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Lord of the Rings Online: A Visit To Turbine
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Last week, Managing Editor Jon Wood attended a small press event at the Turbine offices in Westwood, MA to look at the upcoming MMORPG, Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar.
Last week, I attended a small press event at the Turbine offices in Westwood, MA. With Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar gearing up for their "World Tour", which I will talk a little bit more about shortly, it seemed like a pretty good time to get a clear look at what exactly Turbine is up to in this adaptation of a classic story.
To start, I should probably clear up a little bit of lore surrounding the game. When you look at the title of this game, the Lord of the Rings part is fairly self-explanatory, it's the Shadows of Angmar part that, if you're like me and enjoyed the books and the films, but have a shoddy memory, you're probably not quite sure about.
Angmar, as it turns out was one of the kingdoms of Men, led by one of the kings who took possession of the original rings. As even casual fans of this franchise are aware, the original rings corrupted their wearers, and eventually, the King of Angmar became the Witch King (the leaders of the Nasgul, or Ring Wraiths). Angmar, once a goodly kingdom is now a place of evil.
;)
You can read the whole article here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
A good writeup, Jonathan!
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I can't wait to put together my Hobbit band and go on tour.
For one night only "Frodo Nine and the Ring of Doom" ... a one night engagment in Osgiliath!
Don't miss out!
Hey John,
If your looking for a Fellowship to join for the World Tour send me message, I plan to create a Fellowship first day and really explore the features of this game.
Send me a Private message if your intrested.
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Thank you,
The Staff
MMORPG.COM
My apologies.
The price for the lifetime membership is indeed $199, not $299 as the original draft stated. The correction has been made in the article.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
There seem to be some interesting innovations with this game. And they're the sort of innovations that make you say, 'Hey that's sounds cool' as opposed to 'What the heck?'
I really like the idea of the game blog and wiki. I'll have to check out the Youtube recruiting vids too
While I also think it might have been better to set this after the trilogy, I guess Turbine wanted playersto be able to interact with Gandlaf and Elrond and such.
The lifetime membership is $199 right? US dollars?
correct me if im wrong but in the article it says that he states that something they have that no other mmorpg has, is cut scenes? as far as I know FFXI has cutscenes... though thats the only game other then lotr that i know has it.
not trying to promote FFXI or anything with saying it has cutscenes btw
and lotr... well I tried the beta and wasnt really my cup of coffee.
nice article though.
They were given more feedback on DDO pre Alpha than nearly any MMO ever has, and they screwed it up.
Guess what.....they'll screw up LOTRO too.
Very interesting read, Jon. ty. I'm already a founder and will be in game tomorrow.
I found your comments about the Kinship recruiting on Youtube and went there to search for some but only found 1 for United Kingdoms. I used Lotr spelled out with both kinship fellowship and/or guild for my searches.
If you could share some of the links with us, would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Dec 20,1999: AC1(DT).Since then:DAoC,SB,AC2,L2,EvE,WoW,SoR
====================
Currently playing: ArchLord - L58 Knight
LoTRo - L13 Dwarf Guardian
Im Kind of Interested to see how Far this game could Go!!
It very well just might Blow WoW out of the Water or sink like a stone I guess we just wait and See
Time to Play
I miss DAoC
It's Turbine. It will probably sink like a stone. So far the game looks like a turbine game. The characters all look retarded, and the lighting sucks @$$. It looks like they are so afraid of this game doing the same things that DDO did that they want to charge for a lifetime subscription up front. Even if you stop playing the game after the first day, you are still a subscriber for life. It's all a ploy to beef up the number of subscribers even if you don't like the game. Although, with Turbine's record you would be a fool to plop down $200 on this game.
It's a real shame that a game based on LOTR with such beautiful movies and books got handed over to turbine.
BTW, this message board system SUCKS @$$.
