I don’t regret the many years I’ve spent not playing MMOs, but I do regret not taking part in the Great Hobbit Run. It’s an annual event hosted by Twitch streamer BurkeBlack in which hobbit players of Standing Stone and Daybreak’s absolutely ancient The Lord Of The Rings Online try to walk all the way to Mount Doom, without taking on any quests. Which is to say, while doing the bare minimum of levelling up.
This year is the first year the community have made it to Sauron’s hellmouth, and what better way to celebrate than by throwing themselves immediately into the lava. Here’s the full video – skip to the end (or click this Xitter link) for some footage of ecstatic burning Hobbits. Shame they left the Ring in the Shire.
The full journey took seven hours, rather than the estimated six months (plus Rivendell layover) it took Frodo and company in the book. Frodo was a wimp, clearly.
According to PCGamer‘s Scott McCrae, the area around Mount Doom is a level 112 zone. One can only imagine the feats of evasion and/or brassnecked brute-forcing necessary to navigate that landscape without putting in the customary grinding. As McCrae comments, it’s lovely to encounter this kind of community commitment to a bit, given the recent dismal fortunes of always-online games like Concord and XDefiant.
Are there any always-online pilgrimages you’re a part of? Now is the time to pull up a chair and sing us a tale of virtual misadventure. The only such thing I’ve dabbled with is Back To Lordran, the annual feast of jolly cooperation among Dark Souls players, but I’m also reminded distantly of how Elite: Dangerous players have collaborated to map their game’s enormous galaxy.
