Yesterday our minds were blown with the news that LotRO and DDO, along with their development staff, were spinning off into a newly formed independent studio called Standing Stone Games. Daybreak Games will be partnering with SSG to handle the distribution and publishing of LotRO and DDO as part of this change. For a MMO studio that’s been around as long as Turbine has, and whose identity has been tied so closely to LotRO and DDO for years, this was a shock and surprise. In some ways for folks that have been around since the beginning, it feels like the end of an era. Pardon me while I put on my grey-hair wig and get my walker out. Back in my day…

Back in 2007 or so when LotRO first came out, there was so much hype regarding LotRO and Turbine. Turbine at the time stood behind their “Powered by our Fans” motto. Their community managers were the best around (who here remembers Meghan “Patience” Jenks?) and the community was diverse and overwhelmingly polite, no matter if you were hardcore, casual, or somewhere in between. News was posted fast and frequently. LotRO had a MySpace page, and the old LotRO Lorebook was a cutting-edge feature that allowed players to update a knowledgebase for the game. Every player also had a MyLotRO page – sort of an online social hub profile where they could friend other players, create blog posts, list their characters, and enter lotteries. LotRO did a really nice job of supporting multiple styles of play – hardcore raiders, casual social members, hardcore admirers of Tolkien, and even had a small but dedicated PvMP crowd. There were players EVERYWHERE: some brand new to MMOs and playing because it was Lord of the Rings, some whose first MMO was World of Warcraft and who were checking out the competition, some who were old-school EverQuest/Ultima/DAoC/AC players checking out the latest non-Blizzard title.

LotRO’s fortune over the years has been death by a thousand cuts. The Mines of Moria expansion in 2008, from what I remember, was very well received, although it was going head-to-head with World of Warcraft’s Wrath of the Lich King expansion, which didn’t do it any favors. Most might point to the Warner Brothers’ acquisition of Turbine in 2010 and the conversion to being a F2P game as the turning point, and while the buy-out made sense on paper due to licensing and movie tie-ins, it also felt like the old “Powered by our Fans” mantra started to fall by the wayside, especially with the introduction of microtransactions. I felt a bit of an odd wind when I found out that Patience left the Community Management team in 2011. After Mines of Moria, it felt like subsequent expansions were getting smaller and smaller, leading some players to speculate that money made from LotRO was helping subsidize Infinite Crisis and other Turbine games. Features like the Lorebook and MyLotRO were cut, destroying a large amount of community-created LotRO-related content. They stopped developing raids and traditional instanced content in favor of big battles, which didn’t go over as well as hoped. During the Helms Deep expansion beta, there was overwhelmingly negative player feedback regarding changes to classes, builds, and features – yet the changes all made it to live anyway.

All I can say is that it’s a darn shame. Turbine circa 2007-2008 was so hopeful, a shining beacon of a game company that knew how to make great games and how to manage their community. Unfortunately, they were going right up against World of Warcraft when it was at it’s peak – trying to grow a smaller MMO during the Wrath of the Lich King period was probably more than they (or anyone) could chew. The developers tried taking risks to set themselves apart with new features (big battles anyone?), and sometimes those features fell flat in the worst ways. The introduction of F2P helped rejuvenate the playerbase in some ways, but it also turned a good portion of the existing fanbase off with the prominence of the LotRO Store and the microtransaction buttons all over the UI. Server mergers & closures probably didn’t help the perception of the game, although I would argue that at this point it was necessary and that they handled it well.

So where does LotRO go from here? I choose to stay cautiously optimistic about the spin-off. If this means that the remaining LotRO developers can get back to the old-school Turbine mindset and to what made LotRO truly great back in the day, then I am all for it. LotRO, at it’s core, is an excellent game. It’s showing it’s age now and definitely is part of the older style of MMO gaming, but for many long-time players (myself included) that’s a good thing. Create more raids and instances, good challenging ones that keep players chasing that carrot. Stay true to the LotR source and lore, and write amazing storylines and engaging quests. Keep developing beautiful landscapes. For the love of all that is holy, please update the character models and hairstyles. Be more transparent with your players and listen to the community (everyone, even including some of the more vehement naysayers, who in many cases DO want what is best for the game). As you make these changes, go out and try to bring former players back with incentives and nostalgia feels and show them what you can do now.

