Revisiting LOTRO impressions

[Wolf]

I gave this a spin yesterday. I like the paladin... errr... captain? Anyway, I haven't played WoW in a while and this game is fun for me. I Kill shit, get new shit, ding, get new skills. Also all my skills are connected to shouting at people. Which is fun ^^

[LK]

That's the one thing that did impress me.  Shouts were shouts, complete with clouds of dust being kicked up.  Small, nice touch.

[Miasma]

I stopped playing the captain when I hit level ten and realized that those absurd looking manslaves waving the pieces of cloth were their pets.

[palmer_eldritch]

Yeah, those heralds or whatever they're called are ridiculous. Summoning a pet bear or something out of thin air somehow doesn't feel dumb, but summoning a pet person does.

[Numtini]

Well, I took Darniaq's suggestion and stuck with it. My minstrel is now 9th and particularly after ending up in a few quick convenience fellowships, I am starting to really enjoy the game and I'm thinking of pre-ordering.

They've done a good job with the lore--it feels middle earthy. I like the COH-ish titles. I really like the lack of magic and the weird classes. It gives the game a different aura--a quirky sort of appeal in much the same way that AC was quirky.

The performance thing still bugs me. I just don't see what's there that should be grinding my system to a halt, but with some tweaking and the high rez textures, I'm a little more impressed and the style is certainly right. But I don't get why I'm grinding to a halt at times.

I think the game will do ok, but some of the predictions are a little on the crazy side. Maybe a couple of hundred thousand subs if they have good press after launch? I think it will be enough to be sustainable though. I'm hoping it will become the adult wow. A little less raid focused--maybe I could actually keep up with the Jones'?. A little less barrens chat.

[Venkman]

I agree on the subs range, but that may be good enough for them. I doubt this cost anywhere near WoW to build, and Turbine did start with an existing server infrastructure in theory anyway from AC2.

I will say one competitive advantage they have is service. I think people who've been pissed off directly or indirectly by Blizzard will find a breath of fresh air just about anywhere else. Turbine is pretty darned good in this regard. At the same time, this isn't really a key selling point in the way it was when people were hoping any new developer would come along to slap around SOE's arrogant policies of yore.

Another advantage they have is patches. They, like, deliver themselves the patch data, instead of the fucking retarded torrent crap Blizzard, with all their cash, still relies on. That's another sign of dominant-induced arrogance: when you have the money to deliver patch servers to get the players what they need, but decide to rely on them getting it from Fileplanet or their friends who sat through the torrent. It's stupid and sucks and inexcusable this far from launch.

Otherwise, WoW will continue along swimmingly, probably not seeing a dip at all. LoTRO is similar enough to be easy to learn, but different enough to attract someone looking for a different experience.

To me, it's not about the Lore. It's more about the EQ2-like options. The many ways to customize a character, the /music system, the a-bit-better-but-similar crafting system, and the world that's laid out a bit more, err, "realistic" if that's the right word. WoW feels like a civil engineering study on how to move players around. That's fine and good and I still like the game (69.5 dammit... where's my gryphon mount?), but compared to LoTRO and EQ2, WoW is just way more contrived throughout.

Maybe that'll matter to enough people to put Turbine in their own money hats for a bit. For the work they did on LoTRO, they deserve some.

[Modern Angel]

I've preordered and, at 10 bucks a month, it makes a great secondary game. I recently described WoW thusly to a friend: the sex isn't as frequent as it used to be but goddamn is it still good when it happens. I have a great guild and appreciate the no bullshit approach they took to the endgame; even with all of my complaints I don't see Turbine making a raiding game of the caliber and tightness of WoW's.

That said, I've levelled my last WoW character with my shaman and am ready to do some other stuff. LOTRO has a certain charm. It's like a slower paced, prettier WoW that looks pretty much spot on the way I expected Middle Earth to look like when I first read the books. That's good enough for a few months from me.

[Endie]

My wife and I are in pre-order and having fun - except for the 24-hour downtime that happened Tuesday->Wednesday on the euro servers.  The game isn't revolutionary but it looks great, I like the style and the lore a ton more than WoW.  As someone said, the lack of magic is a fun difference, and I like the way that combat works - my champion is kinda like a cross between playing a rogue and a warrior in WoW in some ways, and managing multiple opponents at low level is way more fun than WoW with the early integration of area moves.

