Analog Gamers Gaming From a Slightly Different Perspective

Everyone is into new experiences these days. Microsoft handed us an underwhelming one with their NXE (New X-Box Experience), and now Turbine bring us the Lord of the Rings Online New Player Experience.

In an effort to attract new players to the Tolkien-themed MMORPG, Turbine has made several changes to the mechanics of Middle Earth. First, and most noticeable, they’ve adjusted the amount of experience that players need to earn in order to gain a level. This adjustment resulted in many players logging in after Tuesday’s update and finding that upon their first kill, they gained anywhere from one to three levels.

This is nothing new. MMO’s have done this in the past, most noticeably World of Warcraft, who did much the same thing upon the release of The Burning Crusade expansion (actually shortly thereafter, in the 2.3.0 patch). One major difference here is that while WoW reduced the amount of XP needed to level and granted additional XP for completed quests, players did not immediately gain those benefits upon logging in and gaining experience. Instead, if you had 50% of level 31, you were still at 50% of level 31 after the patch.

What was new to me was the fact that Turbine had gone back to the drawing board on their starting zones. Using feedback gathered from players and staff, the development team has revamped the starting areas. Focusing most heavily on the dwarf and elf areas (since they had determined that these areas needed the most attention), quests were tuned and even relocated, new quests were added, and instanced areas were removed to do away with load times from new players. Players even now have the option to skip tutorial instances that they have already completed previously.

It isn’t unprecedented for an MMO developer to revamp their existing content. What is unusual is that Turbine decided to dedicate a substantial chunk of time to easing the way for new players to get into the game, and not just by decreasing the experience required. Instead, they tried to fix quests they felt sent players too far out of the way, broke continuity, or simply weren’t well placed. They even created several new quests to fill in the gaps they felt were there.

This is a big step forward for MMO developers, as the standard has long been to work on adding new content, and to let the old content stand on its own. It’s a standard that needed to change, and now it thankfully has. Kudos to Turbine for changing it. Here’s hoping that some other developers take the hint.

If you’re interested in reading how the folks at Turbine came to make all these changes, and seeing exactly what they all are, you should check out the most recent Developer’s Diary. Although I haven’t mentioned it, this update also included the Elves of Lothlorien, among other things. Here’s a little peek at the Golden Wood, just for fun.