Computer Games – part 2

Posted on 15 June 2010 by tony

This post started off short, but grew so I had to break it up into different posts. You can check out part 1 here, and you can see all the articles in this series here.

Commodore VIC-20

The only thing I really remember about the VIC-20 is that by the time the C64 came out (the VIC-20 was still on sale) it was mentioned in slightly embarrassed tones. “Oh yeh, I have a Commodore [vic20]”.

Commodore 64

The C64 came out a few months after the Spectrum but it was far more powerful. The graphics and sound were more powerful than IBM PC clones at the time, and it sold about 30 million units. While it was known for it’s games, the machine was also used by industry and science.

I never owned one, but I knew people who did, and I played games on the C64 a few times. For the most part they looked and sounded better than the Spectrum, but game-play tended to be translated directly across, so bad Spectrum games turned out to be bad C64 games. Sometimes limiting features in the Spectrum hardware meant the same game on the C64 was significantly better, but for the most part it was generally the look and sound of the games. At the time, I didn’t really appreciate the price difference (~£400 for a C64 and ~£175 for a 48K Spectrum) and in the UK the price difference meant the Spectrum was dominant for quite a while.

I think Uridium is a good example of how the C64 was superior in many ways to the Spectrum – a more colourful and exciting sounding game on the C64.

Commodore 64 version

Spectrum version

It’s actually quite cool being able to check out the differences between the platforms visually and with audio, because in 1983 all you could do was look at pictures in the magazines and listen to your mates (unless you went around and watched them).

Atari 2600

Before I started writing this I hadn’t really appreciated how old the Atari 2600 was, and hence how dated the games looked. For some reason I half thought it was newer than the 400/800’s, but it was earlier, around the same time as the IntelliVision. I never had an Atari 2600, but a friend from school did (I must have been around 11 or 12 years old). At lunch time we’d go to the chip shop then head to his house to play on his Atari 2600. Or, more often, watch him play. The 2600 had all the classics, Defender, Pitfall!, Pole Position (which I remember playing at lunchtimes).

I remember being really excited about the Atari 2600, it looked so cool, it was such amazing technology and sitting in my friend’s cramped bedroom staring at the amazing sprites it seemed like the future really had arrived.

Looking back, it’s got super-blocky graphics and basic sound. Really, my memory of it was so much better.

BBC Micro B

Ah, the BBC Micro B, it seemed so grown up! I think everyone in my generation met these computers for the first time at school. They seemed to be the defacto standard for educational establishments in the UK. Just as I was getting into my O’Levels, the school started using BBC Micros, and they formed an ‘IT Department’. In our history lessons we used the BBC Micros to play some kind of sea faring game that was intended to teach us the complexity of discovery by sea (having enough rations, for the most part). I remember being taught ‘word processing’ and ‘spreadsheets’ long after I’d learned to write my own on the Spectrum. Mostly we got taught how to use them by the maths teachers, who seemed to be the default IT teachers at the time.

Later, when I was in the 6th form, the Business Studies class had a few of them, and I used to hang out in that class and help with the IT side. I ended up writing a terrible little programme to ‘simulate’ playing the stock market, it had a bunch of companies, and share prices moved in random directions, and you could buy and sell stock. It seemed like the bees knees at the time.

It was also the first time I heard a computer play good music, we had a disc with Eurythmic’s Sweet Dreams on it. It was amazing. We also had a disc with Chuckie Egg and some other stuff, and when I wasn’t helping with the lessons I would sit and quietly collect little piles of chicken feed and some eggs.

Compared to the computer I had at home (still a Spectrum) at the time, the BBC was more sophisticated. It had a floppy disc drive for a start and I was still using tapes on my 48K Spectrum (I never got the later Spectrum models which had discs). I ended up with a rather large collection of floppy discs with various bits of software on them. The keyboard was more industrial as well, I’m sure if you were used to the C64 and similar it was normal, but for a 48K Spectrum owner the BBC Micro was like a real computer keyboard. Programming on the BBC was both easier and more powerful than the Spectrum, and I really took to it (aka the aforementioned share trading thing), and I still remember some of the *FX commands you had to use.

The BBC Micro had a 6502 processor, and I learned my first assembler on that thing. It was also the model we used to learn the Fetch-Execute cycle when I did A Level Computer Science.

All of these things however, pale into insignificance when you realise the true power of the BBC Micro. Micronet and Prestel access. Using a modem, the first time I’d ever seen one, you could connect the BBC Micro to some central service and you could look at information, and, you could play games. More importantly, you could play multi-player games with other people. Real people. At the same time. SHADES. There’s surprisingly little information easily at hand about the original version of SHADES, which is a real shame. But I found it, and I played it. I spoke to real people at the other end of a computer, we talked about treasure and we fought the bad guys. I had an avatar. I was hooked – and that experience would never leave me.

The instant communication with other people, live across the UK, the ability to talk to someone in Manchester while I was in Newcastle was just amazing. To be able to do it while playing a game – well, it was frankly unbelievable.

Long after I’d left school, and while I was working my way through university, the BBC Micro B would rear it’s head again at British Steel Research in Swinden Rotherham. At least one of the departments there were using the BBC Micro to analyse data and carry out experiments. I forget many of the details but I was impressed at the time about the longevity of the thing and how useful it was.

And least it ever be forgotten, the BBC Domesday Project. An early attempt at recording a lot of information on computers and making it available to people. Sadly it’s suffered from technology lifespan issues, but at the time it was ground breaking and an incredible feat.

But for me, the BBC Micro B will be remembered for two things. Chuckie Egg, and talking to someone working in an office in Manchester (a solicitor if I remember, playing a character called Peardrop or something similar, in a fantasy world) while I was sitting in a classroom in Newcastle.

Computer Games – part 1

Posted on 13 June 2010 by tony

I’ve played computer games over the years on a wide range of platforms. I was fortunate enough to get an Atari 400 and a ZX Spectrum in the early 80’s and I’d been playing games a little before that in the arcades. Here’s a brief history of my computer gaming. You’ll notice that until the Wii, I never had or really used a Nintendo system, I don’t know why. I didn’t own all these systems, some of them were owned by friends, others by my school. The list is in no particular order, because my memory isn’t good enough to do that for you. Also, I thought this would start out as a brief list, but as usual, I’ve waffled so it’s now broken up into several posts.

Arcade Machines

I can’t really remember how old I was when I first noticed games in arcades that weren’t just fruit machines (slot machines to the rest of you) or one arm bandits. But I remember where I was. Berwick upon Tweed and ‘The Coast’ (Newcastle, meaning Whitley Bay or Tynemouth). I remember spending more of my pocket money than was healthy in the arcade in The Spanish City in Whitley Bay (yes, of Dire Straits fame). I was never really very good at the games, I never had enough money to play and play and get any good, so I invariably only saw the first couple of levels. In Berwick there was an arcade associated with the holiday camp site we stayed at, and I remember playing Mr. Do! quite a bit and a year or so later Mr. Do’s Castle. By the time I was playing arcade games, I think Asteroids and Defender had already had their day.

