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Sunday March 11, 2007 | Lord of the Rings Online Review | Games |
This past weekend A few weekends ago, I helped stress test the new Lord of the Rings Online Game. It's a MMORPG similar to World of Warcraft. I'm not a big online gamer, but the both the download and account were free, and I'm a big LOTR fan, so I deiced to try it.
Short Review: Pretty Good
MMORPGs never really were that appealing to me. The idea of continual payment never sat well with me, nor did the idea of the game never really ending. Many of the early MMORPGs weren't that good: lots of repetitive tasks and high death penalties. WoW really raised the bar for MMORPGs and it's the standard by which all others are now judged. However, since I don't really play WoW I can't compare, so I will just list the features the I liked and didn't like. I'll let the WoW players make up their own minds. In talking with some WoW players, it sounds like LOTRO has borrowed/stolen many of the good features from WoW.
Good Stuff
- Fellowships - You knew it was there, right?
Fellowships are quick ad-hoc groups that players can form to tackle a larger challenge. Smaller than a guild or raid party, you can easily join, and leave, a fellowship. Members get a private chat channel, split all money and experience earned, and share in any quest tasks or items. Those last two items are the most important because you don't have to worry about those limited spawn areas where a group of players are camped waiting for their chance to kill the quest target.
- No Death Penalty - Dying really has no penalty, other than transporting you back to your "home" city (which you can move). Your equipment may take some damage (I never checked) but there is no need to retrieve your body or anything like that.
- Instances - Small, or large, parts of the game can be instanced to a player or group based on their situation. Unlike the traditional MMORPG, parts of the game are linear, meaning that a location may change based on how far into the story you have progressed. A town may get attacked at some point, so for everyone who was part of that battle, the town will show damage from that point on. I didn't get far enough into the story to see how much changes, but the few examples that I saw seemed to work.
- Lots of Content - Granted, I just started the game, but there was no shortage of things to do. Also, the automap feature lets you zoom out to see all of Middle Earth, so you can see how much content they have the capacity for. There was also no shortage of quests. I had anywhere from 5 to 10 active at any one time and most are interesting or move the story along. There are also many types of quests covering all aspects of the game.
- Kill Quests - Typical monster quest: find it, kill it. Or kill X many Ys.
- FedEx Quests - Take this object to Joe, or just talk to Joe.
- Skill Quests - Build or farm something. You can either do it yourself (assuming you have he skills), or find another player to do it.
- Auto Journal - Will so many quests (and quest chains), the journal keeps track of all conversations relating to the quest, where you need to go to achieve the quest, and where to go back to collect your reward for the quest.
- Lots of Races - You can start off the game as a human, elf, dwarf, or hobbit. Each starts the game at a different location on the map so each gets a different set of training and low-level quests. I think that this makes for great replayability, as you won't get bored with the same stuff over and over again.
- Quick Transportation - Covering large distances quickly can be achieved by spending a little money. You can only travel to a place that you've visited before, but you'd expect that.
- Ability to Become a Monster - I never did this, but it was advertised that once I became 10th level I could go a place to join the forces of darkness. I don't know more about this than there are some limitations places on your character, but it sounds fun!
Bad Stuff
There wasn't too much that I didn't like, and I will say now that some of these problems might have workarounds that I just didn't find.
- With fellowships such an integral part of the game, there wasn't an easy way to create one quickly. As it is now, you must invite each player one at a time. It seems like there should be a "invite all players on the screen into a fellowship" command.
- It also wasn't immediately obvious how to leave a fellowship. While I did figure it out (double click on yourself (i.e. talk to yourself), and then right-click on the second image of yourself to get the menu of options) this feature wasn't in the "Social" Tab with the other fellowship options.
- Inventory control seemed kind of random. You have 6 separate bags to put stuff in, but when you pick things up it goes into a random bag. Thus, it's hard to keep stuff sorted. Also, as you acquire and sell items, your bags become fragmented. Not a big deal but why not just have one large bag?