I've not died yet at lvl 11, but I've been down to three morale points and 1 power, so that gets a bit of adrenaline going.  In Wow i never die before lvl 25 or so anyway at the earliest, so the criticism of Lotro's titles for not dying by lvl 5 and 15 as too easy seems a bit unfair.

The titles are cool, and are providing me with reasons to do stuff that I might not bother otherwise: I'll occasionally head off the road to fight a wolf as I know that killing 30 of them over time will get me the "Wolf Slayer" title, which sounds fun.

It might be a pre-order thing, but people are damned polite about not getting in each others' way, and about helping and so on.  I've seen no lore-flaming on the chat at all, despite someone logging in with a terrible name (on an RP server) and being a complete, 133t-5p34|< tard.

I don't really understand everything that's going on, despite enjoying it.  You could say that is a sign that the exposition is less well done than WoW, or that the mechanics aren't so brutally exposed.  A bit of both, I feel.

The elf signature quest, wandering around with Gimli in your party, is great fun, and the dungeon was better-looking than anything I've seen in WoW: I'd have been happy if Moria had been done like that.  I really want to go back there and do some more quests, and to get the chance to look around a bit more - the amount of scripted stuff going on in the signature quest meant I was always rushing on to keep pace with Gimli.

This will be the real test, though: can the live team churn out more of those scripted quests, with tons of stuff going on?  If so, great.  If not: DDO.

By the way, when I opened this thread the ad (some love/dating thing) opened a pop-up window.  Pop-ups in F13?!?

[Venkman]

Quick note on Music changes, since I like it so much but it'snot worth a new thread:

Ch ch ch changes

Hey guys.. im one of the devs on the music system and i do actively read the forums. Some of the things we already have in the bag for the music system are:
- Sustained notes for wind and brass instruments
- 3 full octaves for all instruments, configurable with new key mappings
- New samples for instruments
- Option for enable/disable quantization
- Option for enable/disable low latency mode (controls whether you hear the note immediately or with server lag.)
- ABC notation support
- New bass and drum instruments
As for what ABC features we support, suffice it to say for now that we're supporting a rather limited subset. Think of it more as a player piano than a full-featured music playback system.

Minor furor over the ability for characters to soon be able to program and replay scripts rather than type/tap everything, but that's just folks hating when something can be done by *gasp* anyone.

[Sky]

Well, as a musician, I think it'd be nice to have an advantage online, too. Scripting does take away the magic of being a musician and really appreciating hearing someone who can play well. I think adding scripting/macro is a mistake. lern2playnub Maybe they could put in scripting so I can solo boss encounters. Your logic follows!

Nice to hear they plan on expanding things, they hit a couple of my major gripes. Someone does need to mention that stringed instruments have sustain, too ;)

[CmdrSlack]

Well, as a musician, I think it'd be nice to have an advantage online, too. Scripting does take away the magic of being a musician and really appreciating hearing someone who can play well. I think adding scripting/macro is a mistake. lern2playnub Maybe they could put in scripting so I can solo boss encounters. Your logic follows!

Because /music is serious business.   

[Ezdaar]

So why is Turbine able to put in an actual free form music system when SOE said it couldn't be done due to copyright violations? Not complaining mind you, just curious if something has changed or, more likely, SOE was just full of shit.

[CmdrSlack]

I think the system that Raph envisioned was a bit different.  Maybe not with these new changes.

The fear SOE had was that people would be playing covers of other songs, which technically violates someone's performance right, which is one of the rights bundled under the copyright umbrella.  So they were afraid that someone would make a stink about the ability to infringe copyright within the game.  IIRC, that was pre-Grokster, but I guess it's a semi-legit concern.  IMO, someone in legal decided to avoid the issue by not making it an option -- I personally think that it's a bit of a stretch.

[Venkman]

Their legal team is more conservative. Turbine faces exactly the same issue. Wonder why they chose this route (which I'm glad for btw)

Well, as a musician, I think it'd be nice to have an advantage online, too. Scripting does take away the magic of being a musician and really appreciating hearing someone who can play well. I think adding scripting/macro is a mistake.

