f13.net

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3...

Anybody still playing this game?

Sporadically

Trippy's new avatar is hawt. Just noticed it was TrippyTest. I'm going to clean my room. I'm useless today. Brain is jelly.

I got my preorder key via email yesterday, but am holding off until I get the current phase of my massive research project out the door.  Also, most of the people that I know who are planning on checking out the open beta won't be playing until April 6th.

I'll be back for the 6th when my PC Gamer reg number works. Haven't played in two months. Too many other games that are actually different have come along.

Not playing.  Didn't preorder.

Debating picking it up.

Not playing.  I may play after release if enough of my friends show interest.

Going to play but haven't started yet.

Not yet, but may jump in a couple weeks before live hits.  Out of all the dikus out there this has been my favorite; all the meta stuff made my soul happy.

Liked all the ancillary stuff - titles, instanced main quest story - but found the classes and combat way too dull. And I'm pretty much diku'd out. May pick up a few months post launch depending on how bad my MMOG itch gets.

Not playing and probably won't be playing.

I think this is one of the few mainstream MMOs I won't bother to pick up, the beta was the most mediocre experience I have ever had.  It wasn't bad per say though, it's the best Turbine game I've ever played but that isn't saying much.

Ditto.

Playing.

The Mrs created a new character 3 weeks ago, 9 lb 6 ounces, female.  Doubt I'll be playing much of anything for the next few years.

Congratulations, Dad!  Best wishes!   (http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/happy.gif)

Wow that's great, congratulations.  Soon enough you'll be able to duo with her, one healer one tank and you're golden.

Congratulations!  Your own little newbie.

You will play, you'll just play in small increments.  No raiding for you!

No wonder you've been slacking on your WAR reporting. Congrats!

Tried it today, didn't like it, uninstalled. There may be a good game in there somewhere, but it just felt tired and uninspired. I liked AC1 better straight out of the box then this. The one thing it does share with AC1 is annoying cat monsters with even more annoying cat monster sounds. Gawd, I went down into a mine after the elf starter quest and the ungodly noises...I tried throwing myself into the bowels of the mine to get away from it but the game wouldn't let me!

This is going to sound really odd, but one of the things that killed the game for me was fighting lynxes in Lonelands(sp, can't remember zone's name.. I think I'm right).  They sounded like house cats.  It sounded like I was fighting one of my cats.  I was very repulsed by it and only managed to kill a couple before I couldn't stand it anymore. Maybe that's how a lynx sounds, but I would have been a lot more comfortable if they used some sort of generic tiger or other jungle cat.

Interesting- I had a very similar visceral reaction when fighting them. Poor kitties!

The other little thing that just threw me off was the running animation. It just looked 'stilted' and frankly a little silly. Sort've like the revamped EQ1 models when they run. A small point but it sort've destroys any kind of immersiveness when you're boggling at how stupidly your toon is moving. Games like CoH and WoW have the animation down pat so asthetically I'm a little spoiled I guess. Even a cheap ass game like Rappelz does a better job (though not by much). WoW may not have the poly count or detail but everything moves smoothly and believably and not like a poorly worked marionette. This is probably an idiotic gripe but for me games need to look fun almost as much as they need to play fun. If your sensory input is put off, you probably won't like the game no matter how good it is. Quake was a good example. It was ugly and I hated it. Unreal on the other hand was beautiful and I loved it. Personal taste here, I'll shut up now. Hope someone is enjoying the game.

Preordered.
I think I'll go with the free month but unless something really surprising happens I don't think I'll resub at the end of May.

Having just quit WoW I've been looking for something else to play, so I was looking forward to checking out LOTR.

But the problem is, I've been playing WoW for 2+ years, and when it comes to basic game mechanics, LOTR plays almost identically. I might as well just reinstall WoW.

And I'm realizing I'm getting sick of quest-based gameplay. It's just too structured. I log in and see a literal list of tasks I need to complete and it's like logging into a job. This is one of the things that burned me out in WoW and it seems to be even more a part of the basic gameplay in LOTR.

There are little things too that kind of annoyed. It was not clear and intuitive when a skill's cooldown was up and the skill was ready to use. And little things you would probably never think of bugged me. Take the quest text window, in WoW it's like you're reading writing on a parchment. Here it's just the generic computer text on black background that reminds me of any generic MMO like Lineage 2 or something. I know it's a nitpick but just an example of how nothing really stands out as original in this game. The Lore? Unfortunately I just don't care. I loved the books as a kid and the movies were great ... but I'm just kind of burned out on it all at this point.

Further comments:

Yeah, movement is terrible. I often play female avatars but the running of the female humans and elves is so stilted I could not stand to  watch it. All my avatars are male.

The bodies on the Hobbits and Dwarves in look very cartoony and the legs on the humans and elves are out of proportion.

And finally again, if the narrative of the LotR is not gonna carry your gameplay, you will find very very little here to interest you.

Also solo very tough, some would say unreasonable beyond about 30. No way to grind past the quests.

As well the meager exp they give for actually killing mobs cuts the variety of things to do, IMO. Occasionally in WoW I'd get bored with questing and feel like just killing mobs for a while but in LoTRo that's a complete waste of time. Most of the time I find if a quest doesn't specifically require me to kill mobs I just skip them.