While the game makers say that you will interact with characters from the books (and movies) you won't be directly involved with the main quest of the the ring. You will, however, follow a parallel story to the main ring story. I'm curious as how they will keep things moving along since there is a linear element to this game, but as a MMORPG there can't be an ending. Do the highest level chracters simply have the option of joining the huge battles of Helm's Deep, Minas Tirith or Mordor? How does becoming a monster change things? Answers to these questions are compelling reasons to try the game.
Tags: lorto lotr mmorpg online
March 11, 2007 12:34 PM PDT Permalink | Comments [23] |
Comments:
Nice review although I have to comment on two of your negatives.
“With fellowships such an integral part of the game, there wasn't an easy way to create one quickly. As it is now, you must invite each player one at a time. It seems like there should be a "invite all players on the screen into a fellowship" command.”
As someone who has played a lot of MMOs I don’t think this is a good idea. First of all it would have unpredictable behavior when there were more people on your screen than the max fellowship size. So say for instance there are eight people on your screen and only four fellowship slots, which for get the invite or does it spam it to all of them and only the first four to accept get in?
And spam is the second problem, people using this option in crowded areas would cause a lot of text box spam and I *know* some people would get a kick out of going to the most heavily populated areas and hitting screen invite over and over.
“Inventory control seemed kind of random. You have 6 separate bags to put stuff in, but when you pick things up it goes into a random bag.”
For me at least placement is not random but goes in the rightmost bag with an open slot.
“With fellowships such an integral part of the game, there wasn't an easy way to create one quickly. As it is now, you must invite each player one at a time. It seems like there should be a "invite all players on the screen into a fellowship" command.”
As someone who has played a lot of MMOs I don’t think this is a good idea. First of all it would have unpredictable behavior when there were more people on your screen than the max fellowship size. So say for instance there are eight people on your screen and only four fellowship slots, which for get the invite or does it spam it to all of them and only the first four to accept get in?
And spam is the second problem, people using this option in crowded areas would cause a lot of text box spam and I *know* some people would get a kick out of going to the most heavily populated areas and hitting screen invite over and over.
“Inventory control seemed kind of random. You have 6 separate bags to put stuff in, but when you pick things up it goes into a random bag.”
For me at least placement is not random but goes in the rightmost bag with an open slot.
Posted by ayanel on March 12, 2007 at 08:22 AM PDT #
Nice review, but I'd put the lack of a death penalty as a major negative. There should be a penalty. You should fear death. I just played for a short time, but if you don't lose experience when you die, that's a major strike against the game. I quit EQ2 because it was far too easy and the penalty for death was negligible.
If what I've seen holds up, then the pluses are decent graphics (and my version is downloaded, so they're not high res), runs smoothly even with my 2+ year old x800xl, load times seem fast. I'm not a big fan of the interface so far, but we'll see how it goes.
Posted by Klepto on April 07, 2007 at 05:19 PM PDT #
I've spent the past year and a half playing WoW, and I was quite stunned at the commonalities between it and LoTR-O. It bugs me actually, because I think it shows a lack of ingenuity and creativity on the Turbine developers part. They may have introduced such commonalities to try and make WoW gamers feel like LoTR-O is WoW, but with better graphics. Whatever caused them to do such, I think it was a shallow move on their part.
The environment graphics are decent. The character graphics are unimpressive. In fact, I was quite bugged with my character overall and I just never felt like it felt right. I wasn't ever able to put my thumb on it, but it may have something to do with the fact that I've been playing WoW characters for so long.
I only spent two hours playing the game, but nothing really jumped out and grabbed my attention as being cool, or something new and exciting to do. I'm going to spend a few more hours playing, but for now I have no intention of buying the game.
