Lord of the Rings Online

[Harovan]

Will do this evening (well... when it's evening for me).

Btw, BIG scandal on codemasters.com and other forums: The Collector's Edition does not contain a cloth map of Middle Earth, but only a paper map of Angmar (thick paper... they call it "parchment" ). Many people bought the CE just for the cloth map and are up in arms now. No official statement yet, but it looks like scam.

Well, well... there are several rules...

Never play on patch day.
Never play the first month after release or even pre-release (yea I know, I know...)
And never buy anything but the Standard Edition

[Harovan]

Lag hell Bree (pretty much the capital of the game as it is now).

[Asher]

I don't think you have bump mapping turned on.

I forget which setting it is, but it needs to be set to Very High.

[Harovan]

A camp with quest NPC in the Old Forest (a nasty place if you're solo)

[FrostyBoy]

WoW doesn't have bump mapping, so this will be an enhancement.

It appears there is more detail in the landscape than WoW, good!

How about the body movements? Fluid or WoW like?

[Asher]

Animations are fluid/lifelike, pretty well done.

It's a very pretty game. Runs well, too.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Asher
I don't think you have bump mapping turned on.

I forget which setting it is, but it needs to be set to Very High.

It would be nice if you could be a bit more specific which setting it is. So far I'm only using the general graphics quality modifier.

[DrSpike]

Let leave to one side for a sec how pretty the flowers look.

The key question has to be, what do we know about the gameplay from experiences so far.

Is it predominantly solo gameplay to max level WoW, or (relatively) more grouping required like VG?

How many instances etc? How many people?

Is the endgame raiding, PvP, or something else?

[Asmodean]

For that matter: Are dungeons instanced, or free-for-all?

As Spikes said: How many ppl to a full group?

How good is the guild interface?

Any new ideas (like for instance caravans like Vanguard will have them some time)?

Asmodean

[Harovan]

Here's my take on it.

It has an epic quest line in it, which is about 50/50 solo/grouping. You can solo most group quests too, but at about 5 levels higher (where the reward becomes obsolete) but it is usually not hard to get groups. Other quests are about 75/25.

Dungeons are 100% instanced, which disappoints me a bit. And there aren't many dungeons, haven't been in one for days. The epic quest line is also heavily instanced.

Overall quests gain you XP but little money, free solo hunting and/or harvesting gains you money but little XP. Find your mix as it suits you. Many whine about too high skill and repair costs, but these whiners are just XP-greedy, which means they don't farm enough. People not opposed to grinding (like me) have an advantage here, I don't suffer any lack of money whatsoever.

I play on a German non-RP server. It's already now very populated and in burstling cities (like Bree) there are some performance problems. The community is mature so far (except few whiny brats "wah wah you mined my node!!!1!"), probably since the game is RP-heavy and item-light. But the situation on other (especially english speaking) servers may vary. I met that observation in other games too (particularly Guild Wars), the community on German servers tends to be nicer than on English (international) ones (and that's sincere, no troll).

From what I see now in the boards (I'm only level 18), endgame content is non-existant. Pretty much all content above level 40 is lacking. It's planned to add that in expansions (which are partly free). It will be raiding content. There is a modified/dumbed down PvP in the game already now (you don't fight other player characters, but monsters played by other players). As soon as your main is level 10, you can play a level 50 monster in a special zone. Other players/groups can fight that monster. Player characters can participate at level 40+.

[Harovan]

To Asmodean: 6 people per group ("fellowship"). The guild interface is abysimal (while VG's is just bad). And so far I have seen nothing revolutionary new. As Jamski mentioned, it is a neat little piece of fun, nothing epic, at least not yet.

EDIT: Oh, and tradeskills are an absolute joke, it's WoW crafting dumbed down (one click, 100% success). Nothing Vanguardish, let alone EQ2-ish.

[DrSpike]

Sounds like they have a solid foundation. But if I want to play an MMO I may as well play Burning Crusade I think.

[DrSpike]

Plus this thread gives me a chance to post this, which always makes me laugh (yes I know it's puerile ).

http://www.expectnothing.com/pub/posts/attached/0002k1cc.gif

[Harovan]

Wersts bard evah! My lute play is so horrible, that nobody hears it and lives!

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Plus this thread gives me a chance to post this, which always makes me laugh (yes I know it's puerile ).

http://www.expectnothing.com/pub/pos...d/0002k1cc.gif

Have seen it before, but....OMG WTF lolzzorz, it's teh pwn

Asmodean