View Full Version : LoTR:Online NDA Lifted
As of today (February 12th) you're free to talk about The Lord of the Rings Online and your experiences in our beta - in person and online.
So, anyone else playing this? I have a level 6 dwarven minstrel (healer) on Brandywine, and I'm enjoying it thus far. Too much going on to play it as much as I'd like. The setting is awesome, and I like the graphics I've seen thus far, scales VERY well, much like DDO.
So, if you want to find me, I'm playing "Thorgrim" on Brandywine.
Overall the game reminds me a lot of DDO, but most of my grievences were corrected, they really mixed up some of the classes, tanks are a pet class, hunters are "nukers", the only mage is crowd control, and bards are primary healers, despite there being limited classes, it seems that there's a lot of variety within each class too.
Sollon Darkmoon
02-12-07, 11:41 AM
So, anyone else playing this? I have a level 6 dwarven minstrel (healer) on Brandywine, and I'm enjoying it thus far. Too much going on to play it as much as I'd like. The setting is awesome, and I like the graphics I've seen thus far, scales VERY well, much like DDO.
So, if you want to find me, I'm playing "Thorgrim" on Brandywine.
Overall the game reminds me a lot of DDO, but most of my grievences were corrected, they really mixed up some of the classes, tanks are a pet class, hunters are "nukers", the only mage is crowd control, and bards are primary healers, despite there being limited classes, it seems that there's a lot of variety within each class too.
Hmmm the DDO quest scale wasn't that great...it gets old after awhile =/.
that, and it had absolutely no top end... Right now I am level 6 and have yet to group up.
My schedule should be winding down a bit after this weekend (oh god, too much to do in a weekend), so I should have some more in depth thoughts, it already feels quite polished.
I am a level 9 Minstrel in Melendor, I am hoping the combat becomes more fun mainly I have been soloing
SnibbsQ
02-12-07, 12:28 PM
I played it in beta a couple months back and got to around level 5 or 6 with a halfling rogue. I thought it was a great game, but, honestly, it felt too similar to WoW for me. It's not a matter of WoW-hating, it's nothing wrong with the game, in particular, but it felt, well, like an upgrade WoW. Now, if both came out at the same time, I'd definitely choose LotR:O over WoW, but as of right now I was just kind of meh while playing it. Things might have changed, though (but I dont see why they would) or it might have just been due to my race/class combo when starting. Good game, otherwise, if that's the kind of gameplay you're looking for. :)
Darkefang
02-12-07, 01:06 PM
I thought this game was supposed to be vaporware?
In it's original form from years ago when death was permanent it is. Another studio picked up after that version died.
Chromite
02-12-07, 04:23 PM
I've been playing since the first stress test. It's a really fun game and it does have a WoW-like feeling to it. I think that's probably the reason why I enjoy it so much. I liked playing WoW but I always wanted better character graphics. I never was fond of the frilly and gigantic armor sets on WoW.
I'm currently level 17 (I had gotten to level 21 before the character wipe) and what I've found is that the quests in Bree-land (the man area) are the best quests to be doing. My friend and I decided to try out all the starting cities man, hobbit, elf and dwarf and so far the man quests have the best rewards and most fun quests. The hobbit quests are just excruciating because they're all running back and forth delivering pies/mail/eggs/whatever. Very frustrating.
I play a Man from Rohan (you can choose where you're from) and I'm a Hunter. Hunters are similar to Hunters in WoW but there's no pet. You get traps and the normal set of hunter skills. I really like the graphics and sounds for the bow/arrows. You can actually see yourself knocking an arrow and letting loose with it and you see it fly to the mob. I haven't played WoW in quite a while but I remember that was one of my annoyances - that the arrow graphics weren't constant.
The overall graphics can look pretty damn awesome. If you have a beefy rig with a lot of RAM and a good video card it'll blow your mind. I'm going to read over the details of the NDA and see if I can post pictures and I'll post some with the varying degrees of graphic detail. (Edit: Reading the document, it says I can't still.. it also says I can't share info about the game still...wtf?)