For me, the arcade was a special holiday treat mostly, so I didn’t really end up part of the generation that grew up spending their spare time in arcades, a few hours for me every few months in The Spanish City or once a year at Berwick was about my limit. But those games got under my skin and into my head and I’ll never forget the sounds and the flashing lights.

I’ll reel off a few games that stuck in my memory most of all.

Mr. Do! – as mentioned above, this one and the others in this line were favourites.
Xevious – I loved this vertical scrolling shooter, out of all the shooters I played this was the only one I was even remotely any good at.
Defender – I had a love/hate relationship with the arcade version of this, I owned the Atari 400 conversion which I loved and could play for hours, and I never liked how hard the arcade version was in comparison.
Gorf – who couldn’t love Gorf! For the speech alone.
Galaxians – my favourite static space shooter.
Gauntlet – astounding and until I started this list I’d forgotten about it. This and Outrun! were both in the Leisure Centre in Eldon Square in Newcastle, and that’s where I played them in my late teens.
Commando – I sucked, big time.
Blasteroids – I remember playing this a lot in The Spanish City, but it was probably only for like 7 minutes once in my entire life, memories are strange like that.
1942 – after Xevious this was my favourite vertical scrolling shooter, and I played it quite a lot.
Missile Command – which reminds me of yet another place I’d forgotten that I used to play arcade games – the local swimming baths had a single arcade game (Missile Command for a long time) in their ‘coffee’ room which overlooked the pool. They had a hot drink vending machine (which also did scalding hot oxo soup), and after swimming for an hour or so I’d head here and spend my locker money on Missile Command.

Atari 400

I think I got an Atari 400 before I got the ZX Spectrum, which also reminds me that I was a bloody lucky kid for a whole range of reasons. I fell in love with the Atari for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it brought that arcade experience I’d had previously, into the house, you wouldn’t believe how excited I was to be playing Space Invaders, PacMan, Defender and Centipede in my own home (on the TV no less!) but secondly, it had a keyboard and you could make it do things. You could get it to make sounds and put images on the TV. I didn’t really know what it was, that it was programming and that it would probably define my entire education and career path, but I knew I liked it. The Atari 400 had both a cartridge system and a cassette recorder. Most of the games I had were on cartridge, and the cassette was for saving things I’d typed in (with my sister’s help) from magazines. I remember spending a couple of days typing in (all in HEX) a donkey kong style game, and moments before we got to save it to tape, the power supply in the back of the Atari 400 (always the Achilles heel) wiggled and the whole thing reset, losing everything we’d done.

So I was probably between 10 or 12 years old when I first learned the lesson of when to backup your data (frequently and often).

The Atari 400 had the classic Atari joystick. A thick square base, single stick and one fire button. When you’re a kid, holding that joystick in one hand meant pushing the corner into the joint between your thumb and your palm. Holding it there for 6 hours while you played Defender with no save game option usually resulted in pain, blisters and a bruise. So as well as teaching me about backups, the Atari taught me about repetitive strain injury and how computers would be making my hands hurt for the rest of my life.

It was a big beast of a machine, with a solid metal cover over the electronics to meet RF emissions regulations, the keyboard was flat and horrible to type on (but we coped), and at least was spill resistant. I still remember the sound the thing made when you first turned it on, a little beep-crunch style noise and the white-noise it made if you opened the cartridge slot without turning it off first. In some ways, the Atari 400 cartridge system spoiled me when I moved to all cassette systems like the ZX Spectrum, where had my instant game starts gone? I do wonder if we’ll see a move away from DVD and Blu-Ray discs for games back towards a solid state solution with the increase in SSD capacity.

I didn’t have that many games for the Atari, they weren’t cheap (compared to other systems), but the ones I did have I loved very much.

Asteroids – with filled in raster graphics rather than the empty wireframe of the arcade version, this Asteroids conversion looked awesome (honest), and I got pretty good.
Defender – I played this on the Atari 400 before I ever tried in the arcade, and although the game play was similar, the arcade version was much harder to control. I remember two things, playing it for lots of hours in a row and using my foot to press the space bar to activate the bomb (since the joystick only had one button).
Centipede – like the others, a classic arcade game with simple gameplay that kept me pressing the fire button.
Star Raiders – probably the most complex computer game I’d ever seen, and a pre-cursor to Elite, Wing Commander, and many first person style games. This game kept me absorbed for many, many hours.

I remember spending many hours in Fenwick’s in Eldon Square looking through their games in their huge, new computer games section (which eventually moved or shrank and the area was re-used as their sports section).

Sinclair ZX81

I didn’t own a ZX81, and I can’t remember who did the own the one I used (sorry!), but I remember playing Horace Goes Skiing on the thing and being blown away by the crisp, engaging graphics and simple, responsive and engaging gameplay 😉 Anyway, I don’t really remember much more about the ZX81 other than it was tiny, especially compared to the tank-sized Atari 400.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum

I had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k. I did not own a Commodore 64. I wonder if people these days feel the Sony vs. Nintendo or PC vs Mac or Sega vs Anyone platform wars are vicious? You want vicious, you should have seen the C64 vs. Speccy platform wars of the 80’s. Only a tiny minority of people could afford to be in both the C64 and Speccy camps, you had one, but you didn’t have both, and while in our hearts we knew the C64 was technically superior we also knew what that meant in truth. What it resulted in. What it gave us. It gave us developers (on the ZX Spectrum) who worked magic on inferior hardware with idiosyncratic graphics and terrible sound. Worked magic and twisted the limits in every way they could imagine to give us high quality, engaging, terrific games that lasted for months. We got multi-channel sound out of a single speaker, not because the hardware supported it but because crazy programmers made it happen with trickery and pokery the likes of which has never been seen since. Tired of the static loading screen on games which took 5 minutes to read off tape? Fear not – ninja coders discovered ways of loading games and displaying animated or interactive screens at the same time. And so on.

On top of the software tricks that allowed the Spectrum to behave in ways it was never designed to do, there were a million peripherals which moved it from a little computer to a flexible and useful tool with thousands of uses.

The Atari 400 had wetted my appetite for writing software, the Spectrum turned me into a programmer, showed me that software was like poetry and that it could be both functional and beautiful in its own right.

But, this post is supposed to be about games, and the Spectrum had literally thousands. Despite the limitations of the hardware, the Spectrum had a version of just about every arcade classic it was possible to port, and there were very few titles which appeared on the C64 but not the Speccy. Most games were played with the keyboard, although if you could afford a joystick and an interface you could sit back in style (I opted for a Kempston micro-switch joystick, you can see a picture here). Some people preferred QAOP (up, down, left, right) while others were fans of QWPL (left, right, up, down).

