Lord of the Rings Online Impressions

The Non-Disclosure Agreement for the Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) beta test has been lifted, and with the game set for release soon it may be useful to you to peruse some hands-on previews of the title. Hexus.net offers A Day in the Life of a Hobbit, and Tobold's MMORPG blog has similar hobbit-related impressions. Tobold also has a comparison between LORTRO and World of Warcraft for those who might be thinking about making the jump. More hands-on info is available from Warcry, Kill Ten Rats, and Gamers With Jobs. Van Hemlock offers up a high level overview of the title, mentioning recent releases and pointing out the realities of Massive gaming: "How the Great Fantasy Epic Saga will stand the ravages thousands of petty powerlevelling smacktalkers all loitering about Rivendell bank, level one hobbit girls - dancing as naked as the game will allow, shouting ridiculous three-letter-acronyms and generally not getting into the spirit of the thing, remains to be seen. I expect Our People can crush even The Lord of the Rings beneath our metagaming heel without feeling too guilty."

Comments

Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

These games are about role playing? I had no idea... why all the leveling-related crack, then? If you want to role play, there's always chatrooms.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Barny]

Hehe, kinda got a point, but you have to have something to do while waiting to yell at peeps for breaking RP rules ^_^

I normally refer to them as MMOG because apart from a few really great people in CoV I have seen remarkably little in the way of RP in games these days (and yes, I do make a point that if someone is RPing, I will attempt to RP back).

Re:Wait a minute...

[Saxophonist]

If you don't care about the graphics, you can role-play in a Middle-earth sort of environment at MUME (telnet link). Level-related stuff happens there too, but at least it's free-as-in-beer to play.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Terminus32]

Too true - i'll stick to Elendor MUSH for now! Besides, it probably wouldn't run under WINE yet either.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Boronx]

I wonder if the better defined and more widely known characteristics of Middle Earth will lend themseleves to more Roleplay? Besides the legend of the minitaur and the labyrinth, who knows how a Tauran is supposed to act? Who doesn't know how a hobbit should act?

Re:Wait a minute...

[blahplusplus]

Role playing in MMO's is the worst thing you could possibly do. Video games are about the action and having fun, accomplishing tasks and goals that give you emotional highs and lows, it's not about ACTING. If you want to act, you can find way better avenues to do it in then a game with characters who have limited ability to emote, and can basically only shout text in channels or above their heads.

It boggles the mind why people would even bother to roleplay in a game with such limited abilities in terms of the avatars ability to animate any possible combination of movements, combined with the lack of language ability, emotional expressiveness.

Seems a bit late...

[FredDC]

I think this is coming out too late, they should have had this ready to be released right after the third movie was out. At that time it was still fresh in people's minds and it would've been easier to gain mainstream attention. Now it is something which will probably only reach the true fans of LOTR. IMHO on the one hand this is better cause the people playing it will be more into it, but on the other hand if alot more people play it the creators will have more money to improve and add to the game. Anyway, I'll give it a try for sure, anyone know a European release date?

I totally know what to name my character

[jfodale]

Enter your character's name: Legolas
Sorry, that name is taken.

Enter your character's name: Leggolas
Sorry, that name is taken.

Enter your character's name: Legolass
Sorry, that name is taken.

Enter your character's name: Llegolus
Sorry, that name is taken.

Enter your character's name: Legggollass
Sorry, that name is taken.

Enter your character's name: Legoooooolas
Sorry, that name is taken.

Re:I totally know what to name my character

[mcai8rw2]

Hehehe! Thats pretty funny!

I guess that there will be a huge raft of people all trying to find names similar to the originals...however, some of the original characters from the books actually appear in the game [quests, instances etc.]

So that should make it interesting. I really can't wait for this to come out; I think it'll be great.

Re:I totally know what to name my character

[secolactico]

Logon to WoW, go into Blood Elves starting areas and you will see all those names and several other variations as well.

Re:I totally know what to name my character

[CrazyJim1]

The funniest one in beta was: Legomyeggolas

Re:I totally know what to name my character

[DarkMagician07]

It'll be just like FFXI, everyone there has the same name as any of the given characters. I think I've seen 30 or 40 variations of how to spell Sephiroth, as well as all the XxxSephirothxxx clones. At least their living the storyline, Sephiroth can pop up anywhere, out any of his 'kin' that are still roaming.

Re:I totally know what to name my character

[Anonymous Coward]

"/sea all seph"
"/sea all sef"

"/sea all tifa"

"/sea all Clou"

"/sea all tidu"

"/sea all squal"

"/sea all rino"

"/sea all lock"

Try those during NA or JP prime-time. It's amusing just how many people really are *that* lacking in imagination. Sadly, I suspect Anonymouscoward is probably too long for an FFXI name.

Interestingly, though, I've never seen a single FF9-based name on Odin in all the time I've been playing.

Re:I totally know what to name my character

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I hate that sort of thing. I was trying out the Star Wars Galaxies trial (yeah, I know I'm way way behind the times). And right there in the tutorial section you are rescued by Han Solo. Guy must be busy personally rescuing thousands of unimportant nobodies. I wish they didn't feel the need to toss the big names in so much, it just ruins the sense of immersion that these guys have nothing better to do.

Re:I totally know what to name my character

[C0rinthian]

XxLegolasxX

Re:I totally know what to name my character

[williamstome]

actually, no this isn't possible. They have all the main names on a 'not available' list and the program tries to check for variations as well

Re:I totally know what to name my character

[WobindWonderdog]

Actually, what would be great?

If the npcs focussed on players with similar names to the Big Names.

<Leggolas> *prance* Still the prettiest! */prance*

<Pack of Myopic Orcs> *squint* "Hey look fellas, it's Legolas! I've heard there's a bounty on his head!"

*ZERG*

*splut*

Re:Dx 10.

[wembley fraggle]

Too bad it's not OpenGL, then you could play it on whatever platform you wanted, like, say, a mac. I play WoW, becuase it's one of the only MMOs I can play on my fancypants mac.

