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virtuella
Member UncommonPosts: 699
http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=160235
So now let's see some screenies,info,previews etc
EDIT.
Moved my pre/review from page 3 to this post.
My oppinion on lord of the rings online.
Played 7 betaes and over twice that many mmorpg's at release and i have to say this is one of the most polished betaversions i have tested.
Let me see if i can explain it without to many spellingerros and grammarmistakes. (Danish)
I might run over some things very fast but i'm taking this from my memory so bare with me.
Sorry if it's to long and to storylike.
Charselection
You start up at the normal characterseletionscreen where oyu have to choose between Human,Hobbit,Dwarf and Elven.
The classes you can choose is based on which race you are but you can choose Guardian,Burglar,Champion,Minstrel,Captain,lore master and Hunter.
The charactercreator reminds a bit of EQ II but it has fewer options to customize your character.
Not bad but not the best i have seen.
Newbie area
Ok i picked Human so i take it from there.
When you enter the game you end up in a personal little instanced area where you have to finish some small tasks before you are let through to the next newbie area which is a small closed area,but other players can be in that area too.
It's the size of a medium battlegrounds in daoc or so and in that area you have to complete a number of quests before you can be let out into the "real world"
There is some varied quests in that area.
Killquests,Fed-x,pickup quest etc in the area.
The first levels goes really quickly (in beta at least) and in the beginning you don't have a lot of skills/attacks to use.
You gain skills when you level up and so far doing quests is the best way to get XP from.
If you hate doing quests you might as well stop reading because this game can't be played without doing A LOT of quests.
When you leave the newbie area you get a map so that you can get back to your bindpoint one time each hour and there is several bindpoints around the world.
Newbie area is well done and slowly introduce you to the game with several popup helpnotes while progressing.
UI and settings
When i explored a little i wanted to take a look at what settings LOTRO had and they have a lot of settings you can mingle around with.
You can move the UI around as you please but some boxes can't be rescaled incl the hotbars and that can be a bit annoying if your playing in 1200 or higher.
You can pick several graphical settings so even if you have a slow PC by todays standards you can actually play it.
You can change fontsize and colour in the chatboxes and make new chatwindows if you like and that way setup a chatsystem you like.
Lots of settings but it still needs a little work on the rescaling so icons scales up when you change resolution.
You can have 6 hotbars on screen at once with 12 icons in each so you don't run out of iconspace.
You seem to start out with 5 bags and each bag has 15 rooms but not sure if that will change.
I like the possibilities to change a lot of settings both in the UI and graphics so it suits your playstyle/PC but it could be improved in some areas.
Graphics
The graphics looks very nice if you pump up the settings and sometimes i had to remind myself that i was not playing an offline rpg.
But again,if you have a slow PC,turn down graphics and you can play just fine but off course with a lot less detail.
I played mostly on lower/medium settings because i play on an old PC but i have tried to crank up the setting to ultra high and i could actually play in
those settings out in the open world if no players were near me.
Personally I think the world graphics are better than EQ II but the character and armordetails are not that good compared to EQ II.
This is in the eye of the beholder so you have to see it for yourself.
I really like the grpahics but i have no idea if it "pulls" you into middle earth and give you a feel from the books because i have only seen the films.
Merchants
OK,so now i have setup my Userinterface and Graphics so i could move on.
I explored some more and killing various wolves,bears,bandits,boars and looted their corpses so i wanted to return to the town to sell some items.
I ran to the merchant and sold my stuff and discovered that after i had sold my stuff i had the option to buy 25 items back from him.
So that way if you sell something by mistake you can buy the last 25 sales back from the merchant.
Very nice option.
When you visit the merchant you have the option to lock the items in your bags so they can't be sold unless unlocked again.
Also a nice feature if you're afraid of selling certain items.
The merchants sell various standard items but normally the items you get from your solved quests are better.
You can buy horses ingame after level 35 and until that you have to use horseroutes between towns or your portalmpa you can use 1 time each hour.
Great so now i had solved all the quests i could find and i moved toward the final quest NPC that would take me into the real world.
I then loaded into a copy of archet town which i have just been newbie hunting in,but this one was open for all and not just an instanced newbie section.
There is both open areas and personal instances when you solo quests or make groupquests.
That's pretty nice so certain mainquests don't end up with camping 24/7
Crafting
Ok now what to do.
I was level 6 and ran around town and took all the quests i could find and moved slowly on from there.
Soon i had to move away from archet and i moved to Combe which is a town close to Archet.
When i got to combe i levled to level 10 by doing more quests and while doing that i noticed some mines and branches on group that required some sort of craftmanship to pick up,
so i ran back to combetown and tried to find out where to train for a crafter and i found the NPC i required.
I could choose from 7 craftingclasses which all had 3 subclasses.
Armsman = Weaponsmith,woodworker,prospector
Armourer = Metalsmith,prospector,tailor
Explorer = Tailor,forester,prospector
Tinker = Jeweler,prospector,cook
Yeoman = Cook,farmer,tailor
Woodsman = Woodworker,forester,farmer
Historian = Scholar,weaponsmith,farmer.
Ok so i wanted to be able to pick up some ore from the mines i saw randomlly spread out so i picked Explorer because then i could also pick up the wood from the branches on ground.
