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My view of LOTR:O....from a hardcore WoW player
Tranman409
Member Posts: 18
WoW is still a great game but the endgame is horrible. Played WoW for 2 years and TBC was a wakeup call for me on quitting the job(raiding 4-5 days a week, 4-5 hours a night, farm for pots/flask for progression nights, and the annoyances of raiding). It's a shame that WoW's only end game is raiding and I don't consider PVP end game since its so unbalance and a LOS battle. I've done all there is in WoW....started raiding from MC-Naxx, got several characters to 60 and my lock to 70. SSC suxorzz and WoW ran its course
I started to play LOTR:O a few days ago after my guild died in WoW and I'm having a blast so far. I'm playing a guardian which is level 14(the cap is 15 for open beta) and I'm amaze on how much depth this game has. There really isn't any "reputation" grind and it focuses on "deeds" which gives you traits to add to your character. The one or two instances I've done so far are really impressive compared to WoWs low end and I don't expect the end-game dungeons to disappoint me. The quests are similar to WoW but they are more interactive. It's funny how people believe WoW is the be all to end all and how they think WoW started it all but WoW got their ideas from other companies too. LOTR:O simply builds off of everything. The graphics are impressive and the animation is very nice. I'm surprise my PC could handle the game on high settings
I recommend you try out LOTR:O while you can before it releases this week. I've been playing MMORPGs since Ultima online and this is one of the best polished games and the community is so nice(still get a few idiots but it's not as bad as the elitists in WoW). You could try to preorder the game now so you can get the "Founder" status which gives you great benefits such as $10 monthly fees compared to $15. I can't comment on LOTR's endgame but editors from magazines said its something to look foward to. I'm really hoping Turbine will do their best with this MMO and actually care about the community by getting feedback from us
Here's my WoW profile so you won't think im a noob
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#character-sheet.xml?r=Korgath&n=Lumines
http://www.xfire.com/profile/steventran/
Overall:
and can't wait to spend my long and hot summer with this game
I started to play LOTR:O a few days ago after my guild died in WoW and I'm having a blast so far. I'm playing a guardian which is level 14(the cap is 15 for open beta) and I'm amaze on how much depth this game has. There really isn't any "reputation" grind and it focuses on "deeds" which gives you traits to add to your character. The one or two instances I've done so far are really impressive compared to WoWs low end and I don't expect the end-game dungeons to disappoint me. The quests are similar to WoW but they are more interactive. It's funny how people believe WoW is the be all to end all and how they think WoW started it all but WoW got their ideas from other companies too. LOTR:O simply builds off of everything. The graphics are impressive and the animation is very nice. I'm surprise my PC could handle the game on high settings
I recommend you try out LOTR:O while you can before it releases this week. I've been playing MMORPGs since Ultima online and this is one of the best polished games and the community is so nice(still get a few idiots but it's not as bad as the elitists in WoW). You could try to preorder the game now so you can get the "Founder" status which gives you great benefits such as $10 monthly fees compared to $15. I can't comment on LOTR's endgame but editors from magazines said its something to look foward to. I'm really hoping Turbine will do their best with this MMO and actually care about the community by getting feedback from us
Here's my WoW profile so you won't think im a noob
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#character-sheet.xml?r=Korgath&n=Lumines
http://www.xfire.com/profile/steventran/
Overall:
and can't wait to spend my long and hot summer with this game 
Comments
After leveling to 70, getting my complete dungeon set from the 70's and weapons/trinkets out the ass within a month of the game being released. Then continuing on the karazhan (Supposed to be difficult) just to beat it in 2 weeks, and kill the end boss of the 25man within 1 week (yes before they nerfed it) I just gave up all hope on WoW's end game content which is really the only reason to play it.
I see eye to eye with the OP and agree full heartedly with his recommendation for LotR:O.
Man, bringing up UO just makes me cry. I enjoyed that game so much till they obliterated any last shred of what it used to be with AoS.
LOL, Im sorry bro but hardcore and wow don't belong in the same fooken sentence. But im sure LOTR will fit your play style.
man, this is completely how i feel:) i used to be a wow addict, but found level 70 endgame totally dull and boring,
just started LOTRO yesterday, and Im amazed, i had no expectations for it, i wasnt a fan of the books, or the movies,
but I think im already a fan of the game. Havent seen a so polished online product since wow, and actually its still some sort of beta.
that being said theres alot more to wow than lotro so good luck staying pacified in a shallow less content filled world for more than a couple of months. i'll lay you money it won't hold your type for 2 yrs like the game you're bashing so hard has..we'll see. good luck.
edit- i said i think you'd have to admit you're hardcore but after i posted i see you said you were in the topic.
As far as 'raiding' goes for LOTR, let me ask you this: "How do you think anything can really be considered raid level content, when there is no primary healer class even in the game?" Honestly now.. its just not the way the game is going to pan out.
