Some time ago in a post about artificially creating value I discussed the way that Guild Wars dangles hard to get titles in front of players as carrots to keep them motivated while World of Warcraft dangles epic gear with uber stats. At the time I felt that titles and other vanity rewards were a better way to go because they don't create an unbridgeable gap between hard core and casual players.
Lotro has gone in for titles in a big way. Just look at an incomplete list of titles you can get within the game here. It seems that you cannot trip over the corpse of a dead wolf in Middle Earth without earning some new apellation. Some titles do indeed represent major achievements like defeating a raid boss but there are so many glorious sounding titles for minor achievements that all titles have become devalued. Many players don't even bother to display their titles and fewer still care what the various titles mean. Contrast this with Guild Wars where titles are harder to come by but are genuinely valued by players.
Its probably too late to change now but it seems a pity to me. In my opinion Lotro has missed a real oportunity to make titles a desirable goal. They have managed to devalue all titles by making too many of them and making most of them too easy to get.
Lotro has gone in for titles in a big way. Just look at an incomplete list of titles you can get within the game here. It seems that you cannot trip over the corpse of a dead wolf in Middle Earth without earning some new apellation. Some titles do indeed represent major achievements like defeating a raid boss but there are so many glorious sounding titles for minor achievements that all titles have become devalued. Many players don't even bother to display their titles and fewer still care what the various titles mean. Contrast this with Guild Wars where titles are harder to come by but are genuinely valued by players.
Its probably too late to change now but it seems a pity to me. In my opinion Lotro has missed a real oportunity to make titles a desirable goal. They have managed to devalue all titles by making too many of them and making most of them too easy to get.
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