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Lord of the Rings Online
Enigma
Member UncommonPosts: 11,384
Am I the only one here who just feels that you are not emmersed in the Lord of the Rings Pantheon? Whenever I log on I get three feelings...
1. The game is actually built rather nice and solid with not a whole lot of bugs.
2. I feel like I am in yet another cookie cutter fantasy clone except for the name Lord of the Rings slapped onto it...although it doesn't feel like Lord of the Rings.
3. Feels like WoW v. 2.0
There's some really nice little gadgets in the game (like music, pipe smoking, etc) but it just doesnt feel like a "FINALLY....A MMORPG I CAN PLAY FOR A COUPLE YEARS!!"
Not a horrible game....but just not innovative either.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Comments
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
Like when you are delivering a pie you can actually see it in your hands & the many types of quests instead of all the same kill X mobs or collect X number of crap & yes there are these type of quest but there are so many different types as well . Visually its breathtaking , Pipe smoking , Music playing , NPC's that feel alive , Humor , & the buzz you get from helping Striker thru an instance of Meeting Gandolf for the first time .. & with Housing coming soon there is so much to look forward too...
LotRO - 50$
Getting used and numb to things you once loved - priceless
...
No game, repeat, NO game has NOT given me the "wow, that's cool feeling". It's all a matter of how jaded you are and how much enthusiasm you can develop for something. If you oversize your expectations no game in the world can bring the "wow thats cool" feeling back, not age of conan, not warhammer, not giant-world-epic-hero-tale XVII...
Everything can be "WoW, thats cool"... I recently reinstalled "one must fall" - typical mid 90's beat-em-up in a 640px box, I was like "dude, thats actually fun... I reinstalled Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis from an age old CD, it's been great fun... Earlier we loved games where you had nothing but your imagination and 6 attributes.
So hell, stop being such spoiled cyber-kids, the fun part is where you start having fun, its THAT easy...
Meridion
The problem with the games in the post-WoW era is that they have given us the option to solo. Soloing is mind-numbingly boring no matter how you slice it. In small doses it is ok. I even solo'ed some in EQ1.
What Game Designers do not understand is that "casual" does not mean solo. It should mean getting a group very quickly and knowing how long you will be in said group like the EQ1 LDoN expansion.
Vanguard aside, which is just a pitiful excuse for a game, these games may be made well but they need to bring back that feeling we had in EQ1 when we could camp an area for XP. The problem is that us EQ1'ers have grown up and have kids, etc so we need to get in the game quickly and back out.
Yes, it IS another MMO. Yes, it does use familiar ingredients. But for me, it is very well done, didn't mess up the canon, and is very enjoyable. No, if you've played many MMO's , it won't bring back the new feeling; you're only a virgin once. But it does have a strong "sense of wonder" component for me.
One contribution that it does make to the genre is the instanced epic quests; very well done indeed, and not like anything I've seen before.
It does fit all styles pretty well; a clever innovation for PvP, mostly soloable, group friendly, decent crafting, casually and seriously, and "family friendly". It does have a unique "feel" to it; any resemblance to another game has to be on a pretty superficial basis. There's been a tendency to assess games based on their infrastructure; I'd suggest that it's far more important to grade a game on the fun factor.... the end, not the means. And LotRO is a lot of fun for me.
They didnt mess up the canon because they barely touched it.
I dont know....I guess for some you guys, when you logged on you felt like you were on middle earth living in the LotR world. But, for me, I felt nothing of the sorts.
Sure, you see the hobbits (but every MMO has hobbits now) and sure you get a sneak peak at the Wraiths.....but I just dont have that feeling of "wow....this is middle earth."
BTW, I do believe it is put together well. I have no argument of that. I just feel it is lacking in originality and emersion.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
I didnt mess up the canon because they barely touched it.
I dont know....I guess for some you guys, when you logged on you felt like you were on middle earth living in the LotR world. But, for me, I felt nothing of the sorts.
Sure, you see the hobbits (but every MMO has hobbits now) and sure you get a sneak peak at the Wraiths.....but I just dont have that feeling of "wow....this is middle earth."
BTW, I do believe it is put together well. I have no argument of that. I just feel it is lacking in originality and emersion.
I agree....
