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differences in LOTRO and WoW...
avedias
Member Posts: 118
I've been seeing a lot of posts saying how LoTRo is a WoW ripoff and that very well might be true, I have only played for about 10 minutes, and I did get a very strong sense that it is a WoW clone. I'm curious as to what is actually different from WoW in LoTRo. WoW is a decent game, if this game is like WoW but incorporates better ideas I might get a subscription.
Comments
If your already playing WoW and your not bored of it yet, don't bother switching. Lotro doesn't offer anything WoW doesn't offer. Turbine tried something new with D&DO, but its obvious the game is not as successful as they would have hoped it to be, while WoW kept growing more and more. So, Turbine took the safe way. If you can't beat them, join them.
really, Imho, Lord of the Rings Online is a decent game, but its a shameless World of Warcraft rip-off. Now, I'm sure some lotro fan can't wait to jump up and point me that WoW is actually a clone itself from Everquest. Very true, but I believe every mmorpg has its special traits. for example, ArchLord is very similiar to Lineage 2, but it still has its own, unique traits. but I don't see that when comparing Lotro and WoW. I don't see anything special (maybe apart from monster play, but I don't really see that as a great feature) that Lotro does diffrent then WoW.
Im pretty much on the same page as you are. I think if you really enjoy the Lord of the Rings books, you'll enjoy the game. I also think if you're a casual gamer you'll really enjoy it. Theres nothing at all ground breaking about the game, other than its the Lord of the Rings.
what they did do well, was bring the storyline to you. the shire is pretty amazing.. but the game is not epic feeling. nothing like the the actual story. Sure, some of the quest lines are very well written.. but the actual quests themselves are not.
so to sum it up,
the quests are pez dispenser standard. the world is static. the mobs are EXTREMELY predictable. the crafting is about as shallow as it can get. the character influence on the world is non-existant. monster play for PvP is a side game. the world is very small.
its gonna be a blast for a casual gamer for about 3 months because the world IS so small and theyve managed to pack a bit of content (read: your MMO standard mundane quests) in these small areas. if you plan on playing for 5+ hours a day, dont expect much. theres nothing deeply involved with this game. theres no sense of belonging to the world, and theres a severe lack of any feeling of influence that your character has on the world.
The one thing LotRo has is immediate appeal. If you manage to get in for a week or so, you can get absorbed pretty quick. It just lacks longevity. However, if they can expand the game within the first 3 months.. it might earn some appeal with the common MMO addict who plays 5+ hours a day.
as it sits now, you'll blaze through it in 90 days tops at a casual pace and be looking for something else
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
I tried to join the beta, but never got any answer from codemasters. Damn, I really wish to try this game, now!
There's a "world tour" (some LOTRO trial, I think) starting April the 6th which players can sign up for now, and of course this is restricted:
Available to players located in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand only. EU players go to www.lotro-europe.com
And what is found on the EU site? "Sign up for beta"!!!!! As usual, European gamers doesn't count, and are placed backmost in the queues! Last good example is Playstation 3, which was released in Europe last week, and with lesser compatibility and functions than US and Japan versions, and more expensive!!
Btw, LOTRO world tour link: http://www.lotro.com/worldtour
Sorry for being off-topic, OP, and as for the topic: I've heard several times that LOTRO is an "improved" version of WoW, that's why I desperately wanna try it
Anyone that says that Wow is better than LOTRO because Wow has pvp has lost all sense of reason. Anyone calling it a "Wow ripoff" also is quite clueless, considering how most of Wow is a copy of other games.
Wow's pvp is probably the worst example of what pvp is, in any mmo, period. You have to remember, that pvp was added just prior to beta as a last minute addition. Kind of like they got the market surveys back late and all of a sudden realized that they needed a pvp option. Too bad the designers did not try to copy some of the other pvp systems as what they they came up with is really sad.
They have made a few improvements over the years, but it still ranks at the top as lame pvp.
Wow's claim to fame is the mail system and the integrated quest system. The eliminated alot of the downtime and made it easy to play. If you look closely, it is just an updated EQ with easy of play emphacized localized for Warcraft genre. What do you expect when many of the designers were culled from heavy raiding guilds in EQ.