Posted by todo on April 18, 2007 at 08:32 AM PDT #
I've also played year for about 1 and a half -2years and yes i'm bored of it also, but it seems like most of the wow players just want another wow i.e warhammer with a different lick of paint. I also think people are judging every other game buy Wow has a lot similar with everquest, so its not like wow was the most original game or idea, just it was done better. I think once guildwars mmo comes out a proper free to play western game a lot of other games companies will have to get rid of the fee or lose most of the customers. Anyhow just play what you enjoy what im trying to do hehe :)
Posted by harpielady on April 24, 2007 at 01:51 AM PDT #
As a 2+ year WoW veteran, I almost fear trying out LOTRO. I'm a huge LOTR fan which is one reason why I would like to check it out, however, I'm not really impressed with the graphics I've seen and one of your Positives kinda bugged me:
No Death Penalty - Dying really has no penalty, other than transporting you back to your "home" city (which you can move). Your equipment may take some damage (I never checked) but there is no need to retrieve your body or anything like that.
There needs to be some kind of Penalty. In WoW, you go to a graveyard as a spirit and you have two options: 1) you can run back and retrieve your body. This is the most common way to rez. The penalty is smaller this way, but you have the risk of respawns camping your body, or whatever kills you had despawning and being unable to loot them. 2) you can spirit rez at the graveyard. This is done less, but has it's advantages and disadvantages. If you are unable to safely rez at your body, then spirit rezing is the option to take. If you do this, however, you lose 25% durability and for ten minutes 75% of your stats. Every time you die you lose 10% durability. It costs money to repair depending on your quality of armor and amount of durability remaining.
I like this system, because it's not too harsh, and it's not too easy. I also could say I like it because it's what I'm used to. I think with your death penalty in LOTRO being it returns you to your home city, can have it's advantages and disadvantages as well. You don't have to spend money to repair or worry about stats being decreased, but if you're trying to get to a certain region that is difficult to get to, how will you ever get there if you respawn at your home city every time?
Just my personal opinion.
Posted by Scott on April 24, 2007 at 06:49 AM PDT #
yeah...it's good
Posted by Joebobrodriegez on April 24, 2007 at 06:51 AM PDT #
WOW isn't original it was just the most newbie-friendly MMORPG out to date, it is a very good game, and it did almost perfect the MMORPG, but it's way too easy, FFXI is a better and more original MMORPG everyone just made WoW become popular cuz it was so easy to play that people actually started playing it, WoW is a kids game compared to the real MMORPGs but it's good, so don't rag on LOTR online like it's some copy of WoW, cuz WoW is a copy of all the other MMORPGs just dumbed down and made easier, and WoW has NO DEATH PENALTY going to a graveyard is not a penalty, dieing in FFXI would take away 15% of the experience you needed to gain to the next level, so you could actually go from being the highest level all the way back to being level 1 if you died enough times
Posted by Scott on April 24, 2007 at 09:55 AM PDT #
Taking what people like and are used to in World Of Warcraft is just good business.
Everything listed as "good stuff" are pretty much standard practices in all MMO's. Fellowships? Just a LotR word for party. Auto-Journal? Quest-log. Instanced zones are nothing new either. Since Lost Dungeons of Norath for Everquest, the concept of an instanced area has been in most MMO's following (guild wars being almost all instanced, dungeons in WoW being instanced). And as for the "no death penalty", pretty much all current-gen MMO's (EQ2, WoW, DnDO) lack a real punishment for death. Gone are the days of naked corpse runs and 10% experience loss of EQ1. Quick Transportation? Nothing is really faster than the portals in Everquest (they had portals everywhere, you could move from planet to plane with no cost rather quickly) and even then WoW has flight paths and EQ2 has harbor bells and gryphons.
This game might as well have been stamped: "Just like every other MMO."
