing — go as hard as you can — I’ll work on holding aggro or getting it back from you. Cool?”

Once they stop giggling madly, they should be good to go.

Alternately, level your tank character with a DPS-class friend — that’s many many levels of practice.

You are the Encyclopedia.

Learn the capabilities of the enemy.

Okay, you don’t need to know what every mob in the game does, certainly not the first time you run into a new instance. That said, the more you do know, the more likely people will be to listen to you, do what you ask, and make your job easier. It’s hard to lead a group somewhere if you don’t know where you’re going.

If you can, try to run any completely unfamiliar instance as one of the DPS the first time. It’ll show you where things are and what to expect. Also, ask questions. If you can’t do that, go out to youtube and check out videos showing walkthroughs of the instance. Spoiler-warnings are not for tanks who want to know what’s coming. Reading about what the mobs in an instance can do in advance and what their attacks and abilities are is a huge help, also.

But maybe you can’t do any of that beforehand. That’s fine. In that situation, just break every fight down into the component parts — the melee, the ranged, the casters, placement — and apply your skills to those components. The Big Picture will either take care of itself, or the Special Features of the fight will become quickly and glaringly obvious.

You are (probably) going to be the leader.

In short, control the fight. This is the hardest thing you’ll learn to do.

Call targets. Mark one of the enemy with a skull over their head (if you don’t know how to do this, figure it out — make a hotkey for it) and tell the group to kill them first. Always.

People won’t always listen. Dunno why. Maybe they resent being told what to do. Maybe they’re dicks. Maybe they just don’t get it.

All you can do is try. If someone isn’t targeting the right guy, and they keep pulling aggro, and they get touchy when you tell them to focus fire… welllll…

First of all, suck it up and move on. Unless it’s causing wipes, leave it.

Second option: let em pull and let em die. Let their repair bill teach them some discipline.

You are Humble. (At least in public.)

It’s possible, standing there as The Wall Between the Enemy and Your Squishy Friends, knowledgably directing the flow of combat, to feel a little… pride.

Keep it to yourself.

I don’t care how good your armor is, or how high your block chance is tweaked; if the healer isn’t there, you’re going down, and it won’t be noble or pretty. Everyone is doing their bit, so either remove the pride entirely or at least lock it away — pride is not for us.

Remember the Tanking Rule: if we succeed, it’s because the DPS and healers were excellent; if someone dies, it was your fault.

Don’t point out the awesome stuff you did. The good players will notice without you saying anything, and count it far more highly than if you had.

You suffer in silence.

Final rule: never bitch about repair bills.

Never ever.

You picked this class, and you can always reroll a cloth-wearing DPS guy if it gets to be too much to bear.

The wall does not complain if the wind howls. It’s the wall.

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Thanks for sticking with me on this mammoth post; I’ll wrap everything up tomorrow with a simple summary in the form of a Tank Pledge.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Tanking Part 2 post to bitch about Cry of Vengeance. I’ve said this before in the CSTM Captain Roundtable, but it bears repeating: Cry of Vengeance is the #1 “looks great but is actually terrible” skill for Captains and, in my opinion, In the Game.^[1]

Here’s what it does:

When one of your companions falls, your Cry will return a nearby fellow back to battle and inspire those around you to greater feats of skill.
Target revives with 20% Morale
Target revives with 15% Power

The key part — the part that makes it totally suck, is this:

When one of your companions falls…

Y’see, this skill only opens up when someone is defeated, and it only STAYS opened up for … I dunno exactly. It feels like three to five seconds, so let’s say ten.

And here’s why it sucks, in ascending level of BITE ME:

• You get a TINY window of opportunity to use this skill.
• You can’t AIM the thing, so if two people die at the same time, it’s random who you’re going to rez. A DPS and the Minstrel drop? Good luck getting the right one up, because you can’t pick.
• You rez you’re target with a tiny portion of their health and virtually no useful amount of power.
• You have to rez right away, so the odds are INCREDIBLY high that you’ll rez them right back into the situation that killed them in the first place.
• Finally (and this is the worst point and yet most subtle), it teaches people that in combat rezzing must happen ZOMG RIGHT AWAY DO IT DO IT NOW!, because that’s how it works for the first in-combat rez anyone sees, in-game.

Let me expand on that last point. Everyone gets trained by the Captain’s first in-combat rez skill (we get two, and the second one sucks a lot less) — when someone drops, that rez comes RIGHT AWAY or NOT AT ALL.

Well, since that’s how we see it done, that’s what everyone else does, as soon as THEY get Rally or whatever.

That means that we see something like this.

Finnras: *defeated*
Minstrel: RALLYING FINN.
[Healing stops when Rally begins.]
[Damage that killed Finnras continues to hit the rest of the group.]
[Health drops across the board.]
[Minstrel’s Rally gets pushed back by the damage.]
[Health drops across the board.]
[Minstrel’s Rally gets pushed back by the damage.]
[Health drops across the board.]
[Minstrel’s Rally gets pushed back by the damage.]
[Health drops across the board.]
[Minstrel’s Rally gets pushed back by the damage.]
[Health drops across the board.]
[RALLY COMPLETES.]
Finnras: *Rallies.*
Everyone else: *Defeated.*
Boss: *High-fives Turbine Devs* Nice one.
Devs: I kno, rite?

