Post by OnyxBlade on Jul 9, 2008 11:08:39 GMT -5
pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-lord-of-the-rings-online-mines-of-moria/887238p1.html
The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria: Legendary Loot (PC)
LotRO's first expansion pack lets players gather truly epic items: a legendary trinket unique to every player.
By Allen 'Delsyn' Rausch | July 8, 2008
In The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien synthesized a variety of European mythologies into a cohesive narrative structure that largely worked on its own terms. In such a synthesis, the magical properties of items could hardly be ignored (the whole cycle is based on a magical Ring, after all). What's Arthur without his Excalibur? Aragorn without Anduril? Frodo without Sting? Legendary magical items with their own names and histories are as much a part of high fantasy as dragons and elves and magic spells. Despite that, giving players truly unique items is an area that's been pretty much ignored by high-fantasy MMOs in favor of so-called "epic" items that lose a bit of their luster the first time you run by another player with the same glowing orange mace strapped to their back.
That's one of the major inspirations that pushed the developers of The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria when it came time to consider the game's new itemization curve. While the game will include a standard array of new high-level gear in the now-typical common/uncommon/rare/epic progression, the team wanted to do something more. "The whole point of legendary items is giving the player something that advances with them," said Jeffrey Steefel, the game's Executive Producer. "Players will be able to acquire legendary items with names and histories that are as much a part of their story as Sting or Anduril."
A Mobile Quest Hub
In developing the mechanics of the legendary items system, the team took a great deal of inspiration from Japanese RPGs such as Final Fantasy VII and its "Materia" system, wherein players would slot found units into weapons in order to maximize key abilities that fit their play style. They also pulled major gameplay elements from the story of Anduril, the hereditary sword of Aragorn's ancestors. Known as Narsil when wielded by Isildur, this was the sword that cut the Ring off Sauron's hand and was shattered. In the course of the novels, the sword is re-forged as the more powerful Anduril ("Flame of the West") and serves as a symbol of Aragorn's acceptance of his heritage and destiny.
The legendary items system also has some more prosaic purposes. "It's a way to both re-purpose earlier content to keep it relevant and provide the player with a mobile quest hub that serves as an alternate means of player customization." To that end, quite a few quests in Mines of Moria will involve a player's legendary item and the need to gather certain bits of material or lore from the world in order to unlock more and more of its power. This is abstracted in-game as a separate items level and experience point total. Legendary items will start at level one and be able to advance to level 50.
What a Piece of Junk!
The game's legendary item system kicks in when a player hits level 51 and acquires an "Unidentified" legendary item from a drop, quest or as a crafted item. Unidentified legendaries have no name and no stats beyond basic damage and one or two small bonuses. They can be identified by the unique pattern on their icon as well as the fact that all legendaries are "unique" and restricted by class. Legendaries come in two categories, melee items and class items (books for Loremasters, burglar's tools for Burglars and so on) and can be sold on the auction house as long as they're unidentified.
Identifying a legendary item requires the player to go to one of two new NPCs in the game -- the Forge Master -- to "identify" the item. Once this happens several new functions kick in. First, the item can no longer be sold on the Auction House (though they can still be traded player-to-player until they are bound). Second, identification brings out the item's "legacies." Legacies are one of approximately thirty possible inherent properties that are assigned randomly to the item. The number of legacies assigned is also random within a specified range determined by the item's base quality. A "rare" or yellow item can only get one or two legacies while an "epic" purple might get four or five and an "incomparable" or teal weapon could get up to nine (though that would be extremely rare). Each legacy is also assigned a "Quality" rating (gold, silver or bronze) based on how powerful it is.
In looking at this system, one would assume therefore that players would naturally gravitate toward the teal items in order to maximize the number of legacies their item can get and reject any weapon with silver or bronze legacies. There's a kicker to this however: leveling. As a legendary item levels up, it begins to acquire "legend points" that can be assigned to increasing the rank of its legacies. As legacies increase in rank they become more powerful. The point cost for increasing a legacy, however, is based on its quality, so ranking up a gold legacy is considerably more expensive than a bronze one and a weapon with points placed in one or two silver legacies can make them far more powerful than one that splits its points between nine different gold ones.
