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Few questions before I buy...
rabalais
Member Posts: 19
I tried this game for a few weeks when this game was first released... I found it to be a bit stale and too much like WoW. I had been playing WoW before this game on a high pop server and the LotR server I started on was not very active. Now that this game is ftp, I am considering giving this a shot again. But a few questions:
1. Does the end-game instance type content take hours to complete each one?
2. Is there a server that is very active and have good guilds?
3. Can my PC run it if it runs WoW pretty smoothly?
4. Is there anything I should know that may turn me away from this game?
Comments
The client d/l is free, and as a free player you get access to everything up through Bree (~level 20). It is worth it to just grab the client and mess around with the content they do give you, and then decide on whether or not you want to sub.
Technically, you could get even farther than the f2p content if you want to grind the slayer deeds for free TPs, and buy the individual zone quest packs. Word of warning though: the slayer deeds (killing x type of mob) quickly jump in magnitude after the f2p content ends. I remember having a few, like orcs or goblin slayer, that went from less than 100 in the lower level zones, to upwards of 500 in the higher level zones.
1. Some can be run in half an hour, some have to be divided over several sessions. A little something for everyone.
2. The 3 largest servers are Brandywine, Elendilmir and Landroval (unofficial RP server).
3. There are a number of websites which can tell you whether your machine can run a variety of games. Without your computer specs, it is impossible to give you an answer.
4. Not knowing what you like or do not like makes this difficult to answer.
Hedonismbot: Your latest performance was as delectable as dipping my bottom over and over into a bath of the silkiest oils and creams.
I never got too far in LOTRO, but I played it again relatively recently out of general boredom and think that it has some merits. I can summarize what I liked / didn't like about it and cover your questions as well I think:
Liked:
1) Loved the feeling of being in one of my favorite books. I had to roll a hobbit just because I wanted to play from that perspective. Being able to see Bag End and then the Old Forest was very cool.
2) Shire quests were very in the spirit of what you would expect. Avoiding hungry hobbits while delivering pies! LOL
3) Environment graphics were very nice when you weren't moving (more on that below)
4) The server I chose after researching it (unfortunately I forgot which one) was very active actually
5) You can definately get it to run if you have a decent graphic card. Don't need spanking new by any means
6) Although combat was button/cooldown based, it did add some new twists to it depending on which character you chose
7) There was some variety in dungeons I think, and the survival type single player battles with your companion or whatever they were called was at least an attempt at something new
8) I really really liked the idea of getting extra perks based off of your accomplishments. A great idea I wish more MMOs would implement. Some of that was a bit of a grind, but some were really geared to giving you perks in skills you used a lot for instance. So they were sort of tailored to your style which makes sense.
Didn't Like:
1) Stealth was pretty meaningless unfortunately and I rolled a burglar. They shortened the aggro range supposedly and meant you could pretty much walk through many mobs even without stealth if you wished
2) No meainingful PVP. Game quickly began to feel lifeless to me because of this
3) Quests started to drag on for me once I left the Shire. Although meeting Strider was cool, it just was way too much of the kill this gather that type quest over and over. And often you would be killing the same things for different people.
4) The graphic "pop-in" was terrible. I rand max graphics, max distance, etc and when running it was very annoying and distracting to see trees constantly popping in the field of view
5) Character animations were also not that good and the fighting seemed a bit slow for my tastes
6) I found crafting boring, but that might just be me and wasn't a big deal becuase you didn't have to craft. It was a bit more complex than WoW though if you are into that sort of thing
Eventually I just quit the game again though as I just started getting bored killing the same things over and over again. And I think the lack of PVP was a real gamebreaker for me.
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
1. Raids in Lotro can take up to 4 hours to complete even with a pretty good team
2. Brandywine and Landroval are VERY highly populated. I don't know about Landroval but Brandywine has some very helpful and active groups such as the Council of Light, Tolkiens Army of Middle Earth, Brandywine Brewing Co. Each of those groups are different in their own way so it's just a matter of which fits your play style the most.
3. Lotro is much more demanding of your system than WoW. You may need to upgrade your video card, RAM, or both.
4. Once you reach endgame, there really isn't much to do but grind for gear.
I haven't played in a year, but I played 2 years prior to quitting. My answers may be outdated.
1. There are some that take 30 minutes (not raids, but end game instances) and some raids that take 3 hours from what I recall.
2. On Eldimindil there was always a healthy population because it had many aussie and north amercian players, so all hours there were a bunch of people.
