Meanwhile back at Turbine HQ...

[Arthur_Parker]

DDO hit gold a few days ago, a few players are at the maximum level of 10 already. 

The DDO forum here is still headed with "Dungeons & Dragons Online ***BETA***", I'm not sure it that's an error or a review.

Meanwhile back at Turbine HQ...

The Lord of the Rings online is due for release this year (heh, right).  There was an interesting update today.

Developer Diary: Allan "Orion" Maki
Friends Don't Let Friends Tank Balrogs*

Allan "Orion" Maki hails from parts unknown. He spent his youth cradled in the company of the Knights of Ni and has no problem saying "Ni" to old women or Floon Beetle. Schooled by life, he rescued Princess Peach, discovered Samus Aran's identity and saved Zelda – all before the age of sixteen. By twenty, he had crumbled the Roman Empire, sailed along the Spanish Main and shot the Red Baron out of the sky.

After many failed attempts at becoming the uncontested ruler of the universe, he accepted the position of OCR on a little game named Asheron's Call. Soon after, he moved into a role as designer finishing his tenure on the project as the Lead Designer, before moving to DDO and finally to LOTRO, where he now serves as a Content Designer. His favorite color is purple – royal purple not lilac, though lilacs smell nice in spring – his favorite movie of all time is Citizen Kane and he wears a size 10 ½ shoe.

 
 

To solo or not to solo, that is the question. Is it nobler to suffer the sling stones and arrows of thine enemy whilst standing amongst his troops, without the sturdy shield or trusty arms of friends; or, is it best to form a wall of shields, linked by devotion and gilded by strength, to bolster the focus of my blade?


It's a good question. It's a hard question. It's a question with many answers.


It seems whenever you set out to design a massively multiplayer online game one question – one sticky, important question – finds its way into the discussions of designers and fans. This question draws hard battle lines, across which terrible words are exchanged, mothers' names are dragged through the mud, pets are sacrificed on altars of dark forces and hyperbole becomes the ultimate weapon of choice. It is a question that, at its very core, is somewhat of an oxymoron: 'Will your massively-multiplayer game support solo play?'


Different games have taken different approaches: some games have evoked social play through deep crafting systems, player-versus-player conflict, and group-centric endgame content. Other games have allowed extremely skilled solo players to become self-sufficient gods unto themselves. As with any organic entity – make no mistake, MMOs are organic entities – each MMO and the genre as a whole have evolved over time to incorporate the different personalities of players. Some players desire to detach themselves completely from the real world when playing their games, becoming lost in the actions of their avatars and disassociating themselves from human contact altogether. Others become the social butterfly that they cannot be in the 'real world.' Play styles are as varied as the number of players in the game world, and we as designers must do our best to accommodate them all.  However, we are not super-human, nor are we graced with an endless amount of resources or time with which to construct our games. Instead, we have windows of opportunity to glimpse the current mood and mindset of our fans and determine the course of the single question, 'Can I solo in your game?'



A Prelude to an Answer


So you want to know something about The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™. Excellent! If only I could deliver all of the juicy information which you seek! How wondrous would the outpouring of gratitude be, and how greater still the rancor that followed, as shortcomings and disagreements were debated until the coming of the Last Battle!


(Translation: before I was a developer, I was an MMO fan first, then an Online Community Rep. Be nice to Patience!)


If I could do that I would, but I cannot. NobOrBob and his Balrog, Snuggles, keep our darkest secrets, er, secret. What I can do, however, is give you a glimpse of LOTRO from a great height, as if borne by a Great Eagle.


First, we are building a world. Not just any world, mind you; we are building Middle-earth, perhaps the most beloved, history-filled, and well-described fictional world to exist, ever. There are books written about the books and books written about the books about the books, and books about – well, you get the picture. We need to get the story right. We need to be conscious of the story and world in every choice we make; slip once and there'll be a Nazgûl hot on our trails (not an envious position for one to be in, I fear).


Second, we must appease the millions of Tolkien fans who have lived, breathed, and dreamt about this opportunity since the words "Middle-earth" and "Online" were first uttered in the same sentence.


So, getting back to the matter at hand: here's an anecdote relevant to this topic. Tolkien's work shows that soloing is bad. Everyone who solos, dies. Boromir? Dead. Gollum? Dead. Frodo? Would have died but Sam wouldn't let that n00b solo. Okay, I am only mostly correct...but the books do set the precedent that if you're not a Wizard and you try to solo the most difficult monsters, you die. So, what does that mean for the game?


