by: Tony "RadarX" Jones

Love them or hate them, it’s hard to argue Turbine can’t think outside the box in their development. Continually providing content just a little outside the norm, things like Fellowship Manuevers and the Epic Story Line prove there is a concerted effort to make Lord of the Rings Online a unique experience. In a recently released sneak preview of the next content release, we got a look at what they will be calling Session Play. What is it? According to the preview, it means “you to play as a character other than your normal character.” Feel more enlightened? The examples of characters it listed were a Ranger, a Troll, and even a chicken. Yes, an actual chicken.

Session play sounds similar to the well established Monster Play. Is this the same, allowing you to take control of numerous evil monsters and kill other players? Not really. For starters these characters aren’t evil, but more importantly they will have no permanence in the game. You’ll play a session, log off, and sadly wave goodbye to Captain Cluckers, your chicken warrior.

A Quick Fix?

You’d have to agree the gameplay is only temporary, so this would be categorized under “fluff.” Its a little taste of side content meant to entertain players outside of what they’d normally be doing. If Legoolos (yes I have seen that name) gets tired of looking for a fellowship for high level quests, they can hop on for a few hours and peck things.

Will it last? It’s hard to say. If you remember the old EverQuest where you could play as an orc or a rat, it was fun for a little while but didn’t last forever. A clear line of progression, or a tangible permanent reward, is a big motivator in game tasks. Turbine appears to be offsetting this by using a series of quests which will give something to your player character. After that, you are free to roam the country and collect deeds and kill things. I don’t see the last part really attracting the more casual crowd honestly.

The other downside I see is 6 million people thinking it’s cool to show up in Bree as a Troll (which hopefully will get them a stabbing from the guards) or the chicken. Please do not show up in the Auction House as a chicken. You have no money, and how are you going to carry anything around anyway? Unnecessary lag and the inability for players to kick chickens could cause serious levels of annoyance.

There is Potential

The last section might have sounded a little negative but this really does have some potential. First, its modular construction means they can just add more any time they please. This isn’t a new zone they had to place and develop, it’s basically reusing what they already had available. The preview didn’t mention how much of it was instanced versus in the real Middle-earth but there is quite a bit of room for chickens to run around.

What else could they add to this? Sure right now we have Ranger, Troll, or chicken but the possibilities are endless. We could follow the story of a wayward goblin trying to please his boss, a bear who wants nothing more than honey, or a brigand who robs from the rich and gives to the poor. Questlines could be integrated in every zone, but I hold no responsibility for copyright infringement.

Taking this a step further, I’d like to see mini-adventures involving some of the more interesting Middle-earth characters. I’m not saying we should play Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, or anyone of capital importance because who can really be trusted with such a responsibility. Perhaps you could rerun some of the Epic quest instances as the NPC that “goes the other way” or better yet you could take Tom Bombadillo around a village to see how many people will smack him for his cheeriness in 3 minutes. What? I’m betting most players could get him run out of the village entirely.

Will it be enough? Is Turbine going to add more to it? Whether it will satisfy Joe Adventurer we won’t know until the next update. Most comments on the official forums seem to lean towards positive so it appears Turbine is heading in the right direction. Keep an eye out for this interesting content expansion to hit Live servers very soon.

What do you think? Is it good, bad, am I full of poo? Tell us in our forums.