Revisiting LOTRO impressions

[Xanthippe]

It's prettier and things work better.  Always nice to see pre-release.

The two classes I've played work quite well so far (Human Champ to 9 and Elf Guardian to 7).

I love the whole scripted parts between leaving newbie newbie land and getting to newbie land in the larger world.

Crafting needs work.  I don't know how or what kind but it does.  Much potential there.

Haven't gotten to the big city yet to check the auction house.

So far, though, so good.  I'm hopeful.

[Sky]

Not happy about my champ not getting plate armor until 15 (? 20? Whenever), I took armorcrafting but there's no reason to make any yet (I'm lvl 11). I smelted some bronze ingots because it seemed like the thing to do, but all the copper and tin I've harvested since the pre-order beta open preview whatever started (and I always grab ore when I can) amounted to 20 ingots. I think ore nodes spawn players, too. Ore nodes have a life expectancy of about a second. I did like that I could set it and forget it: specify 20 ingots and let it grind 'em out while I went to the kitchen. That was cool (ARE YOU LISTENING EQ2 10 with your ten seperate combines for a stack of food?).

Another test milestone: soloing an elite mob. Unfortunately, the test was spoiled by the tards camping the quest spider (in the human starting area, not the unburned one, the second one). After killing it four times while I stood there waiting (I like the /angry emote), not even inviting me in, I was able to snag a spawn but they pounded on it, too. Looked to have been a good fight between my 11 champ and a 9 elite spider, had the healing potion all set to go.

Travel seems expensive, maybe because I'm a broke newbler. 10sp to go down the road it takes me a minute (literally) to walk down is a bit steep.

[Cheddar]

That was cool (ARE YOU LISTENING EQ2 10 with your ten seperate combines for a stack of food?).

I thought EQ2 fixed the sub combine thing and made it easier.  WAS I MISINFORMED??!!

[Sauced]

Yeah, that's old news.   Just need a stack of candle/coal/water from crafting merchant. 

Man I'm all up in other threads with this nonsense today.

I thought farming was quaint (I should have my own farm, though, not some community bullshit), but it was very useless.  This was fairly early in the beta though, so they may have made it more useful?  Maybe you could use your own tobacco with the /smoke command.

Soloing seemed to run out fairly consistently around level 14, regardless of class.  Again, this was a few months ago.

[Sky]

That was cool (ARE YOU LISTENING EQ2 10 with your ten seperate combines for a stack of food?).

I thought EQ2 fixed the sub combine thing and made it easier.  WAS I MISINFORMED??!!

No, subcombines are gone. But each combine = 2 food. *yawn*

That's LAME. Let people combine for stacks already.

[Xilren's Twin]

Soloing seemed to run out fairly consistently around level 14, regardless of class.  Again, this was a few months ago.

Nah, i've solo'ed both a Champ and Captain well into the 20's (which is about where I stopped playing each time).  However, the storyline quest chains do start having places in them that need group for big fights in the teens, as do "dungeons" like The Great Barrow. 

[Xanthippe]

Played a loremaster to 7.  Real squishy. 

Can't decide between Guardian and Champ.  They're both fun.  I don't know how much is because of the game and how much is because I haven't played a melee class in 2 years.

I love finding stuff.  Even cabbage and honey despite having NO idea what to do with it.  I want to make one of every crafting combo so I have it all covered. 

I wish I could play some MMO as a pure tradesman/trader without having to do that levelling thing.  Maybe I'll retire on a farm in the Shire and just farm.

[Modern Angel]

I caved. Playing on Meneldor, Burglar. Tibby's the name.

[Tannhauser]

Played a elf guardian to 7th yesterday and got bored silly.  I dunno, the Ered Luin area isn't laid out to my satisfaction.
Played a human loremaster to 9th today.  About 5 hours there.  The Bree Lands are much better to my tastes, looks great and I like the layout. 

The guardian is too button mashy.  I like to only hit 3 or 4 keys per mob.  Hey if the game has autoattack might as well benefit from it.

Crafting is a mystery, my elf found one, ONE node in three hours.  Competition is beyond fierce for resources.  I'm intrigued by the Scholar trade but haven't made anything yet.

