LOTRO now the second fastest-selling online-only PC title after WoW

[Ixxit]

Yea, I should have peppered in there that I'm currently in LoTRO, gladly paying the fee. There is a LOT more story and it's a lot more integrated into the game world. Plus my earlier comment somewhere around here about Endie's (I think) opinion that it's more "messy" and better for it. The whole thing feels more natural, more organic. By that difference alone it's worth it.

I was really suprised how natural and organic the world is too, especially since it is very structured quest-wise like WoW.  For some reason it seems more worldly and a lot less gamey too.  I also like how  the game emulates the passage of time like the burning of Archet instance where the world is permanently changed aftwards. Quite suprising how a little design trickery really adds to the immersion factor.

Last night I cobbled together  a second system from spare parts  for my wife and oldest son  (a Barton 1500, 512 ram and a 9600 XT with a 15 inch CRT)  which hovers around the minimum system requirements and was suprised how playable the game was at 1024 x 768 on low (not the lowest settings).  The ram is definately a bottleneck in towns as there is abundance of hard drive cacheing ala Vanguard, but in the wilderness it is perfectly smooth and playable.  The game looks  'decent' too on those settings because of the small monitor even with the shorter draw distance, and scenery pop in .  Turbine wins here too with making the game accessible on less than stellar specs.

Might even pick up a second copy and another gig of ram so  my son and I can fellow together.  We just finished watching the trilogy together and Lord of the Rings seems to be replacing Star Wars as the coolest thing going for him, and there is no way that I would subject him or myself to SWG.

[Edited to throw some snark at SWG]

[Rodivar]

I was in LoTR beta for quite awhile and the results you are seeing in the launched game is result of a tight, concise, professional, inquisitive,  well organized development and beta process.  The tools were in place to give relevant feedback.  The patch schedule had a sense of purpose, core system items getting the attention they deserved.  Open proactive feedback so people didn't fixate on issues that were in the process of being fixed. 

The also focused on *gasp* fun!

It feels like not that long ago when the Captian class didn't have a herald they planted a flag like a WOW shaman does totems.  With the non static  nature and rapid movement of the game that was not fun so Champions got Heralds which are like walking totem/Dot combo packs.  My point unlike my time in AC2 this was a polished professional process that responded to how the players felt. 

Strangely IMHO the AC2 experience prepared this development house to become better at their craft.  Cudo's to them for doing what others have not, learning from previous mistakes and using that knowledge to become better. 

Like or dislike the style of game or IP the blizzard like polish and tight game play cannot be denied. 

[Venkman]

There's still that nagging issue that the entire UI just isn't responsive enough. I'm really hoping they correct that in time, unless they think it everything should be dictated by the universal clock, including the user having to wait for "instant" effects to take.

One has to assume it's precisely that questionable long term viability that dictated their decision to offer a lifetime subscription fee

This was a smart move for them, not because the game is going to fail, but simply because no game is guaranteed to survive competition with titles that come out years later. There's a few games that could have benefitted from doing this, but I think most that don't have big-name licenses get sticker-shock on the multi-hundred-dollar charge.

[Ezdaar]

This is slightly off topic, but I vaguely recall seeing AC2 at E3 before it came out and I remember it had some neat features like a creature's appearance changing as it took damage and visual signals for special attack openings. Did those make it into the final game and why has no one else used something similar? I'm getting a bit sick of staring at the UI.

[Xanthippe]

Like or dislike the style of game or IP the blizzard like polish and tight game play cannot be denied. 

They can easily throw away player goodwill by making more mistakes like the farming nerf which was compounded by a lie by the developers through their CM.  That sort of thing results in tarnish on that polish.

[Rodivar]

Like or dislike the style of game or IP the blizzard like polish and tight game play cannot be denied. 

They can easily throw away player goodwill by making more mistakes like the farming nerf which was compounded by a lie by the developers through their CM.  That sort of thing results in tarnish on that polish.

I am not  aware of the situation you describe but to be candid I wasn't necessarily talking about goodwill, I was talking about technical execution against a concept. 

[Murgos]

This is slightly off topic, but I vaguely recall seeing AC2 at E3 before it came out and I remember it had some neat features like a creature's appearance changing as it took damage and visual signals for special attack openings. Did those make it into the final game and why has no one else used something similar? I'm getting a bit sick of staring at the UI.

yes, those actually were in the game at launch.  Things got more beat up as you hit them and they woudl do a specific animation when there was an opportunity to use your special.

