Surprisingly,  the negative reaction here to the review by Dana makes me want to play LOTRO even more!! I'm serious.  The emotional, irrational rage some of you have intrigues me to the point of unbridled curiousity.

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Originally posted by velebnicek

It seemed that no matter what I was doing, the monsters around me were always in my general level range. "That's just good game design," Jeff Anderson told me.

So they pushed the easy button for a player. No probs, don't worry, mommy won't let you have a problem and won't let you die.

Sounds pretty boring. Excitement from being attacked by a killer monster (for your level) and dieing, escaping or even managing to kill it (with or without group) is more valuable to me. And what's wrong with mixing monsters and therefore players of different levels? Be careful, smart or form a group or ask higher level to help you. And learn something from higher level ppl in the process and watch their uber-weapons and spells. All that sounds way less boring to me than "my general level range".

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Sorry but looks just like WoW to me just without pvp.

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Originally posted by Calandryll_T

If you all liked what you read in that article, I'd highly recommend signing up for the Beta if you haven't already. We're going to be inviting a bunch of people over the coming weeks and months and it's a great opportunity to play the game and form your own opinions.

http://www.lotro.com/betasignup

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Originally posted by Gorukha
  I dont see how the game is like WoW at all.

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Same old mass market mmo... I have been looking forward to Lotro for so long... bloody Quest Grinding again! I'm sick of static Worlds with mobs nicely mapped out with weak AI :(

Where is that virtual World we all dream about?

No innovation here, just the same old dry template with Tolken characters and landscape

What a dissapointment!  

Good review. 

But I very worried about the lack of characterisation. 

 I want Lotro to be not just a petty/fun MMORG I want it to be a world where I am immersed in the storyline and the world. 

 I want to create unique characters that are persistent in Middle earth for a long time.  I want to play my part in the fight for good against the "gathering of the dark" integrated in the storyline but with other PPL as well as solo play.  

So important for me are the ability of customise the appearance of my avarter.  Also I want to live in Middle earth and will need a guildhall to meet up in and some real estate (perhaps to craft a dwelling) where I can keep items and memories.

I am worried that Turbine might be tempted to position Lotor in a solo direction in the thinking that they have group play covered in DDO. This sort of thinking seems weak to me.  Cant see how a game charging a montly fee but that feels like a good offline game can have a long life.  and dont believe MMOs are a mature enough to  have this type of  market segmention.

Maybe this stuff wont be aroung at launch and I'll try it because I am a Lotr fans.  I just hope Turbine has a develope plan for lotro that is going keep me playing for years. 

Sturmrade, you seem to be posting quite a lot of responses to a game that you aren't even going to try. And I am infering that you think EQ was the greatest thing since sliced bread. You position against this game is wobley at best.

I enjoyed the review and having not yet gotten into the beta, it makes me want to play it that much more. Sounds like they reverted to the tried and true potatoe head format of character creation. This aspect will hopefully be overlooked by an abundance of equipment models. And as you said there is no reinventing of the wheel. What people must remember is, yes they want to make a truly great game, however, you'd be acting naive to say money was not a motivation. Over half the people playing an MMO are playing World of Warcraft. So to try and immitate the simplicity of WoW is only natural, you cannot fault them for that. The tricky part is adding innovations without making things complex. Is it complexity what I want? Damn straight. I'd love to see more difficutly. But bottom line,  the average player doesn't want complexity or difficulty.

I hope they pull in a fresh batch of MMO players into a pretty stagnant player base.

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Originally posted by Cerion
Surprisingly,  the negative reaction here to the review by Dana makes me want to play LOTRO even more!! I'm serious.  The emotional, irrational rage some of you have intrigues me to the point of unbridled curiousity.
 

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Better that it follow the footsteps of World of Warcraft than that of EverQuest.  EQ was all about work with very little that was fun.  Its mechanics fostered addiction with meaningless time sinks and well manicured deterrents with its whole flagging system, key system and raid centric gameplay.  While WoW ends up being raid centric in the end, up till 55, it was a very fun game, despite all of the hand holding / petting zoo quests and zones.

