Lord of the Rings Online

[MrFun]

Damn. I don't know why, but at work on the Internet when I hovered over the top icons on LOTRO's website no drop list appeared.

Here at home, it works just fine.

[Asher]

Originally posted by MrFun
Damn. I don't know why, but at work on the Internet when I hovered over the top icons on LOTRO's website no drop list appeared.

Here at home, it works just fine.

^^^^ This is why WoW has 11 million subscribers.

[Jon Miller]

I saw it in the store, it looked sexy...

I bought WotLK though

JM

[Boris Godunov]

Asher, you play MMORPGs? Ohhhhhh how my idolized image of you tarnishes...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Asher, you play MMORPGs? Ohhhhhh how my idolized image of you tarnishes...

I play some MMORPGs, you name yourself after a third-rate Opera. None of us are perfect, except for those of us who are.

I only play them because of peer pressure. Some of them are pretty good...they're like Fable II but with unsexy people and phat loot.

[Asher]

Best expansion EVAR.

Trailer: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/42840.html?type=

Some reviews:

http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/reviews/5483-LotRO-Mines-of-Moria-WarCrys-Official-Review

http://www.massivegamer.com/gamelist.php?game=8&section=features&view=34

Mines of Moria Preview: Awesome Sauce
The expansion to Lord of the Rings Online was worth the wait.
By Sanya Weathers

First, a confession. In LotRO, I have a variety of 20ish characters, but none any higher. I have a variety of excuses, ranging from being a confirmed deed log dork who must complete every deed even if it means farming gray mobs for hours, all the way to a slight crafting addiction requiring multiple alts. Anyway, that meant that I had to review Mines of Moria with a press account character. As a friend of mine puts it, using a media toon is like driving someone else’s car. As fun as it is, the thing isn’t YOURS. And it’s worse with an MMOG, because every scrap of experience, every deed, every hour I spend adding depth to the character is ALL WASTED. It’s not MINE. And the time I spent running around on this strange 50th level guardian was time I wasn’t spending on my own characters during Double Experience Week. I suffered for you, dear reader. Oh, how I suffered.

Lord of the Rings Online is aimed at a very specific audience. Oh, it’s a great MMOG all on its own – lots to do, nicely planned zones, great resource harvesting/crafting – but the meat and potatoes of this title is the lore. You are in Tolkien’s world, during the time covered by the trilogy. And in this area, Turbine absolutely nailed it. No matter what else you might say about the game, it is the world of the Ring novels come to life.

They also nailed something a lot harder to manage than tone and ambiance. The thing about MMOGs is that they are virtual worlds teeming with people, every one of them a special unique snowflake who wants to be the hero. This is easy to provide, in a single player game. In a multiplayer game, people still need to be heroes, but they cannot be, say, Aragorn. Or Frodo. Or even Samwise. LotRO strikes the perfect balance, in big ways (the main quest line always supports in some way the main plot of the books), and in small. For an example of the latter: Remember how, in the book, before they go into the Mines of Moria, Samwise tells Bill the Pony to go back to the Shire? And after a whole bunch of novel, there's a note that Bill made it, safe and sound? Right. Okay, were you enough of a nerd to wonder how the hell Bill the Freaking Pony made it halfway across the continent, alone, and in winter? Seriously, look at a map. Ask yourself how a pampered Shire pony did that.

Okay, now, go into LotRO. In the little town at the edge of the new zone with the mine, there's a quest guy, and he says, paraphrased, "Hey, I was wandering in the trees over there and I saw a pony. He's tired and hungry and scared, but I think it's that wacky Samwise Gamgee's pony, Bill. Can you go get him? We can get him home.” That, y’all, is the awesomeness of LotRO. You are not going to chuck the ring into Mordor stew. But you ARE the one who gets the pony home.

Anyway. I thought that previewing the new expansion was pretty much going to be the high point of my MMOG year. I was right. Before we get started, I’ll lay a spoiler on you: Aside from the biggest WTF moment of my gaming life, wherein I damn near drove to Massachusetts just so I could punch someone in the junk, I believe that this expansion is the best MMOG expansion ever. Read on.

I collected my press account level fifty, a dwarf guardian named Fange. He was equipped with several different outfits worth of gear, a pony, and a quest item that let me map into Hobbiton. Remember that. Because I wanted to see as much of the Mines as possible, I barreled into the main quest line. This caused me physical pain. The area outside the mines is filled with new quests, two mini-dungeons, and the Black Pool, and every quest warns you that you must complete it before the gates are opened. Yet every minute spent on a side quest was one less Moria corridor explored. So, on to the Black Pool!

