Lord of the Rings Online

Lionheart · February 12, 2007, 07:35:34 PM

Out of curiosity (I can ask since the NDA was mostly lifted today), is anybody other than me in the LOTRO beta? (I know of one other)

I can't post screenshots yet, but can relate in-game experiences now. Open beta starts in late March.

Heart's Fire and I have been loving the game world (and hopefully will be preordering with the Founder's program tomorrow). :)

Camma · February 13, 2007, 06:20:19 AM

Me, but you knew that ^_^

Dweomer Knight · February 16, 2007, 10:26:12 AM

I've read LotR and the supplemental works more times than I can count. Are you both satisfied with your experiences so far? What can you say about the gameplay?

DK

Lionheart · February 17, 2007, 02:04:11 PM

Satisfied enough to have already purchased two preorders. :) And with the Founder's program, we'll get to take our open beta characters into live, along with the monthly discount ($9.99 vs $14.99 per month).

We're on the way out the door to my folk's now, but I'll try to give a review later (with screenshots; the NDA is totally lifted).

Dweomer Knight · February 17, 2007, 05:43:20 PM

Looking forward to it.

I saw the preorder boxes at Best Buy. $199 for a lifetime membership. That's a very good deal.

DK

Qwazy · February 18, 2007, 02:41:30 PM

a life time memebership to a computer game....

thats really iffy....

Camma · February 19, 2007, 08:14:51 AM

If you plan on playing more than 21 months, which i know many CoX people have (not sure about the GW folks), the lifetime deal works out well. Personally, since im not sure about the longevity of any game im sticking to the other pre-order founders option which is a year of subscription for 9.99 (normal will be the typical $15).

Im putting together some thoughts on the game as well and will post them once finished.

Qwazy · February 19, 2007, 03:11:19 PM

ok to explain iffy.....

well ive NEVER heard of a game offering a life time membership
oh except games that dont charge you monthly.... but that doustn count

why are they offering a life time memebership?
do they not expect people to stick around but want their money?
do they expect the game to crash and burn?

yea iffy

Lionheart · February 19, 2007, 05:10:57 PM

This game won't crash and burn, not by a long shot. The vast majority of beta testers are loving it. The few who don't are very vocal (perhaps even nasty), but they are the minority. Mostly the powergamer or must have PvP types. The preorders for this game are phenonenal; many from beta testers.

If I had the money up front, I'd get the lifetime. But since my wife and I both play, I can't afford to come up with that much at once, so we're going with the $9.99 per month.

Dweomer Knight · February 22, 2007, 07:44:31 AM

I heard a lot of people ask the same questions about Guild Wars when it first came out. How good can a game be and how can it be supported with no monthly fee? Yet it seems to be doing well.

Even if this particular game is bad, and from what I hear it isn't, people will still play for no other reason than it's Lord of the Rings. Barring complete company mismanagement, I don't see much risk in believing that the game can hold on for two years.

DK

MyndVizion · February 22, 2007, 03:19:04 PM

I've been playing the beta and I have to say I absolutely love this game. I seriously can't wait for the release of this game. I've finally found something that will cause me to cancel my WoW account! :)

I'll see about posting a little review here as well. I'll see about posting some screenies too.

Lionheart · February 23, 2007, 07:03:11 AM

Just a note to anyone who will be trying the open stress test this weekend: It is a STRESS test. Thousands of new players will be logging in, there will be lag, and usually somewhere along the line -- CRASH. :)

This is of course the purpose of the test. See what load the servers, various DBs, etc. can handle to help determine the number of servers needed, best server optimization, etc.

We've had a number of closed stress tests, where a bunch of new folks were invited in to blitz the servers. This will be the first open one. I expect to see many posts on the public forums from folks who declare the game unplayable because of lag and crashes, because they don't get the point of a stress test. Most beta testers have been amazed at the stability of LOTRO (even back in alpha), but during a stress test, we'll be hammering the servers aggressively on purpose.

Camma · April 27, 2007, 02:24:22 PM

Ok well i kinda forgot about sharing any info on LOTRO since i've been playing that and CoH (thinking about quitting my job to MMO full time...hehe i wish).

The game went live on Tuesday the 24th, and seems to have hit the ground running. Granted the first month (usually free) of any MMO is gonna have a huge population spike, but there is a lot of positive feedback from WoW refugees, which ATM is a massive percentage of the MMO community.

