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LOTRO personal review
Johnhost
Member Posts: 146
***NOTE***
I didn't play very long, so obviously I didn't see all the game has to offer.
I finally got a buddy to try out before buying. The game was a bit frustrating to patch because I had the beta software from Fileplanet and you needed to tweak the .ini so a little annoying, but I got it patched and started playing. I do like the idea of being able to download the patch seperate from the patcher, Since I am a fileplanet subscriber I get very good download speeds with them.
The intro video was nice...polished.
First let me say about UI. It was ok, but when I went to customize it, I was overwhelmed by windows that I didn't know what they did. And the screen seemed filled with them. Also I couldn't reset the UI window placements.
So the graphics were what I expected, low poly. And while I was playing I was thinking how much better Everquest 2 looked on my machine (AMD XP2500+, AGP Geforce 6600GT128, 1.5gig value ram). The environments were nice, but the people were very not nice.
I got through the tutorial, and started doing some of the quests which were boring as hell. Find this person, hail them, come back, hail this person, etc, etc. And those yellow names of NPC's were flooding the screen again (1200x1024). I turned them off, but then took longer to find the people. I was instantly bored, unimpressed.
Now I am not the type looking for "next gen" MMO's but this wasn't any better then EQ2 which seemed to look better, run just as smooth, have a much better tutorial and you don't need to zone every time you enter a door.
I guess the thing is you sometimes get a feel for a game, it either draws you in or turns you off. In this case I think I was turned off.
I didn't like the DDO trial and I guess that should have showed me, stick with SOE games.
I didn't play very long, so obviously I didn't see all the game has to offer.
I finally got a buddy to try out before buying. The game was a bit frustrating to patch because I had the beta software from Fileplanet and you needed to tweak the .ini so a little annoying, but I got it patched and started playing. I do like the idea of being able to download the patch seperate from the patcher, Since I am a fileplanet subscriber I get very good download speeds with them.
The intro video was nice...polished.
First let me say about UI. It was ok, but when I went to customize it, I was overwhelmed by windows that I didn't know what they did. And the screen seemed filled with them. Also I couldn't reset the UI window placements.
So the graphics were what I expected, low poly. And while I was playing I was thinking how much better Everquest 2 looked on my machine (AMD XP2500+, AGP Geforce 6600GT128, 1.5gig value ram). The environments were nice, but the people were very not nice.
I got through the tutorial, and started doing some of the quests which were boring as hell. Find this person, hail them, come back, hail this person, etc, etc. And those yellow names of NPC's were flooding the screen again (1200x1024). I turned them off, but then took longer to find the people. I was instantly bored, unimpressed.
Now I am not the type looking for "next gen" MMO's but this wasn't any better then EQ2 which seemed to look better, run just as smooth, have a much better tutorial and you don't need to zone every time you enter a door.
I guess the thing is you sometimes get a feel for a game, it either draws you in or turns you off. In this case I think I was turned off.
I didn't like the DDO trial and I guess that should have showed me, stick with SOE games.
Comments
The quests up until about level 9 perhaps are pretty standard go here do that, then the actual story quests kick and and it seems like there is more of a point to all this stuff you are doing.
But fair play if you didnt like it its certainly not for everyone!
PS. SOE arent that good! Most people hate them with a passion! i know i do and not for the SWG debacle for many other reasons!
I was testing this game in the last 4 weeks before release.
My biggest issue and let-down was that the world is too small for my hight expectations. I was hopeing, oh so much, for weeks of travelling, exploring the wild, perhaps discovering a burrow or a cave to explore.
Turns out that this, however beautifull, is very similar to WoW. But it is very very nice to look at. Too bad the spawns keep comming back at such intervalls it's hard to find a spot to really take it all in.
I got my hunter to lvl20, experimented with the other classes after that.... it's really not a very open character creation and developement. The uniqueness of your character is extremely hard to get. You will, no matter what, end up exactly the same as any other character of your profession/class.
If the world (or should I say map?) had been bigger, if it had taken longer to run from Ered Luin to Rivendell I, personally, would have found this game to be a great game. Now, the BIG feeling wears off in a matter of days and you are left grinding.
People, seriously, why even bother with these shitty personal reviews if you haven't even put any effort into trying the game. C'mon.
"Stick with SOE games." That's the nail in the coffin.
As for the quests and grafics. You have definitely not played the game long enough if you find the quests boring. Sure, they have the standard MMO quests every other game has (EVERY other game, from EvE to Guildwars, kill 10 xy, collect 20xz), but the storyquests, escort quests and scripted quests are the best the genre has EVER seen, period. No argueing. Even Chapter 1 Book 1 is already a "woooow", when Amdir turns to the Cargul... just great...
Gfx - You hear only two different opinions here. The EQ2, EQ, Vanguard junkies that want to align their nose and their ears in the right angle to fit their hairstyle but don't care if hills have edges or trees popup without warning. Those are the ones that even dare to say LotRO had a bad engine.
Then there is the "normal" crowd, normal in sense of majority, that realize they see their character 98% of the time from 15 feet rear/above, which is essentially true. I've kind of seen the front of my avatar - in any games - like 20, 30 times in total? But what I see all the time is the environment, which is brilliantly done in LotRO.
Meridion
Not because im a blind LOTRO fanboy, just because its not even a review is a personal anecdote, with some sentences with lack of articulation.
1) too kiddy
2) graphically about the same as Morrowind (but I am used to oblivion quality)
3) Too much instancing
4) I didn't like the UI
I didn't need to play through the game to see those things. Whatever may be great about it, I wasn't really interested enough to continue, not a good sign. I will stick with EQ2.
I only played to level 12, and I can tell the game isnt for me. I honestly hate doing quests, I hate all the aimless running around, it just drives me up a wall. Go to this guy, run into the forest kill 5 boars, run back turn in, get new quest to kill 5 more stronger boars, run back into forest, kill stronger boars, run back to turn in quest, etc. It drove me nuts in WoW, but in LOTRO they took the quest grind to new heights and it drove me nuts. I didnt mind the storyline arced quest, but IMHO it just wasnt worth it for me.
Not a bad game, just too much of the same old same old.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.