You see what I’m saying? If someone in your group gets defeated, let him stay defeated until you have the situation totally in hand.

Then, and only then, use your in-combat rez.

And if it’s no longer available?

That’s fine — that one’s crap anyway.

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[1] – The worst skill in the game is the Rune-keepers in-combat ‘anticipatory’ rez, tied with Fleet Stance, but those two LOOK as bad as they actually are.

First off, let me dissuade you.

There are some necessities that come with taking on a tanking role, and they are not for the faint-hearted. Or sane. Or the responsibility-adverse.

“What’s that you say about responsibility?”

Let me explain. It started like this:

Back in the black-and-green days of text-based MUDs, people tried to figure out how to work together to kill monsters they couldn’t kill on their own. Everyone stood in the same imaginary space, staring at

“Exits are: (N)orth, (E)ast, (W)est, and (D)ungeon“

and wondering who was going to go in first.

So they turned to the character allowed to wear a big shield and heavy armor and said, “Umm… how about you go in first, and we’ll follow you?”

So the tank does a ‘look’ through the (D) entrance and says “Okay, count to three after I move, come in, and kill the Goblin Summoner first.”

“Why him?” someone in the group asks.

There’s a virtual shrug. “He sounds like a spellcaster,” says the guy in the armor, and (D)own he goes.

That’s where it started. That’s where tanks started being the guy who figured out who had to die first; which order to clear a dungeon in; where people needed to stand, and when people needed to move.

Sure, a group doesn’t have to be led by the tank. The weight of every successful trash push and every failed boss fight doesn’t have to land squarely on their shoulders. Every failure is the group’s failure, right? Yes, of course: we’re a team, and we succeed or fail together.

That’s what tanks learn to say, but when the night ends and the group disbands, this is the only real rule you’ll remember:

Success came because of great healing and great damage-dealers; failure came because you couldn’t do your job.

Harsh? Sure. Absolutely.

When a group gets wiped out, everyone experiences it and tosses out theories about what happened and why, but the tank is the one that feels guilty for letting the party die.

What’s that? The healer does too? It was the healer that let the DPS guy die when he pulled aggro? It was the healer that aggroed a patrolling mob and got squished? It was the healer that let the tank die, which let the bad guys run amok and kill everyone else?

No.

Before any of that, it was the tank that lost aggro to the DPS guy; who didn’t see the patrolling mob that came in after the fight started; who let the healer get hit AT ALL. It was the tank that wasn’t tough enough — that needed more healing than than the healer could provide.

True? Maybe, maybe not. But that’s what we think. Most of us.

Are there tanks out there who don’t think that way? Yeah, probably.

But I wouldn’t group with em.

The math is simple, and works out like this: the tank players that feel responsible are the ones that care.

The other guys? They just like being durable.

That’s not a tank — that’s a turtle.

A tank does homework. They don’t want their group to get annihilated, so they figure out ideas on how to approach it differently next time. Maybe if we start in the opposite corner. Maybe if we mez the adds. Maybe if I turn the guy a certain way…

Once they figure out a way that works, they remember it, so of course it’s the people like that that are calling the shots when things get rolling. To keep as far away from that gut-punch feeling when everyone bites it, you learn what the bad guys are gonna do; you figure out who to mez; you learn which wounds need to be removed immediately and which ones can be safely ignored.

You want to tank?

Think about it. Be damn sure.

There are a lot of other classes out there you could try. They kill stuff faster. They heal stuff better. They probably get sexier attack animations.

Tanking? It just may not be that much fun for you.

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Still here?

Still interested?

You’re sure?

All that stuff sounded okay? Sounded like something you could handle, or even enjoy?

Alright.

All. Right.

Come back tomorrow — we’ll talk some more.

The first character I ever created on Lord of the Rings was a hunter. I didn’t know much about the class other than the obvious things one could infer about the class based on the description an the LotR IP itself, but that didn’t slow me down — making up a ranged DPS class as my first character is really sort of a tradition for me: my first 50 in City of Heros was a blaster, my first 70 in WoW was a hunter. (That fact that he’s still 70 should tell you when I left WoW.)

(In my LotRO Screenshot directory, this is “ScreenShot00000”.)

Tyelaf was not, however, the first character I got to level cap.

He wasn’t even the second.

In fact, he just hit level 65 last night.

Of course that means I’m qualified to write about that class, right? I’m at the level cap. I have all the Guide skills. I’ve earned all the class and legendary traits. I win at Hunter, right?!?

Yeah. Maybe not.

So this shouldn’t be considered a guide, so much as me documenting what I’ve been doing with the class and what I plan to be doing with him in the future (except for some LM-wannabe experimentation with Trapper at some point).

