First off, I'd like to mention that all I've done is the 14-day trial, so I'm in no way an expert on LOTRO. I may not have played enough to be fully immersed in the game, but I felt like sharing my thoughts nonetheless.
As the title states, I don't think this game should have such a high rating. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against it (I've been a Tolkien fan ever since I learned to read, and felt that the game perfectly complemented the books and movies); however, I don't think LOTRO is anything special. I could spend all day listing the similarities it has with WoW, but that would get boring, and most of you probably noticed them anyway. Mostly, though, I just thought LOTRO quickly got boring. The graphics are great; they're what drew me in initially. But for anyone who has ever played WoW, or any of its seemingly infinite clones, everything about this game will seem very redundant. In my 14 days of playing, I found absolutely nothing new or innovative. There was definitely nothing worth another $15 a month. So, does anyone out there agree with me? Feel free to share your thoughts.
Ok so let me get this straight, the game perfectly complements the LotR series, which was made decades before WoW even exsisted, but it's a WoW clone?
Your logic is mindblowing you retard.
You state you could spend all day listing the WoW similarities but you list none. Similarities like the fact they both have mobs? HP bars? The fact you can name your char in WoW AND LotRO? How about the fact they both have quests?
You do know WoW wasnt the first mmo ever made right? I mean you really know that?
Apparently a WOW clone is any MMO....with an easy to adequate UI.....where you must make more than one keystroke. Maybe they should just make an MMO...without any tutorial what-so-ever....at all....none. Then we have a bunch of people bitching about that as well. How about a fully realized world...any genre.Chock full of content and 100x the endgame and detailed,meticulous professions and hobbies galore...player housing....fully customizable..............but your toon is BLIND...is that hardcore enough?
To most people there are only 2 types of MMORPGs out there - The WOW Clone, and the "bound to Fail Not WOW clone"
You complain about the game being like WOW, you complain about the game not being like WOW - So its bound to fail.
Most people seem to have forgotten what a MMO really is - The players that are paying the game should make up most of the games essence. Stop comparing the things in the game that are put there by the developers. Its us that make the game what it is. Compare a general WOW player to a Lord of the Rings player - are they clones, chances are they are totally different.
Community - that's the word i was looking for.
Also, learn to read. I would hazard a guess that 95% of Wow players don't read anything about the quest besides, just look where it is, what it is, and do it. Take time to immerse yourself in the Lore of the game, there is none better than that in LOTRO. If you play LOTRO like you would WOW, of course it may seem the same......
Oh forgot to answer - why is it number 1.
The people who play the game, and the amount of effort that Turbine puts in to create the seemingly endless detail about the world.
Core i5 13600KF, BeQuiet Pure Loop FX 360, 32gb DDR5-6000 XPG, WD SN850 NVMe ,PNY 3090 XLR8, Asus Prime Z790-A, Lian-Li O11 PCMR case (limited ed 1045/2000), 32" LG Ultragear 4k Monitor, Logitech G560 LightSync Sound, Razer Deathadder V2 and Razer Blackwidow V3 Keyboard
LoTRO has good storylines. AoC was pretty cool too..Even WOW..when you actually read everything...has pretty decent quest lines...many that link in very subtle ways....sometimes I find myself going, "OH Yeah....I remember that <npc>/<story>" ..not aloud , of course...well..sometimes aloud.
First off, I'd like to mention that all I've done is the 14-day trial, so I'm in no way an expert on LOTRO. I may not have played enough to be fully immersed in the game, but I felt like sharing my thoughts nonetheless.
As the title states, I don't think this game should have such a high rating. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against it (I've been a Tolkien fan ever since I learned to read, and felt that the game perfectly complemented the books and movies); however, I don't think LOTRO is anything special. I could spend all day listing the similarities it has with WoW, but that would get boring, and most of you probably noticed them anyway. Mostly, though, I just thought LOTRO quickly got boring. The graphics are great; they're what drew me in initially. But for anyone who has ever played WoW, or any of its seemingly infinite clones, everything about this game will seem very redundant. In my 14 days of playing, I found absolutely nothing new or innovative. There was definitely nothing worth another $15 a month. So, does anyone out there agree with me? Feel free to share your thoughts.
I'd like to go a bit deeper than Trance did in his reply. EQ even is a clone of all the things that have worked in console rpgs which I think most of us have played before the online revolution hit points,magic points, skill points, character progression is very similiar to great classic console/pc rpgs like Baldurs Gate,FF series,phantasy star series and others even before those so let's not give the apple to Blizzard right off.
Now as to why it has such a high rating I think that goes to the fact that most of the readers of sites like these are more "mature" players and LOTRO does a much better job than most of types of games for matures for those who like to RP and for those who are inspired by good storytelling. I played from it's inception til a few months after Burning Crusade and can say LOTRO in my opinion is clearly the more fun of those games I like going to my kinships "bakery" and I love my kins book nights because to date LOTRO has the most engaging story of any mmo around so for me it's not a question of why pay another fifteen dollars for lotro but why pay fifteen dollars for a product that can not meet the standards that this game has set.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
To most people there are only 2 types of MMORPGs out there - The WOW Clone, and the "bound to Fail Not WOW clone" You complain about the game being like WOW, you complain about the game not being like WOW - So its bound to fail.
Most people seem to have forgotten what a MMO really is - The players that are paying the game should make up most of the games essence. Stop comparing the things in the game that are put there by the developers. Its us that make the game what it is. Compare a general WOW player to a Lord of the Rings player - are they clones, chances are they are totally different. Community - that's the word i was looking for. Also, learn to read. I would hazard a guess that 95% of Wow players don't read anything about the quest besides, just look where it is, what it is, and do it. Take time to immerse yourself in the Lore of the game, there is none better than that in LOTRO. If you play LOTRO like you would WOW, of course it may seem the same......
Oh forgot to answer - why is it number 1. The people who play the game, and the amount of effort that Turbine puts in to create the seemingly endless detail about the world.
Pretty much a flawless post. Amen to that!
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
To most people there are only 2 types of MMORPGs out there - The WOW Clone, and the "bound to Fail Not WOW clone" You complain about the game being like WOW, you complain about the game not being like WOW - So its bound to fail.
Most people seem to have forgotten what a MMO really is - The players that are paying the game should make up most of the games essence. Stop comparing the things in the game that are put there by the developers. Its us that make the game what it is. Compare a general WOW player to a Lord of the Rings player - are they clones, chances are they are totally different. Community - that's the word i was looking for. Also, learn to read. I would hazard a guess that 95% of Wow players don't read anything about the quest besides, just look where it is, what it is, and do it. Take time to immerse yourself in the Lore of the game, there is none better than that in LOTRO. If you play LOTRO like you would WOW, of course it may seem the same......
Oh forgot to answer - why is it number 1. The people who play the game, and the amount of effort that Turbine puts in to create the seemingly endless detail about the world.
Let me comment the lines i put in colors:
Red: So everyone who does not like Lotro and the stories told in it can't read and is stupid. Nice one.
Yellow: My impression was quiet opposite: that the LOTRO community was just the same, standing on the greenway on the RP server for 3 houers and counting like 100 players who did not take the time to interact with a greeting player because they had to rush to the old forest yadda yadda for next quest progress omg faster FAAAAAAASTERRR!!!! (on the rp server!!!)
Green: Thats another part LOTRO completely was a waste of time for me. I was going to overlook the thin gameplay and the meaningless skill system and thought ok lets take it as a game with interactive story telling. But it was horrible, the book quests where a "click-and-run-to-see-a-piece-of-a-medium-quality-cartoon-movie" (cut scenes where i am left out as a player) - 99.9999% of the quests do not allow me an alternativ route but the given one - interaction with NPC's does not happen, just "click+progress" you cant do anything wrong there.
Now honestly Dr. Dr. Dr.Professor78, print me a quest dialogue that you find so extraordinary well done in LOTRO that the line "there is none better than that in LOTRO" is not an empty sentence, like LOTRO is an empty game with good graphics. I will not hold my breath tho.
To most people there are only 2 types of MMORPGs out there - The WOW Clone, and the "bound to Fail Not WOW clone" You complain about the game being like WOW, you complain about the game not being like WOW - So its bound to fail.
Most people seem to have forgotten what a MMO really is - The players that are paying the game should make up most of the games essence. Stop comparing the things in the game that are put there by the developers. Its us that make the game what it is. Compare a general WOW player to a Lord of the Rings player - are they clones, chances are they are totally different. Community - that's the word i was looking for. Also, learn to read. I would hazard a guess that 95% of Wow players don't read anything about the quest besides, just look where it is, what it is, and do it. Take time to immerse yourself in the Lore of the game, there is none better than that in LOTRO. If you play LOTRO like you would WOW, of course it may seem the same......
Oh forgot to answer - why is it number 1. The people who play the game, and the amount of effort that Turbine puts in to create the seemingly endless detail about the world.
Let me comment the lines i put in colors:
Red: So everyone who does not like Lotro and the stories told in it can't read and is stupid. Nice one.
Yellow: My impression was quiet opposite: that the LOTRO community was just the same, standing on the greenway on the RP server for 3 houers and counting like 100 players who did not take the time to interact with a greeting player because they had to rush to the old forest yadda yadda for next quest progress omg faster FAAAAAAASTERRR!!!! (on the rp server!!!)