Dude come on. That's like saying GarageBand makes musicians irrelevant or Quark XPress mitigated the usefulness of Graphic Designers. You know better than I how much feeling and emotion a musician brings to a song each time it is played. Technology's made it possible to replicate, perfectly, any piece ever played. But it always sounds the same, and through repetition, mechanical.

The true musicians will be those who use a mix of scripting and manual playing, and they will sound the best hands down. All scripting does it make it easier for newbs to dabble and experts to get even better.

[Trippy]

Can you actually play individual notes or just predetermined "riffs" a la AC2? I would try it myself but my client is so out-of-date it would take a while to patch it all up.

[Venkman]

It's individual notes only, currently. Two octaves, with sharps and flats, but no variable duration (ok for Lute, sucks for Horn). The upcoming changes are apparently going to fix that latter bit, and do a few other things (as noted above).

[Sky]

Actually, it sucks for lutes, too. Need sustain to hold notes and chords.

The point of a good musician playing in LotRO is moot because the interface sucks, and playing a midi keyboard isn't the ideal in expression. Which is why having a minstrel that actually knows what they are doing would be so special. It might even drive some people to learn how to play music, which would be a great effect.

Just like any other content, it's not available for everyone. So non-musicians get catered to, but solo players do not. I see no reason to bother learning how to deal with LotRO's musical quirks if little johnny can just script in some Bach.

And to a lot of people, Garageband /does/ make musicians irrelevant. If you like pop music or hip-hop, musicians are irrelevant.

Honestly, I wish I had never pre-ordered this game online. Now I'm stuck with it, I guess it's a $50 lesson.

[CmdrSlack]

I just don't see how mashing keys 1-8 in LoTRO would drive someone to learn to play music any more than playing GH or GH2 would drive them to learn to play music.  Also, I thought you hated cockblocked content, so why is making it MORE accessible to everyone a bad thing?  Or are you only neg on content that you specifically cannot access, but are happy to exclude others?

I am honestly trying to understand the thought process, because I'd have thought more accessible would == good to you.

[Numtini]

My thought about macroable music is that it will lead to idiots standing around zapping out stuff to be annoying. Right now it's probably too much work.

[CmdrSlack]

Well, the idiots are certainly currently happy to pollute OOC chat, so hopefully not.   :-D

[Numtini]

Having been the one to bring up idiots, OOC on Landrovan doesn't seem to be too bad at all. Overall, I'm impressed with the community.

[CmdrSlack]

Brandywine OOC chat is pretty bad as the night drags on.  I have to admit, however, that sometimes the running politics & religion & etc. slapfights can get humorous, but only in that slow-head-shake-of-disbelief kind of way.

[Venkman]

I think OOC is specific to region, not server-wide. Last night Slack and I were talking about OOC and I realized we were having different conversations within them. We were both out of tutorial mode too, so within the "real" game as it were. I was in the Elf area (Erud Lein) and he, err, where were you Slack? Hobbit area still?

Actually, it sucks for lutes, too. Need sustain to hold notes and chords.

I agree. However, at least with the Lute playing very many notes really quickly makes for some period-believable music. Meanwhile, I always thought horns were for accent and sustained notes, so nothing that I've tried to cobble together has come out good at all. I also don't like the Clarinet. And it's only the cockblockery of the 20s cost that keeps me from crabbing the Harp and that fifth instrument I can't remember the name of. I seriously thought of running two characters through tutorials to mail myself the silver that they accrue by level 6.5 (about 18s), which then reminded me of my UO days of rolling characters and drop/transferring the 5k starting Gold, which then reminded me of doing so (stupidly) in EQ1, which then reminded me that in Dikus, the cash eventually starts flowing, particularly when you live only on what you get from questing, so I'll eventually have the money anyway :)

And to a lot of people, Garageband /does/ make musicians irrelevant. If you like pop music or hip-hop, musicians are irrelevant.

Honestly, I wish I had never pre-ordered this game online. Now I'm stuck with it, I guess it's a $50 lesson.