Anyway. Story Time:

My first main was a guardian (Geiri) that I leveled up with my wife’s hunter (so I was always more than peripherally aware of the class skills and abilities), and we’ve done a lot of grouping in six-man instances and raids. During the heyday of Moria, we encountered the black, soul-sucking monolith that is Dark Delving.

It didn’t go very well.

We struggled pretty mightily against Gurvand and his hellish adds, and tried a number of different things to handle the adds — champion with a captain healer, warden with captain, runekeeper with captain… nothing really worked. The adds all attacked from range, mercilessly rooted anyone who attacked them, stacked nasty poisons on their targets, and pushed back inductions. Also, the effects of the darkness in Dark Delving itself meant anyone chasing them was moving super slow, and any and all induction skills took twice as long to use.

Then we had an idea.

A hunter.

Specifically, a really FAST hunter — one whose inductions were sped up enough that the slowed-attacks effect wouldn’t mess them up too bad, who could largely ignore the induction pushback, clear their own poisons (obviously), fight the ranged adds from range as well, completely ignore being rooted and the slowed movement.

So my wife respecced to do that, and it worked like a charm.

Then she stayed in the build for ‘regular’ stuff, and she fell in love.

Fast forward to a few months ago, when I resumed regular play on my then-late-20s, dust-covered hunter.

I looked at my pre-MoM trait selections and winced. Then I headed to the Bard to see what could be done. As I reviewed my options, that super-fast hunter build came to mind, and I had myself a plan.

It was a pretty darn good plan.

Lots of folks will tell you that Bowmaster is Where It’s At for hunter DPS and… yeah, sure, they get a lot of nice damage bonuses, clearly stated in their Trait Line Bonuses.

But personally I think that Huntsman hides a lot of damage dealing capability in there — Bowmaster may be a howitzer, but frankly I like being the nimble little machine gun.

Here’s what it looks like.

Skills used pretty much constantly:

• Precision Stance (The whole build is basically built around Precision Stance. I use Endurance only when I pull aggro, and while I haven’t taken Strength Stance off my bar, it’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. I haven’t turned it on since level 18.)
• Penetrating Shot (This skill is the bread and butter attack for this build, set up so that it fires every other shot.)
• Swift Bow (An excellent attack, usually the opener and the closer for any non-elite.)
• Barbed Arrow (I used to scorn this attack a bit, until I ran CStats for a few days and started to see how much damage the Bleed was bringing to the party. My current bow increases that damage by almost 50%.)
• Quick Shot (In Precision Stance, this shot crits very reliably. Crits are nice for damage, of course, but in this build they’re almost as useful for generating more focus.)
• Swift Stroke (raises parry/evade) – Eventually, a mob gets in your face. I greet them with Swift Stroke, which caps my Parry and Evade chance.)
• (Beta-only) Blood Arrow – I can’t wait for this attack to get to Live servers. It’s an excellent addition to the attack chain, and often gets used in the [something] slot, below.

My attack chain looks like this:
Swift Bow -> Penetrating Shot -> Barbed Arrow -> Penetrating Shot -> [Something] -> Quick Shot -> Penetrating Shot -> [[REPEAT]]

[Something] indicates a situational skill. This is about where a melee mob will reach me, so I’ll typically use Swift Stroke there. However, if their first melee attack on me opened up Agile Rejoinder, I’ll use that instead. If I somehow got extra adds on me or want to finish things up quickly, [Something] will be Needful Haste.

Skills used situationally, in rough order of priority:

• Bard’s Arrow – When dealing with two mobs, this is my pull shot. Fear one guy, switch to the other and kill him, then switch back to this guy while he’s still running around and burn him down. I have it traited so that the fear lasts 20 seconds instead of 30, and I love it.
• Needful Haste – The way I’m traited, this skill not only speeds up my attacks, but prevents any induction set-back from damage. I tend to save it for when I get more than one guy attacking me.
• Agile Rejoinder – Until you get Legendary items, this is kind of a lackluster skill. With the Legendary trait that gives this skill a chance to put a Heal Over Time on you, however, it’s really great.
• Merciful Shot – I don’t use this as much as I used to when leveling, but it’s still an excellent finishing skill, and I almost always have enough focus available to use it. On boss fights, it’s often my [something] skill in the attack chain, once they’re below 50% health.
• Blindside – I used to use this a lot more to generate Focus or to finish off mobs, but I’m trying to train myself to use it only in response to mob-inductions, because when the Beta changes go live, this skill is going to be an Interrupt. As such, it’s much more valuable if held back for the right time.
• Beneath Notice/Beneath Care – At higher levels, this upgrades to give you a Power Over Time affect. I often use it for that purpose, since I don’t have to deal with getting aggro very often (no artificial boost to my threat, you see).
• Distracting Shot – I don’t use this very often when soloing, but it’s an EXCELLENT bridge between two Bard’s Arrows. BdA’s fear lasts 20 seconds, and the cooldown is 30 seconds. Distracting Shot stuns them for 10 seconds — just long enough for BdA to come back and fear them again. Darn useful in six-mans.