Neither aspect was as cool as it sounded.  The visible damage was nice but the Hit Point bar was far more useful for seeing how damaged the mob was.  And the special attack thing didn't matter because the icon flashed too, so all you did was look for the icon to flash, push the buton and recieve your bacon.

[KyanMehwulfe]

Good observation. Although I dont necessarily think it lacks longevity on its own, just that it's the last diku or the last big one. Next generation of MMORPG will probably stem aside from the diku-formula, and that could be what will suck away people from LoTRO.

There's nothing wrong with it when talking about longevity. It's just that people is starting to look for something different, and if that kind of difference will be delivered, then people will leave LoTRO and WoW as well (although it will take a while for the second one to go into the red zone).

Yeah for sure. I'm digging the game. It's a great 2nd generation MMO (in terms of PvE progress) - if by 1st generation we define it as everything from EQ through to WoW where you level by grinding, and by 2nd generation we have the WoW formula of leveling by simple quests. In fact, I think it fine-tunes that formula extremely well with systems like Deeds or all the story chapter instances. But like you said, I hope it's the end of the era and the next major PvE MMOs we see really establish a new generation leap in evolvement.

Which has a lot of potential with a company like BioWare working to enter the space; there's a lot of design that the Xbox community will demand in any BioWare RPG that could help shake up the MMO field.

[Merusk]

Which has a lot of potential with a company like BioWare working to enter the space; there's a lot of design that the Xbox community will demand in any BioWare RPG that could help shake up the MMO field.

People thought the same thing about FFXI.  The results were less than satisfying for most.

[Numtini]

I'm enjoying the game a great deal. As with so many here, it's one of the few where I feel part of some kind of action. The story chapters did nothing for me in FFXI except irritate me with the fuss of finding a group to get through them so I could get back to levelling. But here, I read everything. It's the main thing in the game. There have been times in some of the epic instances where I was repositioning myself just to see what's going on. Great stuff. I'm not sure if that's the game, the quality of the lore in general, or the fact that this has all been running around in my head for 25 years since I was in jr. high school.

Game isn't all that professionally polished or executed though. No, it's not an AO style launch, it's perfectly playable--this is the third game built on the game engine after all. But everyone knows crafting is a mess economically--though quite well paced in terms of advancement and interactivity. The AH is amateur hour. There are some very significant bugs--the great barrows is a mine field of them--leave the boss' room by a few steps by accident and he locks up and your entire instance has been for naught. And even if you win, you might get locked in combat and not be able to regen for the next one. There are lines for a lot of quest mobs a la eq1. I've seen some NPCs that start out talking and then switch to text. There are no sounds affiliated with emotes. Hardware support for sound is off for some of the more popular built in chipsets. It's far from perfect and there are a lot of rough edges.

[Falconeer]

That's a way to put it Numtini, and you are telling the truth, for sure. But again, another way to put it would be that this is the most polished at launch MMORPG I've ever tried after WoW, which had lots of rough edges too after all, from the sit-loot bug to the 2 hours long queues (both issues were still in the game 6 months after launch for all I know).

So yeah rough edges, but call me de-spoiled I am having a hard time noticing them (save for the borked crafting). Nice things are completely overshadowing the stains.

[Numtini]

I'm trying to remember, what else has flopped launched since wow? Vanguard, which everyone knew would be a joke. I can't even think of what else.

[Engels]

I'd argue that CoH's launch was smoother than WoW's. Smooth launches are not in the realm of the fantascially funded Blizzard, only accomplished by the lucky few. The more people perpetuate the myth that crappy MMO launches are the norm, the more Vanguards there will be out there.

[Trippy]

I'm trying to remember, what else has flopped launched since wow? Vanguard, which everyone knew would be a joke. I can't even think of what else.

City of Villians (okay not really a new game), Dungeons and Dragons Online, Matrix Online, Auto Assault, Guild Wars (assuming you count that as an MMO), SEED, Dark and Light,...lots of others I can't think of at the moment...

[Falconeer]

EverQuest 2 launched 12 days before WoW, but I think we can put that one in the lot too.

