Edit: oh and if you love hobbits, they had them in EQ2 before Lotro came out, they're called halflings.
I think I love Hobbits ... but they first appeared in 1937 ( which is quite a bit before EQ II ) ... but nevermind , I'm sure Tolkien wouldn't mind that you seem to be a little misguided ...
Half-lings existed for thousands of years in old folklore ( along with pixies, elves, fairies, orcs, goblins, wraiths, and whatnot ) before ol' Tolkien decided to appropriate them for his books. Even Hobbits were just a combining of other creatures from two different books, Sinclair Lewis' "Babbit" in 1922 and Edward Smiths' "The Marvelous Lands of Snergs" in 1927, Tolkien had read before writing the Hobbit. Even Middle-Earth existed thousands of years before Tolkien. Namely Midgard from old Norse mytholgy.
Even the story of the "one ring" was just adapted from earlier works, notably "Der Ring des Nibelungen" an opera composed by Richard Wagnar which itself was loosely based on Norse myth and evenn featured a dwarf named Alberich whos mind was twisted by the ring in much the same way as Gollum was in Tolkiens' tales.
Tolkien was not an inventor of anything. Tolkien was the Blizzard of literature. He simply took what came before and remodeled it to fit his needs.
Very interesting read , you seem quite the Tolkien expert ! ... but lets be honest here , for your average ( non Tolkien expert ) readers , Hobbits appeared as I said in 1937 ... in the " Hobbit "
i never enjoyed Lotro. Tried it many times and just it isnt for me.
As for EQ2, although i hate the engine its running on i gave it a few tries as well. I manage to enjoy EQ2 until i realized that my melee class could only be a tank. Uninstalled and never looked back. I despise mmo design where heavy plated fighters are limited to tanking and cloth wearing "holy" casters are limited to healing. Terrible design. Everyone should be able to have a dps role besides their support role. Thankfully SOE are learning that with EQN.
So, I guess you completely missed the Berserker class.. right next to all the other plate fighter classes. Your loss I suppose for having a nerd rage and not realising you just chose the wrong one..........
Or how about the Inquisitor? Capable of being a melee healer in plate? And the Paladin and Shadow Knight? Off Tank/Support classes...
So, yeh, just about every single role in the game covered by heavy armor wearing classes.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Edit: oh and if you love hobbits, they had them in EQ2 before Lotro came out, they're called halflings.
I think I love Hobbits ... but they first appeared in 1937 ( which is quite a bit before EQ II ) ... but nevermind , I'm sure Tolkien wouldn't mind that you seem to be a little misguided ...
Half-lings existed for thousands of years in old folklore ( along with pixies, elves, fairies, orcs, goblins, wraiths, and whatnot ) before ol' Tolkien decided to appropriate them for his books. Even Hobbits were just a combining of other creatures from two different books, Sinclair Lewis' "Babbit" in 1922 and Edward Smiths' "The Marvelous Lands of Snergs" in 1927, Tolkien had read before writing the Hobbit. Even Middle-Earth existed thousands of years before Tolkien. Namely Midgard from old Norse mytholgy.
Even the story of the "one ring" was just adapted from earlier works, notably "Der Ring des Nibelungen" an opera composed by Richard Wagnar which itself was loosely based on Norse myth and evenn featured a dwarf named Alberich whos mind was twisted by the ring in much the same way as Gollum was in Tolkiens' tales.
Tolkien was not an inventor of anything. Tolkien was the Blizzard of literature. He simply took what came before and remodeled it to fit his needs.
Very interesting read , you seem quite the Tolkien expert ! ... but lets be honest here , for your average ( non Tolkien expert ) readers , Hobbits appeared as I said in 1937 ... in the " Hobbit "
Far from an expert, sadly. Just stuff I've learned over the years. I still haven't read any of his non-Hobbit works and have yet to read the Silmarillian. I respect him in the same way I respect Blizzard with WoW, he took things that had existed mostly separately for years and reimagined them bound together in an easy and enjoyable format for the masses.
It's a bit off, since the subject was rpg, nobody talked about the tales and sagas... (and on a sidenote, I think Tolkien as a professor was quite familiar with the original Völsunga and the Nibelungenlied, most likely got his inspiration from the source and not simply copied Wagner's work - which is a bit heavy and overwritten, but has some great parts too. Imo of course. I always found tough to sit through any Wagner... maybe just me.)
sidenote2: http://www.tolkienonline.de/etep/1ring5.html "But it is quite clear that Tolkien's work owes nothing to Der Ring des Nibelungen, and it is impossible to draw comparisons between the two works. The few similarities that there are operate as faint and disparate echoes of one another, coming from a distant and common source."
The start was "if you love hobbits, they had them in EQ2 before Lotro came out, they're called halflings." and a few of us tried to point out, that halflings are not even close to hobbits. As I wrote above, they're only exists (in games, in their current form, so not folklore-wise as you wrote) because Gygax had to remove hobbits from D&D due to legal issues, but he didn't want to completely ditch the idea - blam, halflings were born. But they have nothing in common with hobbits - except maybe the height. Or the lack of it They don't have hairy feet, round bellies (filled with pies), don't have the cheerful mood and the fondness of parties, celebrations, and colorful clothes, also don't have their appetite. Most of all, they don't have the Shire. Halflings are basically regular, common men, minus 3 feet from the height
The whole debate was about how lame is the line of "if you love hobbits, they had them in EQ2 before Lotro came out, they're called halflings." Close to "if you like MotoGP come to the Tour, we have bikes too"
And the "Tolkien was the Blizzard of literature." line is almost as lame as the opening line. True, I loathe blizz, so colour me biased in this matter
edit: btw I strongly recommend to read Silmarillion if you liked Wagner's Nibelung cycle, it has much more similarity than LotR (which only has the forged ring). The whole Quenta Silmarillion is revolving around the silmarils, Fëanor forged them and got obsessed with them, and after Morgoth stole them, he made an Oath to get them back, which oath ruins everything just like Alberich's curse. And of course those are similar as well only because of the common source.
