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General: Fighting Talk: LoTRO vs. WoW
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In his latest article, MMORPG.com writer Adam Tingle pits Blizzard's World of Warcraft against Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online. It's a battle royale comparing all aspects of the games, from graphics to PvP to community. Find out which one Adam thinks comes out on top and then add your thoughts. Them's fightin' words, baby!
Today dear reader, you and I, will delve into dangerous territories and examine just which is the better, Lord of the Rings Online or World of Warcraft. Grab a stiff drink of whisky, unhinge your jaw in preparation for horror, and try not to scream to loudly. This article is what the edge of your seat was made for. Nothing is left to say except gather round, chant “fight” in a low hum and try not to get too scared. Let’s get ready to ruuuuuuuuuumble!
Read Fighting Talk: LOTRO vs WoW.
Comments
I love Lotro cause makes you feel like in a real adventure, no just a chracter sheet full of numbers.
I'll play Lotro till GW2 comes out, we'll see then.
P.D.: I had never seen this fighting talk, is it a new section? Think it's great
Pre F2P option, LOTRO wins.
Post F2P option, we all lose.
Having played both, I adore LOTRO much more than WoW. It's all a personal preference, I suppose, but the story in LOTRO is much better which, IMO, makes a better game.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
LOTRO for me, but I honestly wish they weren't so similar
I hate ''endgame'' in both of them. Typical gear + instance grind until next expansion/patch, rinse, repeat.
I love style and feeling of LOTRO though, so I'm most likely going to play it when it goes F2P
More articles like this please
also played both and do not agree on the new player experience comments. When i tried WoW twice, once this year and the other time a couple of years back it was a pretty standard mmorpg, follow the quest route, around level 18 i got tired of the whole "kill 5 bandits" type quests whereas Lotro intro's have a nice introduction to the game and overall story arc and good quests which help the learning curve, as well as class quests which help teach the basics of the classes and logical areas of progression which parallel the storyline.
As for solo friendly - Lotro is very solo friendly, any class can solo from the healers (minstrels) to squishy DPS (Runekeepers),i should know - got one of every profession which i levelled pretty much all the way to at least 50 solo, i admit some areas like North Downs are group heavy but they can be avoided.
The rest of the points i totally agree on - but i dont feel Azeroth that expansive, though being Blizzards own IP can pretty much completely redesign azeroth and anything they wanted too, land mass found of the coasts, sure design a new island - its there IP which can be designed exactly how they want, which you cant really compare to lotro which can really only be as expansive as the IP allows and with some great large zones like Angmar, Forochel, Moria, Evendim - turbine do a great job of making it as expansive as they can by opening these areas up and expanding on the pre existing lore, sure they cant add completely new unheard of areas but they do good at what they got.
Having played both games, I would say your number rating assessment in the different categories, at least in MY opinion....is SPOT ON.
Do I have a preference between the two games? Not exactly. I liked each of them for DIFFERENT things, and I cannot say that either is a clear "winner" for me, as I ultimately chose to narrow my paid subs down to ONE and EQ2 was the "winner" when I threw it into the mix.
EDIT:
After thinking about it for a minute. I did come to the conclusion that I really ENJOYED WoW more than LotRO and that is why I played it longer. LotRO had some great quests, a wonderful story (of course), and a few nice touches like farming, that I enjoyed. But their housing was actually WORSE than having NO housing.
All in all...I'd say really that I honestly enjoyed my time in WoW more.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
wow "slightly better"???
Me and millions of more people would say "alot better in almost every way"
And exactly HOW could that comparison be made unless you were a psychic?
