Or rather, how I finally ‘got’ LotRO. As I’ve said elsewhere I honestly think Lich King is a better expansion. Moria and the two new classes are incredibly impressive, but WoW’s newest offerings are (in my opinion) some of the best content ever added to an existing online game. What the last few weeks have proven to me, though, is that when I keep saying ‘the fantasy MMO is a solved problem’, I’m not giving enough credit to the other fantasy games that are already out there.

Let me be clear: new fantasy MMOs are almost certainly a losing proposition at this point. That’s just the way the market looks. But my viewpoint that WoW’s success had completely overshadowed other company’s work is oversimplifying things. Turbine’s hard work on LotRO – which I’ve long tried to highlight at Massively and elsewhere – is not wasted effort. Nor, I think, is SOE’s work on EQ2 – but that’s another blog entry. Read on for some thoughts on why Turbine’s work should be lauded so.

Online games are, first and foremost, a hobby. Like bowling, golf, or any other social hobby, there has to always be a ‘reason’ to engage in your leisure pastime. Mythic Entertainment specifically designed Warhammer Online with that thought in mind, and I think Turbine has proven out an understanding of that mindset as well. LotRO’s quality doesn’t come from the place of sheer excellence that defines World of Warcraft. Nor does it offer the nostalgia of EverQuest 2.

Instead, Lord of the Rings Online compels you to play by always offering one more layer to work through. There’s always, it seems, just one more thing you could be doing. While I’ve always enjoyed the concept of crafting, for example, I don’t engage in it much outside of EQ2. There’s usually a lot of hurdles to jump through, and the ‘feel’ is often rote and frustrating. The tripartite ‘jobs’ that LotRO offers gives crafters enough variety to keep them – or at least me – truly engaged.

There’s only one hobby in the game at the moment, fishing, but I truly enjoy that singular hobbit-lark more than any other fishing system I’ve ever encountered. I wrote up a full article on the subject over on Massively, and I mean every word.

Then, of course, there’s the quests. The bread and butter of modern fantasy MMOs, the rich storytelling background offered by Middle-earth really does make a difference. If you’ve read the LotR trilogy, or seen the movies, you’re going to see a lot of names and places that ring very familiar. The early levels are nothing but lore-steeping, as you literally swim in references to places in the Shire or brave the darkness of the forests near Bree. While I’ve changed my tune recently, in the past I was always very much a quest-ignorer. I’m very glad my perception shift came in time to fully enjoy the stories of Hobbits, Men, and Dwarves.

The final layer, and one that catches me fairly often, is the game’s extensive Deed system. Each zone has specific achievements you can unlock by performing certain tasks or exploring certain areas. Kill 30 wolves in the Shire, for example, and you earn the ‘Fur-Cutter’ title. Kill 50 more and you unlock a trait, one of the game’s build components. These traits are extensively tweakable, and compel you to complete deeds for mechanical reasons as well as simple check-box completionism. Even using your class abilities in combat sees you working towards new traits; pushing class traits together helps you to further define your class, and ultimately allows for variation where there may have been a lot of uniformity.

I have loved my time in Middle-earth for the simple reason that it’s fun, a claim I’ve made with other games before. I’ll admit it: I do have MMOADD. But for a guy that’s always admired Lord of the Rings Online from afar and never ‘got it’ the way I wanted to, the last month or so has been a real treat. I’m honestly glad to be enjoying this game the way I do, because I feel like something has finally clicked inside my head.

Whether it’s enjoying the beauty of Bree while fishing or shield-slamming my way through waves of goblins, there’s just nothing quite like time spent in the world Tolkien and Turbine have created.