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Truth about Lord of the Rings Online
Kuanshu
Member Posts: 272
Hello all,
I have participated in LOTRO stress test, open beta, and retail release; I am a Founder and currently have a totally decked out level 50, 3GM crafter, and a rank 5 Monster for Monster Play. I listed the aforementioned to point out that I have done just about everything there is to do in Lord of the Rings Online. This viewpoint comes from a hardcore gamers perspective and the end game is severely lacking for those who are used to endgame raiding, pvp, and loot farming/crafting.
Yes this game was designed primarily for casual gamers, if your any kind of hardcore gamer you will get bored rather quickly in this game. What really hurts this game is how easy PvE is...I could take a PUG into Helegrod, clear it and even take down Thorog. If you are used to taking down raid bosses and expecting phat lewtz prepare to be greatily dissappointed here. Again, this game is designed for casual gamers so its really subpar for anyone used to hardcore raid content.
If your a avid PvP enthusiast you will be mildly amused with Monster Play, yet if you desire to be a Monster (Creep is the term used in LOTRO) you will be appalled at their stance towards Creeps. Creeps are designed to be weaker then Player Characters (Freeps is the term used in LOTRO) simply because in all the books/movies/lore the Heros took out hordes of Monsters. This is how they justify their Monster Play game design and how they defend any arguement against any sort of fairness between Creeps and Freeps. It usually takes 2 raids of Creeps to be on par with 1 raid of Freeps. I am sure this might change once more Creeps get ranked up(which is much harder then leveling a Freep) and they obtain their primary healer race/class. A True PvPer will simply be toying around with their Monster Play until AoC or WHO are released...some may even return to WoW.
Crafting is rather simple in this game and so is the collection of materials. Higher end crafting can be tricky in the obtaining of certain Single Use recipes and Rare Spawn components (they are usually perma camped (this is going to change however)). If you desire to have crafted items which rival the best obtainable quest/raid/instance loot then you will have to craft the highest possible craft items, obtain rare single use recipes, and then have a relatively small critical chance to make an imcomparable item. There is supposed to be more high end crafting recipes with each major patch (usually called Book updates). If you enjoy crafting then you will enjoy the ease of crafting in this game, you will enjoy the challenge at high crafting tiers, you will enjoy getting an incomparable item made if you get lucky enough.
The community feeling in LOTRO is really lacking surprisingly enough. The best community feeling I ever felt in a game was in EQ1 and I believe that was primarily due to the fact you had no choice but to group in order to advance effectively and in order to get the best loot. I can pretty much solo just about everything I need to in LOTRO except for some fellowship (group) quests which can be done in PUGs. If your planning on participating in LOTRO or are just starting out expect to be dissappointed as your going to have issues finding players to team with you or even help you.
Lord of the Rings Online is a casual gamers dream MMORPG and that is how it was designed. If you desire to really be challenged PvE or PvP wise you will be greatily dissappointed playing LOTRO. Be aware however that LOTRO is early in its evolution and as they add more territory (included in the Lore) and changes it could really end up being something worthwhile...though at this time AoC and WHO will be available and it will surely suit certain players much moreso...
If you have any other questions, concerns, etc...feel free to post them along with your reply
Kuanshu
Michael
Comments
I can kinda agree, real experienced gamers get done with stuff fast, but they do add alot of stuff with the content updates.
Sadly though about your community comment, I found most games communities to be nice in EQ and AC and most of the early games. Then the big hit of PVP centric games game out and suddenly game communities went on a nose dive, i feel most decent gamers got so turned off they looked elsewhere for entertainment leaving the void to be filled in with people who only years before ridiculed people for playing these games and really had no interest in the story of these games which is the reason to play any ind of RPG. Then with wow the game community fell into its final rotted state and i weep for the old days when people who played wanted everyone to have fun and for the most part did what they could to see it happen.
I think the days of a truly helpful community are a thing of the past, i just hope they make some AWESOME fps game so that those players will go back to the games made for their playstyle and gaming attitudes
well I do agree LotRO is a great game for more casual players..... but my definition of casual might be broader than the OP's. I think LOtRO would appeal to most players who are not powergamers, who enjoy a quest system built around a story-line, and who are not mainly looking for pvp. If you are a hardcore gamer, a pvper, or a person who doesnt care about the story or doesnt bother to even read the quests, LotRO isnt for you.
