All Posts by sbowling

Originally posted by PinkCat

Also it will mess with WAR subscriptions to some degree. Many people are going to play WAR as a temporary filler while they wait for their beloved Blizzard:WoTLK. Im one of these individuals as well as my whole guild.

I agree, I ordered WAR last week and EA still hasn't processed my order, so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be getting into the head start thing, Wouldn't be surprised if the WOW patch comes out before I get into WAR.

EA it's because we're lame.

People still play this game? Are the 4 postitive responses all the players there are?

With al the boo-hooing going on around here, I thought I'd chime in and say that I've been playing since release, and I'vebeen having more fun than ever recently. Just started my rogue character recently, and it's been a real blast. As for Paladins not being able to solo, I've got a LV 61 paladin that I've played solo through 99% of the game.

As for "anyone being able to solo better than someone who playes solo"... well, the guy who said that is an idiot!

Originally posted by Jetrpg

Originally posted by slntnsnty
Have to admit giving WoW a higher score on graphics than Lotro is pretty screwed up.

How old is Wow now?

This also depends a lot on what you consider to be good graphics. The graphics in this game are more realistic, but they are also very dull and uninteresting. On top of that, all the characters and all the buildings look the same. The graphic creativity in this game is almost non-existent. The graphics in WOW are brighter, much more creative and make the game world feel much more alive. There is a huge difference in every detail from one town to the next, where as in LOTRO, it feels like they too the same houses and just rearranged them for each city. I would still give WOW a much higher rating as far as graphics go. They didn't use a million polygons on each character, or every graphics effect available in the game, but they were very creative with what they did use. This also means that the game can be played on older systems without huge lags, which can't be said for LOTRO which lags even on more recent systems.

I will say this is the best game turbine has made in a while. The graphics are better than DDO (even though they look like crap on the web site), and the world is definitely bigger and more open (after you get out of the beginner area). There are also all kinds of things to adjust as far as settings go(you can even turn off the god awful player music). That is pretty much the hi-lites for the game. 

Things start of with a very linear storyline, and then goes of into Extreme boredom. If you are a fan of EQ2, you might like this game, but fans of World of Warcraft will find the game, the textures, the characters, the story and the quests to be very dull. There is no life to the characters, the animation is fairly poor, the armor tends to make your characters look more retarded than cool (I have not seen a character wearing a helmet that looks anything other than retarded), and quests are very repetitive and dull. The crafting is just as dull as in EQ2, but it seems to take much longer to collect your materials. Mining nodes, for example, are spread very far apart and produce very little ore. You can spend several hours running from mine to mine and only have enough ore to create a single weapon when you are done. World Of Warcraft players will see obvious rip offs from from the game, which are nice in some areas (similar shortcut keys for example), but it usually just makes the game feel like it's trying to be a WOW clone. Combat in the game can be done by simply starting combat, then going through the number keys to use the "special moves" with no skill or thought required. at all. The fighting animation is dull and lifeless, and the death animations are just as bad. I guess the biggest problem with this game is that you feel like you you are sitting at a computer playing a game the entire time you are playing. There is absolutely no immersion and you really don't feel anything for any of the characters in the game.

Overall, I was Bored of the Rings long before the open beta was over and found it to be a chore just to get myself to play for an hour toward the end of the beta cycle. This game just wasn't fun for me and really lacks everything that makes WOW so much fun, even though I've been playing it since it was released. There is very little to do in the game, other than quests, and they just aren't very fun.

Wel, after trying out the open bet, the game does look a little better ingame, than it does in the screen shots on the web site. The graphics are improved dlightly over DDO, but, the character faces are still pretty lousy and the hair is still terrible. Character customization is very limited. For the dwarves, the only thing changin the head type does is change the nose. They should have named it Nose type.