Skills I rarely use (in descending order of likelihood):

• Heart Seeker – I pretty much only use this as an opener — once the fight’s started, I can do more damage in the four seconds this takes to fire by just sticking to my attack chain, and I’ll get more crits/focus in the process.
• Rain of Arrows – I used this in my attack chain while leveling, but that need will be met by  Blood Arrow pretty soon, and frankly I don’t have much use for the skill — it costs a lot of power, and it’s not very… precise. (Precision Stance, remember?) I like knowing exactly who I’m about to shoot. I use it a BIT more instance runs, but only if we’re not doing any CC.
• Scourging Blow – I’ll work this into my [something] slot if we’re fighting something so resistant to bleed damage that Barbed Arrow is doing nothing useful.
• Burn Hot – I just don’t use it. Frankly, shit happens, and I don’t ever want to be caught with no power and another fight to fight. I’m not even sure it’s on my toolbars.

CLASS TRAITS
ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE:

• (B) Deadly Precision (Ranged Critical Hits increase your Focus by one) – This build relies on having a LOT of focus, and while I don’t do BIG crits, I do get numerous crits. This trait is gold.
• (H) Strong Draw (Penetrating Shot costs one less Focus) – This one is a no-brainer. I’m set up to fire Penetrating shot every other attack; that’s not possible if it isn’t Focus-cheap.

Very Very Good to Have

• (B) True Shot (Penetrating Shot Bypasses More Mitigation) – As often as I fire Penetrating shot, this trait makes a HUGE difference in total damage dealt.
• (H) Enduring Precision (Gain 1 Focus every 10 seconds while in Precision Stance) – I don’t notice this trait until I don’t have it. In the time it takes me to stop, pick a target, and drop a trap, I’ve already earned a focus point, and I haven’t fired a shot.
• (H) Fast Draw (Reduced Induction Time for Barbed Arrow & Swift Arrow) – Speed is life. Induction pushback sucks and Needful Haste isn’t always available; the shorter the induction, the less chance it’ll get messed with.
• (H) Resolute Aim (Prevents setback on BOW inductions while using needful haste.) – Love this. Makes Needful Haste even more useful when you’re trying to kill something in your face.
• (T) Strong Intimidation (Your fear skills last longer.) – I just like this. CC is fun.

Fine until you get something better, or Situational

• (B) Arrow Storm (Rain of Arrows costs one less Focus) – Eh. It makes it a lot easier to Rain of Arrows into your regular attack chain, and at lower levels you may need that.
• (B) Swift and True (Increased Damage with Swift Bow) – It’s not as effective in terms of your DPS as True Shot, but it’s still pretty darn good.
• (H) Swift Recovery (Reduced Recovery Time for Needful Haste and Intent Concentration) – There are times (Dark Delving, Turtle raids) where I’ll want both Resolute Aim and this reduced cooldown, so I can fight with Needful Haste up as much as possible. Finding room for it is sometimes hard. (In DD or Turtle I drop Strong Intimidation for it, because fears don’t work in there anyway.)

Something I need to Toy with a Bit

• (B) Barbed Fury (Increased Magnitude of Barbed Arrow DOT) – My current LI gives me a very nice boost to bleed damage, which I didn’t care about until I ran CStats and saw how much the bleed was contributing to my damage. Given that, I MIGHT try to work this into my build somewhere but (a) I don’t know where and (b) the end game bosses frequently resist Common damage to the point where the Bleed damage basically vanishes.

TRAIT SET BONUSES
Usually, I run four deep in Huntsman, two deep in Bowmaster, so I have the following Trait Set Bonuses:

(Bowmaster)

• +5% Bow Critical Multiplier

(Huntsman)

• +2s before Focus loss from Movement
• “Strength of Earth” give morale regen and increased power, eliminates starting induction.
• A total of -20% to Bow inductions (Heartseeker is four seconds instead of five, for example.)
• “Press Onward” legendary usable in combat with longer Cooldown

LEGENDARY TRAITS

• Bard’s Arrow (Single target fear vs. evil enemies. 15-20 second duration.) – This is excellent for solo work (moreso than Rain of Arrows, in my opinion), and lets you do some pretty decent short-term CC in groups. It’s probably my favorite legendary.
• Rain of Thorns – There are times I don’t slot this, but it’s not too often — when CC doesn’t matter, usually.
• Bow of the Righteous (Returns power for each successful non-auto ranged attack) – I hate going without this — it’s just so nice. Effectively, this is +200 to +300 ICPR.
• Press Onward (Restores your power and morale. With this build, it usually works in-combat, but with a longer cooldown.) – I love when I can use this, but it’s less useful soloing — in situations when I need it, I usually can’t get enough alone-time to use it — the induction’s too slow. Thank god for the Man heal.

