Thirty Thousand Orcs – Massively Article

Today Massively released an article detailing the Epic Battle experience.

Turbine’s been working on the epic battle system for well over a year now, drawing inspiration from World War II documentaries as well as the 10-page description of the battle in Tolkien’s novel.

It is always good to hear lore content creators of any story taking real world events to adapt their story and capture a feel of reality.  That is what makes classic Star Wars dogfights so great, and hopefully Epic Battles.

Join us and 30,000 Orcs as we go over the many, many details of epic battles.

No wonder the Rohirrim are having such a hard time if someone as talented as Syp is on the orcs’ side.

For some reason, Turbine isn’t throwing in armor sets into the epic battles, although the “why” of this was not fully explained during our tour.

This is concerning if there are not any other ways to get high level armor.  Why would armor not be included in the rewards for doing one of the biggest and most important battles in the Third Age?  This is just speculation, but it could be to make sure class balancing with the changes works well and then rebuild the way armor stats work.  There could also be another way to earn the armor although we have not heard anything about that at this time.

First came the catapult fire, from both the enemy and from us. Then came the arrows, the grappling hooks, and the ladders. Orcs charged over the top, each moving fast and furious as he clashed with NPCs and players. Turbine explained that another new system that the devs created implements behavior priority in each of the enemies. Instead of just mobbing mindlessly, all NPCs now have a list of priorities for their actions. Sappers might bypass troops entirely in an effort to get at that catapult, while commanders might seek out their equal on the battlefield and engage him or her.

This sounds fantastic.  New enemies, new mechanics and new tactics for these large scale battles.  As a fan of RTS games and large historical conflicts, this description gets me really excited about one of the best battles in fantasy literature.

This target priority also means that the enemy isn’t necessarily out to get you, so you will have more freedom of movement than you would in a traditional skirmish.

Let this be a lesson to the Rangers.  Simple Rohirrim will now hold aggro well, that means Rangers need to step up their game if they want to compete.

Seriously though this sounds like it could be a good thing.  Could you imagine all 30,000 orcs wanting to aggro the player?  It would be a nightmare.  Thankfully Turbine seems to be thinking carfully through this and hopefully we will not be the main targets in new content outside of even these battles.  That could really add to the realistic nature that is already present in LOTRO.

One fear that this creates though is it could just make us a number.  Please do not let this happen Turbine.  One of the biggest draws of LOTRO is that we are the heroes and not just a number.  In large battles in any game it takes really good game design to ensure the player is the main focus of the content and feels like they are contributing.  In such a large conflict, will we make a difference?  That will be very important.

Even in the films, the heroes don’t change the scope of the battle too much.  It usually takes an outside force like huge undead armies or Gandalf charges or marching ents to turn the tide.  It is the unexpected outside force that turns the tide.  In game design, the player needs to be part of that turn.  At the very least, we need to feel like showing up for battle was a gain for the team.  With the larger scales that could become hard but, hopefully players will be satisfied.

Turbine’s invented the unfortunately titled “multi-usage system” to give more options to each interactive object on the battlefield. Catapults, for example, can be loaded, cranked, repaired, extinguished (if on fire), upgraded, and constructed using this pop-up interface.

Even more cool is the fact that the interface allows for multiple people to interact with the object at the same time. You might be cranking the catapult while I aim it, or we might both crank it in order to finish the job faster.

This sounds like more than the simple skirmish catapult.  I am really interested in the idea of allowing players to interact with one object in multiple ways.  That is something really new to LOTRO and it could allow for great creativity in the years to come.

Officers get to boss NPCs around in a sort of “RTS-lite.” Using the same pop-up interface, you can go over to a friendly NPC, give it instructions, and watch your pawn go out to die a glorious death.

As an RTS fan this is exciting but could be disappointing.  I am a full fledged RTS player and if this system is not really deep, I might just ignore it.  I do have faith in Turbine though and hope they create something truly extraordinary.

Turbine seems pretty confident in the epic battle system as it stands. It’s been in internal testing for quite some time now as well as the more recent expansion beta test, and the devs said that it’s been performing admirably. It’s still a big gamble, as the epic battles are replacing the traditional instance cluster that has come with expansions, so raiders will have to adjust to a more chaotic system instead of a well-choreographed dungeon dance.

Finally it is good to know that both Turbine and Syp seem to be excited about the Epic Battle system.  The expansion hangs on the sucess of the system.  It is the reason the Epic Story is not free.  It also will be the introduction to end game content to new players starting at level 10.  If this system is not fantastic, it could cause new players to leave.  This system will be what many will judge how LOTRO’s endgame works.  If it is not great, why would new players of the typically MMO mindset spend time gaining the extra 85 levels to cap beyond level 10?

Here is hoping LOTRO gets another great system when Helm’s Deep launches in 18 days!