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So, what does LOTRO offer that other games don't?
Netzoko
Member Posts: 1,271
Simple question: What does LOTRO offer to gamers what other MMOs do not?
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Comments
I hear crickets
Nice graphics. The game itself doesn't really offer much new per say, but what it does offer is polished and well implemented.
There are a few things done differently, like Monster play PvP, and housing is a little different, from what I read. Like neighborhoods and such. Its more of the same really, but if you like games like WoW, you'd like it.
Also chiken play? I never experienced that though.
Really there aren't many differences between what LoTRo has and what other MMOs offer. I like the way they have done the story and the way the Lore ties in with your character. The way you get to interact with characters that we've read about and seen on the movies. (It follows the books, not the movies).
I also like the ease in getting into the game and how a person can get a feel for how your character will play from even the earliest levels. Granted I wouldn't have minded being able to get a horse a LOT sooner than level 34!
Some say the land-mass of LoTRo is small... and compared to some MMOs that may be correct. However, I think it seems about the right size for the way they've designed it. If it were any bigger you'd definitely be wanted a lot more travel options. As it is; even with a horse it's a stinking long ride from Bree (by way of Trestlebridge) to Esteldin.
It's also hard to overlook the polish of the game. I know there are some that have had some issues with this or that... but by and large the vast majority of gamers (even those that don't like the game) will attest to it being a very well made product in regards to how it runs. Hopefully, the as yet to be released MMOs will learn from that and wait until they have their product as polished as possible before release.
If you are really serious about wanting to know what LoTRo has to offer for you as a player... you are the best judge of that. They have a trial for download available for anyone who wants to take it for a test-drive. That is really your best bet.
Simple answer: LORTO offers the single largest community of WoW bashers anywhere. I've also heard that it has a server queue on patch days, but that's just icing on the cake.
Perception is Reality.
I thought they did a nice job on the Burglar, revamping the traditional rogue class and making it desirable in groups.... (and fun to play)
Of course, there's the LotRO lore, if you're a fan of the genre its fun to meet the characters from the books....even if you don't interact a whole lot....
Housing isn't new...but few games seem to have it these days....so its a nice to have.....
Farming as a craft profession, I know, not the first game to have it..but one of the few..... and you can smoke the pipeweed..... (not many games permits smoking)
Cool music system..again, seen in another game...but ads a distinctive flair to this one.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
When was the last time WoW was even mentioned on these forums... at least in the context that you mean? I don't see a single thread on the front page... and I don't remember one for quite some time now.
However, if you saunter on over to some other forums found on your left-hand side... I think you'll find what you're looking for.
I'm sold...
It's got a real story to follow.
Also the nicest community in a MMO that I've been a part of, so far.
The advances are more evolutionary than revolutionary. It has a unique combination of elements that no other MMO offers, and overall manages to strike a nice balance between depth and ease of use that many find compelling.
For me the most compelling aspects are the presentation (in terms of graphics, the quality of writing on quests, and the cinematic presentation of fellowship quests) and a lot of other little things that are essentially personal preference. For example I like the crafting system, I like the basic design of the classes, I like how distinctive the races become at high levels, and I like the variety and flavor of the side activities (they often tend to be quite silly, which appeals to me). I also find the "low fantasy" setting makes it a bit more immersive for me than many MMOs.
LoTRO is not an innovator in terms of basic mechanics (and has never been billed as such). One could argue that PvMP is a mechanical innovation. However, even that could also be argued to be a mashup of a brief failed experiment in EQ, RvR in DAoC, and pure PvP characters from GW (of course by the time you are mashing that many things together it does start to sound at least a little innovative, but I digress).
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.
easy: pie delivery missions
Gotta keep those yummy pies out of the hands of the hungry hobbits.... /yawn
lotr just put me to sleep when I tried to play
Because every quest should involve killing?
Those kinds of quests that you reference are very particular to The Shire and reflect the kind of peaceful day to day existence that hobbits experience. They were great quests for getting the player acclimated to the large area that is The Shire. It is actually nice to have non-combat quests from time to time and just like any other MMO, LotRO does not suffer in lack of combat oriented quests. It just has other crap to do in order to waste even more time online. And, really, isn't that the point of any MMO?