Posted by Ender on April 26, 2007 at 12:04 AM PDT #
To address the comment by Scott, FFXI is the badly produced MMO mate. It has naff sound and character creation looks ridiculous. And as for originality it may use the standard FF interface but it still takes something from the likes of EQ1 (which in my mind was the first and most ground breaking MMO so far). WoW has not been 'dumbed down' as you so commonly put it. It's simply progression. Everything is built on the back of something else to some degree. WoW to me is what EQ has morphed into. Blizzard took all the good points of all the MMO's and left the bad stuff out. What they ended up with was a slick, fast and user friendly interface. You can't knock it for being swift and efficient. And I am afraid to inform you mate that the death penalty in WoW IS real and IS a fact. Anything the causes you to spend your hard earned cash or do a corpse run (and possibly die again if a critter spawns on you as you click 'Resurrect', is classed as a 'Penalty'. Not as harsh as EQ1 granted but please, put it in perspective, it still is a penalty. And as you pointed out in FFXI the penalty is a percentage deduction of xp. As this was used in EQ1 FFXI cannot be so original can it? ;) Also the graphics are 'pants', the interface itself is very unwieldly and I gave it 1 hour of my time before lashing it in the bin.
Posted by Steve on April 26, 2007 at 01:39 AM PDT #
"I think once guildwars mmo comes out a proper free to play western game a lot of other games companies will have to get rid of the fee or lose most of the customers."
Really? On the contrary, i feel quite the opposite. You (not you, generally speaking) have to put it into perspective - what exactly are the players paying for in an MMORPG like Blizzards WoW? The amount of new content coming with each major patch about every 6-8 weeks gives the players a whole lot to do - quests, gear, new mobs (monsters), new skills, new character levels, pvp instances, new instance zones, better functionality, better interface, better trade system, easier looking for group tools etc. - not to mention the constant 24 hour game support.
If WOW would be free, we never had seen the constant new content they give theire players. However appealing a fee free MMORPG sounds in theory for customers, it wouldn´t be a very "alive" world - enter Guild Wars.
I liked Guild Wars as well (for 2 weeks heh =O), but it wasnt the most alive fiction world in the changre (if GW even could be considered an MMORPG - i guess key word here is "Massivly").
For people feeling paying monthly for playing a game is to expensive, just avoid MMORPGs. Heck, LotR Online even had a one time offer before the game releases is it today? - pay 100 Euros for lifetime membership.
Anyways, i belive the market wants more MMORPGs and the players wanting to pay for new, more, better and improved game content rules the market - not the other way around. The few players dont wanting to pay for those improvments, just have to stick with games like GW. Not that GW necassarily is a bad game - it´s just lacking the idea of an alive world with constant new upgrades which is the big appeal fer millions of MMORPG players out there and which defines the changre.
Peace!
Posted by Christian on April 26, 2007 at 01:51 AM PDT #
I dunno....being a zillion miles from your home city and dying, having to start the trek all over seems like something I'd try to avoid. I think that's more of a death penalty than being a ghost and immune to attacks while you run back to your body. My .02.
Posted by Ryan on April 27, 2007 at 12:21 PM PDT #
Hi, interesting discussion. firstly the game itself. i've played several days now and my character is a few xp from level 10 and the monster play. i should state right away that i am quite disapointed with the game. everybody waited a long time for it to show, so expectations were high.
the environment graphics are very good, the trees in breeland or the white poppy fields are good examples. however, i must agree with todo, there is something very wrong with the character models (pc and npc) it's hard to say what it is. i think it might be everything. the models themselves seem overly simplistic (they just need to double the poly count) with almost all detail coming from the skins. and the skins are bad. they are dull and unattractive and add nothing to the model. these are big design issues. saving money on concept art and character design is a false economy. on top of this is the animation, which gives the characters a sense of weightlessness and unreal physicality. this is so irritating for me that i play zoomed into first person veiw so i don't have to watch the naff run, idle, whatever anims and sometimes travel using the map so i don't have to watch it at all.
