Brian “Zombie Columbus” continues his series of developer diaries about the new Skirmish system coming in The Lord of the Rings Online™: Siege of Mirkwood™ with Part 6: Accessibility. If you’ve missed previous installments you can catch up with Part 1: Overview, Part 2: Story Instances,  Part 3: Randomization and Scaling,  Part 4: Skirmish Soldiers, and Part 5: Rewards!

From A to B

Travel time has always been a hot topic in MMO design. Can players teleport anywhere in the game instantly, or does walking from one end of the world to the other take hours? There are supporters on both sides of this debate, and both approaches have their own benefits and drawbacks. A large world makes the game feel more massive and makes the highs and lows of the game experience more exciting; for instance, fighting a Nazgûl or dragon should be a very, very rare occurrence or it loses something of its mystique. Sprawling landscapes feel vast and filled with adventure because they ARE. On the other hand, fast-travel allows players to immediately do what they want to. It makes a wide open landscape feel less daunting and allows players to jump into the action whenever they want.

Skirmish-join

For Skirmishes, we decided to come down firmly on the "quick and easy" side of the spectrum, while at the same time trying to keep the decision from making the rest of LOTRO feel less grand. In addition, all Skirmishes are instances so we needed a way for players to get inside them. Doors, like those we use on existing instances, would be awkward in a lot of places, as Skirmishes are often outdoors. To serve these goals, we developed Skirmish-join. Once you have completed the Skirmish tutorials, you will be able to open the Skirmish-join panel (by pressing Control-J or through the UI) from almost anywhere in Middle-earth, select the Skirmish you wish to join, and instantly travel to it. There are a few restrictions on Skirmish-join to help with balance and server stability. You can’t use Skirmish-join from inside an instance or in PvMP, nor while you’re in combat. Additionally, during times of high server volume you may be placed in a queue. Lastly, upon completion (or failure) of a Skirmish, you will be returned to the exact spot in Middle-earth where you started from.