Only Elves and Wizards Can Solo!


Man! I knew that would keep you reading! Luckily, it's not true.


The following is a definitive statement: In The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, you will find solo adventures throughout the world.


Yes, there are solo quests. Yes, there is solo content.


Bread and Butter and Scones and Biscuits and...


Okay. You'll have solo quests in the game. I bet they're all delivery quests.


Wrong!


At the heart of The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™ lies our solo quests and content. Yes, an epic tale is taking place in Middle-earth. The world is changing and not for the better, but that story is not at the heart of every matter that needs doing in the world. Middle-earth is evolving and even the smallest things you do as a character can impact someone, somewhere; they may even affect people you haven't met. News of your deeds will spread, and your name may become synonymous with "hero" all throughout Middle-earth. This is not to say that the world will change in an immediately perceptible way, but you will be sure to catch someone's eye.


Not all quests will have you fetch and grab, or kill and collect. Some may have you solving riddles for sporting souls engaged in a battle of wits, or scouting enemy encampments to assess their threat and strength. Perhaps you'll need to face a ravaged land where Orcs make their way through the devastated wilderness only to succumb to your skill! That story is your own, and your reward is the adulation of figures who revere you and all you have done.


This is only the beginning.


Fellowship Play


So what about playing in Fellowships?


Yes, there will be Fellowship quests. Yes, there will be Fellowship content.


At the heart of Tolkien's work is an underlying theme: The people you can trust in life are your friends. They lift you up when you fall, they bolster you when you are weak, and they protect you when you are unguarded. They are, without a doubt, the most important thing in the world. You will have moments that require the assistance of your friends to succeed.


Fellowships are what drive epic moments. When something truly momentous is about to occur, you will know and you will need help. People will warn you when these moments are at hand; they hate to see their heroes fall! They know if the strength of one hero is great, so too must be the combined strength of many. In these moments, you will face truly great foes or beasts of the dark – and you shouldn't try to face them alone.


What about instances?


Will there be instances in LOTRO?


Instancing, as a topic of interest, has seen many discussions amongst industry insiders and fans, and certainly has been the topic of discussion on our development team. Opinions vary wildly and often times form a sort of council of Elrond: some of us think that the instance is a tool by which we can further the cause of our games, and others worry about the impact of instancing on social play and the sense of a shared, living world. In the end, we must make decisions that are beneficial to the greater whole. Yes, there will be instances. Yes, there will be solo instances. Yes, there will be fellowship instances.


Instances allow for deviation from standard game play. (After reading this sentence a couple of times, I realized that it can be very frightening when presented without context.) [And this time, not just because of grammatical errors. :) –NobOrBob] Contextually speaking, instanced spaces provide designers a ball of clay from which we can sculpt highly detailed encounters, making the world ever more alive for players. They pull from the behaviors of the quest system, world interaction, and skill focus or group interaction to provide a challenging situation for players. They do not introduce new game mechanics; instead, they utilize existing game mechanics outside of the traditional "quest system" to highlight class roles and class skills to provide these challenges. In essence, instances allow designers to create awe-inspiring moments and events that give players a feeling of accomplishment. To take advantage of this we are constructing different types of instances.


Perhaps a short explanation of how we are using instances will ease tension over the word. In LOTRO we are using instances in three distinct ways:

The first is as a highly sculpted solo experience. These instances allow the player to learn more about characters, motivations, and story. These instances often introduce key individuals or areas of the game, and at times familiar faces from the books, allowing players to learn more about an important figure or landmark.
The second is a sculpted Fellowship instance that furthers the many chapters of the Shadows of Angmar. These instances provide an intricate web-work of storyline, tying into previous chapters and moments for all players following the main story path.
The third type of instance is a shared Fellowship instance that provides encapsulated story to feed the larger whole. While similar in some ways, instance types two and three are still very different and highlighted below.

To explain the highly sculpted solo experience further, I'll provide a hypothetical example. A denizen of Middle-earth may request assistance from a player on a very dangerous mission. Perhaps he requires escort through a stretch of land known to harbor Men of dubious persuasion. He entreats the player to lead him and his pony through this stretch of land. Along the way, the character reveals more information about himself and others within his hometown while under assault from bands of evil Men. Whatever the goal, the steps to assist him/her in finding their way through the encounter are clear to the player.


