All Posts by jeddak

Originally posted by elondor

I am from the UO generation, started UO around beta 2 and played for a couple years.  I am currently playing Lord of the Rings Online.  It is a really fun game, it is polished, graphics are by far the best you can get in an MMO currently. Gameplay is great, crafting is pretty good, not great but it's still good.

 

But if you are looking for a skill based system like UO, like the second post says, MortalOnline is what you are waiting for.. me as well, but it won't be out for almost 2 years.

 

try the LOTRO free trial, it's very good.

www.lotro.com

Also a lifetime lotr fan. Played UO from the beginning for the first 3 years. Miss the early days alot and have a brother that's still in UO after all these years (but he's playing lotr also). Hope that helps.

Tried EQ2 for the first 4 months and wasn't happy so I moved on but I'm glad to see so many enjoying it now but for me I'll stick with Lotr.

A year now and I'm happy (and with a lifetime acct). People criticize the pvp but I came for it and still enjoy it daily and the only thing that will sour me me on it in the future is Turbine. I'm happy for anyone that's found the game they love.

btw: lot's of folks left lotr for AOC and quite a few have returned but that's the world of mmo's. Some will never find their niche. Good luck to them though.

I didn't get into swg until nge (which I didn' t like) but I remember the love that many of my friends felt for the game.

I've felt that way many times in gaming.  UO, E&B (I still miss my animated characters on the character selection screen) and many other games that started out just the way I liked them and then we're changed.

I understand why those developers did what they did also but I couldn't live with it. Currently, Turbine is on their way to the same disaster with their pvp in Lotr (yes I know most don't agree it's pvp). I love the pvp.

I bought the game for it but I can see the writing on the wall as they plod along in their reactionary approach to development and in adding features none of us wanted (or even knew about).

 It's their game, I know, but I'd like to feel I am part owner (lifetime sub too) but just like Verant in the early days of EQ it's their game, their business and we are only the lowly subcribers. The unreasonable customer, one of the masses they can't possibly please without annoying many others.

I know you can't please everyone but sometimes I wish they could just stick to what they put forth in the beginning without taking anything away (or adding something that takes something away by proxy). It's an impossible dream and they have money concerns. And I am just one customer.

Admittedly, I like to read the forums (and I have no plans to play aoc) as I am an mmo junkie but remembering back to AO and the forums I can understand why funcom might be gunshy about the forums.  So I am reading these forums and am enjoying the descriptions and comments about the game. (sorry I skip the bad ones..I'm here for fun..not agony). :)

Lurking with no plans on playing but I am curious enough to see what others think. But I skip the negative posts as I am more interested in those happy with the game.

I love the fact that the game is still going and from what I read it is improving. Those first weeks of working together to solve those large cooperative quests was alot of fun. I do miss my dragon (left shortly after adulthood) and it's possible I might return one day if things continue to improve. If I wasn't having so much fun in my current game I would come back for a try. Keep up the good work!

Originally posted by Oyjord

Hi all,

 

It seems that LOTRO is almost the perfect game.  It has great graphics, great storyline, a nice loot system, and fun crafting.

 

It seems to me if Turbine just added a class or two, and really did something to ramp up PvP play, then they'd have the perfect MMO.

 

Sadly, it seems their greatest asset (the LOTRO IP), might also be their greatest restraint and downfall.

I enjoy the pvp alot and todays book does ramp up the pvp. But it's not traditional pvp as the 'heroes'  are inherently stronger in many ways. But that's ok as I enjoy being the evil monster fighting against things I can't comprehend and it makes you a better player. I actually look at the heroes as less skillful since the rely on many crutches learned during pve to survive. And that contrast between their powerful magics and our better skills keeps me interested.

Glad the op is happy about this. I don't do the pve but I can understand his excitement. I felt the same when I found a game I could actually play a monster in and I didn't have to spend weeks leveling via quests.  These new looks will be interesting but should cause little confusion in pvp as the players actions pretty well say who they are. But I already enjoy laying dead in a zerg of freeps listening to all the sounds, music, yells and all the pretty armors. Quite a change from the mp side. :)

I've often considered coming back (been gone since dragons could grow up) as I miss flying my dragon but sadly there wasn't much of a game to go with it. From what I read it seems dead but I will keep checking back.

I love the game and only play on the mp side and have for 5 months. It's not balanced but the heroes must have an edge to draw them to the moors. My weaver isn't much stronger at rank 5 that I was at rank 3 but we have some great battles daily (prime time at night is the busiest). It's the most fun I've had in pvp since Camelot and it's only going to get better as Turbine adds to it. But then Turbine is the worst problem as they seem to make changes no one wanted and the server gets in a tizzy as folks try to adapt (or give up without hardly trying). But I still look forward to logging in daily as a weaver (Prob the hardest mp class to rank). Now if only the server would come up from maintenance.