The biggest strength that I saw when I was in beta is the feeling of immersion into the story line and each character having the "Central Hero of the Story" feeling to it. LOTRO gives everyone the feeling of "Playing" a book. This will appeal to a lot of people for a limited ammount of time. *Disclaimer* this is my opinion based on years of mmo gaming.
Replay value will be rather small because it is basically reading/playing the same story over and over, but with just different character classes. Sure, there may be a few people who will not be bothered with that, and who may even enjoy the familiarity of the story line. However, the story can only go so far. The people who zip through the content (And you KNOW that there will be those who do) will get to the end, and go "Now What?" while they wait for expansion after expansion just so they can continue. I think this will get a little old for the more "hardcore" players out there.
Im a little bit more of a 'hardcore' player myself, and I think the open ended style MMO's better suit my play style (hence why I play VG currently). That doesnt mean though that LOTRO is a bad game. I just think it will have a shorter life span than something less rigid and scripted. People who have a lot less time to play and like the fantasy setting will be the people who most enjoy this game.
I'd say that with the fact that they already have a large content patch coming out within a month and a half of release shows great dedication on the side of Turbine. I'll agree WoW has its own little things like allowing for my 5 year old cousin being able to play it with little confusion and incredibly easy and simplistic gameplay allowing it to be enjoyable for even the youngest of gamers. Just not my cup of tea anymore.
Owell, i've seen nerfs to allow more people to do the more difficult stuff in SWG and it turned out to be the complete destruction of the game so I got out to a new game with new content and a new challenge.
The Minstrel is the primary healing class of LotR:O along with the captain for support. The Lore-Master has a 30 second massive heal and Guardians and Burglars both have a 1 minute cooldown self heal.
Yeah, healing is just absent in this game.
Reading comprehension? Yes.. I did play the beta. (as I stated)
Neither of those two clasess (I played a Loremaster btw) are "PRIMARY" healer classes. As in.. that is their primary job. Let me ask you this: If EQ did not have a cleric class, and the druid was the primary healer of the game, how much less difficulty do you think all of the encounters would have been? (think of how long the game had been out before AA's and such before answering that)
I guess we will proly have to agree to disagree on the minstrell. I always saw them played as much of a dps class as they were able to heal. Higher level, I could end up being proven wrong. We will see.
Meridion
Could you post your system specs tranman? I want to find out what systems are running it well.
Thanks
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System Information
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Time of this report: 4/23/2007, 14:07:22
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: Dimension 4700
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A05
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 1278MB RAM
Page File: 493MB used, 1917MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode
Card name: RADEON X850 XT
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: RADEON X850 XT
I played a minstrel to the mid-40's and was power leveled to 50 the last night of closed beta. Minstrel is the primary healing class. That is what they do in instances. I'll throw some occasional DPS layered with buffs, but compared to any other class the dps is poor. That is because their job is to heal.
Please... Get your facts straight before you go to far on making up your mind on shit that you are obviously uninformed on. I will say though, at level 15 it's hard to see the Minstrel as the primary healer. That's because they haven't gotten their "greater heal" equivilent as well as some other skills that really improve their ability to keep a group up.
And your comments on what the raiding will consist of are just as uninformed as your posts about the minstrel class in the first place.
QFT - Naxx was hard.
Just think of Naxx with dread...
REALITY CHECK
Most of my friends were hardcore WoW players and they have made the switch after I playing LOTRO for a few days.
By Hardcore I mean the kind that were in Raiding guilds that had mandatory 6 night per week raids attendance.
They were the top Horde guild on my server.
The deed system is awesome
No offense but I don't consider a game without pvp an mmorpg. That is my opinion. Why you ask? Because there is no point in playing. If you can't compete with ohter players what is the point of playing a single player game with lots of people? Seriously this game is going to fail hardcore without a pvp ruleset. Just my opinion. Why will it do worse than VG? Well the majority of tolkien fans are long past. Kids these days just don't care about lotr because its not emphasized in schools as much as it used to be. Give it a couple of years for allt he old people to stick around and you'll see what i mean. Besides the story has already been written and we all know the ending but back to the pvp element. Monster play is a cop out. It's way easier to implement than true pvp and allows microsoft to sidestep alot of the controversy surrounding it. Just wait till WAR or AOC comes out this game will be dead.
No offense to you, but in my opinion I don't consider MMORPG PvP to be real PvP. If I feel the need for some PvP I play Battlefield 2 or Battlefield 2142. I have yet to try the PvM that LOTRO offers, but, it does look interesting. I still can't help but feel it will be the standard MMORPG queued button mash that you seem to think is PvP. Turbine didn't create this game for PvP....and I for one am glad. Grow some and come play BF2 or BF2142 with me. My screen name is "WillUBMyFriend" and I'll be looking forward to seeing you at the other end of my sniper rifle scope.
http://www.straightdope.com/