An Exercise in Relativity

But not the physics equation kind.

To savor my one precious day of weekend, last night I set up Mines of Moria to download, and got a few quick games of Space Ranger 2 in (usually culminating in getting blown up and the game ending like a roguelike,) then popped into GW: Nightfall on my lowbie dervish.

I'd been keeping him there in the hopes that the old DNA Lab gang might pick up the game and we could go tromping across the plains together, but well, best laid plans unravel. He was, however, brand new and something I could pretend to be a newbie on and try and relearn the game all over again. Not too bad, I ran around, did a few quests, slaughtered a bunch of plants and insects lower leveled than me with a hero and a henchie for double xp and Sunspear promotion points, all the while feeling very awkward with my skillbar - which wasn't set up for any semblance of efficiency or proper synergy at all, but I was just too lazy to plan it out or read up on a build I couldn't form yet anyway.

By then I was way too sleepy, so I collapsed into bed and let Mines of Moria download on.

This morning, it was done, so I jumped in for a little spin around Middle-Earth.

To my surprise, my Guardian felt like she was cutting through buttered mobs with a flaming sword.

While I do think they tweaked the combat reporting code just a bit - they now report criticals as DEVASTATES and other such slightly more comic-booky lettering, I like it, it gives more feedback and resembles a bit more of the good of WoW, without being cartoony - I think the greater part of it is my perception having changed.

Objectively, I think I'm taking the same amount of time, with the same number of hits and button presses to down a mob. I think.

What has changed is that I'm now used to Warhammer combat. Which is, on an absolute scale, one of the slowest combat systems around because they want you to nickel and dime your opponent to death so that both of you have time to react and skirmish it up a bit.

I'm used to my melee DPS Marauder going chunk chunk chunk chink chink chunk chunk chink chunk chink just to take down an even-level mob. Of course, I have options where I can press a button, and it turns on a channeled skill that hits 5 times for me, so that I don't break a finger hacking away at things...

...but yeah, bottom line is that I'm used to a single mob taking about 10-11 hits to destroy now.

(Contrast this with City of Heroes, where it's possible to one or two-shot minions, and a dominator is thought to have it bad by needing to hack 4-8 times.)

So when my LOTRO Guardian can suddenly destroy mobs as fast as my melee DPS Marauder, it makes her feel rather slicey and dicey indeed.

(That should last as long as I stay solo and don't see other classes downing the same mob in a few shots - at which point relativity and comparison will make me more depressed. :P)

Mines of Moria have also unlocked some more deeds, which makes it feel more exciting and worthwhile to fight, since I'm now incrementing more bars towards better skills.

(Hooray LOTRO for being the MMO with the most bars to increment. :/)

One thing that HASN'T changed though. Grinding mobs for XP is a lost cause in LOTRO. Your bar simply doesn't shift doing it. One grinds mobs for gold and stuff to vendor.

I've raised my xp bar in WAR simply by obsessing about a particular area and going through about 20-30 mobs while exploring. The xp balance is there. Meanwhile, gold is nothing to obsess about. It comes naturally through anything you do. More like City of Heroes' influence. In LOTRO, you feel the pinch with all the money and time sinks.

It's looking like CoX is the ultra casual MMO option. WAR follows next - which may explain why population numbers are shrinking - a casual MMO is easier to put down and leave, whether temporarily or permamently. LOTRO has the achievement grinds all in, but the community is more relaxed about ever fulfilling any of these. And WoW, well, heh, no comment.

So is an ultra hardcore MMO that sucks in peoples' time the way to go for maximum retention? Or is the giant elephant in that spot already WoW, so to survive, the rest have to wade around in the mud hole and squeeze in wherever's there's room?