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Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO) has now been out for over a year, and Wolfshead wrote up solid commentary on the game’s status. We won’t delve into the review as a whole because we haven’t played LotRO, and have no plans to either. Nonetheless, we’ll take some time to comment on one of Wolfshead’s issues with the game. Namely, LotRO’s scarcity of magic.

The fact that there is very little magic practiced by the peoples of Middle-earth in Turbine’s LOTRO stands out like a sore thumb and is one my my biggest problems with this MMO. The absence of magic is the two ton elephant in the room. It’s swords without the sorcery; might without the magic… Even the melee and non-melee classes have a very restrained feel to them with regard to their lack of magic. I think this is a critical mistake in a fantasy based MMO to err on the side of less magic.

While Wolfshead’s distaste for a magic-less fantasy setting may be distasteful to him and players of other fantasy games, the fact is, Tolkien’s Middle-earth is a world with diminishing magic, what with the elvish diaspora from the land and the fact that magic, as wielded by Gandalf, is limited to the Istari. That is to say, Gandalf is one of five Maiar, or spirits, known to wield potent magics; in Middle-earth, men, elves, dwarves, and other races are unable to learn magic the way the Istari can, which makes magic a very limited beast in Middle-earth in the traditional sense.

This said, from a lore perspective, the lack of magic in LotRO isn’t a two-ton elephant in the room after all. Rather, it’s quite consistent with Tolkien’s image of the world he painted. If anything, the “magic” Tolkien fans love is intrinsic to the unique creatures and artifacts that can be found in Middle-earth, many of which were created with magic long ago, else created with more passive magic. That is to say, magic-wielding in regards to tossing fireballs, levitating, et al isn’t supposed to be achievable by the average denizens of Middle-earth, to include the types of characters played in a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) set therein. Rather, magical items, and abilities mimicking limited forms of magic (like most MMOG melee/ranged physical abilities) are perfectly fine, and to this end, LotRO appears to deliver acceptably.

Unlike Wolfshead, we’re rather dismayed at the industry’s insistence that magic needs to manifest in most every fantasy title in a less passive sense. Heck, even modern or future fantasy is littered with magic in the form of “psychic powers” these days, and that’s discouraging considering that developers could find more plausible mechanics for these kinds of abilities. For example, we recently played Bioshock, which is set in an alternate history in the 1960s. In addition to a common assortment of weapons, the character learns to use plasmids, which are nothing less than fairly potent psychic powers. Rather than having these powers mimicked using found devices, Bioshock’s developers decided to forego a further sense of believability by integrating powers that are very unsubtle. In other words, Bioshock is less immersive than it could be on account of its insistence to use magic over instruments that even an alternative 1960s might find plausible.

Sure, players want spectacular abilities, but the degree of spectacular they need is relative to the common ability. That is to say, as long as the more unique and more powerful abilities have an appropriately unique visual effect, players don’t need traditional magical abilities. Rather, the magic players seek can still be found in the character’s world, be that in the environments, the NPCs they come across, the objects they collect, or even in the subtle effects of otherwise mundane abilities.

In conclusion, we offer props to Turbine for not only realizing Tolkien’s vision for a world where magic is on the decline, but for not giving in to player expectations that Istari powers should be offered to players just because.

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