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.

Re:Wrong link

[The_mad_linguist]

Even the editors don't RTFA.

Re:Wrong link

[bigdavex]

Aha! So there is a link between the shooting and gaming! QED.

Everything I've heard has been good

[geek]

It's very much like WoW was at its release over 2 years ago. 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. Given all the good reviews and word of mouth, this game could mature very nicely. It seems to be more mature in many ways and less in others than WoW is. Finally a little competition in the MMO field. WoW has been the only decent MMO out for a long time, with LotRO, Age of Conan,

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]

Bad link..?

[zyl0x]

Tobold's "weighed-in, full-on review" [youtube.com] links to some stupid VT video. Is this intentional?

Re:So Zonk doesn't even click the links he posts..

[Anonymous Coward]

Methinks it is time to post a top 10 greatest games review (which you know will be posted by Zonk) with a goatse or tubgirl link.

Re:

[MsGeek]

Dude, you don't wanna know.

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:

[jeffasselin]

I'm a very serious Tolkien fan, but I have very little interest in video games based on LotR. It's not a medium where I get the feeling of the original is well-captured. Like your call on SWG, I also know/fear they will bend the lore in too many ways.

Re:

[Fozzyuw]

I picked up a free Beta code this weekend (GameStop wasn't taking any more pre-orders, but the guys hooked me up. That was after Wal-Mart put the game on the shelf all weekend but put a 'sale not allowed' if you tried to buy it at the register). Here are my quick and dirty impressions:

• Good
  • Graphics - I think it's similar to EQ2. While the characters and the dwarven capitol city didn't impress me the 'outside' did. Running down the road and looking up at the mountain tops really gave a good perspecti

Good, but not quite good enough yet

[BobMcD]

The third FA puts it best:

"If you're still playing World of Warcraft and loving it, stick with WoW."
"If you're looking to add to your online gaming options, this game is a fine choice. Beautiful, engaging, deep, different."
"Between online games? Without a doubt, buy it."

That's true. Is it better than WoW? No. Is it worth trying if you're against WoW? Yeah.

I do also have to disagree about how the Tolkeen-y-ness of it all makes it somehow automatically better. Do I really need a deep backstory for my 'kill ten boars' quest? Not really. And because I skipped reading that, I also skipped some thing important. Now I'm lost, and starting not to care. Likewise, after being dumped out of the newbie levels, I have no idea where I am, why I chose to be there, or where I'm supposed to go next. Sure, sure, I've heard the name Bree before, but am I supposed to go there now or later? What's a 'scholar' and what's 'wood lore'? Oh, that can only be crafted by another player? Nice.

What WoW offered was a more distilled version of the online game. Doesn't require much thought but certainly can lead to spending lots of time enjoying it. LOTRO falls short of this, probably on purpose, but somewhat to it's detriment.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[mythar]

are you one of those people who are still looking for Mankrik's wife while wandering around in the outlands?

Re:

[fractoid]

Has anyone seen Rexxar? -_-

Re:Good, but not quite good enough yet

[Endo13]

I agree with you almost 100%.

But I do have to pick a nit... there's really not much "Tolkeen-y-ness" in this game. It's based 100% on the movies, which themselves have very little Tolkien in them, save in very broad strokes. They didn't even manage to build BagEnd the way Tolkien describes it, let alone anything else.

And the game world as a whole feels much much too small after just re-reading the trilogy. Places that took days and weeks to travel between on ponies take... a couple minutes on foot in the game. Yeah I know, you can't make the game-world anywhere near large enough to be anything close to realistic... but please... this to me is just ridiculous.

That said, if you're bored with what you've been playing and/or are looking for a WoW/EQ clone that's fun to play, this game delivers. But it's not for me.

Re:Good ... [limited customization?]