I would also add that I would be very careful saying that AoC and WAR will 'surely' do anything. Games always look better in theory than they do when implemented, and the warts and all are there for everyone to see. People were saying the same thing about Vanguard a year ago, about how it would give the hardcore players a game of their own... and we know how that has worked out.
There are not many good MMORPGs to choose from right now, and by any criteria, LotRO is a very well done and very successful game. It doesnt not appeal to every player, but IMO thats a good thing. Better to be very good at what you are trying to do, than try to please everyone and not be particularly good at anything. At what LotRO tries to do, it does very well. The question isnt whether LotRO is a good game, but rather, are the type of player it is aiming for??
Elladan - ESO (AD)
Camring - SWTOR (Ebon Hawk)
Eol & Justinian - Rift (Faeblight)
Ceol and Duri - LotRO (Landroval)
Kili - WoW
Eol - Lineage 2
Camring - SWG
Justinian (Nimue), Camring - DAoC
The advent of so-called "casual-friendly" and, thus, highly soloable MMOs is, in my opinion and personal experience, slowly killing the social aspect of MMOs. It started to show in WoW, there are elements of it in EQ2 and the same can be said in LoTRO, except in the noted fellowship quests. And in those cases, you'll get a group together specifically for that quest and then everyone disbands - sometimes without a word of thanks or anything in my experience - and that's it. No communication, no requests to add to friends list.. nothing. It's like everyone is there as fair-weather friends. Once they get what they need, they're outta there.
Part of the problem is that where MMOs are - at least in theory - community-centric games, there are a number of players coming to them with a very un-community centric attitude... They're concerned only about their own progress, about getting to end-game as fast as possible... about getting the best gear as soon as they can, etc. Those around them are either their competition or their helpers. Again, not *everyone* is like this - but I'm seeing an increasing number of them.
Perhaps this is why I'm getting more and more jaded with the newer MMOs - especially those that boast casual-friendly play and soloability. I keep returning to and likely will always stick to Final Fantasy XI. It still has that very community-centric feel to it. People still do matter because, like the OP said about EQ1, so much of the game is based around party dynamics. You have to learn to cooperate and group with people if you want to succeed. And, thus, the sense of community in that game is awesome. You you have your idiots, of course, as you will in any MMO, but for the most part, the community in FFXI is very mature, very group-oriented and for a large part, very helpful. Your reputation goes a long way in that game.
I just do not see that kind of focus on community in other MMOs coming out now.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
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Well they did try to create a casual friendly game up to lvl45. After that they decided to create some content for powergamers. And they failed.
It's not difficult enough for powergamers and annoying as hell to casual players. I'm not a casual player, but i cannot call myself a powergamer either. I do not enjoy killing hundreds of elite mobs to get 1 level upgrade to my deed. And i didn't like endless trips to CarnDum and Urgarth to get class items.
So you did all the quests in the game and got your common mitigation to 50%? Guess what? We created some end game content for you where all mobs will deal shadow damage. Um-ha-ha! Enormous stress for healers to see 3500 HP tank to go down 50% of the health in a couple of seconds. It came down to a point where if the mez failed or root didn't hold long enough it was a guaranteed wipe.
And i hated raiding. Not because it was difficult, because it was stupid. It's like: Oh we have only one raid, but we want you to be busy for the next 3 months so you'll have to do it at least 24 times. No thanks.
So i rolled an alt. I knew all the quests (unfortunately), so got him to lvl36 in 2 weeks just doing quests, didn't bother with deeds. Rolled another alt. lvl21.
Not sure about the expansion. They upped the difficulty in the Evendim zone, so it's not that easy compared to the same level elsewhere. Fine. But... They really overdid mob density there. It's like angmar, mobs every 30 feet around you. There was a justification for that in Angmar. Stronghold of evil, you have to fight your way through constantly. But in Evendim? Agroed deers on the roads kicking you from the horse in one hit so you have to run around? And there are so many of them you cant even get back on the horse. It was annoying in Angmar, twice as annoying in Evendim.
It is a great game with stunning visuals, with an incredible appeal to the fans of the original lore. It's just they screwed up with the end game. Which is not uncommon in the MMOs BTW.