the way the character interacts is frustrating as well. to use objects or talk to npcs you must be 'parked' right in front of them, this is a pointless hassle. other engines allow interaction based on a looser proximity criteria. combat is also tiresome with opponents (for melee) needing to be positioned exactly and the repetitive combat grunts seem more anoying than those in other games, dunno why lol.
the quests are pretty average, i guess people are happy killing pigs for their first few levels but are they gonna be happy when they are level 50 and still excluded from *the* great quest? it's still early days so i don't know how this will all pan out but my problems with the game engine aren't going to be fixed with a patch.
secondly, the points regarding the pay to play issue. the fact that turbine were offering a lifetime subscription (who's life?, your's, the game's or turbine's) for 100 eu (before release and the chance to evaluate properly) is i think a sign that they realised the 'earn' from this game will be from tolkien fans or fans of the movies and not from the wow, guild wars, ffxi or lineage hard cores. the industry knows that for most users the pay to play system yeilds 2-3 months subscriptions and then that's it, they're gone. obviously i'm not talking about the big fans who play hard core for several months / years but the people who just check it out. these tryer outers are the vast majority of users, so account retention becomes the big issue for developers.
this is what led areanet to seek another earn model and the guild wars experiment. for those who don't know, guild wars is a buy once use forever mmorpg with the concept being to increase earn by releasing expansions regularly (originally planned at the 2-3 month drop off point, however developing the expansions proved a little more time/labour intensive than expected with around 12 months before the first release). i didn't play wow for very long (i just couldn't accept the poor graphics) so i can't judge it as a mmorpg. i realise that people like the game they play the most. i did play gw a lot (because of the lack of fee) and i can say that there are lots of things wrong with that game, however it shares none of the faults of lotr online.
some video games, such as counter strike, are like squash or tennis. always the same and always different. i've played counter strike for years and will continue to do so when the urge takes me. it isn't the same with some other games, they are like books and reading them again and again doesn't make them any more enjoyable. this may be the case with lotr online. we know the books, we know the movies and we know the rts games (which were licensed from the movies, so benifited from all their concept / design work) sadly, the mmorpg ends up looking like a third rate non event.
the environment graphics are very good, the trees in breeland or the white poppy fields are good examples. however, i must agree with todo, there is something very wrong with the character models (pc and npc) it's hard to say what it is. i think it might be everything. the models themselves seem overly simplistic (they just need to double the poly count) with almost all detail coming from the skins. and the skins are bad. they are dull and unattractive and add nothing to the model. these are big design issues. saving money on concept art and character design is a false economy. on top of this is the animation, which gives the characters a sense of weightlessness and unreal physicality. this is so irritating for me that i play zoomed into first person veiw so i don't have to watch the naff run, idle, whatever anims and sometimes travel using the map so i don't have to watch it at all.
the way the character interacts is frustrating as well. to use objects or talk to npcs you must be 'parked' right in front of them, this is a pointless hassle. other engines allow interaction based on a looser proximity criteria. combat is also tiresome with opponents (for melee) needing to be positioned exactly and the repetitive combat grunts seem more anoying than those in other games, dunno why lol.
the quests are pretty average, i guess people are happy killing pigs for their first few levels but are they gonna be happy when they are level 50 and still excluded from *the* great quest? it's still early days so i don't know how this will all pan out but my problems with the game engine aren't going to be fixed with a patch.
secondly, the points regarding the pay to play issue. the fact that turbine were offering a lifetime subscription (who's life?, your's, the game's or turbine's) for 100 eu (before release and the chance to evaluate properly) is i think a sign that they realised the 'earn' from this game will be from tolkien fans or fans of the movies and not from the wow, guild wars, ffxi or lineage hard cores. the industry knows that for most users the pay to play system yeilds 2-3 months subscriptions and then that's it, they're gone. obviously i'm not talking about the big fans who play hard core for several months / years but the people who just check it out. these tryer outers are the vast majority of users, so account retention becomes the big issue for developers.