I've been in a couple of groups and it's been pretty fun.  We even healed each other omg.  Kudos to Turbine for the /smoke command.  It was pretty fun for us to stand there and smoke while waiting on our quest mob to spawn. 

What a difference a day makes.  I was gonna chuck the game after the guardian/ered luin lands but now am enjoying it playing a humie/loremaster in Breelands.  The world looks beautiful, wish I had the rig to crank it up some more.  Sound is ok, though I get random noise bursts at times.  The quests are pretty cool and I like how you can go out and complete several at a time and go back to town and shoot up a level.

Prediction:  Years after AC, Turbine finally has a good game, it's gonna sell very well, maybe even crack a million.  Unlike Vanguard, LOTR has learnt at the feet of WoW the correct things. 

[LK]

Cancelled my preorder at the slew of things that are missing or wrong with this game.  They almost copied WoW, but the game isn't complete in most areas.  I really liked the environment design, how every section of a zone had a distinctive look, but I had major issues with their UI implementation, their experience distribution, and their tradeskills system.

[Venkman]

I was excited to fire this up on my new rig, and I was not disappointed. With all the sliders maxxed out, this game is gorgeous. I won't say "best looking", but it is the best looking one I have installed atm.

However, the core game is about the same yawn-fest that bored me in January. I decided to go with a Hunter this run, and it's ok, but everything is just so safe and contrived. They have a title you can get at 5 and 15 (and probably beyond) for not dying. Shit, I die once every couple of sessions in WoW just to either some sort of cockblockery or because I got stupid/arrogant.

I'll play until I can't anymore but don't think I'll pre-order. Not worth it yet, not with truly different stuff coming out this year (not EQ1 > DAoC "different").

[Phred]

Cancelled my preorder at the slew of things that are missing or wrong with this game.  They almost copied WoW, but the game isn't complete in most areas.  I really liked the environment design, how every section of a zone had a distinctive look, but I had major issues with their UI implementation, their experience distribution, and their tradeskills system.

Ya, the polish is pretty limited in the areas it effects in this game, unlike pre-release WoW. The interface has no concept of layers, making things like clicking interactive items through the chat windows impossible. Same with simple, annoying things like it not recognising that the right mouse button is down to let you stear if the cursor is over certain items in the ui, like mob names or health bars. Annoying crap like that just bugs me.

Also, the nerf to quest rewards they appear to have tossed in after I stopped playing beta 1 is baffling. I had a champion up to L20 who had maybe 1 gold to his name. Meanwhile I see people on the boards claim they needed to nerf the cash rewards from questing because people were too rich. Now I see posts telling people not to repair their items while leveling and not to do trade skills, where they imply it's stupid to keep your gear repaired when you are just replacing it fairly quickly, or play with trades until you have a high level character to support your trade hobby. Sigh. The extent some ppl will go to rationalize bone headed decisions from devs staggers my mind.

 I notice they have made food buffs not last as long too.

[AcidCat]

I figured out what was confusing me about the combat ability hotkeys. As the ability refreshes, the icon is grayed out until it is ready to use. But when you mouse over any icon, it grays out - wether its ready to use or not. It is completely mystifying why it would work this way - you mouse over an icon and suddenly it looks like it is still on cooldown.

Oh, and I got the "random bear growl" today. Pretty funny.

I tried to give the game some more time, but I just find it hopelessly generic. Playable, but generic. I really need something more for a gamestyle that asks so much of my time and monthly dollars.

[Venkman]

So for the third time in my life, I tried to sit through that other asteroid movie, and in the process realized how I think of LoTRO:

LoTRO is to Deep Impact as WoW is to Armageddon.

I don't care much about critical acclaim when I'm seeking an semi-immersive action experience. Was I engaged and entertained? And if so, what qualities contributed to that?

LoTRO is full of polish in many places, looks fantastic, and is easy to learn for those expert in the concepts of diku. But WoW has style LoTRO does not have.