Currently playing: No MMOs. They all suck.
I'm sold...
Well... it could be a very compelling reason to play for those with a chicken fetish. I'm sure there are 1 or 2 out there.
Don’t play a hobbit, or move to another starting area.... The Hobbit starting area reflects Hobbits way of life, once you leave the shire its different, and for the most part, Each races starting area is a different experience reflecting the race.
Irony seems lost on you. Because your dripping with it.
Nice last 5 posts.
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Simple answer: LORTO offers the single largest community of WoW bashers anywhere. I've also heard that it has a server queue on patch days, but that's just icing on the cake.
Lord of the Rings Online
What else, besides shilling, is the point of every post of DonnieBrasco and Jackdog?
That, is a far more interesting question...
Lord of the Rings Online
Server queue? This game must be amazing. I hope I can find a cool game with server queues, too. Can anyone recommend me a game with the longest server queues? As we all know, that means its the coolest.
Lord of the Rings Online
Seems someone else knows a little something here as well...
Some more background information - apparently after M-Qube, Jim Crowley moved into the venture capital world. Working with Highland Capital Partners, who have been existing venture capital partners with Turbine for years, since early on in the development of the game. They hold at least one, and I'm pretty sure I remember hearing 2, seats on the Turbine board of directors. Can't name the people sitting, but I'd bet Jim was one of them - or at least became one, eventually.
I didn't say it, but it must be true
. Hey, that company name looks familiar though...
Lord of the Rings Online
I guess no one else thinks its significant that someone from outside of Turbine is now its CEO, when LOTRO is supposedly the "2nd largest MMORPG", and is such a "success".
Turbine being a privately held company...
LORTO cost a lot of money to develop...
Turbine sure as heck didn't make enough money from AC1, AC2, and DDO to finance the development of LORTO...
Perhaps someone who was a lawyer and a salesman got some venture capital from some venture capital companies in Boston...
Perhaps said companies didn't like the return on said investment...
Of course, I probably just made all this information up...
Lord of the Rings Online
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Simple answer ... it provides you with a few weeks of fun before it becomes boring, most other current mmo's only need a few days for that
Middle Earth.
Simple question, simple non-flaming reponse...
Middle Earth - a beautiful and very accurrate portrayal of the world of Middle Earth. It's the original fantasy realm, and Turbine has done an AMAZING job re-creating it.
Player music system - I have never seen another game even come CLOSE to this, and they keep improving it.
Player housing - a few games do this 'a little bit' - I've never seen it done anywhere close to as well as LOTRO does it. Housing is beautiful, well planned, well thought out, just magnificent.
Monster Play - no other game I've seen has implemented PvP play in such a fun and creative way - I can play as a monster, as a troll, etc... Granted it's not for everyone, but I LOVE monster play in general, it's great fun and a smart way to run PvP and prevent teenage gank fests and needing to grind for uuber gear..
Storyline driven Quests - again, maybe other games have done something similar, but nothing comes close to the depth and detail of the LOTRO quests system. I'm drawn in every time I start a quest series and want to finish them not for XP or loot, but because I want to know what comes next, how the story progresses - I've never seen anything like it before.
non-standard classes - I love the classes Turbine chose - sure you've got ranged classes and a tank and ahealer, but they're implemented a lot differently, I feel they're more fun to play, and then you have burglar and lore master, which are just wonderful and fun classes, I've never seen another like them.
Frequent free updates - Turbine has already given us three HUGE game updates, tons of new content, and progressed the player story, as well as the story of the Fellowship. No other game gives the size and quality of updates with the frequency Turbine does.
LOTRO is an MMO, it's going to be similar to other MMOs in a number of ways, and in the way's it's different, it might not please everyone, but it is by far the best MMO I've ever played. Again, not every game is perfect for everyone, but if you want to know what LOTRO offers that other games don't, I think this is a pretty good list.
I would say the best thing LOTRO offers is stability. The game servers never crash. Very rarely are they offline for "maintainance" (although while I say that, they are in it right now lol), and polished, finished work. Its not the most exciting game you will play (EQ2 is better) but its steady and reliable.