You're caring too much. Allowing only "Specialists" to partake in an art is the ultimate life cockblock. I'd love to see a Garageband song from a non-musician be created with anywhere near the same appeal as an artist could actually put out.

But I've seen this argument too much in my life to take the bait. Any time there is change that makes something more approachable, whether it's the AOL Black September, or desktop publishing, or BASIC programming, or Flash, the establishment gets all up in arms about their unique self-identity getting assaulted. And ironically, these people were probably part of some other effort that makes things more approachable (ie, like you long lamenting cockblocked content). I always find it funny when agents of change in one area aren't too keen when it happens to them.

And why can't you cancel the order? Do it through the vendor or through your credit card company. I've had to in the past.

[Sky]

Neither will cancel it, I've been back and forth with both. I'm actually really goddamned fed up with online vendors in general at this point. You've got fuckers like some I won't mention on this board that ream them dry with returns and I try an honest return and get fucked by multiple vendors.

[CmdrSlack]

I was in the Elf area (Erud Lein) and he, err, where were you Slack? Hobbit area still?

I was in the same area.  I saw you talkin' in OOC, so that's how I knew you were online.  :p  However, all of Erud Luin is NOT on the same OOC channel, as the area up by Thorin's Hall is different than the area down by Gondamon.

[Venkman]

Yea. Each time I enter a new area I join 5 chat channels. I never read that list but assume now one is OOC.

Neither will cancel it, I've been back and forth with both. I'm actually really goddamned fed up with online vendors in general at this point. You've got fuckers like some I won't mention on this board that ream them dry with returns and I try an honest return and get fucked by multiple vendors.

Wow that sucks. You could try eBay. Unopened box, new account, make sure you mention it's not a character or gold your selling. I had someone scoop up my accidentally-ordered second Planetside box of all things. A brand new MMO not yet shipping in areas where people might want it should go quick.

[Endie]

Neither will cancel it, I've been back and forth with both. I'm actually really goddamned fed up with online vendors in general at this point. You've got fuckers like some I won't mention on this board that ream them dry with returns and I try an honest return and get fucked by multiple vendors.

You're subconsciously uncommitted to the idea of cancelling anyway.  You did, after all, say some time ago:

Yes. Turbine just did a bitch roll-over-and-take-it. I especially liked the part that told soloers they can choose not to partake in raid content. ORLY?

 

I guess that's what you get when your game is trying to be WoW with Tolkein IP.

Pre-order cancelled.

[Sky]

Wait...what? Uncommitted? I've been trying since then to cancel it, it took a couple of weeks to get the return emails.

[Endie]

Wait...what? Uncommitted? I've been trying since then to cancel it, it took a couple of weeks to get the return emails.

You should have used Amazon, then: I cancelled from them when they fucked up the pre-order keys and they went along with it no problem.  I was simimpressed that I, um, re-ordered it from them again. 

[Falconeer]

I revisited my LoTRO impression:

First: I really enjoy the game. It's WoW but with an EQ2 flavour, specifically in the sheer amount of quests available and the way of telling the story.

Second: What were they thinking with combat and UI? Combat arts/abilities aren't instantaneous but wait and enqueue to perform to synchronize with the visual swinging of your weapon. This sucks! You want to copy WoW and then trip on the timing of combat (exactly like EQ2 did)?! And the hotbar icons got "greyed out (in blue)" when you hover on them giving the impression that they are unusable and actually making it hard to tell if they are available or not. This sucks even more!

Save for those two gripes, which are major cause they give me the feeling that the whole combat part "doesn't play right", I really like it. The world is awesome.

[Endie]

I revisited my LoTRO impression:

First: I really enjoy the game. It's WoW but with an EQ2 flavour, specifically in the sheer amount of quests available and the way of telling the story.

Second: What were they thinking with combat and UI? Combat arts/abilities aren't instantaneous but wait and enqueue to perform to synchronize with the visual swinging of your weapon. This sucks! You want to copy WoW and then trip on the timing of combat (exactly like EQ2 did)?! And the hotbar icons got "greyed out (in blue)" when you hover on them giving the impression that they are unusable and actually making it hard to tell if they are available or not. This sucks even more!