An example of the second type of instancing, the sculpted Fellowship model, provides a furthering of the story told to every player character:  the story of Angmar, and the forces at work in the north where once the Witch-king ruled. These "bookends" act much the same way as the previous example, but they require groups to defeat the difficult encounters and dangerous foes lurking in the shadows. These stylized moments provide insight and information about the great evil lurking in the north that threatens to join forces with Sauron, thwart the Fellowship, and overrun all of Middle-earth.


The last type of instance is an open Fellowship model. Open Fellowship means that there is no over-riding quest necessary to enter the instance spaces. They further the story of Angmar in smaller ways than the previous example, focusing on the story of their section of the world. There are no quests assisting you or guiding you.  Foes may require a particular class, skill or set of abilities to defeat; we are being careful to ensure overlap. Encounters within the instance will require you to think your way through them, using your wits to solve puzzles and learn different patterns and behaviors to succeed. These spaces feature a critical path to find the primary foe, and secondary paths to lesser foes. They cover wider level spreads to allow for re-playability and continued advancement. While there are no quests that guide you through these spaces, it is possible that quests will direct you into these spaces. The risks within are high; but then again, so are the rewards.


Again, instances are being developed to support both solo and fellowship play behavior. If you feel that you can brave a space alone, you can try...but don't say we didn't warn you!


Raids & Something Else


Will there be raids in Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar?


At this time, the answer is no.


Does this mean that raids will never find their way into LOTRO? Not at all, raids are truly a different topic requiring their own discussion.


While there are currently no plans to incorporate raids into LOTRO, there is one more type of hybrid content style. What makes a hybrid content style, you ask? Some areas of the world require a group effort to defeat foes; after all Fellowships are at the core of the world, are they not? These areas will be difficult but survivable, and will likely feature some of the most difficult enemies in Middle-earth.


LOOT!


Some MMOs turn instance spaces into the only avenue to garner the greatest wealth available in the game. This is not the case with Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar.


That is all I have to say on the subject now.


In Closing


Giving the player the ability to make changes and feel as though they have an impact on the world around them is an important focus of the content we are designing in LOTRO. As you begin the game, you experience this in solo encounters, but as you grow the world grows with you. Suddenly those bands of roving Orcs you've defeated have friends, of the heavily-armed and extra-cunning variety. When you find yourself in those moments, it's a good thing to have a friend within earshot of your Horn. (Ask Boromir -- soloing sucks when you are facing an army.)


* This title in no way confirms that there is actually a Balrog in the game, or if there were, that you would be able to tank it – with or without friends! Those responsible for this title have been shot.

Yes, he really did take that length of time to say soloing will be an option in LOTRO.  That's not a small design change for Turbine, AC2 was changed into a forced grouping game, DDO is most certainly a forced grouping game.

For a clue as to what's going on maybe the reply to the below question on the forums offers an answer.

Are there public dungeon instances? (like AC's)

We learned a lot from AC1!

Edit, typo

[cevik]

That is literally the most annoying thing I have EVER skimmed through and decided it wasn't worth my time to read.

[angry.bob]

That is literally the most annoying thing I have EVER skimmed through and decided it wasn't worth my time to read.

I agree, except I read it. All that shit just to say "You can solo". Holy fucking god, I hope they design the game better than they designed that update.

[HaemishM]

Motherfucker. I want to beat that person. One should not use that many words to answer what is essentially 2 or 3 questions, that really don't tell us much of dick about the actual answers anyway.

No raids. Good. Solo stuff. Good.

I still remain skeptical that the game will be all that good, not because of Turbine so much as because the idea of the design they are using for a Tolkien world is really /meh to me.

[Soln]

holy shit that was poorly written

and I normally don't swear

what a fucking moron that guy is AND his manager for allowing him to write that badly and publish it to the public.  Those kinds of coming-soon notices should be factual, clear and as mature as possible to give future customers confidence in the design team and publisher.  Pushing out that kind of high-school drivel is pathetic -- the guy is trying to be liked.  And all that caging and  over-personal writing does is create the seeds of swirl -- he should working to set CLEAR EXPECTATIONS not try to gain sympathy.

that + DDO == one shitty company.  I can see why everyone now rips Turbine.  Wow.