USEFUL LEGENDARY ITEM TRAITS
Ranged Weapon (Pool A)

• Focus Bow Critical Multiplier (Just because I don’t build for big crits doesn’t mean I’ll turn them down. As often as I hit Penetrating Shot, this is very valuable.)
• Ranged Skill Evade Chance Modifier (I hate missing.)
• Ranged Skill Block Chance Modifier (I **HATE** missing. Also, how the hell do mobs block with NO SHIELD?)
• Focus Bow Power Cost (Penetrating Shot isn’t cheap on power, and I hit it a LOT. This LT is very useful.)

Ranged Weapon Pool B

• Ranged Evade Rating
• Induction Bow Threat
• Focus Bow Threat
• Barbed Arrow Bleed Damage (+50% to what’s already pretty significant damage is pretty tempting)

Melee Weapon Pool A (In order of awesome)

• Precision Stance Critical Magnitude (This is basically mandatory. I’m a DPS class that lives in Precision Stance.)
• Needful Haste Duration (Darn useful.)
• Beneath Notice Cooldown (Semi-useful.)
• Find the Path Movement Bonus (Just kinda fun.)

Melee Weapon Pool B

• Swift Stroke Parry/Evade Rating Buff (Getting hit less is good, and it increases the chance to open up Agile Rejoinder, which means I can make use of…)
• Agile Rejoinder Heal Chance (I have this maxed out to a 50% chance for the heal which, if it activates, will heal me for a little over 500 morale in about 10 to 12 seconds. It helps. It’s CERTAINLY the best heal that hunters get from any of their skills. 😉

And that’s it. The end result is a mobile build that almost always has some fuel ready and waiting in the Focus tank, and which throws out attacks at least 20% faster than normal (even faster for some skills).

Pew pew.

When I first starting playing Lord of the Rings Online, I was struck by one really consistent element among the playerbase: there were a lot of people out there who (proudly) stated that they’d never played another MMO before LotRO.

And that’s awesome. Don’t think for a moment that I would have it any other way. However, that strong element within the player population also means that when you get into a fellowship (be it a three-man, six-man, or a full raid), you’re more likely to run into players who have never grouped before.

It also means that if you are someone who has never done much in a fellowship until now, you are not alone. That’s good!

But it doesn’t mean you get to be totally stupid about it, or fail to exercise good manners.

If you’re new to fellowships and raiding, it might be a surprise that there’s such a thing as good raid etiquette. Let me assure you, there is. Every kinship and even every fellowship is going to handle things differently — some more casually, some more hardcore — but I think I can say this fairly safely: if you observe these general guidelines, you’ll do okay regardless of which kind of group you’re playing with.

0. Be Prepared

I already talked about this, but before you do anything else, make sure you’re prepared to raid. Do you have enough Radiance? High enough Virtues? Completed Class Traits?

No?

Stop. You have other stuff to do before you take this ‘raiding’ thing any further.

Do you have all the necessary supplies purchased and ready (in your bags or in the bank)? Is your gear repaired? The time to get your gear fixed and your supply bag filled up is BEFORE the scheduled start time for a raid or instance run. Doing repairs, AH runs for Hope Tokens, or running to the bank… all that stuff takes time.

Multiply every minute you spend running round by the number of people in the group. That’s how much time you just wasted.

Optional tip: the Raid Chest

On another game I used to play, I could actually pull a bag out of the bank and swap it into one of my bag slots in place of a bag I already had equipped (usually my “crafting bag”). You can’t do that in LotRO, but I have messed around with keeping a ‘raid chest’ in the bank that has all my raid supplies; I just grab everything out of there before it’s time to start, then put anything I don’t use back in that chest at the end of the run — it’s not perfect, and it may not be for everyone, but it’s not bad.

1. Sign Up

Every group has different sign-up requirements for raids and six-man fellowship runs (in my experience three-man runs are rarely organized so formally). Most kinships have some way to sign up for scheduled events. It may be a kinship forum (fancy!), a my.lotro calendar of events, or maybe just announcements in the Kin’s Message of the Day telling people when to log on to participate. Find out what the standard practice is and follow it.

2. Do the Homework

I recommend always reading instance walkthroughs and boss strategies and watching videos before raids until you are reasonably familiar with the fights yourself. In this, Google (plus some smart search queries) is your friend, but you can almost always find some good advice at lorebook.lotro.com. Sure, someone in the raid will probably explain the fight, but having it explained is nothing like seeing a video of how the fight works out.

3. Start time is START Time

So the raid starts at 7pm. Don’t begin a “quick Sword Halls run” at 6:45. Hell, don’t start a quick Grand Stairs run at 6pm. Yeah, you can probably get done in time, if nothing goes wrong and there are no delays.

If.

Don’t plan based on any kind of ‘if’, except for this one: “IF you can’t get done with whatever other thing you’re considering at LEAST fifteen minutes before invites start going out, don’t start it.”

4. Get to the Choppa Summoning Horn

You know who my favorite person in the raid is? The person who’s down at the summoning horn, ready to bring people down to the instance as soon as they join the group.

