LOTR Online. Any good?

[Green Knight]

I just found out this game exists. Yeah, I'm behind the times. So is it any good? A couple pointed questions...

1) Is it good for solo play? One of the things I like about City of Heroes is that you can play from Level 1 to Level 50 without ever having to team. So does LOTR Online allow for solo play? That's one of the things that drove me from World of Warcraft. It got to the point where I spent more time looking for a team then I did playing. When I play I want to play, not stand around looking for a team. I enjoy teaming, but I don't want to be forced to rely on it. So can I solo the game if I want to, or will I be forced to team?

2) Does it have built in voice chat? That was a good part about D&D Online, the built-in voice chat. Huge help for coordinating things in a fight, as it's a bit of a bear to try to type something in chat while you're trying to fight half-a-dozen orcs.

3) How about player avatars? How detailed are they? For instance, say my character is wearing a cloak, and magical boots and gloves? Will they appear on the character? In DDO, they don't. The only visual feature you get on your character is the suit of armor and the helmet. But in WoW, it got pretty detailed, with everything from boots and gloves to bracers appearing on the character. Hell, they even had regular characters (Which was nice in WoW, having a character running around in plain clothes, rather then wearing their armor everywhere). So how detailed are the avatars? And any regular clothing?

4) How do the weapons look? Are they ridiculously oversized, like weapons in WoW, or are they relatively realistic? I'm not interested in a game where a guy holds a longsword which is twice his height and width in one hand.

5) Any pets in the game? Also, any mounts? And if there are mounts, any chance this game has mounted combat? No MMO that I've played so far has mounted combat, so it'd be a treat to finally play one that does. I'd love to FINALLY be able to skewer someone with a lance.

Think that's pretty much all I got at the moment. Thanks.

 

[Simplicity]

The game is incredibly great. It has basically taken all of the fun aspects of WoW and City of Heroes in one nice package.

Highly recommended.

The artwork is realistic. Weapons are fairly normal. Lord of the Rings is a LOW magic world, which is quite a change from WoW. Sure, you'll fight some large beasties... but the first time you run into skeletons is a thrilling experience.

It does allow for solo play, but like virtually all MMORPGs, it gets harder to stay solo as you go up in levels. But quests that are not meant to be soloed are marked as fellowship. Just don't do those quests and you're fine (unfortunately, many of the "epic" storyline quests are fellowship quests).

Characters are certainly more detailed than WoW characters, but not as detailed as CoH characters. Inventory has many slots (even a pocket slot, although that doesn't show up anyways graphically).

Don't know about voice chat. I never bothered.

There are pets for certain character classes (Loremaster, I believe). They can have a raven... and I think a bear. Never played them myself.

 

[Wystan]

I played LOTR during Open Beta.
I pre-ordered the collectors edition.
I got the magazines to get the free toys (small in-game items that are really not that great).
I payed for the lifetime membership.

I haven't played since.
I still play WOW as I find it easier to Solo in WOW and I enjoy the WOW Graphics more. LOTR is beautiful but Drab, realistic, and not fantasy enough for my mind. I love the idea of the game, but cannot bring myself to play it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There wasn't enough solo content in WoW?

Anyway, LOTRO is WoW as done by JRRT fans with the license.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

There wasn't enough solo content in WoW?

Seconded.

The vast majority of WoW's content is soloable. The better stuff comes from group content (group quests/instances), but heck, even a soloer can PVP and get epic gear.

I know a few people who play LotRO, but the only person I know well has moved onto EQ2.

Brad

 

[LrdApoc]

I'm a fan of the game. I've played a large number of MMO's but for me its about the setting. I think Turbine has done a good job making the game feel like Middle-Earth. There are some minor issues with the quests and solo playability of the epic storyline quests but LOTRO is getting my time and money because while it is like WoW on the surface - interfaces are very similar - but I can invest in a lifetime sub and never worry about the monthly fee again. I'm more likely to do that I guess than a lot of people because I have to pay for multiple accounts - my wife and I.

