I’ve written before about playing the Lord of the Rings Online. One of my favorite features of the game is the interactive nature of many of the non-player elements. In any Role-playing Game, you interact with other people playing characters. But you also interact with Non-player characters (NPCs) who sell you stuff, give quests, comment on your progress. There are quests that ask you to broker peace between people who have been enemies in the past due to old enmities. If you succeed, then in the future when you walk by either NPC, they call out to you, thanking you for your help in bringing a feud to a happy ending.
Another player aid in LotRO are certain reminders or hints that you have completed some portion of a quest. I like the pseudo-interactive nature of these things, they help me to remain aware of what I am doing. As you perform tasks, text will appear telling you when you’ve completed a step. It fades into view, to keep you informed of your progress.
"FOUND ONE OF BILBO’S BUTTONS IN GOBLINTOWN"
"COLLECT ANGMARIM WEAPONS (3/15)"
Stuff like that.
One of my favorite interactions sort of breaks the 4th wall, acknowledging the text’s interaction with you, the player, the audience. Commenting on what’s happening, as it were.
While adventuring in the frozen northern lands of Forochel (That’s Northwest of Angmar for you kids tracking this on your own Third Age Map of Middle Earth, an area referenced mostly in the appendices of the books), you encounter a fellowship that is scattered. Hapless even. Every member of this non-player group has lost stuff critical to the performance of their particular class, and needs your help finding it.
You retrieve a lore-master’s pet raven, slaying wargs to keep the bird safe while escorting it from hostile territory.
You find the lost sword of a guardian (it’s not really that nice a sword, but it has familial value as it once was used by the NPC’s sister).
The best one is a quest to help the minstrel. First, you retrieve three lost sheets of music (the quest is called Three Sheets to the Wind. Get it? Hilarious!). Then, you help the poor musician re-tool his lute. He has heard a rumor about a special saber-tooth cat stalking the wintry wilderness; he really believes some catgut from that fierce beast will be the thing that could put his lute-playing over the top.
You have to battle your way to the top of an island in the middle of a chilly river, then fight an especially hard-to-kill saber-tooth. Finally, you are victorious! You loot the corpse, looking for the item.
Got it! The acknowledgement words fade, and you are greeted by another message. In a game where you have collected 100s of hides, weapons, scales, nails, pieces of meat, and other sundry items, a strand of feline intestine finally provokes an editorial comment from the game.
Comedy gold!
2 comments:
Does it cost money to play?
You can play most of the game completely free. There is a fee to pay to unlock certain features, but you could play the game for 100s of hours before coming up against those. It's a different model of gaming called free-to-play, where the revenue for the company comes from micro-transactions rather than bulk sales of the software/game.
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