It’s been an thrilling week for Lord of the Rings On-line as full particulars and testing for this fall’s enlargement, Legacy of Morgoth, arrived in earnest. Whereas I’m not a lot one for desert zones, I’m intrigued with this storyline and excited to proceed my high-level characters’ adventures additional into Harad.
Nonetheless, the official enlargement announcement and pre-order packages got here with some extent of controversy. One of many sore factors — as addressed by Govt Producer Rob Ciccolini — was that Legacy of Morgoth received’t embody a “particular system” or tentpole characteristic. Personally, whereas it didn’t faze me (I’m right here for the content material, primarily!), it was a priority for a lot of. So at present I need to sort out this query: Ought to all LOTRO expansions embody particular programs? Does missing one imply that it isn’t an enlargement?
What’s an MMO enlargement?
To deal with this, we’ve got to take a step again and attempt to get our definitions in hand. What’s an MMO enlargement? There’s no business normal regulated by some type of worldwide company, so what an “enlargement” is tends to be outlined by the studio that slaps this label onto it. It’s definitely a label that’s been tortured and abused when utilized to what are clearly mere content material updates.
Whereas acknowledging that there’s no inflexible definition on the market, I’d say that usually, an enlargement is seen as a vital quantity of recent content material for an MMO, often within the type of further zones and tales. In ye olden days, it was one thing sufficiently big to be packaged and shipped as a separate retail field.
There’s no promise or necessary regulation for an enlargement to comprise, effectively, something particularly, particularly new programs or options. But there are expectations that they need to as a result of over time, that is how the business developed. Most MMO expansions included some type of tentpole characteristic as a option to get observed and fire up pleasure. This holds true at present, as these options turn into the large speaking factors and a manner to attract extra folks to the sport.
So new options: Necessary, no; anticipated, sure. Usually. Often.
What particular programs did every LOTRO enlargement add?
I discover it useful for this dialog to return over the previous 9 LOTRO expansions and have a look at the particular programs that got here with every:
- Mines of Moria: Rune-keeper and Warden courses, goat mounts, legendary gadgets
- Siege of Mirkwood: Skirmishes
- Rise of Isengard: Nothing
- Riders of Rohan: Mounted fight
- Helm’s Deep: Epic battles, trait bushes
- Mordor: Allegiances
- Minas Morgul: Stout-Axe Dwarf race
- Destiny of Gundabad: Brawler class, legendary merchandise revamp
- Corsairs of Umbar: Mariner class
Trying over all of this, we see that there’s actually no normal by any means for this MMO. Mines of Moria clearly had the most important quantity of cool options, though what number of of these have been baking earlier than the sport’s launch, I do not know. Rise of Isengard didn’t do a lot in the way in which of any type of particular system. Siege of Mirkwood all the time obtained criticized for being too small to be an enlargement. A few of these have programs that didn’t actually matter over the long term (mounted fight, epic battles, allegiances).
Nonetheless, there’s a development over the previous three expansions to incorporate both a brand new race or class. So if we’re simply limiting our view to the previous 5 – 6 years, sure, SSG has established an expectation that an enlargement features a common choice to benefit from the sport in a brand new manner.
Is Legacy of Morgoth shorting gamers?
That brings us again to some upset gamers and Rob Ciccolini apologizing for/defending the shortage of particular programs for this enlargement. Once more, I’m not anxious about it. New programs are enjoyable and do ramp up that hype issue, however on the finish of the day, I need extra adventures in Center-earth, interval.
Plus, it’s not precisely true that this enlargement lacks something new. There’s the bauble system, which is able to take inventory-clogging toys (and fireworks) and put them into a set to make use of as expertise. Ciccolini additionally pointed to the Elf avatar overhaul, which appears to be like to be coming with Replace 42 as effectively. And there are smaller design components of the enlargement, resembling together with sandstorms as a climate system, that push this MMO into new territory.
Apart from the Elf visuals, it’s true that there isn’t going to be something right here to excite or curiosity lowbie gamers. My suspicion right here is that 2023 was such a terrific yr of recent additions to the sport whereas 2024 has been somewhat… lackluster to this point. Thus, it is smart that there could be heavier expectations put upon this enlargement to make up for that disappointment. This might’ve been the right time to, say, roll out an enormous kinship revamp — one thing that may impression vastly extra gamers.
But 4 new zones isn’t nothing. I’m actually happy with the contemporary design and strategy that the story and artwork staff is taking with Umbar, and I belief that I’m not going to be let down by the journeys to come back.
Ultimately, it’s your name whether or not a scarcity of a terrific tentpole characteristic is an enlargement deal-breaker or not. It’s not stopped us from having fun with a number of previous expansions, and as soon as the mud on this announcement settles, I don’t suppose we’ll thoughts as a lot both.
Each two weeks, the LOTRO Legendarium goes on an journey (horrid issues, these) by means of the wondrous, terrifying, inspiring, and, effectively, legendary on-line world of Center-earth. Justin has been taking part in LOTRO since its launch in 2007! You probably have a subject for the column, ship it to him at justin@massivelyop.com.