It's works like WoW but here the first person who get to the node "wins" it.
I wish they would add some sort of timer on the nodes so that if someone came 3 seconds to late and mined on your node both would get an ore.
There is a skill so you can see nodes on your minimap.
You can't be several maincraftingclasses at once so you have to choose 1 and then you're dependant on other crafters for certain things you need in a recipe.
You can change craftingclass if you will but by doing so you will loose ALL skills you have earned in the skills that does not reflect the new maincraftingclass.
So if you picked Armsman first and wanted to change to Tinker, then it would only be your skills in prospecting that would cross over.
As a crafter you raise your skills by smelting your ore for example into ignots.
When you hunt monsters they sometimes drop some recipes that a craftingclass can use.
You gain some standard recipes at first but later on you will need those dropped recipes for the better things.
Crafting is really easy.
Myabe it's to easy because it's only "get materials-run to craftmachine-combine"
It would be nice with some more variations in the craftingsystem.
You can't reproduce items like in DAOC so you are forced to sell all your armor/weapon loot to players or merchants.
It would have been nice with some skill to reproduce some materials from dropped armor/weapons.
Grouping
K i did some crafting and moved onto some of my tougher quests that required grouping so i found a few fellows and hooked up with them and moved into the
world.
This certain quest we had took place in an instanced where only the group could load into but there is a lot of groupquests that also take place in the normal open world.
Grouping functions just as all other games so not much to say about that except for a thing they added last patch.
They have a system like in EQ II so you can attack your targets target without swapping targets.
So if i targeted a person in the group and wanted to heal him i could do that,but if i casted a damagespell then i would hit his target instead.
It works the other way around too,so that if i'm attacking a target and then cast a heal,the heal will go to the person my monstertarget is attacking.
Very very handy for healing characters so they don't have to change targets constantly.
Near each groupmembers name is an assist hotbutton too if players prefer to use a "maintank" but it's a bit small and could be enlarged.
Your groupmembers turn up as green dots on the miniradard and if they run out of sight a little green arrow will point towards them in the miniradar.
Later on you can merge 4 groups into a raidgroup..I think it's 4 groups with 6 in each so 24 pr Raid or less if they prefer.
Grouping seems to work with no problems.
Conjunctions
This is a system that works just like groupefftect in EQ II.
On certain monsters when you are in a group you will get a conjunctionwindow up and then you have to hit some coloured combinations to trigger a special efftect.
Low on power,,ok then you go after an effter that triggers more power to the group.
Want a quicker kill you go for some damage conjunctions.
This system is pretty complex and there is a lot of different combinations,
there is more than 30 combinations your group can make but it's all up to teamwork to get the right ones.
It's far to complex to describe here but there are some guides on the betaboards that i'm sure will make it onto various sites,
Virtues/Traits/
Traits is a kind of rewards you get from solving a certain number of quests in the area or have killed a certain amount of monsters etc etc.
Some traits are racetraits that makes your character able to wear other armor or maybe something new weapons.
Some give you a title but some give your special skills that gives you better resistance, better regeneration,more morale or power and so on.
Some of them can be accomplished by using a special attack over and over again and then you gain better damage to that attack in the end.
same with spells/shouts/cries.
In the long run you ned up earning a lot more titles/traints that you can fit into your character so you have to go to a bard and arrange those specials.
So you can plan ahead and swap out those virtues/traits.
Planning to go to a place where you need more resist,then you pick some resist traits.You get :
8 virtueslots.
5 racialslots.
5 classslots.
2 legendary slots.
You need to level up to open up all of them.
This system works nicely and it will surely take some time before you have finished all the traits/titles there is in the game.
Autionhouse
Several towns have an autionhouse where players can put in their loot/craftings so other people can buy them.
You can set a fixed price for your items or a buyout or you can set it so it's only other guildmemebers who can buy them.
It works as it should but it's a bit chunky and the search function in beta needs some work.
The system itself also needs some improvements so that you can filter our other guilds buyout(why see something you can't buy)
When you're outbid or win an item you will get a message in your mailbox, so have to find a mailbox in town and pick up item or money.
mailboxes can be used to send items to other players too
Monster AI and pet AI
This is a hard one to judge if it's good or bad,but some monsters run away when they are low health so you have to run towards them and kill them to aoid trains
just like in EQ I.
I didn't came across that many monsters that actually healed themselves or their fellowmonsters but i don't know if that will change at release.
Even level monsters seems very easy to beat.
My max level character in the 2 weeks i tested was a level 21 character and so far no even level mob has killed me if i had full morale/power when i attacked it.
I could even take out 2 even level mobs without any big problems.
I can't tell how the endgame mobs is but so far until level 21 even level mobs are no problem at all.
at level 21 i could solo up to approx level 25/26 and that's a bit overkill IMO.
Some NPC's in beta got stuck in some sort of "runningmode" and then they can't be attacked but i suspect that is something that will be fixed before release.
When it happens to a named NPC you need to kill for a quest it's quite annoying because then all those who has that quest can't sovle it
until a GM comes along and slay it so it can respawn.
Pet AI needs some work because sometimes the lore-masters raven pet gets stuck in between trees, corners and so when running around in the world or it just vanish so you have to recast it again.