Although I don’t normally play a dwarf, running around this zone with one was kind of awesome. Serious dwarf pride, you know? KHAZAD-DUM! About to open! Carts, pickaxes, the comedic stylings of cart pushing dwarves made for an exciting scene. The guys chucking rocks into the pool added a certain sense of dread, but hey, I get it, only so many pickaxes to go around.

The quests built up a major sense of expectation. Everything I did took my character that much closer to opening the fabled gates. Did I mention this was an instance, so *I* was the key to success on this expedition? The timing, the design, and the pacing, all perfectly done, building my excitement into a state of pure nerd fever.

Finally, there I was, swinging a pickaxe, personally clearing the rubble before the jewel in the crown of my people. In seconds, the dreams of my people made manifest would appear before my very eyes. Or, in slightly less dorktastic terms, I was about to rampage through the biggest dungeon in MMOG history with a souped up toon.

And then the Beast attacked! Tentacles everywhere! Helpless dwarves flying through the air! Oh, the dwarfanity!

I fled to the outpost for help. But before I could return with reinforcements, the battered remains of the expedition spearhead arrived. Our weapons were useless. Clearly, a new kind of weapon was required. And TOTALLY COINCIDENTALLY, a new cache of weapons rumored to be of legendary quality had been recently discovered. And since I’d been so helpful, they gave me one.

The only downside was that I needed to get back to Thorin’s Hall to have it analyzed before I could use it. Okay. No problem. I’ll map bind to this location, and then I’ll just activate that map I was given to port myself back to Hobbiton, and ride my own pony from there. My thoughts were on that unopened gate for the whole ride, so it felt like it was taking, oh, for freaking ever. But I activated the Legendary Axe of Holy Crap Awesomeness, and I even read all the text explaining the many features of this Sharp Edged Chunk of Full Metal Ass Kicking.

And then I discovered that I had to level the thing to tenth before I could get back to the Black Pool and the Gates of Moria.

*spinning record being halted with a scratching screech*

What?

I had to what?

My comrades bleeding by the pool, the brand new expansion featuring the zone I’ve been dreaming of for a year just beyond that battle, and I gotta level grind my freaking axe? Not only that, but all those new quests with monsters that gave experience to my level fifty self were gone – evaporated when I cleared the rubble and kicked off the beast fight. I had to level my weapon in the old world, with my brand new highly anticipated expansion being dangled just outside my reach.

Now you see where the junk punching would have come in. And I hadn’t even bought the expansion. I was previewing it for free.

This is the kind of jaw-dropping bad planning that sinks lesser expansions. I don’t know how this got past the play testing. I don’t WANT to know how it got past the play testing. I sat there for several hours, slaughtering yellows and oranges, pissing and moaning the entire time. It probably would have gone faster on a live server or in a group, but on the test server there wasn’t another soul to be found while I was enduring this celebration of suck. Worst case of mental blue balls EVER.

By the way, the legendary item system, with its gems and runes and settings and titles, is actually really cool. And I’ll get a bit ahead of myself and tell you that once inside Moria, the leveling pace makes a lot of sense. It takes enough time that you feel like you’ve accomplished something of value. However, there are a lot of quests and random loot drops that grant item experience, so you’re moving along at a decent clip. I ended up leveling my axe AND a belt up pretty high in just a couple weeks, and I have no complaints about the leveling pace at all.

OUTSIDE the Mine, it is exactly the grindy hell you think it is.

But finally, FINALLY, I returned. My weapon was mighty. I personally chose to dump the weapon’s spec points into raising its DPS, so what I had was an obscenely fast two handed axe. I went through tentacles like a sushi chef. I began to recapture that thrilling feeling of being in the story and in the world, although not quite at the high level I was feeling before my grind-a-thon.

And then… there I was, in the footsteps of the Fellowship.

I am totally not kidding, I choked up for a second. I was talking with a friend the other day, and he was wondering what the effect of WoW’s expansion would be on this game. I’m going to go out on a limb, and say that Lich King isn’t going to affect the core LotRO audience at all. The people who are just playing whatever MMOG suits their fancy of the moment, sure, they’re going to go play the expansion that gets write-ups in the mainstream press. But the people who choke up when they see Moria? We wouldn’t care if Blizzard sent us hookers and blow with each box of software. Not that Blizzard sends that stuff to anyone. You don’t need to woo individuals when you have three million box sales of your expansion pack. And that’s totally okay, you know? Blizzard does something awesome for a lot of people. If you love the Lord of the Rings, though, and if you love your fantasy with a little less… orange… in the palette, you aren’t going anywhere else this winter but Moria.

