|
Title: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 12, 2007, 07:36:15 AM Linky (http://www.thelordoftheringsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=338972#post338972)
Quote While the NDA has been lifted this morning, posts seeking technical help are best made on the beta forums: http://beta.lotro.com. The lifting of the NDA has been confirmed by a more detailed post on the beta forums where it says something very like (http://beta.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=23642) "As of today (February 12th) you’re free to talk about The Lord of the Rings Online and your experiences in our beta - in person and online. " A short shocking review now follows. LOTRO is a game made by Turbine and it doesn't totally suck. Edit to add. European NDA lifted as well. (http://www.lotro-europe.com/news.php?id=2699&articletype=News) Quote Feb 12th 2007, 14:00 GMT The NDA has been lifted! Codemasters Online Gaming announced today that following this weekend's successful Stress Test Event, LOTRO is now on the home straight and entering into the extensive Public Beta Phase which begins today. The NDA has also been lifted which will open the floodgates to a slew of previews, articles and previously unseen material from the various gaming portals and fansites. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 12, 2007, 07:49:44 AM On a more serious note, I played the hell out of the Beta for 3 months and enjoyed it more than most released mmorpg's. Blizzard isn't going to be worried but it is pretty good.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 12, 2007, 07:56:56 AM My official review: looks like SWG, plays like WoW, except the whole monsters and housing thing :)
Seriously, this is a solid game. But unlike WoW, it's not a surprise. And unlike VG, it doesn't come with years of pent-up fanboism. Any fans of the game are either coming from the genre itself, with all that training already, or coming from the Tolkien lore, who are automatically going to be disappointed by virtue of their expectations not being in the same plane of existence. But this isn't the sort of game that'll spark SWG-debates. It just doesn't have any real controversy. Almost every debate one could have about it has either happened in other MMOs (it gleefully borrows from just about every convention) or died down years ago when the movies failed to include Barrowights. So can a solid MMO come out and be successful without surprise or real controversy? I think we're about to find out. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: jpark on February 12, 2007, 07:57:54 AM EQ is was dangerous - WoW provided safety rails for players - LOTR puts players on a train track.
I enjoyed the game - it is a worthy addition to the market - but it is basically WoW taken to the next level. Nice graphics, and even easier game play and questing. The problem with the even lower risk and ease of play of the game is that it is hard to have a sense of adventure or exploration. The progressive zone restrictions based on your level I did not like - it's reminiscent of the invisible wall thing again of DDO - but nowhere near as obvious. The dwarven graphics were superb I thought - and the cinematics for some of the quests were much appreciated. I was under level 10 in playing this game - so my sampling of its content was quite limited. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: tazelbain on February 12, 2007, 08:03:09 AM Is Monster Play a fulfilling game onto itself?
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: SnakeCharmer on February 12, 2007, 08:04:01 AM It wasn't bad, seemed to be pretty solid without a smorgasboard of bugs. My impression was that is very....*snooze*.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 12, 2007, 08:06:05 AM A repost of mine about monster play.
Played a bit as a War Leader, healer Uruk leader type. All monsters start at level 50 but have very few abilities. You get destiny points for completing quests with these you can buy combat skills, traits and different appearances for your character. It's a bit grindy on the quests, some are well done like killing the Hobbit Mayor etc, in a few hours I managed to get my character about 20% complete. You don't get armour or equipment. The pvp is fun and I think the lack of real mage types actually helps prevent it turning into the standard ranged battle, sometimes it turns out like that but running battles and flanking are quite common. Defending a keep is a sight to see, currently the free peoples have the advantage 1 on 1 but numbers (and it must be said) tactics appear to be on the side of evil. In pvp you get infamy points which will eventually raise your rank (very grindy), higher rank allows yet more skill, trait options. All in all it's quite well done and if they expand it further could be a real attraction for the game. From reading the posts here you know I have played the heck out of the good side but playing a Human or Dwarf isn't a patch on playing a Uruk and slaughtering hobbits. Edit to add, these impressions after another week of monster play. I'm pretty much done with LOTRO, the pve side of the game is frailly good but I'm reluctant to level up to the 40's again just to be wiped again. The PVP is also fairly good but it's just not very complicated, think DAoC keep capture with less annoying magic. My Warleader now has sig status and is rank 1 which means he's pretty much maxed out for advancement apart from pvp ranks. Sadly the pvp ranks don't make that big a difference so the shortage of freeps during my play hours means rank 2 is a long grind away and I just can't be bothered. There's going to be a shortage of monster players a few months after release if they don't add monster armour and weapons, can't see anyone sticking with the monster side for more than a couple of months as it is. I'm not going to buy it but it was a lot better than I expected. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: tazelbain on February 12, 2007, 08:11:11 AM Are these BGs?
What do Monsters do if there are not enough players? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Signe on February 12, 2007, 08:13:15 AM I have to agree with what most of us have said earlier. I felt I should have liked it more than I did. It was pleasant but nothing grabbed me or even stood out other than the starting areas, which I found very clever and good fun. If the only the rest of the game could have lived up to the start, I'd absolutely buy it. After a while, I just had no motivation to log in at all. I did, however, experience ALL the starting areas! Elf and dwarf were the best! :-) Monster play was okay, though not what I expected. I didn't find it very compelling.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Soln on February 12, 2007, 08:16:41 AM well this is all good news IMO
I think having a solid launch with a moderate end of closed beta buzz is a successful strategy -- add more compelling content and more complex features as you learn what the players want from being in the world for awhile. But for Christ sake, have a solid launch first. Great to see this may be so. At end of DDO there was enough disappointed and critical buzz that I should have listened more carefully. This time things seem positive. Good for Turbine. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Slayerik on February 12, 2007, 08:21:59 AM I personally quit beta testing after seeing Gandalf and Gimli in the first noob quest I was on. I mean, come on. Gimme something to look forward to. I know its nice to have the IP, but .... bleh.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 12, 2007, 08:24:22 AM At last... I hate having to bite my tongue every time speculation touches on something I'm NDAed for.
It feels like a small, incremental improvement from WoW in some ways. There are exceptions, which are, as you might expect, often about polish: sometimes I'm aware that I'm running on pre-existing knowledge of MMO conventions, and that a newbie might have more problems knowing where to go or what to do, but that's hopefully something that the run-in to launch will see improved. Zoning when entering or leaving buildings is horrible. I'd forgotten how I hate it. Collecting 10 pelts from mangy-looking wolves in an early quest is dreary. The contrast with what I read about Vanguard pre-launch, with its huge gameplay changes and gargantuan daily patchnotes, is instructive. I logged plenty of bugs, but they were largely minor animation issues and the like. The instanced stuff seems nicely flexible, clearly contains shared experience with the DDO team, and is sometimes pleasantly single-playerish in feel. Heading out into the Shire at night for the first time and only just noticing a black rider for a second or two, galloping in the distance, is the sort of nice detail that I liked. It's not earth-shattering, but it's fun and I'll be playing it instead of WoW this year. For a different perspective, 'er indoors likes it, too, while she actively disliked DDO and SWG and got bored of WoW c. L40. Oh, and it runs on a machine I bought over three years ago for the wife, which is a long way off powerful now, with graphics that I prefer to those of WoW (that's the classic division on cartooniness, though). Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 12, 2007, 08:31:24 AM I do like that it blurs the distant elements. Seems to be a fairly new convention in MMOs, with LoTRO and VG being the only two out that do it afaik. But it's definitely nice and overdo.
This seems like the sort of game we should like, except that it's been done before. The part that kills it for me personally is the lack of a real Mage class. That's just what I like most. Understood why they can't have that here of course, but it's one reason I liked the evolution D&D/Ultima/Everquest brought to the lore. Big bangs plsthx. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 12, 2007, 08:36:01 AM I personally quit beta testing after seeing Gandalf and Gimli in the first noob quest I was on. I mean, come on. Gimme something to look forward to. I know its nice to have the IP, but .... bleh. I thought I saw the influence of the NGE here: all those people saying "the tutorial was great coz I got to meet Han and Chewie and Vader and stuff!!!1!" Although I sympathise with you, I can also see why they did it. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Soln on February 12, 2007, 08:38:52 AM I personally quit beta testing after seeing Gandalf and Gimli in the first noob quest I was on. I mean, come on. Gimme something to look forward to. I know its nice to have the IP, but .... bleh. I thought I saw the influence of the NGE here: all those people saying "the tutorial was great coz I got to meet Han and Chewie and Vader and stuff!!!1!" Although I sympathise with you, I can also see why they did it. What would be the alternative -- waiting 6-8 months until they added Luke on Yavin 4 (which is what happened with Reb faction quest arc)? It's a franchise IP -- put some of it up front. Let the customer get a taste early instead of leaving them wondering if they stuff even made it in. tomato/tomatoh Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 12, 2007, 08:52:50 AM Are these BGs? What do Monsters do if there are not enough players? Monster play is all in one big zone. Nothing much so far, not played in a couple of weeks so missed the latest patch. Gandalf and co are in instances so you can follow the story, he reappears later on in Bree then Rivendell, but you don't see him in two places at once, if you know what I mean. There's a lot of nice features that I'm sure other games will copy, the titles based on achievements, conjunctions, more titles for not dying. The instances are pretty good, I liked exploring the higher up areas, I liked getting rewards for exploring, the Shire and Rivendell are very well done. Weathertop is great, Fornost too. I didn't think the combat was as good as WoW and it really suffers from the "it's gets better at level 20" problem, the game really does improve the higher you go in levels which is not the way to retain new players. My main problem with combat is I think it takes slightly too long to kill something, that's at least my impression from playing a Guardian into the 40's a few times. Combat was really good when Guardians had a bugged skill :roll: Also another problem is that it's difficult to feel that different from another Guardian your level. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 12, 2007, 08:56:26 AM Also another problem is that it's difficult to feel that different from another Guardian your level. It's worth saying that for all I know, tints are back in a MMO. You can dye your armours and clothes again. Rejoice. (Not that it will make you so different from other Guardians. I am not even sure you can dye every piece of armour). Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Merusk on February 12, 2007, 09:00:51 AM I got into beta a while back with most of the other F13ers. I shouldn't have taken-up a spot like that, as once i patched and installed the game I couldn't get into it beyond the 4-5 hours I spent in newbie zones. At that point the models looked like hell, gameplay was kind of clunky and nothing, NOTHING at all grabbed my interest.
Somehow, I still got invited to the next phase of beta. I suppose I could try it out again, but I really just can't find the motivation to do so. :-( Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 12, 2007, 09:01:30 AM Falconeer, Yeah but I meant different skills and equipment, you have slotable traits that can make a big difference to your character. No surprise that some are better than others, but some are a lot better. Combine that with quest reward equipment that boosts your primary skils and you have a situation where it appears you have a large range of choices but most people are going to go down a similar route.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hutch on February 12, 2007, 09:08:33 AM OK, I'm just going to throw in my two cents worth here. I played in the beta several months ago now, and got one character (a Loremaster) to level 11, so my experiences were not extensive.
I thought the gameplay, especially the quest-driven nature of it, was highly reminiscent of WoW. Which is not a bad thing. But, I got bored easily. This may have been because I wasn't invested in the character (who was inevitably going to be wiped) or because the game itself just bored me. Maybe it's *too* realistic. Maybe I need fireballs and gryphons and screeching raptors and snickering gnolls to keep me interested. Who knows. All I know is, on any given day, during the beta, I found that I'd rather log into CoH than play the LotRO beta. Nowadays it's BC, but the same sentiment applies. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Xilren's Twin on February 12, 2007, 09:14:03 AM My mostly short review. It's a fine game, but only a very small incremental improvements over WoW, and nothing really attention grabbing "omg you must play this". I played up to mid levels several times and tried the monster play as well.
That said, this beta was one of the smoothest ones Ive been in. The game has been playable and stable for quite some time and about the worst technical aspect i can think of is the AI pathing not being great (my pet would very often get caught and couldn't follow and if i wasn't paying attention would despawn from getting out of range a lot. Mobs getting stuck in places where they can't get to you, but a least you can't exploit them) and the lagopolis that was the main city of Bree. The classes are different, but just strike as pretty underwhelming and there aren;t very many to choose from. Lets talk two archtypes, mage/wizard and cleric/healer. Neither exist as a pure class; the closest thing to a archtype wizard is the lore master, and they are much more crowd control and pet class then glass cannon. No clerics; the best healer type is the Minstrel (read bard), which takes some adjustment in thinking. Everything else play like a version of a tank; you have heavy tanks (guardians), light dps tanks (champions), secondary healer/tanks (captains), and stealthy dps tanks (burglars/rogues) and ranged light tanks (hunters). The class I enjoyed the most was the Human Captain. Melee class that uses two handed weapons, but can summon a pet and act as a secondary healer, but his best group healing spell is only useable when an enemy dies, otherwise is a single target heal. Plays a little differently than a cleric or paladin. Distinct lack of spell type abilities overall, which may fit the lore but is a tough sell to the WoW crowd. BTW, in a nod to the lore, hit points are "morale" and many of the abilities are structured around increasing and decreasing morale. They did a decent job with the lore. Very quest oriented game, to the point that killing random mobs to grind is just not very rewarding compared to the exp you earn from quests. Unless you are trying to complete an achievement. Achievements and traits are a neat system which are inspired by CoH badges. There are tones of things you can accomplish to earn titles, and traits, which can be slotted into your character like an upgrade. So discovering the 6 dwarven ruins in one area may grand a trait, or killing enough wights might earn you a title, and the advanced version of that may grant you a trait that increases your might, power regen, fear resistance etc. Does allow for some character customization, but it's not earthshattering. The gameworld itself is huge when you look at the map, but is very densely structured in reality. Running from the newbie area to the mid levels probably only takes 10 minutes tops, and less time if you ride a horse route. It's got about all you'd expect in a diku game; draggable interface, quest journals, LFG tools, build in voice chat, hot key combat, mini map, chat tools, auction house, resource collection and crafting with dropable recipes, colored equipment of several rarities, durability, bind of acquire/equip, and min level requirements. Fairly standard mobs (wolves, boars, spiders, goblins, orcs or all stripe, undead, evil humans, etc). Quest glowies like CoH. Fairly standard quests types (fed ex, collect, protect, escort, sneak, etc); instances for story progression quests (which can be pretty good) or certain dungeons. Normal, signature, elite, boss, arch nemesis mob progression. It's not a bad game, but one of the questions we kept asking during the beta was basically, "so what;s the major selling point for LotRO compared to it's competition?" Sadly, that was never really answered, which basically means there trying to separate on IP pretty much. Might give people something to do once their burnt out on WoW or between expansions, but i don't expect it to do huge numbers. I damn it with faint praise. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Signe on February 12, 2007, 09:18:03 AM Achievements and traits... I liked that bit, too. Captain was also my favourite. X said what I think only wordier than I'm capable of. :-)
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Rasix on February 12, 2007, 09:20:31 AM I was bored enough with this one to not re-download the client for the latest round of beta.
Likes: -Stable (very stable for a turbine product). Not seeing the typical Turbine ineptitude with this one. -Environments were pretty enough. It feels like Middle Earth should feel. -Guardian class was pretty fun. -Lots of quests. Almost too many early on. -Achievements are cool. Not a big selling point though. Gives you good incentives though to try a lot of stuff. -World changing (for you) instance quests. Burning of Archet quest and aftermath were neat. -Main story line quest. Very cool IMO. You partcipate in a parallel story line to the fellowship, while seeing members from time to time. The last part of the arch I did (at 20) had a very cool moment at the end. Problem is, it ran out and I couldn't find where it picked up again. Dislikes: -Combat was stiff and slow. Combat animations were bland. Combat in general was just boring. -Only two classes really appealed to me at all. Both melee. -Quest descriptions were just horrid. I don't expect the log to tell me to take 20 steps to the east and 60 north and look down; but I expect to get a general and decent idea of where I should be looking for something. -I remember having some issues with the game's color pallete since I'm red/green color blind. Some stuff was really hard for me to see. This issue pretty much only affects me :| -Another personal issue: lynxes make house cat noises in the game. Thus, when you're fighitng a lynx, it sounds like you're killing a cat. Same blood curdling noise that my cats make when fighting each other. I really couldn't finish a quest because of it. Creeped me out too much as a cat owner. -Was lacking a lot of polish at the time. But they've had time to remedy this in the time I've been away from the game. -I don't like the art direction when it comes to characters. They look terrible. Armor looks terrible. -Story line running out for me just killed the game. I'm afraid without this tether, the game has no lore appeal. -Around level 20 I just got really bored with the game. I started running out of quests and I just didn't feel like going out an finding new ones. There's just nothing really new to say with this game. If you've played WoW, you've pretty much played this game. In fact, playing LOTRO just made me really want to play WoW again. I don't see myself purchasing this one, but this is the first time I've been able to say that you shouldn't duck this game because it's made by Turbine. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Pendan on February 12, 2007, 09:34:34 AM Here is my short review. I have now played the stress test weekend and this last weekend having gotten into the beta proper with most other stress testers. My character is level 15. I am enjoying play. Unlike my 5 week Vanguard beta experience I have only had one bug that has frustrated me. Turned in less than a tenth the number of bugs per hour played in LotRO than VG (and still 7 weeks from open beta and 10 from release). I have beta tested every Turbine game but this appears to be first one will purchase.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 12, 2007, 09:54:42 AM Enjoyed it, blogged about it, will probably buy it.
My main fear is really the lore nazis. They are fun to watch when they flip out, but just imagine the hate tells. In Elvish. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: shiznitz on February 12, 2007, 10:29:19 AM Curious how a game that is "meh done well+great IP" will do financially. If Sigil can clean up the bugs, then there will be a nice group of niche games in orbit around the big dog that is WoW.
What I haven't read yet about LotRO is are all these quests solo or group? CmdrSlack went to level 15 on the quest railroad. Was that all solo? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on February 12, 2007, 10:43:22 AM It's a playable and pretty game that left me feeling empty. I played a couple of characters into the 20's (entirely solo) through little more than sheer determination to be an objective tester. The game is bland, the world is compressed, and the visuals are nice. It's generic diku mmog version 1.56. If pressed to write something up, my review would be an even less optimistic version of Rasix's post.
If this is the future of MMO's, then I'm probably done with gaming. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: palmer_eldritch on February 12, 2007, 10:57:15 AM I was bored enough with this one to not re-download the client for the latest round of beta. Likes: -Stable (very stable for a turbine product). Not seeing the typical Turbine ineptitude with this one. -Environments were pretty enough. It feels like Middle Earth should feel. -Guardian class was pretty fun. -Lots of quests. Almost too many early on. -Achievements are cool. Not a big selling point though. Gives you good incentives though to try a lot of stuff. -World changing (for you) instance quests. Burning of Archet quest and aftermath were neat. -Main story line quest. Very cool IMO. You partcipate in a parallel story line to the fellowship, while seeing members from time to time. The last part of the arch I did (at 20) had a very cool moment at the end. Problem is, it ran out and I couldn't find where it picked up again. For me, that sums up the good parts very well. I would also add that imo the graphics are beautiful. This is the only MMO I have played where I really enjoyed just looking at the landscape. They also have some neat tricks, such as trees in the distance looking like watercolour trees, rather than just blurry (or just popping up when you get close). In answer to the monster play question - there are quests for monsters to do, similar to the normal quests for normal PCs. However I didn't do much monster play. I guess the quests are there as a timefiller when there are no PCs to kill, but you do get extra skills (not levels) for doing them. The storyline quests are a number of chained quests seperated into "books". Each book has maybe eight "chapters". If you don't get book 1 done, you can still start book 2 (when you reach the required level) and so on. They are a mixture of solo and group quests. Mainly solo, but you might get a group quest in the middle and a group quest at the end. I think it's possible to level up solo all the way, as there are a huge amount of quests so you are very unlikely ever to run out. However, the best loot comes from group quests such as the storyline quests. XP comes from questing. You can grind mobs to level up, but it is very very very slow. Luckily, there is a huge amount of quests. If you go to a town or settlement and accept every quest, there's a very good chance some will be grey to you before you have finished them all (especially as finishing one quest for an NPC will often lead them to give you a new one). And there is usually more than one settlement giving quests for your level in the first place. So you can choose which ones to do, although some people seemed to find this annoying (I think it's good). There are also a few places with just one or two NPCs giving a small number of quests, if you wander around a bit. One nice point for explorers is that you can get character traits by exploring - discovering every ruin in a region, etc. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Margalis on February 12, 2007, 11:10:56 AM I agree with what others have said. Overall not bad. Zoning into houses sucks. Character classes/races are bland, animations and models are not very good. You can tell it is the same AC2 engine yet again, it has a lot in common with DDO down to silly character class movies during creation.
It is an ok game but doesn't seem to bring much new to the table. I can't come up with a good answer to the question "why would I play this instead of WOW" other than you are bored of WOW. I got bored of it pretty quickly, but I got bored of WOW quickly as well. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Morfiend on February 12, 2007, 11:17:16 AM Admittidly I havent played the game in over 4 months. But when I last played it, it felt like WoW, with the same level of graphics, but much much less "style". Also, for shame on the blatent ripoff of WoWs UI. I mean come on.
To me the game just felt like some exec looked at WoW and said "Make me that, but with Lord of the Rings". Except the game just didnt have that special feeling that WoW gave me. I dont think I will be buying this. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: slog on February 12, 2007, 11:33:59 AM I've been in the beta for a while. After every wipe, I would login, create a new toon, get to level 10 ish and think to myself "Hey, this is just like WoW except it's more Brown and the character classes are less interesting."
If turbine is going to make a game that reminds me of WoW, it would need to be superior to WoW to get me to play it. I like my Cow Shaman better. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: jpark on February 12, 2007, 11:35:53 AM This game does have an important difference from wow - the graphics are "realistic" rather than cartoony. For some players, this could be a real point of differentiation.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: slog on February 12, 2007, 11:49:07 AM This game does have an important difference from wow - the graphics are "realistic" rather than cartoony. For some players, this could be a real point of differentiation. I had no idea the world I live in was so Brown. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on February 12, 2007, 11:56:03 AM After every wipe, I would login, create a new toon, get to level 10 ish and think to myself "Hey, this is just like WoW except it's more Brown and the character classes are less interesting." More brown than any Hoard starting zone... is that possible? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 12, 2007, 12:01:33 PM I had no idea the world I live in was so Brown. Unless you are stuck in a temporal rift and live in the Medioevo, why should the world you live in be brown at all? On the other hand, it makes sense that a Lord of the Rings world is brown-ish. That said, I didn't have that feeling at all. Green, maybe. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sairon on February 12, 2007, 12:09:54 PM My impression was that it was a very solid diku. Hadn't it been for WoW it would definitely be regarded as one of the most polished ones. However, as it is now, it's a supbar WoW with a bunch of decent selling points. At least that was the impression I got. It might do pretty decent due to the IP.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Zetleft on February 12, 2007, 12:14:58 PM This game does have an important difference from wow - the graphics are "realistic" rather than cartoony. For some players, this could be a real point of differentiation. I had no idea the world I live in was so Brown. Real is brown. (http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=224) Yeah Lotr is a good game but just doesn't grab me like WoW so I have no real reason to switch other then the IP. Plus the combat just wasn't as interesting and varied as WoW. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 12, 2007, 12:17:06 PM Real sucks for escapism. But I don't think LoTRO is too real in a too-bad-it's-real EQ2 sorta way. The game just feels lifeless. It's not any one thing, but all of it together. Things happen just a bit too slow along too drawn-out a path. It's not different enough in ways that make it unique. What really is its purpose?
LoTRO will have a nice core following, because it does look different, because it has some unique elements. Plus it'll attract a number of "I can't like WoW because everyone else does" type folks, though there really aren't enough of them to a) design for (because they want the same experience they just don't want others dominating it over them/don't want to be seen as followers); and, b) keep happy for long anyway. I also find it interesting having just read this Game Sales Potential Test (http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070212/garneau_01.shtml) over at Gamasutra. Is the Game Distinctive?- Somewhat Does it stand out viscerally?- Somewhat Does the gameplay stand out?- Somewhat Does it involve the player socially in a unique way?- No Can the Game Reach a Large Market?- Maybe Is the idea behind the game easy to communicate?- Yes Is the game based on something the market already knows and loves?- Yes Is the target market large?- Yes I like this test. And I like the articles the Feature references. Doing the above is about as simplistic as arbitrarily compartmentalizing all players in this genre into the four Bartle meta-archetypes, but it's a place to start. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Lantyssa on February 12, 2007, 12:50:02 PM It's an okay game. I appreciate the lack of bugs. I thought the traits and achievements were interesting. I liked being able to play a spider in Monster Play. It felt like they tried very hard to stick with the lore (from the perspective of a non-fangirl).
Had I nothing else to play I might consider it. For some I think it will be a good game. As it is though, it did not grab my interest. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 12, 2007, 12:51:20 PM Mini-review: LOTRO is a boring game that's a mishmash of D&D Online with every other diku ever made. It failed my 30-minute MMOG rule.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: stray on February 12, 2007, 01:02:07 PM Agree with Rasix except the "makes me want to go back to WoW" part. ;)
But I get what he's saying with that.. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Gegge on February 12, 2007, 01:21:19 PM I really wonder why they even bother calling it "monster play"... All there is to it is that you get an instant level 50 character ready for pvp and you're stuck to 1 zone... Where's the "monster" part in that? :roll: For anyone thinking of trying this game out for a "new refreshing pvp experience", don't. Wait for WHO or something instead, I know I will. My 2 cents.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nija on February 12, 2007, 01:40:46 PM I had no idea the world I live in was so Brown. Expand on "brown". Do you mean quake1 brown? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Rasix on February 12, 2007, 01:42:57 PM I had no idea the world I live in was so Brown. Expand on "brown". Do you mean quake1 brown? Kind of like Auto Assault fucked a Keebler elf. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Yegolev on February 12, 2007, 02:02:18 PM I would not call it Brown with a Big B, but parts of it certainly were very brown. I personally appreciated the fact that not everything looked like a Warhammer model, but of course that does mean that there's a certain lack of KAPOW there. If you like elf cleavage, you should play WoW. I didn't find the combat compelling, but it didn't really get in my way either. I liked exploring, and the collection minigame (Accmplishments) was good. Lack of bugs is a big draw. LotRO ran better (for me) in Alpha than some games at retail.
Crafting was sucky and I just could not get into it; this is coming from someone who played lots of Horizons as a crafter and currently works as an ice miner in EVE. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WayAbvPar on February 12, 2007, 02:04:02 PM Quote from: Rasix Around level 20 I just got really bored with the game. I started running out of quests and I just didn't feel like going out an finding new ones. There's just nothing really new to say with this game. If you've played WoW, you've pretty much played this game. In fact, playing LOTRO just made me really want to play WoW again. This was exactly my experience. Part of it was that there weren't a lot of people to play with (it sucks ass as a solo game), but it put me in the mood for some good old fashioned loot whoring, so I reupped my long dormant WoW account. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: lamaros on February 12, 2007, 02:29:16 PM I found it to be a pretty insipid game. Wont be trying release.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 12, 2007, 02:30:42 PM (http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/2912/screenshot00001ze6.th.jpg) (http://img371.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00001ze6.jpg)(http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/4879/screenshot00003ox8.th.jpg) (http://img412.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00003ox8.jpg)(http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/3937/screenshot00015id3.th.jpg) (http://img412.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00015id3.jpg)(http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/9538/screenshot00038sl2.th.jpg) (http://img412.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00038sl2.jpg)(http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/2848/screenshot00064ww4.th.jpg) (http://img265.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00064ww4.jpg)(http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/1313/screenshot00065np4.th.jpg) (http://img265.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00065np4.jpg)(http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/9466/screenshot00079ui4.th.jpg) (http://img265.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00079ui4.jpg)(http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/9472/screenshot00202hw4.th.jpg) (http://img265.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00202hw4.jpg)(http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/1375/screenshot00251er9.th.jpg) (http://img265.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00251er9.jpg)
All taken with my 2 year old pc, early beta shots to later, I normally play on lowish graphics just for speed so most of the screenshots reflect that, the game is a bit jerky on ultrahigh. Somebody tell me if the above pictures work correctly, this posting screenshots lark is witchcraft to me. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Rasix on February 12, 2007, 02:36:51 PM Quote Somebody tell me if the above pictures work correctly, this posting screenshots lark is witchcraft to me. They work fine. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Tmon on February 12, 2007, 02:39:01 PM Enjoyed it, blogged about it, will probably buy it. My main fear is really the lore nazis. They are fun to watch when they flip out, but just imagine the hate tells. In Elvish. Damn, I might have to learn Klingon so I can go around exploding lore nazis. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 12, 2007, 03:51:13 PM Mini review: It's WoW with better lore, better graphics and a few outstanding quests. If they make itemization and some raids right, this is way better than WoW. Some of my screens (All top quality, res 1280x960, AA 4x, nVidia 7800gtx, AMD 3799+, 2gigs RAM - Framerate steadily over 40): Screenshot 1 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1164960548.jpg) Screenshot 2 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1164960560.jpg) Screenshot 3 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1164988172.jpg) Screenshot 4 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001085.jpg) Screenshot 5 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001097.jpg) Screenshot 6 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001114.jpg) Screenshot 7 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001122.jpg) Screenshot 8 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001132.jpg) Screenshot 9 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001143.jpg) Screenshot 10 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001156.jpg) Screenshot 11 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001186.jpg) Screenshot 12 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001212.jpg) Screenshot 13 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001221.jpg) Screenshot 14 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001239.jpg) Screenshot 15 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001248.jpg) Screenshot 16 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001259.jpg) Screenshot 17 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001271.jpg) Screenshot 18 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001286.jpg) Screenshot 19 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001298.jpg) Screenshot 20 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001308.jpg) Screenshot 21 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165001320.jpg) Screenshot 22 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165059734.jpg) Screenshot 23 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165059744.jpg) Screenshot 24 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165059754.jpg) Screenshot 25 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165059912.jpg) Screenshot 26 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165066373.jpg) Screenshot 27 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165066384.jpg) Screenshot 28 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165066394.jpg) Screenshot 29 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165066406.jpg) Screenshot 30 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165066420.jpg) Screenshot 31 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165066438.jpg) Screenshot 32 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165066451.jpg) Screenshot 33 (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165066465.jpg) Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Morfiend on February 12, 2007, 04:03:25 PM For me, the "stylishness" of WoWs graphics still makes it much much more enjoyable for me. LOTRO graphics just dont do it for me.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on February 12, 2007, 04:08:43 PM I much prefer the look of LOTRO, but the gameplay was unspiring. It was somewhere between EQ2 and WoW, which I appreciated. I like realistic, but not the plastic realism of EQ2. I like styled, but not so styled as to be cartoonish as WoW.
If the combat were interesting, I'd likely play this game at release... as it stands, I'm holding out for AoC or WAR. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Lantyssa on February 12, 2007, 04:16:46 PM Mini review: It's WoW with better lore, better graphics and a few outstanding quests. If they make itemization and some raids right, this is way better than WoW. Better graphics, significantly worse animation. Unfortunately I'll take smooth and cartoony over fabulous and clunky any day.Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Margalis on February 12, 2007, 04:41:36 PM My new plan is to play the opposite of whatever Falconeer suggests. (Somebody had to say it!)
