Lord of the Rings Online

Originally posted by eccoton

Originally posted by DonnieBrasco

 

Originally posted by eccoton

 At the upper levels of LOTRO you really have to group. In EQ2 you can solo almost any class to the level cap. EQ2 is a better ride for me.

Well, that is not true, plain and simple.

 

Even before the Angmar revamp, i soloed my LM to level 50, with close to no grouping. I admit, it was slow - compared to how it went from level 1 to level 42.

Afterr the Angmar revamp, it is perfectly easy to solo all the way up. It's another aspect, that the best content of Lotro is mostly available through group quests (not necessarily the book quests!), but saying that you need to group at high levels is LOTRO is not true by any means.

In EQ2 I only leveled to around 40, so can't speak for the high levels, but someone in this thread already mentioned how difficult it is to solo on high levels in EQ2... who is right, we don't know.

DB

Umm it is simply true, I never said it was impossible to solo. Sure you can grind to the level cap. You can do that in any mmo if you have the time. Like you said and many also say, post 40 the breaks go on in LOTRO. Also there is almost no specific solo content in LOTRO in the upper levels. Since they made the exp for killing stuff so low and based on quest turn in it takes forever to level at high levels solo. You also miss out on so much. Tell me what books you can solo at high levels? If you have solo'd both games to their level caps as I have you will find EQ2 is much more solo friendly. There is actual solo content in EQ2 at high levels. Sure there are some raid content you miss in EQ2 as a solo player at high levels but there is plenty in place to make up for it.

There is also the new zone, Farochel (or something like that... :P ) coming out this month that is adding a region bigger than Evemdim to the game and it will be primarily targeted towards levels 40+... and guess what?  Primarily solo. 

So right there you now have two different regions with plenty of content in them to get you to the level cap with doing nothing but solo quests if you so choose.   That doesn't even cover the multitude of group quests that a person could choose to do as well. 

In summary... LoTRo does have plenty of quests to get to level cap if you choose to solo.  It also has plenty of group content if you choose to take that route.  Choices are a good thing.

Originally posted by Ugarit
You'll have fun on lotro 1 maybe 2 months then you'll have to cancel your subs.

Really? You'll "have to"? Well shoot - I guess a lot of us didn't get the memo, or missed that fine print in the EULA, since we've been playing for well longer than that and still haven't cancelled.

this game becomes boring when you reach lvl 35 everyone knows that.

Shoot... They do? Dammit.. I missed that memo, too. I'm 35 and have been playing well over 2 months and am still having a ball. But if "everyone knows that" then... geeze.. I guess my finger is totally not on the pulse of the gaming community at large, huh.

and lotro isn't casual friendly: you'll have to group all time, and the PVE HL looks like Wow. - Wow: illidan, - Lotro: balrog - Lotro low level (spe in the shire) is casual friendly + RP game - lotro PVE Hl: farming + farming + farming , stuff etc... or you'll have to go to the ettens ... like the others (only thing to do at high lvl) and "farm the other players" for rank.

Okay I give up... I couldn't follow that last.. umm.. paragraph? Run-on sentence? Encoded message? Can someone decipher that for me?

craft is poor

Your opinion. Many enjoy the crafting, myself included.

housing isn't interesting

Your opinion. Many like the housing, myself included.

areas are small

Yeah, really.. 'cause I can totally run on foot from Trestlebridge in the SW corner of North Downs to the NE-most path up to Angmar in like... 2 minutes flat. Totally tiny. It's like a stroll through my backyard. In fact, all the regions are like that.

few classes

Yet enough for those who enjoy it to find something they enjoy playing.

fight are boring

Your opinion. Many enjoy fighting, myself included.

angmar is boring

Your opinion. Many enjoy questing up in  Angmar, myself included and I've only just begun.

pvp is repetitive

Your opinion. I enjoy PvP almost as much as I do the PvE content and, based on the near constant action in the 'moors, apparently so do many others.

You'll have fun on the shire, on bree, on barrow downs, but you'll discover what lotro is when you'll "start" fornost, agamaur and fight against thorog...

See the problem with making absolute comments - "predictions" if you will - is that there are already, at present, numerous people proving that isn't necessarily the case. Some are on their 2nd time up and still enjoying themselves... despite your statement of "when it all starts to go South".

That's all how *you* felt about it. Do not presume to tell others how they will feel about it.

it's not casual friendly at all...

I guess you haven't been reading the comments of so many others who feel exactly the opposite. Again, apparently it's not for you. Obviously it is for many others.

it's a pure wow like.

Oh get off that mantra already will you people? No matter how many times you say it, it will  not make it true.

It's no more like WoW than WoW is like EQ and DAoC and UO and so many other MMOs that came before it.

WoW is a hugely successful game - to the point of being an anomaly in the genre. No one can argue this and no one in their right mind would.

However, no matter how popular or successful it is, it has not defined or invented the MMO genre as we know it. It has *popularized* it, and opened the genre to a wider spectrum of people who may have otherwise never played one - for better or worse. WoW certainly has its bookmark in MMO history. It has not, however, rewritten history.

Too many people have let the phenomenon of that game blind their ability to see things in perspective - aka Reality. WoW did not create the concept of raiding, nor crafting, nor PvP, nor questing, nor grinding on mobs... WoW did not invent the basic interface most "Western-Style" MMOs use (many Eastern/Asian style still use the click-to-move setup).  WoW did not bring *anything new or revolutionary* to the genre that did not already exist before and can be traced back to prior MMOs in some form.