It would take me days to write down the Spectrum games I remembered, and even longer to discover the ones I’d forgotten, and so here’s a short list which in no way at all does the system any justice.

Skool Dayz – I was never very good at it, but I remember there being some controversy around the game, and it was okay to play.
Jet Set Willy – a classic, seriously, and I’m still humming that damn tune. (If I was a rich man …..)
Manic Miner – anyone who’s never played this should, and anyone who’s ever played it will recognise this.
Tranz-Am – memorable not for the gameplay alone, but because you could play it two player on the same keyboard. On a 48K Spectrum, which is about half the size of a regular full size keyboard these days. Two kids, both using the same keyboard. ‘mazing.
JetPac – simple, addictive, fun.
Uridium – amazing side scroller with just awesome music and graphics!
Lightforce – there was a lot of hype around this game, thanks to some amazing trick which meant the colours on the sprites didn’t bleed together like they did on all other Spectrum games. It turned out it was just clever sprite design, but none-the-less it sold well as a result. Check out the article in Crash magazine.
Ah man there’s so many, Atic Atac, SaberWulf, Knight Lore, Bard’s Tale, Spy vs. Spy (split screen!), Elite, Arkanoid, and on and on and on.

Check out Your Sinclair’s top 100 list here (courtesy of World of Spectrum). World of Spectrum has their own top 100 here.

Looking around on the web for various sites relating to old computer systems and games machines, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum appears to have one of the largest followings of any old system. I’m not surprised, it endured and grew and left a generation of owners.

I thought I’d write more about the Spectrum, but it’s hard because there’s just so much I could write, I don’t know how to limit it. If I start it’ll just go on for ever so this will have to do. Suffice to say it’s the computer system I have fondest memories of.

Anyway, I managed to get through four systems, and I’m already over 2000 words. I’ll save the others (and there are many to go) for another post or two. Still to come, Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64, Atari 2600, BBC Micro B, Acorn Archimedes, Amstrad PC1512, Amstrad PC1640, Sega Mega Drive (Sega Genesis), Microsoft XBox, Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 2, Sony Playstation 3, and all manner of PC’s.

Lord of the Rings Online – Virtues, Traits and Deeds! (part five)

Posted on 15 January 2010 by tony

This is the fifth article in a series of articles about the Trait system in Lord of the Rings Online. This article covers Class based Traits. You can check out the previous articles here – 1, 2, 3, 4 or on the articles page.

Introduction

Of all the Traits in the Lord of the Rings Online system, Class Traits are the most numerous. As the name suggests, they are all unique on a per class basis, and there are many of them to choose from. More than any other Trait, Class Traits will affect how your character performs in nearly all combat situations. They change skills, improve effects, remove or replace abilities and generally have a profound impact on what your character can achieve.

Since there are so many of them, this article is not going to cover them all in any specific detail. Instead it will focus on the general system, the Class Trait sets introduced in the Moria expansion and the bonuses they bring, and provide resources where you can find out more about what Traits your favourite character gets.

Gaining Class Traits

Earning Class Traits is the same for every class, and every Trait. From level 15 upwards, using various class skills will trigger a new Deed. That Deed will require you to use the same skill a certain number of times, at the end of that process you will earn the particular Class Trait as a reward. Not all skills trigger Deeds at the same time, and since skills are earned at varying levels, you’ll earn the Class Traits at different rates as well. Also, not all the Deeds are equally difficult and many are affected by play style. For example, you may use Quick Thrust 50 times in a fight but use Shield Bash once per day, and as a result, you’re going to earn Deeds at different rates. The intent I believe is to emulate improving your character in-line with those skills you use most often. However, it doesn’t always work out that neatly because some underused skills are much improved by their Deeds so while you would not normally use them, you are eager to do so to gain the improved version.

The following image shows the Deed window open at the list of Class Traits, the progress of one of those Traits and details about how many uses are still required to complete the Deed.

The number of times a skill can be used each day in order to progress a Class Trait Deed varies, and is usually based on the skill cool-down and whether it needs to be used in combat or not. Non-combat skills tend to have a smaller use per day limit (5, 10 or 15 for example), while combat related skills that refresh quickly tend to be much higher (in the hundreds). The number of times you must use the skill to complete the Deed also varies and can be in the low 10’s to 2000 or more. For some skills you use all the time this won’t be an issue, but for other skills you’ll have to remind yourself to do something about using them, and as you can see above, you can add the Deed progress to your quest tracker sidebar as a reminder.

It is generally true that combat skills must be used on enemies which return experience points in order to qualify as having successfully used them to progress the Deed, and likewise, if you use a skill and miss, it may not count (usually skill dependant).

As you can imagine, all this adds up to mean that progressing Class Trait based Deeds can be very time consuming and something you need to work at, rather than just happening by default. It also means you could still be working on them well beyond level 50.

Equipping Class Traits

Class Traits are equipped in the same way all Traits are, by visiting a Bard. You’ll see the same dialog, and you simply select the Class Traits you have available from the left, as shown in the screenshot below.

Viewing Class Traits

Class Traits are viewed using the regular Trait dialog, but there is an added element of complexity since the release of the Mines of Moria – Class Trait sets. Each Class Trait belongs to one of three different sets, the process is covered in more detail in the next section, but it results in there being three screens to look at when viewing your Class Traits.

At the opening screen of the Trait dialog, you can see your class Traits and on the right side all the bonuses you have earned (more on bonuses later), this is shown in the following screenshot.

Once you click on the ‘Class’ tab in the dialog, there is a further tab at the bottom of the dialog which selects which of the Trait sets you are viewing. An example of a single classes set of Traits is shown below (click on each image for a larger version).

The icons in the Class Trait section are similar to the Virtue section. A diamond on each edge means the Trait is equipped. A coloured icon with no diamonds means the Trait has been earned but is not equipped. A light grey icon with a ring means that a Deed is in progress to earn this Trait but is not yet complete, and a grey icon with no ring means that no progress is being made to earn this Trait.

On the right of the dialog you will see a list of bonuses, they are explained in more detail in the next section.

Class Trait Sets

Prior to the Mines of Moria expansion, classes had a single list of Traits. Sometimes they complimented each other, and in some ways groups of them directed the character towards certain roles. With Moria, this was formalised into three sets for each class. There is no requirement to only use Traits from a specific set, however, there are incentives to do so. Each set is designed to give a character a certain focus, for example with Guardians there is a Trait set for generating more hate, a Trait set for doing damage with two-handed weapons and a Trait set for lasting longer in fights with single large enemies. Each set has a name and a brief description which you can read.

Within each set, the Traits are geared towards the stated aim of that set, although it’s not always entirely obvious why some Traits are included (however since the Traits existed before the sets, there’s probably a few they just had to find homes for). As mentioned, you are not penalised for picking Traits from a mix of sets, and it’s a valid approach to get the customisations you want.

