LOTRO: Group Content Argument Solved Answer Atomized!

LOTRO PLAYERS article: ‘On Par With Radience/Group Content – Cost us?’

A Lot(ro)* of replies, a hot debate about LOTRO 🙂

*LOT(ro) trying to avoid using WOW for obvious reasons…(Wow! Lots of replies…)

‘But if I do Ill calmly punch them
In the fourth day of July
Cause they tried to mess with Third Degree
Thats me myself and I
 
Its just me myself and I
Its just me myself and I
Its just me myself and I
Its just me myself and I’

De La Soul – ‘Me, Myself and I’

Me, myself and I have always loved that MMO’s cater for diverse groupings and am proud that LOTRO caters for so many of these fetishes so well…

Indeed the depth and possibilities offered amaze:

RP one legged hobbit – tick
Skirmish mash up – tick
Raid with kinnies – tick
End game raid with kinnies – not got there yet but it does drive me onwards to wanting to join in – so tick!
Solo grinding TP for FTP purchase of stuff – tick
Solo leveling following EPIC – tick
Grouped big or small following EPIC – tick
Above with RP inserted – tick
Crafting only – tick
Playing around in dresses – tick
Dressing dwarf up in dresses – tick
Again above 2 with RP – tick!
Playing with Elves – tick
Beating up my fellow players dressed up as monsters – tick
Being a monster and beating up fellow players – tick
On and on we could go, endless permutations – tick

and all of this in a pretty Lord of The Rings Middle Earth package! 🙂

So are TURBINE killing the game by not releasing new raid content?

I would like to say probably not but they are not helping it maintain it’s great position as greatest MMO ever…(for me…)

And the discussion also got me thinking…

I once saw the biggest Buddha in the world, I was very impressed but later discovered that is actually the Spring Temple Buddha, Zhaocun, China at 153m…so I had seen the largest seated Buddha…er no I hadn’t that is the Leshan Buddha at 71m. So I had seen the largest, seated, outdoor bronze Buddha… Tian Tan Buddha , Lantau island, Hong Kong at 34m!

The Devil is in the detail…

Whereas the world’s largest seated bronze-like Buddha surrounded by Japanese toys on a plinth consisting of a condom packet? That was in Copenhagen: but I moved it…

And while it is all good and well, Buddha would surely say chill folks…or size is not important…

And Buddha knew about size: Quotation from ‘krulwich wonder’ a science blog (Go and read this Vulture story as well…great stuff  )

‘Robert: So the question is, roughly: How many atoms are there in a line 10 kilometers long?
Ezra: Kind of. And here, courtesy of the ancient texts, is his solution:
A yojana, the Buddha said, is equivalent to:

‘Four krosha, each of which was the length of
One thousand arcs, each of which was the length of
Four cubits, each of which was the length of
Two spans, each of which was the length of
Twelve phalanges of fingers, each of which was the length of
Seven grains of barley, each of which was the length of
Seven mustard seeds, each of which was the length of
Seven particles of dust stirred up by a cow, each of which was the length of
Seven specks of dust disturbed by a ram, each of which was the length of
Seven specks of dust stirred up by a hare, each of which was the length of
Seven specks of dust carried away by the wind, each of which was the length of
Seven tiny specks of dust, each of which was the length of
Seven minute specks of dust, each of which was the length of
Seven particles of the first atoms.’

So here’s the neat part: According to Alex Bellos, it turns out the Buddha’s calculation got the size of an atom very close to right!

This was, in fact, a pretty good estimate. Just say that a finger is 4 centimeters long. The Buddha’s “first atoms” are, therefore, 4 centimeters divided by 7 ten times, which is 0.04 meter x 7 to the minus 10 or 0.00000000001416 meter, which is more or less the size of a carbon atom.’

So how on earth did I get here?

I was trying to make a point about details and statistics but I lost it…or it shrunk to the size of an atom and is invisible to the naked eye!

To be honest I have no idea…

LOTRO has entered the Atomic Age…

Maybe I was trying to say that I am not a raider but I want to be one day, or at least I want to be able to try even if I spend 99.99% of my LOTRO time doing something else…

Will I do PvP? Maybe one day but I want that option in LOTRO to do that if I so fancy.

So instead of basing a game on statistics of game use now how about basing it on what the players want…and unless new technology is invented no-one will ever know that as even we, us and ourselves struggle daily to work that out.

What excites me in a game is when something that excites the creators makes its way into a game and it excites me. If it misses I can still appreciate it…and maybe one day it will excite me…if it is a soulless expansion/extrapolation of market research then I am pretty sure it will not excite.

So of course there are market forces at play shaping LOTRO but the creators are still people, until they are not allowed to create and after that until LOTRO has all of its soul removed LOTRO will be the MMO for me.

‘Its just me myself and I
Its just me myself and I
Its just me myself and I
Its just me myself and I’

De La Soul – ‘Me, Myself and I’

And Buddha and atoms…