Ok I think Lord of the Rings Online is starting to annoy me seriously around about half way through Angmar.
I see there's about seven more Books of quests BUT IT'S ANGMAR I MEAN WHY why do I want to know about all the lore of Angmar. It's Angmar. It's a dead country which nuked itself with magic and is now a gigantic magical trash fire. Have Angmar problems? Well then just... just don't be in Angmar and all your problems are solved!
Angmar is not a place of honour.
The Matrix sequels had the same problem.
"Oh no I need to go back in the Matrix and solve a bunch of randomly generated fetch quests to do a thing to..."
No you don't, Neo. Remember that whole thing you learned about the Matrix not being real? Just... don't be in the Matrix and all your problems are magically gone. You know it's all going to turn out to be a waste of time or a trick or a trap BECAUSE IT'S THE MATRIX.
Angmar hits the same story wall. Bad place, no good reason to go there.
This is the second story wall I've hit with LOTRO (the first being Garth Agarwen and the Red Maid) and for the same reason:
A bunch of silly people hanging around a Bad Place which is clearly signposted as a Bad Place, trying to make it better by... doing more bad things.
Yes I know 'hanging around a bad place doing bad things to unhappy monsters' is the whole conceptual structure of Dungeons & Dragons, but frankly the worst parts of LOTRO come from its D&D heritage.
@natecull I haven't played lotro in awhile but I thought they were pretty spot on with the lore etc? I miss my rune keeper. 😥
I used to love and play DDO for years, but that game needs some serious work. Instanced lobby dungeons isn't enough and it always annoyed me when I went into a exploring map it was always blacked out like my character got total amnesia every time I went there 🤔🙂
LOTRO has a kind of multiple personality syndrome going on. It's a very conflicted game, lots of parts that all pull in different directions. Lore, art, mechanics... it's all a bit of a mess, but very pretty when it does work.
The lore is okay, but it has to keep trying to invent story reasons to justify things that only happen because of gameplay. I wish the gameplay was working more with the lore than against it.
The whole concept of 'pick up drops from mobs for upgrades' doesn't work for the Tolkien world and mood, for instance. Evil monsters have cursed weapons and supplies, you can't use those! And why am I dragging around a truckload of crafting supplies? Why does every monster drop a book page? The writers and artists have done a great job but I just wish what I was doing felt more sensible.
Maybe MMOs are just too *big* to really nail the story stuff.