this is what led areanet to seek another earn model and the guild wars experiment. for those who don't know, guild wars is a buy once use forever mmorpg with the concept being to increase earn by releasing expansions regularly (originally planned at the 2-3 month drop off point, however developing the expansions proved a little more time/labour intensive than expected with around 12 months before the first release). i didn't play wow for very long (i just couldn't accept the poor graphics) so i can't judge it as a mmorpg. i realise that people like the game they play the most. i did play gw a lot (because of the lack of fee) and i can say that there are lots of things wrong with that game, however it shares none of the faults of lotr online.
some video games, such as counter strike, are like squash or tennis. always the same and always different. i've played counter strike for years and will continue to do so when the urge takes me. it isn't the same with some other games, they are like books and reading them again and again doesn't make them any more enjoyable. this may be the case with lotr online. we know the books, we know the movies and we know the rts games (which were licensed from the movies, so benifited from all their concept / design work) sadly, the mmorpg ends up looking like a third rate non event.
Posted by vec on May 02, 2007 at 01:49 PM PDT #
"i didn't play wow for very long (i just couldn't accept the poor graphics) so i can't judge it as a mmorpg."
That's it? THAT'S why you don't play WoW? Talk about shallow reasoning.
You must not have been a gamer for very long, huh?
Posted by runtheplacered on May 07, 2007 at 02:03 PM PDT #
I have played all the big mmos to endgame. The WoW death penalty is also laughable. Try playing Eve online for a while if u wanna see a real penalty.
LOTRo Looks pretty good and has some nice new stuff. The constant comparisons to WoW are ridiculous. WoW just borrowed elements and improveed them from other games on the whole.
And I totally agree, the reason WoW is so popular is because it is so nub friendly
Posted by Xzile on May 11, 2007 at 02:13 AM PDT #
runtheplacered, to answer your question. the first video game i wrote (we called them computer games back then) was on my commodore 64 'home computer' around '83 using commodore's clunky version of basic. it was a text based adventure game with some goofy 8-bit graphics. pretty lame but i was at school and it seemed amazing to me at the time. i had ofcourse played arcade games (there were even elecro-mechanical types before they had crts) and also the really basic home console units of that time. before all this, i was big into d&d and just about any other table top rpg i could find. so i guess i've been obsessed with gaming for approaching 30 years :)
today i still make games as an indie dev. mostly using the torque engine (mainly for it's value for money and good support) tho i've fooled around with a few other engines and done the whole flash game thing too. i still program but not on the level of a studio progger. i model, skin, rig and animate leaving the hardcore scripting to those who are excellent at it. i play a lot of games (beta test as well) but i don't play them all to end game. i'm more into how games work, how they were made and what is special about them. if i wanted 'win states' i would play sudoku or do crosswords.
but let's be honest. you're not interested in any of that. you just wanted to say something nasty about me because you thought i had insulted your 'bestest' game, world of warcraft. i don't feel that i did. my point re wow having below average graphics on it's release are more fact than opinion. what i found most irritating about this is that they were (and still are) 'taxing' people to play a game with third rate graphics.
now the graphics are only part of why i didn't play wow very much. i had played a number of text based mmorpg including a middle earth based one and they had no graphics. i kinda resent the concept of pay to play and see it as a cynical attempt by the industry to sell the same product to the same people again and again. then there is the fact that i didn't know anyone (i have scores of gaming friends) who was interested in wow but then i'm not in high school ;)
xzile your point about the eve online death penalty is too true. that stings man lol :)
today i still make games as an indie dev. mostly using the torque engine (mainly for it's value for money and good support) tho i've fooled around with a few other engines and done the whole flash game thing too. i still program but not on the level of a studio progger. i model, skin, rig and animate leaving the hardcore scripting to those who are excellent at it. i play a lot of games (beta test as well) but i don't play them all to end game. i'm more into how games work, how they were made and what is special about them. if i wanted 'win states' i would play sudoku or do crosswords.