Re:Dx 10.

[Barny]

A lot of the games that are touting "DX 10" will in fact come out on XP with a DX9 engine as well (even crytek have said this). MS themselves say that they don't expect any "DX10 ONLY" games till early to mid '08.

Re:Dx 10.

[sherpajohn]

I am quite sure they do not have a DX10 client for release. Whether one is planned or not remains to be seen.

As to the criticism of the diversity of the mobs, well they are somewhat constrained by the lore. They cannot invent a bunch of monster types to inhabit the lands. On the other hand, I have yet o play a game until this that has such sumorous and thought provoking quests. Yes, there's lots of kill x quests, but there is at least as many that are part of longish chains involving various NPC's and situations that are really funny (as in laugh out loud). I guess I am spolied, been waiting for this a long time, and been loving my time in Beta. Will be playing release for sure (since I've already ordered the wife and I a copy each).

And ff there's some things about it that keeps the l33t kiddies and the powergaming perfectionists away, I'll be even more pleased.

Re:Dx 10.

[Barny]

Last time I looked DaoC, EQ1 and EQ2 worked with wine. Is it too large a step to take?

I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[CrazyJim1]

Good:
The quest vs grind ratio is vastly in favor of questing opposed to WOW where grinding was generally better.
It has excellent graphics.
It's run by Turbine, so that means frequent updates to keep the content fresh.
Player vs Monster is fun. I played as a Warg and got over 100 kills and only finally died when lag froze me in place for 30 s

Bad:
Money is more worthless in this game than any other MMORPG. Somehow no newer MMORPGS seem to care to make an economy.
If you get the best lewt in the game, your character will only be about 5-10% better than a storebought character even though you have lots of flashy stats.
Attributes mean about nothing. I won't even post an example of this. Lets just say your stat sheet is a total joke.

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[jfodale]

Out of curiosity, how is PvP? (is there PvP at all for that matter?)

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[CrazyJim1]

You can duel another person by clicking duel. It works something like WOW's duel option.

You may have misunderstood monster play though. Some people play as monsters. Some people play as characters. Then they try and take over castles, quest, or fight each other.

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[micsaund]

As a very time-limited player who mostly solos or plays with a couple other friends, I find the fact that 00ber lewt d00dz who play 18 hours per day and run dungeons 100 times over will only be 5-10% better than me refreshing. In every other MMO, my lowly, non-l33t characters are considered worthless and ungroupable because of my "lame n00b equipment". It sounds as though LotRO will remedy that.

Of course, I would expect the power-players and people who do enjoy being 00ber to not like this particular aspect, but I think that leveling the playing field a bit will be good overall. If it's a huge deal for the power players, I suppose they can go back to WoW and run instances a few hundred more times or even go all the way back to EQ for a true hardcore experience.

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[Fozzyuw]

The quest vs grind ratio is vastly in favor of questing opposed to WOW where grinding was generally better.

Interesting. I rarely 'grind' in WoW, I'm pretty much doing a quest 99% of the time when I'm killing monsters, more so now the X-pac is out. I would be interested to know how you're defining the term 'grind' in this case in the context of quests.

My definition of 'grind' vs 'questing' would be... quest: "Kill 30 specific mobs and return to quest giver to get a large XP bonus and some loot until you level up and move on". Grind: "Sit in the same area and kill anything you come across and hope for loot drops until you level up and move on".

While it can just be considered grinding in a different context, most modern MMO's seem to call this questing, since you can get large exp bonuses and goals to accomplish. So, how does LOTR online make this different? Each new MMO has always claimed to 'remove the grind by given you endless quests to do', only to find that questing was the 'new grind'.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[drsquare]

Bad:
Money is more worthless in this game than any other MMORPG. Somehow no newer MMORPGS seem to care to make an economy.
If you get the best lewt in the game, your character will only be about 5-10% better than a storebought character even though you have lots of flashy stats.

That's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. This 'grind all day and night for the best equipment' is a RPG meme that had to die.

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[irix]

My definition of 'grind' vs 'questing' would be... quest: "Kill 30 specific mobs and return to quest giver to get a large XP bonus and some loot until you level up and move on". Grind: "Sit in the same area and kill anything you come across and hope for loot drops until you level up and move on".

I'd generally agree with this definition, and it has pretty much been proven that for most classes in WoW, questing is faster than grinding. Also, usually Bliz does a decent job of mixing up the kill X mobs quests with other quest types, with some notable exceptions (STV and Nagrand for example).

The only time I've really grinded in WoW is for reputation. In the xpac I'd say things have improved to a certain extent. For some reputation (e.g. Honor Hold, Cenarion Refuge) you don't have to do very much if any grinding to get to revered. For others (e.g. Aldor/Scryer) you are still going to be doing a ton of grinding.

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[stanmann]

As a time limited player who likes to progress, I find it depressing that there's nothing for me to progress to. No harder content, no gear upgrades, nothing that will make me 2-3 times more powerful than where I started.

I mean, what's the point. I'm on the trailing end of content, but I know that there's somewhere thats up from here. If there's No up, then why bother?

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[keyne9]

Somehow no newer MMORPGS seem to care to make an economy.

You never played FFXI, did you. That's the closest thing I have found to a real thriving player-run economy, and it was leaps and bounds above any of the paper-money economies other games put in. Unfortunately, that was also one of it's biggest flaws--it made the game far too much like actual work. 'Still amazing to see in practice, though.

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[ProppaT]

I think one of the problems, in the case of WoW, is that leveling is so absurdly easy going either route (quest vs. grind) that it doesn't really matter if one is faster than the other, they're both quick...which takes some of the pull away from questing. In a game where scoring the next level is actually a challenge and actually takes good chunk of time to achieve, even if it takes more time to level via questing, the game stays more interesting by questing instead of grinding. You'll also make use of the quested items in a slower game. Warcraft, for example, you outgrow your items so quickly that there's no point in questing for gear until the end game.