Players can have up to six different legendary items bound to them at any one time and any particular item can only gain experience points when it's actually used in combat. While there will be items available that will allow players to split their experience points among all the items they're advancing, they'll have to make a judgment on whether it's worth slowing down one item's advancement to work on all six they may have. Every ten levels, an item will have to be reforged at a Forge Master in order to advance further. At that time, the player may choose to rename their item and dump any legacies they don't want in favor of randomly assigned new ones.
The Jewel in the Sword
One of the major quest lines in The Lord of the Rings Online has to do with Aragon's decision to reforge Narsil into Anduril. He naturally appeals to the player to assist him by sending him or her to Evendim to search the tombs of his ancestors for a historic jewel that belongs in the sword's pommel. That Aragorn would go to so much trouble for a small detail shows the power of even the tiniest elements of a legendary item. It's no surprise then that players will have to go to equally difficult lengths to obtain the finishing elements for their legendary items: relics.
Relics in The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria are obtained only through the destruction of legendary items at an Item Master. The level of the legendary item destroyed determines the power of the resulting relics. Relics, it should be noted, are not inventory items nor can they be sold or traded. They exist solely in the legendary item information panel and can only be acquired through diligent effort and sacrifice on the player's part. Each relic created will have two or three static bonuses attached to them and be classified as a "Beginning," "Middle" or "End" relic. These can be slotted into one of the three special sockets available on the weapon.
Relics themselves are ranked by tier, with eight potential tiers that determine how powerful their static bonuses are. Fortunately, a relic's tier isn't permanent. Upgrading relics is the major function of the "Relic Master," the second new NPC being added to the game. The Relic Master has the capability of combining relics of like tier into a new, higher-level relic. If the re-forging goes well, the player trades a couple of lower-tier relics for a higher one. If it goes badly, the player will receive a few randomly selected equivalent-tier relics back.
Narsil Nation
Steefel seems almost giddy as he describes the possibilities inherent in the legendary item system. "Legendary items are really going to impact the way the players play the game" he says, and then compares a legendary item's legacies to a player's inherent abilities and relics to a player's traits in terms of the level of customization available. More than that, though, he's excited about the prospect of having truly individualized "loot" in an MMO that's not just random. "Legendary items are going to be important to the player not just for what they can do but because they'll be something that's truly theirs. Every player can have their own unique item and be assured that there's no other like it in the world."
The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria: Legendary Loot (PC)
LotRO's first expansion pack lets players gather truly epic items: a legendary trinket unique to every player.
By Allen 'Delsyn' Rausch | July 8, 2008
In The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien synthesized a variety of European mythologies into a cohesive narrative structure that largely worked on its own terms. In such a synthesis, the magical properties of items could hardly be ignored (the whole cycle is based on a magical Ring, after all). What's Arthur without his Excalibur? Aragorn without Anduril? Frodo without Sting? Legendary magical items with their own names and histories are as much a part of high fantasy as dragons and elves and magic spells. Despite that, giving players truly unique items is an area that's been pretty much ignored by high-fantasy MMOs in favor of so-called "epic" items that lose a bit of their luster the first time you run by another player with the same glowing orange mace strapped to their back.
That's one of the major inspirations that pushed the developers of The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria when it came time to consider the game's new itemization curve. While the game will include a standard array of new high-level gear in the now-typical common/uncommon/rare/epic progression, the team wanted to do something more. "The whole point of legendary items is giving the player something that advances with them," said Jeffrey Steefel, the game's Executive Producer. "Players will be able to acquire legendary items with names and histories that are as much a part of their story as Sting or Anduril."
A Mobile Quest Hub
In developing the mechanics of the legendary items system, the team took a great deal of inspiration from Japanese RPGs such as Final Fantasy VII and its "Materia" system, wherein players would slot found units into weapons in order to maximize key abilities that fit their play style. They also pulled major gameplay elements from the story of Anduril, the hereditary sword of Aragorn's ancestors. Known as Narsil when wielded by Isildur, this was the sword that cut the Ring off Sauron's hand and was shattered. In the course of the novels, the sword is re-forged as the more powerful Anduril ("Flame of the West") and serves as a symbol of Aragorn's acceptance of his heritage and destiny.
The legendary items system also has some more prosaic purposes. "It's a way to both re-purpose earlier content to keep it relevant and provide the player with a mobile quest hub that serves as an alternate means of player customization." To that end, quite a few quests in Mines of Moria will involve a player's legendary item and the need to gather certain bits of material or lore from the world in order to unlock more and more of its power. This is abstracted in-game as a separate items level and experience point total. Legendary items will start at level one and be able to advance to level 50.