Green: Thats another part LOTRO completely was a waste of time for me. I was going to overlook the thin gameplay and the meaningless skill system and thought ok lets take it as a game with interactive story telling. But it was horrible, the book quests where a "click-and-run-to-see-a-piece-of-a-medium-quality-cartoon-movie" (cut scenes where i am left out as a player) - 99.9999% of the quests do not allow me an alternativ route but the given one - interaction with NPC's does not happen, just "click+progress" you cant do anything wrong there.
Now honestly Dr. Dr. Dr.Professor78, print me a quest dialogue that you find so extraordinary well done in LOTRO that the line "there is none better than that in LOTRO" is not an empty sentence, like LOTRO is an empty game with good graphics. I will not hold my breath tho.
Red: no. But the best part of LoTRO is the stories that amerge from quest chains. You really have to be a patient sort of player that enjoys reading quest text, enjoys a restrained (compared to the typical fantasy MMO) setting, and that is willing to keep track of storylines that can run through dozens of quests
Yellow: if you can't see the difference between the community of WoW and the community of LoTRO, you are either playing on some abortion of a server that I've never stuck my head onto or judge the quality of a community by some pretty arbitrary metrics. Of course given the example that you use, standing in the main thoroughfare that connects every part of one of the biggest questing zones and expecting folks to stop and roleplay with you...that may be true.
Green: what would be the point of linking a particular quest? It's all personal opinion, and one quest wouldn't prove anything or even get at what we are talking about. Just about any MMO will have at least one well written quest. Hell, even Hellgate: London had one or two...and I personally would have had whoever wrote most of the the quest dialogue taken out into the desert and shot if I were the lead dev.
The point to me is that the average quest chain in LoTRO has better written quest dialogue (more evocative and engaging prose) than what you will find in most MMOs. If you are someone like me that is always anal about sucking every scrap of lore you can out of an MMO the difference in quality between the story lines in LoTRO and most MMOs is pretty jarring.
If you aren't the type of player that would say..stand around all day in the Plane of Knowledge reading books in game (EQ), or go back through SM at high levels just to read the books that are lying around (WoW), or eagerly await every tiny new update to your Tomb of Knowledge (WAR)...it's something you may not pick up on.
There are certainly a few throw aways in LoTRO (early lone lands comes to mind). And most MMOs have at least a few standouts. For example in WoW the quests in the Blood Elf starter area are noticeably better written than what you find in most starter areas, I personally enjoy the undead "plague" quest line very engaging, and the strory telling in the Death Knight starter area really is fantastic. The stroy line in the 1-20 area of AoC is excellent. In CoH, some of the user made quests have incredibly compelling stories (if only you didn't have to wade through so much crap to get to them). Even in WAR, which I have often said on my blog has the the most inefficient and pedestrian quest dialogue among main stream MMOs, the quest text in the green skin starter areas is pretty entertaining if you are into the IP (and the ToK is actually very well written).
To me the difference is consistency. In LoTRO, the quest that reads like the writer "phoned it in" is the exception to the rule. The objectives of the quests are usually pretty standard stuff. But the story lines that emerge from the quest chains really generally are a cut above what you get in most MMOs. In my experience quest lines that tell compelling stories are the exception to the rule in most MMOs. The only MMOs that consistently give LoTRO a run for the money in that respect are GW and possibly FFXI (in my experience).
You may have a different opinion, that's fine. But if you aren't willing to allow that the prose of the quest dialogue in LoTRO is at least better than average for an MMO, I strongly suspect that you aren't the type of player that is likely to pick up on what I'm talking about. To my personal tastes, it has the best overall quest driven storytelling among modern MMOs.
To me the difference is as great as the difference between, say, an average short story written professional fantasy author and and the average fan fic written by a high schooler. You might have read a lot of both and genuinely like fan fics better. However, you'll find that your opinion is not a common one among the well read.
In game metrics have shown that the average MMO player doesn't read quest dialogue at all (there was an article touched on that here recently). They skip down to the objective and figure out how to get to it as quickly as possible. There is a good reason why quest helper is the most popular addon in WoW. I personally think it's sad that even Turbine has been forced to acknowledge this reality by adding quest trackers to the map and UI in LoTRO. In the long term I don't think it will help the game much, be because it's a concession to gamers that likely aren't likely to "get" LoTRO. If you don't get caught up in the lore and the story lines, you are missing the main feature that makes LoTRO a standout.
The folks that most fervently enjoy LoTRO very often are the minority of MMO users that read every single quest trying to learn more about the setting that they are immersed in and the dramas that are emerging around them. When a random MMO gamer comes in here telling us that the quest dialogue in LoTRO isn't generally any better than say, WoW, we tend to find their opinions suspect.
Professor 78 was certainly oversating his case. However, I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that most players that try LoTRO and hate it are also in that majority of MMO gamers that don't read quests.
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.
To most people there are only 2 types of MMORPGs out there - The WOW Clone, and the "bound to Fail Not WOW clone" You complain about the game being like WOW, you complain about the game not being like WOW - So its bound to fail.
Most people seem to have forgotten what a MMO really is - The players that are paying the game should make up most of the games essence. Stop comparing the things in the game that are put there by the developers. Its us that make the game what it is. Compare a general WOW player to a Lord of the Rings player - are they clones, chances are they are totally different. Community - that's the word i was looking for. Also, learn to read. I would hazard a guess that 95% of Wow players don't read anything about the quest besides, just look where it is, what it is, and do it. Take time to immerse yourself in the Lore of the game, there is none better than that in LOTRO. If you play LOTRO like you would WOW, of course it may seem the same......
Oh forgot to answer - why is it number 1. The people who play the game, and the amount of effort that Turbine puts in to create the seemingly endless detail about the world.
Let me comment the lines i put in colors:
Red: So everyone who does not like Lotro and the stories told in it can't read and is stupid. Nice one.
Yellow: My impression was quiet opposite: that the LOTRO community was just the same, standing on the greenway on the RP server for 3 houers and counting like 100 players who did not take the time to interact with a greeting player because they had to rush to the old forest yadda yadda for next quest progress omg faster FAAAAAAASTERRR!!!! (on the rp server!!!)
Green: Thats another part LOTRO completely was a waste of time for me. I was going to overlook the thin gameplay and the meaningless skill system and thought ok lets take it as a game with interactive story telling. But it was horrible, the book quests where a "click-and-run-to-see-a-piece-of-a-medium-quality-cartoon-movie" (cut scenes where i am left out as a player) - 99.9999% of the quests do not allow me an alternativ route but the given one - interaction with NPC's does not happen, just "click+progress" you cant do anything wrong there.
Now honestly Dr. Dr. Dr.Professor78, print me a quest dialogue that you find so extraordinary well done in LOTRO that the line "there is none better than that in LOTRO" is not an empty sentence, like LOTRO is an empty game with good graphics. I will not hold my breath tho.
Red: no. But the best part of LoTRO is the stories that amerge from quest chains. You really have to be a patient sort of player that enjoys reading quest text, enjoys a restrained (compared to the typical fantasy MMO) setting, and that is willing to keep track of storylines that can run through dozens of quests
If thats the best part of LOTRO then good night. To be honest most quests are thinner than a piece of paper. If you had only one example you would print the quest dialogue here but you cant - simply admit it.
Yellow: if you can't see the difference between the community of WoW and the community of LoTRO, you are either playing on some abortion of a server that I've never stuck my head onto or judge the quality of a community by some pretty arbitrary metrics. Of course given the example that you use, standing in the main thoroughfare that connects every part of one of the biggest questing zones and expecting folks to stop and roleplay with you...that may be true.
In fact that is what i expect on a roleplaying server yes, role players - what you call the "slow type of player, the reader type of player" but in your reader type of player game even on a reader type of gamer server they had no time but to rush to the next marker on the minimap. And here comes the surprise: In WoW they actually roleplayed - sitting in the town for houers arond campfires telling roleplay stories and interacting. Creating mini RP events and all - guess what the community is not that different at all.
Green: what would be the point of linking a particular quest?
*SNIPPED THE REST - was too long, and not to the point, i think you just love expressing yourself and lost contact here with the topic.*
It woudl prove that you are right and i am wrong - but you cant. Because there is none. Not even the main quest dialogue is of any literal value.
Not sure why you answer for Professor78 anyway, that you 2nd acc?
To most people there are only 2 types of MMORPGs out there - The WOW Clone, and the "bound to Fail Not WOW clone" You complain about the game being like WOW, you complain about the game not being like WOW - So its bound to fail.
Most people seem to have forgotten what a MMO really is - The players that are paying the game should make up most of the games essence. Stop comparing the things in the game that are put there by the developers. Its us that make the game what it is. Compare a general WOW player to a Lord of the Rings player - are they clones, chances are they are totally different. Community - that's the word i was looking for. Also, learn to read. I would hazard a guess that 95% of Wow players don't read anything about the quest besides, just look where it is, what it is, and do it. Take time to immerse yourself in the Lore of the game, there is none better than that in LOTRO. If you play LOTRO like you would WOW, of course it may seem the same......
Oh forgot to answer - why is it number 1. The people who play the game, and the amount of effort that Turbine puts in to create the seemingly endless detail about the world.
Let me comment the lines i put in colors:
Red: So everyone who does not like Lotro and the stories told in it can't read and is stupid. Nice one.