Graphically the game feels very similar to DDO to me, especially in the models/animation and armor. Town as well actually. You can certainly tell it is the same core tech. The character models are very plain and they all have weird faces (lantern jaws). They all also look the same, a common failing. Yeah, some are short - that's pretty much the difference. It also looks like if you read the races from top to bottom that was the order they created them in because the first few can be a whole bunch of classes then the last few have much less choice. Classes seem very basic, not a one that is even slightly different from what you've already seen. Overall it just feels like more of the same. I agree that in a world without WOW it might be pretty cool, now it seems like old hat and worse to boot. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: edlavallee on February 12, 2007, 04:43:55 PM In terms of graphics: great environmental graphics, barely acceptable character graphics. Personally, I agree with Morphiend. I would much rather have stylized than generic and uninspired.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Der Helm on February 12, 2007, 04:57:37 PM ... but just imagine the hate tells. In Elvish. I'd sub just for that. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on February 12, 2007, 06:09:09 PM it does not suck, and that in itself is an accomplishment anymore. I will buy it, but will stick to the ten dollar a month deal.
Edit- For those that expect Elvish lore Nazis prepare for disappointment, in 4+ months of beta play I have not ran across any. However if I do I shall PM you their names so you can harass them with leet speak tells. edit 2 - I myself just found it a laid back game, I just went in and wandered around doing quests and the odd group. Did some good old DAOC style defend the keep PvP and found it amusing. It has some great moments such as the time I was stealthing around Barrow Downs and four wights jumped out of their graves complete with horror movie sound effects and scared the shit out of me. Thorin's hall is fucking impressive as are some of the other areas. Lots of nice touches in the world which helped immersion. I like the exploration rewards so you can customize your toon a bit, that still needs tweaking. I like the fact that the character molds to your play style as you play by keeping track of how much you use an ability granting bonus in it, even getting thanked enough by other players gives some sort of badge. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 12, 2007, 06:48:55 PM Quote Edit- For those that expect Elvish lore Nazis prepare for disappointment, in 4+ months of beta play I have not ran across any. However if I do I shall PM you their names so you can harass them with leet speak tells. All I know is that I accidentally said "LFG" and got all kinds of yelled at. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on February 12, 2007, 07:22:33 PM Quote Edit- For those that expect Elvish lore Nazis prepare for disappointment, in 4+ months of beta play I have not ran across any. However if I do I shall PM you their names so you can harass them with leet speak tells. All I know is that I accidentally said "LFG" and got all kinds of yelled at. Dunno what to say friend, I can post screenies of the general chat channel and every other line is either LFG, or LFM for <insert random quest name> Thats why when in a solo mood I make a chat tab, with no chats selected. Blessed silence. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: ajax34i on February 12, 2007, 07:35:07 PM It's kind of interesting, the way I look at it is WoW demonstrated that polish+style can attract a lot of players; now between Vanguard (buggy, but maybe has style) and LotRO (polished, bland) we can see how much of WoW's success was due to the polish, and how much due to the style. Kinda like an experiment where you try to only change one variable, to determine what the formula is.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Yegolev on February 12, 2007, 09:14:33 PM Quote Edit- For those that expect Elvish lore Nazis prepare for disappointment, in 4+ months of beta play I have not ran across any. However if I do I shall PM you their names so you can harass them with leet speak tells. All I know is that I accidentally said "LFG" and got all kinds of yelled at. Yeah, well, it's 'LFG... thou' if you are into the lore. Hound said what I would have if I had thought of it. It's very laid-back. WoW has that urgent tribal music or the general air of persecution, but LotRO is actually pretty relaxing. It's convenient that the landscape is pretty, too. Too bad about the avatars and loot, though, but it's a lot easier to patch that in than a graphical update. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Johny Cee on February 12, 2007, 10:02:24 PM If nothing else, the world/lore is very well done. It feels like you're wandering through Tolkien's world. Might be worth a subscription just to play to 50 and check out all the different environments.
As everyone else has said, combat is bland. Also, Turbine didn't go far enough in adding fun details and non-standard game play. Some of the quests that involved minigames were interesting, at least to do once, since they weren't "kill 15 boars" or Fedex deliveries. Gather eggs while dodging the rooster, or the race a water bucket to the spring and avoid the bears ones, for instance. Not alot of repeat value, but interesting to run through once. Some of the set pieces were very nice. Finding and talking to one of Elrond's sons as part of a quest had the nice touch of him being in a room full of slaughtered orcs, for instance. If Turbine had managed to add alot more of this level of detail it could be an engaging PvE game. I lost interest in beta due to a combination of character wipes and trying to work out buying a house and dealing with banks. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Rithrin on February 12, 2007, 10:10:22 PM So the game's website only mentions the Good races as playable (Men, Elves, Dwarves, etc). What's the scoop here... Can I play an Easterling? A Corsair from Umbar? Or is there no Evil playing other than monster play?
If you're railroaded through the game like I'm hearing, are there not going to be dungeon runs and raids? Most of the reviewing written here seems to assume that the reader has some idea of what the game is already like... Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 12, 2007, 10:13:29 PM Quote Edit- For those that expect Elvish lore Nazis prepare for disappointment, in 4+ months of beta play I have not ran across any. However if I do I shall PM you their names so you can harass them with leet speak tells. All I know is that I accidentally said "LFG" and got all kinds of yelled at. Yeah, well, it's 'LFG... thou' if you are into the lore. Hound said what I would have if I had thought of it. It's very laid-back. WoW has that urgent tribal music or the general air of persecution, but LotRO is actually pretty relaxing. It's convenient that the landscape is pretty, too. Too bad about the avatars and loot, though, but it's a lot easier to patch that in than a graphical update. I got several "FOAD" tells for not saying LFF (looking for fellowship). I shit you not. It was friggin' ridiculous. Also, the people who freaked out over "duelling" so Turbine renamed it "sparring." Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 12, 2007, 11:46:31 PM My new plan is to play the opposite of whatever Falconeer suggests. (Somebody had to say it!) Hey. I am not suggesting to play it. At all. Being supposedly better than WoW (Requirements: good itemization and good high end game, two aspects I don't know about yet) is definitely not enough to be worth playing. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Azazel on February 13, 2007, 01:22:19 AM My thoughts have pretty much already been said by others in this thread.
Landscapes were pretty, though I'd have preferred more green than brown. Sightseeing was nonetheless nice. The highlights of my gameplay were running my level 13 hunter up to Weathertop to check out the view, and running the same character into the shire and checking out the hobbit holes. Combat was bland and uninspired. Character models were boring as all hell. Introductory instanced quest/zone (Archet) was actually very well done. I think if there's anything that other MMOGs should steal from LOTRO, this is it. Overall gameplay felt like WoW, but less fun or engaging somehow. Tradeskills were some kind of non-intuitive confusing arcane mess. Result was that I didn't bother doing anything besides skinning animals and picking up bits of wood and ore when the game would let me. When it came down to it though, the "this is nice, but...." feel of the game and knowing player wipes were always incoming at some point made me feel like playing some WoW after a bit of beta-ing. In the end, I just stopped playing, especially when WoW's PVP weeks started, and the release of BC. I feel faintly guilty for not continuing to log on and report bugs and all that stuff, but not bad enough to actually log on. They still sent me a Beta 2 invite though. :-o Overall, if I wasn't playing and enjoying WoW, I'd probably buy it and have fun with it for a few months. But as I'm already playing a MMOG that I'm quite enjoying, it doesn't have enough of a draw-me-in-for-fun factor to get me to buy or play it. Even for free. :cry: Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 13, 2007, 01:26:43 AM Landscapes were pretty, though I'd have preferred more green than brown. I don't understand you guys. Maybe I am colorblind in the brown spectrum. Do you mean more green than this (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165066438.jpg)? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 13, 2007, 02:11:10 AM Landscapes were pretty, though I'd have preferred more green than brown. I don't understand you guys. Maybe I am colorblind in the brown spectrum. Do you mean more green than this (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165066438.jpg)? Yeah, I don't get this "eugh, it's so brown" bandwagon that seems to have trundled through on its way to the Darkfall thread. I've never seen a more verdant area in an MMO than LoTRO's Shire. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Quinton on February 13, 2007, 02:15:01 AM I got a chance to give LOTRO a go rather late in the beta (a month or so ago). It didn't manage to hold my attention for an hour -- just couldn't get past the WoW UI with tolkien world thing. Partially I got the impression that I could get the same experience with a lot more polish if I just played WoW. Partially I found the MMO transformation of one of my favorite books just kinda bleah. Quests to go obtain 10 wolf pelts or whatever just did not do it for me.
I really don't understand why people think they're going to effectively compete with WoW by building an inferior knock-off of it. I don't even enjoy WoW -- I'd like to play something else, something maybe a little new and different. I think that if I want to play an MMO, I might as well go play WoW since it appears that all MMOs are WoW (at least for the time being). Seriously, who is the audience? People tired of WoW that want the same thing with less polish? Is there money in that? Really? -Q Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 13, 2007, 02:23:07 AM I can't believe how many people keep overrating WoW and WoW's polish.
Most of you are so bored (and with a reason) of dikus that you can't even try them for more than an hour. Still, you keep saying how they are not as polished, as good, as interesting, as colourful, as shiny, as fun as WoW. I don't think LoTRO is so much better, save for the Lore and the Graphics, and considering that they spent on it probably a quarter of the WoW's budget, I'd say being a good clone is quite an chievement. But judge it from the first hour? Is/was your first hour in WoW SO fun, so different? Oh really? Ah... then I understand. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Quinton on February 13, 2007, 02:30:59 AM I don't think LoTRO is so much better, save for the Lore and the Graphics, and considering that they spent on it probably a quarter of the WoW's budget, I'd say a good clone is quite an chievement. But judge it from the first hour? I've pretty much lost all interest in the "well it gets good after N hours" or "it's good in the endgame" style of design. Do something to grab me in the first hour or two and make me want to keep playing. Quote Is/was your first hour in WoW SO fun, so different? Really? Ah... then I understand. My first hour in WoW was enough to keep me playing for a couple weeks on and off. Eventually the lack of friends in game (most of my online gaming friends were still FFXI'ing and the handful I knew who played WoW were on 3-4 different servers) and the general art design just not doing much for me caused me to cancel. I played WoW after launch so comparing on basis of "polish" may be a little unfair, but I generally thought the intro quests in the dwarf starting area (in WoW) were fun and reasonably well-written and amusing. But, as I said, I'm not looking to play WoW (otherwise I'd be playing WoW!) - Q EDIT: clarifying *which* dwarven starting area Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on February 13, 2007, 02:43:51 AM Landscapes were pretty, though I'd have preferred more green than brown. I don't understand you guys. Maybe I am colorblind in the brown spectrum. Do you mean more green than this (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165066438.jpg)? Yeah, I don't get this "eugh, it's so brown" bandwagon that seems to have trundled through on its way to the Darkfall thread. I've never seen a more verdant area in an MMO than LoTRO's Shire. same here, different areas have different looks. Lone lands is mostly brown, the Shire mostly green, Fornost is grey everywhere, Trollshaws reminds me of N Carolina in October ~ shrug~ Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Trippy on February 13, 2007, 02:56:10 AM Seriously, who is the audience? People tired of WoW that want the same thing with less polish? Is there money in that? Really? Do not underestimate the number of LotR fanboys/girls out there.Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 13, 2007, 03:00:35 AM Plus somebody said here multiple times that as soon as you get your budget back, MMOs are cash cows anyway.
How much did they spent on LoTRO (in house old engine...)? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Quinton on February 13, 2007, 03:08:52 AM Seriously, who is the audience? People tired of WoW that want the same thing with less polish? Is there money in that? Really? Do not underestimate the number of LotR fanboys/girls out there.I guess I'd buy that. I get the impression that SWG sold quite a few boxes that way. - Q Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: ahoythematey on February 13, 2007, 03:25:56 AM I want Moria to be a dungeon so goddamn deep and complicated to navigate that I need to break out the fucking graphing pad and map that shit, oldschool wizardry-style, just to hope I make it out alive. If this game can give me that, or something similar, it has me hooked. I'm not too worried about the diku elements as long as they are passable(which this thread seems to indicate they are).
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: eldaec on February 13, 2007, 03:33:45 AM I can't believe how many people keep overrating WoW and WoW's polish. What they actually mean is 'it doesn't CTD much'. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Ironwood on February 13, 2007, 03:59:01 AM I want Moria to be a dungeon so goddamn deep and complicated to navigate that I need to break out the fucking graphing pad and map that shit, oldschool wizardry-style, just to hope I make it out alive. If this game can give me that, or something similar, it has me hooked. I'm not too worried about the diku elements as long as they are passable(which this thread seems to indicate they are). Did you ever see the Middle Earth Roleplaying Supplement to Moria ? It was fucking huge and totally twisted. I'd play any game that had that in it. It'd be a 365 day instance. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 13, 2007, 04:52:50 AM I want Moria to be a dungeon so goddamn deep and complicated to navigate that I need to break out the fucking graphing pad and map that shit, oldschool wizardry-style, just to hope I make it out alive. If this game can give me that, or something similar, it has me hooked. I'm not too worried about the diku elements as long as they are passable(which this thread seems to indicate they are). Did you ever see the Middle Earth Roleplaying Supplement to Moria ? It was fucking huge and totally twisted. I'd play any game that had that in it. It'd be a 365 day instance. I played that. In line with the superfluosity of magic items in printed MERP adventures, by the end of it I had so many of Durin's items that, had he turned up at some point, he would have thought that he'd met himself. Axe of Durin, shield of Durin, helm of Durin, socks of Durin... But yes, the two expansions i already await with toddler-on-Christmas-Eve levels of anticipation are Mirkwood and Moria. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 13, 2007, 05:17:00 AM It's easy to make jokes about these games and the people that play, LOTRO adds an extra level of funny. However despite the flaws LOTRO does have a lot of content, A LOT, and even if they don't tackle the more serious issues of blandish combat and character customisation and long term monster advancement before release, they still will have a very solid and successful game.
Moria isn't in at release, however they might do it correctly, I think I remember a dev comment saying Moria could be an expansion just by itself. If you take zones that are in the game, the shire is true to the ip as is Rivendell. Seeing Weathertop in the distance is worth the walk to the lone lands. The old forest is very true to the books as well, I got lost in there for hours, it's bloody annoying, really really incredibly annoying being lost in there, but it is true to the book and it's very well designed to be confusing. To give you an idea of the amount of content, LOTRO beta happened when I had a lot of spare time (just started a new job and Mrs sleeping 12 hours a day), I leveled to 40 with about 10 days played, leveled to 43 again after a wipe, leveled from 30-44 after the next wipe. I didn't spend any time crafting, yet I still didn't have time to complete any quests in the Elf/Dwarf or Shire zones, I didn't explore the great barrow instance in any detail, just a quick run through. Didn't complete the Red maid, only got halfway through Fornost to two of the bosses, also avoided most of the main storyline instances. Didn't have time for the instance in Misty Mounts, plus the raid instance isn't implemented there yet. From memory LOTRO has about 1500 quests, sure a lot of them are the same kill boars crap but some are new and well done e.g. the Riddle series from Bilbo in Rivendell. I'm not buying it because I'm busy in RL at the moment but I'm going to check it out when RL calms down a bit. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 13, 2007, 05:55:10 AM Meh, Arthur. Screenshot or it didn't happen.
You see what I did there? That's how far some of you stretched it (not you Arthur). So, to fix the above statement: "WoW or it didn't happen". Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 13, 2007, 06:27:23 AM I have a few hundred screenshots, not sure what you want me to prove though. If the hidden forum here gets opened up you will see I said most of this already.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Ironwood on February 13, 2007, 06:30:24 AM Don't open that hidden forum where we're all actively slagging off Falconeer. That'd be hurtful.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 13, 2007, 07:04:46 AM I wasn't actively requesting you for any proof Arthur. I think we agree this time on what's good in LoTRO and what's not.
I just used your interesting post to point to those whom it doesn't matter anyway. It doesn't matter if you say and/or show what LoTRO does good. No matter what a new MMORPG brings, offer, sports, does, introduces, invents, is. It's not WoW, so basically it's crap. You point out lots of good things about LoTRO. Still, looks like it doesn't matter. "WoW does it better". That's what too many people are saying. "WoW or it didn't happen" could be the short form for the widespread formula: "I don't know what you are talking about and I am not even interested, but I played it for about 15 minutes and I can safely say this is just another WoW clone so it's officially crap". Well, I disagree with this behaviour. I play games like LoTRO more than the frst 10 minutes and I am interested in seeing what's better from other similar games (not just THE one), what's different and what's worst. As long as you keep playing games for 15 minutes expecting them to be somehow more addictive than WoW, you'll keep on throwing less than useful comments. P.S: I am italian. I am used at being slagged off and basically immune. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Slayerik on February 13, 2007, 07:13:31 AM I can't believe how many people keep overrating WoW and WoW's polish. Most of you are so bored (and with a reason) of dikus that you can't even try them for more than an hour. Still, you keep saying how they are not as polished, as good, as interesting, as colourful, as shiny, as fun as WoW. Aren't you playing Vanguard? Just curious if you are still leading that bandwagon as well. EDIT: By bandwagon I meant anti-bandwagon. Sorry Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 13, 2007, 07:19:05 AM Quote from: Endie Yeah, I don't get this "eugh, it's so brown" bandwagon that seems to have trundled through on its way to the Darkfall thread I may be the only one who uses it this way, but I use "brown" to connote bland realism. It's not technically brown in terms of the color, but it's basically a colored-gray, middle-of-the-road, uninspired, that sorta thing.We're reacting to this in LoTRO for the same reason we did in EQ2: the more realism they strove for, the more their failure to do so becomes highlighted (whether in textures, animation, environment, etc). WoW covers a lot of faults through style alone. Nobody expects more. It's the same thing for CRPGs, many MMOs coming from the Far East, anything in the anime-style in the first place. Lots of people want to escape to fastastic worlds, not see a pale immitation of reality. Quote from: Falconeer Most of you are so bored (and with a reason) of dikus that you can't even try them for more than an hour. Still, you keep saying how they are not as polished, as good, as interesting, as colourful, as shiny, as fun as WoW. We've played LoTRO and VG in countless other games. We are still impressed with well-executed features (monster play, diplomacy, etc), but if the underlying game system is WoW, then it's hard to not reference the quality that Blizzard achieved. It matters that they had $80mil+ to achieve it when everyone else is lucky to get $30mil. But ultimately, when it comes time to pay a monthly fee to spent 10+ hours a week with a game, it's only the experience that matters.Is LoTRO's experience more engaging than WoW? For some, yes. Maybe that Achievements book alone, for the collectors in all of us. But it's basically the same experience, with only the "some do like it" graphics difference and the recognition of named elements from Lore. But be careful with assessing the value of that lore without accounting for the dozen or so Warcraft books out. Some of them are actually pretty good, if you're into the IP. At this point, I'm liking the books and game enough for them to collectively increase my enjoyment of both. And unlike LoTRO, the Warcraft lore is advancing through WoW, not locked in a SWG-esque temporal stasis. Players don't really have an impact on that, but it's enough to not be visiting places you know the future of (outside of Caverns of Time instances) to make one curious for that future. That's not to slight Turbine nor SOE, as they do not have the freedoms with the IP that Blizzard/VUG does. But like the $80mil+ budget and the built in fanbois and the decade of RTS games and the general test-to-test-to-test approach they take in fun-development, it's just something else that makes WoW unique. These are not just about games anymore. How can they be when the primary attractor of LoTRO is the lore defined decades ago? So when people say "brown" or "bland" it's because of the total offering, from game play to UI to conversations about it. Even VG was more "interesting" of a game if only because of the controversy that Brad himself is. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Jayce on February 13, 2007, 07:31:37 AM You point out lots of good things about LoTRO. Still, looks like it doesn't matter. "WoW does it better". That's what too many people are saying. I don't get the hate for WoW. The basic fact (and others have pointed it out) is that WoW raised the bar for polish, intuitiveness of interface, immersiveness, etc. Ever has it been that games get compared to their predecessors, and if they have something new to offer, they are lauded for it. When EQ came out, people said "it's UO without the gankers!!!". When DAOC came out, they said "it's EQ done right!". When WoW came out, they said "it's DAOC done right!"* Therefore, until WoW is not the dominant game, everyone is going to say of any new game (especially fantasy diku), "it's WoW done right/wrong/more boringly/less immersively/in Middle-Earth/on the moon". To the topic, I did not play more than an afternoon of the beta, but it did strike me (like Morphiend and some others mentioned) that the interface was staggeringly like WoW's. I mean, I expected some elements to be similar, since in the world of user interfaces, highway robbery is the most sincere form of flattery, but it looked to me like they copied it pixel for pixel. I did see some innovative things, like the personalized quest instances, but it wasn't gripping enough to cause me to quit whatever game I am playing now. *ridiculously simplified of course Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 13, 2007, 07:33:27 AM No matter what a new MMORPG brings, offer, sports, does, introduces, invents, is. It's not WoW, so basically it's crap. You point out lots of good things about LoTRO. Still, looks like it doesn't matter. "WoW does it better". That's what too many people are saying. But something is crap if you don't like it. I'm not trying to get anyone to play LOTRO, I'm just pointing out it has a surprising amount of good points considering 1. It's Turbine and 2. It's a fairly restrictive license. Personally, I enjoyed it a lot for 3 months, but if you don't like WoW or expect LOTRO to be better than WoW you are in for disappointment. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 13, 2007, 08:09:28 AM ...And unlike LoTRO, the Warcraft lore is advancing through WoW, not locked in a SWG-esque temporal stasis. Players don't really have an impact on that, but it's enough to not be visiting places you know the future of (outside of Caverns of Time instances) to make one curious for that future. As regards temporal stasis, Turbine have repeatedly claimed that they'll advance the timeline in later regions somehow (presumably, simply in the same sort of way you meet people in WoW in later zones and they want new stuff done). Of course, the future (at least up to the first few years of the Fourth Age) is pretty fixed for a lot of places. But there is still flexibility. I don't read any of the "notes on pixies Tolkien made when on the toilet at age 14" stuff his son endlessly churns out, but there is a lot of openness for 3/4 of the continent, for starters. And there are only very broad brushstrokes regarding what happens in large areas to the east or south, even in the late Third Age. MERP had a license and yet had a huge amount of flexibility on what went where, and what happened in places like the Trollshaws, southern Mirkwood or the bulk of the Misty Mountains, even during the book timelines. It's a big world: they can let stuff happen. And it'll be no more or less influenced by player actions than WoW (which is to say it won't be). Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on February 13, 2007, 08:16:27 AM My favorite part of the Tolkein lore was when Frodo and Aragorn went into the field and killed 6 wolves for a quest. The moment they dinged level 3 was glorious.
If they're going to make a game about such an epic tale, at least get rid of the trash mobs and make encounters rich and meaningful. Grinding yard trash for "ding gratz" really ruins this whole experience. At least they could have made it like CoH and had you kill wave after wave of orcs trying to assault some castle. So many opportunities to turn IP this into a rich and engrossing experience and they take the path of producing diku_clone_1873. Turbine is capable of so much more. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: tazelbain on February 13, 2007, 08:21:25 AM Turbine is capable of so much more. No, they are not. They are no talent hacks. AC1 was a fluke and a mild success at best.Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on February 13, 2007, 08:23:08 AM No, they are not. They are no talent hacks AC1 was a fluke and a mid success at best. I saw flashes of brilliance in AC1. Believe it or not, there were times in AC2 that I had fun as well. If they've learned anything from that, then they could do more than make a pretty clone. I'm guessing that innovation is too big a financial risk for most companies to go after. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 13, 2007, 08:26:54 AM My favorite part of the Tolkein lore was when Frodo and Aragorn went into the field and killed 6 wolves for a quest. The moment they dinged level 3 was glorious. Oh, we've all made that joke (http://endie.net/cs/blogs/endie/archive/2005/11/30/camping_the_nazgul_spawn.aspx). Fun, though. But the reason it's easy to parody LOTR with MMO cliches is that those cliches are bastardised great-grandchildren of the original, Tolkien-spawned tropes. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 13, 2007, 08:32:30 AM My favorite part of the Tolkein lore was when Frodo and Aragorn went into the field and killed 6 wolves for a quest. The moment they dinged level 3 was glorious. If they're going to make a game about such an epic tale, at least get rid of the trash mobs and make encounters rich and meaningful. Grinding yard trash for "ding gratz" really ruins this whole experience. At least they could have made it like CoH and had you kill wave after wave of orcs trying to assault some castle. So many opportunities to turn IP this into a rich and engrossing experience and they take the path of producing diku_clone_1873. Turbine is capable of so much more. Tresslebridge is a town in north downs that has an epic quest to defend it from a few waves of orc's, it spawns a separate instance of the entire town to do it. There's plenty of castle capture in monster play as well, mind you, there's not much else to do in monsterplay. I'll agree about the mobs though, it's especially annoying to see level 42 flies but at least the last couple of fly quests are restricted to kill 10. I have zero problem with people thinking LOTRO sucks, really doesn't bother me as I don't have any shares in Turbine. Just be aware that if it didn't grab your interest enough to play past the early levels then you have seen very little of the actual game. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on February 13, 2007, 08:35:07 AM Quote from: Nebu said on November 15, 2006 2) I don't feel like a hero. I feel like a citizen with an attitude. Kill some boars, kill some spiders, or fedEx this for me. It's an old system, but it could really be used to generate some sense of heroism. I played D&D on paper back in the 70's and noone ever showed up to roll a character and kill some snakes and ants for phat lewtz. I'm just astounded by the fact that someone would spend the money for such a fantastic license and make another uninspired PvE grindfest. I shouldn't be surprised by it... and I'm really not. I just hoped for more. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on February 13, 2007, 08:36:55 AM I have zero problem with people thinking LOTRO sucks, really doesn't bother me as I don't have any shares in Turbine. Just be aware that if it didn't grab your interest enough to play past the early levels then you have seen very little of the actual game. I played 2 characters into the mid 20's, but I did it all solo. Many of the fellowship quests were off limits to me as I didn't have anyone to group with. I guess it's another example of not being able to enjoy content because my playstyle doesn't fit the genre. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WayAbvPar on February 13, 2007, 08:43:18 AM My favorite part of the Tolkein lore was when Frodo and Aragorn went into the field and killed 6 wolves for a quest. The moment they dinged level 3 was glorious. Oh, we've all made that joke (http://endie.net/cs/blogs/endie/archive/2005/11/30/camping_the_nazgul_spawn.aspx). Fun, though. But the reason it's easy to parody LOTR with MMO cliches is that those cliches are bastardised great-grandchildren of the original, Tolkien-spawned tropes. Sounds like we will have to wait for an expansion for this (http://stupidevilbastard.com/index/seb/comments/if_lord_of_the_rings_were_everquest/) to come to fruition. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Jayce on February 13, 2007, 08:51:48 AM If they're going to make a game about such an epic tale, at least get rid of the trash mobs and make encounters rich and meaningful. You know, I've been thinking something along the same lines as this. To those of us who love them, the LoTR books are so special, that I'm not sure I want the experience sullied by other players. This might have worked as an epic single-player RPG, but I would rather not have my next read-through marred by memories of the time I camped Moria with "Lagolasss". There's the trash mob angle, which Turbine could control and improve, but they can't control the hell that is other people. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 13, 2007, 08:57:20 AM I have zero problem with people thinking LOTRO sucks, really doesn't bother me as I don't have any shares in Turbine. Just be aware that if it didn't grab your interest enough to play past the early levels then you have seen very little of the actual game. I played 2 characters into the mid 20's, but I did it all solo. Many of the fellowship quests were off limits to me as I didn't have anyone to group with. I guess it's another example of not being able to enjoy content because my playstyle doesn't fit the genre. There's another but different tresslebridge orc defend instance for the solo level 30 guardian quest, it's in a different area across the bridge. I soloed most of the time and thought the balance between solo and group was pretty good. It's just not a forced grouping game, as long as you don't mind skipping the epic storyline or doing it when when + a few levels. You might have enjoyed it more post 40 or you might still have hated it. There's no doubt the game's got problems as I recall thinking to myself at level 43, combat is pretty fun now, that point should have come far far sooner. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 13, 2007, 08:59:55 AM Quote from: Endie As regards temporal stasis, Turbine have repeatedly claimed that they'll advance the timeline in later regions somehow (presumably, simply in the same sort of way you meet people in WoW in later zones and they want new stuff done). This is true, and they'll probably pull it off. But it's still just adding detail to a timeline established, ala SWG. Honestly, that's fine. If you like the lore, added detail (as long as its self-consistent) is icing on the cake of enjoyment, like me reading SW or Warcraft books to complement my enjoyment of executed content in other forms. That's the other way to design new product and games really. You can always make a game and try to sell it. But it's just easier to make a game that is an extension of an IP executed in that or other mediums. It's a built-in fanbase, the entire premise for LoTRO really, and coming with more freedoms than DDO did (because that "lore" was equal parts game mechanic and story). Quote from: Nebu I'm just astounded by the fact that someone would spend the money for such a fantastic license and make another uninspired PvE grindfest It's very tricky really. How could you not make an MMO LoTR game without it being diku? Given the roots of this genre, LoTRO is probably what most people would expect. And if it didn't deliver against that expectation, it's SWG (or DDO, in a smaller sense). That doesn't mean all licenses must be diku. It's just that LoTR ultimately spawned diku and the ties are just probably too hard to break. Veterans expect it and diku has already been proven to be effective at attracting and keeps newbs to the genre. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on February 13, 2007, 09:09:14 AM That doesn't mean all licenses must be diku. It's just that LoTR ultimately spawned diku and the ties are just probably too hard to break. Veterans expect it and diku has already been proven to be effective at attracting and keeps newbs to the genre. I guess that's the rub. The IP represents pretty much the origins of P&P gaming that spawned MUDs that spawned MMOG's. Now it's going to belong to a game that won't even come to be the best example of the genre. Expecting the pioneer to be the pioneer again is too much to ask, especially where there's a bottom line involved. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nija on February 13, 2007, 09:21:32 AM You know, I've been thinking something along the same lines as this. To those of us who love them, the LoTR books are so special, that I'm not sure I want the experience sullied by other players. This is the reason that many people, myself included, have said that the only license worse than Star Wars is Lord of the Rings. (When talking about mass multiplayer games.) Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 13, 2007, 10:12:41 AM I can't believe how many people keep overrating WoW and WoW's polish. WoW was also fun. This was not. Quote Is/was your first hour in WoW SO fun, so different? Oh really? Ah... then I understand. Yes, it was. My first hour in WoW was as a Tauren Warrior, and the Rage meter, as well as the style of the race was interesting. In addition, the combat felt a little more engaging. In LotRO, I could barely be arsed enough to hit my hotkeys in combat. It was just BORING. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Rasix on February 13, 2007, 10:24:20 AM In LotRO, I could barely be arsed enough to hit my hotkeys in combat. It was just BORING. This was probably the most prevalent feedback given during our alpha/beta testing. The pace of the combat was just off. If you screw up combat pacing, your game is going to have trouble. A majority of your activities in these games is still combat. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 13, 2007, 10:50:15 AM Quote Yes, it was. My first hour in WoW was as a Tauren Warrior, and the Rage meter, as well as the style of the race was interesting. In addition, the combat felt a little more engaging. In LotRO, I could barely be arsed enough to hit my hotkeys in combat. It was just BORING. I actually found the dwarf starting area to be fun and engaging. Heck, I normally hate melee fighters (scrappers in CoH notwithstanding) and loved the champion. To each his own, I guess. I did think the human starter area kind of sucked. The lynchpin for me was that at least I was fighting goblins in Erud Luin, as opposed to spiders and wolves near Archet. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 13, 2007, 11:18:44 AM Just be aware that if it didn't grab your interest enough to play past the early levels then you have seen very little of the actual game. Sure. But what I have seen, the gameplay that is going to be with me every single step of the slow grinding way all the way up to level 30 or 40 or whatever, the gameplay I'll experience every single day I play the game from now until forever is the same as other offerings, only not quite as good. That's why it's boring, and that's why MMOG's get 30 minutes from me to show me something new or else they are on the shitpile. It might be fine if I'd never played a fantasy MMOG, or a fantasy Diku MMOG, but since I have, it's boring as fuck. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WindupAtheist on February 13, 2007, 12:21:56 PM If a game isn't fun on the first day, it can suck my cock.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: shiznitz on February 13, 2007, 12:27:27 PM If a girl isn't fun on the first date...umm, waitaminute.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 13, 2007, 12:28:53 PM I'm not going to marry my MMOG, but I do expect it to do more than just lie there inert when I'm on it.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 13, 2007, 12:40:25 PM Just be aware that if it didn't grab your interest enough to play past the early levels then you have seen very little of the actual game. Sure. But But nothing, what you quoted is common sense, it's not my engraved invitation to you to play longer or an excuse for the game being how it is, it's a logical statement of fact, if you don't like it, don't play it. My comment was made in response to Nebu saying the game would be better if you could attack castles, the nda has just gone so maybe some people didn't know but you can attack castles & defend towns. In fact one of my major complaints about monsterplay is that attacking castles is just about all there is to do, apart from the very limited character advancement quests. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Threash on February 13, 2007, 12:53:22 PM My favorite part of the Tolkein lore was when Frodo and Aragorn went into the field and killed 6 wolves for a quest. The moment they dinged level 3 was glorious. If they're going to make a game about such an epic tale, at least get rid of the trash mobs and make encounters rich and meaningful. Grinding yard trash for "ding gratz" really ruins this whole experience. At least they could have made it like CoH and had you kill wave after wave of orcs trying to assault some castle. So many opportunities to turn IP this into a rich and engrossing experience and they take the path of producing diku_clone_1873. Turbine is capable of so much more. You know, i could quote you a passage from The Hobbit where Bilbo basically "levels up" after grinding on spiders. He even mentions feeling stronger and more confident, the only thing that was missing was the "ding". Just because the book skipped the yard trash doesn't mean it wasn't there, Merry and Pippin didn't turn into great warriors just from hanging around Gandalf, they had to kill plenty of orcs and even drop a raid mob or two. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 13, 2007, 12:58:32 PM Just be aware that if it didn't grab your interest enough to play past the early levels then you have seen very little of the actual game. Sure. But But nothing, what you quoted is common sense, it's not my engraved invitation to you to play longer or an excuse for the game being how it is, it's a logical statement of fact, if you don't like it, don't play it. My comment was made in response to Nebu saying the game would be better if you could attack castles, the nda has just gone so maybe some people didn't know but you can attack castles & defend towns. In fact one of my major complaints about monsterplay is that attacking castles is just about all there is to do, apart from the very limited character advancement quests. I reacted because I hear that excuse often, and in fact, I used to give that excuse myself when dogging a review of MMOG's where the reviewer only played for a few days. No more. Those days are done. Either the game hooks me from the get go, or it isn't made well enough and is on my scrapheap. That's nothing against folks who like the game, but is a statement to devs that shit needs to be fun from the moment I start or I don't play. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Miasma on February 13, 2007, 01:01:10 PM I agree with most everyone else's opinion, I thought it was a good enough game but boring. I can't even pinpoint the source of the boredom, it's a mix of the dull combat, lacklustre world and Turbine's patented awful character models. It will be the best MMO Turbine's ever done, not that that should get anyone excited.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 13, 2007, 01:15:14 PM I reacted because I hear that excuse often, and in fact, I used to give that excuse myself when dogging a review of MMOG's where the reviewer only played for a few days. No more. Those days are done. Either the game hooks me from the get go, or it isn't made well enough and is on my scrapheap. That's nothing against folks who like the game, but is a statement to devs that shit needs to be fun from the moment I start or I don't play. No problem, Trippy was of the same opinion a few weeks ago that the early game needed a lot of work. At the time I thought the early game was ok (as it had held my interest) and I thought the end game needed more work as pvp wasn't in and I wasn't sure about the raids. Looks like he was right, as the early game is getting all the bad word of mouth at the minute, I expect pvp problems to come to light later. I also think there are major problems with the way items and combat scale in the later stages of the game, I might repost that later. But in the meantime some more low res screenshots of when I found a hole in the zone wall and explored Angmar and Ered Luin from 5000 feet up walking on air (before the zones were patched in), collecting elf ears as an orc and one of the level 50 quest reward freeps. (http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/2755/screenshot00088cs9.th.jpg) (http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00088cs9.jpg)(http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/3357/screenshot00100ls0.th.jpg) (http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00100ls0.jpg)(http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/5915/screenshot00107pn7.th.jpg) (http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00107pn7.jpg)(http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/2499/screenshot00114lb0.th.jpg) (http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00114lb0.jpg)(http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/463/screenshot00131dw7.th.jpg) (http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00131dw7.jpg)(http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/4606/screenshot00142sr6.th.jpg) (http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00142sr6.jpg) (http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/2346/screenshot00154pz6.th.jpg) (http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00154pz6.jpg)(http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/4501/screenshot00282hc3.th.jpg) (http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00282hc3.jpg)(http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/8782/screenshot00276ly6.th.jpg) (http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00276ly6.jpg) Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 13, 2007, 01:41:20 PM Quote slow grinding way Haem, was this your impression of LoTRO or was it just your feeling about MMOs in general? I kinda was surprised by how fast the levels came in LoTRO... Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 13, 2007, 01:49:24 PM WoW levels are a bit faster, but LoTRO was pretty good compared to most other games (including CoX). That is a core problem though, because again, as an iteration of a convention already mastered in this genre, it invites yet another inevitable comparison.