Granted, there's always the argument of forcing people to experience content through slower progression (think currently of Vanguard) vs. concentrating on end game content and using the first 1/2 - 3/4 of the game as a teaching tool for the end game (think currently of Warcraft and, even more relevant, Guild Wars). At least there's a clear split in the market now, each with die hard followers, and companies are less and less trying to cater towards a middle ground of different play styles.

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[GuyWithLag]

While I have no experience with FFXI, I'm playing EvE Online, which has an anacrchocorporatist economic system, with corporations being the traditional guilds. The games even allows a corporation to issue stocks which can be traded, and a corp can distribute dividends on the stocks. It even has historic price tracking for goods...

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[Nightspirit]

Playing as a monster sounds awesome, but even then do they have to agree to a duel? It sort of defeats the purpose of playing a monster.

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[Neoprofin]

If you're anything like my friend who WOWs probably 16 hours a week, he knows he's not getting anywhere, infact there is nowhere to get no matter how much time you have. So you've made it to level 60 and the phatest l00t imaginable? Good, now start a new character and do it all over again. There's and up, but there's no top, what's the point?

He considers this a plus because like unlike games with a recognizable end he can leave at any time without feeling like he left things unfinished. He's no closer to "beating" WOW than he was when it came out.

The whole point is to kill time. Solitaire with better graphics.

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[Hubbell]

"It's run by Turbine, so that means frequent updates to keep the content fresh."
You mean like the updates that eventually brought Asheron's Call to being a worthless pile of shit, when it was one of the greatest MMORPG's ever made. They bent the PVP balance over and raped it, literally, in their attempts to balance it via spreadsheets. They made the game so outlandishly easy that a retarded 5 year old could play and not have a single problem. Those are the kinds of things you can expect out of Turbine with any of their games, nothing but failures and the occasional accidental omgwtfAWESOME bug that makes the game fun, such as in Asheron's Call the Stamina To Mana/Revit cycling for mages, sliding while performing actions, and numerous other things that made the game fun yet were totally unintended albeit accepted and promoted by the devs once they saw them and realized they were the only things making the game fun.

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[calbanese]

Your friend finds he needs to "kill" 16 hours / week? That is beyond sad.

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[Incidence]

The problem with questing in the core WOW game is not the XP gains but with the rewards. The rewards a person or guild is going to get from grinding, either for rare drops or instance bosses are far better then any rewards from quests.

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[Lonewolf666]

Bad:
Money is more worthless in this game than any other MMORPG. Somehow no newer MMORPGS seem to care to make an economy.
If you get the best lewt in the game, your character will only be about 5-10% better than a storebought character even though you have lots of flashy stats.
Attributes mean about nothing. I won't even post an example of this. Lets just say your stat sheet is a total joke.

If "best lewt" defines the game, the economy will be fucked anyway.
For a decent MMORPG economy, make player-crafted stuff the best (or at least necessary because there is not enough loot, see below).
Add serious item destruction in lost fights so the crafters don't run out of work. Open PVP helps with that ;-)
Have some consumables (ammo).

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[stanmann]

I play everquest, and I KNOW that I'll never consume all the content available, and that I'll never be "the best" But why would I play a game where there's nothing beyond the next hill? If someone who knew nothing of chess beyond basic movements had a 15% chance of beating one of the top Grandmasters, what would be the point of studying and learning and playing the game. If everyone is equal, just play solitare. I want a skill based time based improvement based game, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

and if you think 16 hours a week is alot, keep track of how much time you spend driving around and eating.

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[Fozzyuw]

The rewards a person or guild is going to get from grinding, either for rare drops or instance bosses are far better then any rewards from quests.

In general, that's true of WoW, but I attribute that to the success of WoW more than the developers intention. It's not hard to see the 'left by the roadside' intentions of the developers to give each class their own 'class specific' quests for items and abilities.

Just look at the level 10-ish quests for some classes. The Druid has a cool quest series to gain their bear form and also their sealion form. Hunters get to learn how to tame animals, and Shaman have a totem quest I believe (never played one yet).

Then look at the class 'epic' quests for Hunters and Priests. The Hunter epic quest is super fun! (My hunter just hit 70 last night) True, you have to do the 40 man dungeon a million times and fight for a rare item with other Hunters (yeah, it sucks!) but once you get that item, it starts a quest series that's quite fun and gives you some weapons that are often hard to replace without specific work (I'm still using my bow, though, I have come across other similar weapons now at level 70). Same goes with Priest epic.

Again, WoW developers never hashed this out enough for other classes. Also, there's Thunderfury. It's technically a quest, but it requires lots of grinding to get. I guess it's a bit of both. I'm more of a fan of the single person quests though.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[Fozzyuw]

I think one of the problems, in the case of WoW, is that leveling is so absurdly easy going either route (quest vs. grind) that it doesn't really matter if one is faster than the other, they're both quick...which takes some of the pull away from questing.

I can agree with what you're aiming for, however, I think in WoW (and most MMO's these days) quests and 'grinding' are practically one and the same. You have to go and kill tons of birds, snakes, bees, and bulls. You just pickup a quest on the side to do it, when you're done you get a bonus to just kill a little bit less. Well, not all quests are like that, but the idea is there.

In a game where scoring the next level is actually a challenge and actually takes good chunk of time to achieve, even if it takes more time to level via questing, the game stays more interesting by questing instead of grinding.

I would disagree, I find a 'slow' level advancement boring and less interesting. The point being, it's subjective to say if a story driven game is more interesting than an action driven game. It's all a matter of who's playing it. But I can see what you're getting at...

You'll also make use of the quested items in a slower game. Warcraft, for example, you outgrow your items so quickly that there's no point in questing for gear until the end game.

I agree with this. Most games can fit this formula pretty well. Though I recall Everquest 1 and it's MUCH slower advancement. It also had a slightly different weapon 'power' scale. After saving for weeks on end to buy some claw weapon, I was able to use that weapon for the rest of my characters advancement without feeling like it needed to be replaced.