Will Standing Stone ever be able to bring LotRO back to the old glory days? It’s very doubtful at this point. But they certainly have an opportunity to correct mistakes, blast development wide open, play to their known strengths, and try to re-build their playerbase to a stable volume and steady income. This is best case scenario and what I really and truly hope happens. Middle-Earth deserves no less.

One of the things that entertains me endlessly in LotRO is searching for all the little easter eggs and places that are accurate to the books. The stone trolls in the Trollshaws are a great example – one even has a birdsnest behind it’s ear, just like it should. Even better is when I find that Turbine has taken something that is alluded to in the books, and has ran with it to make it’s own story.

I’ve always liked the Agamaur area and the Garth Agarwen quests, but it wasn’t until my latest run through the place that something jumped out at me – a bit of quest text by a shade in Harloeg:

‘In ages past, we were cursed by Iarwain Ben-adar for our inaction as the Red-maid slipped further from the gentle creature she was to the corrupt thing she now is. Until she is redeemed or removed from the world, we are cursed to wander these swamps, with no hope of rest.

‘But we have no hope. She is too powerful, or so the men believe. I do not believe this is so. I must find a way to restore the men’s resolve. I must find a way to restore their resolve. One of the Eglain, Hartrím, has gone to the place where she dwells. He goes to secure items lost as my brethren and I battled the Angmarim and Hillmen of Rhudaur: our shields. I believe they are still held by the Hillmen who worship the Red-maid and the brigands who have allied themselves with them.

Wait. Iarwain Ben-adar? That is none other than Tom Bombadil, as Elrond tells us in the books during the Council of Elrond. It translates to “oldest and fatherless”, or “old-young”. Apparently he was pretty upset about the Red-Maid’s corruption, according to the quest text. Hmm.

The Red-Maid, the game tells us, is Naruhel, Goldberry’s sister, who became corrupted under the influence of Angmar. She, along with the other in-game river-maids – Gwindeth, the Blue Lady in Evendim, and Roamingstar in Gondor, is an invention of Turbine, and is not canon to the Middle-Earth universe. In the books, Goldberry is said to be the river-daughter, the daughter of the river-woman, so sisters are not out of the realm of possibility.

Corrupted Naruhel, Uncorrupted Naruhel, and Goldberry

Then I remembered this bit of text from Fellowship of the Ring:

He chose for himself from the pile a brooch set with blue stones, many-shaded like flax-flowers or the wings of blue butterflies. He looked long at it, as if stirred by some memory, shaking his head, and saying at last:

‘Here is a pretty toy for Tom and his lady! Fair was she who long ago wore this on her shoulder. Goldberry shall wear it now, and we will not forget her!’

Who exactly Tom was referring to? It’s always been considered a mystery – Tolkien never went into more detail, and the popular theory if you only consider the books is that the lady was perhaps the wife of one of the kings buried in the Barrow-Downs. But I like to think that Turbine perhaps spun the Red-Maid story off of this – what if Goldberry had a sister, and what if this was her brooch? What if Tom Bombadil cursed the shades because of the corruption of Goldberry’s sister?

It’s an interesting story if indeed this was intended by Turbine.

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I seriously had to do a double-take when I saw that.

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As I’ve gotten back into LotRO, one of my pet projects is helping my husband get back into the game. He’s never really clicked with LotRO in the past, but I’ve been there, done that too, so I get it, I really do. So I tried a different tactic: instead of just straight up questing, we started with some of the more uhm… “fluff” in the game – stuff that is fairly unique to LotRO. So far it’s working, and now he has more motivation to quest and level.

First off, he LOVES the hobbit presents. So much so that he blew through 2000 TP buying mithril coins to play the slots on his first night. He got a nice set of armor from that, plus some cash for his house and some bounders tokens for decorations. So far, so good.