The game itself is enjoyable, and story-wise very well done. This game is a more traditional fantasy based (strike that since most fantasy is based off of LOTR in the first place) MMO than GW or CoX. It is your typical quest driven story line with loot drops for gear, crafting, and gold farming.

The combat system is pretty typical to the genre; auto attack with your equipped weapon(s) and/or use class skills for additional dmg and various effects.

You've got your standard gear setup, with various weapon abilities, armors, jewelry, and hats, dont forget the lovely hats.

There are several fast travel features including purchasing a non-permanent mount and later on a specific class ability (hunters) to insta-travel a party to a preset location (i dunno how that snuck past the lore police).

In terms of normal characters there is consentual dueling, tho i havent tried it out yet. For more substantial PvP, there is Monster Play. Now a lot of so-called HARDCORE PvPers have stated that they must have story driven evil characters in realm vs realm factional PvP, but those are mostly just WoW-noobs who have never played anything but Battlegrounds and Wow was their first MMO. Monster Play is FUN, so fun in fact that throughout beta i never levels a regular character past the point where i can use him to roll a monster player. Monster Play (MP) takes place in one instanced area. Level 40 and above regular characters can instance in and find there is PvE content for them including resource gathering. Once you have a normal character to level 10 you can join as a monster. Monsters start at max level but with no skills or traits (uhhh those are stat boosts essentially), and there is a whole set of quests for them to earn point to spend on skills and traits. During beta i had tons of fun both questing as a monster and fighting the normal characters people brought. There are keeps (castles)on the maps that can change sides (good or evil) by beating a high level boss NPC (and all his minions to get to him). The incentive is that you cannot turn in quests/get new quests unless you control that keep.

Ok back to the main game. Now that i have actually gotten into some of the content i am really liking the PvE part more than in beta. Initially i was not that impressed because the beta client lacked the high res textures now available so the game didnt look that great (althought it was THE smoothest most polished beta i have ever been in), and because the content was trite, kill XX boars, deliver this pie, bleh. Now i have gotten into the story line which brilliantly parallels Tolkein's story starting from when Frodo and friends are en-route to Bree.

In a subsequent post i will give a little more perspective on this game vs other games i see FR people talkin about....

MJB · July 02, 2007, 11:01:13 PM

Do you get a "Friend's Pass" like you do when you buy CoH? If so can someone hook me up? I would love to try the game out.

-MJB

Lionheart · July 03, 2007, 02:40:33 PM

Sure enough. Is your email address on your post up to date? Or would you rather get the info in a PM?

MJB · July 04, 2007, 12:04:40 AM

PM sent. ;)

-MJB

JeyNyce · July 06, 2007, 09:44:01 AM

If anybody playing look up Jey or Airea. My two characters. As for the lifetime membership , I think that was a great ideal. The only reason why I gave up COx was because I stop playing and was still paying for it. At least if I stop playing LOTR I don't have to worry about wasting money because I paid for everything up front.

Lionheart · July 14, 2007, 08:57:13 PM

Quote from: JeyNyce on July 06, 2007, 09:44:01 AM
If anybody playing look up Jey or Airea. My two characters. As for the lifetime membership , I think that was a great ideal. The only reason why I gave up COx was because I stop playing and was still paying for it. At least if I stop playing LOTR I don't have to worry about wasting money because I paid for everything up front.

What server? I've peeked around on the servers I play on, but haven't seen the names. Of course, you may be quite a bit higher level than I am. My highest level character is 25; yeah, I've well over a dozen alts on several servers.

There is the server where I only duo with my wife, the one where we run with my brother too, one where we run with her brother, our "solo" server (we team up for group quests), etc. Helps keep teams together so we don't outlevel each other if somebody isn't on.

JeyNyce · July 29, 2007, 11:38:14 AM

The server that starts with a "G" I can't remember the name right now. Don't worry about what LVL you are. My main hero (Jey) is going on LVL 13. I had to step away for a while. I got caught up with HALO 2 for Vista and shadowrun, but I'm back ready to have fun!

Lionheart · July 29, 2007, 04:48:17 PM

Quote from: JeyNyce on July 29, 2007, 11:38:14 AM
The server that starts with a "G" I can't remember the name right now. Don't worry about what LVL you are. My main hero (Jey) is going on LVL 13. I had to step away for a while. I got caught up with HALO 2 for Vista and shadowrun, but I'm back ready to have fun!

Of course. I have 20 characters across six servers (Arkenstone, Brandywine, Elendilmir, Firefoot, Silverlode, and Windfola), but not Gladden. Looks like I need to roll up more alts. :)