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Septopus
Member Posts: 101
Hey, I played a level or two of the stress test and then about an hour of the open beta. Not that I found the game really bad I was just very very busy! So now I'm wondering how good this game is and all that. I am a casual MMO player, I have a WoW account and I probably play 5 hours a week and its fun, but it can get old. Thank you for any help! (Sorry if this is an annoying post, but I just want an opinion from the players!)
Comments
It's all personal opinion, of course, but I think LOTRO is probably the best casual MMO out there. Turbine has done a fantastic job creating a rich, detailed, living world to explore and adventure in, and you can play just as well solo as with a group - maybe not level as fast, but that's the beauty of LOTRO, is not ONCE have I felt the urge to 'just level' - though I do get a little obsessive-compulsive for deeds and accomplisments.
Overall I'd say the game is VERY polished, mostly bug free (and zero major bugs/issues that I've seen.) Economy is still being tweaked a little, I think, but I've never had a problem with cash - I certainly don't have a huge surplus, but I'm not broke... I will admit, I'm probably considered a 'fanboy', but only because I honestly think this is about the best thing to hit MMOGs in a very long time. Again, that's personal opinion, people with different expectations or playstyles will obviously have a different opinion, but I think for the casual MMO gamer who likes adventure and fun, this is the best thing going, by far. It looks like they're doing really well for players, too - there are short queues on many worlds during peak hours, though I've never waited any more than 2-3 minutes.
When scary things get scared, that's bad...
Lotro is my first paying MMORPG i've played and i'm satisfied. It has proven me that good P2P mmo's are just uncomparable to F2P's in terms of quality.
Like the poster above said, the game is quite polished, from the launch day on. The launch itself was pretty smooth as well, although few days after that, there was a server issue twice, but that's nothing uncommon.
About gameplay, i find Lotro to be very casual and suited for everyone. You don't need to play 24/7 and rush your way through the game (although on the EU server there already people who complain about lacking content after lv 35 ... the plan was to take it easy and when you'd actually reach lv 35 there would be content for that too, in this case, that content will be added june)
I have been playing for round about a week myself and i haven't felt bored once. Just to exlaim the casual-ness of Lotro, i have a VERY slow playstyle, i take my time for everything and that's also what the rest seems to do. I go looking for ore mines, go smelting, simply socialising in the prancing pony
, go kill Neeker Breeker (i just love those monsters for their oh so hjilarious name). There is enough to do for the casual player, there is nothing rushed in Lotro if you ask me, unless you force it to.
Economy is a bit stiff atm, mainly due to the very high repair costs and mount expenses and so on, but there is a patch today, maybe we will see some improvement in that, there aren't any patch notes untill 12.00AM GMT+1 though.
If you like a good community, then Lotro is also the game for you, at least, on the European servers, don't know about the US.
Onward to negative things.
What i have experienced as negative are a couple of things, but notthing major.
F.e. certain animations are just unnatural and a bit unfortunate because they don't blend in with the rest, that is a lot more polished, that particular 'issue' may be dealt with in the future.
Another 'issue' is finding a fellowship. It isn't always that easy, on Role Playing servers this goes a lot easier i've heard since it is part of the roleplaying, but if you find a good kinship (sort of guild) you'll have little problems finding a fellowship.
I played all through beta. The game ran really smooth and I loved it. All you do now, is lag. I took back the preordered game and got my money back. Gonna wait till they fix it. I am not going to pay 50.00 then 10 a month for a game I cant play.
Allot of people are complaining in the network technical forums about lag too.
As a previous post pointed out in Bree I have to cut down my graphics settings or I stutter a lot simply due to the sheer number of players around. By the way that is client lag not server lag if you check the network packets outfctrl. It is hardly unplayable. Your hard drive and video card cannot load the textures as fast as they need to. I have the same issue but I just go to medium settings in town during peak time. I am planning on a vid card upgrade before the end of the year, as soon as the higher memory cards come down in price a bit, until then I spend 90% of my time out adventuring anyway so I can live with Bree on medium, and then crank it back to very high out in the country.
