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Is this quest hub heavy?
fivetigers
Member UncommonPosts: 208
Is this a super linear quest-hub to quest-hub game?
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Comments
Sort of.
There are quest hubs but in certain instances you can level in different places.
Mostly at the start.
Or, if you just want to explore and make your own way you can find orc camps and the like here and there and just kill mobs which is a good part of my game play when I do play.
The game is free so just download and give it a test run. If you like Lord of the Rings and you like reading quest text then it could be a very good game.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
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Not so much for the first 20 levels, but more and more so as the game progresses. In the original design, not so much, in the redesigned areas, yes.
By the time you reach Isengard (65), it's pretty much completely Quest Hub orientated. To the point where if you miss an object laying on the ground in an obscure part of the game, you'll miss out on an entire quest hub.
And more areas are getting redesigned in the next update (April?) so it's going to be even more linear.
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
You make me like charity
LOTRO is definitely aging but a solid game with an epic story. And mounted combat.
As other said, it is quest hub to quest hub but after Lone-lands, you get the choice of picking of several zones(You have to buy zone unlocks for TP to access the quests if you're not subscribing but you gain TP while playing/grinding deeds and such).
The entire Epic book line (with a very few exceptions) is free and optional but recommended as they give good xp/items and money.
The only epic quest book you are forced to do is to enter moria as digging out the entrance is part of the epic quests.
You can also grind skirmish instances which give very good xp and money instead of going through quest hubs.
Quest hubs make it non- liner.
You can go to a quest hub and pick your quest or disregard, then you can enjoy that zone in any direction you like, adding that you can open world group better than full story line games.
How this is becoming a topic for leaner lately is beyond me......If someone can describe how to play an mmo non linear, please fill me in ?
I tried to point it as well in the other thread (with TOR's replayability)...
Is LotRO a quest-hub built game? Yes, pretty much like all the games around that era (and even after, the sole exception could be TSW with its deliberately non-questhub based design).
Does it make LotRO a linear game? Nope, you can go questing wherever you want - within the limits of your level range, and in some cases with a previous quest completion requirement, mostly for story chains.
"Is this a super linear quest-hub to quest-hub game?" Quest hub != super linear.
edit: while Jeremy's somewhat right in that your options getting more narrow in the expansions range and with closing to the level cap, Turbine is trying to put alternate routes in there as well (Great River, Gap of Rohan, and Wildermore). True, in HD you won't have many options in questing, but I guess by the time you reach lvl85 you'll know already whether you like the game or not
In Asheron's Call quests of all level were scattered all around the world. If you went to a new town (which you could do at any time), there were quests for all levels there, not just levels 1-10 or 25-35, etc. If you skipped quests entirely, you weren't handicapping yourself, because simply killing monsters got you gear from loot and good xp, unlike most of the games now where most of your gear and xp is almost exclusively acquired from quest hub quests.
In Asheron's Call (and I'm sure some other games too) you could go anywhere in the world and find something to do.
Most games now force you to play quest-hub to quest-hub. Yes, once at the hub you have limited choice to do the quests in slightly different order, but my point is that quest hub is specifically designed for your current level, and if you prematurely move on to the next hub, you will be severly underleveld and undergeared, and your only viable option it to return to the previous quest hub and complete it's content.
In most newer games, if you even have the option to go anywhere in the world, you won't be able to do anything because you are out of the area designed for your level.
So, yes, for the most part quest-hub games are linear.
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Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
You need some sort of linearity, few chokepoints and intersections, it's still a story in the end
and I like the design idea of the dates set according to the Fellowship's location and status.
I wasn't talk about parallel zones (ok, at the expansions I did, but you have some options in those as well), I ment something similar like the example above with AC. There are a few ties among the "hubs" indeed, but for a big part you can play anywhere you like - if the levels are fit. So you can jump on your steed after finishing some quests in Agamaur, riding to Thorenhad, after a few quests jumping back to Dwaling in Evendim, then a few quests later riding up north to Tinnudir and then heading east to Othrikar in the North Downs, then back to Thorenhad for some leftover quests.
There are a few dependencies, there will be quests you can't take at the moment, and it would be a huge ride in itself just for the sake of freedom, but still: beyond your level range you can quest wherever you please. (Again, above 65 your options are narrower, but even there you can add some variety to your personal questing story.)
edit: for OP, those locations are not connected by any quests, that's why I cited them for the example
so no linearity among those specific areas, nor are they the "starting" hub in their zones.
One more gameplay question, where do you aquire most of your gear?
Is most of your gear from quests, dropped from monsters, or crafted?
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I agree, and I like the "It's just not bad linearity. " I also ment something like that with my post.
Maybe it was just my wording, for me "linear" means the on-the-rails, "there's only one way (to rule them all)" questing, and LotRO is not like that in most times. I admit it has some linear parts indeed, mostly the book quest lines (though those can be played parallel to each other too, or even skipping one you don't like, so there's some freedom in them). Yep, this "good / bad linearity" sounds like a great approach
As for the gear question, nice summary, I can only +1 it. Crafting can give gear which is close to the best available ones, but not on every level, just at around every 6-8 levels (at the end of each crafting tier). Quest gear can be nice as well, and since the game is not that hard nowadays, quest gear can be more than enough for leveling. In the expansion part above lvl50, crafting (within the crafting guild) becomes more important with the crafted LI's. OP was also curious about monster drops, well, those are average at best
except the end bosses (questchain end, or instance end), they drop nice pieces. But world drops can give some really cool-looking stuff, it's nice enough to wear them cosmetically.
"Is most of your gear from quests, dropped from monsters, or crafted?" Depends on the mood. I like crafting a lot, so I'm usually running around in a mix of quest and crafted (and the ratio is based on the afforementioned mood, if it'd take too much of a chore to gather the mats, I just go with quest ones... /me lazy
). I also mixing into them the barter ones from reputation, and occasionally I used to do some instances, so there's a few pieces from those as well. But that's just me, I don't really care about gear and gear grind 
edit: for shortly back to the linear part, OP if you're fast enough you can play North Downs before they revamp it (and with it probably streamlining it). That's the last area close to its "original" state, so it's like your AC example, chaotic and fun
Quests in the range of lvl20 - lvl 42, with a loose path (and even that is going back and forth among the many questgivers / mini hubs all over the map), lots of satellite quests (which you can take without any mandatory previous one), mixed mob population (like chasing white mobs and suddenly you bump into oranges/purples, or walking into an area full of signatures 5 levels above you, who'll wipe the floor with you) - and of course lots of group quests. Dunno what will stay in there after U13, but I hope the most, ND is a great area. If you start a character now, you can reach into ND with 1-2 days of playing and check it while it lasts.