This isn't just about these two games. But the comparison is inevitable because the parallels are so painfully obvious. For those coming to the genre for the first time, LoTRO will be a great game. But they're going to be suffering for weeks in the same way beta testers are now from people who are visiting from WoW, seeing the parallels, and can't fucking shut up about them (it even annoys me and I've used my /ignore function all of three times in my entire career of games that support the function).

[WayAbvPar]

LoTRO is to Deep Impact as WoW is to Armageddon.

Not to go off on a tangent, but I thought Deep Impact was far superior to Armageddon.

[Slayerik]

LoTRO is to Deep Impact as WoW is to Armageddon.

Not to go off on a tangent, but I thought Deep Impact was far superior to Armageddon.

The Jenna Jamison / Peter North one? Oh FO SHO

[Falconeer]

I liked Armageddon and got bored with Deep Impact, but I guess this is exactly the point: WoW can be Armageddon and LoTRO Deep Impact, you'll find more lovers of the former but the latter will do great at the Box Office too.

[Sky]

I wish I could set the font size in the text window. Not that I give a damn because I won't be playing, but that bothered me. The random bear growls I thought were kinda funny. I roleplayed it off as a mirror of my actual mental defect where I hear random bear growls in public all the time. WHAT WAS THAT? DID YOU HEAR THAT!?

The wowtards in /ooc talking about wow really drag, but I usually turn off all zone-wide chats anyway.

[LK]

Were this just an Open Beta period (and, still, a poor one at that), I'd cut them some slack on many features that aren't working right, designed poorly, or are just plain missing. (NOTE TO FUTURE MMO UI IMPLEMENATORS: /trade IS A GREAT FEATURE).  But they are advertising this like it's finished, and while it's better off than most MMOs, WoW did it a lot better in more areas, though it has been around for a great deal longer.

However, take my comments on the sliding scale that WoW has created for quality expectation.  Without WoW, this MMO would probably be *awesome*.  Then again, without WoW, this would probably be a different game.  This game still ranks higher than most MMOs as far as what it brings to the table.

[Xanthippe]

Discovered another fun thing that I haven't seen before.  Playing music.  I trained clarinet and lute, and bought a clarinet (for 20silver - OUCH).  I can play music by typing /music and then using the 1-8 keys with or without the shift and control keys.

Unfortunately, I'm not very good at it, but some people are!  It's fun, nevertheless.

Dancing is disappointing.

[Sky]

I found there to be too much lag to do music well (on my zippy 6Mb cable connection). No Hootchie Cootchie Man in Bree.

[Venkman]

Yea, I think they crap out at 1/16 Sky, and I'm on 10mb down. Not sure. I can do some fancy things with the Lute, but won't be banging out Flight of the Bumblebee. I do like the semblance of cord work you can do though. It is fun to try stuff though. I spent half my last session hanging outside of that tavern in Combe.

Xanth: 20s is a hit at first but once you start doing the quests in that area, it lightens up.

Not to go off on a tangent, but I thought Deep Impact was far superior to Armageddon.

Ya, YMMV and all that. I can't sit through more than 10 minute stretches of long stares and monotone acting. There was no stress in that movie at all whereas in Armageddon you couldn't turn away for a second without some orchestra hit or city getting pulverized. I'm a Bruce Willis fan though. I like his archetypical role.

[Miasma]

I'm playing the open beta and while it is improved from the closed I still just find the game to be like WoW but without the fun.  The areas are beautiful but there is something which makes me hate playing it, at least solo.  It can be fun in a guild group with vent but that's mostly thanks to the other people.  Grouping can be tedious as the first hour and a half of a three hour play session must be spent getting one or two people caught up on the quest lines so that we can all do something usefull together.  They need to axe the requirement that someone must have done the first three steps in a quest chain before the fourth can be shared.  Redoing the quests is just killing me.

