Originally posted by Gorwe

I'll preface this by saying I played this last time somewhere around last April.

I loved the interpretation of LoTR and the classes and the world graphics and the RP and the crafting. However, there are things I disliked:

-character models and animations: they all look samey, lack of Armour customisation, and stiff as hell animations. I don't remember ever seeing so stiff animations both before and since playing LoTRO.

I disagree in many parts but the one is worst. I Play lotro in last 2 years, with some pause, but you not only dye your armor, you change apperance of many things as you wish, no fee, or pay and get much more forms change the aestetics char.

You change:
Armor color
clothing color (many sets available free)
Make use the appearance of pieces of armor w/o use in the char.

ABOUT COMBAT

Yes is slow paced, but not frozen in on place, you move if you wish and it make some diference in fight. The animation is very better now.

Low population in the low lvl areas is comom thing in old MMOs, some news mmos still try make the start places more useful in high lvls with no much success.

I recommend LOTRO for a long time. I tested much of new MMOs and ever back to Middle Earth.

Originally posted by InFlamestwo

Originally posted by mymmo

Originally posted by InFlamestwo
Deosn't feel like lotr. A good company should make a new mmorpg called Middle Earth

Haha. You are funny. What is the lotr feeling? 

 

- Persistant and dynamic open world with beautiful and overwhelming artstyle.

- Heavy graphical effects.

- Few quests. Questchains that goes on for many hours, that tell stories of events in middle earth.

- Better character models and character animations.

- Random scripted NPCs.

- Hidden/Random/Zone/World events.

- Better crafting, different styles for each race and more realistic.

- Action oriented and fluid combat.

and more.

So the game doesnt feel like middle earth because it was made in 2007 and doesnt have "dynamic events", which have yet to make a game world feel more realistic.  It could happen some day, and i do like the mechanic, but they havent been done in a realistic way yet and probably never would be.

And action combat?  Tolkien's world appeals to an older set of gamers.  Action oriented combat would be a horrible idea.

You want an over the top game (overwhelming art style with graphical flourishes in a game world meant to look not that different than Earth?) within a setting that screams subdued.   

I do agree with the racial crafting though.

Unless they fixed what stopped me from playing this last time, let me clue you in.

As a new character, the game sucks.  There are hardly any players in the lower and mid-levels, and even when servers like Brandywine had higher populations, it was hard to get groups for long chain quests in certain areas, and people are often in difference places in the long chains making it worse.  You end up having to skip over a lot of content and miss rewards.  What really made me quit was the class quest though.  You need a group for these at certain points as well, and getting one together was tough if not impossible. I spent two weeks popping into the game trying to get help with my first big class quest, and no one would even respond.  I logged off, cancelled and uninstalled.

If you are lucky you will find a friendly guild that will take the time to walk you through this stuff, but that's kinda lame too, since they will be OP for the content.  In my opinion Turbine needs to make some adjustments to their group chain quests for new players.

I just got done playing about 4 hours that just flew by. I tried this game a couple of times before and thought it was boring and grindy. So far, they lopped the grind out of the first area and really streamlined the quests. For some reason, the combat  seems smoother, too. But it's not the main selling point for me. 

The character animations, etc, that other people have mentioned are the weak point. The graphics look a bit dated. But I'm a guy with Vanguard on my computer and I'm giving that a long hard look as well. There is something about games that are a little older that is missing in the glossy new games. It could also be my age of course. I'm pretty sure that's a factor, since I'm on the older side of gaming. 

I also have Rift, which is a beautiful game. It's just that the grind to 60 feels so tedious. I don't know what it is. There is so much I like about Rift, but the grind in the xpac was unexpected.  Still, it's a good solid modern themepark. 

And the Secret World. Great game with some problems (pvp for me as a Dragon) which I'm sure will get settled over time just like all the other games. 

The thing that all of these games (the ones I'm really thinking about carefully before I make a real commitment to one --- well who am I kidding, I'll probably keep dabbling in all of them) seem to have in common, judging  from my brief experience, is a decent mature community.

I rambled a bit, but I want to come back to the point that after just rolling fresh toons and trying LOTRO with an open mind, I have found that it's changed a lot, at least in the tutorial/early phase. Just right there, smoother and way less grindy. If you haven't tried it for a couple of years, it's worth doing so.

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Unless they fixed what stopped me from playing this last time, let me clue you in.

As a new character, the game sucks.  There are hardly any players in the lower and mid-levels, and even when servers like Brandywine had higher populations, it was hard to get groups for long chain quests in certain areas, and people are often in difference places in the long chains making it worse.  You end up having to skip over a lot of content and miss rewards.  What really made me quit was the class quest though.  You need a group for these at certain points as well, and getting one together was tough if not impossible. I spent two weeks popping into the game trying to get help with my first big class quest, and no one would even respond.  I logged off, cancelled and uninstalled.

If you are lucky you will find a friendly guild that will take the time to walk you through this stuff, but that's kinda lame too, since they will be OP for the content.  In my opinion Turbine needs to make some adjustments to their group chain quests for new players.

They made the epic quests soloable, and 85% of the quest content is already soloable, no reason to change the other 15%.

Also, Brandywine is rather easy to get groups for midlevel content.

Originally posted by strangiato2112

Originally posted by MindTrigger

I spent two weeks popping into the game trying to get help with my first big class quest, and no one would even respond.  I logged off, cancelled and uninstalled.

They made the epic quests soloable, and 85% of the quest content is already soloable, no reason to change the other 15%.

I think he ment CD / Uru at the lvl50 class quest, and that's a valid point, not many people does that nowadays and you can't solo it either (to be honest I didn't tried it now with the cap of lvl85, but I think it still needs at least a duo). Too bad, because those 2 are pretty decent instas.

And it's not a new problem, it was there even before Isengard, you barely could find a group for it, that's why Turbine put the items in the skirmish system too (which is a bad response to the issue, but sure it's easier to them than find a way to redirect players into CD / Uru :) "here, you can grind for it if nobody wants to group up for a run").

Originally posted by Po_gg

Originally posted by strangiato2112

Originally posted by MindTrigger

I spent two weeks popping into the game trying to get help with my first big class quest, and no one would even respond.  I logged off, cancelled and uninstalled.

They made the epic quests soloable, and 85% of the quest content is already soloable, no reason to change the other 15%.

I think he ment CD / Uru at the lvl50 class quest, and that's a valid point, not many people does that nowadays and you can't solo it either (to be honest I didn't tried it now with the cap of lvl85, but I think it still needs at least a duo). Too bad, because those 2 are pretty decent instas.

And it's not a new problem, it was there even before Isengard, you barely could find a group for it, that's why Turbine put the items in the skirmish system too (which is a bad response to the issue, but sure it's easier to them than find a way to redirect players into CD / Uru :) "here, you can grind for it if nobody wants to group up for a run").

You can buy the level 45 class quest items, which you are referring to, in the skirmish camp for skirmish tokens instead. And skirmishes are soloable. 

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by Po_gg

And it's not a new problem, it was there even before Isengard, you barely could find a group for it, that's why Turbine put the items in the skirmish system too (which is a bad response to the issue, but sure it's easier to them than find a way to redirect players into CD / Uru :) "here, you can grind for it if nobody wants to group up for a run").

You can buy the level 45 class quest items, which you are referring to, in the skirmish camp for skirmish tokens instead. And skirmishes are soloable. 

Reality check (as your sig says :) ), well, I think I wrote the same...

"that's why Turbine put the items in the skirmish system too (which is a bad response to the issue, but sure it's easier to them than find a way to redirect players into CD / Uru :)"

Yep, the same.