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My general thoughts on the game, reviews, and the pessimistic ones
xAlrythx
Member Posts: 585
I think the fact that the game is getting forum reviews all over the place just goes to show how much attention the game is grabbing, and how much people just want to have their say.
Either people just completely forget that they are in closed beta because of the wonderful polish on the game, or they are just full of crap and havn't even played it yet. Have some people forgotten how other mmo's launched? WoW didn't launch in it's current state, it has improved drastically since release. Have they not relised that the game will most likely be improved before and shortly after release? Have they forgotten that mmo's grow and that this game in it's current state is one of the most complete and polished mmo's to release ever?
This game only can get better from here, this game has the potential to grow on an already polished surface. Make no mistake, it will grow, the fertiliser is already on the soil, the seeds are already planted.
On to the pessimism I have seen thoughout several gaming website forums. I find most of the views on the game that are generally negative are quite false and havn't had much thought put into them. Not all views are this way though, some people are looking for something completely new, some people want sandbox, some people want FFA PvP. Some people are generally honest. Then you see the comments like "WoW clone" - "DDO GW clone", "the game has too much instancing", "PvMP is not PvP". Those comments make me laugh, I don't see why the people who make such false accusations can't just try the game in open beta then give us some decent views that at least make sense in one way or another.
Not like the naysayers are going to change anything, I just felt like sharing my opinions with you all.
See you in Middle-Earth 
Currently Playing: Everything but MMORPGs
Cancelled: L2, FFXI, VSoH, LotRO, WAR, WoW
Looking Forward To: SW:TOR
Comments
I wouldn't have replied if I hadn't felt so insulted by your post.
This has been bothering me for a while as well. I don't believe this game is well polished at all. That's not to say it's in bad shape, but it's just a bug ridden as any other beta I've played.
Performance wise it's a joke. I had better performance during the Vanguard beta and we all know about that game. Now I understand some people are running fine, but seeing as how I keep my computer hardware well up to date and the fact that most people who travel through Bree will agree with me. This game is practically unplayable at certain points. Now I understand every beta has lag (You deal with it and hope for better performance when it's released), but this is by far some of the worst lag I've ever seen.
The graphical glitches are just hilarious to look at. The cape clipping issue is a joke and many people agree that it won't be fixed before launch (I am staying optimistic). If you carry a weapon on your back you look rediculous. Oh and I don't want to turn my cape off
, I like the way it looks and I shouldn't have to turn it off to look normal. Also you have the issue with wielding a bow, where sometimes you won't put down your melee weapon leaving you with an interesting site to behold. Then you have the glitch where your weapon will randomly vanish for no apparent reason leaving you swinging nothing.
Oh top of that you have a mountain of bugs that need to be sorted out. Some of my favorite include your skills ranomly stop working for periods of time or until you log out, the random bear roar you hear ever minute or so and the loss of sound effects while it's raining.
(Note: Any or all of these bugs could have been fixed the last day or so and I just missed it)
Are these bugs a big deal? Many of them are not
Can they be fixed before release? For most of them I hope so
Keep in mind I am not putting down the game, I just don't think it's any more polished then every other game in beta. I'll continue testing it and I already have it preordered in hopes that I'll be surprised in the end.
So for now I'll continue to support and help Turbine in their efforts to work out all these bugs and we'll see what happens.
Now lets hope they fixed the economy, with todays maintenance.
Regarding the cape "issue", one of the devs has already addressed this and basically it isn't something that will change in the near future for any game. The post is on the beta forums and if you are interested you will have to hunt for it. It's been so long ago that it was made that I can't remember which dev it was or what the thread title was.
Each is entitled to their opinion, and being someone who has beta tested every major MMO in the last few years it is my opinion that LOTRO is the most polished, "bug-free" of any of them. Period. But, no too people like the exact same thing. *shrug* Hope you eventually find what you're looking for.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
I like pie !
The game actually is very polished. Really very solid and well done. I see it having a very successful launch and I think a broad range of people will like it.
The rain problem is brand new and I'm sure they can solve the problem. This is annoying but nothing to pin the death of the game on.
Cloak clipping? This is not a game stopper. I haven't noticed it at all, and I always have a nice selection of cloaks in my inventory, just haven't seen it.
I can't say I've ever seen my weapons disappear either. I've tried all the classes, is this something new for a particular class or weapon type?
No problems running the game for me either, but yes, Bree is a problem they're trying to solve. Its a suitably dangerous place, little Hobbit...
_________________________________
JonMichael
Currently: AION, an MMO Beta under NDA
Played: WAR, LOTRO, Hellgate: London, CoX, GW, SotNW, DAOC, EQ2, SWG, WoW, AO, Horizons, Second Life, There, TSO
Beta'd: There, Second Life, EQ2, DAOC:LotM, LOTRO, Tabula Rasa, Gods and Heroes, Hellgate: London, Requiem:Bloodymare, AoC, WAR, DDO, Fallen Earth
well, I was running it on Athlon XP 1600+, 512MB RAM, GeForce 4400Ti in AGPx4 on medium details just fine, VERY smoothly outside of towns, only lags I've had was in town, they were HUGE but I expected that with this hw
I haven't played it for a week, but these are news to me, I know that my weapon disappeared ONCE when I was fighting in the water, but apart from that it never happenedhaven't noticed any 'not-working' skills
so actually that disappearing weapon was the only bug I've noticed during my play, never had and never noticed any other bugs
but I agree about that random bear, it scared the sh*t out of me few times so I hope they'd lower it's volume at least lol
Wow. I mean comparing this game in its current state to vanguard 1.5 months after release is a joke. Vanguard is in worse shape now by far than LOTRO is. ( stability wise ).