Levels alone aren't the only thing to worry on, but they are the primary gate to character customization and rewards for playing certain content. I only really played Human and Elves, though did visit the Hobbit starting area too (can't remember as which, maybe Elf?). The Human area seemed engaging and content complete whereas the Elven one was pretty boring and spread out. This is a simple content thing, but it being simple means it's a problem. WoW had a problem with this too (Humans, great, Undread, great, Dwarves, ok, Orcs, sorta sucky, Troll, downtime crappy). Hopefully the vast majority of players don't pick the content incomplete race... or that your game isn't designed to split factions where one faction has obviously better content for leveling up than the other :) Anyway, LoTRO is as grindy as WoW if you're not engaged by the content, regardless of being able to level up sightly faster in WoW. In the end, if you hate grinding, neither game, nor really any diku, is going to please anyway, no matter how faster the levels come. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Lantyssa on February 13, 2007, 07:22:36 PM This is a simple content thing, but it being simple means it's a problem. WoW had a problem with this too (Humans, great, Undread, great, Dwarves, ok, Orcs, sorta sucky, Troll, downtime crappy). Hopefully the vast majority of players don't pick the content incomplete race... or that your game isn't designed to split factions where one faction has obviously better content for leveling up than the other :) I've seen this mentioned a few times and it confuses me. Don't Orcs and Trolls have the same starting area? How can one be okay while the other is crappy?Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Azazel on February 13, 2007, 08:33:57 PM Landscapes were pretty, though I'd have preferred more green than brown. I don't understand you guys. Maybe I am colorblind in the brown spectrum. Do you mean more green than this (http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1165066438.jpg)? Yeah, I don't get this "eugh, it's so brown" bandwagon that seems to have trundled through on its way to the Darkfall thread. I've never seen a more verdant area in an MMO than LoTRO's Shire. Yes, that part of Archet is nice, the Shire (I just visited briefly, since I'd done my n00b quests in Archet) was also green, though the places where I spent my time were less green - the area around that swamp near Bree, and everything west of it as far as I managed to travel. I did enjoy the look of the game, as mentioned. But the impression it left on me was a very brown one. I don't think LoTRO is so much better, save for the Lore and the Graphics, and considering that they spent on it probably a quarter of the WoW's budget, I'd say being a good clone is quite an chievement. But judge it from the first hour? Is/was your first hour in WoW SO fun, so different? Oh really? Ah... then I understand. Well, as it was a beta I certainly felt obliged to spend a fair amount of time playng the game, and honestly I did find it fun from the start (once I got it working - gamma slider crash bug). Unfortunately it never really progressed or improved all that much once I hit something like level 10? 9? 11? It just became WoW-lite, so I decided to do some exploring to see some of the places I wanted to check out. I mean, Middle-Earth, right? I saw The Shire, Bag End, Weathertop, Bree, The Prancing Pony, a little of the barrows area (except I died too many times) and all of those were cool. Would it have been as cool if the nameplate out front said "The Pig & Whistle Inn" or if Weathertop was the same model, same place, but called "The Tower of Durnholde"? If Bag End was any one of the other Hobbit Holes in the game? Actually no. The IP-name recognition is what added that "wow factor" to the locations that really made them more exciting than the Halfling Houses in Rivervale in EQ1. When I'd run out of those early-game-achievable-to-see places, well I was left with another WoW, but with what had become slowly-paced combat to level up because there was no chance of my surviving longer enough toi explore the other cool places. (I wanted to see the petrified Trolls from The Hobbit, the ford, maybe Rivendell.) My first hour in WoW (Open Beta/Stress) was actually kind of cool and it was more exciting and fun. Of course it was the first time I'd really started from scratch since EQ1 years before it, so I wasn't as burned out as I am now. But you know, hooking me from the start is their (game designers in general) job. If their game can't do that, then I don't care how good it is at level XYZ or 4 hours in. If they can't do that, then they can fuck off. (Last major game to fail that test, BTW, was the new Zelda on Wii). Games don't get an hour ot two "to try" from me anymore either. I hate to mirror schild of all people, but these days you get 5 minutes from me to make me want to play your game. LOTRO is/was a decent game. Small-g good even. But, as you said. "WoW does it better" for me, so why would I bother to play (and pay for) LOTRO as well or instead? The achievements thing was also quite a nice touch. Hopefully that kind of thong becomes regularly incorporated into other games in the genre as well. Darniaq - Which of the WoW books are worth checking out? And Lantyssa - yes they do share the same starting area. And FWIW I found it perfectly okay to play through, too. I liked the red earth look to Durotar. Not sure how one is ok and the other is crappy though.. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Calantus on February 14, 2007, 05:04:52 AM I reacted because I hear that excuse often, and in fact, I used to give that excuse myself when dogging a review of MMOG's where the reviewer only played for a few days. No more. Those days are done. Either the game hooks me from the get go, or it isn't made well enough and is on my scrapheap. That's nothing against folks who like the game, but is a statement to devs that shit needs to be fun from the moment I start or I don't play. I'm with Haemish here. I don't care to grind for my fun anymore. I got burnt out of that in EQ and didn't play WoW for a month after it came out because of it. I eventually started playing because everyone was saying it was really good, and it was. It changed the grind enough that it was fresh and fun again for a while. Now I'm burned out on that too and a game has to either grab me like WoW did (that is improve over the old which is now WoW, achieving WoW isn't enough anymore, you have to be to WoW what WoW was to EQ), or it's not going to get my time. I'll probably pick up this game just to mess about for the free month, but there's basically no chance I'd play for longer. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 14, 2007, 06:00:53 AM Quote from: Lantyssa I've seen this mentioned a few times and it confuses me. Don't Orcs and Trolls have the same starting area? How can one be okay while the other is crappy? To me it's mostly that the Orcs are the resident group of Durotar, so they're all over the place, the ones giving out the quests, the ones with the storylines. The Trolls have one village in that area (rastafarian village or whatever it's called), but otherwise the only other stronghold of Trolls I've encountered is in Stranglehorn Vale, a place to go in your 30s. The Trolls just don't have a story until you're encountering them there, or in Hinterlands (remnants of the Amani Empire). Trolls just feel like a way-incomplete story.If you're just playing the game, then this really doesn't matter of course :). You only worry about Race when you want to choose a side in PvP or if they give some compelling racial bonus. Quote from: Azazel Darniaq - Which of the WoW books are worth checking out? Richard A Knaak seems to have the bulk of the books. Manage one's expectation for prose o course, like, don't read these instead of playing or reading Tolstoy or something :) I like the books because they add detail to a lore I am enjoying at the moment (same when I liked Star Wars, Star Trek, etc). I've also been doing a lot of traveling lately though, so this has been good for flights (someday I'll have a laptop that a) fits on my lap; and, b) can be opened in on a plane):
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 14, 2007, 09:46:26 AM Quote slow grinding way Haem, was this your impression of LoTRO or was it just your feeling about MMOs in general? I kinda was surprised by how fast the levels came in LoTRO... The grind is of course, all in the mind. But yeah, it felt slow, mainly because the combat was so unengaging. It's as much a feeling about MMOG's in general, mainly because they all take the same approach to combat. Hit auto-attack, kick off your specials when their timers have cooled down, rinse repeat. Had LotRO been my first MMO, it might not have felt so bad, but as a second or even third MMOG, it's so stinking similar to everything else that it makes even the trip to level 4 (where I left my rogue) grindy. But even then, there's still something about the timing and pace of combat in LotRO that made combat doubly uninteresting, and it was the same feeling I got from DDO combat, the feeling that my actions weren't responsive to my keypresses. I had the same problems with Matrix Online. As Rasix said, if you can't get that basic interaction down, the whole package just falls apart and any length of leveling time is a grind. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Yegolev on February 14, 2007, 10:08:56 AM As long as I am not relegated to killing monsters to get the XP, LotRO is great. Without the quest XP, things get tedious. I'd much rather do mail delivery quests than beat up on wolves.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Lantyssa on February 14, 2007, 12:56:23 PM Quote from: Lantyssa I've seen this mentioned a few times and it confuses me. Don't Orcs and Trolls have the same starting area? How can one be okay while the other is crappy? To me it's mostly that the Orcs are the resident group of Durotar, so they're all over the place, the ones giving out the quests, the ones with the storylines. The Trolls have one village in that area (rastafarian village or whatever it's called), but otherwise the only other stronghold of Trolls I've encountered is in Stranglehorn Vale, a place to go in your 30s. The Trolls just don't have a story until you're encountering them there, or in Hinterlands (remnants of the Amani Empire). Trolls just feel like a way-incomplete story.If you're just playing the game, then this really doesn't matter of course :). You only worry about Race when you want to choose a side in PvP or if they give some compelling racial bonus. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 14, 2007, 02:39:51 PM Sei'jin Village. Zoram'gar (or whatever) is mostly trolls, not that any Horde is going to run to the western side of Ashenvale, and there aren't many quests there. Weeellll... Actually it's a shortish journey from that mountainous zone to the NW of the barrens, through a tunnel you have to navigate from the goblin logging operation for some quest or another. Plus, there're some instance quests there that are kinda worthwhile in the unlikely event you can get enough participants. On a PvP server, however, it's gank-on-a-stick land, and very much avoidable for fun and profit. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Tannhauser on February 14, 2007, 09:10:18 PM I don't notice the grind if I'm having fun running around doing the quests (see Hellfire Peninsula).
I'll be playing LOTR because I'm mainly an explorer and the chance to explore Middle Earth is, well, the ultimate in a fantasy world to me. Glad to hear Turbine did a decent job on the world. I"m gonna go to Rivendell and shag Arwen! :evil: As for combat, I finally figured out why I just can't get into EQ2. It's the tedious combat. I love everything else about the game (ok maybe not crafting), but the combat bores me to tears. To hear that LOTR combat is boring is pretty worrying. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: stray on February 14, 2007, 09:25:09 PM LotRO did a good job on the world? Huh? It doesn't even feel like a world. It's more encapsulated than WoW, and a step above GW. Some of it is as neatly laid out as WoW's zones are, but they're even smaller.
It's not highly instanced like GW or DDO, but you know that feeling you get at a Disney Land ride....Where everything is represented in miniature? That's kind of how LotRO feels, except for Middle Earth. Also, if you dislike EQ2 combat, you'll dislike this even more. EQ2 is actually better (shitty as it is). I don't even feel like I'm doing anything in this game except pressing buttons for different animations. Quote I"m gonna go to Rivendell and shag Arwen! No. You're going to do nothing except see a bunch of stupid text next to her head. If that. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 15, 2007, 04:02:22 AM Combat is very similar to WoW one and I fail to see the big difference between the two.
EQ2 one on the other hand is pretty similar just to itself and yes it has lots of details that make it pretty boring, especially after the first 15 levels or so. I loved EQ2 and played it for 2 years, but I prefer both WoW and LoTRO (and Vanguard) combat style and pace. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 15, 2007, 04:08:57 AM LotRO did a good job on the world? Huh? It doesn't even feel like a world. It's more encapsulated than WoW, and a step above GW. Some of it is as neatly laid out as WoW's zones are, but they're even smaller. I'm fairly sure the zones in LOTRO are far larger than WoW, you might be mistaking an area within a zone for a whole zone. I think the world does certainly feel small compared to the books especially in the shire, but a lot of that has to do with travel distances, they clearly wanted to go the WoW route of areas full of content. I'm also not getting where all the hate for this is coming from, it's Turbine the fact it's any good at all is a surprise, LOTRO is 10x better than AC2 and 5x better than DDO, if WoW didn't exist then LOTRO would be the best all round game on the market. Are you surprised it's not better than a game by Blizzard or what? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 15, 2007, 04:42:29 AM Actually, as I said earlier, if WoW wasn't around, I doubt LoTRO would exist in the form that it does. It'd come out, to be sure, but probably not have combat or UI so similar to what WoW proved to be successful. Without WoW, they'd be where we were when SOE ran the show: trying to figure out what works and making stuff up as they go.
LoTRO is worlds better than AC2, but just different from DDO. DDO is a fine game, it just shouldn't be billed as an MMO. Falconeer, the problem with LoTRO combat is pacing and visual feedback. WoW makes it feel more dynamic as a total experience. Otherwise, yea, mechanically they operate very similarly. If you like the world of LoTRO you can like the combat. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: stray on February 15, 2007, 05:06:10 AM Are you surprised it's not better than a game by Blizzard or what? No, I don't really care about that (that goes for you too, Falc). [EDIT] I mean, that goes for your post too, Falc ;). Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 15, 2007, 02:51:05 PM I find it difficult to believe, but it appears there's been another major Guardian nerf, that's about the fourth since september. Just in case anyone read my post above, where I said I had fun playing this for three months. Keep in mind when making a decision to buy or not, that Turbine now thinks I was playing an overpowered class. :roll:
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Yegolev on February 15, 2007, 02:55:12 PM I spent plenty of time playing a warrior in WoW, and combat there was relatively fun. In LotRO, not so much. I think they were working on the pacing, but I think it might also have to do with the avatars and weapons not being stolen from a GW catalog, hard to say. It was also rather quiet, sort of muffled. I like the game, but not because of the combat.
Now, there are plenty of games in which I enjoy the combat more than WoW, so let's keep things in perspective here. I think if WoW combat was truly fun in itself, I might still be playing it. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Margalis on February 15, 2007, 06:07:45 PM I think the "hate" for LOTRO is that it is a WOW clone that is a step below WOW.
I wouldn't say there is hate rather than disinterest. Other than being bored of WOW or loving LOTRO lore why play? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 15, 2007, 06:59:30 PM I think the "hate" for LOTRO is that it is a WOW clone that is a step below WOW. I wouldn't say there is hate rather than disinterest. Other than being bored of WOW or loving LOTRO lore why play? Surprisingly enough, not everyone has played WoW. I thought it was well done for a game with levels and stuff. I also liked the world itself. I didn't get the overwhelming feeling of brown people say they got. As far as fantasy games go, I'm pretty much done. But if I was going to play a fantasy game, it'd be LoTRO, not WoW. I could give a rat's ass about the WoW lore. I actually like and enjoy the LoTRO lore. Therefore, LoTRO is the less boring fantasy-themed diku, IMO. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 15, 2007, 07:25:36 PM It's not just lore. It's total experience. Ya really should give WoW a shot, just to compare. I personally didn't care too much about the Warcraft lore until I was in WoW for a bit over a year. The lore sorta grows on ya after awhile :)
But then, I didn't even read the LoTR trilogy and hobbit until after I was two years into EQ1 ;) Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Azazel on February 15, 2007, 08:56:46 PM My interest in the WoW lore has really only started in the last month or so, mostly inspired by the fact that I played and finished WC2 back on the PS1 combined with a bit of "so I guess all these ruined cities hereabouts are ruined for a reason". My interest in the Tolkien/Middle Earth lore started when I was in Primary School and read both The Hobbit and LOTR in Grades 5 and 6. Also played MERP in high school, watched the films, etc etc. For that matter, I watched Star Wars when I was a kid and loved all three films growing up, and even liked select bits of the prequels, though I skipped all the shitty EU novels. Warhammer and Warhammer 40k I've been into since the start of Hign School (when Rogue Trader was released, basically).
Point is - I'm much more into the Lore of both LOTR and Star Wars and Warhammer than I am of Warcraft. However, lore isn't a game by itself. I didn't get into SWG at all, despite being a big SW fan. I thought the beta of LOTR was good, but not "buy-me great". The game is what you play, not the lore. If you were to take the LOTR lore/licence out of the game they have, it would actually be less fun. On the other hand, I feel that if Blizz made a Star Wars dikumud game in the style of WoW, then it would be more than several shades more awesome than a Starcraft dikumud. So yes, a good licence, well executed can add a certain something to a game, and I think that LOTR's licence does add "fun" in this game, but even with that extra, the game is less fun than WoW. It's not a matter of expectations not being met or any shit like that, it's a good game, just not as fun for me as WoW, which features what to me is less interesting lore than LOTR does. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: lamaros on February 15, 2007, 10:06:10 PM You know, i could quote you a passage from The Hobbit where Bilbo basically "levels up" after grinding on spiders. He even mentions feeling stronger and more confident, the only thing that was missing was the "ding". Just because the book skipped the yard trash doesn't mean it wasn't there, Merry and Pippin didn't turn into great warriors just from hanging around Gandalf, they had to kill plenty of orcs and even drop a raid mob or two. Powerleveled IMO. And that Ent shit? Flasking up. Fucking consumables. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Margalis on February 15, 2007, 11:49:09 PM A Starcraft MMO actually sounds like an awesome idea. You have a bunch of interesting races and classes all set. I mean, it is SO easy to come up with the characters and the setting is well-established. The only thing that would be tricky is what do you do for vehicles? Can you play as a tank driver class or just a marine/medic?
Starcraft would probably fit in very well with what Tabula Rasa is trying to do. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Cheddar on February 16, 2007, 12:11:28 AM I am torn on this one. We will see how things go before live is official.
And the word on the street is "Keep an eye out for Starcraft MMO announcement in the next couple months." Just a rumor, but ya know... Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 16, 2007, 01:23:47 AM Well, as opposed to Margalis, I'll go with saying that LoTRO is one step better than WoW.
Of course, it's about 40 million dollars less polished, and 30 months content short, but overall it's a better game to me and a more interesting-refreshing (for a diku) experience. As for the first 30 minutes in a game: - My first 30 minutes in WoW: Go kill 10 rats. Autoattack, spam your special. Turn in quest. Ding. - My first 30 minutes in LoTRO: Storyline. Go kill 10 rats. Autoattack, spam your special. Turn in quest. Ding. Storyline. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Ironwood on February 16, 2007, 01:26:31 AM Sounds like a weak as hell rationalisation for the new shiny to me.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Azazel on February 16, 2007, 01:45:07 AM I am torn on this one. We will see how things go before live is official. And the word on the street is "Keep an eye out for Starcraft MMO announcement in the next couple months." Just a rumor, but ya know... Yeah, well we've all been expecting "World of Starcraft" for some time now. My main point is essentially that a Star Wars-skinned WoS with Blizzard's level of polish and such would blow their Starcraft "licence"/lore out of the water. Well, as opposed to Margalis, I'll go with saying that LoTRO is one step better than WoW. Of course, it's about 40 million dollars less polished, and 30 months content short, but overall it's a better game to me and a more interesting-refreshing (for a diku) experience. As for the first 30 minutes in a game: - My first 30 minutes in LoTRO: Storyline. Go kill 10 rats. Autoattack, spam your special. Turn in quest. Ding. Storyline. No, you're right there, and it was cool and well done as I said before, (particularly Archet). But the thing is that storyline was something I never saw again really, once I got out into the world beyond that point. A promising start that led to a not-as-good-as-WoW rest-of-the-game-that-I-saw which was basically reskinned WoW. (Which is reskinned but tweaked EQ1, true, but its still better done nonetheless.) Really as I've said, I'd probably play LOTRO if I wasn't already playing the better version of pretty much the exact same gameplay already. It's why I prefer Far Cry to, say, Red Faction. Except these take a lot longer than a FPS to play, so I'm far less likely to play through both. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 16, 2007, 02:07:48 AM Rationalisation?
But that's what I felt when I played it. Apparently, I am not burn out enough with dikus if I can still play a monster like Vanguard. But back in November 2004 when EQ2 and WoW came out at the same time I tried them both thoroughfully, and I chose EQ2, as WoW seemed to me none other that a persistant 3D Diablo. Too few things to do other than whack. Too simplistic quests with bare to minimum text. "Go kill 10 rats. Autoattack, spam your special. Turn in quest. Ding." it's not just the WoW formula, it's a lot of dikus formula, so I am not dissing WoW with that, it's just a reminder of what's the core of diku MMORPGs. It's up to developers to add stuff ON that to make me want to play a new iteration of the usual crap. Enter LoTRO, which although still missing the level of details of the world of EQ2 and its great quests, puts a storyline layer on that and let me play it, something I really appreciated. Thing is I didn't give WoW your famous "30 minutes to impress or fuck off". I played it for two months (April - may 2005, during a short EQ2 burnout), I went up to level 40. I enjoyed it. It's good. Very good for what it manages to achieve. I just think that for what I saw of both games, LoTRO offers me way more than WoW could. And that is beside and beyond the supposed "better combat due to better visual feedback" that WoW has. To conclude, EQ2 would still be my favourite diku ever if it wasn't for the boring combat, that is too different in a bad way from the WoW/LoTRO kind. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: pxib on February 16, 2007, 02:09:30 AM I won't buy a Starcraft MMO unless I can play a Zerg Overlord.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Azazel on February 16, 2007, 02:30:35 AM Thing is I didn't give WoW your famous "30 minutes to impress or fuck off". I played it for two months (April - may 2005, during a short EQ2 burnout), I went up to level 40. I enjoyed it. It's good. Very good for what it manages to achieve. I just think that for what I saw of both games, LoTRO offers me way more than WoW could. And that is beside and beyond the supposed "better combat due to better visual feedback" that WoW has. I'm not sure what you mean by "offers you way more", since once stripped down past the graphics, both games are essentially the same thing, only with one of the two having done it better. The 30 minutes thing isn't an overmind-like thing from all other posters on this board, I think it's actually something that several people have come to independantly, and as it happens, I'm one of them. I also apply it to single-player games though (see my posts regarding Wii software), and let's face it, it's not like I try a new MMOG more often than console games or single-player PC software. Really though, I don't see why I should be willing to give a MMO more leeway to do or show me something cool than I would any other game. The genre/medium/whatever of MMO no longer provides an excuse to make me work/grind for the first "hey thats cool!" moment. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. As I said, I played through LOTRO forseveral weeks before losing interest (and being wiped), and really, LOTOR did do something interesting in the first 30 minutes. It's failing was to put that particular Storyline carrot away all too quickly and replace it with nothing but a not-as-good iteration of WoW. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 16, 2007, 02:39:02 AM I'm not sure what you mean by "offers you way more", since once stripped down past the graphics, both games are essentially the same thing, only with one of the two having done it better. Exactly, what's done better in WoW? As I stated a couple of posts above, strip them down and still LoTRO offers me a more engaging world and story. Maybe WoW offers you a more engaging leveling treadmill. Is that what are you referring to? As I said lots of time, I can't see anything done better in WoW than LoTRO save for stuff that screams of "not in beta" (while LoTRO still is) or "we are 30 months old worth of content and fixes". Nothing so unquestionably or dealbreakingly done better. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Azazel on February 16, 2007, 03:02:46 AM If we take for granted that dikus are all levelling treadmills, WoW offered me faster action in combat, more visually appealing character models, (I liked the LOTOR world, as mentioned), better, more polished and integrated quests (overall, LOTOR had some nice ones too) and really, just that high quality feeling of polished and seamlessness. It plays smoother.
Look at it this way - if LOTOR was not in fact official Tolkien licenced, and instead had a more generic fantasy IP like, say, EQ or WoW, would it be as fun as it is? I believe it would be less fun visiting Hobbit_hole_042 than visiting BAG END. Less fun climbing interesting mountain with a ruined tower on top than climbing WEATHERTOP. LOTRO benefits a lot because of these things, enough that those points in the game where you visit a place like that is more fun. Otherwise you would just be visiting "The Combine Ruins" (EQ) or "Durnholde Keep" (WoW) as in "looks nice, but I don't care about this place". LOTRO has those places we care about, but if you take those away the game itself is just WoW but with worse tradeskills, slower combat (less visceral), worse models, and a pretty landscape. It has some nice touches (achievements, the lowbie town being instanced), and it's a pretty well done game, but it's too similar to WoW without being better to capture my interest. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on February 16, 2007, 03:29:21 AM the three things I like about LoTRO is first I love the POI's. I have been reading the books in a casual way since the early 70's so it was kind of neat to stick my head in Bag End and take a tour of the place, or wander around the Prancing Pony or go searching for the three stone trolls down at the Trollshaws. Add in that I can get badges and bonus traits to my character just for exploring is icing on the cake for me. Secondly Turbine has went to great lengths on the immersion. Going through Bree or the Shire it feels alive. Compared to the wooden NPC's and deserted looking towns in some other games it is pretty amazing in and of itself. One of things that really turned me off about Vanguard was that I never felt part of the world, NPC's were pretty bland during beta, that might be changing now but still. All things considered I find LoTRO just plain fun, it's not terribly deep, or terribly challenging but it is just plain fun to play. I can sit down for a half hour and run some solo quests, or if I have more time do one of the epic group quests and enjoy myself. The quests range from kill xx foozles to some pretty involved puzzle and find this or do that style quests.
