Lord of the Rings - Beta Signups

[Xilren's Twin]

As best I've seen, DDO doesn't really have "hard" crowd control (mezzes, roots, and stuns, as opposed to just hits that draw aggro) to speak of either.

Crowd control means predictability, and with predictability it's impossible to make combat truly interesting.

No hard crowd control in DDO? You do know what the single most overused spell in DDO is right? 

Web.

Plus the Holds, Charms, Sleeps, Cloud spells and assorted other CC tools like the Initimidate and Negotiation skills, DDO has actually quite a lot of CC, its just harder to use well b/c of the general pace of combat. D&D in general has lots of CC as well, but usually it's mitigated by the fact that a human is controlling the opposition and can react intelligently when called for.

It surprises me not at all the LOTRO will have CC.  It's become a staple of diku style MMO combat

Xilren

[Miasma]

As best I've seen, DDO doesn't really have "hard" crowd control (mezzes, roots, and stuns, as opposed to just hits that draw aggro) to speak of either.

Crowd control means predictability, and with predictability it's impossible to make combat truly interesting.

No hard crowd control in DDO? You do know what the single most overused spell in DDO is right? 

Web.

Plus the Holds, Charms, Sleeps, Cloud spells and assorted other CC tools like the Initimidate and Negotiation skills, DDO has actually quite a lot of CC, its just harder to use well b/c of the general pace of combat. D&D in general has lots of CC as well, but usually it's mitigated by the fact that a human is controlling the opposition and can react intelligently when called for.

It surprises me not at all the LOTRO will have CC.  It's become a staple of diku style MMO combat

Xilren

I'm guessing Tele is still talking about DDO without bothering to subscribe/play it.

[Signe]

I'm sure LOTRO will be a perfectly lovely game. 

[NiX]

You only say that cause you have a thing for hobbit sex.

[Telemediocrity]

I'm guessing Tele is still talking about DDO without bothering to subscribe/play it.

Hey, I played it up until level 4. :p  I stand corrected on the crowd control - I just didn't see any of it when I played, maybe because they were usually pickup groups with few spellcasters.  I'll play it again when AC1 runs out of content for me, which should hit sometime in 2008.

It surprises me not at all the LOTRO will have CC.  It's become a staple of diku style MMO combat

Xilren

That's just the thing - Turbine's strength has always been in doing the things that aren't the staple of other MMOs.  When they try to imitate the more generic MMOs, it always comes out awful.

[Yegolev]

That's just the thing - Turbine's strength has always been in doing the things that aren't the staple of other MMOs.

Like succeeding.  When's this thing going to open up?  I want to roll up a valewalker.

[jpark]

I want to cause outrage by signing up for this thing when it goes live - claiming every spelling variant of "Legollas" on every server - and then cancel my subscription 

[Arthur_Parker]

LOTRO Alpha begins today

[Signe]

How come Cal doesn't come around and announce things any more?  It's you lot, it is!  You've chased him off with your hobbit bashing and elf dissing!  Bah to you! 

Come back, Cal.  I'll protect you from the hobbit hating hordes! 

Also... there seems to be some contests for beta slots around.  I saw one at MMORPG.com earlier.

[Calandryll]

How come Cal doesn't come around and announce things any more?  It's you lot, it is!  You've chased him off with your hobbit bashing and elf dissing!  Bah to you! 

Come back, Cal.  I'll protect you from the hobbit hating hordes! 

Also... there seems to be some contests for beta slots around.  I saw one at MMORPG.com earlier.

It's because Arthur is too fast! Plus I was out of the country until recently so I am kinda still catching up. Anyway, um, LOTRO is officially in Alpha!! :)

[Signe]

I have heard that Arthur is not only fast, but loose.

[Venkman]

I am sure you all knew about this already, but it was news to me that =article&pagebuilder[display_item]=130]traditional raiding was coming to LoTRO.

All the staples really. Haven't seen anything in there that isn't like Raiding in the traditional sense.

[Righ]

Let me see if I can fix that link.

Traditional raiding is coming to LOTRO.

[tazelbain]

Didn't we see this coming?  They already said they are taking WoW head on.

[shiznitz]

So will Sauron be on a timer? If you have a female character, can you solo the Witch King raid?

[Arthur_Parker]

I have heard that Arthur is not only fast, but loose.

Sadly, I don't think it's possible to be loose when growing up in Armagh in the 70's.

It's just been confirmed that LOTRO will have monster play (most likely for pvp) in addition to raiding.  Exact details of monster play are unknown but I'd guess it's a cheap Evil faction without all the effort of starter areas, zones, quests, character development and itemisation. 

*Prediction ahead* one of the top 5 complaints at the release of LOTRO will be lack of character advancement features when playing a monster.

[tazelbain]

Finally, a reason to care about this game.

EDIT: does this put LOTRO on a simular time-table as WAR?

[Arthur_Parker]

LOTRO is meant to be released this year but I suspect it's going to be delayed a few months.