Mummy Rank 5 Soldier Weaver. Brandywine

Veteran of UO, EQ, EQ2,AC,Lineage,DDO,EVE and many I can't remember at this moment.

I love the pvp in the ettenmoors. Now it's heavily slanted towards the free persons but us dedicated monster types love it. So many in fact that Turbine is having to spend development time on the mp side on what orginally was supposed to be a side game. But I've been at it for 5 months now and play everyday. It's not for everyone and it's not your typical pvp as there is no real balance but if you ever wanted to be a spider, wolf, orc or uruk this is your chance. You just have to play a free person up to level 10 (fairly easy to do since that side of the game is quest driven).

Mummy. Soldier Weaver on Brandywine

From a pvp point of view which is all I play I have to say burglars are very tough to kill and cause havoc everywhere they go. Hunters tend to be looked down on due to their ability to desperate flight out of trouble every 30 minutes. Some use it if they even see trouble. Just my 2 coppers.

I just wanted to add (I also started on day 1) that I think it's great that uo is still going and that they are trying to get a new client going. Haven't been back in awhile (too busy with lotr) but I have  relative still playing who also started on day 1. He still loves the game (and the current destruction of magicia where folks are watching the city be destroyed and taking home rubble, trees ect to their houses) which is great.

Before trammel I hated it but it was a challenge and I miss it now. But it's gone forever and even if you organized folks and got them to return to fel there would be one thing missing...the victims. Without the folks who avoid pvp it's just open warfare where connection speed, exploits and just plain cheating rule the day.

So the old game is history and if orgin hadn't changed it the game would just be a footnote now. As it is it's a lesson for us all. If you play a game take the game as it is and stop trying to always remake the game in your image. That's why games tend to be clones of one another. We as customers buy the game, move in and start trying to change it to suit us. That's all I have to say, now if only Lotr's would come up from maintenance...Mummy.

I see lot's of new folks appear in monster play asking almost this same question. You play either Orc Reaver, Weaver(spider), Stalker (warg or wolf type to those that don't know about lotr) or uruk war leader or blackarrow. You are confined to one large area 'Ettenmoors' where pvp against the forces of good, (any of the people playing the main part of the game as champions, captains, loremasters ect). This freeps (free persons) come to the Ettenmoors to pvp against the forces of evil (creeps) once they reach level 40 or higher).

You start off at level 50 as a creep but with no ranks (roughly equal to a level 40 freep). Most freeps though are either level 50 or close to that and usually have many ranks earned after 50 so they tend to be much stronger than a starting creep.

Monster play can be frustrating and tough. You really should play a freep for awhile (you have to level one freep to level 10 just to activate the monster play button anyway) before trying the monster side. There is no real pvp balance and this balance tends to change from book to book (what the update patches are called). Generally though, freeps are stronger and will use their crowd control (cc) to hold you and then kill you. But as in most pvp it can come down to a numbers game. During the day it can be quite slow but you can do some questing to gain your maps (that allow teleportation to different parts of the moors). Later in the evening or on weekends it can get pretty busy on many servers (I play on Brandywine so that's the only server I know about). So it's either feast or famine.

But while freeps can advance though pve (fighting npcs) monster players can only advance by killing real players (the freeps) and it can be a slow process. So while I enjoy it immensely it can be kind of overwhelming to new players. So try to join groups, earn destiny via questing to buy skills) and jump in and be ready for a bumpy ride.

Mummy Rank 4 Weaver.

It sounds like you don't get much out of mmo's. I'm not trying to be insulting but if you are moving through games that fast then you probably just like to exhaust the content and move on (or get bored very easily). In the last 10 years most mmo's keep me interested from anywhere to 4 months to 3 years with quite a bit of time interacting with others. I suggest you try something else for entertainment so I won't bore you with what I have loved playing and am playing. Good luck.

I played the first 10 levels (just to get to mp) and never talked to a soul. Got a few blind invites but that was it. But to some that's a bonus. :p

Now I know it's a crime to like something but I do think highly of the game. But admittedly my perspective is skewed. Not because I'm new to mmo'ing (10+ years of daily playing from UO, EQ's, AC's, AO ect) but because I got the game only for one reason: monster play. Now I not a big fan of pvp and the only other time I liked it was in Dark Age of Camelot and then only in the battleground for levels 20-24. That small part of the game was the kind of pvp I liked. Imbalanced, unfinished and temporary (too most).

