You guys know that feeling you got when you first played a mmorpg? That feeling that most gamers spend the rest of their gaming careers to find again? Well for me only games like SWG, WoW & EVE have ever recreated that feeling I had when playing UO for the first time until now. LotRO is such a wonderfully satisfying pve experience that I have become totally immersed to the point of unsubscribing to EVE!!!!! Which is crazy since I'm obsessed with that game ( I have a 8x10 poster of a megathron on my bedroom wall that's how crazy I am for that game). It's freaking nuts that this game is that good... I've been leveling a dwarf guardian and even dabbled with a champion, warden and captain and their all fantastic!!! I joined a small kin and these people are the most helpful people I've ever met. All I'n all the game is an absolute pleasure... So to those that haven't found a game that held them like their first, have faith and give games a chance it might be an older game that you ignored initially that does it.
I do not see the contradiction. There ARE some screenshots that could be mistaken for HDR photos.
You are ignoring the latter part of my post. I am not trying to split hairs or split it into 50 different subcategories. You are in flat out denial imo. I'm saying you can't compare the two quality-wise. That's 2 levels. Not 50.
Here are a couple of examples from the galleries on this site that are MUCH better than your example:
Bigger vistas. More realistic colors. More realistic flora and fauna. More realistic sky.
Same as above + more realistic water and reflections.
Trees are the weak point in this shot, but the vista, sky, water and lighting are all much more realistic than pretty much anything in WoW.
WoW's ramping up the quality of their graphics which is good. They're adding better lighting, shadows, sharper textures, etc. But they're still more cartoony than LotRO. Rounded, cartoony landscapes. Over-saturated, brighter colors. Much smaller landscape vistas and view distances.
Like I said before, if you go broad enough with your generalization, which you are, then all MMOs fall into your definition of "cartoony".
Seriously....I do not know how anyone that has played LotRO can argue that it isn't one of the most environmentally GORGEOUS games ever made. If they can....I think they're NOT running the game at it's full capacity.
Your examples are better that the first one we saw in the thread, which appeared to me to 1) not be running at max settings, and 2) show absolutely nothing of the environment you actually see in the game. I think LotRO screenshots NEVER (even yours above) reflect the actual appearance of the game LIVE. There are MANY areas in this game that I remember just literally taking my breath away. I would be running and then come to a complete stop and STARE at my screen in AWE after coming up over a hill into some of the most breathtaking expanses I have ever seen.
There are some things about LotRO that I don't particularly care for....but the graphics....are not on that list, at least for me.
I don't play LOTRO but I wouldn't consider it to have "cartoony" graphics by any means at all, now I absolutely hate the character models but I would consider them poorly made and not cartoony.
Aye, I remember that feeling of 1st MMORPG. Mine was EQ1 and when I was over 1st starting learning curve... then followed 4,5 years in one and only. But after many expaansions caame time when EQ wasn't that game I started to play. Many things lost, many things nerfed, made easy etc. In each step you can see how devs try to follow at that time growing popularity of WoW, resulting only in EQ players leaving it. But for sure I never touched that thing which broke my game - wow - and following to EQ2.
But that wasn't anymore so high grade experience, few years and yes! then I found LOTRO - I moved into it in beta, and was in it starting from very 1st days. And I as big fan of Tolkien's world found it beautiful. Tho there were already things we hated in changing EQ1 like instances, no even one big bad boss open world FFO - all sitting in instances, all is accessible to each player ever wanna to try. But I forgave it to game, and nearly 99% is true it is at his time MMO with best graphics, esp. after they started to use DX10. But that beauty stayed only til MoM came, then it started to move towards stupid grindfest. OK, I forgave MOM too hoping there are coming new nice expansions, Rohan etc. But what we got - one very little area after another allways hurraying how big success it was. I saw Turbine went greedy selling so many lifers that theyhasn't anymore player-base and due that no strength to issue strong content. They tryed to substitute that with more boring grindfest, radiance artifical barriers etc.
That was enough for me, tho I like Tolkien's fantasy world I got to limits from elves and orcs and dwarves.. An when Fallen Earth came out I was there from early beta and that was realistic post-apo world with much better combat (no stupid auto-target and auto-attack), firarms, tech etc. So playing two at time I still hold LOTRO but after Mirkwood that was enough and I closed sub.
And at good timing cuz I did it before unholy fall of game into hellish debris of F2P which caused me leave at same day when they called it out - there is no way I'll play on same server with F2P hordes who use B4W real-$$$ to be 3133+3 & yber.
So good marching thru LOTRO til The Wall rises, sure if it will for you....
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Seriously....I do not know how anyone that has played LotRO can argue that it isn't one of the most environmentally GORGEOUS games ever made. If they can....I think they're NOT running the game at it's full capacity.
Your examples are better that the first one we saw in the thread, which appeared to me to 1) not be running at max settings, and 2) show absolutely nothing of the environment you actually see in the game. I think LotRO screenshots NEVER (even yours above) reflect the actual appearance of the game LIVE. There are MANY areas in this game that I remember just literally taking my breath away. I would be running and then come to a complete stop and STARE at my screen in AWE after coming up over a hill into some of the most breathtaking expanses I have ever seen.
There are some things about LotRO that I don't particularly care for....but the graphics....are not on that list, at least for me.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
I don't play LOTRO but I wouldn't consider it to have "cartoony" graphics by any means at all, now I absolutely hate the character models but I would consider them poorly made and not cartoony.
Aye, I remember that feeling of 1st MMORPG. Mine was EQ1 and when I was over 1st starting learning curve... then followed 4,5 years in one and only. But after many expaansions caame time when EQ wasn't that game I started to play. Many things lost, many things nerfed, made easy etc. In each step you can see how devs try to follow at that time growing popularity of WoW, resulting only in EQ players leaving it. But for sure I never touched that thing which broke my game - wow - and following to EQ2.
But that wasn't anymore so high grade experience, few years and yes! then I found LOTRO - I moved into it in beta, and was in it starting from very 1st days. And I as big fan of Tolkien's world found it beautiful. Tho there were already things we hated in changing EQ1 like instances, no even one big bad boss open world FFO - all sitting in instances, all is accessible to each player ever wanna to try. But I forgave it to game, and nearly 99% is true it is at his time MMO with best graphics, esp. after they started to use DX10. But that beauty stayed only til MoM came, then it started to move towards stupid grindfest. OK, I forgave MOM too hoping there are coming new nice expansions, Rohan etc. But what we got - one very little area after another allways hurraying how big success it was. I saw Turbine went greedy selling so many lifers that theyhasn't anymore player-base and due that no strength to issue strong content. They tryed to substitute that with more boring grindfest, radiance artifical barriers etc.
That was enough for me, tho I like Tolkien's fantasy world I got to limits from elves and orcs and dwarves.. An when Fallen Earth came out I was there from early beta and that was realistic post-apo world with much better combat (no stupid auto-target and auto-attack), firarms, tech etc. So playing two at time I still hold LOTRO but after Mirkwood that was enough and I closed sub.
And at good timing cuz I did it before unholy fall of game into hellish debris of F2P which caused me leave at same day when they called it out - there is no way I'll play on same server with F2P hordes who use B4W real-$$$ to be 3133+3 & yber.
So good marching thru LOTRO til The Wall rises, sure if it will for you....