Ironically the only thing I find interesting is the monster play, we formed a raid and took all but one of the enemy areas and that was pretty enjoyable.  The bad thing is that it would have been nearly impossible if there were good-side players defending.  We needed all 24 people on the NPCs so once there are level 50 "free peoples" to defend you will need another raid just to run interference for them and that raid won't get credit for taking the towers so they won't be too keen on the idea.  I really like the idea of being able to play either side though, if evil is getting their ass kicked and you get demotivated you can just log on your dwarf guardian and help attack.  If you interested in monster play I suggest making one of each class now and running around to get all the quests since the evil side probably has control of the towers by now, you can't get those quests if the good side is in control.  All of the destiny points are pooled on the same account so once you have done the simple "report to so-and-so" and gotten you map to port back to your start area for all five evil toons you will easily have over 5000 destiny points to spend on a monster.  If you have OCD you could also just keep deleting and recreating the worg with the runspeed buff to get more points and have a huge pool of free points for when you main gets more ranks.

[Venkman]

I think it's partly due to me being almost at the cap in WoW that is making me like LoTRO more atm. I just have zip for interest in raiding, and the series that leads to Hyjal looks like one long ass series of monsterous cockblocks. There's some creative quests to be sure, but goddamn if some of them haven't been pissing me off (like the one in Shadowmoon where you're getting rotten eggs in an area that periodically makes you puke). For the people who've been 70 for months, I know what lies ahead. I can already afford my bird, and about the only reason I'm playing at this point is hit 70 so I can make the purchase.

But a larger part of my resurgent interest in LoTRO is how they structured the classes. My last go around, I spent all my time looking for a class that replicated my WoW Mage, which is the first class to surpass the EQ1 Bard in my personal list of omgfun. LoTRO has no casters per se (Lore Master is a debuffer with some attack and pets). That disappointed sullied the whole thing for me, particularly once BC launched and Mages got handed all sorts of the love.

This go around I tried an open-mind. Shit if Hunters and Minstrels just aren't fun as heck. I'm leaning towards the latter. I wouldn't have tried it at all if a buddy hadn't recommended it. I don't do "healers". But, in actuality, it's closer to the EQ1 Bard roll of group buffer that can also solo (you can actually kite if you want, at least in the early levels). Looking forward to doing the /music thing with the four instruments Minstrels can use. It's gonna suck to pay 80s for them though. Two minor annoyances are:

• If I can play songs that require a Lute, why don't I have a lute in my inventory from the tutorial quest?
• Why doesn't the Minstrel Trainer sell instruments? Right now he just repairs stuff.

And I don't like the "nuker" label for Hunters, but it is a fair description. I do miss that you can't equip different types of arrows, but otherwise it's a fun mix of ranged and melee.

So anyway, I'm actually leaning closer to pre-ordering. Still have some time to talk myself out of it.

[Xanthippe]

I ran to the Misty Mountains today.  Long trip, but so pretty.  Had to dodge mobs, was amazed that I didn't die - partly due to luck and partly due to small aggro ranges.

This game is very pretty.  Sightseeing is fun.

[Sky]

Did you hop?

[Nebu]

Did you hop?

Nicely played.

[Glazius]

So I attempted World Tour yesterday.

Created a dorf, popped into the little newbie setpiece mountain... and my keypresses take five seconds to register, my system fans are suddenly whining in overdrive, and my graphics card decides to give up the ghost and I get a brilliant panoramic view of my monitor's "no signal" notice.

2.2 GHz AMD dual core, 2 gigs of RAM, 256 MB Radeon X800 with the 7.2 drivers...

I didn't think my system was that lame. But apparently it is.

--GF

[CmdrSlack]

Wow.  I run it on a Raedon 9k with a whopping 64 megs.

[Tebonas]

2.0 Ghz AMD dual core with 2gigs of Ram and 256MB X800 here, works without problems. With Omega 3.8.291 drivers.

[Venkman]

In January I was playing on a 1.73gHz Athlon, Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro (120mb) and 1gb of RAM. This time I'm playing on C2D 2.4gHz, nVidia 8800 (640mb), and 2gb of RAM. Both times the game played fine. In fact, I had to fire up the five year old rig and play a round of LoTRO to really find much in the way of visual difference. Apparently the new install I downloaded for World Tour do not include the high-res texture files. But even setting that aside, this game looks freakin' awesome on even fairly old rigs. Two comparative shots:

On my old computer, on new computer.