but let's be honest. you're not interested in any of that. you just wanted to say something nasty about me because you thought i had insulted your 'bestest' game, world of warcraft. i don't feel that i did. my point re wow having below average graphics on it's release are more fact than opinion. what i found most irritating about this is that they were (and still are) 'taxing' people to play a game with third rate graphics.
now the graphics are only part of why i didn't play wow very much. i had played a number of text based mmorpg including a middle earth based one and they had no graphics. i kinda resent the concept of pay to play and see it as a cynical attempt by the industry to sell the same product to the same people again and again. then there is the fact that i didn't know anyone (i have scores of gaming friends) who was interested in wow but then i'm not in high school ;)
xzile your point about the eve online death penalty is too true. that stings man lol :)
Posted by vec on May 15, 2007 at 04:23 PM PDT #
vec, I fixed the "your comment is marked a spam" problem. --kevin
I like how people complain that unless a game has a feature _that makes the player upset_, it's "nub friendly." It's...a conundrum. I understand that in order for there to be "fun", there must be challenge, hence the usefulness of a death penalty. But since more often than not you die in-game because of 1) idiot teammates, or 2) connection problems, how exactly is a (severe) death penalty REALLY helping the game?
Also, people need to spend less time focused on graphics technology and more time focused on overall graphics _quality_. High resolution textures and shader technologies are fine if used in conjunction with quality artwork. That's one of the good points about WoW - technologically the game is fairly primitive, yet it was designed in a way that gives it both beauty and charm. Now, the screenshots I've seen if lotr look damned pretty, so perhaps lotr utilized advanced graphics technology by people who actually know how to create artwork. In any event, it's something people should consider before writing the game off for "poor graphics." These people usually end up buying an x-box.
Posted by Andrew on June 17, 2007 at 09:25 PM PDT #
Somehow I've always had the feeling character design were so important to players mostly because they want to make their char look "beautiful" (who would play an ugly alter ego? not many it seems, unless you like to play the bad guys :)). The great thing I find with LOTR (vs Wow) is that the character actually look more realistic, as well as the surroundings. I've started with a Hobbit, and the Shire is simply awesome!
The generous amount of quests also made me play longer in a given area: it's giving you the possibility to either further explore a region of the map, or give up the remainder of your quests to move on to the next area depending on your preferences.
The most confusing thing to me to start with were the chat interfaces and lack of general communication in the common char rooms of an area. Also, the icons to identify materials in your bags or equipment were pretty dull and hard to distinguish from one another unless you actually mouse over each and every one of them. Maybe it just takes some getting used to :p
Overall, a awesome lore content and quest series overall that match so far the LOTR lore, and a fresh and welcome change from Wow which is what I was mostly looking for.
Posted by Baera on August 13, 2007 at 05:03 AM PDT #
Die at lvl 30+ more with heavy armor than light/medium & you WILL feel death when it costs you 50-200+ silver and get dread from one of the harder areas.. death works off areas & equipment.. not simple.. & not easy to get around unless you stay in green/grey areas.. even then.. fight more than 5 & yer dead with nearly any class.
the casual reviewer "stress" testing cant make an athoritive or educated review of how the game will play out long-run.. I would have agreed with you during open beta the "stress test" period which since I was in beta I got to see.. but having been to angmar with lvl 4 dread & 200+ silver goe down the drain cause you die.. & getting removed from the area your fellowship is because you don't have a rez.. it hurts..
IMOP it's a grate game.. but I'm a lifetime member.. *shrug* happy I am one.. beta/openbeta.. & beyond..
I could add more about other points.. instances being under utalized expecialy with trait mobs & other things.. but I'm happy.. I just wanted to say death ant a cake walk.. when you are new.. it's easy.. when yer further on it's hard.. & when you die.. you dread it ;)
Posted by anon on September 12, 2007 at 08:25 AM PDT #
About the graphics, No one will be happy until they are near realistic, and even then, people will still pick faults. There no pleasing people ^^.