[Edit]:  that idiot should be released immediately -- beside that over-personal intro he has a Will Farrell "More Cowbell" image.  WTF is Turbine trying to do? show it's self-ironic in its own feature presentations??   That undermines the integrity of the product before it's even out: "Don't worry, we don't take any of this seriously, nor should you".  It's not funny, it's scarry dumb.

[Miasma]

That was painful to read.  This game is going to be terrible because any good developer will flee the company after having to sit through one meeting with Allan "Gibbering Idiot" Maki.

Maybe he was drunk when he wrote that.

[Nija]

They should ask this guy another hard hitting question, like "Will you shove this game out the door with a week worth of content like you did with AC2 and D&DO?"

I'd like to skim (but not actually read and absorb) his reply to that.

[Stormwaltz]

I debated whether or not it was worth saying this. I came to the conclusion that it's not, but I feel morally obligated to say it anyway.

Maki is one of the good guys at Turbine, and he always has been. Critique of his writing style is fair play, but he is not one of the Problems. The company is better for having him.

Carry on, gentlemen.

[Furiously]

I declare this the fellowship of the g-string.

[Threash]

I declare this the fellowship of the g-string.

Thanks to that movie my default name for any mage character is now Smirnoff. :P

[Heresiarch]

I debated whether or not it was worth saying this. I came to the conclusion that it's not, but I feel morally obligated to say it anyway.

Maki is one of the good guys at Turbine, and he always has been. Critique of his writing style is fair play, but he is not one of the Problems. The company is better for having him.

Carry on, gentlemen.

Hey stormy, how's life?

I was gonna post something along the lines of "this guy needs psychiatric care." I got the sense that some of his internal filters are broken, like the one that (for most people) tells them that their audience doesn't care for all the shit they're spewing. Not that I have any respect for gamers (ie his primary audience), but designers also have coworkers and friends that can provide guidance and help -- if one is willing to listen.

Reading between the lines, if this is one of the good guys, then I am afraid for the rest of the company.

[Murgos]

Maki is one of the good guys at Turbine, and he always has been. Critique of his writing style is fair play, but he is not one of the Problems. The company is better for having him.

Tell me, is there an internal mailing list where some poor soul decrypts his memos and redistributes them for general consumption or is reading them like a rite of passage thing?

edited because Samwise once had carnal relations with a burrito.

[tazelbain]

I see nothing of interest here.

I wish someone would make a soloist only MMOG that would punish anyone who work together.  That way the soloists will have a game to play and quit trying reverse engineer multiplayer games into single player games.

Yes, I went there, want to fight about it?

[Murgos]

I wish someone would make ... (an) MMOG that would punish anyone who work together.

See every MMOG ever made.  Hell is other people.

[Miasma]

I only just went to the first page of that linked thread.  Judging by the number of worthless fanbois saying "Great dev diary" and "When can I pre-order" they are going to have next to no honest feedback about the game during testing.  I really hope they have learned to seek out constructive criticism instead of bathing in sycophantic comments from a tiny minority who inexplicably think they can do no wrong.

[tazelbain]

See every MMOG ever made. Hell is other people.

And we hang out with other people by our own choice, we must like hell.

[Nija]

I see nothing of interest here.

I wish someone would make a soloist only MMOG that would punish anyone who work together.  That way the soloists will have a game to play and quit trying reverse engineer multiplayer games into single player games.

Yes, I went there, want to fight about it?

It was called UO. It died in 1999.

[Hoax]

@Tazel:  There was a time I thought that was a damn good point.

But it turns out there is a large segment of the player base, that plays multiplayer games but doesn't want to be forced to play with others.  Unfortunately most of their complaints become worthless noise because they dont want solo'ing to be viable they want it to be the most efficient time/xpgain ratio available.  Because in a DING!GRATZ mmo the only thing that matters to 90% of the players is the race and the shiney.

[Murgos]

See every MMOG ever made. Hell is other people.

And we hang out with other people by our own choice, we must like hell.

The key difference is I can interact with you here at my discretion, not yours.  In an MMOG your interaction with other players is largely at thier whim.

[cevik]

I see nothing of interest here.

I wish someone would make a soloist only MMOG that would punish anyone who work together.  That way the soloists will have a game to play and quit trying reverse engineer multiplayer games into single player games.

Yes, I went there, want to fight about it?

