All Posts by virtuella

Originally posted by Alan0n

I've been playing mmorpgs for about 15 years now and seen alot througth the years.  I was exited when I heard of LOTRO cause the orginal books are so vell written and could give endless amount of exiting adventures.  But when I started playing LOTRO in beta I found to many things that annoyed me so much that I desided not to buy the game at all - And my disission still stands.  Im gonna explain just few of the reasons why I didn't spend gold on it in the first place and gonna see here if some can sway me towards actually giving it a try again.

First of all.  Grapichs.  Graphix were nice but overall pretty smooth playing - but I felt to often that the characters didnt quite fit into the enviroment.  The movements were sluggish - things like jumping looked just silly and these things just make u more of annoyed than wanting to play more. 

Movement/animation is not so bad that it turned me away from this game.Thank god the gameplay has so much to offer.

Classes:  Since I was playing back in beta and kinda desiding if I should by the game in the first place - I tried out pretty much all of the character classes.  None really exited me but they were very unbalanced at the time so maybe something has changed.

Some classes are stil pretty unbalanced compared to others but Turbine seems to try and update each class.This month they had Captains and hunters through the mill.

UI.  Big letdown of the game.  You can make the most beutifull game in the world but then make crappy and sluggish UI and map that u can not change or configure to your likings.  This was something I just couldn't look past.   And just to ruin the beutiful graphix and looks u see a big YEllow ! above questsgivers. Comon...  WoW what?

An ! above questgivers?Ok that must be something i have missed out on because all i see is a golden ring above NPC's or silver/grey rings.Besides that the UI can now be changed and next patch will let us modify it even more.

Quests:  I actlually liked quite alot of them - but found them to be very linear and very little flexibilty in the gameplay.  And overall they didn't keep me exited enougth to spend alot time at the computer.

A lot of the quests might be linear but you have to admit that the queststory in this game is one of the best in the genre.

Pre-Order game...  Now thats where I put a big Questionmark on the game.  Hmm why is a big company trying to get everyone to buy a game before its out???  Maybe cause its not as good as it is claimed to be ?   This was actually the biggest reason I desided "no thank you" would be the best choise for me.

Played/tested since january in beta and because of that i bought a lifetime account for LOTRO (EU collectors edition which included a lifetimeacoount) and that is something i hope more companies will offer.Having a lifetimeaccount in LOTRO simply changed my normal playstyle and now i have a lot more fun in LOTRO because of that.

And no - I didn't go into the monsterplay part,  Mainly cause it wasn't ready and secondly cause I play a rpg to develop one character - not to play around with diffrent ones.

How can you say that and then in another sentence say that you played most of the classes?

So now dear players of LOTRO.  What did I miss when I disided not to buy this game ?   Has any of the above issues been worked on to make the game more enjoyable to play ?  

Things have chaged since beta and next week we will have seen 2 major updates to the game.Turbine seems to continue with their famous contentupdates and so far it looks good.New ares to play in,updates to classes,new monsters,new dungeons,new gameplay,graphical updates etc etc.

Just read the book 10 patchnotes for next update next week and you will see how things are improving.

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=734

I started betatesting in January or so and i still love my lifetimemembership.

I'm playing 3 different characters and playing when i feel like it without thinking about i have to pay a monthly fee.Playing very casual too and i don't really care about what level i am with any of my chars.

A nice change compared to a lot of the other 17 mmorpgs i have played since 97 where everything was about getting to max level asap.Here in LOTRO i play to have fun and that's what i have.

I ordered the EU collectors edition which included the lifetime offer.

I'm still happy i have lifetime subscription,but not so happy i bought the collectors edition because there had been problems with several items that they promised in the box.

It's nice to know that i have a lifetime account in LOTRO and because of that i always have a game to return to atleast the next 4-6 years.

My plan is to play on and off while doing other mmorpgs such as Age of conan,Warhammer Online,Stargate worlds etc.

Because of the lifetime offer i have totally changed playstyle.Normally i powerplay my ass off in the first 3-6 months and then i grow tired of the game but here i log in and play my Main or alts and i'm in no hurry what so ever to reach the maximum level and it's a joy.

I really hope some future mmorpg gamecompanies will offer lifetime accounts too.