Save for those two gripes, which are major cause they give me the feeling that the whole combat part "doesn't play right", I really like it. The world is awesome.

Re the queuing, I actually like that: I enjoyed that element in SWG.  But I don't see a way to display the upcoming queue.  Is there one?

The hover-over is a pest, for sure, although you eventually become attuned to the difference between greyed out and blued out.  Sorta.  I suppose I end up checking the fervour counter a lot, though.

Did you make your character in Laurelin, btw?  The EN-RP server, that is.  I did answer your question re that in another thread but either you missed it or you asked so you could avoid me.  Or both, I suppose.

[Falconeer]

My fault here Endie. Yes I read your answer but I went for a different server (Snowbourn) with some RL friends. I am not sure I made the right decision, but I didn't have any good escuse to ditch 'em.

About the bluish-hover thing, seriously: I would pay to know what the hell were they thinking. It's obviously a pest, and I hope, I REALLY hope they will pull it off eventually or I will have to look for a custom UI without that shit. Really, I would pay money to have a beer with the guy or the gal who came up with that shit and ask him/her about it. It's unbelievably stupid.

[Venkman]

I would love to get into the minds of people who actually use their mouse to manually select a hotkey'd icon. Seriously, how can you PLAY like that? I have not manually clicked an icon since I configued UO to my F keys (and ALT-Fkey, and CLTR-Fkey).

So I haven't encountered the blush over thing.

But the enqueue thing is sorta annoying. It seems tied to a universal clock even more obviously than WoW is. It's like they won't even render an action until that clock increments, so it feels like instant, even those things that should be instant. In the case of instants, I'd rather the effect activate right away visually even if the damage doesn't come for another 0.5 seconds or whatever.

And Falconeer, I almost completely agree with it feeling like WoW with EQ2 flavor. For me it feels like slower WoW combat with an EQ2 depth of character ability customization/personalization.

[Glazius]

I would love to get into the minds of people who actually use their mouse to manually select a hotkey'd icon. Seriously, how can you PLAY like that? I have not manually clicked an icon since I configued UO to my F keys (and ALT-Fkey, and CLTR-Fkey).

So I haven't encountered the blush over thing.

But the enqueue thing is sorta annoying. It seems tied to a universal clock even more obviously than WoW is. It's like they won't even render an action until that clock increments, so it feels like instant, even those things that should be instant. In the case of instants, I'd rather the effect activate right away visually even if the damage doesn't come for another 0.5 seconds or whatever.

The clock thing is what put me off too.

Played a Minstrel, got bizarre "out of range" messages when I tried to cram my skills too closely together, realized that I would have to deliberately time my button-mashing to the invisible server tick, soldiered on for a little bit but eventually caved.

I don't know about WoW, but I had no idea there was a server tick in CoX until years after I started playing.

--GF

[Falconeer]

I discovered something that eased my pain, not actually fixing any of the above mentioned gripes but modifying the attack mechanic enough to let it be more satisfying (or less frustrating).
Usually, when I target a mob and hit the attack button, or just right click on it to start auto attack 8 out of 10 times I get an "out of range" message and the attack fails to start. That's because:

a) the melee attack range is very short, so you have to be ultra-close to the mob to initiate autoattack.
b) contrary to other games where you can start the auto attack even if your target is not in range (while not hitting it because of the range and instead getting an "out of range" message) and then close in and your character start pummeling as soon as the target gets in range, here you can't start combat at all if your target is not in range. As I said, frustrating because the range is so short.

So, I tried this:
From the OPTIONS menu ---> Combat Options and then "Auto Move to Target" /ON.

That way, I STILL can't initiate an attack with my fav opening skill (or just autoattack) if I am not in range (something that's the norm in other games), but I can hit the autoattack button on an out of range target and my character will start closing automatically and will start hitting as soon as it is in range.

Not what it should be, but a bit better than just having to close in manually and keeping on hitting your greyed out skill until it decides that you are finally in range.

Seriously, LoTRO keeps positively surprising me day after day. I can't understand why oh WHY they neglected such little things about the legendary "Combat Done Right" that WoW somehow achieved. I hope patches will bring Turbine to their senses.