I don't think I'll get into the beta, I was honest with my application. I have no interest in checking for bugs, I wrote that I'd like to play before hand to decide whether it was worth the money to buy the box. lol.

Even Spamming wise it's not that good...It's a shame not to be able to shout out questions without having to pay 500vis per question.... There's a lot about the game that I don't know, and as the OP mentioned, noone talks, so I don't know where to get my answers.

They are all Asian Grinders, but PW has the most customizable characters, so I'll go with that.

I don't see how anyone can make it to level 95, I got to around14 and was done. It's your typical Asian grinder, where every character is a clone.

That's what I was figuring... A buttload of goblins, orcs and Trolls but no Balrog.... Maybe there are lesser Balrogs though, for the poster that wanted to fear something like that!

If your character is always a bit behind the fellowship, then it shouldn't be realistic that we face a Balrog in Moria..... Unless they are a dime a dozen.

 I myself enjoy LOTRO as well as tolkien's writing, and to me the game comes across as a good mix of what people liked of the movies, and of the original writing., With that said, however, I feel that if someone has to 'sell you' on a game, then the game is most likely not for you.

Originally posted by rejad

I was more interested in UO2.  Have always lamented it being canned before even being released.

I was hoping for UO2 as well, and then Ultima Odyssey X, both canned before being given a real chance, and UOX was in development and hyped more than UO2 and it looked to be a brilliant free game in the vain of Guild Wars, it's truly a shame neither came to be.

As for AC2, I had wanted to try it but when there was hardly ever any positive feedback, I never gave it a chance.

Interactive Dancing? How is that done in an MMO? Dance Dance Revolution style?  Hit the corresponding key to match where the decapitated heads fall?

Originally posted by dcorleone75

I dunnno, I'm not a fan of skill-based MMORPG's.   Problem is that without classes, everybody takes every skill they might need, so everybody winds up the same build.  In theory it's a good idea, but in practice it tends to make everybody very generic and cookie cutter.

Whereas in a more skill based game you could have a spellcaster putting a lot of points into spellcasting, lore, tailoring and more intelligence based skills that improve spells, whereas another spell caster might also put a lot of points into spellcasting, but place points in alchemy, and magic resistance and healing.. They'd both be effective spell casters but one would be better at resisting spells, creating potions, and using bandages to heal. (But they'd both have the same number of points to work with, IE 700, with each skill having a max of 100 that you can put points into)

I saw the WoW/Anime/Guild Wars similarities as well.

I've read claims that this game will be similar to UO, in the fact that it will be skill based and not level based, but I will believe it when I see it.

I don't mind the hunt X many of this in order to attain a deed, that's not the kind of grinding that bothers me. What bothers me is the ludicrous number of times I have to use my skills to unlock those traits. I think if the trait in question is too powerful to lower the number of times used, then they need to increment it, use skill X, 50 times to unlock the lowest trait for that skill, then 75 times for the next step up. Progressive.

Originally posted by pencilrick

Originally posted by Jackdog

So who is forcing you to follow the story? Play any way you want. You can sit in the Prancing Pony, play on a musical instrument if you have the talent, and do nothing but craft. You never have to do a single quest, or go past lvl 1 in combat.

There are more RP tools in LoTRO than there was in the original SWG in my opinion if you know how to realy RP that is. Unless of course you want to be spoonfed your role playing LOL

So who is forcing you to follow the story?  Dev's are, if the create zones that cannot be exited until some chain of quests is completed.

Play any way you want. You can sit in the Prancing Pony, play on a musical instrument if you have the talent, and do nothing but craft. You never have to do a single quest, or go past lvl 1 in combat.  You do if you want to ever get to the Prancing Pony.

There are more RP tools in LoTRO than there was in the original SWG in my opinion if you know how to realy RP that is.  How does RP have anything to do with linear quest-driven game design.  That's not RP; that's following directions given to you by the game.

Unless of course you want to be spoonfed your role playing LOL  Spoonfeeding is what you appear to side with.  What I am talking about is a free, wide-open world with dangers and challenges.  You're the one who appears to be "spoonfed" and knows little to nothing of RP.  All of your arguments really should be directed at yourself.