Other than that the pet AI seems to work ok,but i haven't played a lore-master very much so can't say for sure.
Overall it seems a bit to easy.I could wish for some more challenge,but maybe that's because i only reached level 21 so not sure.
Death
When you die you have a 10 minut timer where you can get a resurrect from a minstrel or captain (in beta it's 20+ that could resurrect)
so in the start you might as well just release because noone can resurret you in the starting areas.
When you die your equipment takes damage and your gear in backpacks also take damage.
It can be repaired by an NPC and i heard later on it can be quite costly to repair items.
At one time after exploring for about 1 hour and had several deaths at level 21 i had to pay almost 50% of all the money i had to get all my gear repaired.
You also get some kind of dread affect that last ten minutes and lowers some stats but that seems so minimal it does not matter at all.
If you fool around a lot it will cost you a lot of money on repairs later on,but other than that death has no sting.
No Xp loss and items can't break ingame because they can be repaired even if they reach 0%
I would like a system in between XPpenalty and coinrepairs because dying is not that bad in Lotro but that's just me and my deathpanaltywishes.
Monsterplay IE the battleground PvP
This is something that can become quite fun if you're into a simplified DAOC style battleground.
You can't PvP directly players Vs players in lorto unless you duel,but they have maded a smart system that works just like battleground PvP.
There is a battleground and it's pretty big in size.
It takes approx 7-10 minutes to run from one end to the other.
At level 10 as a player you can visit a NPC in bree town and then you get an option to choose from 5 monsterclasses.
When you pick one you have to name it and then you log in to the battleground.
Your monsters is level 50 pr default but without a lot of skills.
As a monster you end up in the north/west area and then you are in a small village where there also ia aslot of quests to make.
those quests gives you destiny points when you finish them,and for those points you can gain new skills etc.
you can also earn destiny points by killing players level 40+ in that area,but
There wont be any monster Vs Playercombat until there is players that have reached level 40+ because that is when a player can choose to login with his own playercharacter
to the battleground and then he end up in the playerarea down south/east
So for starters you can just run around doing quests and learn new skills to your 5 monsters or the one you prefer to play.
There is keeps across the zone you can conquer if you take over the humanoid playerkeep down in the middle area as a monster,there will spawn monsters in there.
Then it's the players that have to reconquer it.
It works a lot like DAOC battlegrounds and you don't notice you're playing a monster when suddnely ending up in close combar PvP with a level 40+ players.
Players can also earn points when killing monsterplayer (players between 10-39 that is playing their monster) and those points can also be used to gain new skills that gives you faster regenerationspeed and so on.
This system looks like it could become very fun when the servers are older and there is a lot of levle 40+ players pr server,because those players want to earn points in battlegrounds so they can enhance their normal skills,becaudse those earned skills also work in the normal PvP in the standard world.
I hope Turbine improves this system so it would include siege engines like in DAOC,because as it is now, you just charge a large ruin and conquer it.
With improvements this form for PvP is not as good as DAOC relic raids and battlegrounds but it sure is tons more fun that WoWs.
It just takes time after release for enough players to reach 40+.
I could imagine entire guilds challenge eachother like that.
1 day the guild play with their monsters and the other day they played with their 40+ players.
Looks promising.
Hmm what more to say.
Overall it's a very polished game but with rooms for improvements and i enjoyed the 3 weeks so far but Turbine still have some work ahead of them.
If i have to sit back and think about something that might keep players from playing it several years it has to be this:
-Only 5 races and 7 classes.
-The ingame world is not that huge(Eriador which contains of 9 zones and 1 of them are the battleground.)
It's not a totally small world but it can be explored fairly quickly.
-The craftingsystem is to simple imo and needs some attention,because it seems like most crafted things is the same
and most players use questitems instead so there is really no need to craft.
-I miss an option to write on the ingamemap like we can do in WoW with a Mod because there is a zillion places that is not automapped with flags/notes by the ingame map.
-To few open instances/dungeons at all times.There is not a lot of grouping going on in the lower levels except for certain keyquests/instances.
It would be nice to have some more instances/dungeons so that you and yopur guildies could do some dungeonrun instead of the usual questing.
it's extremely questbased because the XP you get from mobs are not very much compared to quests,but sometimes it gets a bit to much and you just want to crawl throgh some dungeons and kill stuff if you know what i mean.
Will i buy it?
Yeah and i will most likely preorder it and then buy a lifetime accóunt for 99 £
It kinda reminds me of EQ II in it's beta.
Good but not brilliant but it has a lot of potential with some future improvements.
As i said in the start i give it 75/100 because it has room for improvements and it maybe needs some longer lasting content,but it's more or less ready.
I can see this game shine bright with some more patches and maybe an expansion but i'm willing to take that risk and buy a lifetime account after what i have seen so far in the last 3 weeks.
If you hate quests stay away from lotro because there is a zillion quests and that's the way you level up.
If you love casual gaming and roleplaying this is most likely a game you will love.
Are you into hardcore powergaming and mindless 24/7 raids like in WOW stay away,because then you will burn out fast.
Tried to be as neutral as i could.
I probably forgot something but now i will login and take some screenshots.
to Turbine.
Looks very promising.