Anyway I have been here since alpha 2 and bought the lifetime subscription. Our guild is thriving, good community, and a lot of things to do it's all I can ask for in a game really. Only downside for me is the crafting economy, it is what puts it in the category of good game instead of great game in my opinion. I would give it a 8.0/10 at this point.
I miss DAoC
Meridion
No lag on the US servers either - I have not lagged ONCE, not even a hitch in framerate, and I know my friends have had the same experience. I have a middle of the road Gateway computer I just upgraded the video on. This is the smoothest running MMO I've ever seen, so much so that I strongly suspect anyone posting about 'terrible lag' in this type of thread is simply doing it to bash the game, not stating facts. If you have a problem with gameplay, that's one thing, and I can see that - no game will make everyone happy, this might be too casual or 'carebear' for some players, but anyone saying 'it's just like WoW' has OBVIOUSLY never played LOTRO, they are nothing alike.
When scary things get scared, that's bad...
It's not the game, it's your PC mate.
I had insane lag when I had 1GB RAM. Now that I have 2GB, I have no lag even in the middle of Bree during peak hours.
Although there is still a memory leak that is connected to sudden loading of a huge number of textures all in one place (Prancing Pony or AH typical), if you manage to avoid that you have no lag whatsoever!
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
My system is brand new with 3 gigs of ram, X1950 Pro video card and a dual core processor (4.2 Ghz)
I have DSL extreme (6.0) internet connection. I can play EQ2 with all the settings maxed and smooth as silk.
Now, how is it Client side? During Beta, I got the preorder disk and upgraded my graphics to the highest settings. The game ran smooth as silk. Now, I lag. Sorry, I dont buy the client side problems.
I am not turning down everything to just play the game. I liked the game for its graphics and performance. If I cant have those, the game isnt worth it to me. As I said before, I will wait till some of those issues are resolved.............SERVER SIDE
Damn, my sytem would make NASA proud.
3 Gigs of ram? That's very strange....
Sorry, but it still must be a client side issue, since nobody seems to be having this problem (opposing what you are advertising anywhere) - I regularly visit the official forums, the tech support section as well.
If you're not here to bash the game, then why is your player review ONLY about telling the lag issue you are experiencing, and posting it as a universal problem? Nothing about the good sides of the game.... again - strange.
My PC is much weaker and I have no lag. The server must love me
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=169825
This is the reason for your lag. It IS client side, and it happens to ppl with 4G of ram and a 8800GTX too. Has nothing to do with the servers.
Still - I hope they will fix it but to cancel playing LOTRO when this bug can be easily avoided with VERY little compromise - again - strange.
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
Quote from your Link: Client lag is best avoided by making sure that your graphical options are set appropriately for your system. We recommend using the "Detect Optimal Settings" button on the options panel in order to make sure the settings are appropriate for your machine. Beyond using optimal settings, adding additional memory is one of the best ways to prevent client lag. MMOs are very intensive on memory, and LOTRO's richly detailed world is certainly no exception.
I did detect optimal settings then reduced them and still with no avail.
I guess you would pay for a movie you cant see also, right? Strange
Dont get me wrong, I love the game. But I am not going to pay for something I cant play. I will be coming back once they resolve this issue. The game is fun and it is beautiful, but I am not going to reconfigure my system, turn the graphics down and spin on one foot while whistling dixie to play this game, when every other game I have runs smooth. I have patience.
I am glad you dont have these issues.
I scrolled up, may sound dumb, but take a gig out and try . I really don't care what anyone says , anything more then 2 gigs will cause [problems, specailly if you have a 4th slot that lays open. Also, ATI used to be the way to go , but everything now and for the future is leaning towards the Nvidia cards and nvidia SLI cards, windows Vista will want Nvidia card , ATI will work but for the most part they are becoming lesser card. Switch over to an nvidia 7 or 8 series . If you have 450 watt powersupply I recomment the 8800GTS .
Right now I have
7300Le pci-e (crap)
2gigs of el cheapo
amd 4200+ x2 64bit cpu
and I have little lag through bree city. and 0 lag in open areas running on high setting with Hi res textures.
to me it does sound like you have video lag from the ATi card.