They have a good balanced PVP system, but they don't do anything interesting to encourage players to do world PVP, you still need to enter those boring battlegrounds you've already seen a 100 times over to gain honor.
Besides, like WoW, Lord of the rings Online is a VERY polished game compared to other games that where in beta, it has better and deeper crafting, more customisation due to traits and the like, more content to accomplish aside quests, and a bigger world (this is debatable I guess) I'm by no means a Lord of the Rings fanboi and I won't be buying it on release, but the game does deserve some credits after the countless launches of buggy crappy mmo's recently.
WoW's pvp not better then Lotro? Get real, Lotro offers monsterplay! its la..no wait, it isn't even PVP! Its PVE with pre-made characters that have better AI!
The big difference, there are no naked gay boys dancing on top of the mail boxes in LOTRO and no naked lap dancing elves either. So, if you can't live without the exhibitionists, you better stay with WoW.
"Don't corpse-camp that idea. Its never gonna rez"
Bladezz (The Guild)
I think what many of the PvP players fail to understand is that LOTRO isn't designed for PvP per say. If you have read the books you know that LOTR is not some much about the War of the Rings, as it is about the lore of Middle-earth and how things that happened in the past lead to the war. And it is that lore that is the driving force behind LOTRO. It's a game for people who love Tolkien and to be able to lose themselves in the lore. To sum it up...as shocking as it may sound this game is geared for role players. If your not a RP or a PvP player, sorry you're out of luck hear. Give Guild Wars a try.
Live long and prosper
I played WoW for 2 years. Lord of the rings is not a WoW rip off. It does a ton of things differently. Some examples: Quest system is a lot more story based. You have regular quests and then your epic quests that move the story along. Monster Play is better done PVP then WoW's. You actually fight in a normal zone (ettenmoors) and have objectives that don't reset everytime you are done with a BG. The biggest thing that is done a lot better in LOTRO is that the lore is so much more engrossing (of course that is only the case if you like LOTR, but I would venture to guess that a lot of gamers enjoy LOTRO, and a lot of people do as well shown by the over 1billion the movies made). Some people will disagree and say how WoW's has so much lore, but really they still twist it and make it fit to the game, where as in LOTRO they are not changing the lore. People who say that LOTRO is a WoW clone must not of played AC2. LOTRO if anything at all is a AC2 clone. Turbine designed a lot of the UI, etc they are using in LOTRO off of AC2. Now because WoW has a similar UI, a lot of people seem to think that WoW designed it.
On the topic of what World of Warcraft has added to the genre. The two largest things they have added is an extremely polished game. As seen with the launch of Vanguard MMO players in general will no longer put up with a game that lacks polish. The second thing they added and the largest thing is that the genre has become more mainstream. Thanks to World Of Warcraft many games in the future can look forward to much larger subscription numbers. (Of course Gameloading might agrue here with me, but we already have a 16+ page on this so lets try not to turn another thread into that
).
Turbine is obviously very confident in their game and very proud of it. They have over 600K preorders (from the last number I have heard) and also issued over 1 million free open beta keys. So there is the potential of 1.6 million people try the beta. If so and even if they keep 30-40% of that number as subscribers the game will be a huge success. 500K to 700K subscribers seems to be in reach for them. Depending on how the game does from their it has a chance in my opinion (see gameloading "my opinion", not a fact) of reaching into that 1million category. But that all depends on how well the game is recieved during open beta.
BTW for the people who think im lying about AC2:
And LOTRO:
World Of Warcraft :
Notice the similarities in the UI? The same skills across the bottom bar, the same horizontal health and mana bars? The only thing different is the MAP, but I can't remember if AC2 had that map feature or not ( I played in beta). Asheron's Call 2 was released on Novemeber 22 2002. I also added a WoW UI pic. So compare them and you can see yes that LOTRO is similar to WoW, but not anymore similar then WoW is to AC2. So if LOTRO is a clone of WoW, we would have to say WoW is a clone of AC2.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Let's review:
Wow PVP includes-
1. Dueling just about anywhere
2. Four instanced battlegrounds, variety of gameplay types and sizes
3. World PVP objectives in nearly every Outland zone and two zones in Azeroth
4. Arena system with 2vs2, 3vs3, and 5vs5 brackets
5. On PVP servers, every single zone except for the 8 starting racial zones is full faction vs. faction PVP
LOTR PVP includes-
1. Monsterplay
So, now that PVP the review is over....