Separated by years in tech and four months of game updates, I'd say Turbine did a way lot better at maintaining the aesthetic appeal across the generations than EQ2 or VG. Of course one might argue their licensing requirements required them do so, except DDO doesn't radically jump in appeal either.

Again though, if I'm not running the high-res textures, there may be a big visual difference I'm missing.

[Glazius]

2.0 Ghz AMD dual core with 2gigs of Ram and 256MB X800 here, works without problems. With Omega 3.8.291 drivers.

Well, I upgraded to 7.3s and now my adapter just spontaneously resets itself every three minutes.

I guess I should look back into Omega, but since I was able to play at least through the tutorial I'm very meh. Combat just feels like random flailing around with numbers attached. I'm surprised how big a leap it is coming out of CoX.

--GF

[Venkman]

Short of going beyond the genre, I think you'd find MOST MMOs don't have combat nearly as momentarily-engaging as CoX.

But like any MMO, I highly recommend playing beyond the tutorial. I feel LoTRO combat begins to show itself around level 5 or 6, which kinda sucks, but not really so unusual for an MMO. It's just that combat is sorta bland and one dimensional for some classes and the diversity takes a bit longer to show itself.

Not that LoTRO could do anything to compare itself to CoX. But compared to most of the others that came before it and are of this ilk (class-based diku rpg-combat), it's not bad.

[Numtini]

I gave it another try, lasted only four levels, and came away with the same "meh" that I had five months ago. Shame, I'm sort of bored with WOW and really wanted to find something to like. I was playing an elf minstrel and my best attack was something that sounded like the Howard Dean scream and all I could think of was "I know how you feel."

On the video side of things, X850xt 256meg, AMD dual core 2.0ghz/3800+, 2gig RAM. Fresh (24 hours old) install of windows and it was barely playable with my video card fan going bazook. And honestly, like Vanguard, I was left thinking "for what?" It just didn't think it looked like very much to me.

[CmdrSlack]

I gave it another try, lasted only four levels, and came away with the same "meh" that I had five months ago. Shame, I'm sort of bored with WOW and really wanted to find something to like. I was playing an elf minstrel and my best attack was something that sounded like the Howard Dean scream and all I could think of was "I know how you feel."

One thing that I've really taken away from playing the past few days is the difference between the various newbie areas.  I played humans and dwarves during the first two betas and found the human side to be rather "meh" since the main bad guys are *yawn* ... other humans.  The dwarven starting area earned many points for having me fighting goblins shortly after exiting the intro instance.  I started a hobbit yesterday, and the difference between the races was striking.  Simply by doing a "challenging" fed ex series of quests (the mail delivery quests and the pie delivery quests -- you avoid other types of hobbit while carrying the stuff on a timer), I managed to level from 6 (end of newbie instance) to 10.  Sure, I couldn't afford my skills right away, but it gave me a nifty tour of the Shire.  It also demonstrated to me that Turbine spent some time thinking about the various races and their lore within Tolkien's world. 

That said, yes, the combat is kinda meh.  I run this on my circa SWG launch machine and the graphics look just like every other "next gen" game I've played on this machine.  Quite honestly, CoX is much more impressive from a graphics standpoint on this machine.  EQ2, DDO, LoTRO, they've all just looked the same to me as far as eye candy goes.  If only for the lore alone, I am currently enjoying things.  I managed to make it into the higher levels during the other betas and while I tried to avoid spoiling the main storyline quests, once the races are all joined up in the main areas of the game, the lore aspects are still nifty.  Having never played WoW, I can't speak to whether WoW does a better job of being WoW than LoTRO.  Obviously, from the overall sub numbers that WoW has, it sure seems that WoW is doing just fine at being WoW. 

I have preordered LoTRO and while I may not continue a sub beyond the free month (largely because I am not super-versed in the end-game aspects), it is tempting to do since the pre-order sub fee is original EQ cheap.  I like to toss my money at companies that seem to do good things with MMOs.  Barring some cash flow issues, I'd have been subbed to CoX since launch.  I rather like Turbine and think that perhaps they deserve some cash for this game.  We'll see how it goes.