EDIT: Anyway I mean "after WoW" not in a chronological sense. WoW being the most polished MMORPG ever (can't remember how polished FFXI was. I assume it was, but my memories were wiped by their psychedelic subscription system), I'd say LoTRO comes second.

[Strazos]

I thought CoH was fairly polished, very playable, and not extremely buggy back when it launched. I don't really remember having any problems.

[Numtini]

FFXI was very polished, but the NA release was after it's first expansion was out in Japan, so I don't think that quite counts.

I remember seriously snarking at the WOW launch since I'd hated the game in beta. (I still think it's mediocre at best--simply perfectly executed). If I recall logins, patching, and queues were a complete disaster, though the game was fine if and when you could actually get in.

I'd completely forgotten DDO, but like Guild Wars I don't consider it to be an MMO anyway. Easy to have a stable launch if the only area is a city.

Having been the one to list problems, I agree LOTRO has had a good launch. But some of the comments I've seen are a little more optomistic than I can see :)

[Arthur_Parker]

Not sure this deserves it own thread as it might be number 17 next week but anyway here you go.

linky

This week doesn't look great for Codemasters, however. Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar drops, like Gandalf fighting a Balrog, from Number 2 way down to Number 17.

[Hound]

LoTRO snagged the #1 and #2 spots for the week ending April 28 in the PC game category according to GameDaily, I assume this was US only

Link

[Numtini]

Well I'm not seeing any large influx of players into the game in NA, despite the good press. There are no new servers nor are the servers seeing lots of newbies. Concurrent logins have been pretty much stable according to the social panel. What they have (probably a little under 200k for NA/Europe) is what they're going to get.

I still like the game and they have a more than viable subscription base. I just hope with all that money they took in for D&D and Lotr, they aren't overextended.

[Falconeer]

10 servers in Europe and queues started to show up two days ago. It will grow. Slowly, steadily, it will grow.

[Endie]

10 servers in Europe and queues started to show up two days ago. It will grow. Slowly, steadily, it will grow.

Assuming that they can persuade it to stay online for long enough in a go not to start driving people away.  I say again (after getting back after 5 days to find login servers broken again last night): Codemasters suck monkey appendages.

[Numtini]

I can't speak for the highly dysfunctional European servers, but in the US, the queues seem to be artificial and imposed to balance servers. (Which I think is an effective and excellent way to do it.) I have yet to wait more than 30 seconds. They are certainly not an indication that a server is full. There were queues on my server a week ago at 7 in the morning when it was at a fraction of it's prime time population and I've tracked more people online the last two days without a queue than when we were in queue.

I hope you're right, I really like the game and I'd love to see what Turbine could do in terms of ongoing storyline content with a full blown hit on their hands.

[Soukyan]

Well I'm not seeing any large influx of players into the game in NA, despite the good press. There are no new servers nor are the servers seeing lots of newbies. Concurrent logins have been pretty much stable according to the social panel. What they have (probably a little under 200k for NA/Europe) is what they're going to get.

I still like the game and they have a more than viable subscription base. I just hope with all that money they took in for D&D and Lotr, they aren't overextended.

As far as new "servers" go, I thought they were doing some heavy-duty clustering. I could be wrong, but if that is the case, they can scale capacity without players seeing a new "server" to choose from. Whatever the case may be, I can't see any sort of crazy growth beyond the initial influx, either. It is becoming a crowded market and Wal-Mar... err... WoW has all the customers.

[Numtini]

I don't think regions are instanced and a lot of the quests early on were wait in line to kill because of the bubble of people who were stuck at 15 from the pre-release. I'd say the servers are pretty much maxxed out right now because of gameplay issues.

[Falconeer]

Another new euro server, the eleventh, is coming up this week.

As I said, steadily, slowly, growing.

[Ironwood]

Europeans really, really have no fucking taste, do they ?

 

[Slayerik]

Europeans really, really have no fucking taste, do they ?

 

Seriously.

I made it 10 minutes in beta. Was just wayyyyy too ....meh....for me. YAY, LOOK THERE'S GANDALF and GIMLI! HEY LOOK, THIS GAME IS A WORSE VERSION OF WOW! Maybe it could have been decent if I had left the starting town I was at, but the combat was completely uninspired and the graphics were....meh, once again....So thus ended Gimpli, the dwarven guardian (or something like that).