What a Piece of Junk!
The game's legendary item system kicks in when a player hits level 51 and acquires an "Unidentified" legendary item from a drop, quest or as a crafted item. Unidentified legendaries have no name and no stats beyond basic damage and one or two small bonuses. They can be identified by the unique pattern on their icon as well as the fact that all legendaries are "unique" and restricted by class. Legendaries come in two categories, melee items and class items (books for Loremasters, burglar's tools for Burglars and so on) and can be sold on the auction house as long as they're unidentified.
Identifying a legendary item requires the player to go to one of two new NPCs in the game -- the Forge Master -- to "identify" the item. Once this happens several new functions kick in. First, the item can no longer be sold on the Auction House (though they can still be traded player-to-player until they are bound). Second, identification brings out the item's "legacies." Legacies are one of approximately thirty possible inherent properties that are assigned randomly to the item. The number of legacies assigned is also random within a specified range determined by the item's base quality. A "rare" or yellow item can only get one or two legacies while an "epic" purple might get four or five and an "incomparable" or teal weapon could get up to nine (though that would be extremely rare). Each legacy is also assigned a "Quality" rating (gold, silver or bronze) based on how powerful it is.
In looking at this system, one would assume therefore that players would naturally gravitate toward the teal items in order to maximize the number of legacies their item can get and reject any weapon with silver or bronze legacies. There's a kicker to this however: leveling. As a legendary item levels up, it begins to acquire "legend points" that can be assigned to increasing the rank of its legacies. As legacies increase in rank they become more powerful. The point cost for increasing a legacy, however, is based on its quality, so ranking up a gold legacy is considerably more expensive than a bronze one and a weapon with points placed in one or two silver legacies can make them far more powerful than one that splits its points between nine different gold ones.
Players can have up to six different legendary items bound to them at any one time and any particular item can only gain experience points when it's actually used in combat. While there will be items available that will allow players to split their experience points among all the items they're advancing, they'll have to make a judgment on whether it's worth slowing down one item's advancement to work on all six they may have. Every ten levels, an item will have to be reforged at a Forge Master in order to advance further. At that time, the player may choose to rename their item and dump any legacies they don't want in favor of randomly assigned new ones.
The Jewel in the Sword
One of the major quest lines in The Lord of the Rings Online has to do with Aragon's decision to reforge Narsil into Anduril. He naturally appeals to the player to assist him by sending him or her to Evendim to search the tombs of his ancestors for a historic jewel that belongs in the sword's pommel. That Aragorn would go to so much trouble for a small detail shows the power of even the tiniest elements of a legendary item. It's no surprise then that players will have to go to equally difficult lengths to obtain the finishing elements for their legendary items: relics.
Relics in The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria are obtained only through the destruction of legendary items at an Item Master. The level of the legendary item destroyed determines the power of the resulting relics. Relics, it should be noted, are not inventory items nor can they be sold or traded. They exist solely in the legendary item information panel and can only be acquired through diligent effort and sacrifice on the player's part. Each relic created will have two or three static bonuses attached to them and be classified as a "Beginning," "Middle" or "End" relic. These can be slotted into one of the three special sockets available on the weapon.
Relics themselves are ranked by tier, with eight potential tiers that determine how powerful their static bonuses are. Fortunately, a relic's tier isn't permanent. Upgrading relics is the major function of the "Relic Master," the second new NPC being added to the game. The Relic Master has the capability of combining relics of like tier into a new, higher-level relic. If the re-forging goes well, the player trades a couple of lower-tier relics for a higher one. If it goes badly, the player will receive a few randomly selected equivalent-tier relics back.
Narsil Nation
Steefel seems almost giddy as he describes the possibilities inherent in the legendary item system. "Legendary items are really going to impact the way the players play the game" he says, and then compares a legendary item's legacies to a player's inherent abilities and relics to a player's traits in terms of the level of customization available. More than that, though, he's excited about the prospect of having truly individualized "loot" in an MMO that's not just random. "Legendary items are going to be important to the player not just for what they can do but because they'll be something that's truly theirs. Every player can have their own unique item and be assured that there's no other like it in the world."
