Originally posted by flood950
I thought the review was fair.  In regards to WoW comparisons I -do- also think it is significantly different. 

Most of the comments saying they are the same game in a different wrapper honestly seem to come from people that are either very new to the entire genre (IE, only know WoW and what they hear about other games) or are just looking for something to say that is negative about the game.  Its a good card to play if you want to bash the game and try to deter players, but I dont think its very accurate.

The feel of the game is similiar yes.  But outside of that and the basics that most MMO's share, the actual game itself is night and day.

I agree LOTRO is nothing like WOW , My analogy WOW is like a Porsche where LOTRO is more like a Ford its lacking all the  refinements of the Porsche like Shared Bank , Dressing Room , Real Trade skills , LFG tool , UI enhancements , Guild Bank  only 5 character slots,  ect ect

WoW is, and always has been heavily itemized.  Many people (of course not all, there will be generalizations in my comments, I am just going on experience and what most people seem to do) do quests and instances simply for the gear reward.  Or the XP in earlier levels, but mostly the instances are there for the loot.

Yes Instances are for Loot , But you know that from the start + with the release of TBC  many quest items are better than previous Instance items

There also is not much fluidity to WoW, this goes back to the loot driven nature of it, no one seems to really care that as you level up, there is no huge backstory leading you on, you go to areas, do some quests/instances and move on.  Yes, there is a global story behind WoW, but do most players pay attention to it?  How does running instance after instance over and over again even fit into a good backstory?  It doesnt...

As a player I followed the backstory as best I could  & running instances equiped me to continue the storie , But yes  having to run the same instance for the most part of just Boring But some instances were fun to do a few times

WoW has become a race to lvl 60/70.  So that the "real" game can begin.  LoTRo is nothing like this.  Some players are doing that, but the game was designed more around the journey to the end, rather than getting to that end.  Will you see leveling services in LoTRo?  Unless there are some drastic changes, I highly doubt it.  They would be doing the entire game for you.

The most fun I had in WOW was leveling 1-50 it was never a race for me  what killed me was having Raids last 5 hours , LOTRO leveling seems to be about the same pace  but one thing I found with LOTRO is there no excitment to leveling  in WOW I was chipping at the teeth to get to the next level because  there was some new spells I was excited about  where LOTRO  skills are Bland & even skippable  my Hunter didnt even bother getting 3 of his skills  so thats 3 levels with no change = Boring


Instances are very short compared to WoW's.  They can still be rather challenging, but they do not take hours to do.  They could get longer though, I am only mid level, but at the mid point in the leveling journey, compared to WoW, the instances are very short.

LOL are you insane my first major instance in LOTRO   "Fornost "  8 HOURS  & this is short compared to WOW ?  I think Not  & the new Instance in Evendim  is more like  20 Hours If you want to do it in One go  , thank christ  it can be done in sections  as long  as someone has the keys

Upon launching the game for the first time, running a quest or two, yes, it can feel like a similiar game.  But, once you spend some time there, start learning the Deed/Trait system, getting into the Storyline quests, joining fellowships, I see the similiarities for the most part dropping off.

Every MMORPG will have quest & mobs to kill  quests are like Air & Mobs like water  you Need them  :)

All of this only goes so far though.  If you are sick of the entire style that WoW has you will find it more of the same, but this goes back to my comments about people that have only played WoW before, most people realize that game didnt do a whole lot that was new either, they just happened to put together a nearly perfect package for the market.

Both games had similar starts with WOW exploding from there , lets hope LOTRO pushes the boundaries a little farther than currently

LoTRo is not revolutionary, nor is it even very evolutionary.  There is not a whole lot being added to the genre as far as mechanics.  I do very much enjoy the Deed system, but this, even if semi unique, is not groundbreaking.  The combat system will feel familiar, so if you are sick of the calculated combat, simulating traditional P&P gameplay, this will feel stale to you.  But again, WoW certaintly did not come up with thsi concept, many many games have adopted it.

I agree for the most part  but found the deed system added very little to my class , One example  is one of my Minstrils class  traits  that  take 3sec of skill timers  , but what It dosent tell you Anywhere  its that it only works on skills with 10 Minute timers  .

Groundbreaking or "new"?  No.