Originally posted by deplorable

 (codemasters had planned for 1 million subs in Europe which was largely publicised in late March)

Lots of people on the snowbourn EU server where i play so no worries here.

Originally posted by DonnieBrasco

I say, nice pictures,

But you seriously need to switch on Anti-aliasing, I went blind because of the small saw-edges everywhere... I can't handle a game w/o AA anymore! (19'' LCD)

Edit: I have checked more now, and these must be taken at a medium or even lower settings. The texture is lowres, there are almost no reflections. On my PC the game runs on medium, with high tex res and high reflections (blob shades only), but it looks much much better than these....

DB

Got a new PC and a 22" wide screen monitor and took a few screenshots once in a while.
Didn't buy a top of the line PC but as long as i can play LOTRO as the screenshots show then i'm happy
Click the screenshot to see the original size.
Enjoy.

An angry monster



Another angry monster


A litte cute kitty


A weird looking monster


Example of a players armor


Example of a players armor 2


Example of a players armor 3


Some players near a forge


Looking into Bree town


Bree vault


In lone lands


Haragmar in Lone lands


Thorins hall in newbie instance quest


Looking up at thorins hall


Looking down from stairs


A statue in thorins hall


A lake in old forest


Another lake in old forest

Tons of good stuff in those patchnotes

The avatars could have been done a bit better but they are not that bad i think.
I don't think the armor is bad looking.
Here is 2 shots i just took today just when passing by a few players.
Looks pretty enough for my taste and there is a lot more sweet looking armor out there and this week we will get more armorsets in the update.
The cloth armor could use some more work compared to Medium/heavy armor though.
I'm playing without AA turned on so not the best quality screenshots but this is what it looks to me while playing.

Has there been one bad official sitereview of LOTRO so far?
I can't seem to find it if there has been one.

Originally posted by killerwig

Thought I'd drop this in here for those who've acquired buddy keys...

Client download:

http://download.turbine.com/lotro/LOTRO_Buddy_Download.exe

You should get an option to create an account after the game has been installed and after you apply any needed patches etc. Make sure you update the game first before using your buddy key for maximum play time.

Please note: The High res textures are not included in the buddy download. The high res pack is 1.6 GB, and can be found at various torrent sites (you need bit torrent to be installed to download them).

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3649812/client_highres.dat

The file you need is called client_highres.dat - it should be placed in your LOTRO install directory.

Originally posted by Keogh

The funniest thing I've encountered so far, was reading the chat from some WoW players that were tryng the free open BETA. These two had believed everything they had read in the forums about LOTRO was a WoW clone and that it was exactly like WoW with diffrent skins. These WoW players were so upset, saying that this is missing and that isn't there and what happened to this other thing and where did the put the.... you get the idea.

Then they got even more upset when people tried to explain that nothing was missing or broken, and that the LOTRO UI isn't a copy of WoW.

It was a hoot.

 

Fighting the "Taliban goblins" is pretty fun.
That's what i named them after seeing them in action.
It's goblins that carry around burning firepots over their head and when you attack them from range they sometimes stop up and throw their own firepots right at themselves so they go up into flames.
Stupid gobbers.

NO game ever will remind me of my first experiences i had when Ultima Online and Everquest I released.
Those games pretty much set the standard for most mmorpgs released since.
There is a few that stepped a little aside such as Anarchy Online and earth and beyound but UO and EQ I will always be my first love.
LOTRO is my 18th mmorpg so off course there is not much that can surprise me and i don't think there will come a game that will sweep me away like UO and EQ I did.

I want my mmorpg virgin days back.

I haven't rated it yet but i would give it like 8-8,5 overall.
Great game that still needs some minor adjustments such as UI improvements,Housing,more guildfluff,improved battleground and a better ingame map.
The new areas are allready beeing worked at and the first areaupdate will come in June as beeing announced today.
In time it would be nice with a few more races or classes but as for now it's a great game with room for improvement.

Ok i must not have looked closely enough then at various releases.

But i'm sure Dark and Light didn't race to the top.

Look on the frontpage and go
That's not so often that happens.
And surely not with a 9.3 rating.

try and use the links to the DEV chats in the stickied linkthread on top.
In 1 of them they mention something about it but they don'r give an exact date for it.
I would not expect to see it atleast the first 6-12 months.

Looks like Turbine is busy behind their doors.

forums.lotro.com/showthread.php