However, if you do pick Traits from within a single set, the more you equip, the better the resulting set bonus is, and eventually, you earn the chance to equip a set specific Legendary Trait. That list of bonuses are shown on the right side of the Class Trait window, as shown in the previous section.

Each set provides a minor bonus with 2 Traits equipped, better bonuses at 3, the best bonuses at 4 and with 5 equipped you get an additionally Legendary Trait which you may then use. You do get all the bonuses you are eligible for, so picking two Traits from one set and three from another gives you two different sets of bonuses. Changing your equipped Traits later will change the bonus and if you become ineligible for the Legendary Trait then you will no longer be able to use it.

The following screenshots show a Champion class Trait window. Hovering over an equipped Trait in a set shows you any bonuses in effect. The first shows a Trait from a set with only one Trait equipped (no bonuses) and the second from a set with 5 Traits equipped (all bonuses).

As well as being listed when you hover over skills, the bonuses in effect are listed in the basic Trait dialog. This is a repeat of the dialog shown earlier, on the right-hand side you can see the three bonuses that are in effect due to having 4+ Traits equipped from the same set, and no more than 1 from any other set (in this case).

It is well worth taking the time to understand the three different sets, what they mean for your character and which Traits you need to earn to achieve them. It is not cheap to move Class Traits around, but it is one area that might support different play styles (solo vs grouped for example).

Summary

Class Traits provides the greatest and most visible customisations of your character. They are the Trait above all other Traits that affect everything your character does. They can totally change the way in which your character behaves during different kinds of combat and let you focus on the play style you enjoy most.

You can find out more about your Class Traits over at the Lotro Wiki, and you can check out information on Trait Sets (and all the Class Traits in them) at the Lotro Lorebook.

Lord of the Rings Online – Virtues, Traits and Deeds! (part four)

Posted on 2 January 2010 by tony

This is the fourth article in the series of posts on the Lord of the Rings Trait system (including Virtues and Deeds). This part of the series covers Race based Traits. You can find parts one, two and three under those links.

Introduction

Each of the four races in the Lord of the Rings online game (Men, Hobbits, Elves and Dwarves) have a set of 9 unique Traits. The Traits try and complement the particular mythology or maybe enhance stereotypes of the race in question. In all cases, eight of the Traits come from Deeds related to monster killing and one Trait comes from a purchased item (sold by a reputation vendor in each race’s home city).

Although the Traits are in theory unique, in order to try and balance things out Turbine have ensured the races get similar classes of Trait. For example, each race gets a Trait which affects fellowship manoeuvre’s (FM’s), one which provides a +20 bonus to one character attribute, one which provides a fast travel skill to a starting location, one which provides an increase in damage from certain weapons, etc. As the Traits get harder to earn (higher level creatures), they get more unique.

Gaining Racial Traits

Each Race has a set of three creatures to which they show great enmity. Eight of the Racial Traits are earned by killing creatures in those categories. The types of creatures to be killed highlight one area where earning Racial Traits is not an equally difficult activity for all races. Elves and Dwarves must kill enemies which only come in Signature and Elite varieties for two of their Traits while Men and Hobbits do not suffer this issue. Other than that disparity, the process is the same for all races. For any one creature type there are two or three Deeds required, each opens up at a certain level and requires the previous level to be completed. They are named Enmity of the Creature I, II or III depending on which rank is being worked on.

For example, in the case of Dwarves they can earn Enmity of the Dourhands I at level 13 (when killing any Dourhand will trigger the Deed), but may not start Enmity of the Dourhands II until they are level 19 and have completed Enmity of the Dourhands I.

The ninth Racial Trait is always purchased in the character’s home town, from the reputation vendor. It’s a page that when read, creates a Deed which provides the Trait as a reward, already completed. You need Friend standing with the relevant reputation to purchase the item. This Trait always provides bonuses to 3 Virtues, and importantly, allows an equipped Virtue to rise to rank 11. For example, the Virtuous Man Race Trait provides +1 to Confidence, Justice, and Patience. Equipping that Racial Trait would allow you to take those three Virtues to rank 11 (the normal limit being rank 10), as well as automatically increasing them by 1 rank when equipped.

Equipping / Viewing Racial Traits

Racial Traits are equipped at a Bard like any other Trait (at the cost of around 22 silver each). Each character may have up to 5 Racial Traits equipped from their choice of 9.

The Trait dialog shows you your currently equipped Race Traits, as shown below.

Race Traits – Complete list

The following tables list all the different Race based Traits, and information relating to each of them (such as required level, benefit, and associated Deed).

Race of Man – Traits

Level	Deed	Trait	Benefit
13	Enmity of the Dead I (50)	Upper-cut	Short distance Melee attack
13	Enmity of the Wargs I (50)	Man of the Fourth Age	+20 Will
19	Enmity of the Dead II (100)	Tactics and Might Bonus	Adds 5% to FM healing and damage
25	Enmity of the Dead III (150)	Man Sword-damage Bonus	Increases 1H and 2H sword damage
29	Enmity of the Wargs II (150)	Return to Bree	Fast travel to Bree
30	Enmity of the Hillmen I (150)	Balance of Man	+1% to Evade, Parry, and Block
35	Enmity of the Hillmen II (250)	Strength of Morale	Skill which restores ~3000 morale
35	Enmity of the Wargs III (150)	Duty-Bound	Skill which temporarily increases fellowship member morale
35	Friend of Men of Bree	Virtuous Man	+1 Confidence, Justice, Patience

Elves – Traits

Level	Deed	Trait	Benefit
13	Enmity of the Goblins I (50)	Sylvan Shadows	Skill which provides Stealth ability
13	Enmity of the Orcs I (50)	Friend of Man	+20 Fate
19	Enmity of the Goblins II (100)	Tactics and Conviction Bonus	Adds 5% to FM healing and power
25	Enmity of the Goblins III (150)	Elf Bow-damage Bonus	Increases bow damage
29	Enmity of the Orcs II (150)	Return to Rivendell	Fast travel to Rivendell
30	Enmity of the Drakes I (150)	Elf One-handed Sword Damage Bonus	Increases 1h sword damage
35	Enmity of the Drakes II (250)	Power of the Eldar	Skill which temporarily increases fellowship member power
35	Enmity of the Orcs III (150)	Eldar’s Grace	Skill which provides temporary improvement to Parry
35	Friend of Elves of Rivendell	Virtuous Elf	+1 Wisdom, Patience, Charity

Dwarves – Traits

Level	Deed	Trait	Benefit
13	Enmity of the Dourhands I (50)	Head-butt	Short distance Melee attack
13	Enmity of the Goblins I (50)	Fateful Dwarf	+20 Fate
19	Enmity of the Dourhands II (100)	Guile and Might Bonus	Adds 5% to FM damage and DOTs
25	Enmity of the Dourhands III (150)	Dwarf Axe-damage Bonus	Increases 1H and 2H axe damage
29	Enmity of the Goblins II (150)	Return to Thorin’s Gate	Fast travel to Thorin’s Gate
30	Enmity of the Trolls I (150)	Dwarf-endurance	Skill which increases fellowship vitality
35	Enmity of the Goblins III (150)	Endurance of Stone	Skill which provides mitigation improvements
35	Enmity of the Trolls II (250)	Shield Brawler	Increases Block chance
35	Friend of Thorin’s Hall	Virtuous Dwarf	+1 Fidelity, Honesty, Loyalty