I do not RP, but I don't harrass anyone that does, I simply follow the trail where the story leads, pick up the side quests along the way, craft, farm, gather armor and weapons, and enjoy the game as is.

With that said, most MMO's have quests and storylines that need to be completed to advance to end-game. UO being the exception, at least the last I knew it didn't really have any quests, storyline, or end game and was really open to allow the player to do what they wanted.

Originally posted by Wrender

The best asian type game out there is without a doubt Lineage II. Throw everything you thought you knew about MMO's out the window if you give this one a try!!!

Crafting in particular was one of the worst I've tried, only dwarves can craft armor? Give me a break?

L2 might have good PvP, but I'm not into that. I like questing, exploring, story, crafting, PvE etc And L2 is very limited in all of those categories.

I know most asian games are grindy, but there are times that I find that a relief from the current trend of rapid leveling in more current western MMO releases.

Now that doesn't mean I like grinding out my levels forever, I just think that western MMO's should slow the leveling down just a little bit.

Oh, I definitely understand the 'running out of funds' point. But I'm still curious about how many people they actually have working on the game? 15-20? 50-100? If it's the former, how can they be expected to find all of the bugs, I have always assumed that was the driving force behind opening the game up to beta testers... But I've already admitted I don't know how it works, and I could be wrong.

to the OP, I can only share what I experienced in Beta, as I didn't buy the game.

From what I recall the combat was involving. It was kind of button mashing for combo's, you could move away from attackers to avoid being hit, much like DDO. I didn't notice any melee combo's for spell casters, but that's because the beta only let you get to level 13, so I can't say that spell casters did not get combo's later on.  As for spellcasting itself, if you've played a spellcaster in any other game, I'd say it is par for the course.

As for quests, many of the quest givers have the standard Icon over their heads, and they were more of the same, go here-get that-bring it back, go here-kill that-report back etc. I noticed that after speaking with most of the quest givers, that many of the quests themselves were instanced.

I saw absolutely zero crafting in the beta.

The graphics were stunning even on medium, but my PC ran sluggish, and the graphics weren't so great on low.

I know I didn't answer all of your questions, but I tried to give you the best I could from what I recall.

How many people do they have working at these companies? Can they find all the bugs and imbalances in their game through to the current end game that will launch?

Granted I am not in the gaming industry and don't have insider information, but I was under the impression that the main reason for beta testing was due to the fact that most of these companies aren't more than 15-20 people working on the game, and therefore they open the game up to 1000's of testers to help find bugs and imbalances, etc.

In my last post, I was basically implying that if you have a large number of 'fanbois' testing the game, fans that have been following a game for some time, many are going to be blind to anything but game stopping bugs.

Is a bad launch always the game makers/publishers fault? Couldn't a buggy launch, with unbalanced classes/game play also be partially due to bad beta testers, failing to turn in unbias opinions and bug reports?  Just a thought.

Before anyone asks, no I didn't preorder or buy the game, because I played it in Beta and knew that it wasn't worth upgrading my laptop or PC for, when both of my machines run LOTRO just fine with amazing visuals, but I couldn't run AOC at all on my lap top, and it ran sluggishly on my PC.

With that said, I did enjoy myself a little in the beta for 10 levels. But they were some of the fastest levels I've EVER played in an MMO, and from what I'm reading it doesn't appear to slow down much after that either. And even if my systems could handle it, I agree with the OP that it's not worth the money.

I thought the story and quests were decent  for what I played in Beta, and the visuals were amazing even in medium  settings, but were downright crap on low setting. Other than button mashing for combos/fighting , decapitations, vulgarity, and nipples ( none of which does a thing to make the game a better game than any other MMO), I didn't see anything that was groundbreaking or new for the MMO genre. Even climbing points wasn't new, I mean DAOC has climbing, and has had it for some time.

Sorry, but when a game like this is hyped as much as it is, IMHO the game should offer something new to the genre, other than what I mentioned above, and I just didn't see it.