Posted by Slayer on October 02, 2007 at 07:17 PM PDT #
I belive there are 2 kinds of players.
Those who like the game to be as realistic as possible which ussally are those who crave a very high gpraphic standard and games that somehow copy reality. Racing Car games and some FPS fall into this changre.
And then theres the other group of players who dont care much about looking real, the game in itself IS artificiell so lets pump THAT up. Many RPG´s and FTS fall into this changre. Its all about fiction so the more unreal it is, the better it impacts with this group..
Me, im tottaly with the second gaming group and i´m not impressed by awesome graphics the least.
As an aquainted sayed to me once: "Its still much more beautiful looking out your window"
As a side note, why cant all those game makers who so obviously cant handle programming in 3d go back to 2d. A lot of fun games that know arent playable cuz some company leader thaught 3d is a MUST to sell games nowadays. Then let me tell you all who belive in that, you are so wrong.We would have seen lots of games be played by now that couldnt make it cuz they couldnt handle 3d programming. I for one, much rather see a fast paced 2d game then a slowmo, laggy, half-playable 3d dito.
Oh well, still hoping some puter game companies are bold enough to exactly that, and not do yet another poorly game becuz of the 3d aspect that only a handful of developers seems to be able to handle properly.
For example "Dungeons and Dragons Online" & "Neverwinter Night 2" were for me 2 highly anticipated games. If only they had left out the 3d the games would been really fun to play. Instead they became "pretty medicrum" at best
Enough of my whining.
Peace out!
Posted by Christian on October 03, 2007 at 09:38 AM PDT #
Christina makes an excellent point. These games are artificial, so don't expect the graphics to be "real".
I played Gemstone III once for a little over 4 years (text-based MMOG), so I do NOT care about graphics at all. In fact, Gemstone's magic (to me anyway) was the fact that it was basically like reading a novel when you played, only better because it was an "interactive" novel, so the best graphics were achieved through your own imagination, and believe me the authors of Gemstone are very creative...I found myself at times so scared that I couldn't even type because my heart was racing and my hands were shaking too bad. Other times, I was laughing so hard I couldn't see the screen through my tears. Imagine being a level 10 warrior walking around town, minding your own business, with about 200 HP when suddenly the town you are in is invaded by a swarm of level 20 orcs (hundreds of them) and one hit sets you back to about 50 HP, near death. Everyone is dying and screaming and if you are lucky, there is a high-level gamer in your room who can at least drive the orcs that are in your room out of your room. If your not so lucky, everyone in the room dies.
I was actually travelling to another city and got critically hit by a High-Level monster and was killed instantly. The monster used my body as a bob-sled and bob-sledded down a number of mountain passes until a high-level character saw the monster bob-sled through his room on my body. He pursued and killed it and carried me back to town to be resurrected. I never laughed so hard at the descriptions I read of that event.
I digress...
Having said all that, I have been playing this game for no more than 2 days (at the time of this post), so take my review of the game for what it is worth. Right now, I am a little disappointed because the game seems too "game-like". It is hard for me to really get immersed in my alter ego's life. The interaction with the other gamers seems too artificial to me. Because of the reliance on graphics to understand my surroundings, I constantly forget that the other playing characters on my screen are people just like me playing their own game. Maybe with time, I will get used to this (I sincerely hope I do).
What I am looking for in this game is this: I want to be able to sit around town and chat if I want for hours, then go out and hunt for hours if I want. I do NOT want to HAVE to go with a party to hunt, but it is nice to be able to if I want to hunt outside of my level. In other words, I want to live in this game, not just play this game. Has anyone else had these experiences, or am I doing the same thing everyone else is doing and trying to compare this game to my favorite, most "bestest" game?
Posted by Mike on November 15, 2007 at 01:00 PM PST #
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