After playing for a while it's pretty aparent that this game is pretty much a WOW clone, without allt he stuff that makes WOW fun. Again, like DDO you are locked in astarting area, and can't go out and explore the world, like you can in WOW. The characters and stories are dull, and the quests are boring and repetitive. Overall, if you've played WOW, this game has nothing new to offer and you will get bored very quickly. If you liked DDO, you will probably like this game. I'm just glad I didn't have to pay anything to play this game. Overall, this game is a slight imporvement over other Turbine games, but not by much (And mainly because they ripped off a lof of character actions and such from WOW). 

Originally posted by Kyleran

Amazing what some folks will write.  I was very impressed with the lighting actually, in one case I watched my shadow change direction, shape and size as I moved through a swamp and it was incredibly realistic.  The characters don't look "retarded"...they actually look pretty much like you might expect them to ...down to earth and realistically modeled.... not everyone can have a "he-man" physique you know know.

Turbine has done a fine job with LotRO IMO..... and with a free trial coming up on Friday...anyone who is even remotely interested should give it a try...(but 1 million people..on just 7 servers?  That sort of boggles the imagination..... lets hope they open up a few more)

Oh yes, to keep on topic... good article actually, pretty much spot on with my experience so far....

Well, you point would be valid if I was talking about shadows, but I'm talking about the big dark blotches on the front of the buildings in the shire (and everywhere else) when in direct sunlight, not to mention that anyhting not in diect sunlight is black. The shire video on their wbsite for example shows a bright sunny day and big black shadows on anything not directly in sunlight. Go outside and look at the shadowed side of a building on a sunny day to see what I mean. This is completely unrealistic and anyone who has the slightest idea how to light a 3d environment shouldn't have these problems.

As for the character's looking retarded, have you seen the screenshots on their web site? The humans look like they were pulled straight out of DDO, and the monsters are... well, retarded looking. Not scary, more of a sad  "I don't know what I'm doing, but I did my best" kind of look. And, of course, we have the dwarves. Acvtually it's a normal human with short arems and legs. Can't get more retarded looking than that. Pull up any illustration of a dwarf from any fantasy book and you can see how lame the Turbine characters are. There is not real art involved in the creation of these characters, The characters aren't interesting in any way, they don't evoke any kind feeling other than... it's just a character. Compare that with the characters for games like WOW or warhammer or the art from most any fantasy novel and it's obvious they are very short in the creative department.

Originally posted by xAlrythx

You mean based on the books. Turbine don't have the movie rights. Duh.

Oh and if you had any clue as to what the game is like and how much Turbine has done things RIGHT this time around. You wouldn't be posting your inaccurate assumption.

No I mean the way the movie looks. It doesn't matter if they have the rights to the movie, they will still be compared to the movie and they should at least make an attempt to make the game look decent. This game looks just like DDO, which looks like crap. All the characters look horrible, the animation is bad, the lighting is pathetic, and I would guess the voice acting is just as bad (The trailer was laughable). It's become obvious from the many turbine games I've played that they take no pride in their work and really don't care about anything onther than getting your money.  They definitely don't seem to be learning anything from their past games. It's been all down hill since AC2.

Best part is that if you go to their forum, they're all full of porno ads.  Way to go Turbine! I knew we could count on you.

Originally posted by LordAvaril

Im Kind of Interested to see how Far this game could Go!!

It very well just might Blow WoW out of the Water or sink like a stone I guess we just wait and See

 

It's Turbine. It will probably sink like a stone. So far the game looks like a turbine game. The characters all look retarded, and the lighting sucks @$$. It looks like they are so afraid of this game doing the same things that DDO did that they want to charge for a lifetime subscription up front. Even if you stop playing the game after the first day, you are still a subscriber for life. It's all a ploy to beef up the number of subscribers even if you don't like the game. Although, with Turbine's record you would be a fool to plop down $200 on this game.

It's a real shame that a game based on LOTR with such beautiful movies and books got handed over to turbine.

BTW, this message board system SUCKS @$$.