Hobbits – Traits

Level	Deed	Trait	Benefit
13	Enmity of the Spiders I (50)	Hobbit-stature	+20 Might
13	Enmity of the Wolves I (50)	Stoop for a Stone	Ranged attack skill
19	Enmity of the Wolves II (100)	Guile and Conviction Bonus	Adds 5% to FM healing and DoT’s
25	Enmity of the Wolves III (150)	Hobbit Club-damage Bonus	Increases 1h and 2h club damage
29	Enmity of the Spiders II (150)	Return to Michel Delving	Fast travel to Michel Delving
30	Enmity of the Goblins I (150)	Hobbit-Stealth	Stealth skill
35	Enmity of the Goblins II (250)	Hobbit-Silence	Feign death skill
35	Enmity of the Spiders III (150)	Hobbit-resilience	Provides a non-stacking Hope buff for the fellowship
35	Friend of Men of The Mathom Society	Virtuous Hobbit	+1 Empathy, Honesty, Idealism

You can see those tables laid out much more nicely over at the lotro-wiki – here.

Summary

Race based Traits allow you to enhance the natural talents of your character as dictated by their race. Some of them are very useful, for example the Hobbit-Silence Trait is invaluable regardless of the class your Hobbit picks, and the huge heal that Men can obtain is a source of jealousy for many other races. The most often sought after skill is the fast travel skill, since any method of reducing journey time in Middle Earth is worth the effort.

Lord of the Rings Online – Virtues, Traits and Deeds! (part three)

Posted on 28 December 2009 by tony

This is the third post in a series of articles about the Trait system in the online roleplaying game, Lord of the Rings Online. You can see all the posts in this series by checking the Articles page, under ‘Virtues, Traits and Deeds (Lord of the Rings Online)’ (this link should take you to the V’s).

Update: This article was updated on 2nd January 2010 to correct the section on the Virtue Dialog.

Introduction

The first type of Trait you’re likely to earn in the Lord of the Rings Online is a Virtue. For the most part they are given as rewards to Deeds, although it’s possible to obtain them in other ways as well. Virtues carry the names of good qualities such as Charity, Valour and Justice. In this article I do not intend to list all the Virtues and their benefits, there are much better resources out there which do that. I really just want to provide an overview on what they are, where you get them and how you use them.

Benefits

All Virtues provide three different benefits and each specific benefit is also provided by three different Virtues, but the amount of benefit given varies. For a particular benefit, one Virtue provides the most benefit, a second Virtue provides a middle-amount and the third Virtue provides the least amount. Here’s a concrete example using the Justice, Determination and Tolerance Virtues.

Justice provides increases to in-combat morale regeneration, base morale and out-of-combat morale regeneration. The primary benefit of Justice is in-combat morale regeneration (+6 per rank). No other Virtue provides this much increase per rank.
Determination provides increases to agility, in-combat morale regeneration and base morale. The primary benefit of Determination is agility (+3 per rank), and in-combat morale regeneration is a secondary benefit (+4.5 per rank).
Tolerance gives increases to tactical damage mitigation (primary), agility (secondary) and in-combat morale regeneration (tertiary benefit). The agility increase is less than Determination (at +2 per rank) and the in-combat morale regeneration is less than both Justice and Determination (at +3 per rank).

So, for any particular benefit which interests you, there will be three different Virtues which provide it. However, they provide it in decreasing value. One Virtue has it as a primary benefit, giving you the greatest increase, another has it as a secondary benefit and a third Virtue has it as a tertiary benefit. This system allows for a reasonably complex set of interactions and dependencies.

Gaining Virtues

As mentioned previously, for the most part Virtues are obtained by completing deeds. These are usually location based enemy kill deeds, but also include quest line completion deeds and location discovery deeds. Deeds usually provide a single rank increase to the Virtue although there are a small number of deeds which give 2 Virtue ranks.

If you do not have one of the Virtue traits, then completing any deed which provides any number of ranks gives you the new Trait (which you may then equip via a Bard). If you already have the Virtue at any rank, then any deed which gives that Virtue increases the rank appropriately (up to a maximum rank of 10, at the time of writing).

The reward section of the deed dialog shows which Virtue will be affected, and what rank it will be increased to. It does not show the number of ranks you will get in addition to those you already have, but the final rank you will be at if you get the reward. For example, the image below shows that on completing the deed listed (The Ruins of Breeland), the Patience Virtue will increase to rank 4.

If another deed is completed before this one which also increases Patience, the reward would change to show the rank as 5.

It does not matter what level your character is, and what level the enemies or location you’re fighting in is. If you’re level 65 and you do a deed in Breelands which gives you +1 to Tolerance for killing 40 spiders, you’ll get the increase. There are more ways of earning Virtue ranks than there are ranks of a Virtue so you’ll have some choice if you want to max your Virtues out.

Characters can earn Virtues as soon as they can start completing deeds which provide them (realistically, this will be around level 6-8), but they may not equip their first Virtue until level 7. Subsequent Virtue Trait slots open up at levels 9, 11, 17 and 23.

Equipping Virtues

Virtues are equipped by visiting a Bard, and using the first tab in the Trait management dialog (shown below) which lists all the Virtues you have earned and what rank they currently are (shown as orange squares).

As you can see, you can have five Virtues equipped at most at any one time. That’s a pretty small number considering there are 20 different Virtues in the game (and hence, 20 different benefits that can be obtained). Virtues are probably the traits that get swapped around the most (especially those that give increases to different types of damage resistance). Changing a Virtue Trait is reasonably inexpensive compared to other Traits.

Viewing Virtues

You can look at your current Virtues using the Trait window in two ways. The first tab shows your equipped Virtues and we’ve seen this dialog before. Hovering the mouse over a Trait icon shows you the benefits provided by that Trait.

If you click the Virtues tab of the Trait dialog you get a wheel-like layout, showing the 20 Virtues in the game, your current rank (if any) in each of them. It looks like this.

There are four different icon styles in the Virtue dialog, and they each mean something different, allowing you to see what state of progression each of your character’s Virtues are.