I would like to see a game emphasis not the 'power' of a weapon but how 'skilled' a person is at using a weapon. I have some concepts for doing this but that's a different discussion. Suffice it to say, I would appreciate WoW much more if that cool looking quest bow wasn't so quickly replaced and if every bow user didn't also want the same skin/model bow because, not just how it looks, but because it's the best 'stats'. I think it could go a long way to avoid the 'cookie-cutter' feeling of most classes at the end game level of WoW and other MMO's.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[Golias]

The succubus quest was the single most fun thing I did the entire time I played that game.

Pretty much all the other quests were kind of boring.

IMHO, YMMV, yadda yadda yadda

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[Fozzyuw]

Ah, yes. I remember helping a Lock with their demon quest. Actually, I helped one Lock out with their quest (freeze trapped the demon so they could tame it) and apparently my name was given to others as I started receiving other random requests for help from other locks.

This was some time ago, and when rarely any Hunter had the Freeze trap talent (before the first round of talent improvements). Those did look like fun quests.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:I beta tested, so I have a few things to say

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably kill that much time reading slashdot. Get over yourself.

Just wait till someone

[antifoidulus]

figures out how to dupe the "one that will rule them all"

Different from WoW?

[MeanderingMind]

I read a number of the articles, but despite claims that this isn't a WoW clone set in Middle Earth as opposed to Azeroth I couldn't find much substance to prove it.

The blogger's argument simply seemed to consist of noting how everything in LotRO was new, while players of WoW would already be tiring of the Burning Crusade and seeking something new. Exactly what makes LotR different from WoW outside of the setting, the slightly different races and the classes?

The screenshots certainly didn't help. The user interface looked as though it was lifted straight out of WoW in almost every regard. I looked at some EQ screenshots just to be sure WoW hadn't done the same thing. Aside from possibly preferring Middle Earth to Azeroth, I'm having difficulty finding a good reason for someone to pick LotRO over WoW.

Is there something I'm missing?

Re:Different from WoW?

[nacturation]

Aside from possibly preferring Middle Earth to Azeroth, I'm having difficulty finding a good reason for someone to pick LotRO over WoW.

Is there something I'm missing? Someone who has played neither now has two games to choose from. But keep in mind that while LOTRO isn't a WOW clone set in Middle Earth, WOW *is* a LOTR clone set in Azeroth. Some may want the original.

Re:Different from WoW?

[MSFanBoi2]

Actually if you go back, the WOW interface is a rip of Asherons Call and especially Asherons Call 2's interfaces...

Re:Different from WoW?

[snuf23]

Thanks for mentioning that. I hate that people think WoW invented what is the now practically the defacto style of MMO UI. In fact WoW's UI without plugins is much less flexible than a lot of MMO UIs out there (such as EQ2).

Re:Different from WoW?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the game looks good and the game play is decent, it lacks the subtle inventiveness and humor that makes WoW the huge success it is. It feels more like an upgraded EQ or DAoC with massive system requirements. LotRO's answer to WoW's talent system doesn't seem as well developed, either. Also the classes and combat flow remind me more of DAoC than WoW. Its subtle, but I found playing the game less fun overall than WoW. I think a quick summery might be that game play feels less heroic in LotRO than WoW.

In any case, its miles head of Vanguard - that game was terrible. Think upgraded EQII system requirements for bad art, miserable crafting & diplomacy time-sinks, a poorly developed faction system, and chance to go back to EQ I style combat and grouping. Even as a free beta I had trouble getting myself to log in and play.

For a while I had all three games available to me - and I ended up playing WoW despite wanting something new and having both other games available.

Money?

[TheLoneWolf071]

How much will this be a month? The standard $15? I don't know... I think the problem is this might ruin the LoTR name or story line. With WoW, the warcraft story was bore from a videogame, so the creators at Blizzard were able to make up a lot of lore and the story line, adding in what they needed to so the story would work. With LoTR, it's already build on a foundation by the books, so it should have to follow that,while attempting not to mess with the "Tolkin" Universe. I have yet to See any screen shots or commentary, in fact I just learned that this game existed... lol. I think it may be a little too late to be trying to break into the MMORPG catagory, but if they can provide solid game play and will allow a good gap between the 20/7 people and the week end players they may just be able to equal other MMO's.

Re:Money?

[LotsOfPhil]

How much will this be a month? The standard $15? I don't know...

$9.99 if you sign up early.
From the first article.

Re:Money?

[pla]

I think the problem is this might ruin the LoTR name or story line.

Oh, no worries there.

For actual literate fans of the works of a great fantasy writer, neither this nor Peter Jackson nor even JRR's bastard(izing) offspring can spoil the original.

Re:Money?

[HappyEngineer]

I've been reading the magazine Analog for a while and I can say with certainty that there are no TV shows or movies which are anything remotely like the good science fiction I can get in 20 page short stories.

Does that mean that all science fiction movie directors are hacks? No. The problem is the medium.

If you're not happy with the LOTR movies then there is absolutely no way that any movie could have ever been made of LOTR that would please you.

Re:Money?

[omnilynx]

With LoTR, it's already build on a foundation by the books, so it should have to follow that,while attempting not to mess with the "Tolkin" Universe. I'm in beta, and I can tell you they did a very good job with this. There are changes, concessions to the medium, but on the whole they stayed very close to Tolkien's work, both literally and in spirit. If you liked the movies, chances are you'll like the way Turbine handled the lore, although the game is very different from the movies. The world is a little small in purely physical terms, but it's packed with stuff, and beautifully artworked. Gameplay is another matter, however. I have heard that it is very similar to WoW's; I wouldn't know as I haven't played it. It's certainly nothing revolutionary, or even evolutionary, really. They basically took all the good standard components of various MMOs and put them together into something very familiar, but also very solid and polished. It's fairly easy as MMOs go for a casual player to get into, and there's a lot less grinding than in other MMOs, because most of your experience comes from quests, each of which have entertaining storylines. The gameplay is not for everyone; if you're a power leveler you'll need to change your playstyle because such a style is neither fun nor rewarding in this game. It's all about the journey, not the destination, so take things easy and enjoy the experience. On the whole, I would definitely recommend at least checking this game out. If it's not your thing, you won't have lost anything by trying, and if it is you'll have discovered a gem. PS.- In beta, the community was awesome! I don't know if it's just because we were all on our best behavior as beta testers, or because the game naturally attracts more socially well-adjusted people, but all the game-breaking annoyances that go on in most MMOs seemed noticably absent. Here's hoping it stays that way!

