LOTRO or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love MMORPGs

OK maybe not love. I'll just start from the beginning.

So at PAX they were giving out full copies of Lord of the Rings Online with the Mines of Moria expansion. I find it impressive that a company other than Blizzard is making enough money from subscriptions that they can just hand out full copies of AAA games. But then, maybe they should all be doing that. My biggest problem with MMOs is that you have to pay to keep playing a game you have already paid for... forever (unless you pay hundreds of dollars for a lifetime subscription). So really why charge for the game at all? I'm not certain but I think Blizzard gives away the base version of Wow, and has for some time. I can't help but think of a pusher on the street corner going "hey man, want to get your game on. Have a little taste, first one's on me!" Well actually the second taste is on them too because they give you a 30 day free trail, which in the case of LOTRO I am now using.

My second biggest problem with MMOs is that they never end. There is no discrete limit to the game. Potentially you could keep playing it forever and they could keep adding little bits of new content to entice you. What this means is that playing an MMO is a huge time investment. Or more like time sink hole. I already spend way more time than I should on the hobby. If I tried to play an MMO something terrible would happen: I'd have less time to play other games! There's just to many great games coming out all the time and an endless library of older games. I couldn't in good conscience dedicate myself to just one.

Anyway, lets talk about the game. Its cool I guess...

Yeah that's pretty much it. I like the story elements and the visuals for the setting. It feels like Middle Earth, which is exciting. The game play is actually kind of boring but again, this isn't my usual cup 'o tea . You click on a monster and your character starts trading blows. I imagine that as the game progresses the battles become more intense, requiring you to use your abilities in a tactical manner. I got to the point in the game where you pick a profession and can start making stuff. This is the part of the game I find most appealing. I have yet to discover how deep the crafting system goes but from the little I've done it seems like I could get pretty into it. I chose the Tinker job which involves cooking. I was very stoked to learn that I could brew beer. Beer and video games have always been a match made in heaven and now you're telling me I can drink beer while playing a game in which I'm drinking beer? You sir are a champion of men! ...not sure who I'm talking to there...

So I've got a month to play for free and I'll probably spend a few more sessions with it. My friend has an account so I'm going to try to play with him at least once in order to enjoy the MM aspect of my MMORPG... or maybe just the M... the second one... yeah. I'll let you know how it goes.

PAX Music

So I didn't get to see Metroid Metal live at PAX because I was volunteering in another part of the con. I heard they killed everyone and then brought them back to life with nothing but sonic manipulation. Oh well. I did get to stop by their booth and pick up their album, Varia Suite though. I asked the guy at the table if he was in the band. He told me no, he was their producer or something. Poor guy must have been asked that constantly. The sucky part was that I didn't bring anything capable of playing CDs with me and neither did any of my friends. So I had to wait until I got home to listen to it. I have since listened to it about 10 times. This is significant because I don't usually listen to something twice in such short a span of time. With MM I can't help it. It gets stuck in my head (it is game music after all) and I must play the album in order to exorcise the daemons. So far my favorite song is "Item Room". I wasn't expecting that to be very cool, but they do this odd time signature thing with a staccato riff that hits to the core. THE MOTHER EFFIN CORE BABY!!! ::clears throat:: So if you like game music and/or instrumental mental then please give these guys a try. MetroidMetal.com


On a much less game-related aside, I ran into a guy standing outside the entrance to the convention center. He asked me if I had heard of Sir Mix-a-lot. I replied in the affirmative. He explained that just like Sir Mix-a-lot he was a rap artist from Seattle trying to make it big. He handed me his latest album and said they were giving them out in exchange for "donations", whatever I felt like I could give. Now I'm not really a fan of rap music. I have a select few groups that I like to listen to and it's mostly white-people-friendly rap like the Roots. But I do have a soft spot for a: sales people (having been in sales myself) and b: people trying to make it (also being in that position myself). I told him I'd give him 2 dollars. He said "OK but we are asking for 5". I gave him 2.
So I gave it a listen when I got home. Again I'm not a big rap person. I mostly find it hard to relate to the subject matter. I didn't grow up in "the hood", I never shot nobody, I'm not gangsta. I find that most rap is just the rapper telling everyone how much better at rapping he is than everyone else. It's this kind of circular self awareness that just seams sort of masturbatory. I feel like I'm watching clothes in a dryer. Anyway I'm getting off track. The album was pretty good. Like I said, I had a hard time with the lyrics but in the words of American Bandstand it had a beat and I could dance to it. The words are delivered in a rapid fire style that I found pleasing to the ear. I can see this guy getting pretty big in the next few years. The production quality was high and they seem to have a sense for the single.
Oh yeah, I never said who I was talking about! The guys name is Juga Hill and the album is called One Way (Pre-Album Chapter 3). I'm guessing there are Chapters 1 and 2 out there somewhere. JugaHill.com will take you to his myspace page which has a good selection of his work.

PAX09 For Realz This Time

Oh all right all right! Fine. I'll write a proper post.

Lets talk about games shall we? I only played one hands-on demo: Darksiders. It was pretty fun I guess. I walked away feeling like I had just played a next-gen God of War. You run around beating people with a sword and climbing things. The coolest part is that you can pick things up like people or cars. Grabbing enemies buy the neck and insta-killing them was pretty fun. So you're supposed to have a horse in the game but that wasn't in the demo. So... yeah, God of War.

Best demo I watched someone else play: Bayonetta. This one's been on my radar for about as long as Darksiders has. It's another third-person action hack-and-slash staring a... um, yeah the plot escapes me... she's a gun... witch? Whatever, she runs around killing stuff. The first guy I watched play the game was pretty good at it. I watched him take down two bosses. I think they were bosses; they were pretty epic. As she fought these huge monster things they destroyed the environment in ways that completely changed the battlefield. There were at least four "oh snap" moments in the 3 min of gameplay I witnessed. The shifting environment during the boss battles were half of them. The finishing moves used to kill the bosses were the other. Apparently the player's character has the ability to use her hair and clothes to turn giant beasties into piles of goo, and in a ludicrously spectacular manner. I'm not going to go into detail because you really have to just see it, but wow. Wow.

Also impressive was Brink. They had a big screen set up and a guy with an English accent was giving live demos every hour or so. The game takes place on this floating island and you play as a soldier from one of two opposing factions. Your goal is to complete missions, but the twist is that the missions are generated by the AI. Your character class can be switched around during the battle and your missions are assigned to you based on the class you are playing. You can choose which mission you want to do from a pop-up menu, so you're not stuck having to do one thing. I think this is especially cool because I hate getting stuck on one mission! To me this approach could streamline and maximize the fun factor. There is an RPG element with your character as well. It wasn't made clear to me exactly what you would be improving stat-wise, but he did go over a pretty robust visual customization system. As your character progresses he (or she?) will have access to more armor and regalia. Also cool is this action button they built in where your character can intuitively move around the environment, traversing obstacles, and just not getting stuck on stuff. It looks pretty slick in action, and I can imagine it will be pretty important because the environments I saw were tangled, jungle-like mazes of metal and debris.

So PAX was sweet. There were a lot of great games there but Bayonetta and Brink were the two that really caught my eye.

PAX09

So I went to PAX and had a great time. The end.