The game is going to sell gents, like it or not. First off it is Lord of the Rings, add in the fact that it will look and run decently on Mom's off the shelf Compaq, then compound that with it being polished and pretty bug free foozle whacking fun and the bottom line is Turbine employees will be doing a conga line around their office wearing nothing but 100 dollar bills come release day. I have decided to go ahead with the 200 lifetime thing because 200 bucks is not all that much to me and I figure over the course of the games expansions I can always use this as a fallback MMORPG. The same reason I keep Half Life II and FEAR on my hard drive. I don't play them every night anymore but when I feel like a bit of FPS they are there ready to entertain me. Like I said earlier it is not a deep game nor is it complex and difficult, but the key phrase here is it is not frustrating. There are hundreds of thousands of people who are on their 3rd or 4th WoW alt that are not into raids that will be more than happy to get a change of scenery and who could give a shit about anything more than "is it fun" Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: stray on February 16, 2007, 04:01:24 AM The game is going to sell gents, like it or not. No one is looking for it to fail. I think? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 16, 2007, 04:47:16 AM but if you take those away the game itself is just WoW but with worse tradeskills Worse than WoW tradeskills? I admit I didn't explored crafting in LoTRO, but to have worst tradeskills than WoW you have to NOT have tradeskills in your game. Quote slower combat (less visceral) Looks to me like this is a matter of taste. I find the two being incredibly similar with just different particle effects and a not so noticeable different pace. I like the WoW particles more, but that's not enough for me to make it "more visceral" Quote worse models Whaaaat? Do you like WoW "style" more? Ok, fine, great! But "better" model? Are you kidding me? To me M.U.L.E. sprites are the better models ever, but I know they aren't. Is that what you are saying when you say WoW ones are better than LoTRO ones? Quote and a pretty landscape We agree on this. Quote It has some nice touches (achievements, the lowbie town being instanced), and it's a pretty well done game And we agree here too. Quote but it's too similar to WoW without being better to capture my interest. And I understand this completely. To me it all comes down to that: personal preference, as it's true that the two games share a lot. I prefer LoTRO as I like the graphics more and it looks to me it delivers better quests and a little bit more storytelling and adventuring over just the leveling treadmill and the carrot on a stick of crazy itemization (so this is what LoTRO offers to me MORE than WoW). But I understand different preferences. It's obvious that I give great importance to the RPG and story factor of MMORPGs and I like it as stong and heavy as possible, while 10 million people prefer a mild version of it, a la Diablo that won lots of awards back in the days as "Best RPG of the year". My gripe was just about the mild interest in a game that, to me, is WoW done better (although, as I said, I don't know shit about the endgame and that could obviously be a dealbreaker). Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Azazel on February 16, 2007, 05:28:07 AM The game is going to sell gents, like it or not. No one is looking for it to fail. I think? Nope, not me anyway. I hope it does well. It deserves to, as it's quite a well done game. the three things I like about LoTRO is first I love the POI's. I have been reading the books in a casual way since the early 70's so it was kind of neat to stick my head in Bag End and take a tour of the place, or wander around the Prancing Pony or go searching for the three stone trolls down at the Trollshaws. Add in that I can get badges and bonus traits to my character just for exploring is icing on the cake for me. Exactly. These things were the highlight of my LOTRO experience by far. Quote Secondly Turbine has went to great lengths on the immersion. Going through Bree or the Shire it feels alive. Compared to the wooden NPC's and deserted looking towns in some other games it is pretty amazing in and of itself. One of things that really turned me off about Vanguard was that I never felt part of the world, NPC's were pretty bland during beta, that might be changing now but still. We'll have to differ on that. It felt like WoW at best with a few peasants wandering around regurgitating their pre-canned lines. Not that I expect a great deal more, I'm just saying that doesn't feel particularly "alive" like a city packed full of PCs. Quote and the bottom line is Turbine employees will be doing a conga line around their office wearing nothing but 100 dollar bills come release day. I have decided to go ahead with the 200 lifetime thing because 200 bucks is not all that much to me and I figure over the course of the games expansions I can always use this as a fallback MMORPG. The same reason I keep Half Life II and FEAR on my hard drive. I don't play them every night anymore but when I feel like a bit of FPS they are there ready to entertain me. Like I said earlier it is not a deep game nor is it complex and difficult, but the key phrase here is it is not frustrating. There are hundreds of thousands of people who are on their 3rd or 4th WoW alt that are not into raids that will be more than happy to get a change of scenery and who could give a shit about anything more than "is it fun" "is it fun?" is the most important thing for me as well. I'm not too sure on the conga line with money hats thing, but the thing is it's easier to see a trainwreck coming than the next surprise hit. As mentioned, I hope it does well but I'm just not up to predictions of amazing success for any MMOG anymore. SirBruce Time! Worse than WoW tradeskills? I admit I didn't explored crafting in LoTRO, but to have worst tradeskills than WoW you have to NOT have tradeskills in your game. WoW's tradeskills are simple and easy. Non-intrusive. KISS-theory in action. LOTRO's ones were arcane, worked on strange skill trees and were just fucking horrible and annoying. Quote Looks to me like this is a matter of taste. I find the two being incredibly similar with just different particle effects and a not so noticeable different pace. I like the WoW particles more, but that's not enough for me to make it "more visceral" I don't know if "visceral" was the best term to use. Perhaps slow is a better term? I'm not really sure how to describe it. Better than, say, EQ1's auto-attack-and-taunt-occasionally model, but slower and somehow less fun than WoW while still being amazingly similar. Quote Whaaaat? Do you like WoW "style" more? Ok, fine, great! But "better" model? Are you kidding me? To me M.U.L.E. sprites are the better models ever, but I know they aren't. Is that what you are saying when you say WoW ones are better than LoTRO ones? On reflection, I'm thinking that perhaps LOTRO's models are a big part of the "brown" feeling the game has. OK the actual poly models may be ok, but the art design on the models is just bland. And no, I don't expect them to look like Warhammer models like WoW does, either. I'd like them to feel more rich somehow, even from the start when you're essentially a goatherd. Quote And I understand this completely. To me it all comes down to that: personal preference, as it's true that the two games share a lot. I prefer LoTRO as I like the graphics more and it looks to me it delivers better quests and a little bit more storytelling and adventuring over just the leveling treadmill and the carrot on a stick of crazy itemization (so this is what LoTRO offers to me MORE than WoW). But I understand different preferences. It's obvious that I give great importance to the RPG and story factor of MMORPGs and I like it as stong and heavy as possible, while 10 million people prefer a mild version of it, a la Diablo that won lots of awards back in the days as "Best RPG of the year". My gripe was just about the mild interest in a game that, to me, is WoW done better (although, as I said, I don't know shit about the endgame and that could obviously be a dealbreaker). Sure, just like Vanguard which I may rip on as a game, but I've happily said you're welcome to enjoy it. I don't really find true Role-Playing to exist in MMOGs any more than it does in any other CRPG (less in fact) and while I enjoyed the little bit of the game that had the Storyline section I was disappointed in not seeing more of it. Not to sound like a raving WoW fanboy either, as my WoW interest level has dropped to a minimal amount in the last week or two, as my RL friends finished their rush to max level and don't log on much at all anymore, my wife is back at work so she's not interested in playing much, and now with me back at work again I can either log on by myself and solo or I can actually entertain myself more by just sitting on the couch, watching TV shows from bed, or even bullshitting here on f13. The irony is that my friends who rushed to the level cap, are now not logging on much while they wait for me (and the wife, etc) to catch up, but them not being on makes me less interested in getting on myself, so my playing and levelling has basically stopped for the moment. Shame my guild is so uninteresting. Hopefully she'll be up for some Chinese New Years' quests this weekend, other than that I'm not especially interested in getting onto WoW at all. So, not exactly a WoW fanboi, anyway. I just think it's essentially the same thing, only done better than LOTRO. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 16, 2007, 07:31:58 AM Quote from: Falconeer Exactly, what's done better in WoW? It's the same. You care more about the LoTRO storyline is all. There's storyline to killing wolves in all dikus. You care about LoTR lore though so bother to read the quest text there.WoW has plenty of instantiated scripted events too. LoTRO throws them at you right away and then again at some time in the distant future. WoW does it more sporadically, after the opening intro that introduces each race the first time you roll a character of that race of course. Quote from: Azazel Yeah, well we've all been expecting "World of Starcraft" for some time now. Yep. However, I personally don't expect one anytime soon. Outside of Korea, Starcraft has run its course pretty much. Interesting and cool and all that, but Warcraft has the much greater history to it. And is now a cash cow.Could Blizzard build World of Starcraft to the same level of WoW? Yes, with a duplicate staff and at least duplicate funding and duplicate amount of time. They spent buckets of time and money on WoW based on predicted success (their claims of surprise to the contrary). Does anyone here think Starcraft would be so successful to be worth $75mil+, a few hundred people and 5 years of development, considering all of the success factors behind WoW? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 16, 2007, 07:45:02 AM It's not that I like the text behind kill 10 wolves. I like stories when they are told well, and that often happened in EQ2, even when it was about killing 10 wolves, but this is not the case here as both LoTRO and WoW chose to go the less verbose way (too many players complained that there was too much stuff to read in EQ2. Go figure! "Yeah, blah blah, nof you just shut up and give me the quest so I can go back grinding you lousy NPC!")
LoTRO has this instanced and scripted solo stuff that I met at level 1, and it promises a storyline that I have more of a reason to believe it's there and that I'll be able to play it before burning out. I played WoW to level 40 and I never met anything even remotely similar to the scripted stuff I met at level 1 in LoTRO, and it doesn't promise me anything better, be it personal, grouped or whatever. Yes, I had to escort a tauren lady once from a camp where she was held captive to a checkpoint where I got ambushed. Yes, I summoned a spirit and I had to follow it into a cave where something else happened. And yes looks like that Ragnaros script I heard about it's cool stuff. But I'd say that this is too scarce and sub par compared to what I've seen so far in LoTRO BETA. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WindupAtheist on February 16, 2007, 07:46:16 AM I love Falconeer. Now that Vanguard has launched and landed with the sickening thud that everyone but he and Geldon expected, he's seamlessly moved on to humping the leg of the next Diku on the release calendar. It sounds like LOTRO isn't a total pile of puke like Vanguard and will probably enjoy moderate success, but I still expect to see him doing his "It's better than WoW!!1!" dance yet again when Warhammer comes out.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on February 16, 2007, 07:47:40 AM Can we just cut to the chase here. How many people think that this is a good game that will garner more than a niche number of subscriptions? It's a decently made game that has a look that appeals to those turned off by WoW's cartoonish graphics. That's about it.
I rarely make predictions (because I'm bad at it) but If this game tops 400k subs, I'll be genuinely shocked. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 16, 2007, 07:49:04 AM I love Falconeer. Now that Vanguard has launched and landed with the sickening thud that everyone but he and Geldon expected, he's seamlessly moved on to humping the leg of the next Diku on the release calendar. It sounds like LOTRO isn't a total pile of puke like Vanguard and will probably enjoy moderate success, but I still expect to see him doing his "It's better than WoW!!1!" dance yet again when Warhammer comes out. So the guy likes different stuff than most people, so what? Most of those judgments are totally subjective anyway. FFS, you still like UO. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Ixxit on February 16, 2007, 07:50:14 AM The game is going to sell gents, like it or not. First off it is Lord of the Rings, add in the fact that it will look and run decently on Mom's off the shelf Compaq, then compound that with it being polished and pretty bug free foozle whacking fun and the bottom line is Turbine employees will be doing a conga line around their office wearing nothing but 100 dollar bills come release day. I have decided to go ahead with the 200 lifetime thing because 200 bucks is not all that much to me and I figure over the course of the games expansions I can always use this as a fallback MMORPG. The same reason I keep Half Life II and FEAR on my hard drive. I don't play them every night anymore but when I feel like a bit of FPS they are there ready to entertain me. Like I said earlier it is not a deep game nor is it complex and difficult, but the key phrase here is it is not frustrating. There are hundreds of thousands of people who are on their 3rd or 4th WoW alt that are not into raids that will be more than happy to get a change of scenery and who could give a shit about anything more than "is it fun" I think it will selll pretty well as well for the same reasons you state. I think collectively LotRO, WAR and Conan will start to peel away subs from WoW, at least in Europe and NA. Maybe not in huge numbers at first but by the end of the year and into 2008 I think we will l see the beginnings of a momentum shift. Ultimately mmo fans, both old and new will start looking for new experiences. Only played a bit of LotTRO during the stress test, but saw enough to pre-order it. I much prefer the realistic graphical style of the game, and some of the scenic vistas and locales in the game synced up with what was burned into my minds eye after reading the books over the years. Pretty cool. I'm glad that the artistic inspiration was influenced from the books, and not the Jackson films. As a personal preference, I rather enjoyed the slower paced combat. The weapon swings seem to have mass instead of an aenemic 'swish' (like many in WoW) , and the 'specials' aren't so over the top and flashy that they obscure what is happening on the screen like EQ2; maybe it's just me but if I'm a warrior type, I should't have flames shooting out of my ass and every other orfice when I hit 'special 1'. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 16, 2007, 07:57:10 AM I love Falconeer. Now that Vanguard has launched and landed with the sickening thud that everyone but he and Geldon expected, he's seamlessly moved on to humping the leg of the next Diku on the release calendar. It sounds like LOTRO isn't a total pile of puke like Vanguard and will probably enjoy moderate success, but I still expect to see him doing his "It's better than WoW!!1!" dance yet again when Warhammer comes out. Are there doubts on the fact that Warhammer will be better than WoW? World of Warcraft is not a bad game, it's a very good one. It's just the most overhyped and overrated PoS of all times. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Ixxit on February 16, 2007, 08:03:41 AM I love Falconeer. Now that Vanguard has launched and landed with the sickening thud that everyone but he and Geldon expected, he's seamlessly moved on to humping the leg of the next Diku on the release calendar. It sounds like LOTRO isn't a total pile of puke like Vanguard and will probably enjoy moderate success, but I still expect to see him doing his "It's better than WoW!!1!" dance yet again when Warhammer comes out. So you scoff and he jizzes. What's wrong with that?? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Azazel on February 16, 2007, 08:04:27 AM Can we just cut to the chase here. How many people think that this is a good game that will garner more than a niche number of subscriptions? It's a decently made game that has a look that appeals to those turned off by WoW's cartoonish graphics. That's about it. I rarely make predictions (because I'm bad at it) but If this game tops 400k subs, I'll be genuinely shocked. Let's not forget that: 1) 400k subs is actually quite a lot by the old reckoning. 2) WoW's US numbers aren't the oft-quoted 8.5million. WoW's US numbers also include all of Oceana (Aust/NZ) as well as any number of Asian and European players that just aren't playing according to Blizz' regional rules. Will Warhammer be better than WoW? It's much MUCH more PVP-centric. That's a dealbreaker or dealmaker for a lot of people right there. Is the IP well-known enough to make a large impact? I honestly couldn't answer that, as I've been a Warhammer guy for 20 years now, so my perspective on that is different to most gamers'. And of course, all game devs talk a good game. There's enough doubts right there. Let's see what it's like when it comes out, or at least into Beta.. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 16, 2007, 08:07:54 AM I rarely make predictions (because I'm bad at it) but If this game tops 400k subs, I'll be genuinely shocked. It will break a million easy unless Turbine do something stupid like another balance pass. They killed AC2 with nerfs and broken chat, you would think they would learn. If 40% of your players are playing hunters, make the other classes more fun, the hunters aren't the problem, the other classes are. You would think the mobs have a union or something "We are striking unless you nerf Hunters". A few patches ago Guardians had a frontal AOE combat skill that delivered two swipes for a total of about eight times normal damage. It had a short cooldown, the combat was fun, sure it was a bit broken but as it was an AOE skill, it was in your interest to pull more mobs, so more got hit. Combat was fun and dangerous. They fixed it by nerfing the damage. I think they could improve combat overall by reducing the time needed to kill something but I have no clue what they actually will do. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on February 16, 2007, 08:08:10 AM Let's not forget that: 1) 400k subs is actually quite a lot by the old reckoning. 2) WoW's US numbers aren't the oft-quoted 8.5million. WoW's US numbers also include all of Oceana (Aust/NZ) as well as any number of Asian and European players that just aren't playing according to Blizz' regional rules. Let's also not forget that the games of the old reckoning didn't have $50 million plus budgets. The ante has been raised and major development houses need a significant following in order to stay liquid. As far as I last heard, I believed that the US numbers for WoW were on the order of 1.5 million. Maybe I'm mistaken on that figure. As for WAR, it's a game we shouldn't compare to WoW. It's a different game built with a different focus for a different crowd. Will it be a good game? I hope so... it's been a long time since a good game has come out. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Modern Angel on February 16, 2007, 08:14:22 AM My final verdict is that it's a very good game but I've no incentive to leave a level 70 behind to start all over. I like it. I might buy it and play it for a few months as my back up game (I should be getting a little weary waiting for Zul Aman at about release time) but it's not going to be my main game. It's just not different enough. For me. YMMV.
I did love the Shire though. One of the best crafted zones I've ever run across in one of these games. Fuck, now I sort of want to play it since I thought about Tibby Tibberton, hobbit burglar extraordinnaire. See what you did? Anything interesting happen in beta2? I got a corrupt file repeatedly on my redownload of the client and it sort of coincided with this whole Burning Crusade thing. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Morat20 on February 16, 2007, 09:45:40 AM I am torn on this one. We will see how things go before live is official. I wonder if Blizzard -- should they actually do that -- would offer a deal for subs to both? (More like Station Pass than CoX's "You can play both for one sub fee"). Offhand, Blizzard doesn't have to -- they'd probably get a zillion people paying full subs to both. On the other hand, Blizzard likes the positive PR -- "Play both for just 5 dollars more" would make a lot of people happier, and thus more likely to buy it.And the word on the street is "Keep an eye out for Starcraft MMO announcement in the next couple months." Just a rumor, but ya know... Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Soukyan on February 16, 2007, 10:20:45 AM If they can break the subscription numbers of AC1 and maintain that, then the game will be considered a success and will be sustainable. If not, then it will die a similar death as AC2. The feeling of exploring the world reminds me of AC2. I like the look and feel of wandering about. To compare it to WoW is not a good idea as those who currently subscribe to WoW are not going to leave for it in the same way that EQ1 players were not going to leave for DAoC when they were still addicted to/having fun in the former game. When WoW players get bored, they may check out LoTRO, but I don't think Turbine is banking on stealing many/any of the WoW playerbase. Yada yada yada... long story short, it needs to get and maintain 250k or more subscriptions to stay alive. It will do that, other MMOGs will continue to be released, life will go on. None of them are winning Nobel prizes or even bridging the gap between reality and virtual reality. The Wii controller does more to move closer to interaction in a virtual world than MMOGs do. Not that that is the goal of an MMOG... just sayin'. ;)
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: shiznitz on February 16, 2007, 10:47:08 AM I find it difficult to believe, but it appears there's been another major Guardian nerf, that's about the fourth since september. Just in case anyone read my post above, where I said I had fun playing this for three months. Keep in mind when making a decision to buy or not, that Turbine now thinks I was playing an overpowered class. :roll: If everyone is soloing to 20, what does overpowered actually mean? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 16, 2007, 11:06:43 AM I am torn on this one. We will see how things go before live is official. And the word on the street is "Keep an eye out for Starcraft MMO announcement in the next couple months." Just a rumor, but ya know... As much as I hate it, Blizzard and Vivendi would be FOOLS not to try to make a Starcraft MMO. After WoW, the business plan just fucking writes itself. Starcraft Fanatics + Blizzard Polish + Wodges of WoW Cash for Development = PROFIT! Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: eldaec on February 16, 2007, 11:10:21 AM I am torn on this one. We will see how things go before live is official. And the word on the street is "Keep an eye out for Starcraft MMO announcement in the next couple months." Just a rumor, but ya know... As much as I hate it, Blizzard and Vivendi would be FOOLS not to try to make a Starcraft MMO. After WoW, the business plan just fucking writes itself. Starcraft Fanatics + Blizzard Polish + Wodges of WoW Cash for Development = PROFIT! This is also why Mythic should have made WAR40k first. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 16, 2007, 11:11:20 AM I'm not sure what you mean by "offers you way more", since once stripped down past the graphics, both games are essentially the same thing, only with one of the two having done it better. Exactly, what's done better in WoW? Combat. Combat combat combat. The actual visceral feeling of hitting a specials key is more engaging in WoW than it is in LotRO. It's really that simple. It's the most basic interaction a diku-based MMOG can provide and if that part isn't working right, nothing else matters. LotRO's combat felt the same as DDO and Matrix Online, like I was watching the action instead of performing it. I don't think it's any surprise that I felt the exact same way about DDO's combat and that they were both done by the same house. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 16, 2007, 11:21:51 AM I rarely make predictions (because I'm bad at it) but If this game tops 400k subs, I'll be genuinely shocked. It will break a million easy unless Turbine do something stupid like another balance pass. I have no idea where you got such a crazy notion. Western MMOG's have exactly 1 million sub game, and that's WoW. The closest to that number (that we know of) has been Final Fantasy, and that's a 2 platform game built on a HUGE video game license. EQ1 never even hit 500k subs. There are WAY WAY WAY too many MMOG's in addition to WoW for this game to break a million. I'm comfortable in predicting that if this game has over 100k subscribers after the 2nd month, I'll eat my words and post an apology to Cal. The market is big enough, but even with the Tolkien license, this game isn't going to get a million subs, or even 400k. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Rasix on February 16, 2007, 11:45:00 AM This game is good enough to get 350K even with the faults I find in it. And unlike SWG it'll actually hold them for a while. It's a quality release from Turbine, something that honestly they never pulled off with the AC franchise. I don't honestly know enough about DDO to say what shape it shipped in.
Is 350K enough? I don't know, I'm not their accountant. But remember, they said from the beginning they were aiming straight at WoW and looking to be a serious contender. I'm assuming that came with a budget to match. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Furiously on February 16, 2007, 12:11:37 PM The game isn't good/different enough to pull people away from WOW. They might get 100K subs of fans.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WindupAtheist on February 16, 2007, 12:16:41 PM It's got a desirable IP and the execution is apparently not a total buttfuck. Be real, Haemish, it'll do well over 100k easily. I mean Christ, even UO and DAoC were still doing more than that last time I heard. (Ok, last time Bruce updated his chart. Sue me.) 350k with decent retention sounds reasonable.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 16, 2007, 12:28:12 PM Where is it going to get 350k from? Fans of the LotRO movies? That's 2 years too late. WoW? Just released an expansion with more than 3 months worth of content for most, and most of what I'm hearing says BC does not suck. VG? Not even 100k in that boat. DAoC? If you're still playing it, you're not likely to leave for a mostly PVE game. Tolkien fans? You run into the same problem SWG did, not all Tolkien fans are computer game fans, and less of those are MMOG fans. Turbine fans or cast offs from other Turbine games? Not going to be a lot of them.
I'd say 100k is a reasonable number. If an MMOG can't be profitable with 100k paying subs, THEY DID IT WRONG. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 16, 2007, 12:37:48 PM I find it difficult to believe, but it appears there's been another major Guardian nerf, that's about the fourth since september. Just in case anyone read my post above, where I said I had fun playing this for three months. Keep in mind when making a decision to buy or not, that Turbine now thinks I was playing an overpowered class. :roll: If everyone is soloing to 20, what does overpowered actually mean? I'm not exactly sure what you are asking. I think Turbine thought Guardians were too powerful (a dev commented that Guardians were fine as they were the 3rd most played class, shortly after the last major nerfage) and that their tanking ability was too powerful. I'd agree tanking was out of whack, holding aggro was far too easy. But the deeper issue was that they appeared to be balancing classes based (in large part) on how many people of a class were above a certain level, due to the offhand dev comment. Now clearly I have no inside knowledge of what's going on, but lets say for the following example we ignore the obvious balance issues of class A can kill 10 mobs in 10 minutes and class B can kill 30 mobs in 10 minutes, those should be easy enough to identify, right? Say we have five classes and class "Wibble" has more higher level players than the other four, you might easily think that Wibble's are overpowered but it might just be that being a Wibble is fun, so the players are spending longer playing and therefore leveling up more. In that case nerfing Wibble is bad because the game becomes less fun. Haemish, LOTRO just needs to beat EQ's top figure to get gamers talking about it (that's 450k right?), the tv people are going to go apeshit with free publicity Hobbits are cute, it's an ip designed for the feed good spot at the end of the news. I don't know about the US, but the tv over here can't shut up about 2nd life at the minute. Sure they might fuck it up, but yeah I say 1 million worldwide is easy if they aren't entirely brain dead. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: shiznitz on February 16, 2007, 12:54:03 PM I meant what you ended up writing, but I failed at sarcasm. Lots of people were playing the class and having fun so something must be wrong.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 16, 2007, 01:05:33 PM Where is it going to get 350k from? Fans of the LotRO movies? That's 2 years too late. WoW? Just released an expansion with more than 3 months worth of content for most, and most of what I'm hearing says BC does not suck. VG? Not even 100k in that boat. DAoC? If you're still playing it, you're not likely to leave for a mostly PVE game. Tolkien fans? You run into the same problem SWG did, not all Tolkien fans are computer game fans, and less of those are MMOG fans. Turbine fans or cast offs from other Turbine games? Not going to be a lot of them. I'd say 100k is a reasonable number. If an MMOG can't be profitable with 100k paying subs, THEY DID IT WRONG. If anything, WoW demonstrated that there are plenty of people out there who may jump into the genre for the first time if they find the right carrort to lure them in. I don't think looking solely at existing MMO players as the source of subs is necessarily apt. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 16, 2007, 01:22:31 PM WoW's success is too unique to compare. First off, WoW's entire IP was built on video games, so in essence, fans of the IP were already video gamers. There have been what 3-5 actual Tolkien IP games before, none of which were huge hits? People who don't normally play video games don't also want to pay $10-$15/month to play a Tolkien-based video game, whereas Warcraft fans ALL play computer games.
Once WoW's intial success was so large, it was inevitable that it would gain that many more subscribers (unless it was a clusterfuck) because of the "my friends are playing" factor. This game is not so startingly good that it will overcome a lot of the drawbacks that are built into the subscription-based game. It's a decent game, but EQ1 levels of success? That's crazy talk, you ask me. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Afropuff on February 16, 2007, 01:25:16 PM I meant what you ended up writing, but I failed at sarcasm. Lots of people were playing the class and having fun so something must be wrong. That's because it wasn't in green. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Afropuff on February 16, 2007, 01:32:49 PM WoW's success is too unique to compare. First off, WoW's entire IP was built on video games, so in essence, fans of the IP were already video gamers. There have been what 3-5 actual Tolkien IP games before, none of which were huge hits? People who don't normally play video games don't also want to pay $10-$15/month to play a Tolkien-based video game, whereas Warcraft fans ALL play computer games. MMO developers continue to look for IP that's transcendent - that random Joe will play despite not being a gamer. Really, I'm wondering if there will come a point when studios will give up on trying to hit the home run that way.Once WoW's intial success was so large, it was inevitable that it would gain that many more subscribers (unless it was a clusterfuck) because of the "my friends are playing" factor. This game is not so startingly good that it will overcome a lot of the drawbacks that are built into the subscription-based game. It's a decent game, but EQ1 levels of success? That's crazy talk, you ask me. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 16, 2007, 01:35:41 PM As far as predictions go, we have those carved in stone (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8995.0) (What about sticking that thread?).
I'll save you the effort of clicking a link and I'll copy here the LoTRO ones, for December 2007 and December 2008. December 2007 Lord of the Rings Online Shapechanger: 800k Simond: 500k Darniaq: 400k Endie: 300k Modern Angel: 300k Lantyssa: 300k Xuri: 300k Trouble: 300k Evangolis: 220k HRose: 200k Merusk: 200k Falconeer: 200k Stray: 200k Angry.bob: 200k Eldaec: 150k Strazos: 132k Waylander: 125k Sairon: 100k HaemishM: 100k Geldonyetich: 100k Unsub: 100k Soln: 100k Damijin: 80k Datagod: 54k Comstar: 50k Andar: 20k WindUpAtheist: - Riggswolfe: - December 2008 Lord of the Rings Online Shapechanger: 550k Angry.bob: 500k Modern Angel: 400k Simond: 350k Trouble: 300k Evangolis: 250k Darniaq: 200k Lantyssa: 200k Xuri: 200k Falconeer: 150k Cheddar: 140k Strazos: 103k HRose: 100k Unsub: 100k Soln: 100k WindUpAtheist: 90k Sairon: 80k Waylander: 75k Eldaec: 50k Damijin: 50k HaemishM: 50k Stray: 40k Datagod: 35k Comstar: 30k Arthur Parker: - Riggswolfe: - Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 16, 2007, 01:37:27 PM WoW's success is too unique to compare. First off, WoW's entire IP was built on video games, so in essence, fans of the IP were already video gamers. There have been what 3-5 actual Tolkien IP games before, none of which were huge hits? People who don't normally play video games don't also want to pay $10-$15/month to play a Tolkien-based video game, whereas Warcraft fans ALL play computer games. Once WoW's intial success was so large, it was inevitable that it would gain that many more subscribers (unless it was a clusterfuck) because of the "my friends are playing" factor. This game is not so startingly good that it will overcome a lot of the drawbacks that are built into the subscription-based game. It's a decent game, but EQ1 levels of success? That's crazy talk, you ask me. I have learned that making assumptions about the possible success of a game based on a perceived willingness of potential users to pay the fee is asking to be wrong. I'd agree that most Warcraft fans were already gamers, but I also know plenty of those types of gamers who said they'd never play an MMO. Eventually, they did. Look at DDO. People thought that it would capture a lot of the PnP players, but it didn't. I really think that LoTRO can do quite well -- EQ1 numbers are very attainable, and it has nothing to do with the propensity of Lord of the Rings fans to start gaming. I think that as the number of pedestrian titles increases, you'll see more new players. WoW obviously did that, and I don't see how a WoW-too type game can't do the same. Keep in mind that the potential audience ISN'T jaded, experienced MMO gamers. Many of the criticisms of the game that are being bandied about are based on significant experience with MMO titles. Some of them are being made by people so sufficiently jaded by MMOs that they have a 30-minute rule. ;) Maybe I'll be wrong, but I think your prediction of 100k at best is rather low. I also think Arthur_Parker's prediction of one million is rather high. 450k? Sure. Will it be all at once? No. But hey, even EQ1 took time to build up to its peak. That's why it was a peak. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: shiznitz on February 16, 2007, 02:02:19 PM Why would DDO attract PvP players, even theoretically? I thought it was pure instanced PvE.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 16, 2007, 02:03:26 PM WoW's success is based on it having been based on a game-IP, offered by a company reknowned for making fun polished games that capitalize on established success ("derivation", the nice way), with a bottomless pit of cash, and with an instant worldwide reach (they chose their staggered launch).