Listen!

[mmmmbeer]

You hear that? That's the sound of John Tolkien rolling over in his grave.

Re:Listen!

[Telepathetic Man]

Wow. It's very similar to what my refrigerator sounds like.

Skip if not a die-hard, skip it if you are.

[Shivetya]

Honestly, unless you just want to see the world of Middle Earth in graphics form I would suggest skipping this MMORPG interpetation of it.

Highs:
Landscapes and landscape features are nicely done.

Water reflectivity encompasses all drawn items

Quest system. The idea is to flood you with them. Some are new variations of FED-EX others are same old stuff, but its an alternative

No Mages... uh

Traits. The idea was good..

Lows:
ALL, and I mean ALL, indoor areas are INSTANCED. This means if you want to enter a building you instance to do so. Even if this means just going in to complete a quest with no more than a click of a dialog.

NPCs use a different animation engine from PCs, hence they are lifeless and dull. Eyes that don't blink, no facial movement, etc. Some do some animated scripts, but only with other NPCs.

Quest system. The idea is to flood you with them. Yet its really the same old stuff repackaged.

Traits, think Talents from WOW but more random. This is where the grind is. Some examples, trying to gain one trait required me to kill literally hundereds of slugs, yes slugs. It seemed all traits were gained this way.

Magic. They simply renamed it. Don't for a minute believe there are not mages and priests in this game. Loremasters are mages pure and simple. They throw fireballs.

Animation system, combat system is boring. Animations don't even take into account parries and dodges so even though the game said you parried its not drawn. Combats can also take place with a sizable distance between combatants making it look silly.

User Interface. Still Turbine's worst suit. They can't code a UI to save their lives. It looks like each part was done by a different team. Some look very "period" - meaning belonging to a fantasy game, while others look like a PDA from Half Life.

Remember first and foremost that this is Turbine. They love to make promises, they just take forever to deliver them or they don't. They also are on record as being the first game company to permit Automated Combat Macros, they also released a major expansion to a game only to announce shutdown 3 months later, and they still haven't delivered half of what they promised for DDO.

Oh, to top it off, those who pre-order get into beta. Nothing unusual there, except this time they can take their beta characters from that beta into release to get a jump on the rest of the people.

Pass. Its LOTR in name only, more like AC2 with hobbits

Re:Skip if not a die-hard, skip it if you are.

[Raire]

Fellow beta tester... This post pretty much summed up my entire experience with LotRO. My only adds are that the character animations were not varied enough and pretty repetitive. Oh and the hobits all have a weight problem. I uninstalled after about 5 hours.

Re:Skip if not a die-hard, skip it if you are.

[Anonymous Coward]

pretty good summary

I'll just add that grouping/socialization is not required except for some specific quests. You don't really build and keep friendships easily in this game as a result. Once a group is done with the task, it pretty much disappears. Also, if you like doing things with your guild, it's an annoyance when people are on different steps of a quest and you have to synchronize everybody to the same point.

I can't stand grinding, and I thought there wasn't any in this game. Then I got to level 40-50 and discovered that legendary traits and the final class quests are epic grinds. They are not fun at all. I tried to complete them partially to see how fast it would go, and it was something that would take a very long time. I didn't bother with it.

Re:Skip if not a die-hard, skip it if you are.

[Lord_Dweomer]

As another beta tester who dropped the game quickly and went back to WOW I'd like to expand on your animation comment...

For those expecting flashy combat and spell graphics, forget it. Remember first and foremost that this is Middle-Earth and magic is not big here to begin with. Starting out I couldn't even be sure that a low level loremaster was actually doing anything when his fire spell shot out at the target.

I'm not saying graphics make the game, but the lack of nice animations definitely hurts it, especially when they did such a beautiful job on the terrain.

Re:Skip if not a die-hard, skip it if you are.

[jazzmodeus]

I haves to echo everything Shivetya said. I'm in the beta and have been for several months playing both a dwarf and an elf. After playing for the first month after I got in, I stopped for about month and would check in from time to time after major updates. The game was repetitive, lifeless, and dull. The scenery is lovely and was quite interesting to see some of the popular places rendered out and explorable. That's about the only compelling part of the game. Combat felt detached, as though there was no visible correlation between activating a skill and actually seeing it executed (mostly on my dwarf guardian, it was a bit better on my elf hunter). Armor seemed completely arbitrary, no matter how much I upgraded it never seemed like I became more resilient in battle. The crafting system was a joke. On my dwarf, my progress was completely halted because of a dependency on a particular product made and available only through another crafting tree. Despite all the minor complaints and compliments I could give the game, it really just came down to being uninspired, derivative, and lackluster. Remove the LoTR skin and there's just not much there to grip someone once the initial novelty wears off.

Re:Dx 10.

[oreilco]

Way too large

This will be like SWG?

[Shiptar]

I understand folks like having backstory and a world to be set in, but doesn't that make the world extremely static? SWG had Jedi dancing with Darth Vader set in the middle of EMpire Strikes Back. Kind of made the world/universe and story a joke.

Wouldn't KOTOR style have been much better, giving the developers free rein over what happens, while being able to use the vast story materials.

We already know what happens here, and we aren't going to change it. Too much like real life ;P

Re:This will be like SWG?

