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."

Wait a minute...

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...

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).

Seems a bit late...

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

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

The funniest one in beta was: Legomyeggolas

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

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.

Just wait till someone

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

Different from WoW?

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?

Money?

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.

Listen!

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

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

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

This will be like SWG?

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

MEO

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.

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

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

MEO

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 [theonering.net] and here is some info involving the axing of the entire original dev team: http://thecan.org/in/me.html [thecan.org]

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

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!

Some random observations

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".)

Sounds like a lot of people suffer from Wowitus

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.

The behemoth known as WoW

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.

Why I'm not so interested

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 !

another article

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 [notaddicted.com]

Re:Dx 10.

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.

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.

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:interesting to see once, but not fun

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