So now let's see some screenies,info,previews etc
EDIT.
Moved my pre/review from page 3 to this post.
My oppinion on lord of the rings online.
Played 7 betaes and over twice that many mmorpg's at release and i have to say this is one of the most polished betaversions i have tested.
Let me see if i can explain it without to many spellingerros and grammarmistakes. (Danish)
I might run over some things very fast but i'm taking this from my memory so bare with me.
Sorry if it's to long and to storylike.
Charselection
You start up at the normal characterseletionscreen where oyu have to choose between Human,Hobbit,Dwarf and Elven.
The classes you can choose is based on which race you are but you can choose Guardian,Burglar,Champion,Minstrel,Captain,lore master and Hunter.
The charactercreator reminds a bit of EQ II but it has fewer options to customize your character.
Not bad but not the best i have seen.
Newbie area
Ok i picked Human so i take it from there.
When you enter the game you end up in a personal little instanced area where you have to finish some small tasks before you are let through to the next newbie area which is a small closed area,but other players can be in that area too.
It's the size of a medium battlegrounds in daoc or so and in that area you have to complete a number of quests before you can be let out into the "real world"
There is some varied quests in that area.
Killquests,Fed-x,pickup quest etc in the area.
The first levels goes really quickly (in beta at least) and in the beginning you don't have a lot of skills/attacks to use.
You gain skills when you level up and so far doing quests is the best way to get XP from.
If you hate doing quests you might as well stop reading because this game can't be played without doing A LOT of quests.
When you leave the newbie area you get a map so that you can get back to your bindpoint one time each hour and there is several bindpoints around the world.
Newbie area is well done and slowly introduce you to the game with several popup helpnotes while progressing.
UI and settings
When i explored a little i wanted to take a look at what settings LOTRO had and they have a lot of settings you can mingle around with.
You can move the UI around as you please but some boxes can't be rescaled incl the hotbars and that can be a bit annoying if your playing in 1200 or higher.
You can pick several graphical settings so even if you have a slow PC by todays standards you can actually play it.
You can change fontsize and colour in the chatboxes and make new chatwindows if you like and that way setup a chatsystem you like.
Lots of settings but it still needs a little work on the rescaling so icons scales up when you change resolution.
You can have 6 hotbars on screen at once with 12 icons in each so you don't run out of iconspace.
You seem to start out with 5 bags and each bag has 15 rooms but not sure if that will change.
I like the possibilities to change a lot of settings both in the UI and graphics so it suits your playstyle/PC but it could be improved in some areas.
Graphics
The graphics looks very nice if you pump up the settings and sometimes i had to remind myself that i was not playing an offline rpg.
But again,if you have a slow PC,turn down graphics and you can play just fine but off course with a lot less detail.
I played mostly on lower/medium settings because i play on an old PC but i have tried to crank up the setting to ultra high and i could actually play in
those settings out in the open world if no players were near me.
Personally I think the world graphics are better than EQ II but the character and armordetails are not that good compared to EQ II.
This is in the eye of the beholder so you have to see it for yourself.
I really like the grpahics but i have no idea if it "pulls" you into middle earth and give you a feel from the books because i have only seen the films.
Merchants
OK,so now i have setup my Userinterface and Graphics so i could move on.
I explored some more and killing various wolves,bears,bandits,boars and looted their corpses so i wanted to return to the town to sell some items.
I ran to the merchant and sold my stuff and discovered that after i had sold my stuff i had the option to buy 25 items back from him.
So that way if you sell something by mistake you can buy the last 25 sales back from the merchant.
Very nice option.
When you visit the merchant you have the option to lock the items in your bags so they can't be sold unless unlocked again.
Also a nice feature if you're afraid of selling certain items.
The merchants sell various standard items but normally the items you get from your solved quests are better.
You can buy horses ingame after level 35 and until that you have to use horseroutes between towns or your portalmpa you can use 1 time each hour.
Great so now i had solved all the quests i could find and i moved toward the final quest NPC that would take me into the real world.
I then loaded into a copy of archet town which i have just been newbie hunting in,but this one was open for all and not just an instanced newbie section.
There is both open areas and personal instances when you solo quests or make groupquests.
That's pretty nice so certain mainquests don't end up with camping 24/7
Crafting
Ok now what to do.
I was level 6 and ran around town and took all the quests i could find and moved slowly on from there.
Soon i had to move away from archet and i moved to Combe which is a town close to Archet.
When i got to combe i levled to level 10 by doing more quests and while doing that i noticed some mines and branches on group that required some sort of craftmanship to pick up,
so i ran back to combetown and tried to find out where to train for a crafter and i found the NPC i required.
I could choose from 7 craftingclasses which all had 3 subclasses.
Armsman = Weaponsmith,woodworker,prospector
Armourer = Metalsmith,prospector,tailor
Explorer = Tailor,forester,prospector
Tinker = Jeweler,prospector,cook
Yeoman = Cook,farmer,tailor
Woodsman = Woodworker,forester,farmer
Historian = Scholar,weaponsmith,farmer.
Ok so i wanted to be able to pick up some ore from the mines i saw randomlly spread out so i picked Explorer because then i could also pick up the wood from the branches on ground.
It's works like WoW but here the first person who get to the node "wins" it.