[Presence2]

I have to agree with many of the points raised over the uniqueness of LOTRo not quite distinguishing itself enough from WOW, or fantasy MMOG's in general. While eye candy and a new world of immersion are attractive to many, I feel LOTRo will fall short in that the characters are not as unique to the user as would be attractive for very long term retention. There are no adjustable player stats and skill trees are purely linear. While it's a very beautiful game, and the Tolkien content is attractive, it's ov

The Real Link

[MajorG17]

It's still the top entry on http://tobolds.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]

The problem with MMOG's

[Organic Brain Damage]

I've been playing my way through game content since 1974. Here's what the dungeon games all resolve down to:

for (iLevel = 1; iLevel iMaxLevelAllowed; iLevel++)
{
        currentMonsters.hitPoints = X * iLevel;
        currentMonsters.attackStrength = Y * iLevel;
        currentMonsters.graphics = GetMonsterGraphics(iLevel);

        currentTreasures.value = Z * iLevel;
}

And we players crank through the iLevel loop and get bored about the third or fourth time through. 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.

Why?

Two reasons. First, because there are far more players than content producers. And because computers are good at looping. So, the content producers, in a natural attempt to provide more play-time given a limited amount of content production resource use looping and repetition...this is why player's grind.

What does this have to do with LOTR MMO? Not much, except it's still going to, ultimately, be a boring grind.

To get past the boredom, we need an open RPG game where people are encouraged to produce content for other players. Maybe 2nd life fits that criteria. I dunno because 2nd Life doesn't have monsters and spells and wizards, so I've got no interest in it.

Re:

[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.

Re:

[Torgo's Pizza]

You're missing his main point which you accidently emphasis in your response: MMORPGs have a flaw because the content designers is overwhelmingly outnumbered by the players. D&D was so great because a single DM could easily handle groups of 8 or 10 people and customize the adventure and story to meet their expectations.

To overcome the challenge of generating custom content for everyone, the original poster came up with his very clever, I might add, formula for game design.

Re:

[Organic Brain Damage]

Sebastopol, I agree with your description of ideal/fun paper D&D. I was imprecise in my post. Torgo's got the idea in his response. The problem is the work to play ratio or more precisely the ratio of time/effort that goes into content creation vs. the time/enjoyment it provides the players. I was referring to the loop/grind which became the computer RPG's solution to the creation to play time ratio.

Re:

[MontyApollo]

I've been playing the beta for a few weeks, and it is my first MMORPG. My previous experience was occasional single player RPGs like Morrowind. I think the multiplayer element does add quite a bit and helps releave the boredom factor. I'm not that social of a player, but LOTRO forces you to join up with other players in "fellowships" to complete some of the quests. I always hook up with a different group each time, and this does add some variety to the game.

In a weird way now, it would seem kind of "lonely"

Re:

[joggle]

I agree. It would be cool if you could customize the items you create with your crafting skills in LOTRO. At least they have a way of allowing you to play instruments in the game. I haven't been too keen on that though since I have a real instrument at my house (a piano). Trying to play a song on the keyboard just isn't that much fun in comparison and not nearly as challenging (due to the limits imposed by the game/keyboard). Now if they allowed music to be given by a MIDI input source that would be awesome

Re:

[rucs_hack]

To get past the boredom, we need an open RPG game where people are encouraged to produce content for other players. Maybe 2nd life fits that criteria. I dunno because 2nd Life doesn't have monsters and spells and wizards, so I've got no interest in it.


I'm trying to write the very thing you want. Being a lone developer with a small budget (as in none), and nowt but a dream and gcc, it's going to take a while. I'm probably two years away from a small beta test group, and I have no idea where the 3d models are

Re:

[Anonymous Curmudgeon]

Yes, someone should invent MUDs. They'd be like open MMOGs without the graphics. And since you don't have to worry about graphic engines, experienced players could quit the playing ranks and join the coders and crank out lots of user-generated content. We'll call them wizards. It'll be great. And I'm sure there won't be a bit of grinding involved.

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 ra

Re:

[argStyopa]

Which was recognized by 1980, and why the PnP games evolved into the 2nd generation mechanics: skill based play.