It's Turbine. It will probably sink like a stone. So far the game looks like a turbine game. The characters all look retarded, and the lighting sucks @$$. It looks like they are so afraid of this game doing the same things that DDO did that they want to charge for a lifetime subscription up front. Even if you stop playing the game after the first day, you are still a subscriber for life. It's all a ploy to beef up the number of subscribers even if you don't like the game. Although, with Turbine's record you would be a fool to plop down $200 on this game.
It's a real shame that a game based on LOTR with such beautiful movies and books got handed over to turbine.
BTW, this message board system SUCKS @$$.
You mean based on the books. Turbine don't have the movie rights. Duh.
Oh and if you had any clue as to what the game is like and how much Turbine has done things RIGHT this time around. You wouldn't be posting your inaccurate assumption.
Currently Playing: Everything but MMORPGs
Cancelled: L2, FFXI, VSoH, LotRO, WAR, WoW
Looking Forward To: SW:TOR
It's Turbine. It will probably sink like a stone. So far the game looks like a turbine game. The characters all look retarded, and the lighting sucks @$$. It looks like they are so afraid of this game doing the same things that DDO did that they want to charge for a lifetime subscription up front. Even if you stop playing the game after the first day, you are still a subscriber for life. It's all a ploy to beef up the number of subscribers even if you don't like the game. Although, with Turbine's record you would be a fool to plop down $200 on this game.
It's a real shame that a game based on LOTR with such beautiful movies and books got handed over to turbine.
BTW, this message board system SUCKS @$$.
Amazing what some folks will write. I was very impressed with the lighting actually, in one case I watched my shadow change direction, shape and size as I moved through a swamp and it was incredibly realistic. The characters don't look "retarded"...they actually look pretty much like you might expect them to ...down to earth and realistically modeled.... not everyone can have a "he-man" physique you know know.
Turbine has done a fine job with LotRO IMO..... and with a free trial coming up on Friday...anyone who is even remotely interested should give it a try...(but 1 million people..on just 7 servers? That sort of boggles the imagination..... lets hope they open up a few more)
Oh yes, to keep on topic... good article actually, pretty much spot on with my experience so far....
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It's Nazgûl and not Nasgul.
It's Middle-earth and not Middle-Earth.
It's The Lord of the Rings Online and not just Lord of the Rings Online.
MMORPG.COM, please proofread your articles and newsletters. They frequently contain grammar mistakes and other typos and misspellings; these do not reflect well on you.
No I mean the way the movie looks. It doesn't matter if they have the rights to the movie, they will still be compared to the movie and they should at least make an attempt to make the game look decent. This game looks just like DDO, which looks like crap. All the characters look horrible, the animation is bad, the lighting is pathetic, and I would guess the voice acting is just as bad (The trailer was laughable). It's become obvious from the many turbine games I've played that they take no pride in their work and really don't care about anything onther than getting your money. They definitely don't seem to be learning anything from their past games. It's been all down hill since AC2.
Best part is that if you go to their forum, they're all full of porno ads. Way to go Turbine! I knew we could count on you.
Well, you point would be valid if I was talking about shadows, but I'm talking about the big dark blotches on the front of the buildings in the shire (and everywhere else) when in direct sunlight, not to mention that anyhting not in diect sunlight is black. The shire video on their wbsite for example shows a bright sunny day and big black shadows on anything not directly in sunlight. Go outside and look at the shadowed side of a building on a sunny day to see what I mean. This is completely unrealistic and anyone who has the slightest idea how to light a 3d environment shouldn't have these problems.
As for the character's looking retarded, have you seen the screenshots on their web site? The humans look like they were pulled straight out of DDO, and the monsters are... well, retarded looking. Not scary, more of a sad "I don't know what I'm doing, but I did my best" kind of look. And, of course, we have the dwarves. Acvtually it's a normal human with short arems and legs. Can't get more retarded looking than that. Pull up any illustration of a dwarf from any fantasy book and you can see how lame the Turbine characters are. There is not real art involved in the creation of these characters, The characters aren't interesting in any way, they don't evoke any kind feeling other than... it's just a character. Compare that with the characters for games like WOW or warhammer or the art from most any fantasy novel and it's obvious they are very short in the creative department.