Yellow: My impression was quiet opposite: that the LOTRO community was just the same, standing on the greenway on the RP server for 3 houers and counting like 100 players who did not take the time to interact with a greeting player because they had to rush to the old forest yadda yadda for next quest progress omg faster FAAAAAAASTERRR!!!! (on the rp server!!!)
Green: Thats another part LOTRO completely was a waste of time for me. I was going to overlook the thin gameplay and the meaningless skill system and thought ok lets take it as a game with interactive story telling. But it was horrible, the book quests where a "click-and-run-to-see-a-piece-of-a-medium-quality-cartoon-movie" (cut scenes where i am left out as a player) - 99.9999% of the quests do not allow me an alternativ route but the given one - interaction with NPC's does not happen, just "click+progress" you cant do anything wrong there.
Now honestly Dr. Dr. Dr.Professor78, print me a quest dialogue that you find so extraordinary well done in LOTRO that the line "there is none better than that in LOTRO" is not an empty sentence, like LOTRO is an empty game with good graphics. I will not hold my breath tho.
Red: no. But the best part of LoTRO is the stories that amerge from quest chains. You really have to be a patient sort of player that enjoys reading quest text, enjoys a restrained (compared to the typical fantasy MMO) setting, and that is willing to keep track of storylines that can run through dozens of quests
If thats the best part of LOTRO then good night. To be honest most quests are thinner than a piece of paper. If you had only one example you would print the quest dialogue here but you cant - simply admit it.
Yellow: if you can't see the difference between the community of WoW and the community of LoTRO, you are either playing on some abortion of a server that I've never stuck my head onto or judge the quality of a community by some pretty arbitrary metrics. Of course given the example that you use, standing in the main thoroughfare that connects every part of one of the biggest questing zones and expecting folks to stop and roleplay with you...that may be true.
In fact that is what i expect on a roleplaying server yes, role players - what you call the "slow type of player, the reader type of player" but in your reader type of player game even on a reader type of gamer server they had no time but to rush to the next marker on the minimap. And here comes the surprise: In WoW they actually roleplayed - sitting in the town for houers arond campfires telling roleplay stories and interacting. Creating mini RP events and all - guess what the community is not that different at all.
Green: what would be the point of linking a particular quest?
*SNIPPED THE REST - was too long, and not to the point, i think you just love expressing yourself and lost contact here with the topic.*
It woudl prove that you are right and i am wrong - but you cant. Because there is none. Not even the main quest dialogue is of any literal value.
Not sure why you answer for Professor78 anyway, that you 2nd acc?
Way to ignore the main point of my post. Good job putting words into my mouth and slipping in a couple of insults too.
Troll much?
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.
Way to ignore the main point of my post. Good job putting words into my mouth and slipping in a couple of insults too. Troll much?
You call everyone discussing with you a troll when you have no arguments anymore? In fact i enjoyed using your very own discussion methods (demanding examples that you can then scissor to pieces) baiting with subtle insults and constantly trying to judge other personal opinions as wrong if they are not yours.
Now that you looked into that forum mirror i put right in front of you - and did not like what you saw. How about some more tolerance to other opinions in the future?
Someone (i guess you) claimed lotro had the best quest stories of all MMO's (there are dozens and 5 now) I questioned that and asked for one of those Nobel Prize in Literature worthy quest dialogues that make LOTRO quest dialogues so much superior compared to every other title out there.
I often read two positiv prejudices about lotro, one being that the community is so much more mature than in every other MMO and that the quests are so much deeper than in any other MMO.
Both are prejudices i would have expected before playing it too, of course: it has one of the most famous (and best) background settings and of course the community will be people who have read the books and love the lore. (prejudice - taken as common sense by some here)
And both are wrong prejudices. The quests put in from turbine could not be any thinner or more stupid and the community is not very different than that in many many other MMO's. In fact i found it rather full of rushers and quest grinders many have never read the books and only saw the movies.
to sum it up:
There are idiots within the LOTRO community like in any other MMO too. There are appealing quests in LOTRO too but they are not superior to good quests and lore in other titles. The mistake done here is that you judge by the products name (well done for falling for Turbine's marketing). I repeat myself when i say take the same game, change some names and call it Asherons Call 3 for example. The community would probably be 30% of what LOTRO has but no one would run around and claim AC3 had best quests and best community.
You call everyone discussing with you a troll when you have no arguments anymore? In fact i enjoyed using your very own discussion methods (demanding examples that you can then scissor to pieces) baiting with subtle insults and constantly trying to judge other personal opinions as wrong if they are not yours. Flaming Now that you looked into that forum mirror i put right in front of you - and did not like what you saw. How about some more tolerance to other opinions in the future? flaming Someone (i guess you) claimed lotro had the best quest stories of all MMO's (there are dozens and 5 now) I questioned that and asked for one of those Nobel Prize in Literature worthy quest dialogues that make LOTRO quest dialogues so much superior compared to every other title out there. Trolling I often read two positiv prejudices about lotro, one being that the community is so much more mature than in every other MMO and that the quests are so much deeper than in any other MMO. A prejudice comes from one who doees not play (YOU). Experience comes from those who do. Both are prejudices i would have expected before playing it too, of course: it has one of the most famous (and best) background settings and of course the community will be people who have read the books and love the lore. (prejudice - taken as common sense by some here) Already discussed and proven: IP's does not make or break an MMO. Think AOC. Think SWG. Think EVE. And both are wrong prejudices. The quests put in from turbine could not be any thinner or more stupid and the community is not very different than that in many many other MMO's. In fact i found it rather full of rushers and quest grinders many have never read the books and only saw the movies. Trolling in riot gear! to sum it up: There are idiots within the LOTRO community like in any other MMO too. There are appealing quests in LOTRO too but they are not superior to good quests and lore in other titles. The mistake done here is that you judge by the products name (well done for falling for Turbine's marketing). I repeat myself when i say take the same game, change some names and call it Asherons Call 3 for example. The community would probably be 30% of what LOTRO has but no one would run around and claim AC3 had best quests and best community. Are you saying you know how and why other people play those games? That's harsh for a 12 year old, man....
I assume you have no idea how pathetic, but mostly desparate you do come off (even though you might not intend to sound like that).
Listen, we all get that you hate Turbine for not making the ultra-dark, sandboxy, superdinamic (though still nobody gets what that's supposed to mean) MMO that you and the other 1524 other oldtimer lore-freaks would so adore (tough break), but even your point of view could be expressed without all the hate and desparation you are squeezing to your posts. Read what I highlighted above. Think. This is what you call a mature argument? You have posted about how "noone can be right or wrong", and then you make those statements, highlighted by me in green?
If you don't wish to be considered a troll, don't behave as one.
Good day
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
I assume you have no idea how pathetic, but mostly desparate you do come off (even though you might not intend to sound like that). Listen, we all get that you hate Turbine for not making the ultra-dark, sandboxy, superdinamic (though still nobody gets what that's supposed to mean) MMO that you and the other 1524 other oldtimer lore-freaks would so adore (tough break), but even your point of view could be expressed without all the hate and desparation you are squeezing to your posts. Read what I highlighted above. Think. This is what you call a mature argument? You have posted about how "noone can be right or wrong", and then you make those statements, highlighted by me in green? If you don't wish to be considered a troll, don't behave as one. Good day DB
way way off topic here but I think your number there is off by about 1500 DB.
There were maybe two dozen of the old MEO forum users that hung out on the Arda Post site who fantasized about sitting around the Pony and telling tales of their pipe weed growing adventures each night. I have a feeling some of those old MEO fans still hold a grudge that Turbine did not give them their virtual Middle Earth and just can't let go or realize that they were the smallest of minorities..
To most people there are only 2 types of MMORPGs out there - The WOW Clone, and the "bound to Fail Not WOW clone" You complain about the game being like WOW, you complain about the game not being like WOW - So its bound to fail.
Most people seem to have forgotten what a MMO really is - The players that are paying the game should make up most of the games essence. Stop comparing the things in the game that are put there by the developers. Its us that make the game what it is. Compare a general WOW player to a Lord of the Rings player - are they clones, chances are they are totally different. Community - that's the word i was looking for. Also, learn to read. I would hazard a guess that 95% of Wow players don't read anything about the quest besides, just look where it is, what it is, and do it. Take time to immerse yourself in the Lore of the game, there is none better than that in LOTRO. If you play LOTRO like you would WOW, of course it may seem the same......
Oh forgot to answer - why is it number 1. The people who play the game, and the amount of effort that Turbine puts in to create the seemingly endless detail about the world.
Let me comment the lines i put in colors:
Red: So everyone who does not like Lotro and the stories told in it can't read and is stupid. Nice one.
Yellow: My impression was quiet opposite: that the LOTRO community was just the same, standing on the greenway on the RP server for 3 houers and counting like 100 players who did not take the time to interact with a greeting player because they had to rush to the old forest yadda yadda for next quest progress omg faster FAAAAAAASTERRR!!!! (on the rp server!!!)
Green: Thats another part LOTRO completely was a waste of time for me. I was going to overlook the thin gameplay and the meaningless skill system and thought ok lets take it as a game with interactive story telling. But it was horrible, the book quests where a "click-and-run-to-see-a-piece-of-a-medium-quality-cartoon-movie" (cut scenes where i am left out as a player) - 99.9999% of the quests do not allow me an alternativ route but the given one - interaction with NPC's does not happen, just "click+progress" you cant do anything wrong there.