Instead of "level-systems" which rationalized the skills of various archetypes and quantized their abilities into discrete "levels" of performance, 2nd Gen PnP games (Runequest, Traveller, etc.) built their game models around a finer-grained system where a character improved their individual, task-based skills individually through repeated use or specific training. The problem with this for a PnP

Not a WoW clone anymore?

[hansamurai]

This is interesting as earlier reports were basically calling the game a WoW clone (and from the pictures it looked like it), and there were a lot of complaints that it didn't feel right being able to walk from the Shire to Mt. Doom in under half an hour. Maybe things have really improved during the beta.

Anyways, I've been WoW-free for about a year now, and I'm enjoying my time actually playing other video games.

The correct tobold review link

[karnowski]

Here's the correct link for the Tobold full review [blogspot.com]

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.

It's WoW in ME

[Jaeph]

I'm not saying it's a bad game, but the gushing I'm hearing really seems at odds with what I saw. The middle earth terrain is fantastic - the shire, the old forest, etc, all look great. I spent hours running around looking.

The problem is "then what". There is very little that differentiates this game from any other game out there. Elves are not Tolkien's elves, they're the same generic elves from other games. Everybody says "no fireballs", but my first level loremaster was tossing fire. Then there's t

Meh. Age of Conan! :p

[arcade]

I think I'll wait until I can be a cimmerian. :)

Magic, everywhere!

[Dachannien]

My biggest concern would be the pervasiveness of magic and other factors that cause the game to depart from its roots. Yeah, I'm one of those purists that still gets annoyed at all the gratuitous changes PJ and Friends made when doing the LotR movies (although I still think those movies were teh bomb).

Magic was always subtle throughout the trilogy, the Hobbit, and even the Silmarillion. Well, far subtler than D&D magic, anyway, and certainly rarer. The passing of the Elves meant that mundane Men were in charge, and while some of them were very talented at war, and a select few had a divine bloodline, they were still just using natural human ability to do what they did.

Now, I'm not necessarily opposed to shoving a massive damage spell up the arse of the nearest Balrog, and I realize that it's far, far too late to change the design of this game if they have made magic overt and pervasive. Much as with the movies, it's a game I'd still consider playing. But I'd still cringe every time my loser groupmates Araporn and Legolass started lobbing fireballs around the room.

Re:

[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 tran

Re:

[Tridus]

Its funny, its the lack of magic that really bothers me. Particularly Minstrels.

"Oh okay that guy is hacking your arm off. Just let me play a song to boost your morale, and its fine!" Must be quite the song.

"Wait, now he's attacking me? Let me play another song and I'll kill it!" Very off key maybe?

Its exactly the same as how a normal healer works, only without the divine intervention. They just stuck something silly in its place.

I'm not a big MMO fan, but...

[bfwebster]

...I'm a bit addicted to LOTRO (their acronym, not mine). I've never played WoW or EverQuest, so I can't compare it to them. But I like the sense of freedom on a known (Middle Earth) map. Having gotten myself up to Level 12, I'm now just wandering cross-country, heading towards the Misty Mountains. Based on what I've experienced so far, I suspect that I'm going to need to hook up with a few other folks to keep this up -- I'm running into some nasty MOBs.

While I did sign up for some crafts, I haven't done mu

Re:

[petrus4]

...I'm a bit addicted to LOTRO (their acronym, not mine). I've never played WoW or EverQuest, so I can't compare it to them. But I like the sense of freedom on a known (Middle Earth) map.

I haven't seen LOTRO, but I have been playing WoW for the last year. There are two main reasons why I could see someone might play LOTRO in preference to WoW:-

1) The backstory. WoW's lore is the proverbial mulligan stew; a whole heap of disparate elements thrown together. This is reflected in the number of retcons [wowwiki.com] Blizz

Not distinct enough.