I wish they would add some sort of timer on the nodes so that if someone came 3 seconds to late and mined on your node both would get an ore.
There is a skill so you can see nodes on your minimap.
You can't be several maincraftingclasses at once so you have to choose 1 and then you're dependant on other crafters for certain things you need in a recipe.
You can change craftingclass if you will but by doing so you will loose ALL skills you have earned in the skills that does not reflect the new maincraftingclass.
So if you picked Armsman first and wanted to change to Tinker, then it would only be your skills in prospecting that would cross over.
As a crafter you raise your skills by smelting your ore for example into ignots.
When you hunt monsters they sometimes drop some recipes that a craftingclass can use.
You gain some standard recipes at first but later on you will need those dropped recipes for the better things.
Crafting is really easy.
Myabe it's to easy because it's only "get materials-run to craftmachine-combine"
It would be nice with some more variations in the craftingsystem.
You can't reproduce items like in DAOC so you are forced to sell all your armor/weapon loot to players or merchants.
It would have been nice with some skill to reproduce some materials from dropped armor/weapons.
Grouping
K i did some crafting and moved onto some of my tougher quests that required grouping so i found a few fellows and hooked up with them and moved into the
world.
This certain quest we had took place in an instanced where only the group could load into but there is a lot of groupquests that also take place in the normal open world.
Grouping functions just as all other games so not much to say about that except for a thing they added last patch.
They have a system like in EQ II so you can attack your targets target without swapping targets.
So if i targeted a person in the group and wanted to heal him i could do that,but if i casted a damagespell then i would hit his target instead.
It works the other way around too,so that if i'm attacking a target and then cast a heal,the heal will go to the person my monstertarget is attacking.
Very very handy for healing characters so they don't have to change targets constantly.
Near each groupmembers name is an assist hotbutton too if players prefer to use a "maintank" but it's a bit small and could be enlarged.
Your groupmembers turn up as green dots on the miniradard and if they run out of sight a little green arrow will point towards them in the miniradar.
Later on you can merge 4 groups into a raidgroup..I think it's 4 groups with 6 in each so 24 pr Raid or less if they prefer.
Grouping seems to work with no problems.
Conjunctions
This is a system that works just like groupefftect in EQ II.
On certain monsters when you are in a group you will get a conjunctionwindow up and then you have to hit some coloured combinations to trigger a special efftect.
Low on power,,ok then you go after an effter that triggers more power to the group.
Want a quicker kill you go for some damage conjunctions.
This system is pretty complex and there is a lot of different combinations,
there is more than 30 combinations your group can make but it's all up to teamwork to get the right ones.
It's far to complex to describe here but there are some guides on the betaboards that i'm sure will make it onto various sites,
Virtues/Traits/
Traits is a kind of rewards you get from solving a certain number of quests in the area or have killed a certain amount of monsters etc etc.
Some traits are racetraits that makes your character able to wear other armor or maybe something new weapons.
Some give you a title but some give your special skills that gives you better resistance, better regeneration,more morale or power and so on.
Some of them can be accomplished by using a special attack over and over again and then you gain better damage to that attack in the end.
same with spells/shouts/cries.
In the long run you ned up earning a lot more titles/traints that you can fit into your character so you have to go to a bard and arrange those specials.
So you can plan ahead and swap out those virtues/traits.
Planning to go to a place where you need more resist,then you pick some resist traits.You get :
8 virtueslots.
5 racialslots.
5 classslots.
2 legendary slots.
You need to level up to open up all of them.
This system works nicely and it will surely take some time before you have finished all the traits/titles there is in the game.
Autionhouse
Several towns have an autionhouse where players can put in their loot/craftings so other people can buy them.
You can set a fixed price for your items or a buyout or you can set it so it's only other guildmemebers who can buy them.
It works as it should but it's a bit chunky and the search function in beta needs some work.
The system itself also needs some improvements so that you can filter our other guilds buyout(why see something you can't buy)
When you're outbid or win an item you will get a message in your mailbox, so have to find a mailbox in town and pick up item or money.
mailboxes can be used to send items to other players too
Monster AI and pet AI
This is a hard one to judge if it's good or bad,but some monsters run away when they are low health so you have to run towards them and kill them to aoid trains
just like in EQ I.
I didn't came across that many monsters that actually healed themselves or their fellowmonsters but i don't know if that will change at release.
Even level monsters seems very easy to beat.
My max level character in the 2 weeks i tested was a level 21 character and so far no even level mob has killed me if i had full morale/power when i attacked it.
I could even take out 2 even level mobs without any big problems.
I can't tell how the endgame mobs is but so far until level 21 even level mobs are no problem at all.
at level 21 i could solo up to approx level 25/26 and that's a bit overkill IMO.
Some NPC's in beta got stuck in some sort of "runningmode" and then they can't be attacked but i suspect that is something that will be fixed before release.
When it happens to a named NPC you need to kill for a quest it's quite annoying because then all those who has that quest can't sovle it
until a GM comes along and slay it so it can respawn.
Pet AI needs some work because sometimes the lore-masters raven pet gets stuck in between trees, corners and so when running around in the world or it just vanish so you have to recast it again.
Other than that the pet AI seems to work ok,but i haven't played a lore-master very much so can't say for sure.