Be that person.

It will impress people that you’re already ready, and YOU help get the party started even faster.

5. Can You Hear Me Now? Goooood.

I’ve heard people say that since they can play through the Grand Stairs in a pick-up group without using voice chat, they don’t need to use it for Raids.

That’s… adorable.

Here’s the deal: your raiding group is using some kind of voice chat. Period. If they aren’t, they won’t be getting a hell of a lot done in any given night. Find out what your group uses and set it up ahead of time. (In-game chat in LotRO is quite servicable, but Ventrillo also quite common — it’s a free download, easily customized, and dead simple to set up.)

Do you need a microphone? No. You don’t have to talk, but you do have to be able to listen.

6. Now that we can talk to each other, Zip It.

Nothing bugs a raid leader more than someone who isn’t paying attention when they’re organizing groups or explaining the fight. Maybe you’ve done this fight fifty times — that’s fine: you don’t need to hear my explanation (except to make sure we’re doing it the way you expect), but don’t run around in circles, /fishslapping the people who DO need to hear what’s going on.

When the raid leader talks, listen (or at least shut up so everyone else can hear). Ears open. Mouth shut. Don’t be the person that has to have everything explained twice — once beforehand, and once after the group wipes.

Now, if you didn’t understand the explanation then by all means ASK QUESTIONS — that’s totally fine. That’s GOOD.

However, outside of that, understand that there is a time and a place for screwing around and/or socializing, and this probably isn’t it. Some kins are very lax about who’s talking during the raid, some aren’t — the easiest way to find out how your group works is to shut the heck up and observe them in action.

Understand that this isn’t some kind of ego thing with the raid leaders — most of them (myself included) get sick to death of explaining the same fight for the fiftieth time and calling out every transition while still trying to actually perform our class role — but we know people need to hear those instructions, and having other people chatting away while we’re trying to keep the group from wiping is an exercise in frustration and futility, and if you think the raid leader isn’t going to share that frustration with the rest of the group, think again.

7. Limit AFKs

AFK. The raid killer. There are many good times to have extended AFKs — in my opinion, none of those times fall during raid time.

Sure, if a raid is scheduled for a long stretch of time, the raid leaders will plan for breaks (the smart ones will communicate when they’re coming well in advance). Don’t go AFK for normal things (another drink, snacks, checking email) unless a group AFK has been called.

Sure, there are absolutely times when you will have to go AFK. Absolutely. However, even in those cases, be respectful.

• Announce yourself – don’t just vanish.
• Give a reason. We don’t need to hear your life story, but say something. If you’re going to be a long while (“my kid just set the dog on fire”) say so.
• Say when you’ll be back. “One sec” is inaccurate and unlikely. Be realistic and estimate high.
• Don’t you DARE get upset if you go afk for ten minutes and come back to find that you’ve been replaced. 10 minutes multiplied by the eleven other people in the raid is almost 2 wasted hours of collective time — of COURSE they found someone else and kept going. It’s not personal, so don’t make it personal.

Do Unto Others As Though They Were You

Stop for two seconds and consider your actions within the group — if someone else in the fellowship was doing what you’re doing right now (long AFKs, lack of prep, showing up late), would it annoy you?

Yes?

Then knock it off.

Be a good teammate. Everything after that is bonus.

Heh. Got your attention?

I actually have a two a few other posts I plan to write today, but I wanted to quickly address a theme I saw in the (fantastic and insightful) replies to the last post. The suggestion was to bring along Disease, Wound, Poison, and Fear salves as well as the potions for same.

I’m afraid I’ll have to respectfully disagree.

I will do you the courtesy of telling you why I hate salves, though:

• Crappy to nonexistent range. This is not a huge deal, and it makes sense, but it still sucks to have to run up to whoever you’re trying to sa(l)ve and crawl into their pocketses while you should probably be doing something else.
• They share a cool-down with your wound pots.^[1] This is the main reason that salves fall so far down into the Vendor Trash category that I delete them while soloing to make room for more perfect bat wings in my bag.

So, yeah: it’s nice in theory to say “bring salves to help your buddy”, but if you use a salve to remove a killer wound/fear/disease/poison from someone else, and then CAN’T remove that same killer effect off yourself ten seconds later because all those pots are on cooldown, you’re just trading one dead fellowship member (them) for a different one (you).

And to be honest? I’d RATHER keep you alive, because you’re the person who remembered to bring all the supplies to the raid.

---

[1] — I know the salves used to have their own cooldown, back in hoary old pre-historic times — seriously, I think it changed during the same book the Rift came out — and if they were ever changed back to that, I’d be ALL OVER bringing salves to raids. As it is? No. Vendor Trash. Moria goat food. Junk em.

(Disclaimer: I’m not an uberleet raider in LotRO by any means, but I do run raids and I do know what you need to do to ensure some fun and success while raiding… even if I don’t have time to raid every other night right now.)

