I have heard many positive opinions about Lord of the Rings Online. Is it true to Tolkein's universe? I have never been a fan of his writing (much too verbose for my liking), but I'd like to see what this game would look like.

I only played the Beta. I hear they did a graphics overhaul for release, but I haven't seen it. IMO the beta felt like WoW with just enough differences to make it its own. I don't like playing online games by myself, and none of my friends wanted to play it, so when release date came around I decided not to get it.

In the beta, most of the game was like any other MMO... highly quest driven. The story quest was cool, though... it followed the LotR story line. I didn't get that far into it, but it was fun.

My son (Barlow/Ryan) was running a pretty strong guild but I have no idea what server or name of guild. He was having fun with it tho'. Will check with him next time we talk and see what info he can give me.

The game is good, but sadly pretty shallow. Much like City of Heroes, it gets old fast - but the first 10-20 levels are a blast.
One thing that it has that none others (at the moment) have is the MonsterBash feature from Everquest1, where a player can play as a mob in the game and fight other players. Thats tons of fun, but also sadly gets old after a bit.

I played for a very short bit - I was a little disappointed, it's just a remake of every other fantasy MMO, nothing new. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but i might as well keep playing EQ or WOW where I've already established a character.

I was a blast until level 20 or so, then it just got dry and boring...

The game is good, but sadly pretty shallow. Much like City of Heroes, it gets old fast - but the first 10-20 levels are a blast.


That pretty sums up my feelings about the game as well. It's beautiful, it's fun for a while, but then it's just mind-numbly boring :(

Ahh so it has the lineage2 factor.

Played into the late 40's on several classes. It's every bit as good as WOW IMO with a little more boring graphics (more realistic but no WOW factor).

Like every other MMORG I have played EQ, DAOC, WOW, and LOR, the end game always stops me in my tracks. My play time is less than a couple hours a day (or late night more accurately), the end games always just take too much time and commitment.

Back playing WOW atm....but of course that'll end as soon as I hit 70 with my old characters and play the new races to some degree. :(

Believe it or not, maybe these companies need to look back at games like Ultima Online. That game had a huge fan base, and sometimes people simply logged in for the sake of logging in.

There was stuff to do, but it wasn't as....regimented as it seems to be in games now. I remember in EQ, there would be targets, sure, but it was actually a GOOD thing that the raid mobs had such long timers (I can't believe I'm saying this) because you had other things you could do.

I'm playing the Warhammer Online beta again, and the whole "public quest/raid" idea is brilliant. You don't have to group (though it helps), it's a short, progressive questy/raid sort of thing. If you participate, the game knows and rewards you with extra numbers on your loot rolls. If you just stopped by hoping to score some easy loot, the game actually tells you that you didn't contribute enough. The loot is great and it resets every so often (depending on level and location).

I'm sure they'll have raids and whatnot, but that type of stuff is definately a step in the right direction.

The game itself needs WAY more polish, so don't expect the Q2 2008 release. If it does release then, STAY AWAY! They're still working out a slew of bugs. I'm figuring between late summer, early Christmas....maybe.

Now if we could only get rid of levels, it would make for a more adaptable community. What I mean is, back in the old days of SWG (pre-NGE), they didn't have levels, they had skill trees. These trees were made of skill blocks that could be purchased with the right amount of exp from a particular action (pistols could go up using...you guessed it, pistols!). This was great because, if you wanted to group with a friend and they had just started the game, you could still group, it just meant that your pistols wouldn't go up until you hit mobs meant for your pistol level of advancement. Being able to change your skill layout anytime you wanted was a big bonus as well. If they'd only worked more on content and class balancing, that game would have been a huge success.

Ack! I just hijacked this thread unknowingly. Sorry! :rolleyes:

I followed LotRO during its early development - back in about 2003/4 when it was called Middle Earth - but they gradually mutilated it completely, so I stopped following its development and have never found the urge to see what their finished product looked like.