Is LOTRO going to suck?

discostu

It kinda looks like it will ... thoughts?

Viramor

yep, A-Grade WoW clone

Hochete

yes.

Vanillacream

Its gonna pull in alot of ppl, just to die out like DDO is. Without PvP and the ability to play the evil side its just like a singelplayer game IMO.

Its odd, allmost like Turbine fears making games were ppl can attack eachother. The ones I know of they have made you can only play as "good".

discostu

I kinda think it will end up like SWG ... bad game, but lots of ppl b/c of the strength of the franchise

swinehuhnt2

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Originally posted by Vanillacream

Its gonna pull in alot of ppl, just to die out like DDO is. Without PvP and the ability to play the evil side its just like a singelplayer game IMO.

Its odd, allmost like Turbine fears making games were ppl can attack eachother. The ones I know of they have made you can only play as "good".

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the really freeking odd thing is they actually made the AC (darktide server) with the best PVP to date.  But then as of late 2002 they screwed it up and pissed off all the players. 

klefl

its goin to suck a big time, like a few other MMORPG's mixed up with the looks of LOTR

Rinna

I actually think it's going to surprise the heck out of a lot of gamers by being a lot different than DDO.  With the news on the LotRO forums, Turbine is really really putting forth the extra effort to stay true to the lore and make the game immersive and fun.  I think the game is going to beat Vanguard and might even give AoC a run for its money.

I don't think it's just going to be LoTR fans playing it either.  Just my .02.

sir-anima

Why do people amways say a wowclone while instad wow is a clone of other mmorpg on it self , stop yacking people start living 

Gavalin

Yeah it seems like it will fail, I am just hoping for an online LOTR experience that Mythic and EA work together.

Pibble

I think they need to stop creating Lord of the Rings games. The movies are awesome, the books are nice, the games based on the movies are suckie, maybe Batlle For Middle Earth II is nice, but it's still not a very good game. They really need to stop, I love LotR, same as Star Wars, but they need to stop creating games about the same thing over and over again.

Tuor7

Rinna, if they *did* stay true to the Middle-earth lore, then there is no way the game could be successful. The world of Middle-earth is simply too much like RL for it to be successful.

By "too much like RL," I mean magic is not in widespread use -- few people can do it. Healing is usually slow, even with magical help. The dead remain... dead (Gandalf was a special case.) Orcs eat people. The races and communities in Middle-earth had grown very isolated from one another... yes, even the Elven communities. And there wasn't a lot of trust between them.

I *am* a huge fan of LotR and Middle-earth, and I can tell you that I *wont* be playing LotR Online.

checkthis500

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Originally posted by Viramor

yep, A-Grade WoW clone

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While I agree that it'll suck, I think WoW clone is a very naive reason.  Considering that it's mostly linear and has nought to do with anything remotely close to WoW. lol silly person. haha

The solution to making a LoTR game without messing up lore and also making it really expansive is to either set it in the 1st, 2nd or 4th age.  Forget the 3rd age.  Set it up where you can play any of the races in a world that isn't at war and where everyone hasn't allied up against Mordor.

Arg.  If they would ever make a Second Age game, I'd be all over it.

Ruthgar

I had high hopes for DDO only to be disappointed. Thank goodness I never paid for the full game, I just bought the preorder and stopped playing in the preorder beta period.

LOTRO looks better than DDO, and seems to have a lot more features that were left out of DDO. I agree with other people about limiting you to only playing good and no PvP. Those are serious draw backs.
I think LOTRO should be a wide open free for all.

LOTRO won't be released until next year, so there is still hope that it will be changed enough so it won't suck.
I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and wait until the last minute to decide if I should pick up the preorder.

hamfan

I agree with the folks who think not being able to play on the "bad" side is a huge drawback, however I thought I read on their site somewhere, that it is still a possibility in a future expansion.

There will be alot of players that are J.R.T. fans that will buy and play, just so they can walk through the shire, Rivendelll, etc....as if trying to retrace footsteps of the characters in the book.

I have high hopes for this game, but just like any game the chance of it being garbage is there.

Eol-

I think the game looks pretty good. And the fact that some of the pvp-types and "I wanna be evil" types dont like it, only makes me like it more.

If you really arent a Tolkien fan, then you just dont understand why a lot of us like this game, and why we *like* the way its shaping up.

I played SWG, and LotR looks nothing like SWG in terms of how they are incorporating the franchise. SWG was based on star wars but felt nothing like star wars, whereas they are really working hard to make LotR feel like middle earth. They put a heavy emphasis on the lore, and making the quests fun and involving you in the world, as opposed to just another "kill stuff, get loot" type of game.

It wont be a favorite game for a lot of mmorpg-ers, but it will appeal beyond the traditional mmorpg crowd that you see on this forum.

I would also add that the LotR forums are the most mature forums I have seen for a mmorpg, which probably says something about the player base. The fact that WoW kiddies might not like it, is fine by us. 

Wakizashi

All you need to know about this game is that you can't play as an orc or goblin etc.

ianubisi

I'll let you know when I can actually play it.