In terms of PVE, LOTR has a few little bells and whistles that WoW doesn't have. The cutscences are a nice addition. Besides that, IMO WoW and LOTR delivery a similar questing / leveling type experience, with WoW having a much more polished and complete feel. This may only be because LOTRO is still in beta. It's probably just better game design.
My biggest complaint in LOTRO is the engine it runs on. The lanscape/scenery looks amazing, runs great on my PC which is probably only mid to mid-high range. The problem is the character models and animation. The characters/monsters/NPCS seem to "stick out" from the world.. like they were simply crazy glued on top of this masterfuly painted scenery. Just seem so out of place in their own world... and the animations I saw were laughable.
But, LOTR does have some original ideas and interesting content, so if you're a tolkein fan, you'll probably enjoy it very much. Some good social mechanisms in place. If you already play and enjoy WoW, stick with it, LOTRO isn't going to be the "next big thing" for you.
LOTRO Monster Play includes more then just monster play. It includes quests to complete. Raids on towns. Raids on keeps. LOTRO also includes dueling.
Second WoW and LOTRO do not deliver a similar questing/leveling type experience. In LOTRO does not allow monster grinding, you get almost zero xp for killing mobs. That is completely different then WoW. Plus the story driven quests are better in LOTRO IMO.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
WoW's pvp not better then Lotro? Get real, Lotro offers monsterplay! its la..no wait, it isn't even PVP! Its PVE with pre-made characters that have better AI!
Yep ok, go actually partake in the PvMP then come back here to give us your opinion on it. kthx.
Currently Playing: Everything but MMORPGs
Cancelled: L2, FFXI, VSoH, LotRO, WAR, WoW
Looking Forward To: SW:TOR
LOTRO Monster Play includes more then just monster play. It includes quests to complete. Raids on towns. Raids on keeps. LOTRO also includes dueling.
Second WoW and LOTRO do not deliver a similar questing/leveling type experience. In LOTRO does not allow monster grinding, you get almost zero xp for killing mobs. That is completely different then WoW. Plus the story driven quests are better in LOTRO IMO.
No its not completely diffrent from WoW, because the goal in WoW is to finish quest, very little people actually go and grind mobs mindlessly. Its not diffrent from WoW.and I did play Lotro's "Monsterplay", thank you very much.
I do not agree. WoW is about quest till you hit 70 then it is about repatitive faction grinding, grinding mobs/ lower instances for cash, and doing the same raids over agin to hopefully get gear, or doing hours of mind numbing PvP to get gear. It is only about the quests till you can start raidingor arean PVP for most I have spoken to.
The biggest difference between the two games is WoW has quests that people do for the XP and rewards. LOTRO has more compelling story quests that people do to continue the story telling of the game.
That is what I consider to be the largest difference between the two games. Other then of course LOTRO having better graphics imo. WoW's graphics work extremely well for their world, but I like LOTRO's graphics better.
All we can do is wait and see and come June 1st we can see how many people are subscribed and we will have a good idea of how successful the game will be. (on a side note this will be a good precursor to later releases gameloading.
If LOTRO does do phenomenol and breaks the 500K barrier that means there is a good chance 6-9 months later then WAR comes out of it doing even better. Especially since WoW will be another year older by that time)
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
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Tested over a 115+ games since 1997.
Currently Playing:
Played(Retired): AOL NWN(91-95), UO, EQ1/2, DAoC, CoX, Lineage1/2, SWG(Pre CU/NGE), Planetside, Anarchy Online, FFXI, AC, Vanguard, D&D, AoC, DCUO, Rift, Eve, others