Blizzard, themselves said this while it was still in development... They weren't trying to revolutionize the genre. They were merely taking what they felt were the best ideas from existing games and put them together into a polished, refined and more approachable game. That is exactly what they did.

To say LoTRO or any other MMO is a "WoW Clone" is the height of ignorance - deliberate or otherwise. The most basic research of MMOs that pre-date WoW by *years* proves this out.

What I remember was that people in LOTRO would group up to complete group quests on a casual basis.  Sure you can get a group to adventure with all day, but when you have a group quest people were very social about grouping up for 5-20 minutes to complete them and then move on about their business.  That is a strength I see over most other games out right now.  You don't have to solo all the way to the level cap, but you don't have to group either.  The players are casual enough to get together for common goals on short term basis.  Maybe that stems from the chapter storyline quests being pretty good and most people wanting to do them so there is usually people to team up with even if only for a short duration.  The whole world has a real feeling to it with the stories the quests offer giving a real good feeling of immersion. 

In other games EQ2 (WoW, etc) there isn't really any incentive anymore to group while leveling due to design and age of the games.  You will most likely spend levels 1 to max alone playing quests or killing things.  EQ2 is a group centric game revamped to try to be solo friendly and just kind of misses the mark.  It never really gave me the feeling that I was doing anything other than chipping away at levels until they ran out.   I enjoyed grouping and dungeon crawling in the game more than anything else, but considering it is pretty top heavy now I don't suspect much of that happens anymore until max level.

  If you can stand looking at what I consider to be amongst  the ugliest player models in any MMO go for LOTRO.(Vanguard saga of Heroes is the ugliest)

Originally posted by DonnieBrasco

 

Originally posted by eccoton

Originally posted by DonnieBrasco

 

Originally posted by eccoton

 At the upper levels of LOTRO you really have to group. In EQ2 you can solo almost any class to the level cap. EQ2 is a better ride for me.

Well, that is not true, plain and simple.

 

Even before the Angmar revamp, i soloed my LM to level 50, with close to no grouping. I admit, it was slow - compared to how it went from level 1 to level 42.

Afterr the Angmar revamp, it is perfectly easy to solo all the way up. It's another aspect, that the best content of Lotro is mostly available through group quests (not necessarily the book quests!), but saying that you need to group at high levels is LOTRO is not true by any means.

In EQ2 I only leveled to around 40, so can't speak for the high levels, but someone in this thread already mentioned how difficult it is to solo on high levels in EQ2... who is right, we don't know.

DB

Umm it is simply true, I never said it was impossible to solo. Sure you can grind to the level cap. You can do that in any mmo if you have the time. Like you said and many also say, post 40 the breaks go on in LOTRO. Also there is almost no specific solo content in LOTRO in the upper levels. Since they made the exp for killing stuff so low and based on quest turn in it takes forever to level at high levels solo. You also miss out on so much. Tell me what books you can solo at high levels? If you have solo'd both games to their level caps as I have you will find EQ2 is much more solo friendly. There is actual solo content in EQ2 at high levels. Sure there are some raid content you miss in EQ2 as a solo player at high levels but there is plenty in place to make up for it.

No.

 

You don't need to grind (meaning:  kill mobs for no quest reason) to level up to the cap. You can solo your way up by questing now.

Before the Angmar revamp, there were a couple of "gaps" above level 42/43 where you really ran out of solo quests. After the revamp, this gap is also filled, now you can quest your way up to to 50 easily.

And I almost forgot... within 2 weeks, book 13 is out - with a new area called Forochel, filled with a lot of solo 40-50 quests.... new players will actually need to drop even more quests on their journey, as their log will always be full (just like mine...)

Better be careful with firm statements when someone is actually no longer playing a game he/she is talking about....

DB

Yea you better be careful BD of what you say about others. I just cancelled my account a week ago so I would concider that a current player. I was also a guild leader and very very active in the game. I have been playing since release and have a level 50. So I do know what I am talking about. Maybe you should not make misleading comments about others. My opinion on both LOTRO and EQ2 are just that opinions which are reflected by many but not all. I recommend both games and called them both excellent. I also said they were both casual friendly. Did you even read my post? Look at my avitar I use here to represent me. I just feel from experience EQ2 is more casual friendly, (especially at higher levels) after all that was what the OP was asking. Getting to 50 in LOTRO for the "Casual Player" is not as easy and flowing as you make it out to be. However that was not the point. The point was what do people feel is more casual friendly. So need for the little dig at me in your last sentence.

Originally posted by XImpalerX

  If you can stand looking at what I consider to be amongst  the ugliest player models in any MMO go for LOTRO.(Vanguard saga of Heroes is the ugliest)

Awwww come on. I think my character's HAWT. Granted, she does wear a bit too much make-up >.>

Originally posted by XImpalerX

  If you can stand looking at what I consider to be amongst  the ugliest player models in any MMO go for LOTRO.(Vanguard saga of Heroes is the ugliest)

I do agree with this statement. LOTRO has fantastic looking enviroments but player models are indeed pretty ugly and have weak animations. However Middle Earth itself looks great.