“All right, I’ve my radiance gear!. Where’s the raid?” /roar /charge

Whoa! Are you prepared?

“Yeah! I’m at the level cap? I have a radiance piece!”

Hmmmhow about a checklist, cowboy?

Radiance

Do you have enough? Every raid has a different Radiance minimum (check the raid guides or walk-throughs to find out how much you need (it’s nice if you can come with more than the minimum). If you don’t make the radiance minimum, you’re making things harder for everyone else, and wasting your time.

Repairs

Always join the raid with all your gear fully repaired. Fully. Repaired. I would suggest getting in the (simple) habit of always hitting “repair all” every single time you sell the stuff to a vendor.

Every. Time.

“But that’s expensive…”

Raiding is expensive. There are ways to make repair cash. It doesn’t take long. Suck it up – everyone else does.

Virtues and Traits

How good are your stats? If you don’t know if they’re good enough for the roles you’ll be asked to fill in the raid, TALK TO SOMEONE. Find experienced players in your Kin who are all too willing to talk you to death about raiding requirements, to ask them what you need — more morale? more power? better regen?

Ask about your class trait builds as well — sometimes the best-ever soloing build is the worst-ever raiding build — don’t be resistant to trying something new for a new activity.

Food

There are two main types of food you should always carry: buff food and regular food.

“But that other guy’s a cook; he brings enough for everyone.”

/fishslap

I suggest always carrying a full stack of “regular food” (meaning the kinds of food that dramatically increase your in- and out-of-combat power and morale regeneration) and Trail Food (which gives you big bonuses to one of your stat) for soloing, but double check before the raid to make sure you’ve got enough just in case you show up late or I get pulled in unexpectedly to help out after someone leaves.

“My wonderful kinmates will take care of me.”

Yeah, most will, sure. But what makes you so special that you rely on others to do the small things for you? It isn’t a question of whether it’s easy enough for them to do – the question is consideration for others and being prepared. Maybe you won’t need to use the food, but at least you’ll have it.

This goes double for buffing food. I usually bring two or three different types for different fights; it’s up to you to know what you need.

Resistance food (soups)
Soups are (fairly) new additions to the game, so some folks aren’t in the habit of bringing them. Do your research on the raid and find out if they’re recommended – some raids use such varied damage types that soups are seen as worthwhile use of bag space – other’s are very uniform and a specific soup type is highly recommended. Research. Find out.

Potions

Everyone should have a full stack of Morale, Power, Wound, Fear, Poison, and Disease Potions, regardless of what class you are. Period. Full stop.

The current highest potency potions are freely and cheaply available from the “Friend” Malledhrim rep vendor in Mirkwood. Keep in stock.

Scrolls

This is one often gets forgotten. Warding and Battle scrolls of the appropriate tier can tip the balance of a fight in your group’s favor. Yes, only one person NEEDS to have scrolls for their group, but what kind of person puts all that responsibility on one person? Find a scholar in your kin and pay for some scrolls (if they’ll take the money) or buy them on AH, but get a stack of both kinds.

Hope Tokens

Like Radiance Gear (grumble), Hope Tokens are absolutely mandatory for Raiding, and their cooldowns mean that when we’re hitting the same boss multiple times to learn the fight, the same person can’t always use a token to protect their group. That means everyone should have at least two hope tokens with them – I’d suggest keeping a stack of five +5 tokens on you all the time. (I have four stacks, but I’m a Tinker.) Make friends with a Tinker in your kin, or get thee to the Auction House.

Legendary Item Relics

The LI Relic system is a fickle mistress – you can’t always get the best relics for your items, but that doesn’t mean you ignore them – work with what you have. If you’re not sure about the best thing to slot, ask someone in your kin.

Other class-specific items

Loremaster pipeweed, a threat-down instrument for minstrels (and probably a power-cost reduction harp for long fights), runekeeper etchings, champs horns, warden and guardian shield spikes ((hey, I forget spikes ALLLLL the time)) – don’t forget the stuff you need to get your job done.

So Why All This Stuff?

Raid Leaders may not compliment you on always being ready, but we notice. And we talk about it. We especially notice it when someone else isn’t prepared. You’ll get no visible credit, but if you want to be remembered as a good player to have on a raid, being prepared is the first step.

… pretty much anything they want.

(Click for bigger.)

A few notes:

1. No, this wasn’t challenge mode. We certainly didn’t have the DPS for that. There’s a way to snag the devoted without doing the challenge if you’re super careful and moderately crazy.
2. No one can tell me Overpower-mode guardian’s can’t tank six-mans. I mean… come on.
3. Statement number 2 is all thanks to Tira.
4. The trash pulls were MUCH tougher than the boss fights. They would have been easier (but taken a lot longer) in sword and board.
5. We didn’t kill Igash. We didn’t start the instance until pretty late, and it was midnight before we got to his area — the three healer, two melee pull right before him was crazy, and we decided not to figure it out, as we got what we came for already anyway.