LoTRO is standard diku with a father-of-all-IP from a company who's only success is for a game 95% of the genre hasn't played. LoTRO will capture many in the genre already. But them pulling in new players is incremental at best. Can't remember where I said this so I'll just offer it up again: people interested in persistent worlds based on Tolkien lore are, by and large, already here playing the same game system. Every fantasy-based MMO since UO has roots in LoTR. There'll be new ones because of the cache the name has, but I really don't think there are that many left who a) love LoTR; and, b) have been specifically waiting for an MMO set in that world. Thanks for pulling up the predictions Falc! Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Jayce on February 16, 2007, 02:14:49 PM Why would DDO attract PvP players, even theoretically? I thought it was pure instanced PvE. PnP (Pen & Paper), not PvP. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 16, 2007, 02:26:04 PM Falconeer, I didn't like to predict figures for LOTRO as I was in the Beta under NDA, and me saying 1 million after hating DDO would have looked a bit weird.
So I'll give mine now if you don't object. LOTRO December 2007 1 million LOTRO December 2008 1.5 million Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 16, 2007, 03:10:50 PM Falconeer, I didn't like to predict figures for LOTRO as I was in the Beta under NDA, and me saying 1 million after hating DDO would have looked a bit weird. So I'll give mine now if you don't object. LOTRO December 2007 1 million LOTRO December 2008 1.5 million On one hand, I really hope that you're right. On the other, I have to ask, is this based entirely on the WoW-too gameplay and license? Is it the license alone? Based on your other posts, you're not buying the game (at launch at least), so what about it will grab others that hasn't grabbed you? I'm putting my money on 450k subs, so where are the other 1.15 million subs coming from? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on February 16, 2007, 03:31:15 PM put me down for 400K please. I really don't think everyone is married to WoW and quite a few of the non raiders will gamble 50 bucks just to see if they like it. Some will stay and some will not, some of the ones that do stay will jump ship when AoC and or WAR release if they are decent.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: squirrel on February 16, 2007, 03:33:39 PM Well I hope it's successful. I enjoyed my time in beta - although personally the combat (I found it slow) and the lack of class diversity outweighed the interesting storyline efforts and lore. But it's a good solid game and should appeal to a pretty broad player base I would think.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 16, 2007, 04:11:55 PM put me down for 400K please. I really don't think everyone is married to WoW and quite a few of the non raiders will gamble 50 bucks just to see if they like it. Some will stay and some will not, some of the ones that do stay will jump ship when AoC and or WAR release if they are decent. Ok, this is where I think numbers get fuzzy. Are we talking continuing subs or initial box sales? Are we talking initial box sales that convert to accounts or those plus later buyers? I assume that WoW reports its numbers based on continuing subs and however they figure the math with Asian PC cafes. Maybe they're doing Second Life fuzzy math and nobody has caught them. I highly doubt that because, well, I don't have a tinfoil hat. So what are we claiming when we put forth our numbers? Are we claiming "time to grow" numbers like WoW, which started out strong and then exploded as it launched in various regions? What's the real metric we're predicting? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nija on February 16, 2007, 04:22:42 PM I'll say about 75k in Dec '07 - a lot of people will start and quit after the free month. A couple bad patches, (Turbine) a couple of delayed fixes and we're looking at 125k in Dec '08.
They will probably sell a lot of boxes but I don't see them holding on to players for very long. Maybe an average account lifespan of 3 months, unless they have some clever pricing. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 16, 2007, 04:24:09 PM My number is based on the peak achieved for 2007 and for 2008.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Margalis on February 16, 2007, 04:34:32 PM About IP as a draw, I recently saw a list of top 100 selling games last year.
There was a lot of IP based stuff, but much of it was for kids. Cars was the #1 selling IP-based game IIRC, and Bratz was up there too. MMORPGs are not aimed at the Bratz crowd. People willing to endure the complexities of a MMORPG along with the monthly fee are at least slightly more sophisticated. I would also point out that something like Cars appears kid-friendly, something parents have heard of and trust to some degree. That isn't a concern in the MMORPG world. I would say the more sophisticated the game is, the more sophisticated the audience it attracts, the less the IP matters. Older, wiser gamers know that IP is irrelevant to the final product. In the case of Blizzard I don't think the IP is what makes WOW sell in the same sense it helps Bratz sell. Blizzard has a reputation for quality, and the previous Warcraft games have been good. It isn't the lore, the characters, the setting - it is the quality. I'll play a Zelda or Metroid game because Zelda and Metroid are usually good - not because I love Link and Samus. (Although I do love Samus) I know I'll be entertained. LOTR IP doesn't carry that sort of promise. Neither does D&D. Or Star Wars for that matter. Those IPs still provide name recognition and will attract die-hard fans, but they don't carry nearly the same weight as IP tied to quality products. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 16, 2007, 04:40:56 PM Quote I would also point out that something like Cars appears kid-friendly, something parents have heard of and trust to some degree. That isn't a concern in the MMORPG world. The makers of ToonTown called, they'd like to take exception with that. Moreover, as social networking sites and social games increase in popularity, I think you'll see more dev houses interested in MMO titles geared towards kids. Keep in mind that kids are the people that range from infant to eighteen. Thirteen if you want to take various kid-protector legislation into account. Sure, there are a ton of games for kids on the top 100 list. That should be an indicator that we'll see more of them in the future, even in the MMO space, not hte opposite. Assuming that MMOs are the last bastion of serious gamers or whatever is essentially waiting to go the way of the dodo, IMO. ETA -- Quote I would say the more sophisticated the game is, the more sophisticated the audience it attracts, the less the IP matters. Older, wiser gamers know that IP is irrelevant to the final product. It turns out that games aren't entiirely made for that crowd. It's a good thing too or else the jaded older gamer crowd would dictate what gets made. Based on the input here, that'd end up being "not much." Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: stray on February 16, 2007, 04:56:44 PM WoW killers:
Pokemon Desperate Housewives Online Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Morat20 on February 16, 2007, 05:48:38 PM WoW killers: If a Pokemon MMORPG came out, my kid would drive me up the wall until he got it. Why one doesn't exist is beyond me. PvE is wandering around, catching monsters and fighting Team Rocket and Team Whatevers, and earning badges. Pokemon PvP? Pokemon duels, of course. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: stray on February 16, 2007, 05:57:03 PM Why one doesn't exist is beyond me. Because Nintendo hasn't gotten their head out of their asses as far as online strategies go. Even for small multiplayer games. Just a matter of time though.. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Azazel on February 16, 2007, 07:56:11 PM Falconeer, I didn't like to predict figures for LOTRO as I was in the Beta under NDA, and me saying 1 million after hating DDO would have looked a bit weird. So I'll give mine now if you don't object. LOTRO December 2007 1 million LOTRO December 2008 1.5 million On one hand, I really hope that you're right. On the other, I have to ask, is this based entirely on the WoW-too gameplay and license? Is it the license alone? Based on your other posts, you're not buying the game (at launch at least), so what about it will grab others that hasn't grabbed you? I'm putting my money on 450k subs, so where are the other 1.15 million subs coming from? I think people predicting 1m or therabouts are all basing it off the "well WoW has 8m, so this can have 1m, surely!" theorum, which is inherently flawed since WoW's Western playerbase is much smaller than that, and the US base is even smaller again (and also includes ALL of the Aust/NZ players, and I believe I read something about 170k Aussie players a year or so ago.) People are also not really taking note that there are a lot of MMOGs being released with increasing frequency, and most of us fuckers tend to play one ot two of these games at most. The marketspace is getting more and more crowded. My own predictions are more like 100-150k by december, and a steady peak of around 300-500k once it hits critical mass. I see it outperforming EQ/2, but not by a whole lot. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Margalis on February 16, 2007, 10:01:19 PM The makers of ToonTown called, they'd like to take exception with that. Moreover, as social networking sites and social games increase in popularity, I think you'll see more dev houses interested in MMO titles geared towards kids. You are correct. My unstated assumption was that the game was aimed at a more mature crowd, which I think is the case in LOTRO. The more casual the player and the younger the player, the more the IP can draw even if it doesn't have any quality games associated with it. The older and more hardcore the player, the more IP only matters when tied to previous quality releases. That said, for most MMOs IP may help box sales but probably won't retain subs. I'm also ignoring things like the NFL license as IP, as that is a fairly separate beast. A lot of gamers simply wouldn't touch an unlicensed sports game. Edit: "If only x% of WOW players play our game we'll be rich" is Vanguard logic - look how that is working out. Pets.com founder: "If only 1% of pet owners use our site we'll be rich!!!" At EQ2 levels or up to 60% higher or so sounds right to me. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: stray on February 16, 2007, 10:15:06 PM Pets.com founder: "If only 1% of pet owners use our site we'll be rich!!!" Heh. Almost reminds me of this bit: Link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48TR0vUPQCs) "What's this section here...? That's our target market." Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Trippy on February 16, 2007, 10:21:51 PM Falconeer, I didn't like to predict figures for LOTRO as I was in the Beta under NDA, and me saying 1 million after hating DDO would have looked a bit weird. There's no way that LotRO is going to hit a million unless they are planning on a massive international rollout of the game localized into different languages akin to what Blizzard did with WoW. If they are, then they have a chance. And that holds true for any NA or Euro-developed MMORPG -- if those games want to break 1 million they have to plan on being an international grame from the start (it can't be an afterthought like EQ and EQII). Asia is it's own separate world and MMORPGs over there can break a million easy with just Asian customers.So I'll give mine now if you don't object. LOTRO December 2007 1 million LOTRO December 2008 1.5 million Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Trippy on February 16, 2007, 10:31:18 PM Are there doubts on the fact that Warhammer will be better than WoW? How can a "very good" game be a "PoS" at the same time?World of Warcraft is not a bad game, it's a very good one. It's just the most overhyped and overrated PoS of all times. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Margalis on February 16, 2007, 11:02:14 PM Like I said before, whatever Falconeer says to play, play the opposite. :evil:
Quote Are there doubts on the fact that Warhammer will be better than WoW? Is that a serious question? Any new MMORPG is going to be surrounded by those doubts, for obvious reason. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Cheddar on February 16, 2007, 11:41:31 PM I stand by my prediction.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 17, 2007, 01:54:40 AM Falconeer, I didn't like to predict figures for LOTRO as I was in the Beta under NDA, and me saying 1 million after hating DDO would have looked a bit weird. So I'll give mine now if you don't object. LOTRO December 2007 1 million LOTRO December 2008 1.5 million On one hand, I really hope that you're right. On the other, I have to ask, is this based entirely on the WoW-too gameplay and license? Is it the license alone? Based on your other posts, you're not buying the game (at launch at least), so what about it will grab others that hasn't grabbed you? I'm putting my money on 450k subs, so where are the other 1.15 million subs coming from? I think people predicting 1m or therabouts are all basing it off the "well WoW has 8m, so this can have 1m, surely!" theorum, which is inherently flawed since WoW's Western playerbase is much smaller than that, and the US base is even smaller again (and also includes ALL of the Aust/NZ players, and I believe I read something about 170k Aussie players a year or so ago.) People are also not really taking note that there are a lot of MMOGs being released with increasing frequency, and most of us fuckers tend to play one ot two of these games at most. The marketspace is getting more and more crowded. My own predictions are more like 100-150k by december, and a steady peak of around 300-500k once it hits critical mass. I see it outperforming EQ/2, but not by a whole lot. It's going to have an Asian release probably with Shanda, Moria is going to be the first expansion, it's in their interested to get the expansion out soon to get more money from the people who signed up for a lifetime pass. The lifetime pass is genius they get you as a customer for life, they can count you whenever they need to say how well they are doing, you pay your money up front and never have to worry about your characters disappearing, there's no hassel to resubscribe. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Margalis on February 17, 2007, 02:27:30 AM Expansion talks already?
Game isn't even out yet! Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on February 17, 2007, 03:19:57 AM I wonder how well it will do in Asia. BTW in one of my earlier posts when I said 'like it or not it will succeed' it was meant in the context of "whether you like the game or not it will succeed" not in the the context of anyone wanting it to fail. My 400 K prediciton is six months after release to clarify.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 17, 2007, 03:24:55 AM Are there doubts on the fact that Warhammer will be better than WoW? How can a "very good" game be a "PoS" at the same time?World of Warcraft is not a bad game, it's a very good one. It's just the most overhyped and overrated PoS of all times. It has lots of qualities and lots of flaws to me, and it's obviously one of the most loved/hated iteration of a very questionable gaming genre. To me every new iteration of EverQuest is technically a PoS: autoattack, specials, loot. Hello 1998 (and before). You know featureless unworldly diku = PoS (Shadowbane wasn't PoS on Paper, UO isn't, SWG wasn't, even Lineage 2 could be NOT a PoS [but it is after all]. Some because they aren't dikus, some because they added stuff on that). But they can be a nice and fun or entertaining and addictive PoSs. That's the case of WoW, that is actually the most overrated to me (and yes.. LoTRO is a PoS and Vanguard is too. It could be different with all the promised features, but as of now it's definitely a PoS, although an underrated one). And Margalis, the only games I would suggest you or anyone else to play are Disgaea, M.U.L.E., Mars Saga, One on One (the one with Dr. J and Larry Bird), Soul Calibur, AD&D Treasure of Tarmin, Half Life, Wasteland, Ultima Online, Elite, Phantasy Star 2, Utopia, Zak McKracken, Victorious Boxer, Monaco Gp, Genesis/Megadrive EA NHL Hockey up to 1993, Laser Squad and Jagged Alliance 2 and a few others probably XX Century anyway. Oh and any SI's Championship Manager if you can stand text football. The rest is just me trying to survive in a world of various degrees of uninspired videogames. Definitely NOT suggestions. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Trippy on February 17, 2007, 03:57:25 AM Falconeer, I didn't like to predict figures for LOTRO as I was in the Beta under NDA, and me saying 1 million after hating DDO would have looked a bit weird. So I'll give mine now if you don't object. LOTRO December 2007 1 million LOTRO December 2008 1.5 million On one hand, I really hope that you're right. On the other, I have to ask, is this based entirely on the WoW-too gameplay and license? Is it the license alone? Based on your other posts, you're not buying the game (at launch at least), so what about it will grab others that hasn't grabbed you? I'm putting my money on 450k subs, so where are the other 1.15 million subs coming from? I think people predicting 1m or therabouts are all basing it off the "well WoW has 8m, so this can have 1m, surely!" theorum, which is inherently flawed since WoW's Western playerbase is much smaller than that, and the US base is even smaller again (and also includes ALL of the Aust/NZ players, and I believe I read something about 170k Aussie players a year or so ago.) People are also not really taking note that there are a lot of MMOGs being released with increasing frequency, and most of us fuckers tend to play one ot two of these games at most. The marketspace is getting more and more crowded. My own predictions are more like 100-150k by december, and a steady peak of around 300-500k once it hits critical mass. I see it outperforming EQ/2, but not by a whole lot. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 17, 2007, 05:14:59 AM Seems like Blizzard and Webzen tied up The9 for a time (they agreed to $35mil for Huxley alone).
Quote from: Margalis MMORPGs are not aimed at the Bratz crowd. Not LoTRO or the stuff we talk about here, no. But Club Penguin and Runescape hit that market square-on (and are much more successful than ToonTown, which does also hit them), explaining their successes. Maplestory scales to that level though is more successful because of the breadth of age groups it hits.Quote Expansion talks already? They need to, for two reasons 1) It's Turbine. People really still think Turbine's success is based on their ongoing story-stuff/expansions, thinking what they did 7 years ago in AC1 still applies to current-state Turbine; and, 2) You don't start working on your expansion only after your launch numbers come in. You need to know how big your live development team needs to be before launch to project how much money you need after launch to pay them. And guesstimating team size is based on projected workload (as you know).Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Soln on February 17, 2007, 06:19:21 AM I stil hold by what I also said in that prediction thread:
1. new games with lots of hype not being stable or complete for most of their first years 2. WoW capping by 2008 3. some games like LOTRO getting their act together well after launch and then taking off. If LotRO actually launches well, stays stable technically, has a growing or at least a stable community and actually provides an expansion or two, then it will "take off". I didn't know how stable the game seemed to be already. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WindupAtheist on February 17, 2007, 06:32:23 AM As far as predictions go, we have those carved in stone (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8995.0) (What about sticking that thread?). I'll save you the effort of clicking a link and I'll copy here the LoTRO ones, for December 2007 and December 2008. December 2007 Lord of the Rings Online WindUpAtheist: - December 2008 Lord of the Rings Online WindUpAtheist: 90k Huh? I just double-checked the thread in question, and I never made any prediction about LOTRO at all since it was still under NDA and I had no idea whether it was a shitpile or not. Just put me down for 300k for 12/07 and 350k for 12/08. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 17, 2007, 07:07:40 AM Also, there's no point in rushing out an expansion to please the lifetime members -- they already have all the subscription money they are ever going to get from those people. No that's not what I meant, I have no clue what the time scale for the first expansion is but rushing it would be a very bad idea, I'd expect them to aim for 12 months but they might by tempted to go for the xmas market. I believe lifetime members never have to pay a monthly subscription, but will have to buy the expansion if they want to use the added content. Therefore in a game with some (say 15%) of your customers freeloading by being lifetime customers, it becomes even more important to release expansions to get some money from them. I think a lot of WoW's success is down to being solo friendly pre cap, LOTRO is copying that. I also think one of the main problems with WoW is how horrible forced raiding is, hence the reason the raid size has been cut to 20 in WoW. But I don't expect LOTRO to try to compete with WoW for raid content, I think they will end up expanding monster play as their main end game content. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 17, 2007, 07:21:38 AM Huh? I just double-checked the thread in question, and I never made any prediction about LOTRO at all since it was still under NDA and I had no idea whether it was a shitpile or not. Just put me down for 300k for 12/07 and 350k for 12/08. You did it HERE (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8501.msg237105#msg237105). In the thread that sprung the official one. November 2006. Vanguard: 150,000 - Those icky crazy EQ catasses do exist, just not in as great a number as Brad wishes. Lord of the Rings: 90,000 - The D&D brand didn't help Turbine much, and neither will this one. PoTBS: 40,000 - Still smells like an indie shitpile to me. Warhammer: 300,000 - I'm being optimistic. Being just a non-Blizzard WoW is asking to get owned. Then again, even if it gets written off as a WoW-clone, at least it's a clone of something people like. And Mythic at least isn't a bunch of fuckups. Conan: 150,000 - Some novel features and gore should get them to this point. Warcraft: 9,000,000 - Get real, haters, the subs on this game are only going to go up for a couple more years. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on February 17, 2007, 07:23:37 AM I didn't know how stable the game seemed to be already. It is fairly stable in my opinion, it's not a perfect 10 by any means I would say more around a 9 to 9.5 lately. This morning the client locked up leaving the Prancing Pony instance. Most of the server problems have occurred during time when they are intentionally trying to break them, and shortly after the mail system was introduced, which they fixed a couple of patches later. In a normal 3 to 4 hour session I rarely have anything more than a few hiccups in loading data from the hard drive. The hiccups has improved drastically in the last two patches, however out of the blue even out in the boonies soloing during prime time I will get a occasional 5 second WTF where it seemed as if I am not getting any data downstream. I have not noticed that in the last two nights however. Some people were complaining of memory leaks, however I have honestly never seen one on my machine, possibly because I run Cacheman in the background, and those threads seemed to have died a peaceful death so that must have been fixed now Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on February 17, 2007, 07:27:13 AM double post
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Trippy on February 17, 2007, 07:32:28 AM Also, there's no point in rushing out an expansion to please the lifetime members -- they already have all the subscription money they are ever going to get from those people. No that's not what I meant, I have no clue what the time scale for the first expansion is but rushing it would be a very bad idea, I'd expect them to aim for 12 months but they might by tempted to go for the xmas market. I believe lifetime members never have to pay a monthly subscription, but will have to buy the expansion if they want to use the added content. Therefore in a game with some (say 15%) of your customers freeloading by being lifetime customers, it becomes even more important to release expansions to get some money from them.Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on February 17, 2007, 07:44:47 AM to get the same 200 dollars from a regular subscriber at 15 dollars a month would take 13 months. I an not sure how that all plays into effect but you can pretty much bet the lifetime people will be buying all the expansion boxes unless Turbine manages to screw it up royally somehow after release
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WindupAtheist on February 17, 2007, 08:05:09 AM Oh well, fine, I'll stay in the <100k camp with Haemish. Whether it be 90k or 400k, we'll all be laughing at the people who are predicting a million-plus.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 17, 2007, 09:17:06 AM Okay I see what you are saying there but still, the best thing that can happen for Turbine is if all the lifetime subscribers stopped playing the game immediately after signing up for the lifetime subscription plan so while it's true that expansions will be the only form of future revenue Turbine will be able to get from those players (assuming Turbine doesn't turn LotRO into an RMT game) it's far better for them to tailor the expansions to the needs of the monthly players and basically just ignore the lifetime players. I think human nature being what it is, someone who has paid for a lifetime subscription will generally be more understanding and laid back than a monthly subscriber. If you pay monthly, it's in your interest to play as much as possible to get the best bang for your buck and therefore you will exhaust content faster and demand new content faster. Monthly subscribers also have the well known attitude of "I'm a paying customer do what I want now or else!". The future of the game and the well being of the company don't matter to a monthly subscriber after they have cancelled their subscription, they might be bitter about something but that's about it. I could be well off the mark in this but the way I see it, a lifetime subscriber will want the game to be popular and will want the game company to do well. They have an ongoing investment in the game and will possibly refuse to see things in a negative light for longer, because if they admit the game sucks then they made a bad investment and few people like to admit doing that, even to themselves. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: bhodi on February 17, 2007, 09:24:58 AM I could be well off the mark in this but the way I see it, a lifetime subscriber will want the game to be popular and will want the game company to do well. They have an ongoing investment in the game and will possibly refuse to see things in a negative light for longer, because if they admit the game sucks then they made a bad investment and few people like to admit doing that, even to themselves. A company using cognitive dissonance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance)? Pretty slick.Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sparky on February 17, 2007, 01:50:40 PM Well I finally got in to the beta and played a while. In a word: serviceable. It's a curious mix of the obviously cobbled together (subpar animation, all the trainers/vendors clumped together with apparently little thought and less finesse, dull button mashing combat which reminds me way too much of waiting for your specials to roll over in Horizons) and the well done (engaging quests that thread nicely into each other, lovely scenery, rock solid for a beta). As others have noted there're a few good ideas in there that others would do well to steal. It won't draw me away from WoW.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Phred on February 18, 2007, 02:24:00 AM The progressive zone restrictions based on your level I did not like - it's reminiscent of the invisible wall thing again of DDO - but nowhere near as obvious. What level restrictions? I havent played in a while but I ran a L10 all the way to Rivendale and beyond when I did play. The way mob agro works it's trivially easy to keep ahead of the mobs and not get owned. I really missed WoW's dazed effect there as imo it made the game too easy. Other things I disliked were rolling on stuff I or anyone in my party mined and the abysimally slow hp and power regen rates, even with food buffs. My overall impression was that it was an ok game but didn't really grab me. Class design seemed kind of meh too. No real hooks to get me interested in playing any of the classes. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Phred on February 18, 2007, 02:33:34 AM Quote Edit- For those that expect Elvish lore Nazis prepare for disappointment, in 4+ months of beta play I have not ran across any. However if I do I shall PM you their names so you can harass them with leet speak tells. All I know is that I accidentally said "LFG" and got all kinds of yelled at. Yeah, well, it's 'LFG... thou' if you are into the lore. Hound said what I would have if I had thought of it. It's very laid-back. WoW has that urgent tribal music or the general air of persecution, but LotRO is actually pretty relaxing. It's convenient that the landscape is pretty, too. Too bad about the avatars and loot, though, but it's a lot easier to patch that in than a graphical update. I got several "FOAD" tells for not saying LFF (looking for fellowship). I shit you not. It was friggin' ridiculous. Also, the people who freaked out over "duelling" so Turbine renamed it "sparring." Those same ppl got really pissed off when I pointed out the channel name was lfg as well. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on February 18, 2007, 03:53:02 AM The progressive zone restrictions based on your level I did not like - it's reminiscent of the invisible wall thing again of DDO - but nowhere near as obvious. What level restrictions? I havent played in a while but I ran a L10 all the way to Rivendale and beyond when I did play. The way mob agro works it's trivially easy to keep ahead of the mobs and not get owned. I really missed WoW's dazed effect there as imo it made the game too easy. Other things I disliked were rolling on stuff I or anyone in my party mined and the abysimally slow hp and power regen rates, even with food buffs. My overall impression was that it was an ok game but didn't really grab me. Class design seemed kind of meh too. No real hooks to get me interested in playing any of the classes. you're good dude. I got pwn'ed 3 times as a level 30 or 31 trying to make it into Rivendale the first time and that was trying to stick to the road and avoid mobs. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 19, 2007, 06:26:18 AM Oh well, fine, I'll stay in the <100k camp with Haemish. Whether it be 90k or 400k, we'll all be laughing at the people who are predicting a million-plus. Given that nobody predicted (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8995.0) a million-plus for either date, the comedy will be limited. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 19, 2007, 07:06:21 AM Oh well, fine, I'll stay in the <100k camp with Haemish. Whether it be 90k or 400k, we'll all be laughing at the people who are predicting a million-plus. Given that nobody predicted (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8995.0) a million-plus for either date, the comedy will be limited. Falconeer, I didn't like to predict figures for LOTRO as I was in the Beta under NDA, and me saying 1 million after hating DDO would have looked a bit weird. So I'll give mine now if you don't object. LOTRO December 2007 1 million LOTRO December 2008 1.5 million Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 19, 2007, 07:59:23 AM Oh well, fine, I'll stay in the <100k camp with Haemish. Whether it be 90k or 400k, we'll all be laughing at the people who are predicting a million-plus. Given that nobody predicted (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8995.0) a million-plus for either date, the comedy will be limited. Falconeer, I didn't like to predict figures for LOTRO as I was in the Beta under NDA, and me saying 1 million after hating DDO would have looked a bit weird. So I'll give mine now if you don't object. LOTRO December 2007 1 million LOTRO December 2008 1.5 million I thought Falconeer refused to take those figures from Arthur? My link was to the "absolutely final super competition" post. That said, if it tanks then Andar, for one (20k prediction?!?) can laugh at Arthur in a friendly, non-competitive manner. Edit: hohoho look at this spaz from that thread: World of Warcraft Endie: 4.1 millions Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 19, 2007, 08:04:05 AM Considering that the price for that competition is absolutely nothing, me accepting or refusing new bets is useless as a flashlight with exhausted batteries in a dark room.
I thought it was fair to shut the door at january 31st, and so I did. Predictions will carry on with the thread anyway, even if not "officially" ranked. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WindupAtheist on February 19, 2007, 09:00:21 AM I'm sure this has been asked elsewhere, but how hard of an Asian push is Warhammer getting?
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Yegolev on February 19, 2007, 09:05:06 AM Sounds filthy, keep me posted.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 19, 2007, 09:41:23 AM I think that as the number of pedestrian titles increases, you'll see more new players. WoW obviously did that, and I don't see how a WoW-too type game can't do the same. Because it isn't WoW. Warcraft/Blizzard had an installed base of rabid computer game playing fans, many of whom had played Diablo online. Lord of the Rings Online doesn't. The fact that it isn't a complete trainwreck is why I think 100k is a reasonable number, and should be considered a success. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 19, 2007, 10:20:53 AM I think that as the number of pedestrian titles increases, you'll see more new players. WoW obviously did that, and I don't see how a WoW-too type game can't do the same. Because it isn't WoW. Warcraft/Blizzard had an installed base of rabid computer game playing fans, many of whom had played Diablo online. Lord of the Rings Online doesn't. The fact that it isn't a complete trainwreck is why I think 100k is a reasonable number, and should be considered a success. It might not do the same numbers as WoW, and my prediction is in the 450k by Christmas ballpark. However, that 450k will largely be pulled from people new to the genre as well as people who come over and stay. I'm just as sick of dikus as the next jaded person who has been playing MMOs since 1999 or earlier. Heck, the fact that my experience in the EQ guide program didn't kill my love of MMOs entirely is testament to something. Not sure what, but it can't be good. The thing is that there's lots of folks out there who I don't think have the same background as the "older" posters at sites like this one. Those are the people they're making these games for. They hope to capture people like us, but if they designed games with the jaded old guard in mind, they'd not be making games. Basically, they're the ones who aren't totally sick of diku gameplay and they're the ones that are most important to capture because they bring new people with them. Our friends are already sick of us trying to lure them into MMOs. Those people's friends aren't as wary yet. Edit -- for some clarity, although this post still needs more. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 19, 2007, 10:47:51 AM Quote Edit- For those that expect Elvish lore Nazis prepare for disappointment, in 4+ months of beta play I have not ran across any. However if I do I shall PM you their names so you can harass them with leet speak tells. All I know is that I accidentally said "LFG" and got all kinds of yelled at. Yeah, well, it's 'LFG... thou' if you are into the lore. Hound said what I would have if I had thought of it. It's very laid-back. WoW has that urgent tribal music or the general air of persecution, but LotRO is actually pretty relaxing. It's convenient that the landscape is pretty, too. Too bad about the avatars and loot, though, but it's a lot easier to patch that in than a graphical update. I got several "FOAD" tells for not saying LFF (looking for fellowship). I shit you not. It was friggin' ridiculous. Also, the people who freaked out over "duelling" so Turbine renamed it "sparring." Those same ppl got really pissed off when I pointed out the channel name was lfg as well. 2 days old news. From the official update news of the LoTRO client: Quote Meneldor and Brandywine are now open! Until further notice, LFG will be disabled. :-o Are they serious or they just forgot to use /green? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 19, 2007, 11:09:56 AM Basically, they're the ones who aren't totally sick of diku gameplay and they're the ones that are most important to capture because they bring new people with them. Basically, the naive dumbass demographic. That is a large one. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 19, 2007, 12:30:15 PM The thing is that there's lots of folks out there who I don't think have the same background as the "older" posters at sites like this one. I personally think they're already here. And in WoW for the most part. That LoTRO borrows much of the conventions of WoW (which borrowed much itself) is a good thing to drag people a) to a new game; and, b) to a popular lore. And yea, because it says "Lord of the Rings" and because the artwork style they've been using in adverts mimics the Peter Jackson movie stuff, it should at least capture some not already in the genre.Those are the people they're making these games for. They hope to capture people like us, but if they designed games with the jaded old guard in mind, they'd not be making games. Basically, they're the ones who aren't totally sick of diku gameplay and they're the ones that are most important to capture because they bring new people with them. Our friends are already sick of us trying to lure them into MMOs. Those people's friends aren't as wary yet. But for the non-jaded MMO players out there (and here), there's already good dikus to be enjoyed. What new does LoTRO bring to the table? Aside from the EQ2-collections-thing-on-steroids and a view into Tolkien's world that looked better in the movies (no fault on Turbine's part, I think they've done a great job), not much. So to me it's not about being jaded about MMOs or dikus. It's about whether LoTRO has the appeal to pull people into a new time sink, and keep then. Pull, yes. Retain? Depends on how they tweak the gameplay in the coming months. It's just not that exciting. Solid, stable, servicable are all good qualities. But they don't pull and retain the attention for long, no matter the lore. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on February 19, 2007, 03:14:46 PM So to me it's not about being jaded about MMOs or dikus. It's about whether LoTRO has the appeal to pull people into a new time sink, and keep then. Pull, yes. Retain? Depends on how they tweak the gameplay in the coming months. It's just not that exciting. Solid, stable, servicable are all good qualities. But they don't pull and retain the attention for long, no matter the lore. Some good points. I predict two groups of customers. Fans of the PJ movies (not Tolkien scholars), and people who are on their 5th WoW/EQII alt and are ready for a change of pace. The game is hitting the best sellers lists at EB Games, Best Buy, and Amazon.com 8 weeks before release so it is already selling some boxes. The question is though can Turbine keep the players interested once they hit 50. The game is not appealing to old jaded farts who think that the next MMORPG down the line is going to come up with some magical new class or race or somehow make pushing a series of seven buttons challenging and somehow appealing again. I am going to purchase it simply because I am tired of EQII, never cared for the Warcraft world and think that watching TV after the wife goes to bed is about as much fun as a colon exam. Will I go back to EQII eventually, damn if I know. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on February 20, 2007, 02:55:54 AM This is the third part of the interviev to Lord British (http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/765/765698p3.html) about Tabula Rasa, but it's actually about the market.