I like WoW, think its a great game with a huge following and a lot of my friends play but that lifetime option really makes all the difference to me. I can more easily budget for $300 in one shot than $30 a month forever.

As to your questions:
1. I feel like it is ok for solo play and slowly getting better. I've encountered a few issues with not being able to replay epic storyline instances with others in my kinship/guild to help them complete them. This is frustrating and especially since many of the main quests require friends to execute. Turbine will have to address this if they want to keep the players playing long term.

You may still find yourself (as I have) waiting around for help to do the fellowship based quests. Even though I'm doing quests sometimes far later than is recommended I find it difficult to solo the Fellowship quests because the odds are stacked against you and sometimes the conditions require you defend or help an NPC. That is hard to do alone while also fending off enemy attacks.

2. Yes, voice is built in, though personally I prefer to use Ventrillo.

3 & 4. Visually the avatars are highly detailed, showing and changing as you add/drop tint or remove equipment. Its visually a very pleasing game if you have the horsepower to turn everything on. I run on my Laptop so I have things turned down for performance issues on my ATI video card. When on a good desktop with good memory and video hardware the game can be far more impressive to look at than WoW. The figures and items in the world are realistic in design and reflect Tolkein's world well.

5. There are pets of a sort. The Loremaster class get pets and the Captain class get followers. There is no mounted combat, though there are horses in the game as transport. The only MMO I know of that is looking at mounted combat seriously is Age of Conan, which has recently been pushed back to next year (and it has some impressive pet stuff as well from what I saw at E3 this year).

Here are some links to coverage I've done of the game:

http://news.filefront.com/category/games/lotr-lord-of-the-rings/
http://news.filefront.com/gaming-to...ducer-of-the-lord-of-the-rings-online-part-1/
http://news.filefront.com/gaming-to...ducer-of-the-lord-of-the-rings-online-part-2/
http://streamdata.dispatchbroadcast.com/Alive/gameon/gameon109.mp3

 

[Green Knight]

There wasn't enough solo content in WoW?

Most of the quests I got were entirely to powerful for my level. I'd either have to find a group to help me out, or spend my time grinding in order to go up one or two levels before I could finally successly complete the quest solo. There were a few I could solo as soon as I got them, but by far they were the minority. I got so sick of it that I quit playing WoW altogether.

Here are some links to coverage I've done of the game:

Thanks a bunch!

 

[caudor]

I just started play LOTRO a week ago and I'm very pleased. By the way, if you buy the game (and register) in August you get another free 30 days (on top of what you get with the game).

My die-hard WOW-playing son has also gotten into LOTRO, so I bought him a copy (which...if you knew him, says quite a bit).

 

[Neo]

I was a beta tester for LOTRO and carried straight over with a lifetime subscription. It is an enjoyable game, but has performance issues that make it very laggy in places (Bree for example). It is very beautiful though even with settings turned down, its one of the few game syou can stand on an in game hill and genuinely say wow.. (no pun) as you look around. Most quests are soloable, though there are some quests you definitely need a fellowship for in order to do and most are story related..so for the hardcore solo players that may be problematic, but if you arent a hardcore solo'er then finding a team or helpful people is fairly easy, there are some genuinely awesome and helpful folks playing the game.

I also play WoW and have for years I enjoy it but it does have some limitations.. namely the worst of the worlds youth seem to have subscribed and be running ramapant on the RP categorised servers where little or no RP takes place. The Best items in the games are all Instance found or PvP reward based and if your not into PvP and prefer to solo like me then your kinda screwed. Regarding PvP even on the no Pvp servers no real allowances or changes have been made to make things work in a non pvp environment.. The other negative is that again almost all new content is aimed at the pvp crowd, not much for the pve'ers, which when the servers are separated PvP and No PVP in my mind means WE should be getting some consideration too.

The pluses of WoW is it is a huge attractive game, with a simple easy to use format that is highly addictive.. and it RARELY if ever lags on a WoW server..period! Which in my books is a HUGE!!! plus. Pretty much most of the quests are soloable with the exception of instance quests and they are soloable, but by the time you are soloing instances you wont be getting xp or benefitting from the items inside those particular instances anymore.