I think this game has slipped under the radar a bit. I have recently DLed this little gem and I have to say its been a real blast to play so far!

 

Ive been playing MMOs for aorund 7 years now and I havent seen a game quite so interesting and detailed! The anime style is very gorgeous,refreshing,and very detailed!

 

The quests have been a blast so far, but this game does take a bit of getting used to, and a bit of research goes a long way before playing! I recently read most of what I could on the main website and theres even a little help section located in the games directory under "Web" that has categorys for which you want to learn in a general matter about the game.

 

The game is still taking me a bit of time to get used to, but thats the fun of this little gem! While it does harbor reminiscent  gameplay borrowed from other MMOs, this title seems to take the best of whats out there and makes it work in the steamworld! You will see a lot of different systems borrowed form previous titles, and a few twists to them as well as interesting systems devised for steam itself.

 

While for the most part gameplay is rather smooth,the point and click is one of the less desirable ways to move for certain gamers,including me. But they have their own take on the WASD movement that takes a bit to get used to, but with a little practice will save your index finger form having to keep the W key pressed at all times! Sorta works as a auto-run WASD movement system, which isnt bad, but tends to be a aquired taste for some. Im finding it to be a decent WASD system so far, but still taking a bit of time to get used to!

 

So far the quests have been rather pleasant and not hard to find things IF you actually read the directions. Loot system is great and seems to be right at or above normal loot dropping in a lot of games played. Theres a big big selection of loot and craft items,as well as quest items obtainable even when you do not have a corresponding quest to cover! This means you will in fact score soem quest items, even if you dont have the quest, which can make for a even more pleasant questing system rather than the stale visit NPC,get quest,run to get quest items,return,reward. If you save those items you get it can be more like this, Loot a bunch of quest items, run to town and see which NPCs need them,reward!  You get a lot of variety in how you want to do your quests which makes it fun, and efficient in some cases.

 

I do try out many games when in CB,OB or launched to see how well these games play against others for gamers who wish to have more systems and content to play with, and this little game is one of the better ones Ive played in a while!

 

So get the word out cause Neo Steam is a game that needs to get more publicity and deserves it in a big way! Give it a try and if your worried about Dling this title, let me tell you, Neo Steam uses the Neffy plugin system for DLing game clients. Rohan is another who uses this service and has been one of the best utils for getting games faster than conventional methods! The title took me a whopping 2.5 hours to get on a 768kbps DSL line! Most of the time without Neffy itll take me almost 4-6 hours to DL, so give it a try those of you who have 1mb lines and higher, shouldnt take you but 30 mins tops to get and start playing!

 

Spread the word NEO STEAM is worth the DL!

 

I to will agree with Bren also, cant beat it if ya love questing,crafting,socializing and more. Very easy to get into and doesnt take long at all to pick everything up. Im currently playing and new content coming in june is going to be pretty impressive to say the least. Theres 2 more content updates scheduled before winter hits,late fall at best. Things are starting to slowly change to keep things fresh so expect some good stuff soon. If you love grouping then this is the game. Give it a try and Im sure youll love it especially if your new to MMORPGs.

I want to be fair to how i post on LOTR:SoA. I want to start off by saying the game is a real blast to play,somewhat polished,very immersive and this game has got me reading quest storylines again! Its is a fairly great game thus far. I will not BS you and play out a fanboy review as this game is not what you call extreme PvPer friendly! Monster Play however gives the players a chance to play as the good or bad guy and offers a new side to things imo. While you can control a bad guy and level him up,enhance,get skills and so forth it will not be near as immersive as your regular toon (but thats a opinion,Ive heard otherwise by PvPers a different story thus far.) But this is more for people who dig PvP and will give you a fix of that! The scale in which MP will grow is probably going to be huge as theirs alot that will be added later. But if you are a gamer who loves tolkien and loves lore,as well as questing,crafting, youll love LOTR.

Alot of people will say that the combat is system is a bit bland, but once you hit higher levels every little HP you can save will help. Thing is people just stand and fight head to head when in fact you can dodge and help keep your toon from gaining additional unwanted damage! Strafing helps,and trying to maneuver to the backside of a opponent fast enough can help in striking at the right moment. I think the combat system will definitely evolve in time over updates and expansions. For now though the world is quite huge but no where near done if one takes a look at the map and see that the portion of the game existing atm is only like a fraction of what will be!

The new update coming in June,as well as 2 more updates scheduled before winter hits, is already showing new things and systems being put into place. If turbine keeps this up you will more than likely see that the portion of the game now is more a teaser to whats to come in the later development of this game. While not next gen, or ground breaking LOTR manages to take what made other MMOs great and fine tune,tweak and make it a game that will eventually have the best of the best systems involved. But whose to say that the expansions may not be grounding or next gen? Could very well be a possibility as Ive heard they plan to play this thing out a long long time! I can see that happening to!

