Category Archives: Role Playing

Worst Map Ever Contender: Lord of the Rings Online

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lotro logoI recently started playing Lord of the Rings Online (also known as LotRO), an MMO from Turbine that was originally released way back in 2007. I really don’t have very much experience with MMOs – I played a little bit of the first Guild Wars back in the day, but I didn’t get real far.

I do, however, have a lot of experience with world maps – see posts on Final Fantasy XIII, Mass Effect 2, Borderlands 2, The Witcher 2, and even one on different ways to access the world map. Despite the game originally coming out 6 years ago, I’m still nominating Lord of the Rings Online to have the worst world map ever.

I’ve limited myself to three major beefs with this map:

  1. The quest markers are barely visible
  2. Places that are zoom-able aren’t labeled at all
  3. The various hint texts on the map aren’t consistently located, and zooming out isn’t real intuitive without it

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Final Fantasy XIII: Know Your Role (and Your Paradigm)

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Title logo for Final Fantasy XIIII like the Paradigm system in Final Fantasy XIII. It’s taken me a while to get used to it, but I’ve finally decided that Paradigms are a good thing. It’s similar to the Dresspheres from Final Fantasy X-2 though you’re controlling all of your characters at once, as opposed to just one at a time.

Setting up your Paradigms effectively is an important part of the game. If you’re in the middle of a big battle and discover you don’t have the right combination of roles, it might be a long and painful fight. Despite there being only six slots for Paradigms, it’s still a minor pain to get everything setup correctly. And – here’s my primary issue with the system – every time characters are switched in and out of your party, all your Paradigms are reset, and they all have to be configured again.

Ready to find out more? Not sure what I’m talking about? Read on!

Dungeon Raid: We Need Invisible Fingers

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Title logo to the game Dungeon Raid LiteAfter my article on 10000000 for iOS, I got a recommendation to check out a similar iOS title, Dungeon Raid (iTunes link). It’s a tile-matching game that has slightly different gameplay, but a common RPG element put on top. If you ask me, anytime you can solve puzzles and upgrade your weapons, it’s bound to be a good time.

And it is a good time. However…there’s one problem, while not unique to this game, that I’ve found particularly irritating here. The big benefit to touchscreens, of course, is removing that disconnect between you and your content that’s caused by a mouse and keyboard. Unfortunately, not only is your finger significantly bigger than a mouse pointer, it’s also attached to your hand. So when tapping items on the screen, your finger has a nasty habit of covering exactly what you want to look at.

Read on for exactly how this happens in Dungeon Raid.

Final Fantasy XIII: Where is North?

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Title logo for Final Fantasy XIIIAfter 35+ hours, I’m finally getting to the point in Final Fantasy XIII where I need to use the map. Up until now it’s been a straightforward affair mostly consisting of following a hallway until the next cutscene. Back when FF XIII was in the news, this caused quite a stir among the Final Fantasy faithful. Personally I like it, because it lets me focus more on the storytelling of the game, and less on the getting lost in the forest.

Anyway, now that I’ve made it to chapter 11 need the map to navigate the Archylte Steppe, I’ve discovered a peculiar missing feature: north. The game’s map doesn’t have any way to tell which direction you’re facing. Which is made especially hard because the map is constantly moving depending on which way you’re facing. It does have one big landmark to help you out, but even that isn’t clearly marked. Let’s talk about the map.

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Final Fantasy XIII: A Great Loading Screen

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final fantasy xiii - fireworksHistorically, I’ve had a problem with Final Fantasy games. For whatever reason, it takes me forever to finish them. Usually, I’ll get about a third of the way in before I get distracted for a long time. Then when I return, I have totally forgotten the story, and it’s really hard to get back into the groove of the game. Especially one as story driven as the Final Fantasy series is.

Finally, after enduring many years of “hey can someone explain the ending of this game to me” with Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy XIII has made a simple change that has made me really happy. As soon as you start loading the game, recent plot events are relayed to you on the loading screen! Let’s have a quick look at this small but much appreciated usability-enhancing feature.

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