The Lord of the Rings Online Minas Morgul Review In Progress - MMORPG.com

System · November 2019

The Lord of the Rings Online Minas Morgul Review In Progress - MMORPG.com

Resident Tolkien fanatic, Bradford, has been exploring the world of Minas Morgul since the expansion hit earlier this month. This week he comes upon the Morgul Vale, home to the Tower of Sorcery. Read on for his first Review in Progress of the Minas Morgul expansion.

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[Deleted User] · November 2019

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lotrlore · November 2019

Warhawke80 said:

My problem with Lotor is enviable I guess... I log in and 12-16 hours will pass in a snap. I'm just too busy with life to allow that on a regular basis.

I wish I had that problem. Enviable is correct.

Gutlard · November 2019

It would be tough at this age of a game for it to not feel rehashed to some extent, but I can't wait to level up and enjoy the story. Hell, I might be 2 or 3 expacs behind at this point, because every time I do play I get side tracked with class/deed quests...haha

I would love it if we could take the voice acting/class quests from SWTOR, and put it into the LOTRO world. All British accents, even for all the Black Speech.

Gut Out!

Nebless · November 2019

Warhawke80 said:

My problem with Lotor is enviable I guess... I log in and 12-16 hours will pass in a snap. I'm just too busy with life to allow that on a regular basis.

You can tell yourself all you want that all you'll be doing is going over there and do that one quest. Then between resource hunting, MOB's, explorer points (owww what's that over there?) and maybe a side quest you've bumped into too, you find 6 hours later you still haven't gotten to that one quest that started it all.

tallon617 · November 2019

I think the survival of the game to keep going with those stories they have to twenty years means they really do need to overhaul the graphics and consider how other MMORPGs have evolved over the last twelve years. Voice acting can be a nice perk and they have used some of it in the past but not to the extent many MMOs do today. I think having some voice acting here and there would be nice but isn't totally necessary to keep a game up to date. They'll need to upgrade the entire game and that takes money they might not have right now. I haven't bought the last few expansions due to the cost of the highest package. They're asking for the cost of some physical editions of other games that include tangible items like statues, replicas of in game items etc but their's is purely digital. I feel like the studio is out of touch with their base in what they want. I used to love buying the collector's edition of LOTRO expansions because of the physical items you could get at times but that's just gone now. Sad really.

Viper482 · November 2019

tallon617 said:

I think the survival of the game to keep going with those stories they have to twenty years means they really do need to overhaul the graphics and consider how other MMORPGs have evolved over the last twelve years. Voice acting can be a nice perk and they have used some of it in the past but not to the extent many MMOs do today. I think having some voice acting here and there would be nice but isn't totally necessary to keep a game up to date. They'll need to upgrade the entire game and that takes money they might not have right now. I haven't bought the last few expansions due to the cost of the highest package. They're asking for the cost of some physical editions of other games that include tangible items like statues, replicas of in game items etc but their's is purely digital. I feel like the studio is out of touch with their base in what they want. I used to love buying the collector's edition of LOTRO expansions because of the physical items you could get at times but that's just gone now. Sad really.

The graphics are fine. If you are playing or not playing LOTRO because of graphics you're playing the wrong game.

Raquis · November 2019

just make the new LOTRO already this game is old as puck!

Wizardry · November 2019

It has been so long since i quickly quit playing the game because it felt boring,generic.I then tried to give it another shot and had nothing but issues with the install,so filed this game away forever.

So 3 days ago i tried to look at it again,i noticed i had 80+ hours but could remember very little,so yeah it must be bad if i can't remember much at all.Yet again nothing but issues installing,errors and download fails so seems they run an amateur operation,not worth my time,i don't need headaches just trying to get the game to install,especially on Steam.

lahnmir · November 2019

Deyirn said:

Wizardry said:

It has been so long since i quickly quit playing the game because it felt boring,generic.I then tried to give it another shot and had nothing but issues with the install,so filed this game away forever.