There is something interesting though if i try to read your post objectively. Many friends i have had felt vanguard was in a better state in beta4 than it is now. It still had a good deal of problems but i felt more comfortable with the game at that time as they were patching almost every day. There was alot going into fixing things.
Other than that i can't see how you can compare the 2 without LOTRO coming out looking like perfection. Of course it is far from perfect, but compared to Vanguard sheesh.
-Allegria
Actually City of Heroes was the best launch ever. And I have beta'd a lot of games.
LoTRO is buggy,,, it is pretty polished considering the crappy releases that have happened in the last couple of years. Basically they are holding themselves to the old standard which IS a plus.
Honestly, I cannot get into the fights with the game. It feels.... well like nothing. I dont like WoW, but when I attacked something, I knew it, saw it and "felt" it. In LoTRO I just button smash and don't feel much with it.
I do like the crafting though, it is innovative and nice (before they had tutorials for it hehe).
I DON'T like the game because it is too Linear. You get your major XP from doing quests... But you have the same exact "epic" quest lines for half the races, and the same ones for the other half. Replay is Nil for me if i have to play an Elf to experience new content.
There are other features that are cool, like the skill system and such, but the doing the same quests over and over again... no go here. If they change that, I may pay the $200.
CoH's launch was hardly the "best launch ever", or have you forgotten the 10 minute waits for trains, the horrible lag in instances, the crashing servers. I had to change servers days after the CoH launch because mine was popular and unstable. Launches are launches, basically there is an unrealistic expectation combined with a lot of interest, that makes for bad computing.
That being said, it is ludicrious to assert that LOTRO has performance problems (compared to VG), it simply does not. It has some beta bugs to be sure, the sound being played at camera position instead of avatar position is a really annoying one, but this game is still more than a month from launch. I will /bug anything I find and there simply are not that many bugs in this game. The good news is, they are being very open with beta so everyone will get to see that firsthand.
Actually City of Heroes was the best launch ever. And I have beta'd a lot of games.
LoTRO is buggy,,, it is pretty polished considering the crappy releases that have happened in the last couple of years. Basically they are holding themselves to the old standard which IS a plus.
Honestly, I cannot get into the fights with the game. It feels.... well like nothing. I dont like WoW, but when I attacked something, I knew it, saw it and "felt" it. In LoTRO I just button smash and don't feel much with it.
I do like the crafting though, it is innovative and nice (before they had tutorials for it hehe).
I DON'T like the game because it is too Linear. You get your major XP from doing quests... But you have the same exact "epic" quest lines for half the races, and the same ones for the other half. Replay is Nil for me if i have to play an Elf to experience new content.
There are other features that are cool, like the skill system and such, but the doing the same quests over and over again... no go here. If they change that, I may pay the $200.
I love the epic quest a lot, i found myself Looking for people who needed to them cause i wanted to do them over and over .
I like pie !
Wow, you are insulted at his post? You actually claim to have better performance in Vanguard beta? You've just lost ALL credibility you might have had.
Cape clipping issue?
Skills randomly stop working?
Practically unplayable at points?
Man I don't know what stuff you are smoking but whatever it is get rid of it...you obviously got a very bad batch.
The #2 poster certainly did a good job of validating the OP. I played beta 3 through 3 weeks post-release of VG, and have been playing LotRO beta since. I'm currently based in Bree, and am not having hitching that equals what I had in VG at an outpost... let alone Khal, where I could only careen drunkenly at 0.3 to 5 fps. In fact, during the last LotRO stress test it was stable, and my hitching did not increase.
I'm an Elven Ranger with a cloak, and I don't know what the #2 poster was talking about. Cloth movement is very difficult; in one game I played for a long time, cloth movement could be enabled. Doing so brought the game to its knees. So I've been very impressed with cloak movement in LotRO, and it seems to be fine. I've never seen a weapon vanish... and I have no idea what the poster who talks about repetitive quests means. The quests are as imaginative as I've ever seen, and the use of instancing in a few key quests (in addition to the usual instancing applications) is a new technique, and very effective.
If you're starting an alt, a second Elf say, and you don't want to repeat the level 5-12 quests in Ered Luin, just diddybop on down to the Shire, and do those quests there.
It just doesn't matter that other MMO's were or were not in what degree of polish or disarray at release. What does matter is that LotRO is releasable now from the standpoint of technical and bug issues. It is undergoing economic and class balancing now, with the usual under- and over-shooting; but there's plenty of time to finish that.
I may have misunderstood, but I'm not sure the OP realized that the NDA has been lifted. It was lifted much earlier than other MMO's have done, simply because the testers were so happy with the game that Turbine wanted them to be able to spread the word. And so we do.