	A totally grey icon with the number 1, no gold bars below it and no gold ring. Your character has earned no ranks in this Virtue, and currently has no Deeds under-way which might provide any ranks.
	A grey icon, with a number representing the number of Virtue ranks the character has earned, along with a matching number of gold bars underneath and a gold quest ring. This icon means your character does not have this Virtue equipped, but they have earned the listed number of ranks and they have at least one Deed underway which will provide further ranks in this Virtue. Clicking this icon will open the Deed dialog on one Deed which is underway and provides this Virtue.
	A colour icon, with a number representing the number of Virtue ranks the character has earned, along with a matching number of gold bars underneath but no gold quest ring. This icon means your character does not have this Virtue equipped, but they have earned the listed number of ranks. However, they have no Deeds under-way which provide this Virtue and hence are not currently earning any further ranks.
	A colour icon surrounded by four diamonds, with a number representing the number of Virtue ranks the character has earned, along with a matching number of gold bars underneath but no gold quest ring. This icon means your character does have this Virtue equipped and they have earned the listed number of ranks. The ring does not indicate either way if the character is or is not earning any further ranks – however like the previous icon you can click and if they are working on any Deeds which provide this Virtue, the Deed window will be opened.

Hovering the mouse over an icon lists the benefits, as shown below for the Loyalty Virtue.

Summary

Virtues are the trait your character will start earning earliest. There are 20 Virtues, and they provide benefits to 20 different character attributes. Each benefit is improved by three different Virtues, and all Virtues provide three different benefits. They are cheap to switch around, and progressing them all to rank 10 will keep you busy long past the point where you reach the current level cap in-game.

For a full list of the benefits of Virtues, check out this page at the Lotro-Wiki site, and for an extremely useful resource for working out how to get the Virtues you want, check out the Virtues page at BurgZerg.

Lord of the Rings Online – Virtues, Traits and Deeds! (part two)

Posted on 27 December 2009 by tony

This is part two of a series of posts about the Trait system in the MMO game – Lord of the Rings Online. The series started with this post. This time, I’ll be focussing on the Deed system in the game since most of the methods of earning Traits rely on it.

Introduction

There are two main mechanisms for tracking progress on activities in Lord of the Rings online. They are the quest tracker and the deed system. The quest tracker is where most of the XP earning activity of your character is focussed, while the deed system covers the other stuff. That other stuff includes titles and traits, and sometimes reputation or items.

The key difference between quests and deeds is that starting a quest involves finding someone who needs you to do something (for the most part), while starting deeds tends to be more accidental and passive.

What are Deeds

Deeds are actions your character has completed which are either more general in nature or more epic in nature than a single quest. For example, a single quest may have you trying to locate a lost fortress, while a deed might encompass finding all the fortresses in a particular area. Deeds are things that people hear about, things that bring you renown and hence lead to titles or changes to your character to reflect the journey that they have undertaken.

When others hear that you have vanquished 200 orcs in the Lonelands you will find them calling you by a title, or if you find yourself favouring a particular attack you may find that attack becomes both more efficient and more deadly, by completing 60 quests in the Shire you might find you’ve joined the Bounders in the defence of their land, etc.

Starting a deed is a passive activity. They are started when you complete the first step in them, even if you don’t know what that step is. When you kill your first Goblin in the Breelands you might find you’ve been given a new deed to kill 50 of them, or when you find your first lost fortress in the North Downs you are given a deed to find them all, or even using a particular skill presents a learning opportunity and using that skill another 900 times brings you some insight and more deadly force. You’ll see some text pop up on the screen, and an icon in the notification area telling you that you’ve been assigned a new deed. Clicking the icon opens the deed window (see below) which gives more details about what you need to achieve.

One of the complications is that deeds are sometimes level linked. Completing an activity at level 5 won’t give you the deed, but the same thing at level 15 might. This is particularly true for deeds that result in Class, Racial and Legendary traits. In the first 20 or so levels, you’ll find you build up a lot of potential deeds, and complete few of them. As you gain levels you’ll get time to go back and complete those deeds to round out your character, while earning new deeds from new locations further on.

Some of the more common deeds are,

Kill deeds – you must kill a certain number of a particular creature in a specific area. The basic deed tends to give you a title, and the advanced deed (started when you complete the basic one) tends to give you a Virtue trait.
Scout deeds – finding locations, objects, buildings or people. Rewards vary, and sometimes include traits.
Quest deeds – completing a series of specific quests, or completing a total number of quests in an area. These often lead to traits or reputation rewards (or more esoteric rewards, such as being able to swift travel to that location by horse).
Collection deeds – finding and collecting particular items.
Skill deeds – using the same skill many times. These always reward you with a Class trait, they are usually level restricted so using a skill at level 38 might not trigger the deed, while the same skill at 40 might.
Enmity Kill deeds – rather than killing creatures in a particular area, these deeds require a character to kill a specific type of creature anywhere and lead to Race traits. The deeds come in several ranks, and are all level restricted.

The Deed Window

Deeds are managed through the deed window, which can be opened using shift + L. The deed window is a complex beast and it’s easy to miss stuff. Here’s how it looks.

The numbered areas are,

At the top of the window (new look with the release of Mirkwood) you can choose tabs for different areas of the game or different types of deeds.
At the very bottom, and the bit most often missed, are tabs which select a sub-area or type based on the selection chosen at #1. For example, the deed window above has Eriador as the area, and each of the tabs in #2 are for the different locations, such as The Shire, or North Downs.
Here you can filter what is shown in the window, the key option is the ‘Completed’ checkbox. When ticked it shows only completed deeds, when unticked it shows only uncompleted deeds.
This side of the window shows all the deeds which match the type (#1), area (#2) and filter (#3).
This shows the progress for the chosen deed. It may be a bar such as in this example, or a list of tasks (in a later example).
And finally, the rewards for completing the deed are listed in this area, you may find a small vertical scroll-bar if there are more than one reward. Rewards may be traits (as in this case, a virtue), or reputation, an item, or sometimes combinations of rewards.

It’s easy to open the deed window and forget the tabs around #2, or open the window and forget you’re looking at completed deeds not ones you still need to finish.

Deed progress is measured in different ways, depending on the deed in question. Here we can see a deed which results in a Class trait (and so is progressed by using a skill over and over again).

Hovering the mouse over the blue bar shows the progress. When the bar turns yellow, it means you may no longer progress this deed any further on this day. Class skill based deeds usually require the enemy they are used against to provide XP (i.e. no slaughtering hundreds of grey enemies) and so have a high daily limit. However, some class skills aren’t combat related (such as buffs, or summoning pets) and so have a much smaller daily use limit (maybe as low as 5 per day).

Here we see a deed which requires killing a certain type of creature to progress.

And here we see a deed which has a number of discrete steps which must be completed.

How they link to Traits

Deeds and traits go hand-in-hand because the vast majority of traits are earned by completing deeds (not all deeds give traits, but nearly all traits are given by deeds). In the examples above we can see in the rewards the following traits,

The virtue Empathy in the first image, where the character already has 6 ranks so earning it will provide the 7th.
The class trait Athletic in the second image, which will modify how a particular skill for that character works.
The race trait Dwarf-Endurance in the third image.
Another class trait Deathstorm in the final image.