Especially because it is a giant Costco-sized bottle of awesome sauce.

It’s everything the press previews from the summer said it would be. It’s massive, for one thing. Other games only think they’ve got big dungeons. The scale of this baby has to be experienced to be believed.

It’s beautifully written, for another thing. In most MMOGs, you really get a sense of the writers trying just a little too hard – to be funny, to be in character, to fit neatly in the stereotype of Fantasy Fiction. Not here. The writers were pitch perfect in every way. If you blow through the quests, just clicking “accept” on everything, you may walk away feeling like you have just done a ridiculous number of “kill ten goblins/bugs/orcs” quests. And, um, to be honest, you have. But if you read the text, you also feel like you have been talking to characters right out of the books. There's a sense of immersion, of being in the story, as opposed to a reinvention of the quest wheel.

It has the feel of a true labyrinth, and there are plenty of moments where you can see where you have to go, but not immediately how you are going to get there. There is a great sense of never knowing quite what is around the next corner, but it’s all so wonderfully designed that there is almost always something around that corner; a new monster, a quest item, a new location to fill in on your map. The vastness of the scale makes it all seem a bit empty, but there are actually plenty of monsters.

Let me show you the scale with two simple screenshots:

This is the first zone you encounter. It takes ten minutes to run across if you never stop, never gawk, never fight, and if you know exactly where you are going.

Uh huh. You can see how far I got by the little flags. It is a bit of a challenge, at level 50. I leveled up while still in the first major map section, which made exploration a little easier, but still hazardous. I didn’t get to half of Moria at all, because I simply couldn’t survive the trip.

They have a neat little feature, befitting an expansion of this scale: tour guides. These NPCs give directions when you’re standing by a giant crevasse and your map says your destination is close by.

There is a less than neat feature, though. I mentioned that this thing is huge. And while I’m a fan of running through a new place on foot, I’d really rather take my horse the second time, let alone the second millionth time. Since this expansion is strictly for the high level players, it’s a sure thing they all have their horses. Yeah, well, guess what you can’t use in Moria. There are stable merchants selling rides for 35 silver, and the beasties are the most adorable and appropriate animals you can imagine. But I really had an expectation of being able to use my horse. I am told there is a quest to get your own Moria beast, one I never did find before I had to start writing this article.

It’s probably for the best that we’re all using our own two feet at first. And moving at a slow pace, there are thousands of small details that you’ll notice, and wonder at.

While you’re admiring the view, remember that there are no handrails. This was a design decision, and one that feels terribly exciting. It's nerve wracking, running over the vast chasms, but the bridges are very wide, and during hours of play, I came across one little collision error - and it wasn't even on a bridge. But it’s easy to forget what you’re doing when you’re still excited from a recent battle. Learn from my example:

I barely touched the new trait system (lots of presets you can set and change out your options to suit the circumstances, it looks like), preferring to focus on the Legendary Item system. That’s an entirely different article. But it’s great fun to play around with all the options, and the option to reforge at any time makes it fun instead of a matter of min maxing life or death. Quests reward you with item experience, as I said, and random loot drops give you bursts of experience points for which you determine the target. You can disable leveling for all of your secondary items, if you choose. The first quests for new titles that you encounter in Dolven View look pretty awesome, but despite being orange at 51, I personally was not able to do them without being zerged and running for the door. It’s a solo instance, too, so no fancy item titles for me until I hit 52. Gosh. However will I keep myself busy until then?

It is impossible to overstate how much fun this expansion is. If you love to quest, great – many (most?) are solo quests, and they’re all written with a wry humor and style that makes questing a delight. If you love achievements, sorry, I mean deeds (I sure hope Blizzard said thank you to Turbine when they launched their achievements last month), you’ve got thousands more to gain. If you love to explore, this expansion delivers. In hours of wandering, the sense of discovery never flagged for me. The sheer variety is pretty astounding. The pacing is solid – just as you are bored to tears of grodbugs, you turn a corner and see your first Moria Rider. When you’re sick to death of vaulted ceilings, you walk into a magical garden. It’s all so brilliantly executed that the initial fumble with the weapon leveling becomes all the more confusing. But after a few hours of magic and wonder, one tends to be forgiving.