Now honestly Dr. Dr. Dr.Professor78, print me a quest dialogue that you find so extraordinary well done in LOTRO that the line "there is none better than that in LOTRO" is not an empty sentence, like LOTRO is an empty game with good graphics. I will not hold my breath tho.
May I ask how long you played LOTRO for? I don;t play myself anymore (don't play any sub games)
Well, as requested I will have a look for a few quest dialogue that are not the ordinary "10 kill rats"
'Gwindeth has agreed to speak with you, (your name), but do not misunderstand: she will only allow us to recover the Silithar if she believes that you are worthy of her trust and that Aragorn is ready for the burden that awaits him. She did not hesitate to rebuke him when he and I encountered her almost sixty years ago; I have no doubt that she would do so again, if it was in her mind.
'Speak to her with respect and do not seek to hide anything from her! The Blue Lady has lived in these lands for years uncounted, and she had patience only for the kings of Annúminas. It is said that Elendil consulted her often on various matters, and she grieved his passing.
'She lives at Gwindethrond, a cave in Western Emyn Uial, behind a clear waterfall that pours from the heights and feeds a shady pool at Rushingdale. You will need to circle the lake, for the pool is tucked among the hills on the far side of Nenuial. It will be a long journey, for Rushingdale is on the far side of Nenuial, west and slightly south even of Tinnudir and Tyl Ruinen.'
Oh actually I found a "Kill 10 rats" quest - in this case its salamanders tho.
'Have you seen the salamanders that crawl among the dunes of the Barandalf, to the south-east? They are a dangerous foe, (your name), and must not be underestimated -- travellers sometimes fall prey to their deadly claws and biting fangs, and the shifting sands take their luckless bodies. A careless tread sometimes unearths the sad remains, an unhappy reminder that we cannot protect everyone that passes into these lands.
'If you are willing, I would ask you to travel into the Barandalf and defeat the creatures. Bring to me their teeth and scales, and I will fashion some equipment for you.
'Be careful, (your name). The salamanders can be vicious if you are not prepared.'
Notice that there is more than a few words?
'Go away, Sivullinen. I have no time for the likes of you! What? Ora sent you? What for? To help me? Do you both suffer from snow-dreams? What help could you be? Go away! You can in no way help me -- I doubt you can even hunt!
'Let you prove yourself? I am not having you crash around the tundra, scaring off what little game you do not maim! Hunting in Forochel is serious business. Hunting requires patience, stealth, silence, cunning, planning. If you can prove that your feet can be silent as your mouth is not currently being, you may prove more than completely useless, and we will talk again.
'We hunt härkä. There are several herds of them nearby; look to those to the south-west and to the north. Those thrice-blasted Susi-väki have been sneaking around recently, trying to trap our härkä, and they are not too careful about how much damage those brutal traps of theirs might do to the poor beasts before they come to put the wounded out of their misery. Go and find those traps and disable them. Härkä can be somewhat skittish, so stay calm -- if you hurt one, the whole herd might run, and then you may be certain I will use your bowels for a bow-string.'
For me, the quests are just so well written. It is like reading a book as you go through the game. I understand that's not for everyone, but I still stand by my statement of LOTRO dialogue is a higher standard than other MMOs I have played (and thats most) And the quest dialogue's I posted above were not hand picked, they were random selection from the lorebook site, there are probably a lot less detailed, and a lot more.
For the record : I'm not a LOTRO Fanboy, If anything It would be EQ2 as I spent years playing it. But it's hard not to recognize certain aspects of a game.
Dave
Core i5 13600KF, BeQuiet Pure Loop FX 360, 32gb DDR5-6000 XPG, WD SN850 NVMe ,PNY 3090 XLR8, Asus Prime Z790-A, Lian-Li O11 PCMR case (limited ed 1045/2000), 32" LG Ultragear 4k Monitor, Logitech G560 LightSync Sound, Razer Deathadder V2 and Razer Blackwidow V3 Keyboard
These posts about this game is a wow clone are moronic at best. The same can be said about WoW, it was not the first MMO and it copied tons of other games. What made WoW popular was that it is able to be played on thousands of systems without bogging them down.
The OP says LotR:O is an easy game.. To that I reply so what. It is a fun game. We play games for fun not for a second job. If Turbine made the game fun and it is a successful game then they are on the right track. Game that are not fun fail.
Hi again Professor, and thanks much for the laugh, as i said THIN lol. You just proved me right.
DonnieBrasco - that was some really desperate troll attempt to make me look like a troll. FAILED. I saw you do so much better in the past. Oh and it is really not my fault that you lack imagination. Please stop blaming me for your handicaps.
Anyway everybody, relax: your game is for you - just stop running around saying it has the BEST community or the BEST quests that makes you look so - umm - never mind.
If you want true arguments for your beloved game i help you out:
- Good Graphics
- Funny Music System
- OK Customer support
- Easy to handle UI.
- Solid quality in terms of bugs and balance issues.
- Best background an MMO can wish (License)
- You can play a chicken
- healthy population
- some classes fit in the lore.
- free updates between expansion packs.
- possibility to have a lifetime sub
- US and EU seperated. (is that a plus? hmm... /shrug)
- can be payed without credit card.
- runs on slow machines too (with graphics all tuned down making it pretty ugly tho)
- extremely casual and solo friendly.
- rewarding quest progress with cut scenes.
- comes in a brown box.
- is pretty cheap + 30 days free.
- 14 days free trial.
- allows some pv(m)p too.
- has horses and frequent events.
thats quite a list huh? for a game i dont care for. Just dont run around saying it has best stories in like 100 MMO's or best community.
Hi again Professor, and thanks much for the laugh, as i said THIN lol.
This pretty much proves the point the part of my post that you chose to ignore. The prose in the quests that he linked is far more evocative than is the norm among main stream MMOs. They read like something from a professional writer, rather than the amateurish crap we usually get in MMOs. I also listed examples from a half dozen other MMOs of what I consider to be "good writing" to try and give you an idea of where I'm coming from on this. But you are obviously not here to have a conversation.
The quest dialogue in LoTRO is not fine literature by any stretch, but it's sure a hell of a lot better than average.
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.
It is very much like wow. Wow is much ilke everquest, they are both everquest clones.
Ppl have got to stop assuming wow is somehow the origin.
Agreed. Every game has some type of origin nowadays, you could even dare to trace back MMO's to text games and before that from table top and card games.
Point being, each game has a piece of another, maybe it tried to improve on that piece or maybe it used it to build a whole new system or just expanded on it. Calling games clones is almost nonsense at this point.
I agree that LoTRO has some of the best writing for quests. The quests themselves may not be too exciting at times...but the writing is done very well. That's the distinction being made here. (I think many AoC quests are well written as well). The LOTRO community is also very cooperative in my experience..sure ass-hats come in many sizes and colors..but overall LOTRO isn't bad at all.
saying LoTRO is a WoW clone is like claiming baseball is a golf clone because you hit a ball with a stick in both of them.
And yet we could talk endlessly on how they are both almost exactly the same game with different skins. About the only thing really different is that LOTRO actually seems MORE linear to me than WoW. This is simply not debatable. Even the professional review sites that initially reviewed this game called it "WoW 1.5". It's just too bad that WoW is more or less version 3.0 at this point.
I honestly don't see what anyone sees in this game, and I really wanted to see it. I followed the game before it was LOTRO (when it was still called "Middle Earth Online") and when it was initially supposed to be a darker, sandbox game. I very nearly purchased the $200 lifetime membership, but after playing the beta, I changed my tune on that pretty fast.
I love the LOTR lore, but this game really doesn't do it justice from where I sit. It's almost a direct clone of WoW, except it has much less content and a really sad instanced housing feature that's equally devoid of content.
If you enjoy this game, I envy that enjoyment, but don't pretend LOTRO is all that different from WoW. Anyone who's played both games can easily see their many simularities.
saying LoTRO is a WoW clone is like claiming baseball is a golf clone because you hit a ball with a stick in both of them.
And yet we could talk endlessly on how they are both almost exactly the same game with different skins. About the only thing really different is that LOTRO actually seems MORE linear to me than WoW. This is simply not debatable. Even the professional review sites that initially reviewed this game called it "WoW 1.5". It's just too bad that WoW is more or less version 3.0 at this point.
I honestly don't see what anyone sees in this game, and I really wanted to see it. I followed the game before it was LOTRO (when it was still called "Middle Earth Online") and when it was initially supposed to be a darker, sandbox game. I very nearly purchased the $200 lifetime membership, but after playing the beta, I changed my tune on that pretty fast.
I love the LOTR lore, but this game really doesn't do it justice from where I sit. It's almost a direct clone of WoW, except it has much less content and a really sad instanced housing feature that's equally devoid of content.
If you enjoy this game, I envy that enjoyment, but don't pretend LOTRO is all that different from WoW. Anyone who's played both games can easily see their many simularities.
It depends on what you mean by "different." EQ, EQ II, WoW, and LoTRO have many many similarities. They are all from a genre of fantasy MMOs often refferred to as Diku MUD MMOs, a reference to a MUD that heavilly influenced to design of Everquest, which in turn heavily influenced the design of many subsequent MMOs.