Thats a No from me too

A WoW-Clone?? No, not even close.  Mechanics may be similiar, but the game itself, the feel of it, the concepts that allow the player to have fun differ greatly.

This I feel is the perfect game to tide over players until the next batch comes out.  It may have lasting power to pull players through AoC and WAR, I have no idea...but its certaintly fresh enough to play until then and has a refreshing storyline quest system that gives players a feeling that they fit into the whole story.

You are right if they don't improve alot in the next 6 months it will be just a stopover game for many , My first advise to Turbine is allow UI enhancments  the current UI is perhaps the worst UI in MMO history .

Lukain "Worried Founder"

For you players that don't know, the UI can be changed. There is a site devoted to it, with many changes to choose from, or a tutorial that tells you how to make your own and where to put it in the game data.

For anyone who thinks community is important, LOTRO is not conducive for that. There may be some players who will disagree with me, the crafters perhaps. But, I don't craft. The group you play with today, probably won't play with you tomorrow. As I said in an earlier post, it's the quest system they use. They are hooked to each other and most you can't share with groupmates. After about level 30, there aren't as many solo quests, probably more for the classes that can solo easier. Since the game becomes so group dependent, you will either have to be lucky enough to have a regular group to play with, or resort to pugs. Pugs aren't easy to find because you have to constantly spam ooc looking for others doing the same quests you are. It's annoying to even have that channel open.

As another poster said, LOTRO will have to do until something else is released that looks interesting to me. That seems far off now.

Originally posted by Brynn

For you players that don't know, the UI can be changed. There is a site devoted to it, with many changes to choose from, or a tutorial that tells you how to make your own and where to put it in the game data.

Perhaps I should ask what it is about the UI you dislike? Every box can be moved around, and Turbine said they were allowing resizing, but I haven't figured out how to do that, yet. As for the site I mentioned, I don't know if there is anything there besides skinning.

http://www.lotrointerface.com/index.php 

I don't know how CS is on US servers, but for the Euro servers I would give Customer service by Turbine a 2.0.. and that is being generous.

And overall I think 8.5 is too high, 7.5 maybe.

Game is far too linear, and you rapidly get this boxed in feeling to where are almost forced to do the same exact quests that 300000000 others have done in the same order for the same items.

Gets pretty boring at 35+

Does anyone even know what clone means?

First off LOTRO is absolutely not a WoW clone.  Just because it is fantasy themed doesn't make it a WoW clone anymore than WoW is an EQ1 clone. 

I was in the beta and I felt the game was OK, not great not bad, just OK.  I will admit I was a bit soured by the fact that they couldn't get an annoying bug fixed before release:  all servers would appear closed to some people even if they were actually up.  When I was playing, I just didn't feel like I was in Tolkien's world.  Fans of the books would probably recognize more lore than I would, so they will probably enjoy it more than I.

By the way, an 8.5 is very generous rating IMO.

Bring back the old review which doesnt kiss ass so much.

---

Originally posted by Lukain
I agree LOTRO is nothing like WOW , My analogy WOW is like a Porsche where LOTRO is more like a Ford its lacking all the refinements of the Porsche like Shared Bank , Dressing Room , Real Trade skills , LFG tool , UI enhancements , Guild Bank only 5 character slots, ect ect

Lukain "Worried Founder"

---

Not to bring up an argument here, but I just have to note a couple of things:
LotR has a dressing room. CTRL+click an item (which I believe can be rebound if you wish), and it brings it up.
LFG tool: They (LotR) have a TERRIFIC LFG tool. You can click on your quests to set yourself LFG for that exact quest, or set up a note for next to your name in the LFG window, etc. It has an absolutely awesome LFG tool... it's just hardly anyone uses the dang thing. No, they'd prefer to spam /lff and /ooc channels, and whine and complain that they can't find a group. <sigh>

Trade Skills: I hope you're not saying that WoW's trade skill system is a 'Porsche' here, because I thought (note, this is my personal opinion as a person who loves trade skills) that WoW's system was boringly horrible. I maxed it a few times, but was never impressed by it at all. I'm not going to rave about LotR's... I do like the crit system a lot, but the rest of it... meh. It's just a generic trade skill system, sure. Same as WoW's (again, in my opinion). Though farming is pretty 'new' trade-skill wise. I do hold out a little bit of hope for some more work in the trade skill field on Turbine's end.