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Quote from your Link: Client lag is best avoided by making sure that your graphical options are set appropriately for your system. We recommend using the "Detect Optimal Settings" button on the options panel in order to make sure the settings are appropriate for your machine. Beyond using optimal settings, adding additional memory is one of the best ways to prevent client lag. MMOs are very intensive on memory, and LOTRO's richly detailed world is certainly no exception.
I did detect optimal settings then reduced them and still with no avail.
I guess you would pay for a movie you cant see also, right? Strange
Dont get me wrong, I love the game. But I am not going to pay for something I cant play. I will be coming back once they resolve this issue. The game is fun and it is beautiful, but I am not going to reconfigure my system, turn the graphics down and spin on one foot while whistling dixie to play this game, when every other game I have runs smooth. I have patience.
I am glad you dont have these issues.
only you having issues, i have 7 close friends playing LOTRO none of them have lag at all, in my kinship no one complains, this can only be your comp problems maybe its full of virus. do a format c on your comp and you will be fine.There IS server lag in this game. I don't get it too often, but I do get it. When you get a 1 second delay between pressing the button for a heal and it starting up, that is server lag. When you stutter running in a crowed Bree, that is client lag. Most people can tell the difference.
I enjoyed the intro levels in LotRO, but the game so far has gotten better and better as I've progressed. So, if you found your brief exposure to the game during testing to be even moderately enjoyable, I'd think you would really enjoy the game in more depth.
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There IS server lag in this game. I don't get it too often, but I do get it. When you get a 1 second delay between pressing the button for a heal and it starting up, that is server lag. When you stutter running in a crowed Bree, that is client lag. Most people can tell the difference.
Correct. And he IS talking about stuttering in Bree if I recall it correctly....
BTW the small waiting between pushing a skill button and it coming into effect is not necessarily a lag, it is a cooldown thing. I noticed if I press 2 skills in sequence at the start of a fight, when the first move finishes, it still takes ca 1 second for the second skill to get active. This is NOT a server lag, as the first skill kicks in immediately, only the second takes some time. It is much more like game mechanics than lag imho.
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
There IS server lag in this game. I don't get it too often, but I do get it. When you get a 1 second delay between pressing the button for a heal and it starting up, that is server lag. When you stutter running in a crowed Bree, that is client lag. Most people can tell the difference.
Correct. And he IS talking about stuttering in Bree if I recall it correctly....
BTW the small waiting between pushing a skill button and it coming into effect is not necessarily a lag, it is a cooldown thing. I noticed if I press 2 skills in sequence at the start of a fight, when the first move finishes, it still takes ca 1 second for the second skill to get active. This is NOT a server lag, as the first skill kicks in immediately, only the second takes some time. It is much more like game mechanics than lag imho.
DB
you are correct in your assumption about the waiting between skill uses, this is working as intended as it was designed to be this way. I can't remember the exact reason why as i don't play lotr anymore. I don't have anything against lotr it is a good game, i'm myself just tired of the same old fantasy stuff.LOTRO yet one more fantasy game. Nothing special.
It will have good population for some time then it will fall.
Look at Tabula Rasa, it's a Sci-Fi mmorpg. Also new (still in Beta) and it look billions of times better then LOTRO. It also have a new combat system. A new idea and not a copy like the rest. Why didn't LOTRO do something like this? Come up with something new? They can't even come up with a own UI.
Yes, I agree with some of the posters above that LOTRO is excellent as a casual MMO. When I played WoW I always felt that I was rushing to level up. How fast could I get to lvl20, 40, 60! In LOTRO the game is much more about questing - all the quests are tied into the thread of the game, and every quest tells a story of the citizens or the evil about. Leveling is still important; new skills are always fun to get, but I'm actually enjoying the content of the game more than I did in WoW.
If LOTRO continues to stay in the top 10 PC games over the summer (for those of us in the Northern hemisphere), then we will know that it has staying power. I think that the game will just continue to get better.