Certainly when you are looking at all of MMO space I would have to agree with you. Any number of MMOs are much less similar to WoW than LoTRO. EVE, CoH, AC, AO, Wizard 101, UO, to name a few. And that's without even getting into really "wierd" MMOs like Endless Forest or a Tale in the Desert.
However, among Diku MUD MMOs, it not really any more similar to WoW than most of them. The biggest thing they have in common is the UI, which is pretty much the same one that Turbine originally designed for AC II.
Take PvP for Example: LoTRO has very little PvP, and the PvP that is in game is more similar to RvR PvP in DAoC than anything that WoW does (in WoW PvP focuses mainly on battle grounds and arenas). No other MMO that I am aware of besides Guild Wars lets you start a max level character strictly for PvP (as you can when you start a creep in LoTRO). And no other MMO that I am aware of has a full set of classes that can only be played in a PvP environment, and that are completely separate from the regular PvE classes.
Or take crafting: WoW has a lot of crafts that LoTRO doesn't have, such as first aid, enchanting, and inscription. LoTRO has a lot of crafts that WoW doesn't, such as farming, scholar, and woodworker. Even the crafts that they ostensibly share in common are organized differently. Tailors make only cloth in WoW, and make leather and cloth in LoTRO. Conversely smiths make both armor and weaposn in WoW, and make armor and crafting tools in LoTRO.
Crafting also offers more customization in LoTRO than in WoW. Due to the way the tiers are organized, any item you want to craft is available in every level range. For example, you can make a new 2 handed axe every 4 or five levels in LoTRO. In WoW there are only a handful of crafted two handed axes, and they are available at completely random levels. In addition, in LoTRO you often have several appearance variants available for a given armor set (for example Dwarven style or Elf style). You can also crit items and end up with something exceptional. In WoW what a recipe makes is what it makes. You also have the entire dye system for further customizing you appearance, which WoW lacks entirely (as well as the appearance slot system for that matter).
I could go through combat, the classes, how races work, the music system, housing, dance emotes, mounts and point out over and over again points where the games differ. But if you compare either of them to say, EVE, yes they are pretty similar.
So it really depends on what scale of comparison you want to use. Yes they are both Diku MUD fantasy MMOs, and all the stuff that comes along with that they share in common. So are EQ, EQ II, EQOA, Runes of Magic, FFXI and any number of other MMOs. However, within the sugenre that they fall into, they really aren't all that similar.
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.
Hi again Professor, and thanks much for the laugh, as i said THIN lol.
This pretty much proves the point the part of my post that you chose to ignore. The prose in the quests that he linked is far more evocative than is the norm among main stream MMOs. They read like something from a professional writer, rather than the amateurish crap we usually get in MMOs. I also listed examples from a half dozen other MMOs of what I consider to be "good writing" to try and give you an idea of where I'm coming from on this. But you are obviously not here to have a conversation.
The quest dialogue in LoTRO is not fine literature by any stretch, but it's sure a hell of a lot better than average.
Well said. Obviously some people don't appreciate good writing. Which brings me back to my earlier point of the general playstyle of most - Click, click, click - run off and do....I used to be like that myself, until I realised that I was missing out a huge part of the game - and the most immersive.
Core i5 13600KF, BeQuiet Pure Loop FX 360, 32gb DDR5-6000 XPG, WD SN850 NVMe ,PNY 3090 XLR8, Asus Prime Z790-A, Lian-Li O11 PCMR case (limited ed 1045/2000), 32" LG Ultragear 4k Monitor, Logitech G560 LightSync Sound, Razer Deathadder V2 and Razer Blackwidow V3 Keyboard
Hi again Professor, and thanks much for the laugh, as i said THIN lol.
This pretty much proves the point the part of my post that you chose to ignore. The prose in the quests that he linked is far more evocative than is the norm among main stream MMOs. They read like something from a professional writer, rather than the amateurish crap we usually get in MMOs. I also listed examples from a half dozen other MMOs of what I consider to be "good writing" to try and give you an idea of where I'm coming from on this. But you are obviously not here to have a conversation.
The quest dialogue in LoTRO is not fine literature by any stretch, but it's sure a hell of a lot better than average.
Well said. Obviously some people don't appreciate good writing. Which brings me back to my earlier point of the general playstyle of most - Click, click, click - run off and do....I used to be like that myself, until I realised that I was missing out a huge part of the game - and the most immersive.
Dont worry, i apreciate good writing - when i see it.
Dont get me wrong, i like a burger from time to time but i dont run around saying mc donalds is the best restaurant. Lotro has some intresting and good quests - just like almost every other MMO on the market. Some quests in WoW made me laugh and as i like laughing that was good. 20 years back i loved playing "The lurking horror" awesome text adventure - if you like good writing. What you call "click click click - run off and do..." is encouraged in lotro and that is why it happens more in lotro than in games where you actually have to think to solve a riddle or choose from alternative answers. That is when you have to stop and think what you do, that is when you get immersed. Not by medium quality text that has no direct influence on what you do.
However it is wasted energy to explain things like that here, you only know burgers and you only want burgers, so you only get burgers.
Comments
Ok so let me get this straight, the game perfectly complements the LotR series, which was made decades before WoW even exsisted, but it's a WoW clone?
Your logic is mindblowing you retard.
You state you could spend all day listing the WoW similarities but you list none. Similarities like the fact they both have mobs? HP bars? The fact you can name your char in WoW AND LotRO? How about the fact they both have quests?
You do know WoW wasnt the first mmo ever made right? I mean you really know that?
"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
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Apparently a WOW clone is any MMO....with an easy to adequate UI.....where you must make more than one keystroke. Maybe they should just make an MMO...without any tutorial what-so-ever....at all....none. Then we have a bunch of people bitching about that as well. How about a fully realized world...any genre.Chock full of content and 100x the endgame and detailed,meticulous professions and hobbies galore...player housing....fully customizable..............but your toon is BLIND...is that hardcore enough?
To most people there are only 2 types of MMORPGs out there - The WOW Clone, and the "bound to Fail Not WOW clone"
You complain about the game being like WOW, you complain about the game not being like WOW - So its bound to fail.
Most people seem to have forgotten what a MMO really is - The players that are paying the game should make up most of the games essence. Stop comparing the things in the game that are put there by the developers. Its us that make the game what it is. Compare a general WOW player to a Lord of the Rings player - are they clones, chances are they are totally different.
Community - that's the word i was looking for.
Also, learn to read. I would hazard a guess that 95% of Wow players don't read anything about the quest besides, just look where it is, what it is, and do it. Take time to immerse yourself in the Lore of the game, there is none better than that in LOTRO. If you play LOTRO like you would WOW, of course it may seem the same......
Oh forgot to answer - why is it number 1.
The people who play the game, and the amount of effort that Turbine puts in to create the seemingly endless detail about the world.
Core i5 13600KF, BeQuiet Pure Loop FX 360, 32gb DDR5-6000 XPG, WD SN850 NVMe ,PNY 3090 XLR8, Asus Prime Z790-A, Lian-Li O11 PCMR case (limited ed 1045/2000), 32" LG Ultragear 4k Monitor, Logitech G560 LightSync Sound, Razer Deathadder V2 and Razer Blackwidow V3 Keyboard
LoTRO has good storylines. AoC was pretty cool too..Even WOW..when you actually read everything...has pretty decent quest lines...many that link in very subtle ways....sometimes I find myself going, "OH Yeah....I remember that <npc>/<story>" ..not aloud , of course...well..sometimes aloud.
I'd like to go a bit deeper than Trance did in his reply. EQ even is a clone of all the things that have worked in console rpgs which I think most of us have played before the online revolution hit points,magic points, skill points, character progression is very similiar to great classic console/pc rpgs like Baldurs Gate,FF series,phantasy star series and others even before those so let's not give the apple to Blizzard right off.
Now as to why it has such a high rating I think that goes to the fact that most of the readers of sites like these are more "mature" players and LOTRO does a much better job than most of types of games for matures for those who like to RP and for those who are inspired by good storytelling. I played from it's inception til a few months after Burning Crusade and can say LOTRO in my opinion is clearly the more fun of those games I like going to my kinships "bakery" and I love my kins book nights because to date LOTRO has the most engaging story of any mmo around so for me it's not a question of why pay another fifteen dollars for lotro but why pay fifteen dollars for a product that can not meet the standards that this game has set.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Pretty much a flawless post. Amen to that!
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
Let me comment the lines i put in colors:
Red: So everyone who does not like Lotro and the stories told in it can't read and is stupid. Nice one.
Yellow: My impression was quiet opposite: that the LOTRO community was just the same, standing on the greenway on the RP server for 3 houers and counting like 100 players who did not take the time to interact with a greeting player because they had to rush to the old forest yadda yadda for next quest progress omg faster FAAAAAAASTERRR!!!! (on the rp server!!!)
Green: Thats another part LOTRO completely was a waste of time for me. I was going to overlook the thin gameplay and the meaningless skill system and thought ok lets take it as a game with interactive story telling. But it was horrible, the book quests where a "click-and-run-to-see-a-piece-of-a-medium-quality-cartoon-movie" (cut scenes where i am left out as a player) - 99.9999% of the quests do not allow me an alternativ route but the given one - interaction with NPC's does not happen, just "click+progress" you cant do anything wrong there.
Now honestly Dr. Dr. Dr.Professor78, print me a quest dialogue that you find so extraordinary well done in LOTRO that the line "there is none better than that in LOTRO" is not an empty sentence, like LOTRO is an empty game with good graphics. I will not hold my breath tho.