[Falconeer]

Europeans really, really have no fucking taste, do they ?

 

Says the man who plays World of Warcraft. Plays a lot.
And no, this is a BETTER version of World of Warcraft.

[Ironwood]

And is European.

By your logic, I'm making my own point.

 

[Endie]

And is European.

By your logic, I'm making my own point.

 

Well, actually, you're arguing from the particular to the general.  All he needs is you to have no taste...

[Slayerik]

Europeans really, really have no fucking taste, do they ?

 

Says the man who plays World of Warcraft. Plays a lot.
And no, this is a BETTER version of World of Warcraft.

Curious here, what parts are better? Combat? Crafting? Environment? 'Feel'? Questing? PvP (lol)? Endgame (noone really there yet I assume)?

Its easy to say its better, but it has to at least be released 6 months till we see how the endgame really is, cause endgame is huge. Wow raiding, as much as it gets ragged on around here, wasn't horrible pre-BC. It was fun at times. What does LOTR have to offer for endgame
?

[Merusk]

I'd take Falconeer's comments on games with a salt-mine.   He was the one hyping the shit out of Vanguard.

[Slayerik]

I'd take Falconeer's comments on games with a salt-mine.   He was the one hyping the shit out of Vanguard.

Oh trust me, I throw a VG jab at em once in a while...but I find its best to save it for a major disagreement. I truely am curious here about certain aspects of LOTR. :)

[Falconeer]

I could link to my posts on the first open Lotro topic where I said it was better than WoW, and I was still in my crazy Vanguard phase. I was mouthshouted when it was still under the NDA cause I dared to say that it was good. I'm not hyping it, just observing, playing and appreciating it. Hype should hint to an exaggeration, and unless you consider exaggeration the simple fact that a game can be better than WoW, I fail to see the point.
LoTRO is by no means a great game, but it's definitely a nice iteration of the old diku/everquest model. Obviously, it's more on the WoW side than the EQ side of the stick, and I think it succeeded in besting WoW as an overall game. Where? How?

what parts are better? Combat? Crafting? Environment? 'Feel'? Questing? PvP (lol)? Endgame (noone really there yet I assume)?

Combat isn't better. It's nice, but as someone else said WoW combat is more visceral, more arcade-y. So yes combat is better in WoW. Not by miles though. It's not like WoW against EQ2. It's just WoW against a slightly less compelling WoW-like combat.
Crafting? They are basically the same. Looks to me like LoTRO crafting allows for some better items but I'd say they are identical.
Environment? Bet your ass LoTRO wins hands down. It's true I only saw only 40 levels of WoW but I saw just 32 in LoTRO and there's no competition. LoTRO wins.
Feel? Yes, LoTRO wins.
Questing? LoTRO owns Warcraft.
PvP? WoW wins by a long shot (being PvP almost absent in LoTRO save for monster play which I still have to try against humans) as it'll probably will win in the endgame area, although no one can say it yet.
Itemization, surprisingly, is stunning in LoTRO as of now, something that can't be noticed in the first 20 levels. I won't go as far as to say that it's better in LoTRO, but aesthetically speaking, again, there's no race, LoTRO wins.

So, summing it up and looking at what I just wrote, I can't say again with a honest face that LoTRO is a better game than Warcraft. I can say though that I think it improves some core area of the game and of MMORPG in general making the experience more worthwhile and, if possible, even less grindy. To be story driven from straight to finish, in an incredible, great looking world, with every bit working smoothly, is basically what made WoW what it is.
I think LoTRO came close to completely own WoW. It didn't, mainly for the "delayed" combat. But overall, and to my tastes, yes I think it's a slightly better game.

I am not hyping it though. The fact that it'll grow it's just that, a fact (not my secret wet dream). And when I say that "the game rocks" (said in a different topic) it's partly a joke, referred to how much I am enjoying the deeds and the titles/badges. That's it, it's not hype. I am enjoying it while waiting for the UO revamp, or Conan, or Warhammer or whatever will have the kind of PvP or/and worldly elements I fancy. And as of now it shares my playtime with the grittiness of Dark Wind (that one you could say I am really hyping).


P.S (EDIT): My signature stands for my sins and mistakes of the past. Yes, I was so wrong.