If they fix the memory leak then the game will be pretty damn enjoyable. Currently, after moving through a few city areas the memory leak will begin to plague your gameplay and just make it frustrating to play. It feels like you're playing in the Vanguard beta :-P
Cutting this short at this point because now I'm curious what the heck we CAN share with the NDA because their new document says that we can't share info or screenshots still...
Chromite
02-12-07, 04:54 PM
Someone posted pics on the Fires of Heaven forum. These pics are of the newbie starting instance.
http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/27183-lotro-nda-lifted.html#post665269
It appears that the graphic settings in those pictures are on Very High.
The graphic levels are like so:
Very Low
Low
Medium
High
Very High
Ultra High
My friend plays the game using her motherboard graphics (nFORCE2 built-in) since the video card I was lending her died. She has to play on the Very Low setting and can play somewhat ok in it. The only places she has problems is in the major city areas where lots of textures and graphics lag are.
That's another problem I forgot to mention - when you approach a new, detailed area it has to load the textures and stuff from the hard drive and in especially busy areas like Bree this can turn into an absolute slideshow if there's a ton of people in town. It's made much worse if you're being plagued by the memory leak at that time too.
How is it for soloing? Is there a group bonus to exp? Is there end game content? Raid content? What is the max level? How fast do you level (Average hours played per level) Thanks in advance.
:pimp Bubba :pimp
Chromite
02-12-07, 05:52 PM
How is it for soloing? Is there a group bonus to exp? Is there end game content? Raid content? What is the max level? How fast do you level (Average hours played per level) Thanks in advance.
:pimp Bubba :pimp
I am not the type of person to pay too much attention to experience. One thing I do like though is that the experience gain is not as fast as WoW's was (which was about 2x-3x too fast). I am trying not to play every day intenionally so I won't ruin the game before release. I am not aware of a group bonus, but then again I don't pay attention to that stuff. I don't know about end game/raid content as I've never gotten that high.
It's definitely pretty soloable but like WoW there are some quests that you just need to have at least 1 other person to help you through.
I really enjoy the game. It certainly held my attention a hell of a lot more than Vanguard did.
Sollon Darkmoon
02-12-07, 05:53 PM
How is it for soloing? Is there a group bonus to exp? Is there end game content? Raid content? What is the max level? How fast do you level (Average hours played per level) Thanks in advance.
:pimp Bubba :pimp
I curious about this as well. Assuming they just emulated WoW im guessing you can solo it all if ya want.
And is it me or do all new Online games have mem leak problems now?
Oh btw its not as high system req as Vanguard is it?
Chromite
02-12-07, 06:07 PM
Oh btw its not as high system req as Vanguard is it?
Totally not. My system is an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ with 1 Gig of RAM and an ATI All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro with 128MB of RAM. I can play on Medium if I'm not being plagued by the memory leak. If I am plagued by the leak I'll either take the time to exit the game completely and restart it (clears up the leak but, of course, it comes back after a while) or just switch my graphics to Very Low.
My friend plays on an AMD Athlon XP 2200+ with 1 Gig of RAM and using the built-in motherboard graphics (GeForce 4 MX Integrated GPU on an nFORCE2 Motherboad.)
On Vanguard, I could barely move on the newbie starting island village of Kojan. (Half-Elf starting lands) The graphic lag was soooo bad. I had all the graphics set on minimum too.
Once I got out of the village area it got better but you could still notice the graphics lag. You can totally tell it's the speed of the GPU that limits you with Vanguard while in LOTR it seems that it's more RAM/memory limiting you. Once they fix the leak and improve the loading of textures the game will be a dream.
SnibbsQ
02-12-07, 06:08 PM
Nah, it has fairly low system requirements. I was running it on a pretty crappy computer on low graphics just fine, and I'm assuming the engine has only improved since then.