Overall it seems a bit to easy.I could wish for some more challenge,but maybe that's because i only reached level 21 so not sure.
Death
When you die you have a 10 minut timer where you can get a resurrect from a minstrel or captain (in beta it's 20+ that could resurrect)
so in the start you might as well just release because noone can resurret you in the starting areas.
When you die your equipment takes damage and your gear in backpacks also take damage.
It can be repaired by an NPC and i heard later on it can be quite costly to repair items.
At one time after exploring for about 1 hour and had several deaths at level 21 i had to pay almost 50% of all the money i had to get all my gear repaired.
You also get some kind of dread affect that last ten minutes and lowers some stats but that seems so minimal it does not matter at all.
If you fool around a lot it will cost you a lot of money on repairs later on,but other than that death has no sting.
No Xp loss and items can't break ingame because they can be repaired even if they reach 0%
I would like a system in between XPpenalty and coinrepairs because dying is not that bad in Lotro but that's just me and my deathpanaltywishes.
Monsterplay IE the battleground PvP
This is something that can become quite fun if you're into a simplified DAOC style battleground.
You can't PvP directly players Vs players in lorto unless you duel,but they have maded a smart system that works just like battleground PvP.
There is a battleground and it's pretty big in size.
It takes approx 7-10 minutes to run from one end to the other.
At level 10 as a player you can visit a NPC in bree town and then you get an option to choose from 5 monsterclasses.
When you pick one you have to name it and then you log in to the battleground.
Your monsters is level 50 pr default but without a lot of skills.
As a monster you end up in the north/west area and then you are in a small village where there also ia aslot of quests to make.
those quests gives you destiny points when you finish them,and for those points you can gain new skills etc.
you can also earn destiny points by killing players level 40+ in that area,but
There wont be any monster Vs Playercombat until there is players that have reached level 40+ because that is when a player can choose to login with his own playercharacter
to the battleground and then he end up in the playerarea down south/east
So for starters you can just run around doing quests and learn new skills to your 5 monsters or the one you prefer to play.
There is keeps across the zone you can conquer if you take over the humanoid playerkeep down in the middle area as a monster,there will spawn monsters in there.
Then it's the players that have to reconquer it.
It works a lot like DAOC battlegrounds and you don't notice you're playing a monster when suddnely ending up in close combar PvP with a level 40+ players.
Players can also earn points when killing monsterplayer (players between 10-39 that is playing their monster) and those points can also be used to gain new skills that gives you faster regenerationspeed and so on.
This system looks like it could become very fun when the servers are older and there is a lot of levle 40+ players pr server,because those players want to earn points in battlegrounds so they can enhance their normal skills,becaudse those earned skills also work in the normal PvP in the standard world.
I hope Turbine improves this system so it would include siege engines like in DAOC,because as it is now, you just charge a large ruin and conquer it.
With improvements this form for PvP is not as good as DAOC relic raids and battlegrounds but it sure is tons more fun that WoWs.
It just takes time after release for enough players to reach 40+.
I could imagine entire guilds challenge eachother like that.
1 day the guild play with their monsters and the other day they played with their 40+ players.
Looks promising.
Hmm what more to say.
Overall it's a very polished game but with rooms for improvements and i enjoyed the 3 weeks so far but Turbine still have some work ahead of them.
If i have to sit back and think about something that might keep players from playing it several years it has to be this:
-Only 5 races and 7 classes.
-The ingame world is not that huge(Eriador which contains of 9 zones and 1 of them are the battleground.)
It's not a totally small world but it can be explored fairly quickly.
-The craftingsystem is to simple imo and needs some attention,because it seems like most crafted things is the same
and most players use questitems instead so there is really no need to craft.
-I miss an option to write on the ingamemap like we can do in WoW with a Mod because there is a zillion places that is not automapped with flags/notes by the ingame map.
-To few open instances/dungeons at all times.There is not a lot of grouping going on in the lower levels except for certain keyquests/instances.
It would be nice to have some more instances/dungeons so that you and yopur guildies could do some dungeonrun instead of the usual questing.
it's extremely questbased because the XP you get from mobs are not very much compared to quests,but sometimes it gets a bit to much and you just want to crawl throgh some dungeons and kill stuff if you know what i mean.
Will i buy it?
Yeah and i will most likely preorder it and then buy a lifetime accóunt for 99 £
It kinda reminds me of EQ II in it's beta.
Good but not brilliant but it has a lot of potential with some future improvements.
As i said in the start i give it 75/100 because it has room for improvements and it maybe needs some longer lasting content,but it's more or less ready.
I can see this game shine bright with some more patches and maybe an expansion but i'm willing to take that risk and buy a lifetime account after what i have seen so far in the last 3 weeks.
If you hate quests stay away from lotro because there is a zillion quests and that's the way you level up.
If you love casual gaming and roleplaying this is most likely a game you will love.
Are you into hardcore powergaming and mindless 24/7 raids like in WOW stay away,because then you will burn out fast.
Tried to be as neutral as i could.
I probably forgot something but now i will login and take some screenshots.
to Turbine.Looks very promising.
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Comments
SWEET!!!
Now come on guys spill the beans on this one I want to know what sort of obstacles we are up against.
