YANE the Wary

You know why starting something from scratch, something new is fun besides the obvious reasons?

Because your improvements come quicker. For me to improve upon something as a level 70 in WoW, it will take me several hours, if not weeks.

Lately when I was logging off from WoW, I would say "Well I'm one turn-in closer to my goal", "I'm one primal closer to my crafted item", "I'm one hundred gold closer to my epic mount". Which felt good to say I guess, but was a bit of a let down and sometimes made (and still makes) it hard to even want to log on. Everyone says anything worth something involves work, effort and time. But darn it, sometimes I want my game to involve play, less effort and time!

And that's what new games provide. In my very first sitting of LOTRO, I was able to achieve a title. Actually you can choose a title from the start, sharing your place of origin with everyone. But by reaching level 5 without dying I attained the title "the Wary".

I thought that was pretty neat, titles are something that City of Heroes already has, but compare this to WoW's pvp titles which pver's don't care about and the scarcer titles Scarab Lord (already in game) and Justicar (to be added in the next patch):

In order to get "Scarab Lord" you had to finish a long quest line (including quest objectives that could only be finished with a 40-man raid) which involved banging the gong to open the Ahn'Qiraj gates, a one-time event. In other words, if you don't have it already, you probably won't get it. I think on my realm - one of the most heavily populated - we have 2 or 3 I think. On new realms there is hardly a reason to join the war effort, let alone have a guild who wants to raid old instances to propel you through the quest line.

And the easier to obtain "Justicar" title just involves being exalted with Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch factions. Yeah, easy. There will be many players able to have this title, since it doesn't involve raiding. But there will be even more without it.

While it is very cool for only certain people to have certain things (cool for them I guess) in the MMORPGs we play, it goes a long way to have things that everyone can obtain reasonably. Does it water down the meaning? Would it mean less if everyone that was able to make it to the opening of the gates got the title of Scarab Lord? Well only the players who finished the quest line were able to choose from some epic rewards that were the best in the game before BC. I don't see why not handing out some more titles would have hurt.

Titles don't affect gameplay, I'm not stronger as a result of obtaining a title. But just being able to bring up a list and choose a new title put a smile on my face. I didn't have to spend a few months for a title that someday someone will ask "what's a AQ?" Instead, now I wonder will I get a title for making it to 10 without dying? All I know is I'm going to play a bit more carefully now just in case! And that's the difference, it gives me something to look forward to, instead of looking at something I'll never get.