[Reese268]

Originally, this game was to be set in the 4th age (after the books, the time period which they would have the MOST freedom to do what they wanted). This was when Sierra was developing the game, back when it was called Middle-earth online. I want to say this was like 1998/1999, somwhere around there, not totally sure, but it's been a long time. At any rate, the original game was going to be something quite different from anything that was available then, and even anything now. What it has turned out to be is certainly MUCH different than originally planned. But the first dev team got axed because Sierra basically wanted an Everquest clone (as that was the big game at the time). They then sat on the title for about a year before a new dev team started work on it, which they were pretty tight-lipped about the game, no idea where they were going with it really, but ultimately Turbine acquired the rights from them. So this may be the 3rd iteration of this game. I am glad that it is finally coming out, have played the beta and am having fun in it, but I think ultimately I am going to be disappointed comparing it to what might have been when I was looking forward to the original Middle-Earth Online team's vision years ago....

You're only considering the setting!

[Xocet_00]

While I agree that World of Warcraft takes a lot of cues from Lord of the Rings in terms of lore, style, races, etc the actual gameplay in World of Warcraft is what makes it what it is. I'm pretty sure that Tolkien didn't lay out a UI in the preface of his books when he wrote them:

World of Warcraft UI Lord of the Rings Online UI

It's not just the UI. The quest-heavy gameplay (as opposed to the Everquest/FFXI grind), the way the classes are balanced, etc. All that stuff is lifted from WoW, and certainly is not dictated by the "original" lore. I should also mention that it *should* have been lifted (although the UI is a bit much). World of Warcraft got it right - LoTRO absolutely should mimic a great deal of what makes World of Warcraft good if they want to appeal to the same large market.

But don't try to tell me that the LoTRO is the "original". That only applies to the setting.

Re:You're only considering the setting!

[nacturation]

But don't try to tell me that the LoTRO is the "original". That only applies to the setting. You're right... cloning of the world/genre is the only aspect I meant to address in my comment. WOW certainly got the formula right for how you interact with the world.

Re:You're only considering the setting!

[drsquare]

Considering how much WoW lifted from the Tolkien-inspired fantasy genre, as well as all the other mmorpgs before it, I'd say that LOTR has every right to copy them.

Re:You're only considering the setting!

[Shihar]

They certainly have the 'right' to copy them. That doesn't mean I will shell up money for a WoW clone though. Like it or not, WoW came first with its gameplay. Why bother playing a clone? Just for a graphics upgrade?

MMORPGs need to do more. We have seen nothing but upgraded version of Everquest since... well, Everquest.

MEO

[Atlantic Wall]

Middle Earth Online was the name of this game originally. It looked better and more unique in terms of graphics. I played the Beta and was not impressed. I would have liked to have played the half finshed version of MEO just to see how far they had gotten before they abandoned it. That game i would love to play also because it did not look like a WOW clone, this does.

I don't see it working.

[J. T. MacLeod]

I saw a screenshot of a hobbit fighting a bear. ...that is wrong in so many different ways.

It may be a great game, but I'm not sure how it will work as "Lord of the Rings" material.

Turbine Games ... ugh

[BrianRoach]

Asheron's Call was an awesome game, very inovative in a lot of ways ... until they killed it by catering to only power-gamers. It died soon after.
AC2 was a dog.
Online AD&D. See: AC2.

Hopefully ... they've learned something. But I doubt it.

- Roach

Re:Turbine Games ... ugh

[Stone316]

I loved AC2 until they nerfed tacticians... Maybe they were overpowered, but they were fun as hell to play. Sure turret farms were bad but if you didn't use it properly and it was destroyed, you had wait another hour of in game time to use it again. Without your turret you were basically useless.

interesting to see once, but not fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I played the closed beta for a while. If you like killing boars, spiders, and wolves over and over again..then you'll love this game. It's interesting to 'see the world' one time through, but there really isn't any replay value here. Monster play was fun for a few days, but then it just gets repetitive like anything else. Leveling went pretty quick in beta, and I'm not sure how they'll change that. You quest for the most experience, and you don't have to grind. The only required grind is for level 50 quests and legendary traits, and I just gave up on even doing those. The time it took me to even do part of it was a deal breaker for me. It just isn't fun.

Bad:
lack of mob variety until higher levels
lack of economy
lack of end game
to get legendary traits, level 50 quests, you must GRIND GRIND GRIND
people that don't 'get' the game will farm named mobs you need for quests..and it's very annoying
quests are all repetitive

Good:
you quest to level, no grinding except for high level things
the storyline chapter quests are usually pretty well done, but much too short to keep anyone interested ..I can't think of anything else

Re:interesting to see once, but not fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like how I feel about WoW.

- Great up until the highest level, then it turns into nothing but a grind.
- Let's do Strat/Scholo/UBRS/LBRS/BRD/ZG/MC/BWL for the eleventy-hundreth time.
- Let's do Strat to get a dozen crypt thing legs so I can eventually do it enough times to get my 1200 that I need to convert to enough tokens to buy this thing that I can't buy until after I've killed 1000s of these other mobs to raise my faction high enough to be allowed to buy it.

Re:interesting to see once, but not fun

[C0rinthian]

I'm suprised anyone actually tried to do that AD token turnin crap. I know I ignored it.

Every 13 yr old's first attempt

[Hoi Polloi]

Enter your character's name: Dildo
Sorry, that name is not allowed.

Heh heh heh heh!

Re:Every 13 yr old's first attempt

[An ominous Cow art]

WTF? 'Dildo Bugger' is a perfectly respectable boggie name.

Re:Every 13 yr old's first attempt

[Anonymous Coward]

BotR - now that would make an awesome MMORPG! As long as I can be Spam!

So no Gil Farmers? No 'leetl players? Great!

[Banner]

Considering the 'gold seller' market, I'm not surprised in the slightest that they decided to kill the money and not have an economy. The economies in MMO's always gets horrendously abused by gil farmers and most companies (Well actually, ALL companies except for FF) ignore it.

I also have to agree that as someone who only plays a few hours a day, a few nights a week (Sorry, I have a job AND a life), that I don't want to see all these uber players (basically 13 yo's without a life) running around pretty much ruining the game with all their smack talking and 'leet hacks'.

It's supposed to be about Role PLAYING, not CRACK WHORE LEVEL GRINDING. If this keeps the 'leet' players out, well so much the better!