I could put it in the Tabula Rasa thread, or in the Vanguard Thread, but I think it fits better here right now. Quote VE3D: Ultima Online is ten years old now this fall. That game has amazing longevity. With the current generation of MMOs, what are some of the things you feel need to be in Tabula Rasa in order for it to have a chance to enjoy the kind of longevity UO has had? Richard Garriott: Let me back up and tell you how I feel about this whole genre, the MMO genre. First of all, any MMO that has ever in its life gotten over the 100,000-player mark is still here. All of them. You would think that competition and new games would ultimately peel away those players and somehow it does not. In addition, it's not the same people playing [the game] all those years—all these games have a churn where new people come in. Early on, one of the big things we talked about is when and where is market saturation for these online games. People thought we were near market saturation, since we began before we made U.O. Before U.O., the biggest online game in history had 15,000 players. So when EA was doing sales projections for it, "since it's Ultima and you [Garriott]," they said, "maybe we'll give it 30,000." Well, 50,000 people paid to become beta testers on U.O.! Then when it launched, it sold out immediately of its first run of 100,000 copies and became the fastest-selling PC game in Origin history. So, we thought, surely there can't be anything bigger than that. Then, of course, EverQuest comes out and beats that. Then all these other games keep coming out, many of them getting past the 100,000 mark…then, of course, WoW. Just after U.O. launched in the states, NCsoft launched Lineage in Asia. When we met the folks at NCsoft, we had heard of Lineage, didn't really know much about it, looked it up on the Web and saw that these guys were ten times more successful than we were. So we figured they knew what they were doing. With [Korea having] a population of 50 million, let's say [Lineage] had half a million [subscribers]. That's already an unheard-of depth of market penetration…We decided to merge our companies almost immediately. By the time we finished all the lawyer work and paperwork, they were up to a million subscribers! Each year that went by, we though surely they'd reached saturation. [At this time, Robert Garriott, Richard's brother and business partner, joins us.] Robert Garriott: In the last 30 days, Lineage 1 had five million accounts. When Lineage 2 was coming out, we thought, "Oh gee, that's going to cannibalize the market." And so Lineage 2 came out and Lineage 1 actually grew! [Lineage 2 now] has almost the same number of subscribers as Lineage 1! So now about one in every ten people in Korea has a Lineage 1 account. And about one in every ten people in Korea has a Lineage 2 account! So that's one out of every five people in the country of Korea has an account—about one of every two families. It is so mass market in Korea, Taiwan, China—the real question is when [are online games] going to reach mass-market in the U.S.? Even with the numbers WoW is showing and we're showing, it is so far from mass market in the U.S., there is tons of room for growth. The real question is, how are we going to grow it, not if there's enough room to grow it? Richard Garriott: So, we started this question with, what are games going to need to do to be successful in this next round? Even before online games, for the ten real successful games there may be in a year, there are hundreds more failures during a year. Unfortunately, the same thing's true for online games—and they take a lot longer and they cost a lot more money, and so the downside risk to successful online game development is phenomenally big. So, that does two things: One, it tends to make people a little more conservative the way they approach things; and so in my mind that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that you then won't succeed. I think that a) you have to be bold; and b), you'd better be right. And those are a very difficult pairing of things to put together. So I think that's why you'll find the people who're succeeding are pretty experienced developers. There aren't very many big online games coming from the green upstart community—who often does have a really great idea, but they have to have the financial acumen, as well as the development experience, to sequence their risk items to nail the innovative features they need early. And then only after that follow up with the quantity they need to make one of these big MMOs. Robert Garriott: A good way to explain it is, in the single-player box business, which we spent about 20 years in, it took about 15 years before it really became a big-company business. For a long time, small upstarts could in their garage develop really good box games. In the online space, that has happened about twice as fast. In the late '90s, it was kind of like that. But now, cheap MMPs are costing 20 million and expensive ones are costing 30-plus, so it's no longer a garage-shop business. It very quickly went into big business. Richard Garriott: But now to get into the feature set, World of Warcraft is the end of the first generation. World of Warcraft did a great job of refining the first feature set that lots of games had presented before it—which was perfect for Blizzard to do, because they do a great job of refinement…it's their hallmark in my mind The great slot-machine mechanic of carefully sequenced reward cycles, the really nicely unified user interface, the really great job of art direction. But…most of the features you see in it are things you've seen in previous generations, just done really nicely. So if you're going to stick with that feature set, there's really no point in continuing. I think consumers will be tapped out for that feature set and are looking to move on to something different—what I'm hoping they'll see in Tabula Rasa. In the previous generation, network latency was expected, so we didn't do action RPGs, we didn't do very detailed storytelling, because no one really knew how to do it in a multiplayer setting. We just avoided a lot of innovation just to take advantage of all the really big ones. But I think you're going to see a whole new wave of games, not only what we're doing with Tabula Rasa. As we go look at other developers, we're considering working with or even competitors, this new wave you're seeing will bring to the table much more compelling gameplay than this current plodding generation of online games. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 20, 2007, 03:11:45 AM Quote Robert Garriott: ... So now about one in every ten people in Korea has a Lineage 1 account. And about one in every ten people in Korea has a Lineage 2 account! So that's one out of every five people in the country of Korea has an account—about one of every two families. Robert Garriot does not understand set theory. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Calantus on February 20, 2007, 04:08:33 AM Lol that is a pretty big gaff.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 20, 2007, 05:48:19 AM Lol that is a pretty big gaff. Orrrrr... it is an intentional application of Second Life Economics. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Arrrgh on February 20, 2007, 05:51:19 AM The gist of some posts above seems to be that this game is meant to appeal to people who like Tolkien, but they need to own a beefy PC on a fast net connection and never have played another MMO. That doesn't sound like a huge group.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 20, 2007, 06:29:17 AM The gist of some posts above seems to be that this game is meant to appeal to people who like Tolkien, but they need to own a beefy PC on a fast net connection and never have played another MMO. That doesn't sound like a huge group. I like Tolkien, own a beefy PC on a fast net connection and have played many MMOs, but I'm still intent on moving from beta to subscriber. I have only played 2 dikus in the last three years for more than a trial month, and only one of those for more than two months (guess which). They bore me on the level of mechanics. But I like the backstory in this case. I mean, I've played FPSs for, what, 12 or 13 years now? And they bore me too. But a decent storyline, or the fact that my friends are all playing can still make me play the latest FPS for a while, no matter how dreary the highly derivative mechanics are. Diku, fps, rts... they're all just advancing by tiny increments. Those who claim that the latest iterations of CS, Doom, Quake, Halo or the rest are fundamentally radical or inventive are lying to themselves. But HL stands out a bit, along with some CS mods, in that at least it has a decent storyline working there. Same old genre, but a bit of fiddling with physics and a decent story and I'm interested. In any case, F13, and specifically the smallish number (10-12?) of positively feral and hugely outspoken anti-diku posters, is not a representative sample of, say, the millions and millions of WoW subscribers who happily dole over their money month after month. As such, market size is not really Turbine's problem. It's a truism: WoW showed that same-old-same-old mechanics done right with a popular backstory are fine. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on February 20, 2007, 06:48:23 AM I like Tolkien, own a beefy PC on a fast net connection and have played many MMOs, but I'm still intent on moving from beta to subscriber. I have only played 2 dikus in the last three years for more than a trial month, and only one of those for more than two months (guess which). They bore me on the level of mechanics. But I like the backstory in this case. Ya, this is me as well. Not sayin I expect to play it for very long. I have not stuck with any DIKU more then about 3 months that I can remember but I'll buy a box and give it a go. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Calantus on February 20, 2007, 06:50:51 AM I think I'll try LOTRO even though I'm burned on the diku model. I still find new quests and classes to be fun for a while. The only issue is whether they have a hook to keep me there. Right now all I'm seeing is that it's something new and there's some snazzy lore to check out. That will pull me in... but once I get to the end of the road it's going to come down to what can it do different to make me keep playing when I've quit similar games before? I'm not seeing any answer to that question yet. WoW had polish and the fact that EQ is old to gave it life, and for many, many people it was their first. But WoW is still kicking ass and taking names so LOTRO doesn't have that luxury.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 20, 2007, 08:43:50 AM The gist of some posts above seems to be that this game is meant to appeal to people who like Tolkien, but they need to own a beefy PC on a fast net connection and never have played another MMO. That doesn't sound like a huge group. Said it before, but I'll say it again...it worked just fine on my craptacular computer with it's crappy 64 meg Radeon 9k. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 20, 2007, 12:02:36 PM In any case, F13, and specifically the smallish number (10-12?) of positively feral and hugely outspoken anti-diku posters As one of those feral, hugely outspoken opponents of diku, I must point out that I AM currently subscribed to WoW for my 3rd time. I'm not completely opposed to it, but I am opposed to post-WoW games not being quite as good as WoW mechanically. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Furiously on February 20, 2007, 01:38:58 PM WOW has only convinced me of one thing - design for a computer 7 years old.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on February 20, 2007, 01:40:18 PM WOW has only convinced me of one thing - design for a I kid, I kid. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Trippy on February 20, 2007, 05:26:31 PM WOW has only convinced me of one thing - design for a I kid, I kid. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Soln on February 21, 2007, 10:27:13 AM WOW has only convinced me of one thing - design for a I kid, I kid. I wonder, how many parents spend time doing this. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 21, 2007, 04:22:17 PM Quote Robert Garriott: ... So now about one in every ten people in Korea has a Lineage 1 account. And about one in every ten people in Korea has a Lineage 2 account! So that's one out of every five people in the country of Korea has an account—about one of every two families. Robert Garriot does not understand set theory. Quote from: Hound Fans of the PJ movies (not Tolkien scholars), and people who are on their 5th WoW/EQII alt and are ready for a change of pace. The game is hitting the best sellers lists at EB Games, Best Buy, and Amazon.com 8 weeks before release so it is already selling some boxes. The question is though can Turbine keep the players interested once they hit 50. I agree with everything, including the TV thing. I'll watch Heroes, but even started avoiding Battlestar Galactica of late. Crappy ass timeslot it got moved to (probably a ratings to budget thing).The game is not appealing to old jaded farts who think that the next MMORPG down the line is going to come up with some magical new class or race or somehow make pushing a series of seven buttons challenging and somehow appealing again. I am going to purchase it simply because I am tired of EQII, never cared for the Warcraft world and think that watching TV after the wife goes to bed is about as much fun as a colon exam. Will I go back to EQII eventually, damn if I know. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nija on February 21, 2007, 04:24:04 PM Actually, what if this was fact? As I understand it, you can't just create zillions of spoof accounts over there like anyone with 12 credit cards can in the U.S. It's something about national ID cards or something. I'll hafta look it up, but the point is that they have a way in Korea of actually linking accounts to people and being pretty closely accurate with it. So if Robert says "one in every ten people in Korea" have a L1 account (I think their population is around 45-50mil?), that may actually be a statistical fact. I've used a Korean ID # generator to make beta accounts for Korean games in the past. They're easier to generate than XP PRO CORP CD keys. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Calantus on February 21, 2007, 04:40:55 PM Quote Robert Garriott: ... So now about one in every ten people in Korea has a Lineage 1 account. And about one in every ten people in Korea has a Lineage 2 account! So that's one out of every five people in the country of Korea has an account—about one of every two families. Robert Garriot does not understand set theory. One in every 10 people may very well play Lineage. One in every 10 people may very well play Lineage 2. But that doesn't mean that one in every 5 people play one of the 2. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on February 21, 2007, 04:57:01 PM Oh, yea, that wouldn't be a fact unless they had the numbers to prove it.
I mean, Blizz could claim every resident of Manhatten plays WoW by numbers alone. This all only works if they KNOW it's real individual citizens, and back the assertion up with fact. That's why while I think it's plausible, they'd need to prove it before I'd expect anyone to believe it. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Signe on February 21, 2007, 06:02:46 PM It's true. I've used that Korean ID number generator, too, and it's never let me down. The games, on the other hand....
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 22, 2007, 01:20:08 AM Quote Robert Garriott: ... So now about one in every ten people in Korea has a Lineage 1 account. And about one in every ten people in Korea has a Lineage 2 account! So that's one out of every five people in the country of Korea has an account—about one of every two families. Robert Garriot does not understand set theory. No, that's not what I meant when I said his set theory is faulty. The only way it could be a fact, as he stated it, would be if nobody who had a Lineage 1 account had a Lineage 2 account (and, obviously, vice versa). That seems... ahem... unlikely. To be honest, what I think he would have said if both honest and mathematically competent (he must fail on one of those) is: the number of Lineage 1 accounts is about 10% of the total Korean population. The number of Lineage 2 accounts is about the same. Many of these are alts using non-playing relatives' identities. At least a plurality hold accounts in both. The total number is therefore quite high, but is certainly far less than one in five and may very well only come to about one in ten of the Korean population, but there is no statistical way to find out: only a census would tell for sure. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Azazel on February 22, 2007, 02:20:40 PM What I'm wondering is whether those are active accounts or not that he's counting.
I mean, I have two Everquest 1 (station?) accounts, a DAOC account, a Planetside account, and so on. None of those are active, though. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: fegis on February 26, 2007, 01:37:50 AM Hello everyone, this thread got me interrested in this forum and well, I signed up to say my few words about LotRO. I don't see myself as a mmo-player, I've tried EQ for some hour, DaoC for some 10 hours, SWG a bit more but none of them got me stuck until trying the LotRO-beta... The game is as many has said before me true to the lore and the main quest-line is brilliant! The side-quests have somewhat shaky quality and there are some polishing and balancing to do but with that IP I think they will get players that are new to the MMO-genre.
There are many many LotR-fans out there, the movies has made 2.9 billion USD and the computer game industri is as big as the movie industri nowadays, if the game sells for one tenth as much as the movies that's 14,5 million subscibers (calculated with lifetime deal a 200$) so even if it "only" sells for one hundred of what the movies did you still end up with gigantic 1,4 million ppl. And even if many LotR-fans already are playing a MMO most of them ain't! Even if the official guessing-date has passed I still wanna add my unofficial bet and that is lotro will have 600k custumers 2007 and 500k 2008... Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on February 26, 2007, 06:24:49 AM Hello everyone, this thread got me interrested in this forum and well, I signed up to say my few words about LotRO. I don't see myself as a mmo-player, I've tried EQ for some hour, DaoC for some 10 hours, SWG a bit more but none of them got me stuck until trying the LotRO-beta... The game is as many has said before me true to the lore and the main quest-line is brilliant! The side-quests have somewhat shaky quality and there are some polishing and balancing to do but with that IP I think they will get players that are new to the MMO-genre. There are many many LotR-fans out there, the movies has made 2.9 billion USD and the computer game industri is as big as the movie industri nowadays, if the game sells for one tenth as much as the movies that's 14,5 million subscibers (calculated with lifetime deal a 200$) so even if it "only" sells for one hundred of what the movies did you still end up with gigantic 1,4 million ppl. And even if many LotR-fans already are playing a MMO most of them ain't! Even if the official guessing-date has passed I still wanna add my unofficial bet and that is lotro will have 600k custumers 2007 and 500k 2008... Stop! Saying positive things as your first post is the first way to snarky mole comments! :evil: Fucking mole. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on February 26, 2007, 12:06:23 PM Please learn the difference between a period and a comma.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Alkiera on February 26, 2007, 12:25:07 PM Please learn the difference between a period and a comma. Between that and 'industri' it is obvious fegis is an ESL. Lots of other countries use 14,5 where we would use 14.5. A lot of them also put spaces in long numbers instead of commas, like 14 500 000 instead of 14,500,000. Wacky furiners.-- Alkiera Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sky on February 26, 2007, 12:34:33 PM (http://www.iflipflop.com/whackamole.jpg)
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: lariac on February 27, 2007, 10:25:12 AM Well...finally got into the beta over the weekend.
Couple of things I really like about it. Titles - nice touch in that you get cool little name tags (like not dying up to level ten...Lariac the Undeafeted!) Bag space - Lots of bag space right off the bat. Main quest storyline - Like how it instances you and it really feels like the world is evolving around you (main part of town burns down..etc etc) Couple of things I didn't like... Con of mobs - Hard to tell which are gonna aggro and which are not gonna aggro Animation - still a little off with some folks skating around. Crafting quests - Need NPC's that will make the shit for you if you supply the mats rather on trying to rely on other players...can take forever to get somebody to make bronze hammers. Chat Interface - needs a little more refinement. mob spawn - needs a slight increase. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Righ on February 27, 2007, 03:03:46 PM This game was beaten only by A Tale In The Desert for the number of times I fell asleep playing it. It's probably less likely to induce dependence than Mogadon, however.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Furiously on February 27, 2007, 04:19:29 PM (http://www.iflipflop.com/whackamole.jpg) Do those whack-a-moles look like Scratch Fury from PVP or is it me? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Secundo on February 28, 2007, 06:15:40 AM Please learn the difference between a period and a comma. Between that and 'industri' it is obvious fegis is an ESL. Lots of other countries use 14,5 where we would use 14.5. A lot of them also put spaces in long numbers instead of commas, like 14 500 000 instead of 14,500,000. Wacky furiners.-- Alkiera Yup he is most likely a Swede. Fegis is Swedish for "coward" and we spell industry with an i at the end. We are supposed to use dots to separate numbers but traditionally we used commas so it might be a matter of education. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 28, 2007, 06:49:33 AM Please learn the difference between a period and a comma. Pedantry, particularly spelling- or mathematically-related, is a dangerous business of arguing from a position of weakness. The USA may use periods as you describe, as do we in the UK, places we used to own, and those bits of China who haven't yet been shot. But the Arabs and Persians invented the system, and they quickly settled on a character which is basically a comma. Most of Europe does the same. Edit: Even more off-topic rant: American date-ordering (MM/DD/YYYY) is a horrible invention if you ever have to sort raw date data. Japanese (YYYY/MM/DD) is so beautifully logical that I have trouble believing that they lost WW2. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Alkiera on February 28, 2007, 07:29:44 AM Even more off-topic rant: American date-ordering (MM/DD/YYYY) is a horrible invention if you ever have to sort raw date data. Japanese (YYYY/MM/DD) is so beautifully logical that I have trouble believing that they lost WW2. I use YYYY/MM/DD all the time at work in filenames to keep data in proper order. Yeah, it does make a fair bit more sense. And they lost WW2 because they didn't have The Bomb. It's not so much of an 'I Win' button as a 'You Lose' button. -- Alkiera Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on February 28, 2007, 07:34:30 AM I use YYYY/MM/DD all the time at work in filenames to keep data in proper order. Yeah, it does make a fair bit more sense. And they lost WW2 because they didn't have The Bomb. It's not so much of an 'I Win' button as a 'You Lose' button. Yeah, I'm amazed that there wasn't more of a shitstorm on the WW2 forums after that nuke thing. An unbalanced alpha-strike like that was crying out for a nerf. Figures are tricky to prove, but I heard WW2 lost virtually all their remaining playerbase after that. Though the Russian market in particular had been leaking players for years. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Alkiera on February 28, 2007, 08:01:27 AM I use YYYY/MM/DD all the time at work in filenames to keep data in proper order. Yeah, it does make a fair bit more sense. And they lost WW2 because they didn't have The Bomb. It's not so much of an 'I Win' button as a 'You Lose' button. Yeah, I'm amazed that there wasn't more of a shitstorm on the WW2 forums after that nuke thing. An unbalanced alpha-strike like that was crying out for a nerf. Figures are tricky to prove, but I heard WW2 lost virtually all their remaining playerbase after that. Though the Russian market in particular had been leaking players for years. Yeah, and in a way, the American forces have been nerfed. We're not allowed to nuke people anymore, and the leadership is so afraid of world opinion that they've developed this new 'fight to lose' strategy that really blows. (That is as far as I'm going, or we'll get den'd or moved to Politics) -- Alkiera Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Yegolev on February 28, 2007, 09:11:16 AM That's because all of the devs have characters in America.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: SnakeCharmer on February 28, 2007, 09:27:14 AM I use YYYY/MM/DD all the time at work in filenames to keep data in proper order. Yeah, it does make a fair bit more sense. And they lost WW2 because they didn't have The Bomb. It's not so much of an 'I Win' button as a 'You Lose' button. Yeah, I'm amazed that there wasn't more of a shitstorm on the WW2 forums after that nuke thing. An unbalanced alpha-strike like that was crying out for a nerf. Figures are tricky to prove, but I heard WW2 lost virtually all their remaining playerbase after that. Though the Russian market in particular had been leaking players for years. Always cracks me up (http://www.4guysfromviewpoint.com/?p=76) Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Morat20 on February 28, 2007, 10:57:28 AM Even more off-topic rant: American date-ordering (MM/DD/YYYY) is a horrible invention if you ever have to sort raw date data. Japanese (YYYY/MM/DD) is so beautifully logical that I have trouble believing that they lost WW2. I use YYYY/MM/DD all the time at work in filenames to keep data in proper order. Yeah, it does make a fair bit more sense. And they lost WW2 because they didn't have The Bomb. It's not so much of an 'I Win' button as a 'You Lose' button. -- Alkiera Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Rasix on February 28, 2007, 11:00:14 AM Get back to talking about hobbits. Pronto.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Xilren's Twin on February 28, 2007, 12:48:33 PM You know you've been hanging out with Signe far too long when your mind reads that as...
Get back to talking about hobbits Porn Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Azazel on February 28, 2007, 01:06:32 PM Didn't someone reference the "if only one in 100" like the other day with regard to pets.com?
This guy's suggesting 1/10 as an upper limit and 1/100 as a more realistic one. I don't even have the energi to make fun of him properli. sigh. :-( Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: slog on February 28, 2007, 03:12:26 PM Even more off-topic rant: American date-ordering (MM/DD/YYYY) is a horrible invention if you ever have to sort raw date data. Japanese (YYYY/MM/DD) is so beautifully logical that I have trouble believing that they lost WW2. I use YYYY/MM/DD all the time at work in filenames to keep data in proper order. Yeah, it does make a fair bit more sense. And they lost WW2 because they didn't have The Bomb. It's not so much of an 'I Win' button as a 'You Lose' button. -- Alkiera I use YYYY-MON-DD in all my specs. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Signe on February 28, 2007, 03:28:40 PM It's not really porn, you know. It's hobbit :heart: LOVE :heart:. I promised I wouldn't post any more hobbit love, though. :|
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Lantyssa on February 28, 2007, 04:34:56 PM I suppose they wouldn't appreciate it if I did it for you, huh?
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on March 26, 2007, 02:57:40 PM I figured this was worth bumping just for the numbers predictions. Looks like Turbine is more optimistic than any of us
http://lotrovault.ign.com/View.php?view=Articles.Detail&id=42 (http://lotrovault.ign.com/View.php?view=Articles.Detail&id=42) Quote Open Beta plans to open the Flood Gates As far as these guys are concerned, Friday, Open Beta, is launch day… and they are psyched about where this game is headed. With a possible 600k heading into Open Beta, and 1 Million beta keys expected to be added over the course of OB, this team is looking at one of the largest playerbases that an NA-based MMOG has ever seen. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on March 26, 2007, 03:11:02 PM Quote Open Beta plans to open the Flood Gates As far as these guys are concerned, Friday, Open Beta, is launch day… and they are psyched about where this game is headed. With a possible 600k heading into Open Beta, and 1 Million beta keys expected to be added over the course of OB, this team is looking at one of the largest playerbases that an NA-based MMOG has ever seen. Take that, Vanguard! Funny thing is that I played LotRO in beta and actually had more fun in Vanguard. LotRO is definately more polished and much more visually apealling... but the gameplay is still pretty run-of-the-mill fantasy mmog. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Rasix on March 26, 2007, 03:37:13 PM I figured this was worth bumping just for the numbers predictions. Looks like Turbine is more optimistic than any of us http://lotrovault.ign.com/View.php?view=Articles.Detail&id=42 (http://lotrovault.ign.com/View.php?view=Articles.Detail&id=42) Quote Open Beta plans to open the Flood Gates As far as these guys are concerned, Friday, Open Beta, is launch day… and they are psyched about where this game is headed. With a possible 600k heading into Open Beta, and 1 Million beta keys expected to be added over the course of OB, this team is looking at one of the largest playerbases that an NA-based MMOG has ever seen. This has the potential to blow up badly in their face. Yah, I know Turbine's done a much better technical job with this one, but I see the risk of disaster here and just wince. Give people 1 million beta keys and have your game melt under the pressure. Have those cross over WoW players look around and not see anything different worth staying for except for a brand new grind. Watch as the LOTR fanbois flood in and wonder why the hell they're killing rats and picking flowers, and why they can't be GANDALF. Cry bitter tears when your beta->retail conversion hovers at 10%. I would have kept this small and under control. But what the hell do I know? Perhaps this is how you take dead aim at WoW. /shrug Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: tazelbain on March 26, 2007, 03:43:41 PM Sounds like more of a promotion than a beta.
What kind of server size are these guys going for? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 26, 2007, 03:45:37 PM They have named 7 initial servers for the start of open beta on Friday, which will be for pre-order (founders) only.
This seems a bit more modest then 600K. Of coarse, many more could be ready in the wings. My belief is that this journalist's enthusiasm got out in front of him a bit and what is implied in the article was not quite what was intended. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nija on March 26, 2007, 03:47:13 PM But what the hell do I know? Perhaps this is how you take dead aim at WoW. /shrug If you know that 2+3=5 then you're off to a better start than Turbine is. I'm more interested in THIS (http://www.mythos.com/index.jsp) at the moment. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on March 26, 2007, 03:52:23 PM I think that must be the European and N American open combined but who knows. I do forsee the phrase
you are number xxx in the que on my screen a lot in the next week or so. Over the course of the closed beta they have really been pumping up the capacity on the 2 servers they have been running. I would not want to guess what capacity each is capable of, but it is a hell of a lot more than it was in November just judging from the amount of players I see ingame. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 26, 2007, 03:57:40 PM I think that must be the European and N American open combined but who knows. I do forsee the phrase you are number xxx in the que on my screen a lot in the next week or so. Over the course of the closed beta they have really been pumping up the capacity on the 2 servers they have been running. I would not want to guess what capacity each is capable of, but it is a hell of a lot more than it was in November just judging from the amount of players I see ingame. This I can buy. I mean server capacity should have seen some improvement over all these years. Our old numbers of 3k or so peak must be a little weak. Plus, they instance out levels 1 to 6. That must help a some. But I still believe 600k to 1 mil is the anticipated free trials over the course of a one month open beta... not some prediction of subscriptions. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Alkiera on March 26, 2007, 03:59:22 PM But what the hell do I know? Perhaps this is how you take dead aim at WoW. /shrug If you know that 2+3=5 then you're off to a better start than Turbine is. I'm more interested in THIS (http://www.mythos.com/index.jsp) at the moment. Flagship Studios... isn't that the group that picked up the Fate developer? The artwork looks similar. I am intrigued by screenshots, but there is nothing to speak of on the site. -- Alkiera Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on March 26, 2007, 04:01:53 PM Flagship Studios = Bill Roper = The Original Warcraft (and Diablo, and Starcraft) Man
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on March 26, 2007, 04:27:14 PM But I still believe 600k to 1 mil is the anticipated free trials over the course of a one month open beta... not some prediction of subscriptions. I should have quoted more of the link, the 1 million is a upper end guess of beta keys, and the 600K is a soft figure for the preorders. My bad. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on March 26, 2007, 04:29:12 PM damn double posted again
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 26, 2007, 04:45:18 PM ... and the 600K is a soft figure for the preorders. My bad. I don't think is says that. Here are the words again "possible 600k heading into Open Beta". I did read the original article. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on March 26, 2007, 05:24:54 PM ... and the 600K is a soft figure for the preorders. My bad. I don't think is says that. Here are the words again "possible 600k heading into Open Beta". I did read the original article. I guess it is subject to interpretation I read the possible 600K heading into open beta as preorders starting Friday and the one million keys as public open keys. It's held the number one position over at EB/Gamestop for 6 or more weeks now and been in the top 5 at Amazon.com about the same length of time. I guess we will find out over the next couple of weeks. If they pull even close to those figures you know they will be doing some crowing. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Simond on March 27, 2007, 02:27:28 AM I'm getting the strangest sense of deja vu from this thread: "It's just a polished Diku that brings nothing new to the genre."
...oh yeah. Figured it out. Late summer 2004, World of Warcraft open beta. :D Turbine have (somehow) made a game with solid diku mechanics, a decent game engine, and the fantasy license. Half a million subs is plausible, and a million is possible - especially with the clever pricing deals they've put together for pre-orders. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Murgos on March 27, 2007, 06:37:38 AM Half a million subs at launch is certainly plausible, I think. More? Sure, why not? It is a solid, polished and well envisioned Diku. I don't see anything there that is less than WoW was at launch.
It's a Diku though and I'm going to take a miss on it. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 27, 2007, 07:25:42 AM Well, OK. I just find it kinda surprising given the luke warm responce in many places.
600k on day/weekend one is WoW numbers. So is this capable of spliting off 1/3 to 1/2 of the market? If true, SOE certainly takes a big part of the hit... again. It makes those price increases look increasingly like a very bad timing. The server count come next Monday morning will certainly give us a huge clue. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sky on March 27, 2007, 08:49:47 AM With the bump in pricing for the Station Pass, I'm considering a quick pre-order of LotRO. Not sure whether I want to shell out the box cost, but I've cancelled the Station Pass (which would incur the higher charge in a week or two) and Gaming Season isn't quite over yet.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: shiznitz on March 27, 2007, 08:55:34 AM The Station Pass price increase just seems more ill-timed every day. It is the perfect reason for someone to take a month off from SOE and try LotRO. The $199 lifetime sub is less than 7 months of Station Pass. If LotRO is only mildly fun, it is a great deal. Turbine's marketing program should highlight this specifically.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on March 27, 2007, 09:01:49 AM 600k? 1 Million?
