I am enjoying The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢, but I find myself not reading all the quest text. At first this was because I had read it during beta, and I needed to consciously remind myself to stop and read new stuff. Habit is a great deadener. Then I stopped caring about why this particular person needed me to kill ten boars. And it usually is boars, sometimes wolves or birds.
Look, I understand that I am doing the Epic Side Quest while Frodo carries The One Ring, and I get to maintain the home front and be a distraction from the real battlefront. Fine. But I am repeatedly being sent on quests for food, including one hobbit who sent me a zone-and-a-half for oatmeal. Oatmeal! The woman next him wants me to slaughter evil birds so that she can stuff pillows with their feathers. First, are craban feathers really the best substitute for fluffy down; more importantly, has she not heard about The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢’s famous chickens? I vaguely worry that I am missing some good and interesting writing when I skip through it, but I see a title (“Thin the Wolf Pack”), an objective (“bring 8 wolf teeth”), and I know the pattern. Orcs or bears attacked you, spiders ate your dog, I get it.
Please let me know if there is quest text really worth reading beyond the epics (and I have my questions there).
: Zubon
WoW was the last “big” MMO I spent (too much) time in, and compared to that I find LOTRO’s quest dialogue interesting at least.
I think a lot of the “whatever… *clicks Accept*” mentality comes from attention span and the “the journey is not important, just do what is necessary to reach the end” mentality that WoW and other end-game-oriented games teach us.
I’ve been intentionally playing casually since launch (re-rolled on a different server than I did beta on) and just this morning reached level 44 with my main character. I intentionally take the time to actually read the quests and try to immerse myself into the NPC’s little storyline where possible.
It’s all about each player’s attitude and goals…
I also find that if you do actually stop to read the text on all those ‘kill boars’ quests, they don’t seem as bad. Sure the objective is the same, but the reasons behind it are different. Otherwise, yea, all the ‘kill x’ quests are basically the same thing in a different zone.
Also, reading all the quests gives you a much stronger understanding of each zone. Reading and doing all the quests in the Forsaken Inn, for instance, gives you a really deep background on what exactly is going on in that area.