Last couple months though, they are having big GOLDseller problems. The goldsellers are resorting to really terroristic tactics to get the money from the players now. Lotro "appears" to be combating it, but one question youve have to ask is... if they thought this game would be big (licensing rights etc) why the hell wouldnt you know spammers would come and have things ready?
It's either"
A. They had NO idea goldsellers would think their game would be popular, and thus didnt plan keeping them out, and made few attempts at security
B. Knew goldsellers would come, but decided to put all their efforts into finishing the product for retail so it wouldnt "Vanguard" , and deal with sellers when they became unbearable .. or
C. Knew goldsellers would come, but were powerless to stop them because they are like cockroaches and you can't stop them.
I think more B.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Gold sellers are not really a problem anymore after the last few updates.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Gold sellers are not really a problem anymore after the last few updates.
Was going to say the exact same thing Mrbloodworth.Since the hotfix and then the patch with book 10 I think it was... it's been very nice as far as Gold Spammers are concerned. I think I've gotten 1 tell in the last month or two of playing, and that's with having anon off. I've gotten 1 or 2 in-game mails as well, but those are easy enough to delete.
Basically if you haven't played in the last month or two, or stopped playing before they implemented the fixes... it's A LOT better.
I do agree though that they shouldn't have let it get to the point they did before they fixed it. I'm just glad that it is finally fixed, as far as I've seen anyway.
Player housing - Very well done like you said but, you can only place items on certain slots that are in houses / yard and there are not too many of those
Class-system - This bothers me the most, its the most "pigeonholed" / simplified class system ive ever seen in MMO. Everyone is pretty much the same in the end (every Champion is the same at level 50). There is not much to choose from and the trait system is lacking.
Other than that its very good game! I had high hopes for it, but for me its now only "wait untill something better comes" type of game
Player housing - Very well done like you said but, you can only place items on certain slots that are in houses / yard and there are not too many of those
Supposedly they are making a more free-form placement system that will be out "soon" (Last I heard it might not be until the first expansion). I would have just as soon they waited until it was done with that in place... many others wanted something right away and then "fix" it later. We will have to wait and see how long this "fix" takes.
Class-system - This bothers me the most, its the most "pigeonholed" / simplified class system ive ever seen in MMO. Everyone is pretty much the same in the end (every Champion is the same at level 50). There is not much to choose from and the trait system is lacking.
I agree that right now there are not a lot of choices in every slot. However, this is something that they SHOULD be able to easily expand upon. They already have the mechanics in place and I think they are done pretty well. The biggest complaint most players have is that there aren't enough of them. So... simple fix would be to add some more.... A LOT more.
I said it before, but I'd just as soon that there were so many choices for each of the slots that the chances of 2 players have the same exact layout of Traits is almost nil. There should be hundreds and hundreds of choices for each slot. Some fun ones, some powerful ones... perhaps even some that "Gimp" our character in some way for those that might want that. More choices is never a bad thing.
Other than that its very good game! I had high hopes for it, but for me its now only "wait untill something better comes" type of game
Edit: Decided to put my responses in blue... since you already highlighted some of the previous poster's response in red.
Player housing - Very well done like you said but, you can only place items on certain slots that are in houses / yard and there are not too many of those
Class-system - This bothers me the most, its the most "pigeonholed" / simplified class system ive ever seen in MMO. Everyone is pretty much the same in the end (every Champion is the same at level 50). There is not much to choose from and the trait system is lacking.
It's strange, but a high proportion of the players I've seen actually make it to 50 and still complain about character customization are champions. I know that on my Hunter and Loremaster I face tough choices. For example, on my hunter do I want to be good at tracking and traps, or focus just on DPS? And if I focus on DPS to I go for sustained or burst damage? Sustained is better for raiding, burst is better for PvP and solo questing ...it is a real choice.
On the Loremaster I can gain or lose a pet depending on what I slot, and I have to choose between strong pets, back up healing, AoE damage, power regen, or crowd control. I can be great at one, pretty good at two, or "meh" at everything. That feels like a real choice to me.
I know minsterals don't get pigeon holed either, at least not by the traits that they have available. Though to be fair a large proportion do choose to focus on purely on healing rather than buffs or DPS.