[MaWeiTao]

I think the real problem Lord of the Rings Online is facing is due to the very nature of it's theme. Of course we've seen this all before, because nearly every single freaking fantasy-based RPG developed over the last few decades draws on the world Tolkien crafted. Compounding the problem is the fact that the gameplay mechanics of most of these RPGs is based on Dungeons and Dragons, or at least the closest approximation we can get with an automated system.

The fact is that the grind is the draw. It's a form on conditioning. Perform set actions repetitively to bring about a positive outcome, in this case character growth. This allows new areas, new equipment and new foes to be revealed. That in turn promotes further growth which brings about additional content. It's satisfying to see a character hit that next level. And when it comes down to it real live involves a lot of repetition so it's inevitable that the sort of game that gets closest to emulation life, in some regards anyway, would also involve a lot of that repetition. Some games simple manage to package it more nicely than others. The grind is obscured in a way that makes gameplay enjoyable.

So I don't see that as the major issue here. The problem I have with LOTR Online is that it's yet another fantasy game. It may be one of the originals, but at this point that's irrelevant. I've heard good things about it, but it just doesn't strike me as interesting. Inevitably it comes off as yet another World of Warcraft.

Other genres have been long overdo. The problem is that the ones that have appeared have generally been lackluster or a bit too esoteric to make the sort of impact World of Warcraft has.

LOTR Online may have an edge over WoW in terms of gameplay. Unfortunately, WoW is just too dominant to be so easily unseated from its position as number one. LOTR Online needs to offer something truly phenomenal and distinct beyond it's source material. Of course, this may be just the thing those bored with WoW are looking for. But if people are tired with WoW they might be tired of the fantasy genre in general, going back to my point above.

It's unanimous!

[antizeus]

I have heard from an astounding two people who have tried this game, and the reaction among 100% of those people can be summed up as "Meh, I'll keep playing World of Warcraft".

It's supposed to be real purty though.

A note regarding the graphics

[snuf23]

I find that the graphic quality in the game on lower end cards is pretty bland and unattractive. I've played on a Macbook Pro using Boot Camp and had to turn the settings pretty low. On the other hand on a Core2Duo desktop with a 7900GT the game looks amazing. The character models aren't great but the environments look fantastic on high detail.

Re:

[Miniluv]

Now that you mention it, I kept trying to figure out what was rubbing me the wrong way about the graphics and the character models really are it. They're shite, quite honestly. The only thing I liked about the toons in LOTRO compared to WoW was some new emotes that were amusing. /smoke and /smoke2 in sequence cracks me up.

Re:

[snuf23]

WoW goes wholesale on the cartoony side, LOTRO is somewhere in the middle versus the plastic barbie doll look of EQ2 (before the asian models) and Vanguard. The one thing I really don't like about WoW is the lack of customization for your character appearance. LOTRO isn't much better in that regard. Games like City of Heroes/Villains and Star Wars Galaxies have much greater customization in terms of facial features and body type.
I would agree that the models in LOTRO need quite a bit of work. I'm pretty tir

Re:

[VGPowerlord]

With City of Heroes/Villains, outfit customization is basically all you have. Since there is no equipment, your starting look is the look that you're stuck with until you buy another outfit at level... I forget which level that becomes available. 20, I think.

SWG, at least when I last played it, suffered massive lag due to its customization system. You got near a city (and its NPCs) and it took forever to render your view, sometimes disconnecting you in the process. Maybe that's gotten better in the year

Re:

[snuf23]

I was talking about the facial/body adjustments in CoH/CoV not the costumes. It changed since launch. You can now adjust numerous body segment length and width. In addition to face models and textures you can adjust the faces to be tall or wide etc. Not as much slider adjustment possible as say SWG or EQ2 but much more than WoW or LOTRO.
With SWG I had more of problem with the building models and architecture being screwed up or delayed (popping in) than I did with player lag. Of course I didn't mess around

Re:

[Miniluv]

On the one hand I agree that I'd like to see a highly customizable, high poly environment. Second Life is probably close to what I'd like to see, and I really do dislike the idea that your avatar should immediately convey some meaningful info about you (i.e. race, class, etc). It is kinda sad in WoW that I can glance around the environment and immediately recognize not just the race but the class of almost every player. Its even worse at the high levels as the set gear is SOOO much better that you have to g

MMOGH!!!