[HaemishM]

I only just went to the first page of that linked thread.  Judging by the number of worthless fanbois saying "Great dev diary" and "When can I pre-order" they are going to have next to no honest feedback about the game during testing.  I really hope they have learned to seek out constructive criticism instead of bathing in sycophantic comments from a tiny minority who inexplicably think they can do no wrong.

We'll see if Callandryll still talks to us when LOTRO goes into beta. If he does, he'll get some constructive feedback.

[Venkman]

Is it not lost on anyone that that post was not for anyone but fanbois? Remember that Lord of the Rings is a story, with a lot of freakin' words. How many of you all got through the books the first time you read them? Didn't you skip a few of the songs?

Orion is talking to people who love that sort of verbose narrative. So him typing that way is expected.

[HaemishM]

Tolkien is verbose.

That man there... he got problems. He needs a fucking editor worse than Thomas Wolfe. That post was the Ulysses of MMOG Hype Posts. Except, you know, shitty.

[Murgos]

I cut and pasted it into word.  7 8.5" x 11" pages is probably a bit much to say "We are going to allow some form of soloing."

[sigil]

Orion has always been  a bit of goof at times, but he has done some very solid work in the past with AC1. I can't speak of his work in 2, but if this project fails it will not be because of him. 

I'm inclined to cut him some slack on his rambling, ren faire inspired spiel.

Many thanks, Stormy, for the Hieromancers quest in AC1.

[Calandryll]

I only just went to the first page of that linked thread.  Judging by the number of worthless fanbois saying "Great dev diary" and "When can I pre-order" they are going to have next to no honest feedback about the game during testing.  I really hope they have learned to seek out constructive criticism instead of bathing in sycophantic comments from a tiny minority who inexplicably think they can do no wrong.

We'll see if Callandryll still talks to us when LOTRO goes into beta. If he does, he'll get some constructive feedback.

Looking forward to it.

One thing I do have to mention though is the concept of listening to players. I read a lot of posts from people (on these very forums sometimes) who say developers listen too much to players. At the same time, I see people (some of them the very same people who have made the previous comment in the past) talking to Raph on the SWG thread about how they believe the SWG players aren't being listened to enough. From my perspective, you can't have it both ways.

I have my own thoughts on the topic, having worked at places where feedback was used in a good way and in some places where it wasn't. So, not to get off topic, but who do you guys think we *should* listen to.  And "you shoud listen to me" isn't an answer. :)

[cevik]

One thing I do have to mention though is the concept of listening to players. I read a lot of posts from people (on these very forums sometimes) who say developers listen too much to players. At the same time, I see people (some of them the very same people who have made the previous comment in the past) talking to Raph on the SWG thread about how they believe the SWG players aren't being listened to enough. From my perspective, you can't have it both ways.

Someone told me that Patton said something similar to this once, but I can't find the exact quote.  It works well here:  The soldiers in the field are always reporting disaster, a General's job is to determine when those reports are real.

You have to do both, listen to the customer and ignore the customer.  The hard part of your job, and the reason you are paid to do it, is you have to figure out the right time to do each of those things.

[Murgos]

I have my own thoughts on the topic, having worked at places where feedback was used in a good way and in some places where it wasn't. So, not to get off topic, but who do you guys think we *should* listen to.  And "you shoud listen to me" isn't an answer. :)

Your own internal data accrued from well conducted surveys of random samples of players (of course meaningful questions aren't simple) and performance metrics.

Did the mean play time fall after the last change or did it increase?

Are more people talking in /shout or in /team?  What does that mean?

Is average income per PC a linear fnn or are there bumps, asymptotes or other odd changes in rate?

How long does someone stand in one place and not record input broken down by class, race and time zone.

Group player concentrations by class race and timezone.  Why are there high concentrations of class y in zone X?  Do we want that many in zone X?  Do we want more in zone X?

Time will tell you which of these questions to ask, as long as you are constantly asking "Which questions can I ask?"

Player feedback from the boards is fine just remember that its only a portion of your players represented there and they are self selecting and not a random sample.

[Calandryll]

One thing I do have to mention though is the concept of listening to players. I read a lot of posts from people (on these very forums sometimes) who say developers listen too much to players. At the same time, I see people (some of them the very same people who have made the previous comment in the past) talking to Raph on the SWG thread about how they believe the SWG players aren't being listened to enough. From my perspective, you can't have it both ways.