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Wow is a shit lot of person play with WoW 1.bec havent got real good PC
2. to many children playing on the game
3. LOTRO f2p WoW pay 2 play -.-'
4. Wow=not need video card LOTRO= need card
5. WoW No graphic Need To many free Space
6. In WoW more patch = more buggs
7.In WoW when the monster die in the air and u cant loot etc..........
dsaddsadsasda
As a Lotro Lifetimer i obviously prefer LOTRO over WoW. But the thing that makes me want to play WoW over Lotro sometimes is the PVP, i've already tried to play both , but its kinda odd to play both, things don't change much when comes to gameplay... so you feels like playing the same with different skin and textures...
In my heart LOTRO wins by far margin, but i assume that WoW sometimes catch my attention...
Eh in the group play numbers, and even that weirdly written description for both games, I'd give'em both a 5 since it practically is an identical system. If instancing is what brought WoW's numbers down, then why didn't it LotRo? Seems daft.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
And again....
You can say that with absolute assuredness....how?
I find it hilarious that people on these forums are always wanting to compare released games to non-released games.
Until you actually PLAY a game....comparison is presumptuos at the least, and completely speculative and ignorant at the worst.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Both games are amazing in their own ways; however once LoTRo goes f2p I plan on clocking way more hours on that puppy.
I'm absolutely shocked the author of the article gave LoTRO a 10/10 on group play. Given that almost all the story quests are now soloable, the game is a complete solo fest until the level cap. Sure, there are some group quests scattered throughout the game world, but there are just as many of those in WoW. Even so, good luck finding a group to complete some of those quests as most servers are completely devoid of any sort of a cohesive low level population.
I played LoTRO at launch and honestly had a much more positive experience than in any other time I tried the game, because there were a lot more group oriented activities and the game had the low level population to support them. Now, however, low level areas are a ghost town save for a few newbies, twinked alts, and bored high level players. I do hope that the switch to F2P brings back some of the fun I had with this game at launch, but as of now, it's laughable to suggest that LoTRO has anything close to flawless (as the 10/10 represents) group play.
Excellent article. If I were trying to choose between these two games, I would have found this quite helpful. I would like to see more comparison articles like this.
There is alot missing in this comparison. Lets take Custimasation for one... Animation quality ... Gameplay from a pure gameplay point of view. LOTRO is lacking in so many parts compared to WOW. The thing about graphics that very few devs seems to understand... is that when you start to tune up the graphics - then you better tune up ALL of them AND the animations. LOTRO has some of the ugliest mounts in any MMO game - no rains and saddles + animations are very poor. Compare that to WOW where the mounts are at least in the same quality as the rest of the game. And feel more alive than LOTRO mounts can ever be.
I have always failed to understand why MMO games do not put more effort into mounts. Letting them carry stuff for you is one option that hasn't been explored at all. No need to run to the bank all the time. Bioware are going to work this "mount" into their spaceships. Sounds awsome.
Neat Discussion-like to see more of these.
LOTRO's lack of an Endgame is a big plus for me as I don't think MMO/persistent world games should ever actually 'end'. Another plus thing in it are the 'Book Quests'-which few others have at all. When you get tired of the 'kill 10 ...' you can involve yourself in the story that EVERYBODY else copied to make Fantasy Worlds . But for me the main thing is graphics-WOW is just unwatchable,even screenshots are rarely any good. Go over to the screenshot section-how many of WOW are there comapred to how many of LOTRO?
Because popularity is the best, and only, way to judge quality.
You better start informing all of the restaurants that McDonalds is so much better quality than them.
Yeah yeah... "stop using McDonalds and Walmart analogies for WoW!"
Well I would, but the problem is that it's just so darn accurate.
I love LOTRO for the Lore, The world is beautiful, the quests is average for an mmorpg but the epic/book quest are great I love doing those , I enjoy the crafting the game also encourages you to explore by giving you titles, traits est.
LOTRO could use better gear design...They have some really nice gear but on average they are meh so most of the time you will just have cosmetic gear on ((which I am addicted to T_T))
They could do with a few more skirms.
EDIT: LOTRO also has one of the best communities in any mmorpg I have met so many great people.