Let me comment the lines i put in colors:
Red: So everyone who does not like Lotro and the stories told in it can't read and is stupid. Nice one.
Yellow: My impression was quiet opposite: that the LOTRO community was just the same, standing on the greenway on the RP server for 3 houers and counting like 100 players who did not take the time to interact with a greeting player because they had to rush to the old forest yadda yadda for next quest progress omg faster FAAAAAAASTERRR!!!! (on the rp server!!!)
Green: Thats another part LOTRO completely was a waste of time for me. I was going to overlook the thin gameplay and the meaningless skill system and thought ok lets take it as a game with interactive story telling. But it was horrible, the book quests where a "click-and-run-to-see-a-piece-of-a-medium-quality-cartoon-movie" (cut scenes where i am left out as a player) - 99.9999% of the quests do not allow me an alternativ route but the given one - interaction with NPC's does not happen, just "click+progress" you cant do anything wrong there.
Now honestly Dr. Dr. Dr.Professor78, print me a quest dialogue that you find so extraordinary well done in LOTRO that the line "there is none better than that in LOTRO" is not an empty sentence, like LOTRO is an empty game with good graphics. I will not hold my breath tho.
Red: no. But the best part of LoTRO is the stories that amerge from quest chains. You really have to be a patient sort of player that enjoys reading quest text, enjoys a restrained (compared to the typical fantasy MMO) setting, and that is willing to keep track of storylines that can run through dozens of quests
Yellow: if you can't see the difference between the community of WoW and the community of LoTRO, you are either playing on some abortion of a server that I've never stuck my head onto or judge the quality of a community by some pretty arbitrary metrics. Of course given the example that you use, standing in the main thoroughfare that connects every part of one of the biggest questing zones and expecting folks to stop and roleplay with you...that may be true.
Green: what would be the point of linking a particular quest? It's all personal opinion, and one quest wouldn't prove anything or even get at what we are talking about. Just about any MMO will have at least one well written quest. Hell, even Hellgate: London had one or two...and I personally would have had whoever wrote most of the the quest dialogue taken out into the desert and shot if I were the lead dev.
The point to me is that the average quest chain in LoTRO has better written quest dialogue (more evocative and engaging prose) than what you will find in most MMOs. If you are someone like me that is always anal about sucking every scrap of lore you can out of an MMO the difference in quality between the story lines in LoTRO and most MMOs is pretty jarring.
If you aren't the type of player that would say..stand around all day in the Plane of Knowledge reading books in game (EQ), or go back through SM at high levels just to read the books that are lying around (WoW), or eagerly await every tiny new update to your Tomb of Knowledge (WAR)...it's something you may not pick up on.
There are certainly a few throw aways in LoTRO (early lone lands comes to mind). And most MMOs have at least a few standouts. For example in WoW the quests in the Blood Elf starter area are noticeably better written than what you find in most starter areas, I personally enjoy the undead "plague" quest line very engaging, and the strory telling in the Death Knight starter area really is fantastic. The stroy line in the 1-20 area of AoC is excellent. In CoH, some of the user made quests have incredibly compelling stories (if only you didn't have to wade through so much crap to get to them). Even in WAR, which I have often said on my blog has the the most inefficient and pedestrian quest dialogue among main stream MMOs, the quest text in the green skin starter areas is pretty entertaining if you are into the IP (and the ToK is actually very well written).
To me the difference is consistency. In LoTRO, the quest that reads like the writer "phoned it in" is the exception to the rule. The objectives of the quests are usually pretty standard stuff. But the story lines that emerge from the quest chains really generally are a cut above what you get in most MMOs. In my experience quest lines that tell compelling stories are the exception to the rule in most MMOs. The only MMOs that consistently give LoTRO a run for the money in that respect are GW and possibly FFXI (in my experience).
You may have a different opinion, that's fine. But if you aren't willing to allow that the prose of the quest dialogue in LoTRO is at least better than average for an MMO, I strongly suspect that you aren't the type of player that is likely to pick up on what I'm talking about. To my personal tastes, it has the best overall quest driven storytelling among modern MMOs.
To me the difference is as great as the difference between, say, an average short story written professional fantasy author and and the average fan fic written by a high schooler. You might have read a lot of both and genuinely like fan fics better. However, you'll find that your opinion is not a common one among the well read.
In game metrics have shown that the average MMO player doesn't read quest dialogue at all (there was an article touched on that here recently). They skip down to the objective and figure out how to get to it as quickly as possible. There is a good reason why quest helper is the most popular addon in WoW. I personally think it's sad that even Turbine has been forced to acknowledge this reality by adding quest trackers to the map and UI in LoTRO. In the long term I don't think it will help the game much, be because it's a concession to gamers that likely aren't likely to "get" LoTRO. If you don't get caught up in the lore and the story lines, you are missing the main feature that makes LoTRO a standout.
The folks that most fervently enjoy LoTRO very often are the minority of MMO users that read every single quest trying to learn more about the setting that they are immersed in and the dramas that are emerging around them. When a random MMO gamer comes in here telling us that the quest dialogue in LoTRO isn't generally any better than say, WoW, we tend to find their opinions suspect.
Professor 78 was certainly oversating his case. However, I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that most players that try LoTRO and hate it are also in that majority of MMO gamers that don't read quests.
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.
Let me comment the lines i put in colors:
Red: So everyone who does not like Lotro and the stories told in it can't read and is stupid. Nice one.
Yellow: My impression was quiet opposite: that the LOTRO community was just the same, standing on the greenway on the RP server for 3 houers and counting like 100 players who did not take the time to interact with a greeting player because they had to rush to the old forest yadda yadda for next quest progress omg faster FAAAAAAASTERRR!!!! (on the rp server!!!)
Green: Thats another part LOTRO completely was a waste of time for me. I was going to overlook the thin gameplay and the meaningless skill system and thought ok lets take it as a game with interactive story telling. But it was horrible, the book quests where a "click-and-run-to-see-a-piece-of-a-medium-quality-cartoon-movie" (cut scenes where i am left out as a player) - 99.9999% of the quests do not allow me an alternativ route but the given one - interaction with NPC's does not happen, just "click+progress" you cant do anything wrong there.
Now honestly Dr. Dr. Dr.Professor78, print me a quest dialogue that you find so extraordinary well done in LOTRO that the line "there is none better than that in LOTRO" is not an empty sentence, like LOTRO is an empty game with good graphics. I will not hold my breath tho.
Red: no. But the best part of LoTRO is the stories that amerge from quest chains. You really have to be a patient sort of player that enjoys reading quest text, enjoys a restrained (compared to the typical fantasy MMO) setting, and that is willing to keep track of storylines that can run through dozens of quests
If thats the best part of LOTRO then good night. To be honest most quests are thinner than a piece of paper. If you had only one example you would print the quest dialogue here but you cant - simply admit it.
Yellow: if you can't see the difference between the community of WoW and the community of LoTRO, you are either playing on some abortion of a server that I've never stuck my head onto or judge the quality of a community by some pretty arbitrary metrics. Of course given the example that you use, standing in the main thoroughfare that connects every part of one of the biggest questing zones and expecting folks to stop and roleplay with you...that may be true.
In fact that is what i expect on a roleplaying server yes, role players - what you call the "slow type of player, the reader type of player" but in your reader type of player game even on a reader type of gamer server they had no time but to rush to the next marker on the minimap. And here comes the surprise: In WoW they actually roleplayed - sitting in the town for houers arond campfires telling roleplay stories and interacting. Creating mini RP events and all - guess what the community is not that different at all.
Green: what would be the point of linking a particular quest?
*SNIPPED THE REST - was too long, and not to the point, i think you just love expressing yourself and lost contact here with the topic.*
It woudl prove that you are right and i am wrong - but you cant. Because there is none. Not even the main quest dialogue is of any literal value.
Not sure why you answer for Professor78 anyway, that you 2nd acc?
Let me comment the lines i put in colors:
Red: So everyone who does not like Lotro and the stories told in it can't read and is stupid. Nice one.
Yellow: My impression was quiet opposite: that the LOTRO community was just the same, standing on the greenway on the RP server for 3 houers and counting like 100 players who did not take the time to interact with a greeting player because they had to rush to the old forest yadda yadda for next quest progress omg faster FAAAAAAASTERRR!!!! (on the rp server!!!)
Green: Thats another part LOTRO completely was a waste of time for me. I was going to overlook the thin gameplay and the meaningless skill system and thought ok lets take it as a game with interactive story telling. But it was horrible, the book quests where a "click-and-run-to-see-a-piece-of-a-medium-quality-cartoon-movie" (cut scenes where i am left out as a player) - 99.9999% of the quests do not allow me an alternativ route but the given one - interaction with NPC's does not happen, just "click+progress" you cant do anything wrong there.
Now honestly Dr. Dr. Dr.Professor78, print me a quest dialogue that you find so extraordinary well done in LOTRO that the line "there is none better than that in LOTRO" is not an empty sentence, like LOTRO is an empty game with good graphics. I will not hold my breath tho.
Red: no. But the best part of LoTRO is the stories that amerge from quest chains. You really have to be a patient sort of player that enjoys reading quest text, enjoys a restrained (compared to the typical fantasy MMO) setting, and that is willing to keep track of storylines that can run through dozens of quests
If thats the best part of LOTRO then good night. To be honest most quests are thinner than a piece of paper. If you had only one example you would print the quest dialogue here but you cant - simply admit it.