I want some of whatever they are smoking. NOW. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on March 27, 2007, 09:16:33 AM $199 for a lifetime sub. While that seems like a good deal on the surface, I don't honestly think I could stay with any MMOG that long ever again. I guess for someone where WoW was their first mmo it may not be a bad deal. I've found that none of the new games can seem to capture my interest longer than a month or two anymore. I guess my affinity for things like the sun may be ruining my gaming affliction.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 27, 2007, 09:17:38 AM If they called it a free trial with a gift of reduced pricing if you agree to try the product in the next sixty days, would you still think the numbers are way out?
Sometimes people aren't as stupid as they seem to be and many seemed to have figured out that they get the option for reduced pricing and a month of free play with little or nothing up front. Hell, I might go pick up half a dozen preorder boxes and Ebay 'em out towards then end of open beta. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nija on March 27, 2007, 09:44:20 AM 1) it's a Tubine game
2) it's Lord of the Rings. It's the SimBeru syndrome all over again, but this time it's SimLegolas. 3) Turbine. A life time subscription really hammers this point home . Didn't they offer those for AC2 as well? There will probably be a lot of boxes moved initially, due to the success of the recent hack and slash LOTR games and not to mention the movies and the novels. There won't be a lot of retained subs. Expect exaggerated figures based on box sales. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sky on March 27, 2007, 09:47:50 AM Dude...$10/mo. That's $5 less than friggin' Planetside! For a big-name franchise.
My supervisor is a huge Tolkein geek and is feverishly hoping they don't make a mac version (thus ending his marriage and career). LotRO will probably be huge. I'm not a big fan of the genre and I'm in. Hell, with the money I'm saving by ditching the SOE pass, it'll pay for the box in two months. Big fuckup by SOE, but I'm sure they have their reasons. And I'm sure I'm in the vast minority, but I have a hard time paying $40 for an expansion to a game I'd already played to (almost (58)) max level (WoW). So between the high cost of BC (imo) and the SOE pass bump, LotRO is headed for a perfect launch window. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Signe on March 27, 2007, 10:33:38 AM $199 for a lifetime sub. While that seems like a good deal on the surface, I don't honestly think I could stay with any MMOG that long ever again. I guess for someone where WoW was their first mmo it may not be a bad deal. I've found that none of the new games can seem to capture my interest longer than a month or two anymore. I guess my affinity for things like the sun may be ruining my gaming affliction. Poor Nebu. What was the last MMO you spent a life time playing? Exactly how long is a Nebu life, anyway? Snarky me aside... I agree. I don't think I would get value for my money, either. I am so having the same problem staying interested in any of the newer games, too, for any amount of time. LOTRO is a nicely done game and even has some different bits but, I guess, it's just not different enough. I have no motivation for any of them except to pop in to CoX once in a while for an hour or so. I also ditched the Station Pass but I did it when they increased it the last time, I think. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sky on March 27, 2007, 12:48:28 PM Quote I have no motivation for any of them except to pop in to CoX once in a while for an hour or so. :-oTitle: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Signe on March 27, 2007, 01:31:24 PM Ok. I understand that because I said "CoX" that it makes it sound like some sort of sexual innuendo or something. I can't figure out how, though. If I substitute cocks for CoX, it says: "pop into cocks once in a while for an hour or so." I'M STILL NOT UNDERSTANDING!!! I haven't said anything about sucking anything or tossing any lettuce or spreading anything... or have I? Ack! This is like that vagina joke everyone was laughing at that I still don't understand, isn't it? :|
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Lantyssa on March 27, 2007, 01:41:57 PM Don't worry, I do it all the time. (See Merusk's sig for examples.) :|
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sky on March 27, 2007, 01:47:54 PM If making sense were mandatory, we'd all be fucked!
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WindupAtheist on March 27, 2007, 01:48:00 PM signe enjoys cox lol
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on March 27, 2007, 02:40:42 PM I can't see me playing more than 3 or 4 months in a row either however I am going for the 200 dollar deal because I can see me playing it off and on for several years. They are already planning some free and some paid expansions beginning as early as a month or two after release. Here is a map posted on another forum that shows roughly what is in the original release tinted in red.
http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/4296/lotromap3ob4.jpg (http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/4296/lotromap3ob4.jpg) By the way comparing this one to AC2 is like comparing the Pinto to the Mustang. I have serious doubts as to much over 500K at release also but given time unless Turbine completely loses their minds and decides to commit digital hari-kari it could happen. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nija on March 27, 2007, 03:26:52 PM A truly auspicious post there. My AC2 character name was, honest to god, Harakiri.
They are releasing without Mordor? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on March 27, 2007, 03:44:57 PM A truly auspicious post there. My AC2 character name was, honest to god, Harakiri. They are releasing without Mordor? ~chuckle ~ No not even all of Eriador is in at release. There is a assload of content here left to develop and a lot of the areas were just skimmed over by old JRR. I am looking forward to Moria as the mother of all dungeons, and perhaps horse mounted combat with a new human class wiith Rohan. The northren wastes have all sorts of possibilities as does Haradwaith, Rhun, and Khand. I am hoping Forlindon, Harlindon and Forochel will be fleshed in as freebies over the next few months before a paid expansion is released. Maybe I am just a fanboy but this is the first game I have felt good about in a long time. I cannot even see SOE fucking this one up...well maybe that is going too far. I saw the writing on the wall with AC2, I was only surprised that more people did not. I wasn't even in the beta and the leaks fortold it's fate well before release. But that was ok I was stupid enough to believe SOE would fix SWG. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on March 27, 2007, 06:30:02 PM To hit 600k is saying that in the few territories LoTRO is going to launch they are going to do better than WoW did in those territories in the first year. That's pretty ballsy. They do NOT come with game-fanbois, merely a whole bunch of literature nuts who are going to grudgingly accept or villify loudly. The rest are the normal "I need a new fix" crowd enamored by the more-realistic graphics, a familiar game system and the usual round of minor tweaks.
If they break half a mil ever, I'll be surprised. I was way wrong about WoW too, like a lot of people. But that's mostly because the relevance of their innate competitive advantage was not clearly understood. Most of that does not exist here. Except the graphics and diku. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Trippy on March 27, 2007, 06:49:56 PM To hit 600k is saying that in the few territories LoTRO is going to launch they are going to do better than WoW did in those territories in the first year. No, it does not. 5 months after the US/Korea launch WoW hit 1.8 million world wide including 0.5 million in Europe. Those numbers don't include China since it hadn't launched there yet. One year after launch WoW in NA (plus Australia) was well over 1 million and Europe was closing in on 1 million (it would break 1 million in January 2006).Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on March 27, 2007, 07:35:17 PM Ok, so then, not.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 28, 2007, 06:27:51 AM This has the potential to blow up badly in their face. Yah, I know Turbine's done a much better technical job with this one, but I see the risk of disaster here and just wince. Give people 1 million beta keys and have your game melt under the pressure. Have those cross over WoW players look around and not see anything different worth staying for except for a brand new grind. Watch as the LOTR fanbois flood in and wonder why the hell they're killing rats and picking flowers, and why they can't be GANDALF. Cry bitter tears when your beta->retail conversion hovers at 10%. I would have kept this small and under control. But what the hell do I know? Perhaps this is how you take dead aim at WoW. /shrug After another day or so of consideration, I have come more and more to hold this view. One of the (many) mistakes SWG made was to pop open too many servers too soon. This lead to some pretty empty servers even early on and the effect lingers to this day uncorrected. If you have a huge 'pre-order' free trial it may cause bad things to happen. First is the 'I paid for the pre-order' syndrome which can lead to a lack of tolerance for queues. This will put big pressure on them to open up enough servers to keep the wait times low. If you don't get enough conversion, those servers are ghost towns later in a game where group play is pretty much a requirement later on. And most of you know well I am not talking about a year out here. Mid to upper levels of the current content by summer. Second is, this has to really hammer your GM staff. First day on the job and you flood the place with 500k nooblers with 10 problems each. I think we can look forward to reports of really slow call responce. Probably not that accurate for the longer term game but as a first impression, not so good. Of coarse the obvious up side is you get a hell of a lot of folks to come take a look. Certainly, this is a unique twist to a release in some respects. A trip to the grocery for another box of microwave popcorn may be in order. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on March 28, 2007, 06:50:01 AM I agree, however, I do think LoTRO starts a bit better than having the 24+ starting areas SWG had. If I recall correct, there's only four places to start in LoTRO, so immediately you'll have density if they keep the number of servers down to a responsible level. Plus, the lifers will quickly outgrow those areas so day 1 and day 2 will be very different. Any word on whether the beta testers or Lifers will be able to play on Live servers before boxes hit retail? I don't care for myself as I won't be buying it right away (if ever), but I'm thinking about the day 1 fiasco of spawn competition in the public spaces.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 28, 2007, 07:04:44 AM Any word on whether the beta testers or Lifers will be able to play on Live servers before boxes hit retail? I don't care for myself as I won't be buying it right away (if ever), but I'm thinking about the day 1 fiasco of spawn competition in the public spaces. This is exactly the case. If you preorder, all your characters can start Friday and roll to live (level capped at 15). The requirement for continuing into live play after April 24th is to enter a retail box key. Note that they are starting heavy promotions with these offers starting today and with the current issue of PC Gamer. In other words, level capped live starts Friday for everyone with enough sense to fill in an order blank at an online order house, or to put up a refundable $5 at the local brick and mortar. This also gets you 10/month for as little or as long as you wish if you buy the box. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on March 28, 2007, 07:05:23 AM Any word on whether the beta testers or Lifers will be able to play on Live servers before boxes hit retail? I don't care for myself as I won't be buying it right away (if ever), but I'm thinking about the day 1 fiasco of spawn competition in the public spaces. I'm not sure I understand your question correctly, so forgive me if this is a complete non-sequitor, but all those who purchase pre-order boxes (life and normal pre-order) get about ten days access before public launch, and open beta testers get to carry their characters through at up to level 15 into live. Both are smart moves that should spread out a lot of the load on public launch day. I've pre-ordered for my wife and I: are there going to be any Euro F13ers concentrating on a particular server? There's a goon one, but I don't really want to expose her to that :-o. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 28, 2007, 07:14:20 AM I think part of the misconception here is our usual interpretation of the word preorder.
From what I can see, preorder will be available right through open beta up until 'release' on April 24th. And preorder is really on a pseudo commitment to purchase, cancelable at any time. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on March 28, 2007, 07:19:06 AM ^^^ Indeed, and those who buy pre-order boxes are all, as I understand, able to choose the $9.99/month or $199/life deals. There's no special "lifer" box.
PS I wasn't disagreeing: our replies to Darniaq just crossed. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on March 28, 2007, 06:00:31 PM I am not really sure how well this will work in order to spread the players though due to the level cap. I see all the level 15's congregating at the Northern Bree fields, the Weather Hills area. and possibly some Old Forest action unless they have some more solo content ready to drop in for that level range that was not available in closed beta. Of course grouping you could do some of the higher areas, but if you are doing the higher level quests once capped you are screwed if you turn them in. You will end up on the short end of the stick come release and will be in for some serious grinding for several levels, and with the advancement heavily weighted towards questing that would be a long and painful grind.
Just my opinion here but if I had been them I would have gave the pre orders 2 weeks and the public one week on this open beta thing. 3 weeks plus could end up biting them in the ass. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sky on March 29, 2007, 07:34:08 AM Damn! I skimmed the email and thought there was a week before release. You mean it's level capped at 15 for almost a month (Mar 30 - Apr 24)? That's messed up. Guess I'll have a gaggle of lvl 15 characters.
Bat Country server choice? Not that we ever muster up to much, and Signe will probably kick us all out of the guild like she did in EQ2. She's mean like that. :evil: Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Signe on March 29, 2007, 07:39:15 AM It was Lt.Dan! I swear! I tried to stop him but he wouldn't listen. I think he punched me, too. :cry:
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: tazelbain on March 29, 2007, 08:02:58 AM It was Lt.Dan! I swear! I tried to stop him but he wouldn't listen. I think he punched me, too. :cry: You were a monk. You could have easily dodged it.Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sky on March 29, 2007, 09:10:26 AM It just makes me a wee bit sad because I've been playing EQ2 for two months now. There's a bunch of stuff I can't get because it's guild-only and I dislike selling crap that could be used by guildies (if anyone's even playing, heh).
Moot point, I'm out in a week due to the Station Pass rate hike. YOU attempt to make a shameless money grab on Sky and fail! Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on March 29, 2007, 09:41:58 AM Didn't most of the f13 people quit playing beta after a few days? I'd be surprised if more than a handful a) bought this at release and b) those that did stayed longer than a month. I appreciated the look of the game, but the gameplay was pretty uninspired.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on March 29, 2007, 10:11:41 AM That's about what happened at the time I took a look The forum for discussing LoTRO was always very quiet. I sorta see that as substantiating my impression of LoTRO: competent but largely uninspired. There simply isn't enough reason to talk about the game because the game itself is merely a well-executed time sink that doesn't brook much personal player creativity. A game can still do very well without inspiring terabytes of conversations every day of course.
I would have liked to have checked it out with my new rig, but beta is all barred up until tomorrow and I don't think my old beta account will work anymore since I didn't pre-order. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Ixxit on March 29, 2007, 10:31:27 AM I would have liked to have checked it out with my new rig, but beta is all barred up until tomorrow and I don't think my old beta account will work anymore since I didn't pre-order. Log into your Turbine billing page and under LoTRo you should see your beta account with an expiry date. Last time I checked my beta account said April 24th. My preorder is in there as well with the same expiry which I think is when you need to enter a retail key. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WindupAtheist on March 29, 2007, 10:33:09 AM The graphics look very nice, and by all accounts it's far more solid than a typical Turbine release, but... Jesus... who really gives a shit about yet another "shinier Everquest done better" at this point? It doesn't even seem to have any sort of hook beyond the Tolkien license.
Is there something I haven't heard about that is supposed to make this game stand out? Cool housing? Some sort of unprecendented character customization? A different take on PVP than what we're used to? Anything? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on March 29, 2007, 10:51:45 AM I played it in Beta and stopped myself because I knew 'er indoors would want to play it, too. I've pre-ordered two copies and I'm thoroughly looking forward to getting back into it. It helps that I adore Tolkien.
That stuff about "waaah it's not that different from other MMOs but with a Tolkien license" is a load of bollocks. The games industry produces games that are technically the same as other games but with different stories and graphics. That's what they do. Halo, HL, Doom, Quake, CS etc etc... They're all just the same game with tweaking that certainly doesn't change the basic game you're playing. RTS, FPS, RPG, MMO: real innovation is ultra-rare. And even those that do innovate stop soon enough (Paradox, Blizzard etc). If someone said "oh, we're making BG3.. same engine, new stories" I'd buy it. And now that someone is saying "we're making WoW, but with a story and world you like" I'm all over it. And anyway, the real reason that it's bullshit is that this cri de coeur for novelty is coming from someone who has been playing the same MMO for the best part of a decade. Housing isn't in at the moment, but it's coming, and it'll possibly be related to the family element (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2007/03/19/lord_of_the_rings_online_the_interview.html). The things that are exciting people on SA are a weird mixture: everything from monster play for PvP to the ability to play music using the keyboard. Jam sessions of Mary Had a Little Lamb in Bree. Whatever floats their boat, I suppose. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Ixxit on March 29, 2007, 11:23:46 AM Quote If someone said "oh, we're making BG3.. same engine, new stories" I'd buy it. And now that someone is saying "we're making WoW, but with a story and world you like" I'm all over it. Great point, you pretty much summed up my feelings. If have ever have to play another second of cartoony, jokesy WoW I'll vomit in my own lap. Now Blizzard isn't the sole keeper of MMO polish and ease of entry. Insofar as Lotro being 'just another Diku', what do the writhing masses care. Does anyone outside the small circle of mmo intelligensia, philosophers and brainiacs even know what a diku is or even care? Lotro looks fantastic , runs great, is easy to get into and a boon to any gamer even vaguely interested in the source material who is not tied up in knots that is just another 'diku'. That's why Lotro will be a success. Not only that, Turbine has done a fantastic job marketing, generating interest, and preselling their game with an amazing pricing scheme. All Access Pass 30.00, Planetside 15.00. Fuck you Sony. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nija on March 29, 2007, 11:24:08 AM That stuff about "waaah it's not that different from other MMOs but with a Tolkien license" is a load of bollocks. ... Housing isn't in at the moment, but it's coming, and it'll possibly be related to the family element (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2007/03/19/lord_of_the_rings_online_the_interview.html). The things that are exciting people on SA are a weird mixture: everything from monster play for PvP to the ability to play music using the keyboard. Jam sessions of Mary Had a Little Lamb in Bree. Whatever floats their boat, I suppose. It's not bullshit for many reasons. One of which you emphasized yourself - no housing at release. Coming later. A sign of many things to come - later. Take a look at that world map and the areas included at release. World of Warcraft was a better EQ. LOTRO isn't a better World of Warcraft. I still believe that licenses hurt rather than help these massive games. Enjoy your 2 month long SimBeru Tolkien adventure. Oh, and "The games industry produces games that are technically the same as other games but with different stories and graphics. That's what they do. Halo, HL, Doom, Quake, CS etc etc... They're all just the same game with tweaking that certainly doesn't change the basic game you're playing." Halo, HL, Doom, Quake, and CS (Okay maybe not CS) are all very different games.
Since I've wasted enough time in this chat box, here's my MMO run down.
I skipped a few dozen but they can all be summed up with this - "Pain." I really don't see why people who have a year /played racked up in WOW looking at LOTRO and saying to themselves, "Now there's where I'm going to spend 12 months out of the next 26 months of my life." WOW is going to have EQ-like 'hardcore retention' unlike anything ever seen before. Look at Rasix for instance. Christ man, that's pathetic! Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on March 29, 2007, 11:30:12 AM That stuff about "waaah it's not that different from other MMOs but with a Tolkien license" is a load of bollocks. I could understand your statement better if the quests or the story were engaging, but they're really not. Kill 10 wolves and return to me is hardly an epic Legolas-like experience. I was never driven along in the story. I was never compelled to play just a little longer to complete some quest that finished a story arc. It was a grind with pretty uninteresting combat stuck into a pretty world. I'm not here to tell you what is fun or not, but it seems a bit much to suggest that the story in this game is enough to breath new life into its gameplay. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Venkman on March 29, 2007, 11:34:14 AM Quote That's what they do. Halo, HL, Doom, Quake, CS etc etc... Err, actually, just how many good label-slaps are there in the other genres too? When we talk about the standout titles, it's because they emerged surpreme above the general riff-raff derivative crap. The one thing I do completely agree with in that DFC intelligence piece about MMOs is that there's generally only one standout title that everyone points to as an example of the genre. This is the same case with other genres as well. The big difference is that here you need to keep paying for it. Some games stand the test of time just because. Here, that's not an option. It needs to stand the test of time, against any new graphic, tech, and innovation that follows. It's no wonder the developers live diku. It survives innovation by speaking to pure greed. It really doesn't matter how pretty the slot machine is when the player believes the odds of winning are high. Into this steps LoTRO. Fine game, more of the same. That worked well for DAoC and WoW later. I actually do think LoTRO will do fine. But then, it's got that big license thing which means "fine" isn't going to cut it. There's no reason to label-slap a game mechanic with a license unless you think you can make buckets of cash from it. And if Turbine doesn't because a merely-competent execution isn't enough to pull people from WoW/EQ2/interests-elsewhere, then they won't hit whatever their internal expectations are (ie, SWG). From there it's anyone's guess what happens to the game. It's for that reason alone I'm surprised anyone paid for the lifetime subscription thing. NO MMO is ever so consistent one should pay for more than three months in advance, six if you're a fanatic. Basic business realities could require Turbine change things more radically than players experienced in beta. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Furiously on March 29, 2007, 11:59:04 AM It's for that reason alone I'm surprised anyone paid for the lifetime subscription thing. NO MMO is ever so consistent one should pay for more than three months in advance, six if you're a fanatic. Basic business realities could require Turbine change things more radically than players experienced in beta. I <3 my puzzle pirates Alpharrr lifetime subscription. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sky on March 29, 2007, 12:04:00 PM Nija seems to dislike mmo way more than I do. Why even bother playing them if you only liked AC? And the SimBeru thing...I'm not getting it. Does the combat suck and crafting rock? Are there several dedicated social/crafting classes?
I don't give a flying monkey shit about innovation. I don't care about housing, and pvp in mmo has sucked so bad in almost every iteration, I really don't care about that anymore, either. I like games that I find enjoyable, there's really not a good metric for it. WoW certainly didn't remake the wheel, but they were solo-friendly and polished. That's enough for me in an mmo. LotRO sounds polished and not too group-oriented. If I don't like it, I'm only out a few bucks, since I had the money budgeted for my EQ2 sub that I cancelled. I think SOE is going to need ass salve. Between releasing VG when WoW:BC was released and raising their sub prices when LotRO is released (more or less).... At the very least I should get more mileage out of LotRO than the slew of 5-10 hour games that are splattered all over EB's shelves like they were jettisoned from a mexican's ass on the 6th of May. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on March 29, 2007, 12:04:48 PM It's for that reason alone I'm surprised anyone paid for the lifetime subscription thing. NO MMO is ever so consistent one should pay for more than three months in advance, six if you're a fanatic. Basic business realities could require Turbine change things more radically than players experienced in beta. Well... Turbine has shown that it's not hard to pull the plug on a title. Have they written any language into the lifetime sub that guarantees service for a certain time period? I'd fear that they could pull the plug at their discretion (or whim). Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on March 29, 2007, 12:08:57 PM At the very least I should get more mileage out of LotRO than the slew of 5-10 hour games that are splattered all over EB's shelves like they were jettisoned from a mexican's ass on the 6th of May. I think that's very true. No matter what people say about MMOG's, they usually end up being at least a reasonably good value compared to other games in terms of an entertainment $ per hour sense. LotRO is a very good looking game that is moderately engaging and I'm certain that most people will get at least the box cost out of it in entertainment value. I just don't think that there's much beyond that. It's a new version of the same old thing. Proclaiming otherwise is pure fanboyism. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Rasix on March 29, 2007, 12:15:40 PM Quote LotRO sounds polished and not too group-oriented. Just about in the same fashion that WoW is. You run into group centric material in the middle of the story line stuff as early as your late teens. From the sounds of things, you'll get similar mileage out of LoTRO as you had with WoW, maybe less depending on how much the MMO deja vu sets in. They're going to have to revamp the combat (and possibly the classes.. people who thought WoW's were bland are in for some eye-poppin')for me to even take a peak unless Blizzard server farms get hit by a meteor. I'm not going to bother paying for second best when first still holds interest for me. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nija on March 29, 2007, 12:18:42 PM Nija seems to dislike mmo way more than I do. Why even bother playing them if you only liked AC? And the SimBeru thing...I'm not getting it. Does the combat suck and crafting rock? Are there several dedicated social/crafting classes? I like little pieces of pretty much every game. That's what keeps me trying new shit. To discover other things I like. It's a bad habit on par with smoking. Me trying every game. Thankfully I've realized that games really don't change much from beta to final, so I don't end up spending money on them. The only time you should revisit a game is when they have a staff change, and staff changes are usually accompanied with free trials. It's not a money thing either - I mean I have a half a million dollar mortgage. It's just the principle. People didn't buy Pepsi One. They stopped making Pepsi One. Do the same thing for MMOs. Outrageous shit like talking about your expansion plans THE WEEK AFTER YOUR GAME GOES GOLD should be death sentences. That's par. Encouraged and expected. Nonsense. Asheron's Call, in particular, I did like. I sucked at the game - my highest level on DT was in the 30s and I got my ass kicked all over the goddamn map. I did enjoy the concept and the execution, up to a point. At that point in life I just couldn't put in the time to get skillful enough to make it worth while. No, I didn't have to poopsock and press the '5' button 8000 thousand times so my '5' button did more damage than your '5' button, I just had to get enough game knowledge to know that OK he's casting spell XYZ which has a casting time of 4 seconds, so I'll have to dodge... NOW. Oh and dude is shooting an arrow at me, so I'll have to forward/back strafe him because I'm trying to use magic on this guy over here, and the archer has me flanked so side/side strafing isn't going to do any good. You know what I mean. Shit like Warhammer saying they won't have friendly collision because it can cause griefing. This stuff was fixed in UO a literal decade ago. Phase 1 beta started June/July '97, 10 years ago almost exactly. You could push through people when you had full stam. This prevents people sitting their fat ogre asses in doorways. This also prevents 733 people standing on the same square and casting AOE attacks. Someone should tell this to that Jacobs dipshit. SimBeru means that people are going to go into a LOTR game thinking that they will be the ones on the quest. They will be part of the fellowship. They will be important. Jedi of the Rings. They won't be. They'll quit. Or they will prosper as moisture farmers. I don't care, I don't want any part of it. I don't see why anyone would. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: shiznitz on March 29, 2007, 12:51:52 PM It's for that reason alone I'm surprised anyone paid for the lifetime subscription thing. NO MMO is ever so consistent one should pay for more than three months in advance, six if you're a fanatic. Basic business realities could require Turbine change things more radically than players experienced in beta. Well... Turbine has shown that it's not hard to pull the plug on a title. Have they written any language into the lifetime sub that guarantees service for a certain time period? I'd fear that they could pull the plug at their discretion (or whim). AC2 lasted more than a year and $199/12 months = ~$17/mo so even if the game is an utter and total failure, a lifetime sub is not expensive. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on March 29, 2007, 12:56:06 PM AC2 lasted more than a year and $199/12 months = ~$17/mo so even if the game is an utter and total failure, a lifetime sub is not expensive. I fully understand that and expect that LotRO will last longer. My point was more asking if there was any specific language in the agreement stating that they can't simply pull the plug when they feel it's good for them. Most MMO's state that they don't guarantee service. With this lifetime thing, I was wondering if that had changed. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WayAbvPar on March 29, 2007, 01:21:49 PM Quote They're going to have to revamp the combat (and possibly the classes.. people who thought WoW's were bland are in for some eye-poppin')for me to even take a peak unless Blizzard server farms get hit like a meteor. I'm not going to bother paying for second best when first still holds interest for me. Amen. Combat is just fucking BORING 99.99% of the time. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on March 29, 2007, 01:22:34 PM I rather enjoyed the LoTRO beta. I pre-ordered, largely because I want the 9.99/mo sub fee. With the level cap for the preorder "live" phase, it's not like it's essential to be in....it'll just get you past the likely laggy on launch newbie areas. I am willing to preorder for that. Getting to 15 was trivial during beta, so unless they seriously ramped up the XP curve since I last logged into the beta, I'm not particularly concerned about starting on Friday. Besides, I'm having a lot of fun with CoH right now.
Whether I'm as important as Frodo or not isn't really an issue for me. It seems to me that most people with any MMO experience already know that they're playing as an "also ran" not a lore-changing hero. I thought the world was well-crafted and I rather liked the low magic approach to loremasters. Heck, LoTRO is the first game that made me actually enjoy a pure fighter class...and that says a lot. About the closest I've ever come to a pure fighter class in any other game was rolling up a ranger in EQ. For some reason the standard warrior gig has never done much for me. I don't know why the champion class seems so different, but for me it does. I've come to the conclusion that MMOs are just too goofy of a genre to make sweeping conclusions about -- different strokes for different folks and whatnot. Maybe I'll hit the upper 20s and think that LoTRO is bland as hell, I dunno. I do know that I've never hit max level in any game, but CoH and LoTRO are the two most likely candidates for me doing that. I will admit that my hitting 50 in CoH will largely depend on the next double xp weekend, but that's a gripe for a different thread in a different subforum. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: CmdrSlack on March 29, 2007, 01:24:14 PM AC2 lasted more than a year and $199/12 months = ~$17/mo so even if the game is an utter and total failure, a lifetime sub is not expensive. I fully understand that and expect that LotRO will last longer. My point was more asking if there was any specific language in the agreement stating that they can't simply pull the plug when they feel it's good for them. Most MMO's state that they don't guarantee service. With this lifetime thing, I was wondering if that had changed. I'd actually like to know as well. It sure seems like a bad idea on their part to guarantee service for any amount of time. Were I the lawyer drafting their EULAs, I'd certainly advise against it. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WindupAtheist on March 29, 2007, 03:03:40 PM Look, I flushed out a fanboy!
That stuff about "waaah it's not that different from other MMOs but with a Tolkien license" is a load of bollocks. The games industry produces games that are technically the same as other games but with different stories and graphics. That's what they do. Halo, HL, Doom, Quake, CS etc etc... They're all just the same game with tweaking that certainly doesn't change the basic game you're playing. RTS, FPS, RPG, MMO: real innovation is ultra-rare. And even those that do innovate stop soon enough (Paradox, Blizzard etc). If you think Doom and Halo are the same game, you're a fucking idiot. Not to mention the fact that you listed like five games out of the eleventy-billion shooters to come out over the years. The games industry rips itself off constantly, but 99% of everything it produces that way is forgettable bullshit. There were a million games that were basically "Doom but a little bit different!" that nobody gave a shit about or remembers now. Quote If someone said "oh, we're making BG3.. same engine, new stories" I'd buy it. And now that someone is saying "we're making WoW, but with a story and world you like" I'm all over it. How long do you think "Holy crap I'm in MIDDLE EARTH bro!" is going to last? A week? Two weeks? A month? By the time summer rolls around, you're gonna be LFG so you can team up with LeGoLaZz and SirPwnsaLot to run the barrow dens for your 2% chance at a new shield, or whatever, and it's gonna be every shitty MMOG you've ever played all over again. Quote And anyway, the real reason that it's bullshit is that this cri de coeur for novelty is coming from someone who has been playing the same MMO for the best part of a decade. And yet, taking that virtual world UO style of gameplay and slapping on "a story and world that I like" wasn't enough to make me try Star Wars Galaxies. When they keep serving you the exact same game over and over again, I can see the sense in just picking one that floats your boat and sticking with it. What I can't see is going "OH BOY A CLONE OF A GAME I DIDN'T LIKE ENOUGH TO STICK WITH, BUT THIS ONE HAS OFFICIALLY LICENSED HOBBITS(tm)!! I CAN'T WAIT!" Quote Housing isn't in at the moment, but it's coming, and it'll possibly be related to the family element (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2007/03/19/lord_of_the_rings_online_the_interview.html). The things that are exciting people on SA are a weird mixture: everything from monster play for PvP to the ability to play music using the keyboard. Jam sessions of Mary Had a Little Lamb in Bree. Whatever floats their boat, I suppose. Blah blah blah, shit that's supposed to be patched in post-release. Seriously, it's WoW or EQ2 + Hobbits(tm). If you didn't like WoW or EQ2 that much, I don't know what the fuck you expect to find here. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sir Fodder on March 29, 2007, 03:25:11 PM It was fun running around the Shire taking screenshots while delivering mail and pies, but things got boring after a short while, not much new for me to do or see aside from the pretty environments.
