General Discussion

Originally posted by boinged
That was a fair review. Graphics are good but they're not exactly Oblivion-like. The attention to detail in Ered Luin, Shire, Breeland is amazing (ie up to level 20). Sound and general atmosphere are convincing and draw you in. It has a few new features: traits, monsterplay, instruments, smoking, sitting. But it just doesn't push the envelope which can be seen by reading between the lines of the review:

* very little avatar customisation.
* classes are the same as other mmo's except they have different names.
* crafting is simplistic, not even worthy of a description.
* there are the same kill 'x' bears quests although sometimes these are chained.

There are reviews of the game on other sites already so I trust Donna as much as Eurogamer etc. More as she is a MMO specialist.

Scores are realistic based on the current gen of hardware - an old game might get 10 for graphics if it pushed your Riva TNT2 to it's limits. Mid-range hardware has improved a lot since WoW, DDO & GW were reviewed.

oblivion isn't a MMO so you can't compare it with LOTRO, we talking about games like WOW getting score of 10 on graphics and LOTRO getting 8, its ridiculous

I see two Main problems here:

1: Kostika Did not actually review the game, but instead listed its feature rather than reviewing and giving opinions on those features. It is an excellent step one, there is a great deal of information about the game, but it felt like reading a Game manual, rather than a Game review.

2: I believe Kostika is attempting to give a real, honest review score based on personal standards and expectations, which is truly commendable. Unfortunately so many reviewers hand out 9's and 10's as if they were candy, that they have lost all meaning, and if a game these days does not receive 9's and 10's then the audience takes that as a negative . Back in the day, reviewers would refuse to hand out 9's and 10's to games on principal that no game should be able to attain a 10, and that a 9 should mean something.

If you are willing to stand up and give an honest score, set to stricter standards than your peers, then you should also be willing to critique and review the game, rather than acting as a game manual substitute.

~ Ascii

Not a review at all.

Just a shallow re-hash of the information on the official LotRO website.

I suspect that due to 'Advertising Dollars', we will NEVER see a real Review on MMORPG of any game that has even the potential of giving money to MMORPG for advertising.

I also suspect that due to 'Advertising Dollars', many games that should not even be listed on this site as MMORPGs, are here.

Just my 2c.
I find the community Reviews here much more interesting; including the ones from the Hate-Boys and the Fan-Boys of all the games.

Good Hunting

Originally posted by Thorsnes
Thanks for your understanding, Jive, and that sentence made me laugh bigtime. Dead-on!

May I join the club? :)   And I'll repeat another well said thing:

Originally posted by Cerion

So what I got out of this review and subsequent explanation was this:  "I don't want to appear to be a fanboy, so I will lowball the scores."

If you represent one of the biggest and serious site about MMORPG you have no right for "just an own opinion". People have some expectations and authors - responsibilities. The rating in this "review" will be now the rating of mmorpg.com not the score from Donna Desborough and every mark has to be at least explained.

I played open beta for 5 days and then got bored.

I think the ratings are too high. The game is not that good. I would say it is definitely better than WoW though.

Clearly graphics are sub-par when compared with EQ2 graphics. EQ2 being almost 3 years old have much better looking graphics.

And the game play is a carbon copy of WoW and EQ2. There is nothing new here.

It is a carebare game.

I wouldn't buy it.