Yellow: if you can't see the difference between the community of WoW and the community of LoTRO, you are either playing on some abortion of a server that I've never stuck my head onto or judge the quality of a community by some pretty arbitrary metrics. Of course given the example that you use, standing in the main thoroughfare that connects every part of one of the biggest questing zones and expecting folks to stop and roleplay with you...that may be true.
In fact that is what i expect on a roleplaying server yes, role players - what you call the "slow type of player, the reader type of player" but in your reader type of player game even on a reader type of gamer server they had no time but to rush to the next marker on the minimap. And here comes the surprise: In WoW they actually roleplayed - sitting in the town for houers arond campfires telling roleplay stories and interacting. Creating mini RP events and all - guess what the community is not that different at all.
Green: what would be the point of linking a particular quest?
*SNIPPED THE REST - was too long, and not to the point, i think you just love expressing yourself and lost contact here with the topic.*
It woudl prove that you are right and i am wrong - but you cant. Because there is none. Not even the main quest dialogue is of any literal value.
Not sure why you answer for Professor78 anyway, that you 2nd acc?
Way to ignore the main point of my post. Good job putting words into my mouth and slipping in a couple of insults too.
Troll much?
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.
You call everyone discussing with you a troll when you have no arguments anymore? In fact i enjoyed using your very own discussion methods (demanding examples that you can then scissor to pieces) baiting with subtle insults and constantly trying to judge other personal opinions as wrong if they are not yours.
Now that you looked into that forum mirror i put right in front of you - and did not like what you saw. How about some more tolerance to other opinions in the future?
Someone (i guess you) claimed lotro had the best quest stories of all MMO's (there are dozens and 5 now) I questioned that and asked for one of those Nobel Prize in Literature worthy quest dialogues that make LOTRO quest dialogues so much superior compared to every other title out there.
I often read two positiv prejudices about lotro, one being that the community is so much more mature than in every other MMO and that the quests are so much deeper than in any other MMO.
Both are prejudices i would have expected before playing it too, of course: it has one of the most famous (and best) background settings and of course the community will be people who have read the books and love the lore. (prejudice - taken as common sense by some here)
And both are wrong prejudices. The quests put in from turbine could not be any thinner or more stupid and the community is not very different than that in many many other MMO's. In fact i found it rather full of rushers and quest grinders many have never read the books and only saw the movies.
to sum it up:
There are idiots within the LOTRO community like in any other MMO too. There are appealing quests in LOTRO too but they are not superior to good quests and lore in other titles. The mistake done here is that you judge by the products name (well done for falling for Turbine's marketing). I repeat myself when i say take the same game, change some names and call it Asherons Call 3 for example. The community would probably be 30% of what LOTRO has but no one would run around and claim AC3 had best quests and best community.
I assume you have no idea how pathetic, but mostly desparate you do come off (even though you might not intend to sound like that).
Listen, we all get that you hate Turbine for not making the ultra-dark, sandboxy, superdinamic (though still nobody gets what that's supposed to mean) MMO that you and the other 1524 other oldtimer lore-freaks would so adore (tough break), but even your point of view could be expressed without all the hate and desparation you are squeezing to your posts. Read what I highlighted above. Think. This is what you call a mature argument? You have posted about how "noone can be right or wrong", and then you make those statements, highlighted by me in green?
If you don't wish to be considered a troll, don't behave as one.
Good day
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
way way off topic here but I think your number there is off by about 1500 DB.
There were maybe two dozen of the old MEO forum users that hung out on the Arda Post site who fantasized about sitting around the Pony and telling tales of their pipe weed growing adventures each night. I have a feeling some of those old MEO fans still hold a grudge that Turbine did not give them their virtual Middle Earth and just can't let go or realize that they were the smallest of minorities..
I miss DAoC
Let me comment the lines i put in colors:
Red: So everyone who does not like Lotro and the stories told in it can't read and is stupid. Nice one.
Yellow: My impression was quiet opposite: that the LOTRO community was just the same, standing on the greenway on the RP server for 3 houers and counting like 100 players who did not take the time to interact with a greeting player because they had to rush to the old forest yadda yadda for next quest progress omg faster FAAAAAAASTERRR!!!! (on the rp server!!!)
Green: Thats another part LOTRO completely was a waste of time for me. I was going to overlook the thin gameplay and the meaningless skill system and thought ok lets take it as a game with interactive story telling. But it was horrible, the book quests where a "click-and-run-to-see-a-piece-of-a-medium-quality-cartoon-movie" (cut scenes where i am left out as a player) - 99.9999% of the quests do not allow me an alternativ route but the given one - interaction with NPC's does not happen, just "click+progress" you cant do anything wrong there.
Now honestly Dr. Dr. Dr.Professor78, print me a quest dialogue that you find so extraordinary well done in LOTRO that the line "there is none better than that in LOTRO" is not an empty sentence, like LOTRO is an empty game with good graphics. I will not hold my breath tho.
May I ask how long you played LOTRO for? I don;t play myself anymore (don't play any sub games)
Well, as requested I will have a look for a few quest dialogue that are not the ordinary "10 kill rats"
'Gwindeth has agreed to speak with you, (your name), but do not misunderstand: she will only allow us to recover the Silithar if she believes that you are worthy of her trust and that Aragorn is ready for the burden that awaits him. She did not hesitate to rebuke him when he and I encountered her almost sixty years ago; I have no doubt that she would do so again, if it was in her mind.
'Speak to her with respect and do not seek to hide anything from her! The Blue Lady has lived in these lands for years uncounted, and she had patience only for the kings of Annúminas. It is said that Elendil consulted her often on various matters, and she grieved his passing.
'She lives at Gwindethrond, a cave in Western Emyn Uial, behind a clear waterfall that pours from the heights and feeds a shady pool at Rushingdale. You will need to circle the lake, for the pool is tucked among the hills on the far side of Nenuial. It will be a long journey, for Rushingdale is on the far side of Nenuial, west and slightly south even of Tinnudir and Tyl Ruinen.'
Oh actually I found a "Kill 10 rats" quest - in this case its salamanders tho.
'Have you seen the salamanders that crawl among the dunes of the Barandalf, to the south-east? They are a dangerous foe, (your name), and must not be underestimated -- travellers sometimes fall prey to their deadly claws and biting fangs, and the shifting sands take their luckless bodies. A careless tread sometimes unearths the sad remains, an unhappy reminder that we cannot protect everyone that passes into these lands.
'If you are willing, I would ask you to travel into the Barandalf and defeat the creatures. Bring to me their teeth and scales, and I will fashion some equipment for you.
'Be careful, (your name). The salamanders can be vicious if you are not prepared.'
Notice that there is more than a few words?
'Go away, Sivullinen. I have no time for the likes of you! What? Ora sent you? What for? To help me? Do you both suffer from snow-dreams? What help could you be? Go away! You can in no way help me -- I doubt you can even hunt!
'Let you prove yourself? I am not having you crash around the tundra, scaring off what little game you do not maim! Hunting in Forochel is serious business. Hunting requires patience, stealth, silence, cunning, planning. If you can prove that your feet can be silent as your mouth is not currently being, you may prove more than completely useless, and we will talk again.
'We hunt härkä. There are several herds of them nearby; look to those to the south-west and to the north. Those thrice-blasted Susi-väki have been sneaking around recently, trying to trap our härkä, and they are not too careful about how much damage those brutal traps of theirs might do to the poor beasts before they come to put the wounded out of their misery. Go and find those traps and disable them. Härkä can be somewhat skittish, so stay calm -- if you hurt one, the whole herd might run, and then you may be certain I will use your bowels for a bow-string.'
For me, the quests are just so well written. It is like reading a book as you go through the game. I understand that's not for everyone, but I still stand by my statement of LOTRO dialogue is a higher standard than other MMOs I have played (and thats most) And the quest dialogue's I posted above were not hand picked, they were random selection from the lorebook site, there are probably a lot less detailed, and a lot more.
For the record : I'm not a LOTRO Fanboy, If anything It would be EQ2 as I spent years playing it. But it's hard not to recognize certain aspects of a game.
Dave
Core i5 13600KF, BeQuiet Pure Loop FX 360, 32gb DDR5-6000 XPG, WD SN850 NVMe ,PNY 3090 XLR8, Asus Prime Z790-A, Lian-Li O11 PCMR case (limited ed 1045/2000), 32" LG Ultragear 4k Monitor, Logitech G560 LightSync Sound, Razer Deathadder V2 and Razer Blackwidow V3 Keyboard
These posts about this game is a wow clone are moronic at best. The same can be said about WoW, it was not the first MMO and it copied tons of other games. What made WoW popular was that it is able to be played on thousands of systems without bogging them down.
The OP says LotR:O is an easy game.. To that I reply so what. It is a fun game. We play games for fun not for a second job. If Turbine made the game fun and it is a successful game then they are on the right track. Game that are not fun fail.
Hi again Professor, and thanks much for the laugh, as i said THIN lol. You just proved me right.
DonnieBrasco - that was some really desperate troll attempt to make me look like a troll. FAILED. I saw you do so much better in the past. Oh and it is really not my fault that you lack imagination. Please stop blaming me for your handicaps.