I guess the Tolkien snob in me chafed a little due to the shoehorning of lore into formulaic MOG, mainly because It's not hard to imagine various creative directions that could have been taken by fitting the gameplay to the lore rather than vice-versa. I'd like a detailed and customizable Shire simulator MOG of some sort, but doubt anyone would want to fund worldy nonsense of that sort. The Turbine shareholders are probably happy with the nice safe design though, I think they placed a pretty solid bet. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on March 30, 2007, 02:50:39 AM Look, I flushed out a fanboy! Don't be a dick. It's fun, I'll play it, then I'll play something else whenI get bored. I'm not playing Falconeer* or Geldonyetich here. Quote Blah blah blah, shit that's supposed to be patched in post-release. Seriously, it's WoW or EQ2 + Hobbits(tm). If you didn't like WoW or EQ2 that much, I don't know what the fuck you expect to find here. What do you mean "expect"? I played in beta for a bit, tried stuff out, thought it was fun and decided not to play again until release. I'm not expecting to enjoy it: I already know it because I tried it. I'm not painting it as the Next Big Thing, just as my next fun thing. but you don't really care about that, because you're just playing at being WUA, which has nothing to do with discussion, learning, or seeing other peoples' viewpoints: it's the same, monotonous, semi-comedy flame routine in every other post. Edit: Apologies to Falconeer: but you did get drawn into a long Stalingrad of the soul on VG. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 30, 2007, 05:32:44 AM It is kind of interesting that the game, if you look through the forum posts, seems to have attracted an older demographic. Not sure if they predicted or aimed at this market but it seems to be there in any case.
I do believe that some good portion of these folks are like me, and skipped over WoW for the most part. For those of us that didn't WoW, it does seem like a very simple, easy, straight ahead game but not another trip through the same territory. The one real strength to this game I see is the strong and complete narrative. Something that would be difficult to achieve without the huge literary license behind it. Like the gamers who grew up with WoW franchise, a lot of the older general public grew up reading this literature. This isn't a segment of gamers. With the movies added on it's a segment of the entire populace who happens to also be gamers or people willing to come into MMO gaming. No need to be a homicidal killer in this world. No in game characters or quests are required to teach me to hate the other side. I understand perfectly well already the premise to the war and the battles before I ever kill a single orc. I can happily accept what many here have stated in one way or another; This isn't a big game for gamers. How much the license intersects with gamers.. well, that is what we and Turbine will soon discover. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Azazel on March 30, 2007, 05:45:30 AM Halo, HL, Doom, Quake, CS etc etc... They're all just the same game with tweaking that certainly doesn't change the basic game you're playing. You guys just reminded me that I still have Halo and VietCong sitting unplayed in the shelf behind me. I just bought Project: Snowblind and Quake 4 last week, too. And was going to buy Riddick tomorrow. OH CHEAPLY-PRICED PC SHOOTERS! WHY DO YOU HAUNT ME SO? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sky on March 30, 2007, 07:51:01 AM Quote SimBeru means that people are going to go into a LOTR game thinking that they will be the ones on the quest. They will be part of the fellowship. That's not what SimBeru meant.Quote How long do you think "Holy crap I'm in MIDDLE EARTH bro!" is going to last? A week? Two weeks? A month? By the time summer rolls around, you're gonna be LFG so you can team up with LeGoLaZz and SirPwnsaLot to run the barrow dens for your 2% chance at a new shield, or whatever, and it's gonna be every shitty MMOG you've ever played all over again. Did a hobbit piss in your cereal? Shouldn't you be at 10-yr-old britain bank with LeGoLaZz (since UO one of the only mmo that allows alt caps) the elven ninja and SirPwnsaLot the tamer? Seriously, why do you give a fuck if other folks enjoy a game? That whole 'lookee I flushed out a fanboi!' (to mock) routine is tired. And you bruced him on top of that. Nuh-nuh-nuh-nutsack! :P Also, I like both EQ2 and WoW. Quote It is kind of interesting that the game, if you look through the forum posts, seems to have attracted an older demographic. Not sure if they predicted or aimed at this market but it seems to be there in any case. Looks that way, from the general drift here. Woohoo!Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Ixxit on March 30, 2007, 08:14:48 AM Quote It is kind of interesting that the game, if you look through the forum posts, seems to have attracted an older demographic. Not sure if they predicted or aimed at this market but it seems to be there in any case. Looks that way, from the general drift here. Woohoo!Ever since I read the Tolkien's books in the 80's and started playing crpgs like Wizardry and Bard's Tale I've been waiting for an rpg (online or not) based in Middle Earth. I think Sierra develped a single player rpg, albeit a really lame one (can't remember the name), in the early 90's, but all we've had is side scrollers and rts until now, unless I am forgetting something. I think LoTRo will fill this void quite nicely for gamers of any age and the good news is that it is a well crafted game that is immersive and enjoyable. What Lotro represents, although I can't speak for all older gamers, is that 'It's Finally Here', no, not the spaceship trailing Hale Bop :lol: but the game I have been wanting to play since forever ago. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nija on March 30, 2007, 10:01:53 AM There was a couple LOTR single player RPGs in the mid 90s that were decent. They had an engine comparable to Ultima 6, and a lot of the game, when you talked to an NPC, it would have a few lines of dialog and then say "flip to p. 632 section H of your manual" - it had a huge manual, and it had a lot of text for NPC conversations and stuff.
I can't really remember too much about the game beyond that I played it and enjoyed it. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 30, 2007, 07:39:09 PM Short update:
Seven servers came up about 1sh EST today. Some experienced wait times on and off during the day. My understanding was the waits were pretty short although I did not experience any myself on my server. Noober instances were slightly crowded, some more then others I take it from OOC chat. For me the experience was better then when I entered Closed Beta a bit over a month ago. So.. very smooth launch. Also it is hard for me to believe any significant portion of the magic 600k preorders was on these few servers unless Turbine has some magic server code. More as the weekend progresses.... Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Triforcer on March 30, 2007, 07:47:35 PM Short update: Seven servers came up about 1sh EST today. Some experienced wait times on and off during the day. My understanding was the waits were pretty short although I did not experience any myself on my server. Noober instances were slightly crowded, some more then others I take it from OOC chat. For me the experience was better then when I entered Closed Beta a bit over a month ago. So.. very smooth launch. Also it is hard for me to believe any significant portion of the magic 600k preorders was on these few servers unless Turbine has some magic server code. More as the weekend progresses.... 600k preorders? What cracksmokin' mid level executive implied that? EDIT: Just saw this gem in the official FAQ: Quote Is there PvP in LOTRO? While there is some (but very little) precedent for PvP in the lore... :-o Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Xerapis on March 30, 2007, 07:50:06 PM Annoying restrictions on international shipping appears to be my own personal cockblock to gaming. :(
Amazon.com, I'm glaring at you. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 30, 2007, 07:55:31 PM 600k preorders? What cracksmokin' mid level executive implied that? EDIT: Just saw this gem in the official FAQ: Quote Is there PvP in LOTRO? While there is some (but very little) precedent for PvP in the lore... :-o Oh Lord, here we go... Anyways.. read page 9. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WindupAtheist on March 30, 2007, 08:40:39 PM The penalty-free system in WoW finally fixed the terrible reputation PVP was given by the assraping system in UO. A Diku without a PVP system today is just a Diku that's missing a feature.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 30, 2007, 09:42:57 PM The penalty-free system in WoW finally fixed the terrible reputation PVP was given by the assraping system in UO. A Diku without a PVP system today is just a Diku that's missing a feature. Well, since this game has a PvP system, I guess its not missing then huh? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Triforcer on March 30, 2007, 09:53:16 PM I wasn't mocking the decision not to have pvp outside of monster play- thats a dev decision that can go either way. But if you aren't going to have PvP, be honest about it. Claiming that PvP isn't in the lore is a monkeyfucking mockery of the lore. Once a dev says something like that, whose to say they haven't gotten the lore horribly wrong in other aspects of the game?
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 31, 2007, 04:51:01 AM I wasn't mocking the decision not to have pvp outside of monster play- thats a dev decision that can go either way. But if you aren't going to have PvP, be honest about it. Claiming that PvP isn't in the lore is a monkeyfucking mockery of the lore. Once a dev says something like that, whose to say they haven't gotten the lore horribly wrong in other aspects of the game? To my knowledge, the literature and the lore never mentions players in any context what so ever. So their statement that the lore doesn't imply PvP is just as absurd as your statement that it does. The lore implies nothing about a game at all. The fiction is certainly about war. Does all war in a game have to be PvP? Those are all just design decisions. And in this case it would seem to me that budget had far more to do with it then anything else. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: WindupAtheist on March 31, 2007, 06:18:28 AM "Monster play" is some ghey PVP. I eventually got fed up with the Dikuness of WoW, but the system on the PVP servers there was near-perfect and should be emulated by everyone.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on March 31, 2007, 06:39:07 AM I really don't think monster play was ever intended to attract many PvP players. More of a cache basin at 50 for those that level ahead of the content. Hence, the statements from Turbine about PvP's place in the game. I believe they have made some pretty straight forward statements about this, but I am not gonna go hunt them down.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on March 31, 2007, 08:12:51 AM Speaking of innovation, SimBeru, lifetime account, and twitch combat, why is no one playing Roma Victor (http://www.roma-victor.com/sotw/) (hint: you can't say "because it sucks")?
The feature list smells of the usual mmo vaporware flavour, but apparently they went live a few months ago. Quietly I'd say. A snippet about combat: Quote Features * Real-time 'twitch' combat balanced with character skills All too often we've seen MMORPG combat consisting of toggling combat status and sitting back to watch the fight, occasionally hitting a key to throw in the odd special move. That's why we think the combat in Roma Victor is pretty special. Combat is real-time, often very fast-paced. Sometimes it's quite frenetic and sometimes less so - imagine two experienced gladiators slowly circling around each other between frenzied attacks, for example. Players can aim for specific body parts, alter their style of attack and time their moves just as one might in a real life melee. It's very difficult to describe all the nuances of combat in a couple of paragraphs but if opponents' character skills and equipment are matched then it's all about timing and stamina - if you frantically slash and stab while energetically dancing around your opponent you'll probably find that you get so tired that it makes your opponent's life really easy and they can just step in with one or two well-timed and well-placed attacks that'll take you straight down. Wounds and injuries differ according to the clothing and armour worn, the type of weapon and attack, the strength, constitution and skill of the combatants etc. For example, if you hit someone over the head with a spear it's unlikely to break the skin but it'll still hurt. Thrust your spear at them or hit them over the head with a sword however and it's a very different story. EDIT: I was invited to beta but was never able to get the client patched right so I gave up. It would be nice to try it but I am not shelling out 20 of any kind of money without a trial. Anyone rich enough out there with a passion for suckers willing to take this one for the team? Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sky on March 31, 2007, 08:15:23 AM Nutsack, quit shitting up the thread, ffs. Monster play IS "pvp" from the lore. Bilbo didn't hang out at the Shire fighting Aragorn and Gandalf.
I saw some queues on three servers when I first got home last night. I was able to jump on a server (Landroval) and do the newbie thing without any issues. It was pretty crowded, but the spawn rates were tuned perfectly, nobody was getting shut out of quests whatsoever. I doubt people will stay as nice and helpful as they were, but it was a good first experience. My first take: it's an extremely WoW-like experience. Coming from EQ2 and not having played WoW for over a year, that was my overwhelming feeling. The graphics are decent, though the hardware surround is a bit wonky at times (overly loud noises in the surround speakers). But only decent. After playing EQ2 with it's very nice lighting, shadow, and all the other graphical tricks it throws at you, it wasn't impressive. But the graphics are ok for the job (I was able to play with everything cranked, though for some reason the anisotropic filter slider gets reset every time I enter the game). No lag at all, though some complained of it. I also missed some of the little touches of EQ2, I found myself searching bookshelves and weapons racks hoping to initiate a quest, for instance. But it also has nice touches, the Deed system in particular is a nice idea. Map system kinda sucks, hopefully 3rd parties will be allowed to mod? I'm spoiled by EQ2Map! And I think people are underplaying the lore aspect. My girlfriend came over as I was doing the newbie area and was drawn in by the graphics (some areas look nice, I was in a field of flowers at the time with bloom cranked...where's my HDR :P), but especially by the lore. She saw a Sackville-Baggins and started making Baggins jokes, she liked that she knew where I was in the gameworld (Bree). ANd she's not a big Tolkein fan (neither am I though I enjoy it well enough). My supervisor, on the other hand...he's the guy that owns fifteen different versions of the books... Too early to call for me, but it looks like a decent game. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nija on March 31, 2007, 09:56:08 AM Speaking of innovation, SimBeru, lifetime account, and twitch combat, why is no one playing Roma Victor (http://www.roma-victor.com/sotw/) (hint: you can't say "because it sucks")? The feature list smells of the usual mmo vaporware flavour, but apparently they went live a few months ago. Quietly I'd say. "because it sucks" From:Roma Victor GOCaT programme <gocat@redbedlam.com> To: nijasan@ Subject: Welcome to the Roma Victor GOCaT Team, Nijasan! Date: 9/3/05 Body: Welcome to the Roma Victor Commercial Test! Your Community Profile has had its status upgraded to that of a full GOCaT/CT team member. There is no longer a requirement for applicants to complete and return a signed NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), but we would ask that participants please refrain from discussing the test outside the GOCaT forums until RedBedlam officially announces that the NDA restrictions have been lifted. In order to get started please visit: http://www.roma-victor.com/community/gocat/rvwiki/ Please also be sure to visit the GOCaT Focus Test forums, where you'll find the latest feedback thread for discussing the current client version as well as links to the RV Wiki documentation and the all-important account page and GOCaT files page, where you can download the latest version of the RedBedlam Patch Utility. After installing and running this Patch Utility, the full Roma Victor client will be downloaded automatically. Then you can use your profile name along with the password provided at the account page to launch the game. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on April 01, 2007, 06:43:06 AM I preordered it today but I really don't know why. Vanguard killed the last inch of the dikulover in me, so I am not even sure I'll register right away. I could keep it shrinkwrapped on a shelf waiting for a better time to use the free 30 days. Anyway, I am european enough, so Endie, which server are you/do you plan to spawn yourself? Fear not, I am not planning to pester you with Vanguard trivia, I am over it *sniff*
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on April 01, 2007, 09:21:51 AM I am having fun and to me that is all that matters right now for me at least. I could give a shit about new features or a meaningful death penalty or any of that other stuff. I just spent an hour running around "prospecting" for copper and iron and enjoying the guild chat and the pretty eye candy, to me that is what a MMORPG is all about. By the way please do not pre order till they open more servers, it is too damn crowded in the 1 - 15 areas as it is now in my opinion.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nyght on April 01, 2007, 09:51:56 AM This morning (Sunday) the loads are beginning to show a little. Motion freeze ups in the busy areas.. particularly around the human starter areas and Bree.
Time to crack a few more servers I think. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on April 01, 2007, 09:53:23 AM I preordered but I don't think I'll jump in anyway: too busy at the moment with Pangya, Audition and Test Drive Unlimited.
Plus I didn't received any early invitation yet anyway. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sky on April 01, 2007, 10:08:59 AM I think I'll retract my statement about server loads. While I haven't seen any lag due to it, the sheer amount of people is a bit ridiculous. Doing one quest, there were literally a dozen people running each way down the road to the quest house, about a half-dozen at the qest giver. Spawns are hideously overcamped, and the fast spawn rate makes it almost impossible for solo players in place where aggro is an issue, because it backfills way too fast.
Still a fun game, but some issues are popping up (inevitable imo). Played around with the music thing. I want to try it again when the loads are lower, because there definitely was a latency when using the keyboard to play music, I wasn't able to play anything very good. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on April 01, 2007, 03:33:39 PM Anyway, I am european enough, so Endie, which server are you/do you plan to spawn yourself? I dunno about which server to use yet. Whichever of us summons the enthusiasm to create a character first can choose. I imagine that will be me, as my wife is pretty keen to make Arnor safe for democracy. Re your later post, I think we have to wait over a week yet before we can play in Europe. I got sent another open beta key, which I don't think I'll use, but the Euro pre-order keys are due out 10 days or so before launch, which is later than in the US. The 24th? Which would mean the 14th or so for pre-order play. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Sky on April 02, 2007, 12:16:25 PM Hit a couple 'Fellowship' quests, but was able to solo them. That's a good start. Still have to test out how I stack up against an Elite mob (&#@% group-intended mobs). If I can solo them at a reasonable level, I'll definitely stick with LotRO for a while. If groups are required...we'll see. Jagger Jack is up next, and a lvl 9 spider quest I think they're both Elite, haven't tried them yet but I hear people asking for Jagger Jack groups all the time.
Believe it or not, I started about five groups over the weekend! Any time people were standing around trying to tap a quest mob spawn, fighting over it and whatnot...I'd just roll up and invite everyone. BAM, quests done, everyone lives happily ever after, dogs and cats make out in the corner. Playing a Champion, they're pretty cool once I get mana use under control. Or whatever they call mana...it's mana, fer crissakes :) It's my own personal mmogtardation! Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: UnwashedMasses on April 04, 2007, 08:18:33 AM This is a fun game. 90%+ of experience points come from quests and exploration, so that is the heart of the gameplay. Quests are easy to find and vary in challenge appropriately. Right now some signature mobs are camped, but that would be par for the course for a new MMO. Quests are usually well thought out, with a few exceptions, e.g., collecting journal pages from wolves. Quests also vary appropriately by location. In the Shire, there are a gob of non-violent quests, mostly delivery. If you don't like them, you can go to Ered Luin for a more dark and violent "newbie" zone. Exploration counts for something if you have a familiarity with the game world. Searching out Tom Bombadil's house in the Old Forest is satisfying, and not just because of the ding. It's still an MMO. It has grinding, and you have to deal with other people. However, I have joined a small kinship (guild) and everybody is over 25, so the eye bleeding is kept down to a minimum. I would never tell anybody they have to go buy an MMO, and I won't for this game either. However, I am enjoying it right now. Preordering is a good deal if you plan to stay on for more than a couple months: subscription cost goes from $15 to $10 per month for a $10 upfront fee. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nija on April 04, 2007, 09:38:18 AM Thanks for the update! Let us know when the honeymoon is over!
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nija on April 04, 2007, 09:56:53 AM Tangent idea. Might not end up funny, but we'll see.
HONEYMOON PHASES OF MMO GAMES Phase 1 - New Moon (http://youturd.com/map-phuket-island-small.gif) Phase 2 - Waxing Crescent <-- YOU ARE HERE (http://youturd.com/Phuket-Poster-C10087139.jpeg) Phase 3 - Waxing Gibbous (http://youturd.com/Patong38.jpg) Phase 4 - Waning Gibbous (http://youturd.com/Phuket-Tsunami-copy.jpg) Phase 5 - Waning Crescent (6 weeks after launch) (http://youturd.com/37894155.VA7U0475.jpg) Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Nebu on April 04, 2007, 11:44:21 AM What I wouldn't give for a Samprimary review of LotRO.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Rasix on April 04, 2007, 01:17:20 PM OK.
That'll be enough of the predictable tard-tot slap fight. I swear, you're all getting Pavlovian in your reactions. Quitting fucking up threads with this regurgitated nonsense. I'll leave the other thread open for a few minutes so you can make out in peace. It'll be thrown into the Den soon enough. I wouldn't be surprised if another mod beat me to the punch. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Azazel on April 05, 2007, 07:25:45 PM I'd probably go for the LOTRO thing if you could get on the $10 train and then upgrade to the $200 later on. I simply don't have AU$700 spare for a MMOG right now, and liklely never will in one chunk. (2 boxes at approx AU$100, plus 2x US$200 plus exchange rate.)
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Tale on April 08, 2007, 05:16:36 AM I tried three times in different years to get into DAoC, which most of my MMOG-playing friends were into. It just wasn't for me. I didn't like the look and feel of playing it.
I tried LOTRO for a few hours and felt the same way. It's obviously not a disaster, but it doesn't hook me at all. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Slayerik on April 08, 2007, 09:06:36 PM I tried three times in different years to get into DAoC, which most of my MMOG-playing friends were into. It just wasn't for me. I didn't like the look and feel of playing it. I tried LOTRO for a few hours and felt the same way. It's obviously not a disaster, but it doesn't hook me at all. Felt the same way in beta a couple months ago...nothing they could have done in that amount of time would have changed my overall dislike of the game. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Xanthippe on April 09, 2007, 01:36:08 PM Tangent idea. Might not end up funny, but we'll see. HONEYMOON PHASES OF MMO GAMES Very nice, spot on description. Maybe this is why I like MMO launches so much. I'm a natural disaster buff. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on April 23, 2007, 04:43:26 AM Its' getting two more servers over the
Sounds like things are going well for Turbine. I am happy for them. Quote More servers coming online for full retail launch! Following an overwhelming and fantastic Early Access launch success, we will be bringing extra servers online for full retail launch. The names and configurations of those servers are as follows: English Language-preferred/International Server Eldar – Normal server Meaning - An Elven people whose name literally means "People of the Stars". Oromë gave them this name when he found them and later summoned them to make the Great Journey. German Language-preferred Server Vanyar – Normal server Meaning - The Vanyar are the highest of the High Elves and were the first Elves to make the Great Journey from Cuiviénen to Valinor, where they remained. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on April 23, 2007, 06:38:31 AM Uh-ho. On the other hand Codemasters did their best to screw it up.
Apparently they announced lots of stuff for the collector edition that wasn't actually in. Their explanations and apologies are pretty funny. What are they trying to do? Become the British SOE? Quote Official response CE/SE contents Dear LOTRO community, Recently there has been a great deal of discussion with regards to contents in the Collectors Edition and the Special Edition. This is a serious issue and deserves a serious answer. (http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=175504) The short of it is that mistakes were made. There was miscommunication; there were changes to the contents which were unavoidable. These changes should have been clearly and promptly communicated, they were not and for that we are sorry. The Lord of the Rings Online project is extremely complicated, we have made mistakes, we will no doubt make further mistakes, we are all only human. However, we do all we can to learn from mistakes and minimize their impact on you the consumer as you are the most important concern we have. We would never intentionally upset you or try to cheat you, it's simply not in our interests and that's something we believe very strongly. The long-term success of the game is what counts and it would be foolish to risk that for the sake of a few items. There have and will be further repercussions within Codemasters Online Gaming as a result of this issue. Until today I have been very impressed with the great spirit and positive feeling on the boards. I particularly appreciated the patient and understanding attitude during our recent unplanned downtime. I am very disappointed by the recent negativity on the forums, however this is completely understandable. I want to apologise on behalf of Codemasters Online Gaming unreservedly for this situation. What has happened is unacceptable and some hard lessons have been learned. To attempt to rectify the map disappointment, should any of our Special Edition or Collectors Edition customers wish to get a cloth map we will be announcing a system shortly where we will send one to you. However, I would like to say now that the reason we exchanged the cloth map for a parchment one was because we felt the quality of the cloth was not right. "Get one that’s the right quality", I hear you say, Unfortunately the only change possible in the timeframe was to parchment, not cloth. In hindsight it's evident that we should have nevertheless stuck with the original plan. We unfortunately took the wrong decision. Our key mistake overall we recognise is in the lack of communication of these changes. Further information regarding the other issues with the contents were covered in the following post from the marketing team: http://community.codemasters.com/fo...04&page=1&pp=10 This post is accurate, there are no lies. This unfortunately is the situation. Should this have been handled better? Of course it should. Everyone at Codemasters Online Gaming is dedicated to delivering a quality product and service to you and we will strive harder to provide this going forwards. I hope this message goes some way towards communicating our regret for this situation. I hope to see you all in Middle-earth. Yours sincerely, David Solari Vice President and General Manager Codemasters Online Gaming and more Quote Collectors and Special Edition Contents Explanation Official response from the Vice President and General Manager of COG can also be found here. __________________________________________________ ____ (http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=175304&page=1&pp=10) Hi All We’ve been reading the many posts about some of the disappointment you are feeling from the Collectors Edition. As previously mentioned the Leather Wristband and Prima guide couldn’t make it into the pack due to time constraints and manufacturing issues, but customers will be able to redeem these items via a special page on the official LOTRO website come April 24th. With regards to the other items that have been mentioned we can only apologies for any misunderstanding, though we should at least explain why and how these things came about. The Cloth Map changed to a Parchment Map very late on in the production , again due to some manufacturing and quality issues; we had a choice of either not including the map at all or giving you something that would still look great but be on slightly different material. We feel we made the correct choice in giving you a great high quality item. The Letter from Jeff Anderson changed to a Letter from Jeffrey Steefel for the simple reason that Jeffrey is the closest person to LOTRO and knows more about the game than anyone else in the world – we felt that a letter from Jeffrey would be an amazing keepsake for any diehard LOTRO fan. The wax seal was missing as our heath and safety bods wouldn’t allow us to use hot wax. The Golden Ring competition is still going ahead, albeit under a slightly different guise – we were blown away with the amount of orders we had from all over Europe and our legal guys just couldn’t find a way for us to run the competition in all territories legally. To this end we had to rework the way the competition runs and details on this will be announced shortly. The winners will still get the Gold and Silver rings along with the trip to Turbine and the Zunes so please bear with us. We are truly sorry for any disappointment caused and have worked tirelessly to bring you a Collectors Edition we are immensely proud of. Many thanks The LOTRO Marketing Team Well props to Turbine poops to Codemasters. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on April 23, 2007, 06:52:34 AM Codemasters are, generally, utterly and incredibly crap. Their website for subs maintenance buckles under any load and will sometimes force me to re-enter login details five or six times before allowing a given action to succeed. They sent me six different pre-order codes, of which four have turned out to be post-launch codes. I suppose that I have, at least, four spare sub codes now. They billed me for DDO for three months after I cancelled, and getting that cash back required me to sic Amex onto them. I mean, Operation Flashpoint was good, but my goodwill based on that will run out eventually...
The comparisons to SOE are fairly to-the-point. On another note, if anyone is interested, one of the UK PC magazines, this month, has an item code on the CD inlay that gives you a free earing with some minor benefits (they've already made the jokes about being Middle Earth's first metrosexual etc). I believe that it is PC Gamer, but don't have my copy here. It's advertised on the front of the wrapping, in any case. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Falconeer on April 23, 2007, 06:53:09 AM Fraud? (http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=175265)
(And that one on SOE was cheap, I'll take it back. SOE never did anything like that). Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Hound on April 23, 2007, 07:50:54 PM I have had a hard on for Codemasters since they canceled Dragon Empires. Alchemic Dream does not thrill me any either. I feel sorry for the Europeans, and they will probably be better off with a N America box.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: palmer_eldritch on April 30, 2007, 01:24:25 PM Got home from work tonight and, on the EU game, the login servers are down. That is, you enter your username and password and it hangs there. Codemasters say the issue is that "the amount of login attempts has increased so much" since last week. I guess this means the game is a bigger success in Europe than expected, so good for them in a way, but you would have thought they would organise their servers so there was a reasonable element of redudancy just in case something like this happened. I mean, they can't have sold that many boxes more then expected surely?
In other news, I'm still enjoying it. At least I *want* to log in. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: bhodi on April 30, 2007, 04:40:14 PM Got home from work tonight and, on the EU game, the login servers are down. That is, you enter your username and password and it hangs there. Codemasters say the issue is that "the amount of login attempts has increased so much" since last week. I guess this means the game is a bigger success in Europe than expected, so good for them in a way, but you would have thought they would organise their servers so there was a reasonable element of redudancy just in case something like this happened. I mean, they can't have sold that many boxes more then expected surely? How soon we forget (http://www.leagueofpirates.com/sirvival/queuedance.html)... Followed closely by "Authenticating... Authenticating... Authenticating... timed out."Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on May 01, 2007, 03:36:19 AM As I asked in the super-specialist Euro lotro thread, this doesn't happen on the US servers, does it? I mean, the three huge downtimes adding up to about 36 hours in ten days? It's not Turbine, really, just Codemasters, isn't it?
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Big Gulp on May 01, 2007, 04:55:55 AM Speaking of innovation, SimBeru, lifetime account, and twitch combat, why is no one playing Roma Victor (http://www.roma-victor.com/sotw/) (hint: you can't say "because it sucks")? I'm a Roman history fanatic, but even with that going for me I won't touch Roma Victor. One reason: I'm an eye candy whore, and RV is at least 5 years behind the times. Shallow, but true. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on May 01, 2007, 06:23:02 AM Speaking of innovation, SimBeru, lifetime account, and twitch combat, why is no one playing Roma Victor (http://www.roma-victor.com/sotw/) (hint: you can't say "because it sucks")? I'm a Roman history fanatic, but even with that going for me I won't touch Roma Victor. One reason: I'm an eye candy whore, and RV is at least 5 years behind the times. Shallow, but true. Absolute agreement here: I'm a sufficiently-far-gone Roman history geek that I'm partway through a part-time degree in Roman History (admittedly currently on hiatus since my work is paying for me to do another masters). I followed RV from early on, aching for it to be any good at all. But the interface is soooo amateurish (and indeed, I have seen Multiverse stuff that looks better) that I simply cannot bring myself to try it. I actually think that an enhanced isometric viewpoint like the new UO one would have been a better move than their descent into the deepest uncanny valley ever. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: HaemishM on May 02, 2007, 12:58:03 PM Not playing Roma Victor because while it may be innovative, it's borken.
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Xanthippe on May 02, 2007, 01:18:07 PM As I asked in the super-specialist Euro lotro thread, this doesn't happen on the US servers, does it? I mean, the three huge downtimes adding up to about 36 hours in ten days? It's not Turbine, really, just Codemasters, isn't it? Correct. With regard to the Special Edition, why Turbine didn't take a page from WoW and give people in-game pets I'll never know. They don't do anything, but they are so cool. My spouse bought the SE for me. What a rip; the map is utter crap. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Numtini on May 02, 2007, 05:17:23 PM Yeah, the special edition was a huge disappointment. I figured the map would either be functional or it would be attractive enough to stick in my cubicle (it IS middle earth). But no
Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Ixxit on May 03, 2007, 07:45:41 AM Yeah, the special edition was a huge disappointment. I figured the map would either be functional or it would be attractive enough to stick in my cubicle (it IS middle earth). But no The map is pathetic. The font is so small and blurry that it is completely illegible. Next time I go to Taco Smell I think I'm going to have to wipe my ass with it as it seems to have been printed on some high end toilet paper. The soundtrack is good though, and I did enjoy the making of documentary on DvD. Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Endie on May 03, 2007, 07:54:34 AM They also claim that it's made of parchment now. I take it that this, too, is misleading, and that it's not actually printed on sheep- or goatskin but rather something which, to a partially-sighted person cursed with the inability to feel textures due to massive scarring all over their body, might pass for parchment?
Edit: spelink Title: Re: LOTRO NDA has been lifted. Post by: Numtini on May 03, 2007, 08:11:04 AM Actually Ixxit is not exagerating. The paper most like what the map is printed on is that harsh sort of paperish toilet paper you find sold in bulk to business customers. (No, not a joke.)
|