I will definitely give this game a try, but only if they reward all play styles equally.  If I'm forced to raid in order to get the best gear, then they can take a flying leap off a very tall mountain.  If group instances take more than 2 hour chunks of time to finish, then they can take another flying leap off a very tall building.  If solo content is nothing more than a time filler till you can get a group or raid, then they can burn in hell for all eternity and they won't get a single dime from me  : )

In other words, I have a lot of expectations that have to be met before I'll fund another MMO company.  I am not at all happy with current MMO paradigms, the sheer eliticism and caste like systems they foster are not appealing.

great game but pointless preview...Dana...you waffle on saying nothing about the game except that it is like every other fantasy mmo you have played - In other words only EQ?

I wanted to know about how the combat works. Is it as good as DDO (which I rate the best combat system available for a fantasy mmo)?

What made the game true to the Tolkien books? Is there the poetic history imbued through npc lore and intereaction?

What about weapon and armour and magic items? What is the core game mechanic in relation to this? Is it simply ripped off from WoW?

I am sure this game will be fantastic - just wish the previews could be too.

Thanks for the article. I think it is a pretty fair and balanced review. 

Regarding innovation, what are people really looking for here? New game mechanics? New combat styles? (Went over real well for SWG :)   New crafting systems?  New settings?   I see people dissing lots of games for lack of innovation, but is this just jaded players saying "show me something new?"  What exactly is it everyone is looking for?

Regarding character creation, maybe they've got some amazing thing up their hobbity sleeves and they don't want to reveal it yet...hehe who knows. 

I will say, Turbine is very responsive to feedback, they seem to read comments on their forums and probably places like this and take it to heart.  I believe if they will be able to meet and exceed expectations.  They seem very smart, and after dealing with a certain ruthless mmo company, they just seem soooo nice and for me that means alot. 

Well I'll wait for future reviews of how crafting, PVP and other aspects come into play to make my final decisions.  But from what I gather from this article, its just a WOW clone.  

Quests and Levels , bah !! Man i so wanted a more open world like Ultima Online and the game being skill based.  I'm so disappointed. 

I see the game like all the current MMORPGS, just with different graphics and a different title.  In all honestly, the game looks like fun, might be enjoyable , but won't hold me in for long.  This first review doesnt offer me anything fresh or innovative.  I myself may not purchase it just for its name if its just gonna be similar to WOW which I played for 2 weeks before I got bored out of my mind.    

I guess I'm just too old school and spolied from playing Ultima Online (Pre-Trammel).  I hate to bring that up, but its the truth.  I've played alot of MMORPGS since and only played SWG long term.  Most of the others just a few weeks.  Hope this game turns it around and I will wait for further reviews before passing my final judgement.  So far i'm not impressed.

One other thing, I don't like scaled AI.  I want to have challenges and figure things out for myself.  If I want to fight a dragon at LEVEL 1 then I should be allowed to.  Thats what a real world is like.   I don't need someone to tell me to kill 3 damn spiders and search a corn field.  I like to do whatever I want.   If I come across some Trolls at a cave, I want to make my own quest, find my friends and say, "hey , I found these trolls in a cave, i need some help to take them down and then see whats in the cave"  Stuff like that, stuff that Ultima Online Offered.  And in my opinion, anything that doesnt incorporate something from UO is a step back in innovation.   We used to make our own player run quests for crying outloud.  Ouch, after typing that paragraph, I think i'm out of luck enjoying any of these new MMORPGs.

Thank you Dana. I felt like that was a well balanced and fair review. The only conclusion I have drawn is that this is a game I will buy and play----for a little while, at least. A truely emmersive game is rare. I've played them all, but only a couple held my attention long enough to begin to ruin a marriage or have my kids hate me.

Let's hope this game lives up to its apparent potential.