[Sarin]

A decade ago, before all the LOTR hyping, I was in eager waiting for 'middle earth' to arrive. According to the developers it offered most of the above with nice art on their site, I really wanted something different from my Ultima Online PK looting pastime. So I bought the complete works of Tolkien for about $80 on Amazon to get into my role a bit. Keep my mind of the dinosaurs, in the media at that time - supposed to be the next big thing at the time. Sadly the company never got to release their gem.
This

Roleplay better in Europe

[BarneyL]

This game sounds like a bit of fun, but having looked on the sideline at these games, I'm getting a bit tired, there's nothing revolutionary here. Even worse, still it doesn't really seem to be focused on real role playing. Just another pump and dump RPG scheme in the wake of world of warcraft?

This appears to be more of a problem with how Turbine are managing the US servers (no specific flagged RP servers I believe).
Over here in Europe where the release is being run by Codemasters there is a dedicated Rol

Contry Locked

[alexgieg]

The one thing that makes me stay with WoW: the LoTRO developer has chosen to completely forbid anyone from outside of a designed geographic region to purchase its local version and play there, no matter what. And if they released LoTRO in Brazil? Nope, sorry. I don't like playing games with other Brazilians. So, if the developer doesn't want my money to play on the US server, I won't pay him any money at all. It his loss, not mine.

Re:

[Disseminated]

That's incorrect (unless I misunderstand you). If you buy the North American client you can play on the North American servers. http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=31890 [lotro.com]

Re:

[alexgieg]

Thank you for the update! Now I'll be able to try LoTRO to see whether I like it or not. It seems things can change for the good now and then. :)

I played in the beta

[Tarindel]

and my impressions are that had this game come out a year or two ago, it would have made a much bigger impact than it will now. Why? Because, while it's a solid package, it doesn't really have anything unique to offer outside of theming elements. Sure, it's cool to run around Middle Earth, but outside of that, it's very much WoW-lite, and with a horrid, unresponsive interface to boot.

Was it fun? Yeah, it was. But after playing for a couple of weeks, I already had the feeling that the game didn't have l

Stunned

[Terminal Saint]

I was stunned when I fired up the beta. To me it felt like a re-skinned WoW without playable horde. In fact, I played WoW until I got sick of it and haven't played since, but after 8-10 hours of the LotRO beta, I wasn't so much tired of this new game as I was still tired of WoW. I promptly uninstalled. Mind you, that's just my opinion.

Hellooo, bugs.

[Midnight Voyager]

See, I tried the beta. And like an apparently large number of people, it completely and totally managed to reboot my PC every time I tried to even log in. When large numbers of people can't even log in, that is what we call a bad sign.

eh..

[crossmr]

Well after playing for a couple weeks now, I gotta say that I'm sorry a pre-ordered. I should have realized that the last couple offerings from Turbine haven't been great (How could anyone fail to turn D&D online into a cash cow?). They're already making boneheaded decisions (they just completely destroyed farming, the kind with crops, in a nerf they admit they didn't properly think out). Unless I see something amazing from them in the next few days I'll be leaving my pre-order on the shelf at EB.

Re:

[wilgibson]

OH god, DDO. I will admit that game was fun, and then they did the first big content update(Vault of Night). After that it it went downhill, screw it they just pushed it off the cliff. If it wasn't for the good friends I had made the first two months in I wouldn't have stuck to it as long as I did. By June DDO had sucked me into Eberron enough to start reading the novels. Reading the novels flat out killed the game for me, it just couldn't live up to Kevin Baker's vision of Eberron. I paid for up to t