Now it's back with monster play in the rings. Imbalanced, unifinished and temporary (to most). The free peoples 'freeps' rule when they venture into the Ettenmores as the monsters are weaker comparatively to the powered up 50's that mostly venture into fight. You wouldn't expect anything else would you? It's human nature: must win and any cost. And when I say any I mean it as a well organized freed army can wipe the field with the usually smaller numbered and weaker creeps. With their 30 second constant stuns many creeps leave in disgust before they get very far into that part of the game. No one likes to lose especially badly. (Nerfs are coming..time will tell how that goes but I'm not holding my breath).

The creeps start at level 50 and that's great. All you have to do is make it to level 10 as a freep and in you go with 5 classes to choose from. So if you think about it it's no wonder the freeps are strong, they should be after grinding 50 levels. Now when I say grinding I am probably way off since I can't stand questing. Even good questing as those first 10 levels were. The game is well populated, well designed and a pleasure to behold especially when you enter a larger town like Bree. But enough about that. As I said you start at 50 after only 10 quick levels. But if I had to guess (and this is a very vague guess due to my lack of pvp experience so far) I'd say a level 45ish is probably close to being equal to the monster 50 but I may be off as much as 5 levels in either direction. Now after my first night of MP although I had fun I was disheartened that I'd spent so much on the game. After all I had said I would never play Lotr but like usual I jumped in on a whim (mostly due to my extreme boredom with DDO after a year and a half (good game but I was tired of it). So I posted on their forums (Lotr) and was set straight as most posters due on forums very quickly.

Now a few days later and I love the MP. I'm still not rank 1 with my spider (barely half way) but I have a few new skills (you get skills by earning destiny (from combat and questing) but xp is measured by infamy and that as far as I know can only be gained by killing freeps. And being a fringe player being a spider I tend to get small does of it so it's going slow. Comparatively others get 60 or more from one kill while I get 1-8 and I can see why. Front line creatures like the reaver can charge in and due massive  damage with a finishing move but they are putting themselves out there as there isn't much healing on the monster side (at least so far..I hear orc shamans are coming).  Many MP's are stalkers (wolves) as they are stealthy and deadly. But I'm a bug at heart so it's spiders for me. And I can't wait to keep changing my appearance (can look black eventually) and gain some more powerful skills. But it's not for everyone. I spend lots of time in a burrow waiting on the right opportunity when I'm not on the fringe of a large battle spewing poison and web.

And the game itself is not for everyone (like anyone is) but its build for the masses overall but monster play, well like someone said last night, "How do I get out of this land so I can go back to the fun part of the game?". And to many this will be what they find in monster play. A tough road but I have to laugh as the apparent fun the freeps are having in slaughtering us monsters. But I can tell that in the next few months that fun my be tempered by some death and destruction brought on by the monsters. Like one monster said, "You just don't know how to play yet". And this is true as well as you are pretty weak when you first start. I am hopeful that will change over time. But for now I love it.   Mummy level 50 weaver.

The reality is that our expectations as gamers far exceed what is possible for a mass appeal game. There is a lot of originality out there but most of us wouldn't even try it so why would a developer risk millions on something completely original? They would have to be driven by someone with a vision, the money to back it up and the luck to hit the scenario that would satisfy enough folks to be successful. Or as I heard once and love to quote badly when talking about the strange beasts gamers are: We have met the enemy and they are us.

Just reactivated my swg account. Now thinking of deactivating it. Their may be a good game in there somewhere but the horrible interface hasn't changed much. And mobs still appear several seconds after you enter an area, force lightning still arrives well after the mob is dead and once again I found myself trying to access the menu on a mining machine and couldn't get it to pop up. I could go on but my point of view is fairly limited so I'm probably not being very fair but hey: this is what anyone new is going to run into and my prior experience didn't seem to help much. And I was really in the mood for some star wars.

UO was the best gaming experience I've ever had  but it was also at times the worst. It was wide open and chaotic like the myth of the old west and it didn't take long for the more nefarious gamers to exploit it to their full advantage. The outcry that came from it easily topped anything that has occurred since which forced OSI down the eventual path the game took. So while I miss it I also know it was poorly designed and doomed to fail in it's original form.  Which I imagine spurred Verant to take the anti -uo path with EQ which has endurred ever since to become the safest way to develop an mmo. I can't think of anything that has been super successful since that has varied from the well worn path. And I am still in love with the skill based character system over level based and still hold out hope for it to reappear in a successful game.