Edit to add.  WAR is meant to be released late next year, but I have no idea how the EA takeover next year will affect that.

[Signe]

I hope something interesting comes out this year.  I SO BORED.

PS  You Irish are always trying to pretend you're so virginal.  You think God doesn't see what goes on behind that observatory!

[edlavallee]

It was Col. Mustard in the Observatory with the candlestick.

[Velorath]

I hope something interesting comes out this year.  I SO BORED.

Only MMO I've been looking forward to is Age of Conan and it looks like we won't be seeing it until March '07 at the earliest.

Oh, and Pirates of the Burning Sea, which will apparently have it's release date announced at PAX near the end of the month.

[Arthur_Parker]

New LOTRO gameplay video

[Trippy]

That looked really bad.

[Venkman]

For me it's AoC, TR and PotBS, for, of course, different reasons :)

[Miasma]

New LOTRO gameplay video

That was some of the slowest and most boring combat I have seen in a long, long time.  It is rather scary to think that someone probably scanned hours worth of footage to find the most exciting bits and could only scrape that up.

I did like the backgrounds and environments a lot though.  At least I will be able to look at pretty trees and buildings while I wait for auto attack to fire every five seconds.

[Telemediocrity]

That was some of the slowest and most boring combat I have seen in a long, long time.  It is rather scary to think that someone probably scanned hours worth of footage to find the most exciting bits and could only scrape that up.

Perhaps the best saving grace I can offer is that given that this is Turbine, that probably wasn't the most exciting bits culled from hours of footage.  Turbine, much as I love them, are a bit notorious for a laissez-faire attitude toward the promo material they put out; Asheron's Call releases monthly teaser screenshots of their content updates before they come out, and many times the screenshots aren't even taken using the highest graphics settings.

[Rasix]

That was some of the slowest and most boring combat I have seen in a long, long time.  It is rather scary to think that someone probably scanned hours worth of footage to find the most exciting bits and could only scrape that up.

Perhaps the best saving grace I can offer is that given that this is Turbine, that probably wasn't the most exciting bits culled from hours of footage.  Turbine, much as I love them, are a bit notorious for a laissez-faire attitude toward the promo material they put out; Asheron's Call releases monthly teaser screenshots of their content updates before they come out, and many times the screenshots aren't even taken using the highest graphics settings.

That's probably not a good thing for a company that wants people to buy and subscribe to its games. Also, just a quibble, but AC monthly releases are targetted toward existing customers.  They should probably drop that sort of approach for people that aren't already forking over their 15 a month.  People like the shiney. They like to be blown away by the promo material they watch. 

Really, I'm available for consulting Turbine.. I come cheap and am full of wonderful ideas.  For example, did you know that a working chat server is a crucial part of your game?   

I just watched the video.  It was a shiney, stiff-looking WoW on tranquilizers.  The character models kind of had that EQ2 "carrot-in-the-butt" syndrome.  Somewhat pretty but about as exciting as watching Progress Quest.

[Miasma]

You know I just realized that the title of that file has "B-roll" in it, maybe there is a much better "A-roll" somewhere?

[Trippy]

You know I just realized that the title of that file has "B-roll" in it, maybe there is a much better "A-roll" somewhere?

B-roll in this context is the term used to describe film/video given to news organizations in hopes of getting some publicity.

[shiznitz]

Perhaps the best saving grace I can offer is that given that this is Turbine, that probably wasn't the most exciting bits culled from hours of footage.  Turbine, much as I love them, are a bit notorious for a laissez-faire attitude toward the promo material they put out; Asheron's Call releases monthly teaser screenshots of their content updates before they come out, and many times the screenshots aren't even taken using the highest graphics settings.

I don't want to see the most exciting parts anyway. I want to see what I will be doing during my 2-3 hour evening play sessions. That said, I am not waiting 17 minutes for the download to start so I will have to rely on everyone's comments. Turbine is going to have to do a lot to get me ecited about this title, though, and it has ZERO buzz among my MMORPG guildmates who are 50% rabid LotR fans.

[Calandryll]

Sigh. That video is old footage. It's out of date (taken from pre alpha build from months ago) and was never meant for public use. It's b-roll. Basically we record a bunch of video and then use clips when creating a release video.

Time to do some investigating.

[Arthur_Parker]

The website dated the video as from yesterday, if I knew it was old footage I would have said so.

[Kenrick]

Cal, do you know if we're going to have to re-register on the official forums for Alpha 2?  Won't recognize my Alpha 1 login info anymore. 

[Calandryll]

The website dated the video as from yesterday, if I knew it was old footage I would have said so.

Not your fault at all. And yes, the video is dated today. But I can assure you it was recorded months ago.

[Rasix]

Cal, do you know if we're going to have to re-register on the official forums for Alpha 2?  Won't recognize my Alpha 1 login info anymore. 

By acknowledging that you're in alpha, you have violated your NDA.  You have been removed.