LotRO / MEO 10 years ago

Po_gg

Jadzi posted a great find onto the LotRO forum:

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?548715-Throwback-Thursday

Not a transcript just scanned pages, so a bit hard to read, but definitely worths reading

It's from that short (maybe 2 years long) era where from one end the game has already ditched its failed Sierra heritage (at least failed in my opinion, having a massive IP and only using it for the name's sake was always a huge no-no in my eyes, right UO? right, ESO? ) and on the other hand wow was still nowhere to spoil the games into wow-clones.

 

So the game was pretty much like today's LotRO, set in the 3rd Age, working with the Fellowship and helping them from the background. What is great in the dev interview / diary is some of the mechanics they're mention (and which were sadly axed when the game went the wow-clone way)

Like the virtue system, which is influenced by every decision the player makes and change the character's alignment accordingly - not only on the surface like Fable did, or years later TOR's light/dark system scratched the surface for mostly gears. Turbine planned the alignment as the character building tool, gaining different skills and abilities within the same class based on your corruption level.

Some of the combat system elements sounds like Neverwinter the Endurance is like the GF's Guard meter (or the Halo they referred in the article, or STO's separate shield and hull damage 5 years later), the charge-able powers sounds like Neverwinter's daily powers. Without any healers on the ground, it could've been an interesting system back in the days...

cheyane

Wow that was a kick in the gut.Thanks for that. Yes I loved the idea of the game. How it came out finally not so much but still supported it . Ideas of how the skills developed. Budget concerns among other things buried the great ideas.