Originally posted by Skeltem After reading the article my first reaction was "What a complete and utter BS! How would anyone want to play this crap?" Now, though my feelings towards this game haven't changed a bit, I may put my thoughts in a more civil form: 1. Why should i want to play a story thats already finished? 2. Why did they call this obvious adventure game MMORPG? It seems to be a SP in a multiplayer pelt like DDO. 3. Isnt the witch King of Angmar at the time busy being the chief Nazgûl? 4: Anyone else who wants to hit the very first Hobbit they meet hard? Repeatedly? 5. Instances. 6. They are cowards! They didnt dare antagonize die-hard Tolkien Fans as they didnt dare be more creative with their D&D Licence. Thus, i foresee, it will be close to the ip but a boring boring playing experience. 7. There is a long and rich "history" in Middle-earth. They could have picked any era to have game in. See MERS. They chose to do a spin-off of the movies. In doing so they severely limited their possibilities. I dont like being railroaded through a game and I extremely dont like being railroaded through a MMOG. 8. Meeting the Fellowship characters? WTF?
These are the main reasons why i wouldnt want to play this even if they gave me gratis time. I don't see a point to this game. Other reasons are: Turbine and I saw an IG trailer. Looked like DAoC pre Shrouded Isles. Thought I'd share my thoughts. Skeltem
QFT. I'd like to have seen something set in the 2nd or 1st ages from the Silmarrilion - so much meatier and so much more to play with. Ack this is pure turbine rubbish. Turbine, the macdonald's of the MMO world.
The Silmarrilion was never meant to be published. In fact the Silmarillion was basically his notes for creating Middle Earth and the characters and history in it. It wasn't actually meant to be something for the general public to read. It's a grueling read although (and I know the Tolkein fans hate when I bring this up) if you pay attention to all his writing he's very detail oriented on some things and not so very much on others. Look how much time he takes to describe Bilbo's green door in The Hobbit but then compare that to the final battle. Oh yeah, there IS no final battle because he (Bilbo if I recall correctly) gets knocked out cold. All his battle scenes are significantly shorter than other parts where he goes into very rich and (often page skippable) detail of things. I personally love good detail but when it overshadows the rest of the work, I tend to glaze over.
This isn't an MMORPG, its barely even an RPG, in RPG's your supposed to be able to tell your own story, and be the hero of it,the way I see it, this game has nothing for it, players aren't heroes in this game, we are side notes in the major picture, the game leaves no room for the player to be sung about by bards or destroy evil other than clearing out the forest so the real heroes can run along and do their thing, NPC heroes that is. Not to mention hobbits weren't very common in the wide world, in the trilogy noone knows what the heck the hobbits are, the Men of Rohan and Gondor have never seen their like before, yet in this game they'll be thick as flies over a rotting carcass. Its not a persistent world either, it's ended before its begun. So you can craft and level, great, the grinders out there have a great game at hand, but those looking for PvP or even roleplaying will have to look elsewhere, unless you like being the unmentioned sidekick or hanging aroud town in search of someone to duel. I don't know about you, but I'll take a drunken brawl over an epic battle any day*sarcasm*. IS there even player housing? probably not, because that might infringe on the license or something.
And this is coming from a Die-hard Tolkien Fanboy ya'll, but the stories leave no room for anyone else to be involved, much less an MMO community. I'll agree with you Sachant about Tolkien's near fetish for detail and backstory and I'll admit that sometimes he was just using the characters as an excuse to explore the fantasy world he had created, but there are lengthy battle scenes in LOTR( at least more so than the last battle :P), , and since LOTR is what the game is based on, not the hobbit, I would think those battles have some importance. If not, well, they shoot themselves in the foot and alienate a demographic that want's anything EPIC( see above paragraph again)
I realize most of what I just said has been said and done but I like to add my own little two bits worth for emphasis that just because someone says to stop repeating yourself doesn't makes those words any less true. Funny how most MMO's say they want to continue for years and years and Turbine says they want an MMO to last 3 and then they'll just end it.
Then again,Maybe its good that this game has an end, at least time has meaning in it, its true that many MMO's out there that claim a persistent world mean that there is a stagnant world until the devs update it once a month, characters might as well be walking through a picture, when a monster dies more or less it resets itself and nothing's changed, gah, it all makes me frustrated, but then again its very late (more or less early actually) and I get angrier at the world the closer the dawn gets.
Comments
/Rant starting
This isn't an MMORPG, its barely even an RPG, in RPG's your supposed to be able to tell your own story, and be the hero of it,the way I see it, this game has nothing for it, players aren't heroes in this game, we are side notes in the major picture, the game leaves no room for the player to be sung about by bards or destroy evil other than clearing out the forest so the real heroes can run along and do their thing, NPC heroes that is. Not to mention hobbits weren't very common in the wide world, in the trilogy noone knows what the heck the hobbits are, the Men of Rohan and Gondor have never seen their like before, yet in this game they'll be thick as flies over a rotting carcass. Its not a persistent world either, it's ended before its begun. So you can craft and level, great, the grinders out there have a great game at hand, but those looking for PvP or even roleplaying will have to look elsewhere, unless you like being the unmentioned sidekick or hanging aroud town in search of someone to duel. I don't know about you, but I'll take a drunken brawl over an epic battle any day*sarcasm*. IS there even player housing? probably not, because that might infringe on the license or something.
And this is coming from a Die-hard Tolkien Fanboy ya'll, but the stories leave no room for anyone else to be involved, much less an MMO community. I'll agree with you Sachant about Tolkien's near fetish for detail and backstory and I'll admit that sometimes he was just using the characters as an excuse to explore the fantasy world he had created, but there are lengthy battle scenes in LOTR( at least more so than the last battle :P), , and since LOTR is what the game is based on, not the hobbit, I would think those battles have some importance. If not, well, they shoot themselves in the foot and alienate a demographic that want's anything EPIC( see above paragraph again)
I realize most of what I just said has been said and done but I like to add my own little two bits worth for emphasis that just because someone says to stop repeating yourself doesn't makes those words any less true. Funny how most MMO's say they want to continue for years and years and Turbine says they want an MMO to last 3 and then they'll just end it.
Then again,Maybe its good that this game has an end, at least time has meaning in it, its true that many MMO's out there that claim a persistent world mean that there is a stagnant world until the devs update it once a month, characters might as well be walking through a picture, when a monster dies more or less it resets itself and nothing's changed, gah, it all makes me frustrated, but then again its very late (more or less early actually) and I get angrier at the world the closer the dawn gets.
/Rant over
"All hail, king of the losers!"
-Age of Empires 2