So 3 days ago i tried to look at it again,i noticed i had 80+ hours but could remember very little,so yeah it must be bad if i can't remember much at all.Yet again nothing but issues installing,errors and download fails so seems they run an amateur operation,not worth my time,i don't need headaches just trying to get the game to install,especially on Steam.

My game never had trouble installing or anything, but the game is pretty generic. The graphics are outdated in a bad way, not like Vanilla WoW's that still look as good as back in 2004. What I found most boring is the quests - they are really generic and mind-numbing, they put me to sleep. Sure, it's sort of like a side-story while the Fellowship is on their way to Mordor to destroy the One Ring, but, damn that game is boring.

The other main issue for me is how clunky the combat feels. There is a huge delay between attacks, as if it has absolutely no flow whatsoever, Dragon Age Origins with pausing feels more fluid combat-wise. Also the visual and sound cues from attacks are delayed or non-existent as I hit an enemy with my weapon and sometimes I don't even hear a sound or see some effect flashing (not talking about Korea level of effects that drop your FPS to 0, but just a simple swing line or something). The combat feels like I'm punching and slashing and casting abilities into thin air, not an enemy. That's very unsatisfying combat considering it's the kind of thing you do 90% of the time in a WoW clone such as LOTRO. WoW (Vanilla) has very satisfying combat no matter which class, SWTOR, which I don't like has a satisfying combat as well. LOTRO is plain trash in this department.

The other issue is the UI and namely maps - they look so crude and bad and confusing, sometimes it's very hard to track objectives at all. There is also a disparity between map designs from 2007 and 2015 where maps became a bit more detailed. This fragmentation of styles is really bad and unprofessional for a game that's so expensive and I will get to that in the next paragraph.

The game is so damn expensive, but the quality is so piss poor that it reminds me of some indie 2-man team that's Early Access on Steam, like Project Gorgon for example, but even that game is doing much better than and is displaying higher quality than LOTRO and frankly puts it to shame. The only thing going for it is the Middle Earth IP and the fact that they can create Middle Earth and have a decent world. Their monetization model is beyond horrendous and expansions are so expensive and lately it seems like they're lacking in content and features and the developers are turning to scumbag issues to make more money. If they employ similar model like ESO where you can buy the base game and then Chapters/DLCs (Expansions) on your own accord and make them cost like $20 or something, the game would've had more of my respect.

Frankly I think LOTRO doesn't do justice to Tolkien's work and actually brings shame upon it.

Besides the UI there is not a single thing I agree with in your entire post. Which is perfectly fine of course, it is just funny to see how different opinions can be.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

Po_gg · November 2019

lahnmir said:

Besides the UI there is not a single thing I agree with in your entire post.

Likewise, except I don't agree even with his UI complains since the UI is fully customizable...

But yep, it's fine, no game is for everyone and clearly LotRO is not for Deyirn.

Not a combat game, with BS like "no flow", "delayed visual and sound cues from attacks", "hits not connect". For that, I suggest Tera instead.

Crude maps, that was funny from LazyPeon too a few years ago

"no zoom, hard to track objectives" too bad you've missed the original maps, which were empty parchments until you've explored and mapped the areas for yourself...

Maps in LotR might have magical capabilities (like extra notes hidden, and visible only in special light), but they definitely don't have zoom. Sure, there's a quest tracker in the game, but luckily it's optional too.

As for the f2p model, it's one of the best models out there. But to agree on something at least, I too believe the recent pricing (Mordor and Morgul) is a joke. And their recent affection towards lootboxes is quite concerning.

Sovrath · November 2019

Deyirn said:

the quality is so piss poor that it reminds me of some indie 2-man team that's Early Access on Steam, like Project Gorgon for example, but even that game is doing much better than and is displaying higher quality than LOTRO and frankly puts it to shame.

erm, no.

Now you are just making things up. You might not like various things (or anything) about the game but the two do not compare at all.