Anyway everybody, relax: your game is for you - just stop running around saying it has the BEST community or the BEST quests that makes you look so - umm - never mind.
If you want true arguments for your beloved game i help you out:
- Good Graphics
- Funny Music System
- OK Customer support
- Easy to handle UI.
- Solid quality in terms of bugs and balance issues.
- Best background an MMO can wish (License)
- You can play a chicken
- healthy population
- some classes fit in the lore.
- free updates between expansion packs.
- possibility to have a lifetime sub
- US and EU seperated. (is that a plus? hmm... /shrug)
- can be payed without credit card.
- runs on slow machines too (with graphics all tuned down making it pretty ugly tho)
- extremely casual and solo friendly.
- rewarding quest progress with cut scenes.
- comes in a brown box.
- is pretty cheap + 30 days free.
- 14 days free trial.
- allows some pv(m)p too.
- has horses and frequent events.
thats quite a list huh? for a game i dont care for. Just dont run around saying it has best stories in like 100 MMO's or best community.
This pretty much proves the point the part of my post that you chose to ignore. The prose in the quests that he linked is far more evocative than is the norm among main stream MMOs. They read like something from a professional writer, rather than the amateurish crap we usually get in MMOs. I also listed examples from a half dozen other MMOs of what I consider to be "good writing" to try and give you an idea of where I'm coming from on this. But you are obviously not here to have a conversation.
The quest dialogue in LoTRO is not fine literature by any stretch, but it's sure a hell of a lot better than average.
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.
Agreed. Every game has some type of origin nowadays, you could even dare to trace back MMO's to text games and before that from table top and card games.
Point being, each game has a piece of another, maybe it tried to improve on that piece or maybe it used it to build a whole new system or just expanded on it. Calling games clones is almost nonsense at this point.
Fight my Brute Clicky!!
Memon 40 WH War-PT
saying LoTRO is a WoW clone is like claiming baseball is a golf clone because you hit a ball with a stick in both of them.
I miss DAoC
I agree that LoTRO has some of the best writing for quests. The quests themselves may not be too exciting at times...but the writing is done very well. That's the distinction being made here. (I think many AoC quests are well written as well). The LOTRO community is also very cooperative in my experience..sure ass-hats come in many sizes and colors..but overall LOTRO isn't bad at all.
And yet we could talk endlessly on how they are both almost exactly the same game with different skins. About the only thing really different is that LOTRO actually seems MORE linear to me than WoW. This is simply not debatable. Even the professional review sites that initially reviewed this game called it "WoW 1.5". It's just too bad that WoW is more or less version 3.0 at this point.
I honestly don't see what anyone sees in this game, and I really wanted to see it. I followed the game before it was LOTRO (when it was still called "Middle Earth Online") and when it was initially supposed to be a darker, sandbox game. I very nearly purchased the $200 lifetime membership, but after playing the beta, I changed my tune on that pretty fast.
I love the LOTR lore, but this game really doesn't do it justice from where I sit. It's almost a direct clone of WoW, except it has much less content and a really sad instanced housing feature that's equally devoid of content.
If you enjoy this game, I envy that enjoyment, but don't pretend LOTRO is all that different from WoW. Anyone who's played both games can easily see their many simularities.
And yet we could talk endlessly on how they are both almost exactly the same game with different skins. About the only thing really different is that LOTRO actually seems MORE linear to me than WoW. This is simply not debatable. Even the professional review sites that initially reviewed this game called it "WoW 1.5". It's just too bad that WoW is more or less version 3.0 at this point.
I honestly don't see what anyone sees in this game, and I really wanted to see it. I followed the game before it was LOTRO (when it was still called "Middle Earth Online") and when it was initially supposed to be a darker, sandbox game. I very nearly purchased the $200 lifetime membership, but after playing the beta, I changed my tune on that pretty fast.
I love the LOTR lore, but this game really doesn't do it justice from where I sit. It's almost a direct clone of WoW, except it has much less content and a really sad instanced housing feature that's equally devoid of content.
If you enjoy this game, I envy that enjoyment, but don't pretend LOTRO is all that different from WoW. Anyone who's played both games can easily see their many simularities.
It depends on what you mean by "different." EQ, EQ II, WoW, and LoTRO have many many similarities. They are all from a genre of fantasy MMOs often refferred to as Diku MUD MMOs, a reference to a MUD that heavilly influenced to design of Everquest, which in turn heavily influenced the design of many subsequent MMOs.
Certainly when you are looking at all of MMO space I would have to agree with you. Any number of MMOs are much less similar to WoW than LoTRO. EVE, CoH, AC, AO, Wizard 101, UO, to name a few. And that's without even getting into really "wierd" MMOs like Endless Forest or a Tale in the Desert.
However, among Diku MUD MMOs, it not really any more similar to WoW than most of them. The biggest thing they have in common is the UI, which is pretty much the same one that Turbine originally designed for AC II.
Take PvP for Example: LoTRO has very little PvP, and the PvP that is in game is more similar to RvR PvP in DAoC than anything that WoW does (in WoW PvP focuses mainly on battle grounds and arenas). No other MMO that I am aware of besides Guild Wars lets you start a max level character strictly for PvP (as you can when you start a creep in LoTRO). And no other MMO that I am aware of has a full set of classes that can only be played in a PvP environment, and that are completely separate from the regular PvE classes.
Or take crafting: WoW has a lot of crafts that LoTRO doesn't have, such as first aid, enchanting, and inscription. LoTRO has a lot of crafts that WoW doesn't, such as farming, scholar, and woodworker. Even the crafts that they ostensibly share in common are organized differently. Tailors make only cloth in WoW, and make leather and cloth in LoTRO. Conversely smiths make both armor and weaposn in WoW, and make armor and crafting tools in LoTRO.
Crafting also offers more customization in LoTRO than in WoW. Due to the way the tiers are organized, any item you want to craft is available in every level range. For example, you can make a new 2 handed axe every 4 or five levels in LoTRO. In WoW there are only a handful of crafted two handed axes, and they are available at completely random levels. In addition, in LoTRO you often have several appearance variants available for a given armor set (for example Dwarven style or Elf style). You can also crit items and end up with something exceptional. In WoW what a recipe makes is what it makes. You also have the entire dye system for further customizing you appearance, which WoW lacks entirely (as well as the appearance slot system for that matter).
I could go through combat, the classes, how races work, the music system, housing, dance emotes, mounts and point out over and over again points where the games differ. But if you compare either of them to say, EVE, yes they are pretty similar.
So it really depends on what scale of comparison you want to use. Yes they are both Diku MUD fantasy MMOs, and all the stuff that comes along with that they share in common. So are EQ, EQ II, EQOA, Runes of Magic, FFXI and any number of other MMOs. However, within the sugenre that they fall into, they really aren't all that similar.
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.
This pretty much proves the point the part of my post that you chose to ignore. The prose in the quests that he linked is far more evocative than is the norm among main stream MMOs. They read like something from a professional writer, rather than the amateurish crap we usually get in MMOs. I also listed examples from a half dozen other MMOs of what I consider to be "good writing" to try and give you an idea of where I'm coming from on this. But you are obviously not here to have a conversation.
The quest dialogue in LoTRO is not fine literature by any stretch, but it's sure a hell of a lot better than average.
Well said. Obviously some people don't appreciate good writing. Which brings me back to my earlier point of the general playstyle of most - Click, click, click - run off and do....I used to be like that myself, until I realised that I was missing out a huge part of the game - and the most immersive.
Core i5 13600KF, BeQuiet Pure Loop FX 360, 32gb DDR5-6000 XPG, WD SN850 NVMe ,PNY 3090 XLR8, Asus Prime Z790-A, Lian-Li O11 PCMR case (limited ed 1045/2000), 32" LG Ultragear 4k Monitor, Logitech G560 LightSync Sound, Razer Deathadder V2 and Razer Blackwidow V3 Keyboard
This pretty much proves the point the part of my post that you chose to ignore. The prose in the quests that he linked is far more evocative than is the norm among main stream MMOs. They read like something from a professional writer, rather than the amateurish crap we usually get in MMOs. I also listed examples from a half dozen other MMOs of what I consider to be "good writing" to try and give you an idea of where I'm coming from on this. But you are obviously not here to have a conversation.
The quest dialogue in LoTRO is not fine literature by any stretch, but it's sure a hell of a lot better than average.
Well said. Obviously some people don't appreciate good writing. Which brings me back to my earlier point of the general playstyle of most - Click, click, click - run off and do....I used to be like that myself, until I realised that I was missing out a huge part of the game - and the most immersive.
Dont worry, i apreciate good writing - when i see it.
Dont get me wrong, i like a burger from time to time but i dont run around saying mc donalds is the best restaurant. Lotro has some intresting and good quests - just like almost every other MMO on the market. Some quests in WoW made me laugh and as i like laughing that was good. 20 years back i loved playing "The lurking horror" awesome text adventure - if you like good writing. What you call "click click click - run off and do..." is encouraged in lotro and that is why it happens more in lotro than in games where you actually have to think to solve a riddle or choose from alternative answers. That is when you have to stop and think what you do, that is when you get immersed. Not by medium quality text that has no direct influence on what you do.
However it is wasted energy to explain things like that here, you only know burgers and you only want burgers, so you only get burgers.
In this spirit: Enjoy your happy meal.