I tried the PvMP game and while an cool and intersting idea, it didn't take for me. I got my a** handed to me by 46 level characters and had a 3/30 slaying/slayed rating. Thinking I had better things to to than being a freep candy bag on legs I logged off the monster, prbbably for the last time.
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And when we got more women on the team, it was like No, no, no. We need puppies and horses in there.
John Smedley, SOE
"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
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Lotro is the most Community oriented game I've ever played. The Community creates it's own events across the servers and they are very vocal in the direction the developers should take the game. If you are going to sit there an ramble on without even trying the game and have an opinion on how the community of a game you never tried is insane. So maybe instead of making up some "general" analysis of a game you should atleast try it's community out .....The irony of your response, solareus, is just too precious to pass up.
You accuse me of "rambling on" about a game I "never tried" without first asking if I did, in fact, play it or not. GG.
Unless having played it in Beta, then buying and playing it in retail for about 1.5 months before getting bored with it doesn't count as "playing" anymore, then I guess I'd have to say that I most definitely have played the game and have experienced the community - or at least the part I got to interact with. Community is one of the big reasons why I play MMOs and it's something I make a point of trying to experience.
So... perhaps you should worry about covering your own "assumptions" before attempting to point out others' "generalizations", mkay?
Based on my experience, I found the community in LoTRO to be very "me-centric", only interested in grouping up to complete some goal they had, and that's it. As soon as the quest(s) was/were complete, they were gone. "Gotta go, later". I did meet a few people whom I more or less stayed in touch with, but even that was fleeting. Guilds that I was invited to were a waste - no sense of community at all in those either, and tried about 3 in my time there before giving up.
Perhaps I just have higher standards of what "community" is, having experienced it to a great degree in other MMOs, but in my personal experience, LoTRO's community was not much better than what I experienced in WoW - which with rare exception, wasn't all that great either.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
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So in your personal opinion of what "Community" is, in your opinion, LoTRO succeeds.
In my impression of what it is, it fell short. By the by, community isn't "random people" to me either, it includes everyone as a whole and in my time in MMOs, I've seen some excellent examples of this, and some very poor examples of this.
Anyway... To each their own.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Not for me this game.
Very few people around on the EN RP Server. Lot of early quests I picked up were collecting eggs for farmers and catching chickens. Map is very poor, interface is poor, forced to quest becasue grinding yields such little XP. Grinding is not the sole preserve of Hardcore gamers - it serves to give players an alternative to completing quests. In LOTRO I found very early on that you will likely spend a lot of time completing mundane quests that have little to do with the books. That might be bearable if the end game was reportedly good, the cservers populated etc. Sound is not great, graphics are nice but that just pisses you off when the questing is forced and pretty poor at lower levels. Doesnt even feel vast in the way that WOW did/does.
AH had virtually noything in it = never a good sign that !
Have a go, the 1-6 is OK at 6+ in all went downhill rapidly for me.....
Caveat Emptor
Glad you gave it a try. Though i have some comments to discuss:
1. the sound is stellar in 5.1 doubly . It is probably the best sound mmo I've played.
2. You seemed to be in the newbie instance, and like all people before you didn't realize that you wjhere in a instanced starting area from 1-6.
3. A great majority of people found the hobbit starting area "refreshing change" from the normal kind of quest found in the other areas of LotrO as well as many many other mmo's.
4. Grinding has it's benefites to unlock traits in your Deed Log, ever single monster in the game gives a deed reward.
Sony Online Entertainment Steals Customers Money
Not sure what you mean by "refreshing", unless you are being sarcastic.
Mail delivery? pie delivery? running around like a headless chicken collecting fireworks? Drinking ale in every tavern? And don't think that its delivery somewhere close. You literally will have to visit every village in the Shire avoiding NPCs. And again and again.
Dwarven/elven area (Ered Luin) is the best as a starting zone goes. IMHO of course.
For a guy who quit after lvl 6.
Game really starts picking up after lvl15 and becomes really good after lvl 20. You will get enough skills to make combat somewhat interesting. Also a lot of good quest are in Lone Lands and North Downs for lvl 20-30. Quitting at lvl6 is very early. It's not like eq2 where you getting the same skills just of the higher tier. Every next skill is unique, opens some new tactics. That skill available at lvl 2 you will be using at lvl50.
I found some of the OPs thoughts amusing, some true, some flat out lies.
