So it's been mentioned in some threads and I'm thinking about giving it a bash so what are people's opinions of it?

Is there any PvP type stuff in it where I can go out and kill all the hobbits with "frodo" and "lolz" in the name?

More to the point, what type of person plays LOTR-O?

Also is it any good? They developed this game knowing full well it was going to be devoured by WoW.

How many people are named Legolas?

Why would you play this game over any other MMO?

no, that's not more to the point

Is there any PvP type stuff in it where I can go out and kill all the hobbits with "frodo" and "lolz" in the name?

There is PvM or Freeps v Creeps.

More to the point, what type of person plays LOTR-O?

Some one who doesn't want to play WoW anymore ? LOTR junkies ? Turbine fan boys ? Random's who saw the box on the shelf ?

Also is it any good?

I'd vote yes. I think it is better at maintaining the lore of their chosen universe. I think it has a number of new concepts. It scales to varying hardware much better then wow. Quests are much more storyline based. Not a whole heap of disjointed one off quests. Lots of wow people don't like it. YMMV

How many people are named Legolas?

none, its the name of a npc.

Why would you play this game over any other MMO?

I like the game mechanics.
I like the instances with server controlled actors and cut scenes.
I like how good it looks even on my s***ty pc.
I like the levelling system.
I like fellowship moves.
I like traits and deeds.
I like the varied instance style.
I like that even low level instances need you to use tic tacs (when doing them at the appropriate level).


And the game is not perfect either, it has balance issues (mainly to do with crafting costs), problems with 8800's and Vista (apparently nVidia's latest drivers solved them).

That said, its not for everyone. Most of the WoW people I know have tried it and gone back to WoW.
If you like have a big e-penis, wow's your caper.
If you like grinding be it rep, pvp or dkp, wow's your caper.
If you like real pvp, I'd say go play a game other then wow.

I heard this like $24 a month?

a mate said it's very good, much better than wow, they do thing right.

then about 6 weeks later he said it was boring and he'd stopped playing.

I suspect he's still playing he just doesn't like having s*** dished on him for being a mmorpgf*****.

*shrug* I am paying $9.95 a month. Actually I am paying 24.95 every 3 months.

Also free content update / expansion, being released 13 June. clicky

Yeah, I think I like it more than WoW, partly because its fresh and new and different, partly cos of all the stuff Obes listed above, and partly because its a lot easier to just log on, play for a couple of hours, and feel like you've achieved something than WoW. I haven't had a lot of time the past few weeks to devote to MMOs, but if I sit down for an hour or two and play some Lotro and do a deed or a couple of quests or even just craft stuff, I enjoy it more than spending a couple of hours in WoW.

I still have my WoW account active, but all I'm really doing these days is going along to raids a few times a week, though my interest in even just doing that is fast disappearing. If I could play JUST for raids, it might be ok, but you can't really do that, theres all the farming of mats for consumables and money for repairs and attunement quests and heroics to get gear, etc, etc. I just don't have the time for all that s*** anymore, and when I do have spare time, I don't want to spend it mindlessly farming gold in WoW. So I'm finding Lotro much more fun in that regard.

Also, the crafting in Lotro rocks. Sure, some of the professions are still a little unbalanced with respect to how much of a money sink they are (farming seems to be especially bad), but I took tailoring, and the very first patterns I was given by my trainer let me make gear which was ACTUALLY WORTH USING. Such a revolutionary idea.

Can you please explain the whole crafting thing in a bit more detail?

yeah ive been thinking about what id like in an mmo, and it simply comes down to the ability to be able to log on for a few hours do what i please and then leave, i shouldnt have to live the game to be able to enjoy it.
but ill continue to avoid playing mmo's its kind of lame going to a party where there is someone who plays wow and just listen to them make lame wow jokes and talk about GNARLY! RAIDS! more importantly id hate to become that person... again.

Is there an unofficial aussie server?

Yeah, its Elendilmir (or some variation on that spelling).

Any free trials or do you have to buy the box?

There are buddy keys, I gave mine out (sorry). Maybe I can get more ... *shrug* I'll try.

Crafting is complex, but simple.

You pick a profession and it has 3 tradeskills. tradeskill is open to atleast 2 professions (except jewelers and scholars). No single profession can supply all the materials it needs. I as a tailor need polished gems from tinkerers.

