The Experiment. -Phase One-

(I will explain from where this come from, at the end of the post :D)

Sounds quite impressive the title of this post, right? Well, long short version of the story: I'm bored and I decided to make a strong experiment in my kin and in part of the game with another kins and groups. Since I returned to LotRO I has been having a hard time in finding the differences between WoW and LotRO behavior in the players.

Group quite closed, people showing off their gear and telling you how bad is someone at the game, bad jokes and that excessive need to prove that you are, inside the kin, the most funny and reliable person ever (Even if you are not) to may advanced in the Kin hierarchy. May this not be so bad, still, it can go extremely bad sometimes.

In the first phase of my experiment I will try to find a group to make some instances with Varsalla, my noob healer, in order to get some gear from the 3 man instances and 6 man instance of Isengard... Why I would do that? Easy to answer. Since the new zone, Shores of the Great River (Or something like that) I have been noticing that ppl only works on the new instance called "Roots of Fangorn" and possibly, but not so intense, in "The Foundry" only at tier 2 even if they have people in the same kin that needs gear from the lower tiers or other instances.

(Since I haven't been inside the new instance before, I decided to make a short research and got these few screen from: This awesome blog All credits for the screens to this blog and thanks in advance!)

Quite creepy, right?

Hmm dern...

Usually, in WoW, if you are far behind that the rest of the Guild (Or Kinship) you have to make your own way to get ready for the latest content and still, because of many reasons, sometimes you find a horrible wall to climb which is: "Is there any spot for you in the latest content?". Sad, but certainly true. Since WoW is basically filled with "core raiders" (And dont even dare to say no, you WoW-players, do the maths and you will find that its true... I used to be a WoW player as well and I know the system :3) some alts are just made it for fun and sometimes, sadly, have more priority over other's main character of non core raiders.

In LotRO may be happening the same. Some alts have more priority over others alts even if its, for sure, that they are not as necessary over other characters. For example, and thanks to the Valars that I have the best way to prove it, I will take a look over my characters: I have a Hunter (which there's a least thousands of them in the game) and a Minstrel (Which they may be a lot of them, but they are always in demand). My hunter is somehow geared for some raids and I even got invitations that I had to decline due some real-life duties, and Varsalla, which have no gear at all (Well, a lvl 75 minnie book second age already, fully leveled but I need to work a lot in the legacies) that have also no experienced that has no invitation, not even a skirmish raid or a singular skirmish.

I'm going to leave Khas far behind for a while in this experiment, to see if its true or false what I'm going to call "The Inner Circle Syndrome" Which basically is "Always get the same group to the same instances one and other time and don't let new people in".

Why this happens? Easy, people get used to play with other people's style and they are afraid to break that order, its a paradigm: "Why would I change something that sometimes works, to try something new that possibly wont work?" People sometimes is afraid of changes and in the games, where every run counts for some players more than to other players, it quite marked in their point of view. Its that a bad thing? A good thing? I dont know, for me, in my own personal opinion, its a bad thing... Totally, since it takes out the chances for everyone to enjoy the same content that the other players has.

This dog is shocked about this...

Sounds like a good experiment right? As I said, I'm quite bored right now and instead of looking for stuff to do, I will be working in this for the next weeks. Because I'm sure that its going to take more than few days to prove all the phases of the experiment. so far, I have 4 phases with AWESOME and COOL names... Like "The Inner Circle Syndrome".

So, you may have been thinking: What's wrong with you? Easier, I shall tell the story of this experiment... I was Fishing in LotRO while I was speaking with one of my bests friends in skype, while he was playing WoW doing some quests and instances. While we were chatting we started to define the behaviors of some players in the game and started to debate what was wrong and what was good in that, it was a loooong chatting stuff that we had but it was funny and at the end, after few minutes of silence and while I was no longer talking to him, I decided to put awesome names on each behavior.

I know that this experiment could bring me some troubles, but as I said: I'm bored in the game and, perhaps, some troubles will add some fun. Lately I have been only leveling old toons and doing deeds... end fishing... Which is going to be my next post: Fishing stuff.

Well, have a great time my friends and, if you like, I will take any suggestion in this experiment (and add the credits of course as well!) Good hunting and good luck!