As for the Hardcore and PvP players alike, right now LOTR may not be the thing for these types of players. But i ask those who do get into PvP to atleast give the monster play a chance as its been getting alot of attention lately and the wars have started to become very interesting! Aside from PvP.PvE.Questing,Crafting,and Immersion this game is going to be one of those games like EQ where it will span across expansions and only get better and better with each new update, as much as Ive seen whats coming so far. This will truely be a great MMO that will evolve,change,enhance,grow and will offer alot of systems we love and some that are quite unique and keeps that hook expanding through out. Yeah I can see LOTR going the distance, but it will take alot of special players who believe in Turbine to take it to that next level every time. While Im new to Turbines games, I can honestly say they have a great history, and for the price (if you preordered and got founders privliges) its one of the best MMOs Ive played so far! I do see this game expanding and going into new places but it will take time,and it will take alot of patience and dedication within the community to see it through, but so far so good!

Wanted to add you cant beat this game if you preordered and got the lifetime membership,well worth the price! hopefully alot of people give it a real chance as it is becoming something very special atm.

Took a break form LOTR:SoA and thought i would check up on some other new games coming out soon. No Im not bored of LOTR yet,heh. Its been a pretty good game thus far and have been enjoying it, but wanted to catch up on some news about other games to see whats up.

Perfect Worlds, yes Alot of buzz about this game going around circles easily. Definitely will watch this one when it does get ported.

As for the doom and gloom of imported games, most of what some of the people have been saying is true to a certain extent about imports. But those who pay to even have alot of stuff changed are also finding out that the Korean Devs can be real pricks at times with their code, and at the end of the day if you pay to have anything changed to their game, they can still say yeha or nah to those changes you want.

Ask David Perry about that on 2Moons! Oh yeah theres alot of changes coming to that game,once DP can convince the changes to be made to the devs. And slow? Yeah one poster hit it on the nose. Korean games are dedicated to nothing else but their clients. You get a import better pray you get one that has a good dev team willing to go the extra mile to ensure you get timely changes and good content. Last game i think i played in the F2P realm was Rappelz and to be honest those guys did a decent job of trying to get content to that game as fast as possible, but most of the time your lucky to see ANY Korean made game get anything in less than 6 months to a year sometimes! But so goes the F2P market, you get what you ...pay or not pay i guess,heh.

Overall the games are cookie cutters of not as much the graphics(some yes) but the systems they use are pretty much the same and limited. Sure they will provide some sort of hook but overall your getting a game thats been done a million times only with a few neat things here and there and nothing game breaking. But for mindless fun F2P is where its at for alot of these games, and can be a blast to play if you dont take it to seriously about content and so forth, after all it is free.

To those who didnt care to much for LOTR:SoA. Yeha for the most part you could say boring from the beginning tutorial part of the game(think its like 1-3 levels) but I actually found LOTR to be more of a PvErs and Questers dream. Im sorta a middle of the road player who trys to adapt to everything i play and generally try ot find thr good in every game ive tested. I have to say LOTR is far from boring when put into context of what type of game it truely is. Most PvPers will hate it without even giving the Monster Play a chance. While not a total PvPers dream in Monster Play it does offer a chance to play as the bad guys and level,enhance and do pretty much the same you could with a normal toon to some degree.

LOTR however isnt ground breaking or offers next gen. But what it does try to offer is systems thats been proven to be tried and true and popular. I got a good glimpse of what the next content update will have and its pretty obvious the devs at Turbine are definitely gonna cram in alot of new systems in the future and ideas that will change and enhance alot of the gameplay. But this isnt a game where you buy it,and its completely finished either, this is a long haul process to this MMO where things are changing everytime with each new update and new systems put into place while advancing forward to keep it fresh.
like I said its not everyones cup of tea, but boring? Not so much as some MMOs ive played but to each his own.

As far as Spellborn is concerned It could very well be a pretty good MMO to, IF they can get that deck system to actually work accordingly and make enough sense that a player doesnt feel like hes playing YuGiOh or Pokemon. Overall I liked what they have being doing wiht this game thus far and it could very well turn out to be a really good game to. But comparing this to LOTR is like Apples and Oranges, while Spellborn will have free reign to do what they want, Turbine will pretty much have to stick to Lore to pull ahead. But that shouldnt be a problem as theres tons of ideas that can spring from lore. But will be a bit tightly done than the free reignb Spellborn has to some extent. Either way Both games looks great and LOTR is a pretty good game in itself atm, I can only imagine that Spellborn will also deliver to specific crowds to.

Yeah i think AoC may have what it takes to bring in the PvPers, but atm Im having a hell of a time with LOTR:SoA. Couldnt believe that game got me interested in reading quest text again. If anyone hasnt played it yet I recommend it for Lore and PvE as well as  quest storyline, alot of new content on its way and shaping up rather nicely for a great MMO(but dont look to anything next gen,it does however takes the best of the best and makes a pretty solid MMO out of it despite having to stick to lore).

But yeah had my eye on AoC for sometime now since i knew who was devving it. If they can turn a great game like Anarchy Online into a long running MMO I can almost bet AoC will live up to the hype as well. FunCom has always had quality in mind when making games so this one should be a real treat. As for Vanguard, possibly SOE can salvage some of the code and models or world and try another go with a different title, but its a shame that fell through cause it had alot of potential and coulda been the next EQ.

[edit] Just checked out the screens, man what a beautiful work of art. On the other hand I can see many a middle of the road PC chugging to render this game! But then again i thought LOTR was going to be a chugger and turns out it isnt. Could be a real winner from what Im seeing so far.