Summary

If quests are the Fairy Cake of Lord of the Rings online then deeds are the Pink Icing. Deeds provide many rewards including titles and swift travel options, but most importantly they provide traits. It is common to complete all the quests in an area before completing all the deeds and you need to decide whether to move on and complete the deeds later, or stay longer and complete the deeds there and then. There is no right answer. Skill based deeds take a long time to progress and if you don’t actively work on them, you’re likely to never complete some of them.

In the third article, I’ll focus on Virtues.

Lord of the Rings Online – Virtues, Traits and Deeds! (part one)

Posted on 27 December 2009 by tony

I tend to write blog posts for a few reasons, maybe I just have something in my head I want to get out, or I feel like ‘talking’ or because I want to write something I hope might be useful. This post falls into that last category. Here then, is a long blog post probably broken up into multiple parts, on the Traits system within the Lord of the Rings online game. It won’t be the most comprehensive guide to Traits, but I hope it’ll be a useful introduction to the different elements and how they fit together.

Introduction

Most roleplaying games have a number of elements which combine together to give your character their shape. Often, there is an overall level which provides a rough power indicator for your character, then some skills which define what you can do and usually some attributes (like strength or agility). Beyond that, games differ greatly on how they let you fine tune your particular character, and in online games, that fine tuning is often something that involves the most effort for the least overall reward. Despite the small returns, those little tweaks are what make your Warrior different from some other Warrior. Yours might have a quicker thrust, or a faster retreat option, while theirs might have a stronger arm or more solid shield.

In Lord of the Rings Online that customisation is provided by the Traits system. Traits affect your character attributes and skills in a multitude of different ways. Traits might provide more morale, faster power regeneration, they might extend the time a skill works for, give you more resistance to fire based attacks, or even provide entirely new skills alltogether. Two Hunter characters might fair very differently in the same fight based on their trait choices. There are four types of traits, lots of different traits in each type, completely different traits for each class and race, and a large number of ways they can be earned. You could spend weeks reviewing all the options and how they affect a specific character. For the most part, average players don’t spend that much time on them, but as you reach higher levels there usually comes a moment where you wonder why someone else survived a fight you didn’t and often the answer is trait choice.

Here then is my description of Traits, how they’re earned, why they’re called Virtues and why Deeds are so important. Part one will be a general overview of the system.

Types

There are four types of trait. The different types tend for the most part to be earned in different ways, although there is some overlap. In the section below I’ll provide a basic overview of each type and how they are most commonly earned. Subsequent posts will go into more detail on each of the different types.

Virtues (can be equipped from level 7)

Virtues are the most basic trait, and your character starts earning these almost as soon as they start adventuring. Each virtue provides three benefits to your character in the form of improvements to their attributes. The range of attributes is diverse and includes basic stats such as Agility, defences such as Fire, improvements to in-combat power regeneration, and a large list of other possible benefits. Nearly all virtues are earned as the rewards for common deeds. They tend to be location based deeds such as killing orcs in The Lonelands or scouting ancient ruins in the North Downs.

Virtues are unique among the other types of traits in that additional instances of the same virtue stack together. For example, you may earn your first Charity virtue by completing a deed in The Shire. You could then equip it, and it would be at rank 1. If you later earned another Charity virtue, perhaps in the Lonelands, it would automatically increase your equipped Charity trait to rank 2, and the benefits provided by the virtue would increase. It does not matter where you earn your first rank of a virtue, nor what level you are when you do it. The maximum rank any virtue may rise to is currently 10. Earning multiple ranks in virtues is one of the ways to greatly increase your character’s power.

Virtues are identical for all classes and races in both name and benefit provided.

Racial (can be equipped from level 13)

Racial traits are, as the name suggests, unique to each race in both the effect they provide and the activity required to earn them. They are mostly earned by killing enemies considered to be racial enemies. For example, Dwarves have great enmity towards the Dourhands, Elves towards drakes, Hobbits towards wolves and Men towards the dead. They tend to provide new skills or unique bonuses as rewards. They are level restricted such that you may not see the deed required to earn the trait until you reach a certain level, at which point killing one of the enemies in question will give you the new deed.

Class (can be equipped from level 15)

Class traits are most often earned by repeatedly using class based skills. The traits and their benefits are different for every class. These traits provide the most significant customisation of the classes. In the Mines of Moria expansion class traits were modified so that for each class they now fall into three groups. Each group or set gives a particular class focus, and they achieve this because collecting traits within the same set/group provides additional benefits. For example, you might choose to play a Guardian and focus on two-handed weapon / overpower traits, or you may prefer to generate more hate. Choosing traits that match those rolls will provide additional benefits that complement that style. That will be covered in more detail in a later post. It is worth noting that this system is optional, you are free to equip any combination of class traits you like.

Legendary (can be equipped from level 41)

The last class of trait and the least numerous are Legendary traits. As the name suggests (at least in theory) these traits provide your character with legendary abilities that define their place in the War of Middle Earth. In practice some people find the benefits vary in quality on a per trait basis. Each class gets a totally unique set of Legendary traits. They are earned in different ways, either through collection deeds, earning reputation and purchasing books, or completing quest lines. The only common factor is that at each stage, each class has to complete the same type of activity to earn similar legendary traits. For example, in the mid 40’s the first three legendary traits are all earned by collecting a book and then 8 missing pages. Each class requires different books and pages, and gets different traits, but they are all earned in the same way.

Viewing Traits

Traits can be examined using the trait window (by default, this is opened by pressing J). The trait window has 5 tabs along the top, the first shows all equipped traits, the second lists virtues, the third lists race traits, then class traits and the final tab lists legendary traits. The window changed in the Mines of Moria expansion, and the final four tabs now show all the possible traits your character may earn, and which ones you have completed. Here’s how the window looks as a starting character (for all images in this series of blog posts, you may click for a larger picture).

And for comparison, here’s the same window from a level 53 Champion,

Later articles will go into more detail on each of the tabs and what the dialog is actually showing you.

Equipping / Changing Traits

Equipping traits you have earned or changing your existing trait line-up requires a visit to a Bard. They’re placed throughout Middle Earth and nearly every town or city has one. Visiting the bard will turn off any active skills you have on, and will present you with a dialog that looks like this.

Using that dialog you can remove or add traits to your line-up and see what the total cost will be, as well as see which traits you already have equipped. Traits can be changed at will and the only downside to doing so is the cash cost, which can get quite high. Some players have combinations of traits they equip for different roles (maybe soloing, or grouped, or raiding, or fighting creatures with high Shadow damage, etc.) Doing so might be useful but it’s also costly, and the people I play the game with don’t tend to bother. They find a combination of traits which gives them an overall decent character and then tend to stick with it. It might get changed if a specific encounter is giving a specific issue, but in general, it stays reasonably constant.

