Reply With QuoteI'm not in beta, but what ive read about it after nda was lifted (reviews, forum posts, etc), everything has been higly positive.
So, maybe turbine finally has kickass game in their hands (they more than deserve some success imo)
Is there anyone in beta who can give their first impressions on LOTRO (now that beta is lifted)?
Any good links out there?
I'm not in beta, but what ive read about it after nda was lifted (reviews, forum posts, etc), everything has been higly positive.
So, maybe turbine finally has kickass game in their hands (they more than deserve some success imo)
I've been in the closed beta for a while (though to be honest, I haven't played since The Burning Crusade came out). I really like the game. They use the DDO engine, so the visuals are really nice and with only a decent video card, the draw distance is impressive - I don't know the number of times I ran up to the top of a hill to look at a far off mountain range because it was so gorgeous.
The classes are a similar to the traditional tank-healer-DPS, but they each have small twists. Everyone seems to have a small heal ability of some sort, so soloing is pretty easy. And the game has tons of quests, so you're never looking for something to do. The two twists on the traditional MMORPG are the storyline quests - you get a chain of quests that have you interacting with Aragorn and Gandalf and the other members of the fellowship. Often times these quests take you into a private instance where the quest unfolds. It's a neat mechanism, and helps pull you into the game. There's an instanced quest you do on Weathertop which is awesome too.
The other distinguishing factor is the use of traits - which are abilities you gain over time (by killing monsters, or exploring) which let you customize your character. Unfortunately, when I was playing, the traits didn't do enough - they weren't strong enough to make you really different. And that's one of the problems - it was also shown that stats on armor and gear had a miniscule difference (at one point someone had buffed their strength to +100 or some massive number, and the amount of extra damage they were doing was maybe 2 per hit).
The game is very solo friendly, but at around level 35 solo quests started to get a bit thin - Turbine knew about this and was going to fix it, but I don't know how it was resolved.
Plus there's only about 7 zones in the game - now don't get me wrong, some of them are pretty big, but to some degree the world feels small. Granted, if you look at the world map there is a lot of room to expand, and they're planning on doing it over time. But for now it's a bit confined.
But I don't want to sound like it's a bad game because it's not. The variety of classes are interesting, the ability to feel like you're interacting with the Fellowship of the Ring members is engaging, and all in all it's a fun diversion. I'm not going to play the game on launch, but if I were, it would be something I'd pick up and play when I was tired of Wow, or while I was waiting for Warhammer Online.
Nice post Charlatan, thanks for the input.
I have only gotten my highest character to level 12 and have dorked around a few classes while I try to figure out what (if anything) I want to play on release so take these with a grain of salt.
The world, what I've seen of it is beautiful and does not tax my system like Vanguard or to a lesser extent, EQ2. Bree gives me some slowdown, and because of that I might have to turn down the video from 'very high' to 'high', but that has been the only issue.
From what I understand, 'monster play' will add some pvp while keeping the integrity of the lore intact. No elves versus hobbits, but the good versus the goblins that happen to be player controlled.
For the downsides, one is that the character abilities aren't really grabbing me, although I am sure that is because of my limited levels. I am spoiled by the power dealt out by character abilities in EQ2 and WoW, and the ones here, although necessary, don't have the same feel of impact. Add to that the fact that you get so few new abilities so infrequently and for me it kills the desire to level. This is not necessarily bad, but if I don't want to level, I don't want to play.
Likewise, characters of the same class are all the same. Granted you can gain traits that will help distinguish you from another, but in the early game, these again are few as pointed out earlier, they don't really do much to the character. The gear that I've seen so far has been unremarkable as well with most of the good stuff coming as quest rewards (with some +1 or +2 damage against certain mob type weapons dropping that were meh as well).
The crafting is enjoyable, but the resource nodes are too few and far between, which is sort of annoying. For farming, you can level up all day long by buying seeds and planting them and it's just a time grind. For seemingly anything else, like scholar or prospector or woodsmen, you need to find the nodes out in the wild, and they are very hard to find in any reasonable quantity.
Oh, one last thing. You will sometimes find supply crates (like chests in WoW) that are in enemy camps. Prepare to have those 'ninja'ed' away from you as you fight the mobs that guard them. This again is no different than WoW, but it is equally frustrating.
With regards to the treasure chests in WoW, all you have to do to remove the frustration is realize that 99.99% of the time, they contain crap. I have never gotten anything good from a chest beyond the occasional potion.
I never understand why a mithril chest that takes 300 lockpicking skill, and its protected by the guardians of Antioch only contains 4 gold, 3 pieces of alteric swiss, 1 runecloth, and mail bracers of the whale.
I would think that a mithril chest itself would be worth far more then the contents it is protecting.
It's kind of neat that the towns aren't frenzies of cyber or dueling. Instead... jam sessions. Lots of them.
It's only a matter of time before there's an LOTRO in-game rock band, if there isn't already.
Played the beta for a few hours, I have a level 7 humain champion. I thought the game was nice, but way too classic. I was one of the few who really digged DDO, its way to force you to play coop with many classes, its mission system, etc. It was a nice departure from the MMORPG routines, and the combats were very good. Here, everything looks and feels good, but the "been there, done that" feeling is slightly ruining the fun. Well, I'm level 7 only, and granted there are a few good ideas (traits, etc) but right now I'm not hooked. Haven't tried crafting yet.
Crafting is where it sorta falls apart. You can make components but never anything useful until you get some components from another person with a complimentary trade. They've created a system that forces you to interact with other people to be productive. I know, I know, MMOs are always supposed to be social things, otherwise just go play a single player game, but really, it's frustrating when all you can make are lead bars after all that time you spent out in the wild looking for nodes. I don't always WANNA talk to Phr0d0 to get the other components (or buy his crap from an auction house).
Otherwise, I'll chime in and say it's not ugly, but it's not an evolution of the genre. You kill things and rise in level to kill things of a higher level to rise in level....
I do cocaine so I can work harder so I can make more money to buy more cocaine...
It's World of the Rings, and a lotta people will like that. Me, not so much...now where's that Conan game? Lemme build some houses!
I've gotten a few blues from chests. That's very much the exception though, I agree.Originally Posted by DeepT
They gave chests a nice upgrade in TBC. They're generally more worthwhile than they used to be, anyway.
I don't think this game is exactly destined to fail (though the fact that Turbine is making it doesn't exactly help on that score,) and I haven't played the beta, but aping WoW and then tacking the LOTR setting on top of it just doesn't read like a recipe for success to me. Their biggest target market is going to end up being existing or former WoW players, and I don't see a lot of them giving up their high level characters to play the same game with different art, or buying a new game that does the same thing the game they quit does. The fact that they're releasing it within six months after TBC's launch doesn't help either. They really, really should have had this out by Christmas.
I could be underestimating the appeal of the setting I guess, and it'll probably do at least as well as Vanguard, but I don't believe for a second that this is going to be the next big thing or anything close to that.
Bring on Conan! (which, admittedly, probably won't be the next big thing either.)
I played it a little but it didn't grab me at all, it seemed aggressively generic.
Also, trying to put in an epic plot made my brain itch
GENERAL: LFG 2 drop 1 rng in pit!
I just found Basilisk Hide Pants in a chest in Tanaris. Woot! :P
I'm pretty excited for this as well......having clan controlled areas and storming other clan buildings in an all out war....FTW.
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