Shared Bank, Guild Bank, more than 5 Character slots per server: Oh yes, I wish they had these, definitely! They will be adding more Bank Slots, I just have no idea if Shared or Guild will be a part of it, or how much more space it will be.

More UI Enhancements: I do believe Frosty (Turbine UI Dev) has stated that they're coming. He posts on the lotrointerface forums regularly. And I sure hope they do come. I really don't need WoW's full mod-anything (because I get sick and tired of having to fix my mods after tiny little patches, hah), but some more tweaking would definitely be nice.

-signed,
a WoW Player & a LotR Lifer
...simply, a total MMO Addict.

Originally posted by Zharre

 

---

Originally posted by Lukain
I agree LOTRO is nothing like WOW , My analogy WOW is like a Porsche where LOTRO is more like a Ford its lacking all the refinements of the Porsche like Shared Bank , Dressing Room , Real Trade skills , LFG tool , UI enhancements , Guild Bank only 5 character slots, ect ect

Lukain "Worried Founder"

---

Not to bring up an argument here, but I just have to note a couple of things:
LotR has a dressing room. CTRL+click an item (which I believe can be rebound if you wish), and it brings it up.

You are correct "My Bad"  would like to see a few more options  like a larger window & zoom , maybe even a way to check quest rewards what they would look like before you hand in the quest  .. again :My Bad"

LFG tool: They (LotR) have a TERRIFIC LFG tool. You can click on your quests to set yourself LFG for that exact quest, or set up a note for next to your name in the LFG window, etc. It has an absolutely awesome LFG tool... it's just hardly anyone uses the dang thing. No, they'd prefer to spam /lff and /ooc channels, and whine and complain that they can't find a group. <sigh>

Honestly does anyone use it ? I have set myself up in there & Never ever got a fellowship from it .. I guess I should have said better LFG tool as the current one just dosent work I got 80% of my groups from  /lff 39 Hunter "Insert message here"  & 20% from tells from people looking for a Minstril , actually being a minstril is maybe the best lff tool there is  :)

Trade Skills: I hope you're not saying that WoW's trade skill system is a 'Porsche' here, because I thought (note, this is my personal opinion as a person who loves trade skills) that WoW's system was boringly horrible. I maxed it a few times, but was never impressed by it at all. I'm not going to rave about LotR's... I do like the crit system a lot, but the rest of it... meh. It's just a generic trade skill system, sure. Same as WoW's (again, in my opinion). Though farming is pretty 'new' trade-skill wise. I do hold out a little bit of hope for some more work in the trade skill field on Turbine's end.

Not really but WOW tradskills are better , but they have had 2 years to improve em , so the jurys out for the time being , I just expected a 2007 MMO to have better , like making Jewellry BOE a month after release , wasn't there any beta testing ?

Shared Bank, Guild Bank, more than 5 Character slots per server: Oh yes, I wish they had these, definitely! They will be adding more Bank Slots, I just have no idea if Shared or Guild will be a part of it, or how much more space it will be.

Are you sure More bank slot are going to be added ? I have not seen any posts on that , can you link it ?

More UI Enhancements: I do believe Frosty (Turbine UI Dev) has stated that they're coming. He posts on the lotrointerface forums regularly. And I sure hope they do come. I really don't need WoW's full mod-anything (because I get sick and tired of having to fix my mods after tiny little patches, hah), but some more tweaking would definitely be nice.

I loved the WOW mods , they could easy make it so you wouldn't have to update your mods every patch , Blizzard like to change the toc just to pissed modders of :)  "well i think it is toc  been so long

-signed,
a WoW Player & a LotR Lifer
...simply, a total MMO Addict.

---

Originally posted by Lukain
...would like to see a few more options like a larger window & zoom , maybe even a way to check quest rewards what they would look like before you hand in the quest ...

---

You can check quest rewards (I do it all the time!) just CTRL+click the icon of the reward in the quest window. Zooming... oh yes, that would be wonderful, I absolutely agree!

