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

I totally know what to name my character

[jfodale]

Enter your character's name: Legolas
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Enter your character's name: Leggolas
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Enter your character's name: Legolass
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Enter your character's name: Llegolus
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Enter your character's name: Legggollass
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Enter your character's name: Legoooooolas
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Re:I totally know what to name my character

[CrazyJim1]

The funniest one in beta was: Legomyeggolas

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).

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

[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

[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.

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?

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.

[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.

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:Listen!

[Telepathetic Man]

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

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!

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: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.

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.