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
Same here, one of the better Op pieces I've seen in awhile.
It did seem like he played an earlier version of LotRO or didn't really understand the background (see his comment about quest funneling) that drives how the games going.
Also you should really stay away from any 'end game' talk as LotRO has only gone a 1/3rd - maybe half way into the game. Having only seen and not played, I think he may have scored LotRO Pvp too high, but other than that I think he hit the mark fairly well.
To finish I think we should all give a shout out to Ceridith for his mandatory 'Sky is falling' post added to any thread having to do with LotRO.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
As someone who left WoW for LotrO I thought it was a fair article, but I tihnk you should've lowerd the LotrO score in group and raise solo by the same amount since they sacrifised alot of the grouping for solo over the years.
And you should add a "Fluff" score give LotrO 8/10 (housing, music, cosmetics etc) and 6/10 for WoW (lots of pets and mounts) and they would be even
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
As a lifetimer/founder in LOTRO (no longer playing) and former WoW player, I have to say the article is very good. I've been bitten by the FFA PvP bug so my focus is a bit different these days, but its a great article for those on the fence about the two games. Good job!
I enjoyed both games immensley. WoW I found had some excellent choices. Such as a near seemless world, but most of all, GREAT sound system, especially the music which was created specifically for the world of Azeroth. Very very well done.
The character progression was great as well, and yes, I did enjoy reading quests, and looking forward to the next place they took me.
I also enjoyed the pvp aspect of WoW. I felt like I always had a reason to pvp, and once you try a full affliction warlock, its hard not to smile each time you drop a horde, and come out victorious on the top of the score board.
The WoW community in my experience was pretty good, but something I find LOTRO far better at. WoW also had lots of bots and CCF's (swg players will know that term) and not much of a role playing community that I found I could take seriously. Just something about RP'ing a Gnome doesn't fly. Most of the community isn't smart enough to pull that off properly :P
LOTRO has some excellent qualities and I plan on subbing once the f2p model goes live. Some gripes about LOTRO: The music SUCKS. They don't do that right whatsoever. It is constantly playing where as in WoW, it comes on when you enter specific areas, or enter in to combat. Have to turn the music off in LOTRO not only because of that, but because well, its just not good music. Sure some of it is fine later on after 25ish in new zones, but before its a real headache. The gameplay is excellent, I enjoy my progression and 'traits' is a cool idea.
The sound in LOTRO needs to be tweaked to your liking, as default things become distorted, especially speech, combat sounds, and those damn horns in the skirmishes.
The community in LOTRO is really top notch I find. People in game are friendly and I have not heard a single whiner in chat. I like the fact people can't ask me to duel, even tho I do miss PVP. Monster play is not really that fun as your sort of expected to quest grind at first. Usually nobody around to fight.
I also enjoy the skirmish matches, decent selection of loots and its a neat way to see some interesting enemies without big raids.
As for graphics, either good or poor it doesn't really matter to me. I can run LOTRO on ultra high and although can be very pretty in some areas (especially sunrise/sunset) it's not superb. My Dwarf looks like a WoW Dwarf really.
But at least the armour and weapons are not glowing like the sun, although some of the axes are certainly cartoony and oversized.
Definitely recomend both games for a newcomer to the scene as both seem like models for other developers these days.
This is why I play both games but tend to lean a bit more toward WoW. Sheer content alone is one reason. The other reason is ease of play. I don't feel like I can't be anywhere in Azeroth in a matter of minutes unlike LOTRO where it will take a little bit to get from one side of the world to the other, unless you're a hunter, than this point is moot.
I disagree on 2 points. Characters and starting areas. I found LOTRO extremely lacking in the department of character graphics and choices. WoW clearly wins that point.
On the other hand, I found the starting areas in LOTRO ten times more immersive and unique than any in WoW. The only awesome "starting" area in WoW is when you roll a Death Knight.
Good article though, lets have more like this.