Funny how this thread got off track on the origin of hobbits. Obviously prior art influenced Tolkien somewhat be it fairy tales or whatever else. What Tolkien did was create an entire world with lore to go along with it. Pretty amazing if you ask me. Comparing what he did to Wow is just laughable. Blizzard's lore is just miniscule along side Tolkien's.
Back to the EQ comparison. EQ seems to me to be very artificial. Tried it multiple times only to dump it like I dumped EQ. SOE's design philosophy is highly restrictive class design. EQ was far worse for this than EQ2, but it is still very evident. Personally I like what Turbine did with their classes, they are much broader and flexible. I have done instances in Lotro without a true healer which is utterly impossible in EQ2.
As I have said before, I have played Lotro off and on since beta and spent less than $100 on it and have access to almost everything on two accounts except maybe some fancy mounts or clothes which I could care less about.
I am sorry EQ2s graphics dont compare to any level of LOTRO. EQ2 doesnt use dx11. EQ2 cant even use a graphics card very well. I have tried to max this game with my computers over the years, and I had a 7970 over clocked highly, and I still couldent even get close to 60 fps all the time. LOTRO on the other hand, has much better textures, and is optimized to run.
Comments
Very interesting read , you seem quite the Tolkien expert ! ... but lets be honest here , for your average ( non Tolkien expert ) readers , Hobbits appeared as I said in 1937 ... in the " Hobbit "
So, I guess you completely missed the Berserker class.. right next to all the other plate fighter classes. Your loss I suppose for having a nerd rage and not realising you just chose the wrong one..........
Or how about the Inquisitor? Capable of being a melee healer in plate? And the Paladin and Shadow Knight? Off Tank/Support classes...
So, yeh, just about every single role in the game covered by heavy armor wearing classes.
It's a bit off, since the subject was rpg, nobody talked about the tales and sagas... (and on a sidenote, I think Tolkien as a professor was quite familiar with the original Völsunga and the Nibelungenlied, most likely got his inspiration from the source and not simply copied Wagner's work - which is a bit heavy and overwritten, but has some great parts too. Imo of course. I always found tough to sit through any Wagner... maybe just me.)
sidenote2: http://www.tolkienonline.de/etep/1ring5.html "But it is quite clear that Tolkien's work owes nothing to Der Ring des Nibelungen, and it is impossible to draw comparisons between the two works. The few similarities that there are operate as faint and disparate echoes of one another, coming from a distant and common source."
The start was "if you love hobbits, they had them in EQ2 before Lotro came out, they're called halflings." and a few of us tried to point out, that halflings are not even close to hobbits. As I wrote above, they're only exists (in games, in their current form, so not folklore-wise as you wrote) because Gygax had to remove hobbits from D&D due to legal issues, but he didn't want to completely ditch the idea - blam, halflings were born. But they have nothing in common with hobbits - except maybe the height. Or the lack of it
They don't have hairy feet, round bellies (filled with pies), don't have the cheerful mood and the fondness of parties, celebrations, and colorful clothes, also don't have their appetite. Most of all, they don't have the Shire. Halflings are basically regular, common men, minus 3 feet from the height 
The whole debate was about how lame is the line of "if you love hobbits, they had them in EQ2 before Lotro came out, they're called halflings." Close to "if you like MotoGP come to the Tour, we have bikes too"
And the "Tolkien was the Blizzard of literature." line is almost as lame as the opening line. True, I loathe blizz, so colour me biased in this matter
edit: btw I strongly recommend to read Silmarillion if you liked Wagner's Nibelung cycle, it has much more similarity than LotR (which only has the forged ring). The whole Quenta Silmarillion is revolving around the silmarils, Fëanor forged them and got obsessed with them, and after Morgoth stole them, he made an Oath to get them back, which oath ruins everything just like Alberich's curse. And of course those are similar as well only because of the common source.
Funny how this thread got off track on the origin of hobbits. Obviously prior art influenced Tolkien somewhat be it fairy tales or whatever else. What Tolkien did was create an entire world with lore to go along with it. Pretty amazing if you ask me. Comparing what he did to Wow is just laughable. Blizzard's lore is just miniscule along side Tolkien's.
Back to the EQ comparison. EQ seems to me to be very artificial. Tried it multiple times only to dump it like I dumped EQ. SOE's design philosophy is highly restrictive class design. EQ was far worse for this than EQ2, but it is still very evident. Personally I like what Turbine did with their classes, they are much broader and flexible. I have done instances in Lotro without a true healer which is utterly impossible in EQ2.
As I have said before, I have played Lotro off and on since beta and spent less than $100 on it and have access to almost everything on two accounts except maybe some fancy mounts or clothes which I could care less about.