All that, and I realized Geiri didn’t need to kill the Devoted anymore, anyway. Tira did, though — she finished four quests. (And I finished a couple slayer deeds. 🙂

Anyway: for 65s, I think it’s fair to say that most of the Moria six-mans are more like 3-mans. Anyone still need to get spiny flesh in Skumfil?

Yesterday I was pondering a couple of recent gaming purchases I’ve made. Annalise. Diaspora. 3:16. Trail of Cthulu. Like that, you know: table top roleplaying games.

And somewhere in my ruminations of same (thinking about what game I’d like to play and/or run next), my mind wandered, as it does, to other topics, one of which was my ‘to do’ list on Lord of the Rings Online, my current MMO and pretty much my default game of choice.

And while pondering that, my thoughts wandered further afield, coming (eventually) full circle to the Day Job and various duties therein: specifically, stuff I needed to get done before I would have anything that looked like free time for a little side project I’m thinking off for the online training area.

And then all these thoughts that had been wandering around walked back to me and said

“You know… the thoughts you have about LotRO are a lot more like the thoughts you have about Work than the ones you have about Games. It’s all to-do lists and stuff you want to get done, and only very rarely is it about, say, a new tactic you want to try (though it is sometimes about that) or the larger story that’s unfolding (rarely about that) or the story of your character (never). Is playing an MMO really a game? Hell, is it even play?”

And I had to admit, those thoughts had a point. That’s not to say that LotRO isn’t enjoyable (it is), and that I don’t have a good time (I do), but does it scratch the same itch as tabletop gaming or board games or tactical war games? Is it even the same as other kinds of video games?

• Tactical reward. The joy of a risky but sound plan executed successfully? MMMmmmmaybe. Sometimes. Most of the time, the game is ‘tuned’ so that you can kinda coast a bit and play at a medium level of skill and do just fine. Yes, sometimes you really have to use your shoulder-mounted thinking bone to accomplish a goal, but… hmm. Okay, I’ll say “yes”.
• Cool story. Well, there’s two kinds of stories you’ll get out of an MMO: the Big Picture Story (which will pretty much happen whether you do anything or not) and your guy’s personal story that the game probably doesn’t help you realize at all, which you’re pretty much making up in your head and whatever forum you’re writing your own character’s fanfic on. MMOs are fine on Big Story, but that’s a pretty passive experience in most cases… one’s personal story, on the other hand, is very proactive on your part in that it doesn’t happen at all if you don’t make it happen.  I used to do that, but I don’t any more for a couple different reasons, so I’m going to call this half-yes, half-no.
• Roleplaying. I’m not just talking about tabletop roleplaying, but the childlike play-pretend that exemplified the core of ‘play’. Again, there is very little in an MMO that encourages this, though there is some to be had as you stomp through the virtual world in the body of your cool-ass avatar. As for ‘gamer-style’ roleplay, maybe nothing discourages it, but it’s pretty much all on you to introduce and perpetuate. (I used to do this a lot, but I don’t now, and without my continued effort, it’s essentially an element that doesn’t exist in MMO play for me.)  I’m going to call it a Yes on child-play and a maybe-yes on gamer-play.
• Puzzle solving. This is, for most mainline MMOs, pretty rare. I can think of three or four examples in LotRO and none in WoW or CoH or anything else I’ve tried. There aren’t even any puzzle ‘mini-games’, which could be worked into some games’ crafting systems if they wanted to do it — I’m thinking here of stuff like the lockpick/hacking mini-game in Bioshock. Hell, even the ‘how do I get to point x?’ puzzles as are found in games like Tomb Raider or Mirror’s Edge are active discouraged in many MMOs.
• Planning and management. Anyone who doesn’t think that’s a viable kind of game has never played Civilization or Zoo Tycoon. MMOs have this, sometimes to their detriment, as many don’t seem to know how to express it as anything but a boring grind.
• World Creation. Please. Tell me an MMO (Second Life is not an MMO for this exercise) where you can create your own chunks of the world. No.

So… the stuff I (or my daughter) would readily recognize as ‘play’ is not strongly prevalent. There’s no real-time strategy. There’s really not even dice rolling going on to give you that little gambling frisson. There’s socialization, sure, and it’s one of the things I enjoy but… a game? Is it? Really?

Maybe.

And yet I enjoy the hell out of it. For all that it’s a lot of me finishing off one task and starting another — “working” on this guy and then “working” on this other guy — it’s still play for me.

Somehow.

I just… don’t exactly know how.

Maybe it’s scratching that itch so well that I don’t even feel it anymore.

We painted our house, introduced Kaylee to classic musicals…

And killed a friggin’ BALROG.

If that picture doesn’t adequately convey the power of the Ancient Maiar compared to humble mortals… then I can’t help you.

Rawr.  There was much shouting amongst our merry band of heroes.

Next up: a giant turtle, nesting within the waterworks of Moria.

Then, facing down the Watcher in the Water within the deepest levels of Moria (where it’s retreated after facing a major offensive at the Hollin gate).