The Call On Lord of the Rings Online

The Beta has been going on for some time now, and for all intents and purposes Lord of the Rings Online has launched. Pre-order players will be able to move their characters to the live game when the title officially lights up on April 24th, and commentators on Massively Multiplayer games have weighed in. Their opinion, generally, is unanimous: buy it. Tobold contributes a full-on review, as does CVG. AFK Gamer doesn't go in for such long-form opinions, but he still has a lot to say. Specifically, Foton comments on the good, the okay, and the bad, as well as a few words on the game's (somewhat out of the ordinary) classes. "[The game is] deep and broad. An MMOG, any MMOG, with its premium box price and its premium subscription prices, needs to offer more activities than: you can kill stuff, and, umm, you can kill other players, and umm, you could check the auctions/trade channel. There's many ways to screw around in this MMOG: Deeds, accomplishments, exploration (easy to outrun higher level mobs), titles, player-made music, engaging quest text, a solid start to the crafting system, MONSTER PLAY!!! There's probably more, but that's all I've tried so far."

Wrong link

[plaisted]

The link to the full review is wrong. It links to a youtube video of a timelapse of the Wikipedia page on the VT shootings.

My thoughts

[everphilski]

The intro was great. (as an elf) I got popped into my own little instance where a battle was taking place. I was ordered to slay goblins, how to move about the world, how to interact with NPC's (kinda like EQ's Mines of Gloomingdeep). After the event you get ported out of your instance, standing where you had stood.

The intro really impressed me. Along with the $199 lifetime subscription. And the way they worked classes (trying to stay true to the era but still incorporating the archetypes people are familiar with: for example the minstrel is a healer... you get your healer but recast into something that would fit in to LOTR). But beyond that, I'm not so sure the game will stand the tests of time. One the problems I forsee is the limited number of races. I also liked combat a bit more than WoW ... it was more drawn out even at the lower stages ... but that's not saying much. I fear the game will only really hold for the hardcore LOTR fans, and the rest will play awhile and say 'meh'. And there is always the fear of them f*cking it over someday like SOE did with Star Wars Online. (I'm a huge SW fan; however I couldn't bring myself to play the MMO, even though I was a huge MMO fan, because I knew something, someday, would go wrong and wreck my experiance ... )

And with that being said 'There's only one Return, and its not of the King, its of the Jedi' -Clerks 2.

Re:The problem with MMOG's

[unDiWahn]

I want to give a call out to Saga of Ryzom [ryzom.com] for this. I loved this MMO - not as high quality, but it had some great personality and elements. In particular, they just released the Ryzom Ring [ryzom.com] -- player created missions and content. You can either script automatic missions, or play live as a GM and guide the sequence of events. Fantastic!

Re:The problem with MMOG's

[Sebastopol]

It's been this way since D&D was played only on paper with dice. Even with EQ2 and WoW it's still basically the same.

Not even close. If that's all D&D was to you, you missed out entirely. Leveling was not the goal, storytelling was. If you recall, it took FOREVER to level, so much so that there was no need to define rules for class such as magic users above level 10: no one would ever get there! Sure there were lots of tables to show hit statistics, but loot and XP was up to the DM: books were just guidelines. The goal was to role play, not to level grind, hence the moniker RPG.

MUME - Multi Users in Middle Earth

[Danny Rathjens]

I think it is only fair to mention the precursor of MMORPGS; the MUDs of the 80s and 90s :) and in particular MUME was - and still is! - one of the best. I still fondly recall my deadly battles with the crafty orcs, trolls, and black numenoreans or standing watch at guard towers or tracking footprints so I could inform my fellow elves, humans, dwarves, hobbits about the movements of a raiding party.(I played a legendary Elven scout named Vosh several years ago)
The non-PvP parts were great, too; the world was so huge since so many people around the earth have contributed to it(Tolkien has been translated into 30+ languages, so many international fans). I loved exploring it and I also recall my fast-beating heart the first time I had to sneak into Moria for a quest and heard the BOOOM, BOOOM, BOOM, of the Orcish wardrums.

MUME is a free multiplayer roleplaying game based upon J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth that has been continuously enhanced since fall '91. In MUME players can explore and live in this meticulously crafted world during its late Third Age, and possibly join the epic War between the forces of the Dark Lord and the armies of the West. The action takes place before The Hobbit and after the loss of the One Ring by Sauron. The key of Erebor was just found by Gandalf in Dol Guldur and all the epic tales narrated in The Lord of the Rings may take place.

http://mume.org/ [mume.org]
Might want to try it out if you want a free game or to see something of the beginning of these types of games. I see that folks have even developed some graphical addons for representing/mapping the rooms of the text-based world.

Re:Magic, everywhere!

[Disseminated]

Luckily for you, then, "magic" or rather the lack thereof is lore appropriate in game. The only class that does anything that LOOKS like magic is the Lore-master. And actually, all of their skills have "scientific" explanations. IE he's not throwing a fireball, he's chucking some sort of burning chemical and embers on the enemy. The compromises made to the Tolkien lore in order to make a playable game are masterfully subtle, IMO. The traditional "nuker" role usually held by mages in other mmo's is transfered to Hunters in LotRO. They're the glass cannons of ME ;-}

LOTRO isn't about equipment!

[CrazyJim1]

Instead of grinding, you run errands and quests for experience. Also loot isn't worth anything, the way they calculate armor, it's not even worth wearing armor before you're level 30. I know I played the beta. I love LOTR. I love Turbine. I hate a game where having the best equipment in the game makes less than a 5% difference in someone who bought their equipment at a vendor. I can see that they want to add better gear later, but please add some to start with. Also as a final kick in the nuts, every race is the same if you look at stats. In LOTRO, your stats and equipment are just pretty numbers that are basically meaningless. I'm sure it will be a fun game because Turbine does monthly updates, but please, some people like their RPG to have some statistics. What's the point in questing if it isn't for better gear so you can go on more difficult quests.

Re:Everything I've heard has been good

[TopSpin]

A general dump of my impressions

You can grab an instrument and jam outside the Prancing Pony. Pretty avatars of other people stand around to listen, dance and make comments. Hard to resist that sometimes. Killer idea; allow players to rate performances. The game has me thinking.

Turbine has some good IP to work with. They've done it some credit. Work with the right NPC vendors enough and you'll learn scraps of Elvish. I've no doubt after sufficient play one will have a grasp of Middle Earth geography. It is certain that the effort placed on combat is matched elsewhere.

Tanks (guys with thick necks covered in metal) are functional. Champions own melee. Hunters don't. Hunters rely on a Legolas style repeating rifle called a Bow. Paper, scissors, rock.

Lag abounds occasionally. If I'm feeling it I know others are; plenty of hardware and bandwidth here. Not into WOW myself but by all evidence Blizzard has scalability figured out. I sense that LOTRO has some work to do there. If the game is a big hit they'll get it right.

The GUI needs some heavy lifting; it's confined by a lack of re-sizable windows. Perhaps customization will eventually permit it.

The complaints that I have heard largely relate to issues stemming from the fact that in the beta you can't level over 30, so much of the game has yet to be experienced.

The current beta caps your level at 15. Perhaps earlier test intervals allowed higher levels. I don't know. These games tend to change radically in higher level play, yet leveling here appears to be carefully progressive. I know the developers are working hard. I can feel it. Their still finishing some of the higher level content and deadlines have mounted.

Like other online fantasy games, it requires a commitment in time. If I find that I can walk away for a few weeks and still have fun when I get around to playing I'll be playing for years. If not well, there is always Warhammer. [warhammeronline.com]