First, you didn't clear Helegrod with a pug. There has been a total of 5 guilds on the US servers that have cleared the last boss in helegrod and NONE of them were pugs. All guilds.
Rank 0 Creeps are supposed to be roughly equivilent to a level 40 Freep. Yes, heros in the books killed MANY MANY, and here's the important part, SWARM level monsters at a time. A rank 0 creep = Swarm level monster. However on my rank 4 Creep I have ZERO problem going 1v1 (and at times 2v1) against all but the very best Freeps out there. So your logic here is flawed as you clearly haven't explored the creep side in great enough depth to know what you're talking about.
Crafting, simple... Yes, but it's supposed to be. More recipes are being added every patch, the next one only being weeks away.
End game... hehe Well, the first patch wasn't meant to really add anything but Helegrod to end game. Book 10 however is almost ALL level 50 stuff. Reputation system, new dungeons, 3 new instances in Annuminas, Epic set items and weapons from the instances/rep systems, new mount, Session play. Book 11 will have Housing and probably Mines of Moria. IF the mines aren't in Book 11 they will definately be in Book 12.
So, can you honestly say that someone who were to buy the game today and start from 1-50, even playinig hardcore, would have nothing to do once they hit 50? No you can't, because even if they went as fast as possibe with a pocket Gandalf giving directions they would still be hitting 50 about the time Book 10 launches. You do know that book 10 is almost a 10% increase in area without adding any new zones right? Which means 10% of the game world in dungeons and instances. That's pretty damned impressive. . WE haven't even seen the FULL list of features coming, only what has been hinted at.
I HATED the Shire quests personally, the only reason I never made a hobbit. But the person you were responding to was correct, there are a lot of people who love the shire quests. I'm personally certain they were dropped on their head many times as children, but to each their own. I like the Human area the best by far, it's more of your traditional MMO starter area.
And grinding raids is different in other games... HOW exactly? That's what raiding is, doing it over and over and over til everyone has their gear, then move to the next raid. Rinse, lather, repeat.
Seems A lot of people are already forgetting about how important the traits and deed system are. Hey you might be at max level now and feeling pretty good, but hat happens when an expansions comes out with added player levels and you finally figured out your character is gimped because he didn't go for certain trais earlier in the game.
Traits are crucial to maxingout your characters ouput damage and defense, imo.
Sony Online Entertainment Steals Customers Money
All you BAs are the same!
Your not in the thick of the battle engaging in melee with the freeps and getting your ass kicked.
So while you sit back and leech off kills, dont tell me the PvMP is balanced in any way, shape or form.
Your just dillusional.
Btw i have a R4 WL and R3 Reaver.
Effectively quit halfway to R5 on WL. Whenever i bested a freep, they just ran and I couldnt stop them, denying me the kill.
Worst thing about PvMP is not the balance issue, but rather the attitude of the freep players.
I've never seen such cowardice in any game. Its rather quite pitiful.
I guess its to be expected when the majority player base are PvErs or RPers.
We've had 10 or so creeps hit R5 on our server as far as im aware. All but 1 have quit.
I play a Reaver and love it, kthx. Learn2play?
Solid game play? SOLID game play? That is the only thing that isn't good in this game. Sluggish, boring and dull queue based combat that gets more and more messy for every player or mob you add. The feeling of actually hitting monsters and being in a fight is close to zero. I really really tried to like this game and forgive Turbine for the combat system, but after reaching level 40 I had had enough.
Everything is great except it's not fun. Unfortunately.
And what other classes have you played...
Reaver appears to be the only class that somewhat balances out. Its saving grace is the R5 get out of stun skill.
Learn2play? rofl
Why do you think the enemy always runs from me?
This game isnt fun anymore. Theres no reason for dedicated creeps to log in. And as such, many have left.
Enough discussion. The mere fact is, Lotro is designed for PVE, should keep the lore followers entertained.
Dont play it looking for PVP.
So from what I gather, the OP is complaining because he is a hardcore player, and doesn't like the fact that LotR is made for casual players! Even though he knew this before playing.
That is like a wine drinker complaining that his beer tastes like beer!
Way to dredge up an old thread.
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Brandywine Global LFF chan "/joinchannel glff"
Necro threads FTL.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
necro thread
this is from 2007.....