Every item you make earns you tradeskill exp towards that tradeskill.
Each Tier has 2 levels. Proficient and Master.
To open up a higher tier you must be proficient at the level below and mastered the level 2 below. All non primary tradeskills also have a quest to open a new tier. You must have mastered a tier to crit an item, items when they crit have greatly improved stats (primary trade skills simple produce 3 of the item instead of 1). You can improve the chance of a crit by using mastery items, better tools, getting lore from a scholar.

For instance. My toon.
A dwarven (race) minstrel (class) is an Explorer (profession) has Tailoring, Forestry and Prospecting (tradeskills).
In Tailoring, I have mastered tier 3 and am proficient at tier 4. This means I can make tier 5 items. But I can only "crit" up to tier 3 items.

On top of that their is the usual store bought, and "dropped" recipes. There is also high quality items that are gotten via a single use recipe, and also have a component that comes from a unique spawn (usually an elite or signature mob). These can also crit. A crit tier 5 single use item is basically, at the moment, some of the best gear in the game.


Oh and you get titles for you toon from crafting (in addition to other titles). For instance my toon can use the titles Master Expert Tailor, Artisan Tailor, Master Expert Forester, Master Expert Prospector.


I think its the first game where the mechanics of life and death have been explained with out breaking the lore.

You don't have a health bar. You have Morale. And you don't have healers, you have classes (eg. minstrels) that bolster your morale. And when you run out of morale, you aren't dead (reserection is such a messy concept) you simple have retreated to a RV. or you can wait and hope a minstrel is around to give you some hope again. And the fear mechanic is awesome. Fear is a dot, it eats away at your morale. The death penality is equally as logical, you retreat to the RV but now are being hounded by fear or whatever and have dread on you (dread make it easier to lower your morale).

Sorry wall of text. Anyways its a really cool, non-lore breaking method for explaining a game mechanic.

Again, the game is not perfect, the melee feels a bit "elastic" to some people (eg. Keato), but then no game has had a solid combat feel since Everquest and it doesn't bother me. Some people simply don't like it. Some people don't like the concept of LOTR (its not cool ... you're playing an MMO ... you're not cool). ps. if you played the beta, the retail actually runs a little better.

If nothing else LOTRO has more new concepts, and more of the old concepts done well then in any game I have currently seen. And in a lot of ways is a more finished game then wow is.

Be warned there are true geeks/nerds playing this game. People who actually can speak tolkens elvish (I think its called sinda but could very well be wrong), and their names actually mean something. And some people who are very talented musicians, some of the stuff they belt out on the rather gumby player music interface is scary (still waiting for someone to youtube them playing super mario bros theme). There are other people who haven't a clue about tolkien and didn't even see the movie (craziness!).

There is a lot of detail in the game that would go totally unnoticed by people. I'd point some of it out, but then it'd be a spoiler for the people that might have noticed it by themselves (which will ruin it for them).

At the moment I think its probably one of the more under-hyped but actually decent games out there at the moment, that is as much suffering from the LOTR name as it is suceeding.

ps. the oz distro is Atari, they suck balls and badly botched the OZ release, buy it online imo and get the cd's mailed here. You'll save $20 and won't be supporting them.

Can you buy online and DL or you have to wait for CDs? When the f*** will people realise that we're on the interwebs with phat pipes and can download stuff these days instead of waiting around for a CD package.

Places to get more info....

Offical places
Official site
Turbines Video Tutorials
The Official Lorebook

thott for lotro
Best map I have seen there is a google map version but its useless (imo)
Useful for after you actually get a grip on crafting

So far the game covers a single region. Eriador. Lindon is being released in June as a free content thing. The following areas are on the world map so are possible future content releases (small) or as paid expansions (large). Forodwaith, Enedwaith, Rhovanion, Rohan, Gondor, Mordor, Rhun, Harad, Belegaer and Khano. Wether the game has long term potential in part is dependant on the economics of it I guess. If they keep release quests and instances like the ones they have in the game, I'll be happy.


oh forgot to mention there is raid content in the game. Groups are 6 people (not 5 like wow or 8 like DAOC). Raids are 24 (4 groups of 6).

I played a few days of the beta, and IMHO it was just another generic MMORPG, however I didn't delve very far into it.



I'm not one for grinding, so I didn't see most of the high level abilities and monsters.

last edited by Phooks at 23:32:47 06/Jun/07

I'm happy to just play wow into the ground and then play WAR when it comes out this time next year.

