The assist window in Lord of the Rings Online is a rather useful tool, allowing the fellowship leader to designate a player as the ‘assist’, at which point a small UI window pops up displaying that player’s unit frame as well as the unit frame of anything they target. In basic terms it allows all members of the group to focus their fire on one target, making the tank’s life easier and generally leading to the group dispatching mobs safely and efficiently.
One does have to wonder how it would be realised in the game world, however. Perhaps the ‘assist’ is simply shouting out what they are looking at for the rest of the group to act upon.
“I’m attacking this Orc!”
“I’m fighting this badger!”
“I’m changing target to this bigger badger!”
“I’m not looking at anything!”
“I’m looking at the tank’s fine arse in that sexy elven armour!”
“I’m looking at an angry tank walking towards me!”
“I’m looking scared!”
“I’m looking at my bloody teeth lying next to me on the floor!”
Watching the assist window outside of combat is the MMO equivalent of getting an accidental call from someone’s mobile phone where the caller doesn’t realise they’ve dialled you up, and where you can hear everything going on in the background at the other end of the line. And as with such a phone call, the assist window leads to quite voyeuristic tendencies. You get to watch whatever the other person is watching. It’s like a double-blind peep show and it can be quite fun to watch the ‘assist’ flicking between various targets as your group wanders along between fights. Of course, as with the accidental phone call, voyeuristic experiences may vary; I wonder if an adventurer has ever left their assist window on after a hard day at work fighting the forces of darkness. What occurs when they travel home and, exhausted, go about their evening routine oblivious to the fact that the rest of their group can still see everything they target…
Groktar: “Night folks”
Groktar -> Map of Recall
Groktar -> Keys
Groktar -> Door
Groktar -> Keys
Groktar -> Bowl
Groktar -> Left Boot
Groktar -> Right Boot
Groktar
Groktar -> Kitchen Cupboard
Groktar -> Bottle of Wine
Groktar -> Cloth
Groktar -> Puddle of Wine
Groktar -> Broken Glass
Groktar
Groktar -> First Aid Kit
Groktar -> Plaster
Groktar -> Cloth
Groktar -> Puddle of Blood
[Various targetings of frozen fish fingers, microwave ovens, baked beans and stoves. Followed by four hours targeting a TV]
Groktar -> Bedroom Door
Groktar
Groktar -> Bed post
Groktar -> Big toe
Groktar -> Axe
Groktar -> Bed
Groktar -> Kindling
Groktar
Groktar -> Pyjamas
Groktar -> Playelf, May 3018 Third Age edition
Groktar -> Sock
Groktar -> Tissue
Groktar -> Sock
Groktar -> Tissue
Groktar -> [REDCATED]
Groktar -> [REDACTED] -> Tissue (Target of Target)
Groktar -> Bin
Groktar -> Duvet
Groktar -> Light switch
Groktar
On further consideration, I might insist that we stick to simple target marking in our group for the time being.
It’s a bit like when you’re helping someone out with tech support over the phone using some sort of desktop sharing software, and after you hang up the phone they forget the desktop is still shared…
Look, I told you, my PC’s mouse has a bug where it clicks randomly on occasion. It just happened to load Marmots & Mangos Uncut in a web browser and save a bunch of images and organise those images into directories and print some of them out and email some of them to associates. Pure coincidence!
But then they target you and suddenly they’re the ones seeing you see them and the Pandora’s cat is out of the box full of bags.
Rumour has it that’s how Cthulhu was born.
There used to be a fun little bug in LotRO. As you may know, you can target people by clicking on their name in the chat (that’s not the bug). That only works if they are in targeting range (that’s also not the bug). However, a long time ago, when you clicked on someone’s name in chat and they were out of targeting range, even in an entirely different part of the world, while you’d not get themselves targeted, the “target of target” frame would still pop up and update properly. I used to use that little glitch to give people persecution mania. Shame it was fixed ;)
Excellent anecdote, it’s nice to remember that sometimes bugs in MMOs can actually be quite entertaining.