Champs, on the other hand I'm not too familiar with. They don't track or heal or anything, so it seems like you'd just go for max DPS and call it a day. Maybe there is a real problem with their class design.
In any case, the major theme of the next update is...character customization. So this may get better.
Other than that its very good game! I had high hopes for it, but for me its now only "wait untill something better comes" type of game
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.
I cut my teeth in MMO's with the original AC so I have tried my hand at all their games and a few other popular ones on the market.
For me I prefer LoTRO because of the lore and the more casual older player base. I'm in my 30's now and am not really into playing games where the average playing age is around 16-22.
Also straight out of the box LoTRO plays better then any MMO that I tried out. WoW would have been the next closest as far as polish.
And not in terms of hardcoreness or skill, but just fitting the lore, I like the pvp. As a blackarrow chasing down the free peoples feels like you are in Middle Earth. If you don't focus too much on rewards, balance and all that other stuff and just killing things, its a really fun experience.
As far as combat, crafting, quests and character variety, I think Turbine has done better in other games, such as combat for AC2, Quests and character freedom in AC1 and DDO. But it is not that far off and I like that each patch alot of work is going into the game.
LoTRO is not perfect, but I don't demand what alot of other so called hardcore players seem to in these forums. Its like they want their life to revolve around a game with the amount of time they have to devote to it. I like LoTRO because its not that way.
Yes I have Champion and also Loremaster. What do you mean by choosing between strong pets ? Eagle is so far only for show-off and after recent update fellowship pet at best(resurection skill). if you are talking about the class traits that increase pet strength and so on.. they are just crap.
Backup healing? im guessing the improvements to beacon of hope? yes those are decent class traits. 2 class slots
AOE damage, so im guessing Ents go to war. Legendary trait. 1 legendary slot
Power regen? you mean knowledge of the past ? Haven't got it yet so can't say anything about it. 1 class slot
Crowd control? what trait increases this? Deep lore is the only one i think. 1 class slot
There is 1 class trait ive had a long time. Master of the staff 1 class slot
So i can have all those in 5 of the class slots and 1 legendary slot. and if i want the eagle over the sword + staff thing i can have that too.
My Loremaster is not at max level yet (45) but please let me know if something here is wrong or you did mean some other things/traits that i get once im at 50. So far its either im pet master(gimp) or jack of all trades.
It's got a relatively good engine. Looks good, isn't that hard on the hardware. Voice overs are fine. Environment pretty good. World not overwhelmingly big, pretty good size. The 'books' are a series of group quests with epic items that nicely tie together the world with a story. And of course it has all the characters from LOTR, the patriarch of the fantasy genre. Also, I thought the dungeons looked pretty good. Tall ceilings, pretty long, various little twists and turns in the quest aspect of the crawl, etc.
That's about it.
Everything else is either a big yawn or inferior to other products.
- housing has hooks, (set locations where you put some small number of furniture pieces). EQ2 is 3 years old and had free-form placement of items in a house at release. Ancient technology there.
- Turbine can not keep up with player consumption. Story content is coming out once every 2 months, and is consumed in a matter of a few days.
- They've had to resort to nerfing classes to increase the challenge because of the lack of end-game content.
- End-game items and stats are pretty much meaningless, i.e. work for days to get something that will increase your damage by 0.001 percent. stuff like that.
- The classes are overall boring and lack any variance in gameplay. You have traits which alter your character so little as to be meaningless choices. Compared with WoW's talent trees, character-class customization is infinitesimal by comparison. All characters of class X are 98% the same. At least with WoW you had 2 or 3 viable 'builds' per class that actually resulted in different gameplay.
- economy is completely busted because of the meaninglessness of stats. For example, you could either A) spend a few hours doing book quests (enjoying a good story) and getting item X, or you could spend weeks farming mats, or purchasing them for weeks of wages, to create item Y, which will improve your health by 0.05%, or your damage by that little, etc.
SO... good game to buy, play for a month and go thru the story. Don't waste time crafting. And don't look for an endgame. If you can play an alt and do it all again, then you might want to consider a career in book-keeping.