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
Turboreview = 75/100 with room for improvements but i'm buying it.
it's one of the most polished betaes i have ever tested and i tested quite a fewt.
Will go deeper into it when i get the time to type it down.
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I played and liked it so I'll preorder.
Its just nice and relaxing. Maybe the world could be bigger, but there will be expansions. Maybe they could have put more items but I dont want it to be like wow so you can have "The Greatest Monkey Sword of Brothers In Forest+3".
I love it although I dont feel too scared and aware that is danger is middle earth (im a hobbit lvl 10 though... I train with fireflies and frogs)
Hope it wont be that easy though, heard rumors that xp rate was different in beta from the release (a little harder).
The interface can be customised.
You can play instruments and compose songs.
You can smoke
You can farm.
Just hope I wont get bored in 2 months
This game feels more polished than Vanguard. I like VG as well, even bought it. I won't be subscribing though as this game offers a much more solo friendly experience and has great atmosphere.
With a 8800GTX and E6600 with 2gb of ram I can play at 1680x1050 and completely maxed out graphics. I only drop to about 30 fps in towns with a lot of people around so I predict this game will be more computer friendly than VG. The character graphics are a bit behind VG and the armour models aren't as good as EQ2. Still lots of time for improvement though.
So far I give it 2 thumbs up.
Is that a radar or does it just show the nearby land area (minimap)? What are those arrows in minimap?
A radar and a minimap, although I found arrows only for locations or gathering wood (in my case).
It was closed beta anyway, I'm sure we will see the mobs too.
I personally have over 500 screenies I've bene saving and will start to post them once I get home.
2 arrows on the map are for nearby cities. there are also arrows that indicate where treasure is(including for aburglar where quest items are even, currently) can track items that you can use in your crafting professions.
I believe that the game could have been far better done had it been the original sandbox vision for the game. Yes I know MEO was being developed elsewhere and that is all fine and dandy, that fact alone does not change my opinion that MEO could have been better for not just the players in the end but for the dev team as well. This is not to say that LoTRO is a bad game, far from it in fact with a nifty new gimmick. It is just a very linear mmo and by being in the shadow of the fellowship the player can never be as epic or heroic as they should be.
With that out of the way... the gameplay is fun, the quests are very well done, even if they aren't terribly unique, and the graphics are superb. Monster play is a nice new spin on pvp though sometimes its hard to find good guys to kill lol. It is probably the most linear mmorpg I have ever played and while its not a bad thing, it feels a little restrictive to me. They use instances for the most part as a way to forward the storyline rather than as a place to grind for xp or loot, although that is here as well though in a limited shape.
All in all it is a fun game and the team at turbine have stuck closer to canon than Peter Jackson had with his movies. The world feels overly small in comparison to the source material and while some of the beta testers think its perfect I think a 15 minute jaunt between the Shire and Bree is a form of blasphemy :P
Does it do anything to forward the genre? Not really, no. It has a nice new gimmick in the monsterplay but everything else is pretty much old hat. They do endeavor, however, to bring your character into the storyline and while you can not be the one that carries the ring or stop the scourging of the shire you do get to play a minor role and get to see and interact with some of the most memorable people from one of the most beloved stories of the 20th century.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
Have truly enjoyed my time in LOTRO. It drew me in from the very beginning, although some races have more immersive and fun story lines at the beginning than others. The graphics are stunning; towns are beautiful. Lots of ways to earn accomplishments and titles. For example, kill a certain number of a certain mob and you have the option of a title. Kill more of them, and you gain a bonus to a stat. Very smooth gameplay for beta.
It's very soloable with a mix of group-oriented quests thrown in and folks have been very nice about grouping up for these things. Was actually pleasantly surprised at the high population of courteous players in beta, particularly after experiencing another previous beta. Very nice seeing groups of player musicians gathered in town square with other players cheering them on.
Dabbled only a short time in monster play. Initially from what I read, I did not think this would be something I would participate in. But after a first-hand look, think it might actually be interesting for an occasional change of pace from regular game play.
Really looking forward to release.
It actually isnt. There are not quest markers or waypoints, and no mobs on the minimap. When you get a quest it describes the loacation and leaves it up to you to find it. It will say that you need to travel north down the road and then turn east at a farmhouse or something along those lines, but it doesn't do anything to physically point you in that direction. It does force you to explors and find your own way.
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
The color palette, and artist direction is superb. Beta runs better then most released games..over 2 months away from release and its already to go gold (IMO).
Fun, simple, and elegant. Finally feel like im in a fantasy world.
rig:p43.0ht, 1gig dual channel ram, raid 0 caviars, 800xt radeon 256mb...running almost flawlessy in environment at 1280-highest graphic settings. <Looks stunning even at medium settings>. A tad jittery in towns with high poulation(20-30fps)
Love it, and still 2 months to go.
I have to admit, the start of the game is very good. They made sure to set up interesting scenarios to introduce you to the game. I thought it was simple and fun. A somewhat pleasant diversion but not motivating enough in the long run.
I like it enough that it's pulled me completely away from Vanguard (which I like very much, but just not as much) and has made cancelling my Station Access account a no-brainer. I'll play this through beta, I've preordered, and that's that.
Bite me, Turbine.