I admire what the Project Gorgon people have done but the quality between the two is so far apart with Project Gorgon lacking quite a bit. Again, not the developers fault, they can only do what they can do and I believe they have done a decent job with what they "could" do.

But I can have Lord of the Rings online on max with no issues whatsoever. Project Gorgon? I've had frame rate issues, the world feels bland, the animations aren't great and worse than Lord of the Rings Online.

Again, if one plays it one must know what it is and accept that it's an indy game. But let's not go saying that project gorgon has better quality. It doesn't. Not by any reasonable measurement. You might like its game play more, I can give you that.

retiredmj · November 2019

I just wish the end game was something more than the loot box BS.

The game is an enjoyable journey throughout leveling and the storytelling but it quickly becomes a giant turd once you get to the end

Dinasty · November 2019

Raquis said:

just make the new LOTRO already this game is old as puck!

New one is coming. You live under a rock?

DarkEvilHatred · December 2019

Wizardry said:

It has been so long since i quickly quit playing the game because it felt boring,generic.I then tried to give it another shot and had nothing but issues with the install,so filed this game away forever.

So 3 days ago i tried to look at it again,i noticed i had 80+ hours but could remember very little,so yeah it must be bad if i can't remember much at all.Yet again nothing but issues installing,errors and download fails so seems they run an amateur operation,not worth my time,i don't need headaches just trying to get the game to install,especially on Steam.

Sounds like you might have a bad stick of memory in your computer. I've installed LOTRO many times and never once had any issues. Try running a memory testing utility like Memtest or such.

illutian · December 2019

Surprised the games still around.

The game wasn't bad...it just didn't "keep with the times". Heck, the last time I tried to play the Steam version wanted to download a EOL version of .Net; think it was like v1.9 (or 2.0), and Win10 was like "nope!". - Know I could download LOTRO's launcher directly, but the whole point of Steam is to have everything 'right there'.

Plus, the last time I had actually logged in, the game just looked dated. - Don't give me the crap about graphics. You can have both a good game and good graphics.

Again, not a bad game. Just didn't age well. Would be sweet if they ported it to a new engine...something close to Shadows of Mordor.

((PS: Had a blast playing Lore-master!))

tallon617 · December 2019

Viper482 said:

tallon617 said:

I think the survival of the game to keep going with those stories they have to twenty years means they really do need to overhaul the graphics and consider how other MMORPGs have evolved over the last twelve years. Voice acting can be a nice perk and they have used some of it in the past but not to the extent many MMOs do today. I think having some voice acting here and there would be nice but isn't totally necessary to keep a game up to date. They'll need to upgrade the entire game and that takes money they might not have right now. I haven't bought the last few expansions due to the cost of the highest package. They're asking for the cost of some physical editions of other games that include tangible items like statues, replicas of in game items etc but their's is purely digital. I feel like the studio is out of touch with their base in what they want. I used to love buying the collector's edition of LOTRO expansions because of the physical items you could get at times but that's just gone now. Sad really.

The graphics are fine. If you are playing or not playing LOTRO because of graphics you're playing the wrong game.

Actually I pointed out a few things and graphics is one of them. If they weren't important to the game then the devs wouldn't have bothered making the upgrades they have. The graphics aid in telling the story and the character creation has and still is lacking which was an issue since Beta. It's (graphics) what helps sell the game the other part is the story being told. The game suffers from the attempts to balance the classes (at least in the past it was an issue) and they overprice the expansions. Not to mention the mithril coin money sink where you buy one currency only to turn it into another that devalues what you paid for in what was once called Turbine points.

So telling me that I'm playing the wrong game was a lackluster response. I'm a lifetimer that has watched the game suffer under the hands of WB then once they milked it for what they could based off the films they tossed it aside. It's in capable hands but those hands need to ask their playerbase what they would like to see improved and let the players know what it takes to make said things happen. If that means a kickstarter then so be it.

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