---

Originally posted by Lukain
Honestly does anyone use it ? I have set myself up in there & Never ever got a fellowship from it .. I guess I should have said better LFG tool as the current one just dosent work I got 80% of my groups from /lff 39 Hunter "Insert message here" & 20% from tells from people looking for a Minstril , actually being a minstril is maybe the best lff tool there is :)

---

Yeah that's why I said...sadly no-one ever uses it! It's great, so why do people never use it? But... it seems like people prefer to use chat channels rather than LFG tools. In just about every game I've played, the LFG tools sit (mostly) unused, while people clamor for LFG channels. I guess people (in general) just prefer the channels?

---

Originally posted by Lukain
Not really but WOW tradskills are better , but they have had 2 years to improve em , so the jurys out for the time being , I just expected a 2007 MMO to have better , like making Jewellry BOE a month after release , wasn't there any beta testing ?

---

I guess it's just my personal preference, but I don't find WoW's tradeskill system to be any better (or any worse, really). Just a bit different. As to why nothing was BoE (not just jewelry)? I dunno. I am glad they fixed that, but I don't know why they didn't see that it needed to be that way after all the testing well before release.

---

Originally posted by Lukain
Are you sure More bank slot are going to be added ? I have not seen any posts on that , can you link it ?

---

I don't recall if there was a quote on the forums... I found the info from some other source(s}, I think: interviews of Turbine's CEO, and one (or two?) of Turbine's regular IRC dev chats. Looking for linkage now...
Ah hah! Here's one quote, from here:
<warorc> Hi. Will you extend the bankroom? The bank is a little bit small
<LOTRO_Tens> Yes. We agree!
<LOTRO_Tens> We currently hope to have upgradeable bank storage ready to go for the Book 10 update.
<LOTRO_Tens> So you can look forward to it then!

Turbine seems to do frequent (monthly?) Stratics HoC dev chats, so they're also good places to look for info. Here's the latest one. I think they're due for another one soon?

Hope a little bit of that was good info for you :)

Originally posted by Flummoxed
The players who find the game boring do so because they are not the type of player that Turbine is designing for, which is people who like Story and Community.  Traditional hard core mmogers who are used to skipping the quests, skipping the lore, skipping the story and simply grinding to Level nn so they can hit the end game and PvP will hate LotRO.  In the same way, most fans of LotRO will absolutlely hate a mmog like Darkfall, because it caters to a very different style of play and player.

Community? What community? I like the story. I don't like that if you aren't at the same quest as your friends, it has to be repeated to bring someone up to speed. Or, some play more hours than others, and you no longer can play with them, or vice versa. That puts a pox on community.

I am a MMORPG vet and i am done playing lotro.

Credits go to the developpers for creating a smooth operating game, with beautiful graphics, hardly any game-killing bugs, and at times a true feeling of lore.

However, its just too bland for me. Or to put it otherwise, i was bored very soon. My two biggest gripes are :

1. that the game is very group based, and with my time-bursty schedule that most of times means i am spending more time looking for a decent group than actually playing,

2. Its really more of the same, do quest get xp level up. I really miss the UO days where i could fiddle with my own house, or be at Brit bank spending time trading or just for laughs, or pvp in the shadow world.

Personally i would give the game a 9 for performance and technical details, and a 6 for fun.

I've played Lotro since day one, canceled my subscription last friday. Made it to 50L with my hunter. Did all possible quests, farmed all teh legendary hunters traits, only skipped some insane deeds like elite trolls in Trollshaws, its too boring to kill elites for many days for 1 stupid deed ;) Also been to all the instances up to Book 9.

Lotro isnt a bad game, but aint revolutionary either. Why do I canceled my sub? I was missing something, something more deeper... simply got bored very vast. My previous game was WoW, I was in a hardcore raiding guild, think I've been in like 500 5h raids in total - it was fun in the beginning but then become an issue, now Lotro... looks like its heading the same way as we have in WoW. The last content patch introduced raiding, and some new instances, also some sets for all classes etc. If I want to raid again I'd prefer to play WoW, it has mastered it.