It just feels like every other easy mode game out right now. No room to be unique or dynamic just a bunch of pigeonholed classes and a level grind. This makes me sad since I would expect more from a game with this IP. At least SWG lived up to its name for the first few months the game was out before they went stupid. I long for the days of mix and match skill trees. it could have been something special but instead they went for another EQ knock off circa 1997.
Its 2007 devs FFS please try something different before this genre of game is lost forever.
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.
I was hoping to find a hold over game until Age of Conan comes out but looks like I'm out of luck. I think the next generation of MMO will really start with that game as well as PoTBS even though I'm not as excited about that game.
I truely think that gamers are SCREMING for an MMO that breaks the WoW mold.
==========
SWG - 1st Gen MBH (Closed)
EVE (Closed)
WoW (61 Orc Hunter - Blackwing Lair)
GuildWars (Boring...)
...I can totally remember Jedi Knight 1, light saber combat. It was like 1997 or so and real time combat was unbearable due to constant lag. And seriously, I doubt that this will be any different in AoC. WoW has the best performance latencywise and still I would desperately hunt package loss ghosts if the game was real-time combat...
...so let's just wait and see and don't play the spoiled kids that think they're too good for a solid fun game...
Meridion
Yes they are.
WoW became extremly popular because of the series they had under the RTS genre. Nothing less and nothing more.
Sadly, the MMO world has digressed since then. Everything is modeled after WoW now because all the DEVs see is numbers of the subscribers and not the reason why WoW became so popular in the first place (which is because of the World of Warcraft history of RTS).
Every single MMO who tried to emulate Wow has failed. Every-single-one of them. Star Wars and the CU, Vanguard and its theories, etc; all of them. Why? Because they weren't WoW. They didnt develope a following like Blizzard did with World of Warcraft series, Starcraft, etc. MMO developers thinks is this or thinks it's that. But the reason is right there in front of their faces; its the Blizzard's name.
For the MMORPGers who have been playing MMOs long since before WoW was starting to experience the sand box world, the unrestricted form of adventuring, the elimination of that stupid treadmill system, we're beginning to loose all hope of what the direction of the MMO was heading towards.
World of Warcraft is like McDonalds. Its easy, its cheap and fast. Just like a poor person with a few nickels and a couple quarters can get a double cheeseburger, so can a person with a computer built in 1998 can play World of Warcraft.
Is WoW bad? No, not at all. We all enjoy a trip to McDonalds and grabbing a Number One value meal but if all we had was a Number One value meal and no real good resteraunts like the Outback, Ruth Kris STeakHouse, Hollywood Pizza Kitchen then our thirst and hunger for something REAL good and tasty would be lost forever.
Moral of the Story:
Just because you visit a place where Billions and Billions are served doesn't mean the food is great.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
I just do not understand how you can say it does not feel like LOTR. My guess is, you did not read the books, but are basing your feelings on the movies. Let's face it movies ad lib a lot.
This game is very Tolkienish. I can't think of a better immersion factor.
As for gameplay, yep, not much different, but it definitely has the lotr feel to it.
I read every single Book Tolkien ever wrote.
But it's fine. If you logged in and found it to be very immersive, then that is all that counts.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Yes it is too early to say whether Age of Conan will be a critical success or not, personally I wouldn't mind if it was a niche game since it seems that smaller markets yeild better communities but at least FunCom has the balls to try something new while also incorporating successful features from other games such as player cities.
==========
SWG - 1st Gen MBH (Closed)
EVE (Closed)
WoW (61 Orc Hunter - Blackwing Lair)
GuildWars (Boring...)
I am so tired of this "WoW only became succesful because of Warcraft." fallacy. At the time of WoW's release I had tried EQ2 and frankly it was a buggy piece of crap that took good pc's of the time and made them into slideshows. Sorry but people don't want to have their current hardware turned into a slide projector. People don't want to pay for a game and wait 6 months to 1 year for it to clean up all the bugs.
WoW became successful because it had fun game play and it just freaking worked !! Yes I know this concept is hard to grasp for the wow hating fanatics but FUN and STABLE WELL PERFORMING AND WORKING GAMES are what attract people period and their money. I tried the RTS Warcraft games and I never got into them at all. I was more then willing to give EQ2 it's chance but it failed miserably in the FUN FACTOR, PERFORMANCE FACTOR and STABILITY FACTOR at launch.