3. I honestly think you'll be okay. I played with no problems on Medium with an ok computer (2 gigs RAM, 4 year old PC, Old vid card) and the same PC runs Wow decently. Raids and large PVP battles (which you'd be lucky to have by the way) may cause lag death.
4. The grinds are super easy, but they are still a grind. usually mobs that require the kill 500 are orcs that are in groups or birds close together so it seems worse than it is. Just need to find the right spots.
I enjoyed the game, but I got bored once I hit max level. I honestly think I just overplayed though, not that it was a bad game.
1. Depends on which one, it doesnt always take hours though
2. I like snowbourne at eu
3. easy yes
4. nothing i know off, maybe less pvp then wow has
https://ashesofcreation.com/r/Y4U3PQCASUPJ5SED
Words of caution, you are unlikely to get a guild before 30.
Quests are kill 10 of this etc.
Chins
That's not true.
The wonderful thing about this game is that is drawas a wide variety of people. There are many different types of guilds that require (or don't require) many different type sof things.
So sure, if you are the type of person who has to be in a top flight full raiding, competitive monster play every night type of guild then they are going to be far more discriminating.
But there are plenty of family style guilds that don't care if you are competitive or even a casual player.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Thank you to everyone. I am not sure I am sold on this game, so I will give the trial a shot and see how it goes. Lots of helpful suggestions and ideas on what to expect here.
I returned recently, after a couple years away.
The F2P model seems fine and there have been a lot of people where every I have gone, from level 1 to level 28. The community seems solid and friendly.
The game still has some minor pet peeves for me, but I'm enjoying playing. The pace is slower and the leveling curve steeper than most games that have come out since this launched 4 years ago. It took me a couple days to transition from Rift to LotRO.
I hope people will give the game a real shot, if they decide to check it out. There is a really solid amount of free content, definitely enough to see if the game is worth a VIP sub, or content purchases. For people who do get hooked, there seems to be tons of content to tackle. I think this will keep me happy until GW2 or "the next best thing" arrives on the scene.
Nice thing about it is that if you do take a break for another game, you can still hop in and do stuff when you feel like it, with out having to constantly maintain a subscription.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Actually, you can play the game till level cap without spending a cent. Not going to go into how to do it exactly coz there are many guides around. But to start it off, quest rewards give you points that you need to purchase the contents.
So just download the game and mess with it, it doesn't cost you any money.
This might be late in coming but still worth a shot:
1)Some take a long time, but Turbine has been spliting up dungeons into parts, so you dont need to complete the entire thing in one long sitting. Turtle raid on the other hand is pretty much down to the point: meet and greet > spank and tank > kill or be killed.
2)Landroval and Brandywine got a long standing LOTRO community in them with lots of players, or Crickhollow seems to be one of the most active one among the newer servers. But as far as community goes, Ive never seen a better playerbase in any other game. You might find Bree chat or GLFF to sometimes border (or plunge headfirst into) on spam/trolling/BS but thats only a small percentage of players and most of whom are helpful regardless of what they type in there. Lots of guilds accept newbies to help and tutor on any server, so you just need to ask for an invite and you`ll be good.
3)The DX10 graphics on high are top notch. Or if you are running a mid to moderate range system, you can still run the game on a solid 75+ FPS on med to semi high graphics. Or if you want your FPS to hit triple digits you can disable anti aliasing and most places will run as smooth as butter without gimping the looks too much. Point to be noted is that you can run this game even with onboard cards capped at 2.0x shader model, when most games will refuse to even start on anything less than 3.0.
4)There is no PvP. You have a very unique Player VS Monster Player in this game, but you cannot attack/kill fellow Free People(freeps) because that would be very lore breaking in accordance to the books. But you can play as a bad guy(creep) and duke it out in a king of the hill scenario with Freeps in one map. A second PvMP map is stated to be released soon with the xpac and there is even word of making PvMP avaliable to free/premium players as well since right now only VIPS (subscribers) can go to the Moors to PvMP.
If you liked the books (the movies representation is a bit off and LOTRO doesnt follow that trilogy) then theres a good chance you`ll find LOTRO an immersive interactable book. You can look at some of the maps like Moria and the Shire and say that a LOT of work has been put into making LOTRO an exact graphical adaptation of the books. As for content, there is a good assortment of instances, skirmishes and raids to do right from lvl 18 to 65 but if you rush to the cap ASAP and feel like you are missing content, then like any game out there this game will never have enough content to satisfy the Needs of players who hit cap in a few weeks and sit around twiddling thumbs.
A good game overall, and no doubt the best free to play game out there in terms of: content, graphics and polish, nearly all the features asian abominations called F2P-PayToWin games lack.