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DECIPHER.com > DecipherCon
2003 > The Daily News
Who Should Bear the Elven Bow, or
Trying Out Lord of the Rings Online TCG
One of the busiest demo areas on the Decipher booth throughout
DecipherCon was the bank of six PCs running The Lord of the Rings
Online TCG (in beta version). Rarely was there an empty seat seen there,
but on Friday I managed to snag one long enough to try out the online game.
Although the Worlds Apart staff suggested I try the QuickStart Tutorial,
I decided I would go for the actual game, drawing on my one foray into LOTRTCG
at a booster draft during Origins. One of the staff selected a pre-made
deck for me, set me (GenCon3) up to play against another player at the other
corner of the tables (GenCon6), and I was off.
I found the online game to be pretty user-friendly for a relative
neophyte like me. The program takes care of all the mundane mechanical steps
like shuffling, drawing an opening hand, and laying out new sites when it's
time for one. Each step of the way, your actions and your opponent's are
listed in a scrolling box that you can look back through whenever you want,
and the program tells you what you are expected to do next or if you're
waiting for your opponent to complete an action. When it's time to reconcile
you hand, you're given the opportunity to discard a card , and once you
do that or select "Reconcile", the program takes care of it –
this is great for a long-time STCCG player like me who would probably forget
and just draw one card, or even up to 7.
Most important for a beginning player, when it's your turn
to do something, the program highlights with a green border any cards that
are eligible for you to use at that time. For example, in the Fellowship
phase any cards in your hand that are currently playable will be highlighted;
if you're holding a Dwarven Axe but have no dwarves in play to bear it,
the Axe won't be highlighted. Play a dwarf, though, and then the Axe will
gain a highlight. Likewise, during the Archery phase, you'll see highlights
on Archery-phase events in your hand, plus cards in play that have Archery-phase
actions attached to them, which you might want to use. For a newbie who
hasn't memorized what every card does, that's great – it helps keep
you from overlooking some important action that could save your Ring-bearer's
hobbit hide. (Worlds Apart staff tell me that that feature will likely be
turned off for tournament play; makes sense, as in a tournament you really
have to know what is in your deck and be responsible for keeping track of
your options.)
Looking worried.
Not that the highlighting of your current options tells you
everything you need to know, by a long shot; the program does not keep you
from taking legal but, shall we say, less than useful (or intelliegent)
actions. Case in point: one Fellowship phase, an Elven Bow in my hand was
highlighted as legal to play, because I had at least one Elf in play to
bear it. In fact, I had more than one Elf in play, and all of them were
highlighted as legal bearers. But the program did not tell me that it was,
um, kinda stupid to play the Elven Bow on Legolas (as I did), since what
the bow does is make the bearer an archer, which Legolas already is. Maybe
I should have given it to that Lorien Swordsman instead?
No wonder I looked worried – Frodo looks awfully lonely
there!
After getting two Lorien Swordsmen (sans bows) killed off,
following by Pippin and Merry, I got another Elven Bow, which this time
I was careful to play on Haldir (not already an archer – see,
I do learn). Unfortunately, my unfamiliarity with the deck and the game
meant that soon both Legolas and Haldir were also in the dead pile, and
finally I was down to just my poor little Frodo with a Hobbit Sword. Guess
who gets to skirmish the next big bad uruk-hai. But a green highlight pops
up around a fortuitous Swiftly and Softly, which I use to cancel his skirmish.
Saved for the moment. Next round, with no more companions to play, Frodo
goes down at the hands of another uruk-hai. A box on the screen politely
informs me:
Sorry. The minions of shadow have defeated your fellowship. You have
lost the game.
Maybe I'd better try out that QuickStart Tutorial before next
time...
Kathy McCracken
Web Writer
July 28, 2003
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