Summary

Traits provide a mechanism for customising your character in Lord of the Rings online. They offer a huge range of variations for each character, and are the most complex part of defining your avatar. They are split into four types, virtues, class, race and legendary. They are earned in a myriad of different ways (although nearly all of them rely on deeds to track progress). In the next article I’ll provide a refresher on deeds, what they are, how they are started and how they are tracked. Traits rely heavily on the deed system in Lord of the Rings online so you need to have a good grounding in how that works, before you can progress.

Quick guide to Lord of the Rings Online Galadhrim reputation

Posted on 24 October 2009 by tony

Introduction

A couple of friends are just about to enter the Lothlórien area in Lord of the Rings online so I thought I’d whack this quick guide together so they know what to expect.

The area beyond the Mines of Moria, in the Lord of the Rings online game, is Lothlórien. Much like the Elves in the books and the films, the Elves of Lothlórien in the game are distrustful of outsiders and more than any other location in the game, this area absolutely requires you to do reputation work.

There are some mild spoilers in this article, including the map below, so if you want to explore and learn all of this for yourself, stop reading now. You’ll have to forgive me if I use the word faction rather than reputation, I’m still too used to EverQuest terminology despite having not played for quite some time.

Continue reading →

Lord of the Rings Online – Outfits redux

Posted on 29 September 2009 by tony

Took the chance to take a few more screenshots and show you why outfits are good. They’re good, because without them, your characters in LOTRO might end up looking like this. First up, my Hobbit Warden wearing his actual equipment (click any of these images for larger versions),

The hat is terrible, the pants are bright red for heaven’s sake! Here’s how he looks in his regular fighting garb, complete with a Warden’s Javelin Pack (cosmetic only item, which replaces the cloak),

His third outfit isn’t much different, except he has no pack and it’s a more relaxing green, for maybe hanging out in taverns, which clearly he never does, being a Warden.

Then there’s the Dwarven Rune Keeper, who looks even worse in his actual gear. Who in their right mind would leave the house dressed like this?

That’s a clear and defined reason for the existence of the outfit system, in my view. Anyway, here’s his regular hunting garb (robe and backpack, the pack is again a cosmetic replacement for cloaks),

And finally, the Rune Keeper’s last outfit, for when he needs a more distinguished look, maybe while smoking some pipe weed with friends in a library somewhere,

I guess he could do with losing the gloves on that outfit.

Lord of the Rings Online – Outfits

Posted on 29 September 2009 by tony

Personalising your avatar in an on-line world is big business. This is obvious to anyone who’s wandered around Second Life for more than 10 minutes and seen the millions of purchasable ‘looks’, or spent a few hours creating their own rock legend in Guitar Hero 5 (a huge collection of menu options for changing everything from how pointy your chin is to which way your nose curves). In those games however, the look is purely cosmetic. Those of us who play Massive Multi-player Online Roleplaying games (MMO’s, MMORPG’s, MMOG’s, whatever you want to call them) have different needs from our character’s equipment.

Traditionally your equipment both defines how you look and how you perform. Armour provides protection from enemy damage and improves your innate abilities, weapons affect how much damage you deal, and accessories (jewellery, shields, and other esoteric items) provide magical benefits beyond your wildest dreams. Sometimes, they also make you look good.

Wearing a newly acquired and hard won breastplate with pride because those around you can tell what it is and where you got it is fine, until the colour clashes with your hair or your choice of boots. And should Hobbits be penalised for not wearing any shoes while other races benefit from run-speed enhancements or other funky abilities?

Lord of the Rings online offers a system which allows characters to both personalise their look, but also benefit from the best equipment they can acquire using the outfit system. In my inaccurately named ‘short review of Lord of the Rings Online‘ I commented that I’d not had room to talk about the outfit system, and so this post is filling that gap.

When the system was first introduced it was only open to characters who had made level 20, until then, your appearance was decided by the equipment you were immediately wearing. Now however, as long as you’ve had any one character reach level 20 or beyond, all of your characters can use outfits. It’s a nice touch. The outfit system basically gives you 2 extra inventory layouts (outfit 1, outfit 2) covering the visible items – head, shoulders, gloves, legs, feet, chest and back (cloak). Weapons and shields are currently excluded, and since you can’t see jewellery that’s not included either.

The system lets you cosmetically equip items in the various slots, the item actually moves back into your general bag inventory, but the slot now retains the appearance of that item. You can destroy / sell the item itself and still retain the look. You then choose which of the three outfits you want to show to the world, your regular appearance based on equipped items, or outfit 1 / 2 from the cosmetically equipped items.

So you’re free to wear the most effective equipment even if it makes you look like a jester who’s done too much acid, while still maintaining some sense of style with one or other of the outfits. Maybe you have a casual look for lounging around the Prancing Pony or your Kin House, or two different armour sets for looking mean and really mean. You might like to look like a Pirate on Thursdays but have your regular hunting garb on the rest of the time. Lord of the Rings online allows you to hide / show various slots too (so you can turn off your hat indoors), and this works just as well for outfits.

If you kept the original item that you have cosmetically equipped, you can replace an outfit and get it back at a later stage, however if you sold / destroyed the item and replace it in the outfit system as well, you have to find another one before you can cosmetically equip it again in future. To go with this system, Turbine have added a lot of purely cosmetic items to the game. Hats, cloaks, and various pieces of clothing which offer no character benefits but which look pretty or high quality or unique. Sometimes these are player crafted or reputation related purchases, and sometimes they are creature drops or quest items or special event rewards. There are various NPC vendors around the world who also sell items such as backpacks (instead of cloaks), quivers, and other purely cosmetic items.

Overall the system is flexible enough to give you options, but restrictive enough that people don’t end up with 200 outfits and you’re never sure who is who. It allows you to customise your appearance, wearing a matching set of armour which looks good but might not present the best stats, and allows roleplayers to engage in more realistic activity (you tend not to sit in the bar in full plate with a face visor unless you’re expecting it to be invaded by 200 orcs).

My previous experience of appearance was EverQuest where you were tied to how your gear looked, although you could tint the items (and you can dye items in Lord of the Rings Online), and people spent a lot of time and effort carrying around sets of gear so they could change how they looked. It consumed bank / bag space and was a pain in the neck. Lord of the Rings Online’s solution is much more preferable, allowing you to look how you like but not forcing you to waste bank space. It’s easy to use, quick and fun. I’m sure people would like further outfit slots, and I know I would be interested in allowing weapons and shields to be outfitted cosmetically, but despite those missing features, it does work.

Here’s three screenshots of one of my characters in his three different outfits. The first screenshot is how the character looks wearing his actual gear (he has a full set of matching armour, so doesn’t look too bad at the moment),

The next shot is wearing the Heavy Armour set from Forochel (thanks to Grete, who worked to earn the reputation to make this armour in-game),

And lastly, his previous look, using a faceplate helm (which his beard ruins) and a set of armour he crafted,

He doesn’t have a casual outfit at the moment – but then when you spend all your time killing orcs in Moria, who needs to wear a shirt.