Someone told me that Patton said something similar to this once, but I can't find the exact quote.  It works well here:  The soldiers in the field are always reporting disaster, a General's job is to determine when those reports are real.

You have to do both, listen to the customer and ignore the customer.  The hard part of your job, and the reason you are paid to do it, is you have to figure out the right time to do each of those things.

Funny enough, I use almost the same analogy when talking to new people we hire in OCR here. So yea, that's true. The problem is, the part of the community you choose to disagree with (and hence, ignore) doesn't like it much. :)

[Lt.Dan]

Style aside, some of it does sound interesting.  Quests that seem to give you hints on follow up quests, spying quests, story lines.  Of course if the implementation is a yellow exclamation point with a toggle for NPC text speed, then it isn't.

[Furiously]

You should listen to the guy who logs in once to three times during the beta.

[cevik]

Funny enough, I use almost the same analogy when talking to new people we hire in OCR here. So yea, that's true. The problem is, the part of the community you choose to disagree with (and hence, ignore) doesn't like it much. :)

Well, in battle the guys reporting disaster that you ignore either win (because you were right) or lose (because they were right).  I think you'll see the same thing in a MMOG personally, the guys you ignore will eventually move on to the next thing to bitch about because the problem wasn't as big as they originally thought, or more and more and more people will take their side because the problem was bigger than you thought.

See the Alchemy debacle in EQ1 as an example.  It simply never went away, and eventually the devs realized they were ignoring a real disaster, and were forced to fix it.  But then see the myriad of "OMGZ FIX THIS NOW" that come and go in any mmog without ever having a single bit of dev intervention.

Of course, what I'm saying is "well in hindsight it will be easy to figure out what you fucked up", so I'm not really helping at all.  That is of course why you aren't paying me for this information, so it works out well for us.  Hire me and I'll think about it a little more.. :)

[tazelbain]

Style aside, some of it does sound interesting.  Quests that seem to give you hints on follow up quests, spying quests, story lines.  Of course if the implementation is a yellow exclamation point with a toggle for NPC text speed, then it isn't.

It sounds LotR flavored tofu.
If I was making LtoRO, I would make it a reenactment of the trilogy with very shallow advancement allowing vastly different timelines and ability for Sauron or the Fellowship to win.  Afterwards, I'd award participation points base how difficult of a charactor they choose, major accomplishments in game, and divided in tiers so causals only compete with other causal and catasses with other catasses.  The points are then spent in the next round to buy special chars and items and talents for that round.

[Hoax]

I have and always will advocate for the removal of any official game forums that are not designed for:

-Bug reports
-Technical issues
-Server boards (complete with guild recruitment sub-board)

Dont host general boards, dont host dev boards and certainly dont host class/race boards.

Let that shit happen on someone else's dime in someone else's playground.  Eventually fansites where the bullshit is pre-filtered will often rise up, because mods on fansites will not tolerate "DEV READ THIS" type shit for very long.

DO NOT EVER post on fansites.  Except f13, and then only in this general sort of way.  Don't ever address some online petition style bullshit, even if you think that the players are 100% right.  The second they get the idea you are listening and that if they petition something and put enough pages on it it deserves to be changed you are screwed.  Then the fucking MMO special interest groups go to work for their pet class/race/item/dungeon and your so swamped in useless BLUE READ THIS style shit that it makes my eyes bleed.

If the dev team isn't smart enough to be able to figure out what is fun and what isn't, then the game is going to suck.  Sure players can point you in the right direction or reveal flaws (ways to bug mob AI, spells with incorrect damage modifiers etc) that you may have missed.  But the players aren't going to tell you how to balance the game, and devs who try to get that sort of info from them just end up breaking the game even more.

If you read the SWG thread and dont see that those poor idiots (or as I have called them in the past diluted fools heh) who are wishing that the SWG devs had just listened to them, rolled the game back to build 12xyz and done blahblahblah are idiots.  Well I just dont know what to say.

[Soln]

Is it not lost on anyone that that post was not for anyone but fanbois? Remember that Lord of the Rings is a story, with a lot of freakin' words. How many of you all got through the books the first time you read them? Didn't you skip a few of the songs?

Orion is talking to people who love that sort of verbose narrative. So him typing that way is expected.

you gotta be kidding me.  I read Tolkien, I read your blog.  That stuff was garbage.  He spent all of 5 mins on it.  Don't defend that stuff man.