Lord Of The Rings Online
I can’t say I am a huge Tolkien follower. Like many people, I did read The Hobbit as well as the Fellowship trilogy way back in Junior High, but I am not a fanatic. I didn’t even see the final two episodes of the Peter Jackson movies. Having said that, I would have to say that the LOTRO devs have done an excellent job of integrating the story and world into the game, and it does make a huge difference because - unlike games like WOW - there is a sense that everything you encounter in LOTRO is grounded in a bigger story and universe, as opposed to just a series of separate quests and PvP battles. Some of LOTRO’s “epic quests” align closely with the Tolkien storyline, and include encounters with people like Aragorn and Gandalf (below).
Character development is fairly straightforward. You have a choice of several races: humans, dwarves, elves, and hobbits. There are several classes to choose from. Champions, guardians and captains are the three melee classes. Hunters are essentially archers. You also have burglars, and finally two types of casters - lore masters and minstrels. I have both a guardian and a minstrel, and have enjoyed playing both so far. The minstrel plays little tunes that heal people, as well as buffs or debuffs mobs or party members. This is a screenshot of a minstrel playing a tune. It is night time (below).
What are the popular classes? I’d have to say that so far I have encountered, in order of frequency: champions, hunters, guardians, minstrels, captains, lore masters, and burglars. There is simply an abundance of champions and hunters in this game. Almost 50% of players out there I would have to say are one of the two - then it sharply drops off when it comes to guardians and minstrels. Burglars are so rare I have only partied with one once in the weeks I have been playing LOTRO. So if anyone is thinking on joining the game now, consider being a burglar or lore master. Minstrels are always a safe bet too, especially if you enjoy group play. A cool thing about the quests in LOTRO is that not all of them take an entire party of 6. Many you can do on your own, and some take between 2-3 others. Here is a shot of one of my recent parties getting ready to enter a dungeon instance in the barrows (below).
The group dynamics are very interesting. It is definitely possible to have all sorts of different combinations of groups and still be relatively successful in completing a group quest or instance. The party composition will greatly affect the experience. An ideal group of six may have 3 melee types, 1 hunter, 1 minstrel, and either 1 burglar or lore master, but you can mix that up and still succeed. However players will have to adapt their tactics according to the rest of the group’s composition. If you can do so successfully, anything is possible. I like playing this way because it means almost anyone can group together and you don’t have to stand around forever looking to form or join a perfect group, like in Final Fantasy XI.
The graphics on this game are fantastic. Much better and more detailed than the cartoony WOW look. Of course, I am running a relatively high peformance machine with a great video card, 2 gb of RAM and dual core processor, so everything looks excellent to me. Like any other MMORPG, your experience will track closely with how good your machine is. If you have a medium or high end box, you will really enjoy the visual element here. There is great variation in the world’s geography, including dark forests, green fields, deserts, high mountains, and so on. Here are a few screenshots (below).
I’d have to say that a downside of LOTRO is that PvP isn’t integrated into the game as fully as it is in WOW. In WOW, it was a great, thrilling experience to be constantly on the move, chasing the other side through the forest or getting involved in mass raids. Of course, the upside means that in LOTRO you don’t have to deal with the negatives of constant PvP, like being ganked by some bored thugs 20 levels higher than you as soon as you run out of a town. The fact that there is no universal PvP in LOTRO does makes sense because we are all - theoretically at least - on the same side against the evil forces. Still, in LOTRO there is a PvP area but I have not tried it yet. My understanding is that it is similar to the Guild Wars system in which your team transports to a PvP only area of some sort. I will look forward to trying this out after I further develop my PvE toons. Also, there is a built in voice chat mechanism as well so you don’t have to run vent independently. I have yet to try this either, but I hear it works fine and will be very useful for PvP or complex PvE situations. Combat of course takes up a big part of the game. It is much like Guild Wars. You can hot key various combat options and skills that are triggered by completing previous combat moves. There are a variety of mobs, including the ever present orcs (below).
Other, random observations: There are auction houses, banks, mailboxes, and all characters have 5 bags of storage. It is very similar to WOW in this sense. There is a crafting system, although I wouldn’t say it was as deep as the one in FF XI. That is not necessarily a bad thing, unless you like to spend much of your time constructing elaborate doodads after searching for months to acquire the right amount of components. My guardian mines metal, tailors and finds lumber. My minstrel is a farmer and cook. Additionally, there is a rather deep “traits” system which adds another layer of complexity to the game. This is when you earn different traits by accomplishing deeds, which are sort of like more abstract quests, such as find all the hidden plants in the old forest area, or kill X number of orcs in a particular region. I haven’t gotten to the point yet where I have learned to harness this system to any significant degree, but it holds a lot of promise and come endgame I have a feeling that those players who have learned to maximize their traits will have advantages over those who just focused on quests and xp.
In some ways, LOTRO is like an improved mix of Guild Wars and WOW with better graphics, more meaningful quests, and no PvP ganking. Two other general structural observations should be said along these lines. First, this is an extremely stable game. Since I have been playing I have only encountered 2-3 bugs, and there have been two patches/downtimes - which they usually plan for 6-12 am on weekdays. This is unlike soo many other experiences in which the devs take the games down every other day for an unknown amount of time, like in the early days of WOW. Secondly, the community has overall been great to play with. In several weeks of play and numerous interactions with people throughout the game I have not once encountered people spamming region chat with messages like “stfu gay i pwned” or “GOKU IS A CHAETING BITCH!!!” Of course, its only a matter of time. Its cool to meet and converse with others in one of the world’s inns. This is a screenshot of the Prancing Pony in Bree (below).
Regardless, LOTRO is a great game. Plus, the first free content upgrade is scheduled to be as soon as June. I’d have to say that it is the best MMORPG I have played since I have been playing them (7 years now). If anyone is on the Windfola server send me a PM.
The Comments
beerorkid May 14, 2007 at 9:36am
nice write up on it. I heard it was gonna be pretty good.
I for one am a bit too scared to play a mmorpg, I know I would get sucked into it too much.