ValiumSummer

Potential to suck or not, I'll probably play it.   Just to find out myself.

I hope it doesn't suck.

edit:  If you can't play any of the evil races (mordor, goblins etc) I will not even bother trying it.

franksalbe

3 reasons why it could fail or may fail into the under 300 + subscribers list 

1. TIMELINE specific MMO's. I am sorry to say But Choosing to Create an MMO of an IP and then deciding to place it in the middle of the most important TIMELINE, Where the thousands of players that you want to get involved in but really can't make and substantial impact on the story line because you can't change it. Well... is just plain silly.

Either creates the MMO pre specific timeframe or post. That way you have space to truly get players involved in the game story board. Beyond that your wonderfully written story becomes space filler and a kind of annoying one at that when all I am trying to do is finish the raid so I can get the XP and uber gear... I read the book and saw the movie. I don’t want to grind to level 60 so I can go to Mordor to fight in a non story affecting instance. I can do that in WOW and EQ no thank you very much. And at least there I can actually make an impact as little as it maybe.

(This was another major no good point for me with SWG also... Now Age of Conan is one of the few games in development who didn’t fall for the trap. Kudos to them! I get to meet Conan and actually contribute to the story. OMG! Who would have thunk it! )

2. How different are Human's, elves, and dwarfs really.  Don't get me wrong I am not saying that humans cannot best either of the other 2 races. But let’s get real. There are some MAJOR power differences between your average citizens in those 3 races alone. I hope Turbine understood that these special traits made huge impact on how the races interacted with each other and also greatly affected battle outcomes.

Helms deep wouldn’t even had last as long as it did if it wasn’t for the elves assistance and remember they only received like 1 conscript of elves at that!

3. Characters in the Tolkien stories never really had "classes" which I think turbine failed to understand. They fell more into "ranks or titles" that was bestowed or earned based on how skillful the individual was at a particular thing. Since differentiating the classes I thought would be tough in LOTR (since you need to distinguish them by feats not magically induces abilities). I would have thought making it skilled based and when you decide to focus on certain skills you can gain ranks which give you access to more Expert oriented skills within that skill set would make more sense.

Simple point everyone in the story is able to wield a sword "efficiently" to some extent including the only 2 magic users in the story at the Time. What set them all apart was their skill set. Not their class. Since none of them had classes to begin with and were given "ranks or title" of a sort only after displaying some special skill they were able to do or a feat they accomplished.

If you start the game with a Choose your class first format. Then you just skipped one of the fundamentals of the story which is: "Not everything in life is given to you. Many a things you will have to prove yourself worthy or earn it." It was a strong enough theme in the story that even a 6 year old could figure out.

Those are my reasons why I hope that LOTRO does well, but might falter at bit in the end.

 

ianubisi

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Originally posted by ValiumSummer
If you can't play any of the evil races (mordor, goblins etc) I will not even bother trying it.

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You cannot. And you should not be able to. They made the correct choice in this regard.

Tactis

Well my definition of sucking is under 100k subs. So I think its not going to suck so bad but I would be VERY surprised if it is more than 200k max subs. It’s going to be like eve good game, niche market. IMHO I think turbine is going to file for bankruptcy if another one of their games crashes like DDO and AC2. I mean I know AC1 is making them money but LOTRO is their last and only shot if it crashes and burns on release I really don’t think they can survive as a company.

edit:
You cannot. And you should not be able to. They made the correct choice in this regard.[/b][/quote]

I disagree, there are other ways they could have done this for example they could have just made it so you can only play evil races in a "battle" (pvp) situation in which say Saroun orders you to move out and attack a city or village and you are able to control one of the orcs with a set skills on a hot bar. That would have fallowed lore pretty good in my opinion because u are still not independent of sauron because all your doing is killing stuff in an instance experience. You don’t actually level or make an orc character it would be more of a pass time to add some fun pvp to the game but oh well.

Tuor7

franksalbe... There weren't any Elves at Helm's Deep. Well, there was one... Legolas. That was it.

Get the movies out of your head. They only loosely followed the books in many respects; the Battle of Helm's Deep is one of those respects.

franksalbe

yeah you right... sheesh that movie really is messing up my memory... anyway.. everything pretty much still stand minus that correction

M1sf1t

Movie lore is not the same as the book lore.

Book Lore > Cheesy Hollywood edited Movie Lore. As someone else stated there were no elves at Helm's Deep ever period. True LOTR fans will be digusted by this game and it's Hollywood influences.

lomiller

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Originally posted by checkthis500

The solution to making a LoTR game without messing up lore and also making it really expansive is to either set it in the 1st, 2nd or 4th age.  Forget the 3rd age.  Set it up where you can play any of the races in a world that isn't at war and where everyone hasn't allied up against Mordor.
Arg.  If they would ever make a Second Age game, I'd be all over it.

Arg.  If they would ever make a Second Age game, I'd be all over it.

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I don’t think I would care for the second age, the Numenor stuff never appealed to me. Set it in the first age right around the time men came to middle earth and Morgoth was breaking the siege around Angband.