Sollon Darkmoon
02-12-07, 07:24 PM
Ah actually LoTR emulating WoW could be a good thing. Most ppl didn't like WoW b/c of the "cartoony" graphics now they have a game with normal graphics and is like WoW.
Chromite
02-12-07, 07:34 PM
Ah actually LoTR emulating WoW could be a good thing. Most ppl didn't like WoW b/c of the "cartoony" graphics now they have a game with normal graphics and is like WoW.
Exactly. There's a lot of people who don't/didn't like the WoW cartoony graphics that LoTR Online will be perfect for.
Oh, I also forgot to mention one of the bad downsides on LOTR Online - there are no female dwarves. The Turbine fanboys constantly preach against them. It's really stupid because I think there will be couples that are disappointed with that since they can't play the same race together.
Oh, you can also do some sort of lineage type of thing where you can adopt people as siblings or offspring. I'm not quite sure what the significance of that as I haven't looked into it too much. Basically you can sort of make a family tree.
Sollon Darkmoon
02-12-07, 07:38 PM
Oh, I also forgot to mention one of the bad downsides on LOTR Online - there are no female dwarves. The Turbine fanboys constantly preach against them. It's really stupid because I think there will be couples that are disappointed with that since they can't play the same race together.
I don't get this...how the hell are they born then :P?
Oh, you can also do some sort of lineage type of thing where you can adopt people as siblings or offspring. I'm not quite sure what the significance of that as I haven't looked into it too much. Basically you can sort of make a family tree.
Thats kinda creepy....
Wow, that sounds really intriguing...
The real question is, will it run well on a very outdated athlon xp1900 nForce1 motherboard with a Geforce 5900XT.... (heh, I'm limited to 4x AGP still, how lame is that?)
likenew
02-12-07, 08:55 PM
i'm currently a lvl 10 hobbit burglar, rogue equivalent. i was invited to the last stress test, and a week ago i got an email saying "due to your stress test activity we would like you back into our closed beta", which means i was a lucky "lottery" winner. too bad i didn't win the actual game, or the video card in the giveaways.
i like it so far though. i haven't been in a group yet though. its a pretty easy game. i've died once, against 4 dwarves, survived till the last, but was stupid and didn't put some distance between us after i "riddled" him(mezzed).
btw, i have a anthlon 1.6ghz, 768mb, 6200 geforce agp card...game runs fine. haven't really tried it on higher or lower settings though. during the stress test it did get really laggy, especially in the newbie town, which is sort of an instanced area. but also, like was said earlier, there is a horrid memory leak in the game too. if that gets fixed, i think it'll run a whole lot smoother!
likenew
02-12-07, 08:57 PM
I don't get this...how the hell are they born then :P?
watch the first movie and you'll know ;-)
Sollon Darkmoon
02-12-07, 09:05 PM
watch the first movie and you'll know ;-)
Oh lol :ontome
Scorpiolaw
02-12-07, 10:04 PM
Actually, it was in the second :)
likenew
02-12-07, 10:10 PM
lol close enough!
They're born from Movie Magick (TM)?!
Raerchek
02-13-07, 03:17 AM
My guess about the female Dwarves is that they're trying to follow the lore of the books. Somewhere in there it is explained that Dwarf women never, ever leave the Dwarven cities. Which means... no PC Dwarf women.
LotR never struck me as a good setting for gaming. Wizards don't exist as mortals. There are no established religious orders, hence no Clerics or Paladins. Race choices are plentiful enough : Dwarf, Human, Halfling, High Elf, Grey Elf and Wood Elf, but classes are severly limited : Fighter, Thief, Bard and Ranger.
Course it is their game and they can tweak the lore however they want to make it more playable, but as it stands in the books there's not much to work with.
DarthEnder
02-13-07, 04:52 AM
Middle Earth Role Playing by Iron Crown Enterprises was a great RPG setting for LotR. You COULD learn magic, but it was a bitch and a half compared to learning other things.
