Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

[SadExchange]

Although I wasn

[Hurlshort]

I agree with your synopsis, but my main complaint is the tiny size of the gameworld. I got into the closed beta and was blown away by the story telling aspects and great low magic, combo style combat. I really enjoyed the game up until level 15, but then I relized how tiny it is. They show the entire Middle Earth map, but the only areas accessible for retail are places like Rivendell and the Shire. Gondor, Rohan, and Mordor are all missing. I'm sure they will add them eventually, but as of now they only have 1/8 of the Middle Earth map completed. Exploration is a big reason I buy MMO's, and this world just seems too tiny.

[Tigranes]

I'm in the stress test as well but I haven't been ablet o play it yet. my friend (who was in the earlier beta) will play it along with me this weekend, so I'll come back after and give my thoughts. The stuff about grinding is great news as well, because the only MMO I played extensively was Guild Wars, which is similar.

[Hurlshort]

I'm in the stress test as well but I haven't been ablet o play it yet. my friend (who was in the earlier beta) will play it along with me this weekend, so I'll come back after and give my thoughts. The stuff about grinding is great news as well, because the only MMO I played extensively was Guild Wars, which is similar.

 

I wouldn't go in with the expectation that the game is similiar to GW. It's very different.

[Gorgon]

I played Guildwars a lot and the most enjoyable time I had was main quest instances. The quests, of which there are hundreds are all drab repetative things you accept without ever reading what are about. It does have a rather egalitarian theme to it as you will be able to get first class gear practically without farming. The stuff that costs 100 times more just looks different, so you can tell the l33t from the mere mortals.

 

What I would most like to see in a MOG are quests that aren't stupid and an involving main story line, as well as competative gaming elements.

[SadExchange]

After playing a few more days in closed beta and seeing the other side of spectrum, not dealing with hundreds of people running around every single place you go and before you say something, I realize that this is what a MMO with hundreds of people, but hopefully you get my meaning. Anyway, after a few more days, experiencing more and more quests for the different races, I still have to say that the story aspect of the game, with the quests and all, is quite interesting how Turbine tries to connect everything together. I wouldn't go as far to say that LOTRO is like Guild Wars. I spent a bit of time with GW and it's first expansion and can't really see the similarities. Although there are some similarities with GW and other MMO's, there are just too many differences to really compare them in my opinion.

 

Hurlshot, I see your hesitancy with the smaller than normal area for a MMO, but Turbine has promised that they're going to be putting out expansions that expand the territory quite fast. Whether that's a good thing or not, I don't know. You can only hope for the best. How's Vanguard doing? I remember beta testing that a bit, but never went any further because of the way it played on my comp, plus the bugs. Has any of that been fixed yet? That game looks truly epic.

[Cantousent]

I'm fighting tempation. I've got a level 48 mage in WoW, and I can't really play both MMORPGs at the same time.

[Hurlshort]

Vanguard is very massive, and that's really why I chose it over LotR Online, although down the line I can see myself playing both. I wasn't actually sold on Vanguard until about 2 days before the game went live. Like you, it ran terribly on my machine and the bugs were numerous. But in the two weeks before release, Sigil put in major patches pretty much every day, including weekends. My performance skyrocketed, and once the debugging software was turned off, I was able to run smoothly enough with the graphics set to balanced. It is a beautiful game on those settings, and I can see how in a couple years it will continue to look stunning.

 

The bugs are an ongoing process. I won't lie, there are a lot. But the game really has so much to do that it's not surprising. For example, my crafting was borked for a few days. So I stopped crafting and did diplomacy, harvested resources, and adventured. There are just a lot of different options. Things are being fixed often, and we are getting big patches every few days. I'm really just impressed at how hard Sgil is clearly working, and that is why I'm willing to pay them money. If the game was this buggy and I didn't see the effort, I'd suspend my account.

 

There are three continents and something like 16 different starting areas. I really feel that Turbine missed the boat by not including places like Gondor and Rohan, although I understand the difficulty of designng such huge areas. If they release an expansion every 6 months with a new area, I can see it working, but otherwise I think the game will be old and people will move on before they really fill the world out.

[Gfted1]

Sounds interesting, just not my cup of tea. Since I prefer magic-based classes, "low magic" was pretty much the nail in the coffin for me. I want to be epic, not Joe Smith the rag man. WoW is literally an almost perfect game for me and my 67 mage can lay waste like crazy.

[Hurlshort]

Yeah if you're happy with WoW I see no reason to change. It's the most stable game out there, and it stll looks great to me. I just have a short attention span and can never stick with one game too long. WoW kept my interest for nearly 2 years, so I definitely appreciate it.

 

Not to be a total fanboy, but if you get tired of WoW ever, try Vanguard. There is plenty of magic. You can even levitate...which is surprisingly tricky. It feels more like controlling a boat than walking.

[Cantousent]

On what realm, Gfted1? I'm on Gilneas.

[Gfted1]

On what realm, Gfted1? I'm on Gilneas.

 

 

Im on Azjul-Nerub. If any of you wander over there look me up, Im cleverly named Gfted.