The only question I have at this point is will I have to get together with ridiculous sized parties of 30 or so, for 15 hour non-stop quests in order to enjoy the game? WoW lost me at the endgame, because I just don't have the time to do those quests, there was really nothing much in it for me, a person who can't be on more than 3 or 4 hours at a time usually.

I sure hope they didn't use WOWs balancing!

[Banner]

WoW's class/character balancing stinks. So I sure hope they didn't copy that! Yes WoW's UI is nice, and the terrain/graphics aren't too bad. But the game balance has always been the pits, that's why they keep having to tinker with it, and why all the uber gamers play Shamans.

Balance was the one big thing WoW didn't understand.

Re:I sure hope they didn't use WOWs balancing!

[MeanderingMind]

Personally I find the balance to be fine, when fighting an evenly geared opponent.

There are fights that are harder, but when I fight an opponent whose equipment matches mine, I only lose when I make mistakes or my foe is simply better than I am. There's the occaisional super lucky crit streak win, but those are abberations.

And honestly, the whole Shaman/Rogue supremecy thing died ages ago. Watching bluetracker, there isn't a single class that hasn't had numerous nerf threads in the past months.

Now, if LotRO is off the bat better balanced than WoW is now after 2 years of tweaking, then I'll think your point is good.

Re:I sure hope they didn't use WOWs balancing!

[VGPowerlord]

You misspelled Warlocks.

Seriously, though... Blizzard's idea of balance is to make a single class good against 4 classes, bad against 4 classes, and (by definition) even with itself.

The sad part is, they even fail at that.

MEO

[Reese268]

For anyone who doesn't know, or who was looking forward to this game back then, this project was originally to be called MEO and was being done by Sierra. It's had a long road since then which put it in Turbine's hands and changed the name... as well as pretty much everything else about it. Here's a link to an old article about it. http://haven.theonering.net/gaming/middleearth.htm l and here is some info involving the axing of the entire original dev team: http://thecan.org/in/me.html

No, the cat does not "got my tongue."

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I want my Glamdring! Me big warrior! I'm gonna be a ranger and slaughter people like Aragorn!

"Ok, sir. Here's your wiffle bat."

WTF is this? WTF do you mean Frodo the thief outdamages Aragorn!??!?! Who the F*** DESIGNED THIS GOD D***** POS?!?!?

(wiff wiff)

"Oh, casters can outdamage you, too."

What casters? The two greatest casters in the entire world, Gandalf and Saruman, could barely whip up a fireball or induce a small local avalanch.

"And we won't even get into the bards."

WTF is a bard?!?!? There are no bards in Lord of the Rings. Why is my sword so weak?!? Why!

mages

[j1m 5n0w]

Magic. They simply renamed it. Don't for a minute believe there are not mages and priests in this game. Loremasters are mages pure and simple. They throw fireballs.

I'm glad I'm not the only person who sees it this way. If it has the same mechanics as a fireball, it's a fireball. I don't care if the animation shows the loremaster pulling stuff out of his pocket with which to kindle a fire.

Some random observations

[j1m 5n0w]

I played the beta a bit about a month ago. Here are some of the high and low points for me. I'll try omit things that have already been said elsewhere (quests vs grind, graphics quality, similarity between mages and loremasters, etc...).

Good:

• The shire looks very nice, and is laid out in a realistic manner, as a collection of small villages sprawled out over a wide area. Hobbits act like hobbits.
• It appears that you can grow crops, though I didn't try it.

Bad (maybe I'm picking nits, but these things really do annoy me):

• What's with using the One Ring as a quest indicator? I know it's a highly recognizable icon, but still, it's an evil thing. We shouldn't see it floating over the heads of, say, elvish questgivers.
• Thorin's halls in the blue mountains are a bit more grandiose than Tolkien's descriptions would seem to warrant. (This was a controversial topic on the LOTRO forums.)
• The Brandywine bridge is not structurally sound. Whoever designed it was apparently overly accustomed to modern steel bridges which can span wide distances without any arch. (I know this is a minor point, but it's immersion breaking for me when I see a bridge and think "that looks nice, but in the real world it would immediately fall into the river".)

I suck too badly for it to matter

[Xocet_00]

I'm so bad at all PvP that I don't really notice class balancing. Whenever I get jumped by a rogue I basically just panic and die. Occasionally I get a trap down and am able to run away, but that's the best I ever do. However, those people that I know who don't suck at PvP agree with you.

I find it interesting that you only refer to the terrain/graphics as 'not too bad'. I think this is the big thing that WoW got right. I've run the game effectively on systems as low as a Celeron 800, all the way up to Athlon X2 3800+ PCIe systems. Even on the shittiest computer the game runs well enough to play, because of the relatively low polygon count. What always stuns me though is that the game still looks good regardless of the rendering quality of the system it's running on.

You have to admit that art direction is something that Blizzard really got right with WoW.

Re:I suck too badly for it to matter

[omnilynx]

Well, then you'll be happy to know that this is something Turbine really got right with LOTRO, too. In direct opposition to a certain other recently-released MMO (*cough*vanguard*cough*), LOTRO runs well on any reasonable computer, and looks very good at the same time. Those of us in beta all agree that in this case LOTRO actually beats WoW, which is something considering that's one of WoW's strengths.

Sounds like a lot of people suffer from Wowitus

[nanowired]

WoWitus. The scourge of new mmos. It started out as EQitus, but has since evolved to the newest mmo.

This disease usually manifests itself in an inability to enjoy new MMOs - simply because you believe that its just a wow clone. No matter how new and unique the feature is, you'll throw it off as a simple variation of a mechanic in WoW - even if its a mechanic thats been in MOST mmos pre-wow. In fact, you'll start seeing wow in features that arent even part of wow!

The only cure to this soul-destroying disease is to stop playing wow. After a few months, you'll be able to enjoy the MMos that wow has kept you from enjoying.

Now, a few other things.