At one point, an NPC in the Chamber of the Crossroads (not too far from the Tomb of Balin, as the crow flies) says to your character, “Is Moria as grand as you expected?”

More than I ever imagined.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Asher
I play some MMORPGs, you name yourself after a third-rate Opera. None of us are perfect, except for those of us who are.

Now now, we both know that you don't know enough about opera to judge the rate of any of them.

I played the demo for WoW. I didn't see any point to it...there's not any story, it's just all carrot-and-stick questing. Are other MMORPGs any different?

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Now now, we both know that you don't know enough about opera to judge the rate of any of them.

I played the demo for WoW. I didn't see any point to it...there's not any story, it's just all carrot-and-stick questing. Are other MMORPGs any different?

No, at least 99% of them.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Now now, we both know that you don't know enough about opera to judge the rate of any of them.

I played the demo for WoW. I didn't see any point to it...there's not any story, it's just all carrot-and-stick questing. Are other MMORPGs any different?

What do you expect me to say about the story behind LOTRO?

[vee4473]

Bought the early upgrade , downloaded a few days ago, got the 9.99/month a while back(29.99 billed every three months) and ready to go. Although I have a few more days to level to 50...at 47 now (got sidetracked by some other games before xpak went live and those ever present alts).

Looking very much forward to the legendary weapons, seeing what the runekeeper and warden are all about, crafting guilds and everything else.

The game really is beautiful graphically. I was in the Forochel zone over the weekend taking advantage of the bonus XP wekend and I was in awe of the icy environment there.

As for storydriven MMO? Well, aside from how well some of the private instances are in certain book quests (starting as a human right at level one you are thrust into it) , the books themselves are the definition of storydriven mmo gameplay. Even though I can't always find a group..There are of course plenty of the kill x crap quests, don't get me wrong.

Lotro buries WoW as a PvE mmo, unless you consider repetitive raid grinding as awesome PvE. The original game of lotro has 14-15 books worth of storydriven non repetitive questlines to go through aside from the tons of regular quests.

I did the last quest that sees the fellowship off from Rivendell. So much is well done in this game that it boggles the mind that it could be called a wow clone. Go past the UI and it's just leagues above and beyond. Just my opinion of course.

[Asher]

Mine too.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Asher


What do you expect me to say about the story behind LOTRO?

Ok, that's not what I meant, though. Does the player participate in an actual story arc? That doesn't happen in WoW--it's just endless quest after quest, which rarely if ever have anything to do with previous quests and certainly don't comprise a plot of any sort. There is, I suppose, a story behind the entire world itself, but the player doesn't really seem to participate in it.

Maybe I'm asking too much of this type of game, though.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by vee4473
Lotro buries WoW as a PvE mmo, unless you consider repetitive raid grinding as awesome PvE. The original game of lotro has 14-15 books worth of storydriven non repetitive questlines to go through aside from the tons of regular quests.

Ok, that's more like it. To me, WoW seemed like a bunch of 14-year-olds running around challenging people to duels and using U R GAY-type insults on random people. And yeah, the questing was both pointless and tedious. I could care less about leveling up for leveling's sake, I play RPGs to feel like I'm engaged in an actual storyline.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Ok, that's not what I meant, though. Does the player participate in an actual story arc? That doesn't happen in WoW--it's just endless quest after quest, which rarely if ever have anything to do with previous quests and certainly don't comprise a plot of any sort. There is, I suppose, a story behind the entire world itself, but the player doesn't really seem to participate in it.

Maybe I'm asking too much of this type of game, though.

That's one reason LOTRO is superior. The player is actively involved in the storyline as it progresses -- they're called "Books" which contain a collection of quests/epic quests/and some raids. They all tie directly to the LOTR books.

When the game launched it had up through "book 8". Through free content patches, they added books 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15. These constitute the "Shadows of Angmar", which include all of the stuff in the LOTR book seires up until the fellowship enter Moria.

As you much expect, this expansion deals with their adventures through Moria. There's the typical MMORPG quests, but the main meat of the storyline progression is done through the new Books ("Volume II") which reflect the storyline again.

As the review I quoted indicates, there's also lots of subtle "unrelated" quests which are really related to the story line (eg, the "find the Bill the Pony" quest).

[Jon Miller]

I really liked that about it. I enjoyed exploring Hobbiton.

JM