Earlier this afternoon, parakkum and I were chatting about the dissonance between game players within the MMOG and the fantasy setting. While everything under the sun has been made into a MMOG, the fantasy genre is the most successful of the settings, so it should be no surprise that they are releasing a Lord of the Rings: Online massively multiplayer game.
The new game should be quite different, and it's easy enough to explain the hordes of orcs and trolls that one player might have to face, but how do you explain an ever-respawning Balrog or a thousand players a day destroying The One Ring?
Back in the old EQ days, we used to joke about what a LOTR game would look like if it was designed by the same people who did EQ. I've annotated the dialog in italics to attempt to explain the EQ speak.
SCENE: Rivendell. Elrond is studying.
GANDALF: Ach! Damn it!
ELROND: Gandalf! Where did you come from? ... You-re naked.
When characters die in EQ, they return to their bind bind points naked
GANDALF: Stupid halflings who can-t play their class, that-s what happened.
ELROND: What? Where?
GANDALF: Moria. We were in the safe hall at Balin-s Tomb and Aragorn was going to pull some orcs to clear the way to the zoneout.
Pull -- in which a player targets the monster and drags it back to camp
ELROND: Which halfling messed it up? Frodo?
GANDALF: No, it was Pippin. I didn-t even want to bring him along but Frodo did insist. Aragorn was going to pull some orcs but out comes Pippin to "see what Aragorn was doing- and manages to aggro half the zone.
Aggro: to become the target of the monster
ELROND: So you got wiped out by a horde of orcs? Yuck.
GANDALF: Oh, no. They were green to most of us, so we cut through them all right. I was impressed by Legolas- bow crits. But then the Cave Troll got aggroed.
Green: EQ has a color coated xp system: green means that the monster is below your level
ELROND: But there were nine of you, you could have handled the cave troll.
GANDALF: Oh, and we did. Except Frodo didn-t know how to manage aggro properly. The troll started beating on him.
ELROND: Oh, no. Poor Frodo.
GANDALF: No, actually, Frodo was fine. He had a mithril chain tunic on.
ELROND: Jeez, just because he-s friends with Bilbo, does Bilbo have to twink him like that?
"Twinking" is when a higher level character gives a lower level character better equipment than they should have.
GANDALF: Yeah, no kidding. So the troll ran and Pippin of course forgets to snare.
Snare is a spell to reduce a monster's run speed
ELROND: Aragorn-s a ranger, why didn-t he snare?
Rangers and Druids both have this spell, but normally the Ranger doesn't snare since it pulls aggro, and Rangers get beaten to a pulp pretty quickly.
GANDALF: He was our main tank and was busy keeping the orcs aggroed on him. Pippin was just sleeping on the job. So the troll ran, and before we finally cut him down, he chain aggroed the Balrog.
ELROND: Oh, no. Stupid halfling dr00ds.
In EQ, halfling druids are the most looked down upon, because they have an xp bonus and the highest base wisdom, so it's often powerlevelers who play them. They were nicknamed dr00ds to reflect the 'leet' mentality of the players.
GANDALF: Yeah. So naturally, I decided to take it on the chin. I told everyone to run and I tried to hold off the Balrog by rooting him.
Wizards have a root spell in EQ, but it sucks.
ELROND: And he got you.
GANDALF: No, actually, I had my shield up, and I just chain-nuked him.
Wizards also have a damage reduction shield. Chain-nuking is when a player casts a direct-damage spell over and over.
ELROND: You SOLOED the Balrog? Wow.
GANDALF: Yeah, one hell of an XP hit too. But then when he fell, I turned and slipped off the ledge. I 10Ked when I hit the bottom of the Balrog pit. Didn-t even have chance to loot his corpse. And there went the XP from the orcs, the troll, AND the Balrog. Stupid Verant.
In EQ, when one takes falling damage from a great distance, they take 10,000 hp of damage, which results in instant death..
ELROND: Your corpse is in the bottom of the Balrog pit?
GANDALF: Yeah. But no worries, I think I know a way to drag it out of there.
ELROND: That-s good.
GANDALF: So, can I bum a SoW off you for a CR? I want to get back there before the Balrog respawns.
SoW: Spirit of Wolf -- Increases running speed. CR - Corpse Run.Running back to your corpse was what a person did after death.
ELROND: This is Rivendell. We-re high elves. The wood elves are in Lothlorien.
Players would beg for SoW from any elf, but only druids and ranger can cast SoW.
GANDALF: Nadgers. Which is where we were headed in the first place. Oh well, I-m a wizard at least, and there-s a portal not too far from there.
Wizards could teleport to portal locations within the world in addition to their bind points.
ELROND: Good luck on your CR. Why were you hanging out with those noobs anyway?
CR - Corpse Recovery, noobs -- short for newbies -- beginning players
GANDALF: I promised Frodo I-d powerlevel him in exchange for him completing the Cracks of Doom quest with me. He has the quest piece - the One Ring.
Powerlevel -- helping a player level faster.
ELROND: That-s NODROP, isn-t it?
NODROP items were items which could not be traded to other players.
GANDALF: Yeah.
ELROND: What do you get for completing that quest?
GANDALF: Robe of the White and Staff of the White. Those would be serious upgrades to my Grey robe and staff. I-ve had this gear for way too many levels anyway.
ELROND: Nice.
GANDALF: Anyway, I-d better go. Do you think you could get someone to go to the Moria zone to rez me once I get my corpse pulled there?
Rez - short for Resurrection, in which some experience loss from dying is returned.
ELROND: I-ll try to find a guildie.
guildie - someone within the same guild
GANDALF: Thanks.
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