Traits != talents. They're completely different, there are tons out there that you achieve by obtaining certain feats. An example of this is visiting several elven ruins. The reason why this seems random is because they dont show you what these are until you start on the path for it. This means they can sneak in new traits and they can be a secret. Gee, have to actually explore the game to improve your character! How Wowlike.

I also saw someone complaining about instanced indoors.... uh yea, because theres a lot that goes on. one newbie quest you're working with one of the dwarves from the Hobbit. and it takes like 30 minutes to do the entire track. Now, not only is this very not wow like, having to coop with npcs that arent just guards or something, but if this wasnt instanced there would be hell to pay as far as lag problems, and player angst.

Instances arent a bad thing, people. And they're not as common in the game as some people would want you to believe. from 1 to 15 I saw one instance, and it was in the newbie area.

There are honostly a lot of things in this game that are new, unique, and entertaining. Cries of "ZOMG Its just AC2 with Hobbits!" and "ROFL WOW CLONE" are just people who are trolls, dont understand the new game concepts, or are stricken with WoWitus.

About the only thing that I agree on are the Lore masters. They're Wizards/priests/beast tamers, depending on what you focus on. Its annoying. The only context it would make sense in, is when Gandolf used a pinecone as a grenade. otherwise it doesnt make sense at all. The beast tamer part does, but thats about it.

Re:Sounds like a lot of people suffer from Wowitus

[bishiraver]

"Gee, have to actually explore the game to improve your character!"

Granted, the ruins traits were kind of interesting. But stats are fairly useless.

The traits that actually increase your abilities take a focused effort on your part to use the ability the trait is based on. Over and over again. Then bam, all of a sudden, you get a new one. Woo!

I think I got up to level 15 in the stress test and only got the exploration traits, and a couple of the mob-slaying traits (woo, okay, I'm a wolfslayer. awesome.)

The game had some potentially interesting mechanics (in traits), but other weaknesses (quest grind, typical level-based play, static world that EVERYONE knows what the story will end up like ...) make it a pretty weak game overall.

What can they do with the story, anyway? The elves were already in the process of leaving at the beginning of the fellowship, and complete it at the end, ushering in the age of Man. unfortunately, if this goes as planned, a quarter of the game population is going to disappear in about three years. If the game lasts that long, and if they follow cannon. OH WAIT, EXPANSION PACK. WAII ^_^v

lame.

The behemoth known as WoW

[okinawa_hdr]

It has to be hard to get a piece of the market share, World of Warcraft has blown past every other North American MMO to date....and let's not ever talk about Lineage in Asia. I can't imagine that there are "that" many people into MMORPG games out there. We're probably getting to the point of market saturation, though only time will tell.

Re:Dx 10.

[Chmcginn]

As to the criticism of the diversity of the mobs, well they are somewhat constrained by the lore. They cannot invent a bunch of monster types to inhabit the lands.

I'd say that there's actually a pretty good variety of strange creatures in middle-earth. Look at Iron Crown's MERP (Middle-Earth Role Playing) - a pen&paper rpg based on Tolkien's world, sorta popular in the early 1990's. There was a fairly decent variety of creatures - most of them were some variety of orc or troll, but there was plenty of odd, random creatures (like random spawn of Ungoliant that were still running about, and smaller dragon-like drakes, and wolves. Oh, god, the wolves.).

The one thing I would say against this game is the timing - it's been too long since the movies to get a pile of tie-in there, and the fact that it's set during the Fellowship of the Ring, and you're running into members of the fellowship... Eh, I dunno. Seems like it'll get old fast.

Course, the fact that that turbine didn't get rights to the books outside of the trilogy...

Hmm, I wonder.,..

[Chmcginn]

So I guess I'm going to try 'Agburanar' and see how long it goes before somebody gets it....

Why I'm not so interested

[sgt101]

Because the only thing that has kept my interest in WOW is my guild.

Here's my story, and it's a bit different.

I had always felt hostile to Everquest and other MMORPGs for some reason, but a close friend who I admire and respected was playing WOW and loving it, so I thought I'd give it a go. To be honest I was a little ashamed because of the cruel comments that I had made about doing other stuff like "talking to girls" and "going outside" to some of my gamer friends in the past, so I played by myself for a while.

After about lvl 14 I'd more or less given up, but then happend to be at a social where my friend was, and met another mutual friend who was also playing. I discovered that they were in a guild and I found out that the frustrations that had stopped my play were easy to resolve - if you had some friends and asked for a bit of help. So I switched servers and joined up.

I met up with friends who I had not seen in real life since school (12+ years before), friends who I saw once a year, close friends, and new people who became my friends. We have a "must know in real life " & "is not a muppet" rule and consequently everyone rubs along very well. The chat and banter and banter are a real reason to just log in and see who's about, but the game play is definitely enhanced as well - quests are more fun with two or three, instancing is almost always an option - and without the PUG rubbish that can be such a downer. We raid occasionally, but because everyone is older and has wives, girlfriends (I make no personal claim, you understand, but have met women who have claimed to be going out with some of my friends), and children (this would be much harder to fake) - raiding is quite a challenge to organise. PVP was a big fad before the expansion, as we had done as much of the pre 40 man as was possible (my gear was ZG or better, with ToEP and TOA so the GM stuff would have been handy - on the other hand the BC stuff is so superior for everything apart from the trinkets that it's laughable now).

The main thing is that the game is made by the community that I am in while playing it. Without that community the playing experience would have been dramatically different, and this makes shifting to another game almost impossible, because around 50 people would have to agree to come !

Re:Why I'm not so interested

[Spikeles]

Completely agree with your post, our guild has a requirement that to join you must know at least one of the founding members(of which there are 5) in real life, so the group becomes tight knit. I have actually met up with others as well, had lunch, and met some great new people. The game is so much more fun when you know who is on the other end of the player next to you!

another article

[isobelle]

i wrote one over at notaddicted.com, reviewing it from a current WoW junkie's standpoint, as well. enjoy: http://www.notaddicted.com/forums/showthread.php?t =886