Lord of the Rings online - Screenshots

[OohhoO]

Well...

It takes a very long time to get a valid download
& then quite a while to install
but it's beta so that's normal to good

The only question that remains is...
Northmoor or Stybba?

[OohhoO]

AAARGH!
Take it away!
It's much too much fun
Before you really know what's going on it's dark outside & people are wondering why you havn't cooked dinner yet & all you've been doing is running around having fun

[Lieva]

i did say

[OohhoO]

Hmmmmm

Yesterday the Brits started slagging off the Germans & French in the open channel for not speaking English on a UK server (which it isn't ) & making tasteless comments about WWII, which really wasn't called for

In return the Germans & French asked the Brits WTH they were doing on a European server when they don't want to belong to Europe in the first place & telling them to get back to doing what they do best (licking George W Bush's ass ) , which also wasn't called for but was at least amusing

I logged at that point as racism spoils my fun.
Unless they make different language servers & preferably also roleplay servers I can't help but feel it might be better as a single-player game.

[Lieva]

must be the newbies

the oldies havent ever said stuff like that

Also you cant really blame the german/french for speaking in their own language. The server is multilingual at the moment.

They havent decided on servers yet.
I think they should have seperate ones though.

And an RP one..

[Heta]

aren't you able to turn off the general chat?

know for sure I wouldn't be able to play WoW if I weren't able to do it there

[OohhoO]

aren't you able to turn off the general chat?

know for sure I wouldn't be able to play WoW if I weren't able to do it there

Dunno.
I don't really have a clue what I'm doing
It's just fun
(apart from the idiots )

[Lieva]

yea you can turn off the channels
I turned off AH as it naffs me off to read same thing advertised every 5mins

[OohhoO]

LotRo is really a lot of fun. It's a very good fun mix of PvE, questing & crafting. I do have some reservations tho which I'll go into more detail as the report goes on.

PvE
Camping doesn't really seem to happen in LotRo as it's not really an effective way of progressing, as XP from pure PvE is much slower than XP from questing. This is a good thing. Most PvE seems to be a side effect of questing or crafting.

Questing
There are a lot of quests in LotRo, from the epic lines through subquests. They give good XP & sometimes good items for the level. Most quests are solo quests but everyone in a group who has the quest gets credit as long as they have the quest. Some quests are tagged as only doable with a group, but I've found if you do a few other quests & level up 1-2 levels higher than the group quest then they're easily soloable too.

Crafting
Crafting is fun in LotRo. If you want to make weapons then you need to mine ore, smelt the ore to metal bars & then make the weapons. If you want to make leather armour then you need to kill mobs for pelts, work the pelts to leather & then make the armour. I do have one bone to pick here though. I made a toon especially for crafting leather armour & levelled it purely on pelt-mobs without really doing any quests or anything. By the time I had enough skill to make level 7 armour I was already level 10 & the level 8 armour I could buy from NPCs was 20% better than the level 7 armour I could make for myself. I'm assured that at higher levels the crafted gear is better than anything you can get from drops or quests, but it seems that at lower levels crafting is a waste of time apart from the fun involved & the fact that it gets you to higher levels of crafting. As I'm not that high a level yet I can neither confirm nor deny this.

Gameflow
Basically it seems the optimum way to progress is to get a few quests, kill mobs along the way, mine ores / collect wood/pelts & stuff & then head back to town to collect the quest rewards, visit trainer, sell the unusable loot & then go & craft with the usable loot. This makes for a very varied & fun game where you don't spend hours & hours just doing the same thing over & over again.

There is one thing which kinda worries me tho. There are 4 races whose differences are basically cosmetic. There are 6 classes - Hunter, Guardian, Captain, Champion, Burglar & Loremaster. There are no spec options. This means for instance that every L20 Guardian has EXACTLY the same skills & abilities as EVERY other L20 Guardian. This is obviously a design choice, & I can't really comment yet on wether or not I think it's a good design choice, but the lack of variety kinda worries me ATM. It's not like in DAoC where 100 L20 Wardens probably have 20-30 or more different specs. If there were Wardens in LotRo then every L20 Warden would have exactly the same spec as every other L20 Warden, & with only 6 different classes that's not a lot of variety.

All in all it's an easy relaxing fun game. Probably not something for anyone looking for a serious challenge, but ideal for someone like me who's just looking for some relaxation after a hard days work. Apparently there is a PvP element planned, but I really hope they DON'T implement it, as it would then become attractive for the gankers & min/maxers, & LotRo really isn't a game for griefers. It's more about solo or cooperative relaxation, fun & roleplay IMHO & I hope it stays that way.

More reports may follow at a later date.

[OohhoO]

Here is a direct graphics comparison between WoW, Vanguard & LotRo in almost identical settings.
http://lotrovault.ign.com/View.php?view ... tail&id=89
Even without bearing in mind that the LotRo screenshots were made with the low-res beta client & the release client should apparently be higher-res there is really no contest.