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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."
Out of curiosity, how is PvP? (is there PvP at all for that matter?)
Waiting for Warhammer Online.
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.
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.
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....
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.
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.