Last week, Managing Editor Jon Wood attended a small press event at the Turbine offices in Westwood, MA to look at the upcoming MMORPG, Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar.

Last week, I attended a small press event at the Turbine offices in Westwood, MA. With Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar gearing up for their "World Tour", which I will talk a little bit more about shortly, it seemed like a pretty good time to get a clear look at what exactly Turbine is up to in this adaptation of a classic story.

To start, I should probably clear up a little bit of lore surrounding the game. When you look at the title of this game, the Lord of the Rings part is fairly self-explanatory, it's the Shadows of Angmar part that, if you're like me and enjoyed the books and the films, but have a shoddy memory, you're probably not quite sure about.

Angmar, as it turns out was one of the kingdoms of Men, led by one of the kings who took possession of the original rings. As even casual fans of this franchise are aware, the original rings corrupted their wearers, and eventually, the King of Angmar became the Witch King (the leaders of the Nasgul, or Ring Wraiths). Angmar, once a goodly kingdom is now a place of evil.

You can read the whole article here.

I can't wait to put together my Hobbit band and go on tour.

For one night only  "Frodo Nine and the Ring of Doom"  ... a one night engagment in Osgiliath!

Don't miss out!

Hey John,

 If your looking for a Fellowship to join for the World Tour send me message, I plan to create a Fellowship first day and really explore the features of this game.

Send me a Private message if your intrested.

My apologies.

The price for the lifetime membership is indeed $199, not $299 as the original draft stated. The correction has been made in the article.

There seem to be some interesting innovations with this game.  And they're the sort of innovations that make you say, 'Hey that's sounds cool' as opposed to 'What the heck?' :) 

I really like the idea of the game blog and wiki.  I'll have to check out the Youtube recruiting vids too

While I also think it might have been better to set this after the trilogy, I guess Turbine wanted playersto be able to interact with Gandlaf and Elrond and such.

Originally posted by Stradden

My apologies.

The price for the lifetime membership is indeed $199, not $299 as the original draft stated. The correction has been made in the article.

 

correct me if im wrong but in the article it says that he states that something they have that no other mmorpg has, is cut scenes? as far as I know FFXI has cutscenes... though thats the only game other then lotr that i know has it.

not trying to promote FFXI or anything with saying it has cutscenes btw

and lotr... well I tried the beta and wasnt really my cup of coffee.

nice article though.

Very interesting read, Jon. ty. I'm already a founder and will be in game tomorrow.

I found your comments about the Kinship recruiting on Youtube and went there to search for some but only found 1 for United Kingdoms. I used Lotr spelled out with both kinship fellowship and/or guild for my searches.

If you could share some of the links with us, would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Im Kind of Interested to see how Far this game could Go!!

It very well just might Blow WoW out of the Water or sink like a stone I guess we just wait and See

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Originally posted by LordAvaril

Im Kind of Interested to see how Far this game could Go!!
It very well just might Blow WoW out of the Water or sink like a stone I guess we just wait and See

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Originally posted by LordAvaril

Im Kind of Interested to see how Far this game could Go!!

It very well just might Blow WoW out of the Water or sink like a stone I guess we just wait and See

 

It's Turbine. It will probably sink like a stone. So far the game looks like a turbine game. The characters all look retarded, and the lighting sucks @$$. It looks like they are so afraid of this game doing the same things that DDO did that they want to charge for a lifetime subscription up front. Even if you stop playing the game after the first day, you are still a subscriber for life. It's all a ploy to beef up the number of subscribers even if you don't like the game. Although, with Turbine's record you would be a fool to plop down $200 on this game.

It's a real shame that a game based on LOTR with such beautiful movies and books got handed over to turbine.

BTW, this message board system SUCKS @$$.

Originally posted by sbowling

Originally posted by LordAvaril

Im Kind of Interested to see how Far this game could Go!!

It very well just might Blow WoW out of the Water or sink like a stone I guess we just wait and See

 

It's Turbine. It will probably sink like a stone. So far the game looks like a turbine game. The characters all look retarded, and the lighting sucks @$$. It looks like they are so afraid of this game doing the same things that DDO did that they want to charge for a lifetime subscription up front. Even if you stop playing the game after the first day, you are still a subscriber for life. It's all a ploy to beef up the number of subscribers even if you don't like the game. Although, with Turbine's record you would be a fool to plop down $200 on this game.

It's a real shame that a game based on LOTR with such beautiful movies and books got handed over to turbine.

 

BTW, this message board system SUCKS @$$.

 

You mean based on the books. Turbine don't have the movie rights. Duh.

Oh and if you had any clue as to what the game is like and how much Turbine has done things RIGHT this time around. You wouldn't be posting your inaccurate assumption.