I was more then willing to give Vangaurd a try but it failed because it was a unstable, uncomplete grind fest that promised the world but delivered nothing that has not already been seen.
LOTRO never promised to revolutionize the MMO world. LOTRO has is STABILITY, PERFORMANCE and the FUN FACTOR and that IMHO is a true sign of a winner.
Games I've played/tried out:WAR, LOTRO, Tabula Rasa, AoC, EQ1, EQ2, WoW, Vangaurd, FFXI, D&DO, Lineage 2, Saga Of Ryzom, EvE Online, DAoC, Guild Wars,Star Wars Galaxies, Hell Gate London, Auto Assault, Grando Espada ( AKA SoTNW ), Archlord, CoV/H, Star Trek Online, APB, Champions Online, FFXIV, Rift Online, GW2.
Game(s) I Am Currently Playing:
GW2 (+LoL and BF3)
Also the fact that WOW is based on an RTS series cant be ignored. Much like SWG, WOW had a "built in player base" the difference was Blizzard was better at polish then SOE, something that continues to plague Smedley. They were able to capitalize on their exsisting franchise fanbase while making the game easily accessible.
It's probably better that LoTRO didn't promise to revolutionize the industry as they'd have sorely dissapointed many players with their clone gameplay. I think the game is a great example of how MMO's can be polished on release but I dont see the game being anything but a moderate success. This is all just my opinion ofcourse and subject to the bias nature of my tastes in games.
==========
SWG - 1st Gen MBH (Closed)
EVE (Closed)
WoW (61 Orc Hunter - Blackwing Lair)
GuildWars (Boring...)
Ok let me tell ya soemthing lotro ir an ok game but it is not the best by far, I did not have fun in this game, I did not have alot of fun in wow either only at first. Lotro lacks because it has to stick to the lore it is really good for lotr fans and people who have not played the same mmorpgs over and over, and it did not feel anything like lotr when I played it.
This may be just my opinion but one big dissapointment for me was the minstrel play 2 strings and does dmg omg, and limited to only using a lute? Only one real caster there are alot of melee classes , the hunter was very boring for me in this game as well.
I am glad that you like it but you should not call everyone whinners just because they dont like it we just dont and thats reality.
The problem with the games in the post-WoW era is that they have given us the option to solo. Soloing is mind-numbingly boring no matter how you slice it. In small doses it is ok. I even solo'ed some in EQ1.
What Game Designers do not understand is that "casual" does not mean solo. It should mean getting a group very quickly and knowing how long you will be in said group like the EQ1 LDoN expansion.
Vanguard aside, which is just a pitiful excuse for a game, these games may be made well but they need to bring back that feeling we had in EQ1 when we could camp an area for XP. The problem is that us EQ1'ers have grown up and have kids, etc so we need to get in the game quickly and back out.
While I don't have the remedy I can assure you forced grouping isn't it.
It doesn't matter how great the LFG tool is you're still waiting 15-20 minutes. If devs really want to promote grouping you encourage people via drops or enhanced xp ala CoX. For some of us casual does mean the ability to solo and see progress. Now don't get me wrong I prefer grouping when time permits, however i'd never pay for another forced grouping MMO.
There are several reasons for the lack of wow factor in today's titles, nestalga being the most obvious. You're simply never going to recapture the thrill of you're first foray into MMO's. That being said, the lack of imagination, cookie cutter AI and publishers not allowing devs to take more chances is a prime factor as well.
Granted LOTRO doesn't wow me but it's a fun little MMO romp just like WOW before it.
Dutchess Zarraa Voltayre
Reborn/Zero Sum/Ancient Legacy/Jagged Legion/Feared/Nuke & Pave.
You know what the problem is mate? You guys keep playing the same game out of various boxes and expecting something different.
Vanguard, everyone knew it was based on an old game and surprise.........it was, right down to the bugs. LotRs, everyone knows that its not doing anything new. Guess what? Surprise, its not.
Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results is called insanity. Keep buying and paying for cloned fantasy games and expecting them to be something different. ..well now you know....its insane. As sure as the sun will rise in the morning, another fantasy clone is gonna launch, promising the moon and delivering the same old thing....and ya'll are gonna charge out and buy it and be surprised when its the same old thing........again.
Wanna play a fantasy game? Pick any of them, they are all the same, and focus on what an MMO should be about...community. How many more ways do you want your dwarves and elves?