I really liked LOTRO, overall. The quest/story aspect is exactly what I wanted. Your place in the overall story is nicely done and I thought worked around Frodo getting the Ring to Rivendell very well.
Looking into Rivendell from the north.
Swimming in Nen Harn with my graphics settings.
The major challenge for this game will be rolling out expansion packs and content patches, in my opinion.
Some things that people said that annoyed me and I couldn't refute:
1) "All instanced like DDO", completely false. There is some instancing, but the vast majority of the outdoor world is seamless.
2) "Combat like DDO", also false. Though it seems that twitchiness is MMORPG.com's new fad. It isn't as deep RPG combat as something like AO but it is basically RPG combat.
3) "Lacks content like DDO", in my opinion utterly false. The game has got more quests than you can shake a stick at. Between Bree, Erad Luin, and the Shire you can pretty much skip any quest you don't like. There are hundreds in Bree alone.
I'll say first off that I am not a Lord of the Rings fan... being more in to sci-fi growing up, I somehow missed it. The movies are entertaining... although a lot of people have similar names and the story is a bit convoluted. I'll also say that I absolutely hated DDO, and didn't expect much from this one. Suffice it to say, I am not a LOTRO fanboy..... I participated in the beta because I won a spot in a contest here. I was also in the Vanguard beta so I'll compare the two a lot. After played both for several months, I canceled my preorder to Vanguard and I didn't download the latest LOTRO client a few weeks ago... but only because I intend to buy the game at launch and I want some of it to still be new to me.
As other people have said in this thread, it runs and looks great. I have a system that, by Vanguard terms, is very low end. (P4 2.3, 1 gig DDR, Geforce 6800 GS) Still I can run Lord of the Rings Online at the highest settings with everything maxed out. It runs silky smooth and looks amazing. In heavily populated areas, really only in Breetown, it does drop a few FPS... but at it's worst it runs better than vanguard standing in the desert alone, and on the lowest setting. I can't come up with a single complaint about the graphics of performance.
Gameplay is fun and fast paced. This isn't the kind of game where you can sit back and rely on your auto-attack. You will be able to fire a special with every swing of your weapon, at roughly the pace of games like Guild Wars or COH. The skills and classes are pretty straight-forward, and what you would expect from a traditional MMORPG. They certainly aren't trying to re-invent the wheel with the combat system, but the classes do feel unique when compared to each other and gameplay is pretty solid. Solo combat is fun, and group combat is really well done. The conjunction system really adds a lot to a team that is in good communication.
Quests are plentiful. You should always be able to advance your character through quests without ever having to stand around and grind wild spawns. Loot is frequent and varied, and at least in my experience coin comes in a lot faster than it goes out. I like the fact that quests can be stacked and completed together. You may get three or four quests that can all be accomplished by fighting in the same area. One thing that really bothered me about Vanguard was when the NPC would tell me to collect 12 fox tails, then his next quest is to kill 20 foxes. I would much rather knock those out in one pass
On to monster play... A lot of people thought that the lack of evil races would be the game's downfall, but I personally love monster play. You have this area full of high level content, where you can go adventuring after level 50. The catch is that some of the bad guys in that area are actually other players. You can enter the areas as a level 50 monster once your character is level 10. Playing as a monster you only raise your monster level, and they don't have gear in the same way your player character does.. they have upgrades, including visible ones, that you can earn instead. I think it;'s going to be pretty cool, but there weren't enough level 50 players when I was testing it to really get a good feel for it.
On the negative side...
The world is a little smaller than most people would like, but I assume that will be addressed over time. Mounts and housing are some of the most obvious neglected areas. Again, I can only assume that those will be addressed later. Crafting is passable, and while the process isn't as involved as some other games, the end result is pretty good. Harvesting is done with nodes, just like Vanguard.
Screens to follow
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
I played in the last round of beta and the current one, and I think the game has been getting better. It's nice looking, the interface is fairly straightforward, and, most importantly for me, I've been having fun. While some of the quests are the usual "kill 10 wolves so I can make gloves" or whatever, a lot of quests lead you through interesting story arcs. I was a little disappointed at first at the limited number of races, all on the good side, but once I started playing, I didn't miss the variety. It fits the setting.
It's not necessarily the most revolutionary game on the block, but it has gone from a game I wasn't really even looking at -- I won my beta slot here on mmorpg.com-- to one that I am pre-ordering.
I can play LoTRO on my older machine -- p4 1.8G, 768M RAM, Radeon 9250-- with decent performance. I know it is time to upgrade, and I probably will this year, but in the meantime, you don't need a bleeding edge machine for this one. Just in case any of you were wondering.
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This is where I draw the line: __________________.
I just started Beta for this one, but already I am surprised at how great it runs. This beta's performance is already better than Vanguard's. I haven't made my decision yet, but if Vanguard isn't brought up to standards before LoTR is released, I'll be switching games. The environments are beautiful and the trees sway in the wind. The avatars look better than most other MMOs out there right now IMO. Awsome game!
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I think the mass of positive review here goes to show that LOTRo will do well, even if it is a bit linear and not necessarily up the alley of some of us mmorpgers.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
A view over staddle farmhouses.
A sunset
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Have to rightclick to view them or scrool.
Trying with another one.
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