Then he bought his house, and spent several hours finding all the housing vendors and grabbing up decorations, and getting stuff settled.

Finally, tonight we went to Laila’s Market for the first time. We both LOVED it and spent waaaay too many TP and Mithril Coins there. I outfitted Staesia, my baby champ, with two outfits…

Then Michello found some pieces he liked for his hunter, and he ended up looking very much like a certain DC Comics character with a popular tv show. He was stuck on pants though. None of the Laila’s Market options struck his fancy. But I remembered a particular pair of pants with “hunter” written all over them: The Westernesse Protector’s Leggings. It’s a craftable pair of pants with leather patches, it dyes really well, and is versatile enough for hunters, rangers, burglars, minstrels – pretty much any character that has a nature-sy bent. A kinmate, Neruwyn/Lauralda, was sweet enough to craft me two pairs – one for me, one for the hubby. We went two totally different ways with them.

First Paislea the minstrel, with the pants dyed Crimson, a new Laila’s Market shirt, her cook’s backpack, and the boots that came with the Rohan expansion.

Then there’s Michello the hunter, a.k.a. The Green Arrow. All of his items came from Laila’s Market, except for the pants. He went with Rivendell Green.

I think one of the things that I love about LotRO – and one thing that keeps drawing me back – is the housing system. Housing in LotRO has been hotly argued about for years now; the system is extremely antiquated compared to newer, more robust housing in RIFT and the expected new hotness of EverQuest Next. Still, a part of me loves the little neighborhoods, the excitement of picking a neighborhood name and location, and decorating the uniform, standard issue houses in a way that my characters would enjoy.

Of course, one of the first things I had to do upon logging back into Landroval was check out the housing situation. My old Landroval house had been foreclosed upon and all my belongings sent into escrow, so I was free to start from scratch. Seeing as how I’ve had a Hobbit Hole and an Elf…shrine? in the past, it was time to go with a house in Bree-land.

There’s a few things I look for in a location – close to water, nice trees, lots of flowers in the grass, things a hobbit would probably like. More importantly, good yard decoration placement – I don’t like houses that have symmetrical decoration placement, it just looks unnatural. 6 Chestnut Street quickly became an obvious favorite – lots of purple flowers, a large yard hook right in front of the house for a big tree and another one to one side along the walkway, perfect for the anniversary windmill. It’s not terribly close to water, but that’s okay because it’s on top of a hill with nice views. Even better: it was right next to 1 High Street, a kin house with MORE purple flowers, even better views, and decent yard decoration placement.

Did I mention that I started an alt kin on Landroval before I left? Applebottom (hee!) Farm, named after the last name of my hobbits. Yes, these side-by-side properties would do nicely. Now the kicker: to find a neighborhood with both of these properties available. It doesn’t help that these locations seem to be a favorite and one or both were taken in most neighborhoods. It finally came down to two choices, Pimbleborough or Wildore.

Now, if you don’t know the history on Landroval, this wouldn’t seem like a big deal. Just pick one. However, several years ago some community members on Landroval tried to start an unofficial RP neighborhood. Wildore just happened to open up and RPers quickly bought out the neighborhood, and it was home to concerts, faires, and other RP events for several months. However, as these things normally go, interest eventually waned and people either stopped playing or moved out. When foreclosures happened a couple of months ago, almost all of the neighborhood opened back up.

So… a neighborhood with a cool history? Or a neighborhood that could be nicknamed Pimpleburg? I went with Wildore, and by the end of the night I had a deluxe home AND a kinship house. The next night, my husband updated his copy of LotRO, and he moved in to 4 Chestnut Street, which is a deluxe house in an autumn/mountainous area of the neighborhood and conveniently right behind my house and the kin house. We’ve claimed a little triangle of domestic tranquility.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but it also looks like I have a kinmate with an alt-kin house in the neighborhood as well – Nevanna/Lynxa owns the home at 5 Long Street for the Lights of Valacirca. Nifty!