So I've been playing lotro for almost a year now. For me, for an mmo, for something that requires paying for on a regular basis - that's a very impressive number. All this time, I had never once (except for one tiny quest to introduce the system to me) set foot in the area of pixelated Middle-earth Turbine has christened The Ettenmoors. Why? Because I would die if I did. And quickly.
The real horror of dying in the Moors lies not from signature elite mobs, or even from random arch-nemesis (in my whole year of playing, I have only run across maybe five of these. They are not fun. I usually run when I see them and don't even stop to see how strong they are). No, the real danger in the Moors lies in other players . That's right. The Moors is lotro's PvP area, or in this case, PvMP (the M stands for Monster). In the Moors, players entering the area from the rest of Middle-earth will fight (and quite likely die) as an elf or hobbit or whatever race their character happens to be. Or, players have the option of entering the Moors from the login screen as a monster. Players can choose between all sorts of nasties - orcs, wargs, spiders - lots of dangerous creepy things.
Why is this so different than every other place in lotro, you might ask? Because, when you have people vs an AI system, it's pretty predictable what the thing you are shooting at is going to do next. However, when you are pew-pewing away at another person, a certain level of... well... uncertainty comes into play. There's no telling what the person behind that Uruk-hai is going to do next.
Anyways, back to my not being on the Moors.
My avoiding the Moors ended about a week ago when I decided, since I had finally hit lvl 60 (which is almost at the level cap for lotro) to see if I could step past that barrier without being instantly ganked by some warg hiding in the bushes. Plus, with Turbine's recent change to the mount system, horses, instead of being a pickandchoosecauseyouonlygetone sort of thing, are like Pokemon. You gotta catch em all. And one of those horses lies in the Moors. It is not available for purchase until you reach something called "Glory Rank 9." I figured Glory can't be that hard to get, so I headed out to Glan Vraig, the safe point for Freeps (that's the good guys, it's short for Free Peoples) and set about asking if there were any groups out.
Within seconds I was sent an invite into a group of about twenty people. Twenty very loud, very rude, very scathing people. One of them sounded as though he was seven years old. After I died a few times (which didn't take very long, even with the group - they assumed it was my fault for dying and not the healer's for not keeping me alive....) they began to talk about me in chat, as if I wasn't still there and couldn't hear what they were saying. The seven year old proceeded to tell the leader of the group that "he had inspected my traits and I wasn't even traited to be out here, what the **** did I think I was doing out here?" (I am bleeping his words for courtesy - I was shocked that a kid would use that sort of language.
I stuck with it for about thirty more minutes before I finally dropped the group and mapped back to the safety of my hobbit-hole. Then, I sat there for a full five minutes and tried very hard not to cry.
I was in shock. In all these months, in all my hours of playing, I had never once been reduced to tears by the community of lotro. I have found the players to be mature, respectful, and on the whole very friendly. This was something completely different. This was like playing WoW or something. I logged off and went and made supper.
A few days later (I suppose I have a short memory or something) I decided to go back to the Moors. As luck would have it, I got into a much better group - no one yelled, no one cursed, and we rained fire and brimstone down onto those Creeps. I was enraptured. I lost track of time. I played for six hours straight into the night. Finally, when the group disbanded, I realized that it was four o'clock in the morning. I was surprised at the time, but then again I wasn't. I was also hooked on the Moors.
Since then I have been back out there several more times, and I have worked my way up to Glory Rank 4, or the "Man-at-Arms" rank. I have managed to get into almost the exact same group every time (apparently this is a regular, scheduled thing for them) and not once have I seen that horrible seven year old.
I still have a long way to go for that horse (which, I've been informed, is considered the "ultimate" status symbol for lotro - you have that horse, you are immediately looked upon with respect. The fact that each rank increases in size and difficulty, but hey, I am in no rush. Right now I'm enjoying the Moors, and by the time I do get that horse, I will probably keep Freeping.
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