I wish this game was based more on that. But I guess it's too much to hope for a video game to be based around a defunct pnp roleplaying game from the 70s/80s.
likenew
02-13-07, 05:09 AM
classes/races in lotro are(taken from a lotro poster cuz i don't feel like typing):
Captain: A fairly good solo class before Beta, but their abilities' power cost was significantly increased this push. Levelling can be tough in the teens until they get their Herald pet. Not particularly desired in mid-game groups, since they can't hold agro, can't heal adequately, and have mediocre DPS. They have a resurrection-type spell when things go horribly wrong, but I've never found it particularly useful since the long cast time often makes it impossible to cast through being hit.
Lore-Master: Adequate, but somewhat slow paced and tedious solo gameplay. Group desirability somewhat limited to their ability to debuff and CC, as their healing power is far exceeded by the Minstrel class.
Guardian: Fairly solid solo class, very group desirable for their ability to hold mob agro and put mobs into a pre-conjuction state. Interesting and varied abilities, better DPS than the Captain, not as much as the Champion.
Champion: Haven't played one. Solid solo class by reputation, balanced a bit from the A2 madness. Still does decent DPS/AE DPS, though I've heard that power concerns are an issue.
Hunter: Overpowered. >_0 Kidding, kidding. Excellent DPS, though at the cost of considerable power expenditure and potential downtime. Interesting gameplay options through traps, though the new anti-exploit code is making life difficult in this phase. Obviously group-friendly in the DPS slot.
Burglar: Interesting and varied abilities, but somewhat limited DPS and AC, so you'll need to pick your battles while soloing. Stealth helps speed up many quests. One of the only two classes that can put mobs into a pre-conjuction state, so somewhat group-desirable.
Minstrel: Interesting and varied abilities... which unfortunately often get largely overshadowed by group expectation to Healbot, since they're currently the only healing class that can keep a group alive in any of the 20+ instances. Heal agro in group situations is an ongoing issue. They also get a resurrection-type spell in their 20s, though I don't have any personal experience regarding how useful it is or how long it takes to cast. I find them a bit rough to solo, but my minstrel is only in her mid-teens and WindWalker's post leads me to believe it's just downhill from here
and the races are humans dwarves elves and hobbits. they wanted to keep it good, to go with the theme of good. there is only limited pvp, i've never fought anyone so don't know how thats like or even how to do it. they also limited the races because some races are way too strong compared to others. thats why there isn't much customization, especially when creating a character.
personally, i think its a good game. though, it shouldn't be ready for preorder yet...its not a game that one would need to subscribe to for very long to "beat it". i'm still hoping some things will change, but i'm still undecided if i'll buy it or not. kind of like all the ppl who talk about vanguard, but lotro has way less bugs.
Chromite
02-13-07, 05:14 AM
My guess about the female Dwarves is that they're trying to follow the lore of the books. Somewhere in there it is explained that Dwarf women never, ever leave the Dwarven cities. Which means... no PC Dwarf women.
...except in times of great need. You left that part off :-P
And the storyline of the Lord of the Rings is indeed a great need.
The WotC LotR CCG (man, look at all those acronyms) was confusing for an 8-year-old!
Loreleli
02-13-07, 08:57 AM
my brother Yaq loved it, my connection at home was too slow to download it even with a download manager.
I played it a few times at his place. I liked it but I have no desire to get stuck into another time sink game at the moment.
Hunter and champion were the classes I tried. They seemed fun.
Yaq's playing a hunter and was majorly kicking butt before the last server wipe a few weeks ago. His idea of fun was just running out and exploring, which usually ended up with his butt getting handed to him a few times. lol.
the only mage is crowd control
And that's the primary reason I have utterly no interest in this game...
DarthEnder
02-13-07, 03:10 PM
The WotC LotR CCG (man, look at all those acronyms) was confusing for an 8-year-old!The Middle Earth CCG that came out before the movies was way cooler.
Course it was based on the MERP that I mentioned earlier, so that's to be expected.
That's the one I meant, the one that came out 10 or so years ago. Man, it was crazy.