I'm not one for grinding

Grinding in LOTRO for exp makes no sense at all. Questing is where the exp is at.

Casa, I don't think you would like LOTRO anyways.

I know for certain I'll be playing LOTRO when it gets a bit more fleshed out. It really interests me at the moment, but nowhere near enough to jump ship from WoW.

People using the in game music system. Its a clumsy system after you hit the note it sends it to the server and the instruction for the sound gets sent back to you
Hotel California
Super Mario theme
Highway to Hell
Knights in white satin
Some guy's first attempt at the music system and he explains how painful the system is to a degree...

The interesting bit is, people do actually stop and applaud talented in-game music people (only thing I can play is the emperors march outa Empire Strikes Back).

An in-game video of a decent instance. Has some fellowship moves in it (one of the better new mechanics).
Retake weathertop It's missing the first half but that's ok.

I wondered where that f***** had gone to

also I fell asleep watching that vid

im really enjoying this game. its a refreshing break after playing wow for a little over 2 years. its the same yet diffrent enough to hook me even after just 2 days of playing. few things i love about it

- crafting system is a little odd at first but its so much better than the wow system is.
- music! although the notes are about 1/2 a second behind the button presses its still damn fun to play. also noted its getting updated this month. more notes to play, more instruments and ability to record songs played with a macro.
- leveling is actualy fun. thats what shat me about wow most. leveling got so bats*** boring. if you want to grind, then you can go ahead and accept the mass killing quests (kill 100 of x animal) if you like to quest, then your in luck because there are a ton to do.
- skills. unlike wow the game doesnt have 120+ skills for 1 character (at least that i know of yet) each character seems to have about 30 - 50 each. while you may not think that is a lot, all these skills level with you to a degree, so the 3 skills you start with can be used right though the game.
- deeds. while were on the subject of skills, you collect deeds for using your skills/killing animals/exploring/doing quests. deeds are like tallents in wow, they enhance your skills. they may increase damage of your skills, enhance effects and so on. they are all selectable too so im guessing thats what your build is made of.

right now i give it a 8/10 and IMO deffinatly worth the time to play it for even a month.

Which particular f***** where you referring to ?

also I fell asleep watching that vid

Its a level 20 quest triggered instance... and unfortunately you can't see the in game actors or dialogue in that clip of it.

ps. boba you won't like the game either.

last edited by Obes at 10:25:31 07/Jun/07

oh I mean't to quote

the melee feels a bit "elastic" to some people (eg. Keato)

so he's the f***** I was referring to

After something stupid like 7 years straight I don't have an active MMO subscription.

I'm f***ing loving it.

Keato did start playing again yesterday, but that was a comment he made during beta. He quit after beta...

obes

is

a kiddie fiddler

boba you are not a kiddie ... you're a balding old man who loves it (and pays well)

I'll be picking up a copy this week and giving it a bash over the weekend. I'm a bit hesitant starting a new MMO but I'll give it a shot.

What I'd like to know is can you group up with people and complete the same quests? Is there alot of solo player content or do you need groups to get most of the stuff done?

What I'd like to know is can you group up with people and complete the same quests?

Yes.

Is there alot of solo player content

Yes.

or do you need groups to get most of the stuff done?

No, but the best rewards and the last step of chains is almost always fellowship. Some fellowship quests can be done by simply waiting until they are green. Others can not.

On the scale of does it "require" a group (just my 2c's) ...
DDO - group or die
DAOC
EQ
LOTRO
WOW
Guildwars
AC - groups suck (and don't work properly) solo forever!

Never played AC2 or FFXI. While I didn't play AO, CoH enough to form a valid opinion.

Most MMOs end up where large bodies of people are needed. Lotro raids are capped at 24, so at least its not too insane (I think EQ raids used be capped 72 ? 12 groups of 6 ? from memory).

And in saying that, I think LOTRO is more casual/non set group/pug/soloer friendly because they have not employed a heap of EQ ubers / devs to turn their game into the new EQ high end raid fest. And they have said multiple times they are making a commitment to solo gamers to have enough content for them. This first expansion (free mini one) is 60 or so quests most of which are soloable (aparently).

last edited by Obes at 13:14:56 12/Jun/07

Sounds good. What server you playing on Obes?

Ellendilmir or something like that.

It was the de-facto Oceania server. Several Aceania Kinships (guilds) there. There are small queues tho at peak hours (sub 5mins usually)