Basicaly Lotro playing is like:

- *first login* oh such a nice graphics, i love it! I wish WoW could have it!
- doh, why this combat is so slow?
- wee so many quests to do, and many "epics" (purple items) easily accessible thru them.
- cool! so now I can play on a lute, but ...I cant, people asking me to stop it. Wonder why.
- (at 35L) finaly got my horse mount, *next day* ffs! why I'm always getting dismounted whenever something hits me? it drives me crazy!
- (at 50L) *Yaaaaawn*

Lotro is nice, but bores fast... I want pre-cu swg back :(

Originally posted by Lukain

Originally posted by Zharre

 

LFG tool: They (LotR) have a TERRIFIC LFG tool. You can click on your quests to set yourself LFG for that exact quest, or set up a note for next to your name in the LFG window, etc. It has an absolutely awesome LFG tool... it's just hardly anyone uses the dang thing. No, they'd prefer to spam /lff and /ooc channels, and whine and complain that they can't find a group. <sigh>

Honestly does anyone use it ? I have set myself up in there & Never ever got a fellowship from it .. I guess I should have said better LFG tool as the current one just dosent work I got 80% of my groups from  /lff 39 Hunter "Insert message here"  & 20% from tells from people looking for a Minstril , actually being a minstril is maybe the best lff tool there is  :)

Trade Skills: I hope you're not saying that WoW's trade skill system is a 'Porsche' here, because I thought (note, this is my personal opinion as a person who loves trade skills) that WoW's system was boringly horrible. I maxed it a few times, but was never impressed by it at all. I'm not going to rave about LotR's... I do like the crit system a lot, but the rest of it... meh. It's just a generic trade skill system, sure. Same as WoW's (again, in my opinion). Though farming is pretty 'new' trade-skill wise. I do hold out a little bit of hope for some more work in the trade skill field on Turbine's end.

Not really but WOW tradskills are better , but they have had 2 years to improve em , so the jurys out for the time being , I just expected a 2007 MMO to have better , like making Jewellry BOE a month after release , wasn't there any beta testing ?

IMO the only "problem" with the LFG tool is that for the most part, you don't NEED to use it.  The game is very soloable [at least until the 30's].  As an aside:  I'm not surprised that Hunters can't find groups in that the few that I've dealt with think they are Drizzt [or Legolas] and just won't play as "support" characters; they think they are either tanks or one-shot killers!

To the DDO lover:  The LFG tool there is only better because it MUST be used - DDO isn't very soloable [at level or at speed - I've enjoyed playing DDO solo, but my highest 2 characters are 5 and 3 during 3 months playtime]

Tradeskills:  I agree that they are not great, but other than Ryzom, I haven't seen one better.  [Refuse to play cartoony WoW and saved by forums from playing Vanguard]

Originally posted by neokosh

I've played Lotro since day one, canceled my subscription last friday. Made it to 50L with my hunter. Did all possible quests, farmed all teh legendary hunters traits, only skipped some insane deeds like elite trolls in Trollshaws, its too boring to kill elites for many days for 1 stupid deed ;) Also been to all the instances up to Book 9.

Lotro isnt a bad game, but aint revolutionary either. Why do I canceled my sub? I was missing something, something more deeper... simply got bored very vast. My previous game was WoW, I was in a hardcore raiding guild, think I've been in like 500 5h raids in total - it was fun in the beginning but then become an issue, now Lotro... looks like its heading the same way as we have in WoW. The last content patch introduced raiding, and some new instances, also some sets for all classes etc. If I want to raid again I'd prefer to play WoW, it has mastered it.

Basicaly Lotro playing is like:

- *first login* oh such a nice graphics, i love it! I wish WoW could have it!
- doh, why this combat is so slow?
- wee so many quests to do, and many "epics" (purple items) easily accessible thru them.
- cool! so now I can play on a lute, but ...I cant, people asking me to stop it. Wonder why.
- (at 35L) finaly got my horse mount, *next day* ffs! why I'm always getting dismounted whenever something hits me? it drives me crazy!
- (at 50L) *Yaaaaawn*

Lotro is nice, but bores fast... I want pre-cu swg back :(

I call BS on "did all possible quests", unless you mean "all quests green or higher"[meaning that they still give xp].

You're claiming to have done the entire expansion in the week [10 days?] that it has been out?

If you are level 50 already, you are a powerleveller and LOTRO is not the game for you.  It's not for the PvP-centric player, either.

As to "why is this combat so slow?", I believe it is to give it a more tactical feel - I admit that it turns into a "clickfest" too often for me also, but I guess that few would play a turn-based combat MMO...