02-26-2007, 03:17 AM
i've been playing the stress test of this lately that is leading into the beta and am wondering if anyone else has been playing it?
Some thoughts so far:
Visual:
Obviously won't be as popular as WoW, it's much more of a "hardcore" MMO with much more complicated character development. And the graphic requirements will limit subscribers. In the graphics department you do get a lot of bang for your buck, however. This game looks GOOD. there are times i've been running along a mountain ridge and have thought that i haven't seen an in-game vista as good looking except while playing Oblivion. And this is no single player game. i'm very impressed.
The graphic requirements do show in highly populated areas though. In WoW if i got FPS slowdown chances are something was wrong. even in the big cities with everyone casting AoE. When running into a city in Lotro i can pretty much expect a slowdown and some time of nearly full stop as things load in. is it a big deal? not really. and with pretties as nice as the game gives you, i can be really forgiving.
Visually this game is somewhere between WoW and EQ2. there are a lot of stylistically unique elements that you would expect from a Lotr game which brings a lot of WoW-like character to the environments. The quality of the visuals are on par with EQ2 without a lot of the downsides. Most of the time while playing EQ2 i never got to enjoy the nice graphics because you had to turn it all down if you wanted more than 2 FPS. Lotro balances quality of visuals with performance really well and it's not very hard to find a nice balance between quality and performance. It does have higher requirements than WoW though, so individuals with lower end set ups will suffer, or be shut out entirely.
Gameplay:
I'm not sure yet in this area. I've only got a level 12 character so far but there are a lot of very interesting things going on here.
The first thing that really stands out is the alternative character development methods. they have incorporated a system much like Xbox Live Achievements (the closest thing i can equate this to in an MMO is Star Wars Galaxies Badges, only they actually do something) As you naturally complete quests and explore, you will gain all sorts of achievement opportunities that, if completed, will offer bonuses to your stats or titles for your character. For example i had not died yet when i hit lvl 10 and achieved the title "the Undefeatable" Very Nice... B) Other achievements involve killing an amount of a type of mob, exploring certain places, or completing a certain amount of quests in an area. These are all really nice because you naturally will gain these rewards through playing and it's not as static or predictable as the level grind.
Character choices don't seem quite as interesting as in other games. i'm not going to talk much about this because i don't have a lot of experience yet. but most classes are highly melee oriented. the normal character classes of mage/warrior/priest/etc. aren't found here. initially the differences between characters classes seem very suble, it will be interesting to see how this plays out at higher levels.
You've got your guardians that operate as a standard tank, Captains which from what i gather are much like the paladins of WoW and are the rezzers, minstrels which operate as healers/buffer, other classes include AoE melee dps, and crowd control. I can forsee in the future the developers adding a lot to the individual classes to differentiate them or easily adding new classes in expansions etc. there is definately a lot of room to work with and not bump into the issues that other MMOs including WoW have seen where one class tends to overshadow another. instead of the mentality of having a lot of classes that are supposed to be very different and then finding that they still end up stepping on each others toes, you have a handful of classes that start out extremely similar and have a lot of room to grow apart.
Misc:
Built in Voice Chat! Not much more to say about that. it's built in, as this feature evolves it will be interesting to see how it influences the game and it's limitations.
Developed by Turbine. If any developer can maintain and create the ongoing story and environment that the Lotr requires of a game, they can do it. They did Asheron's Call which is generally accepted as the best MMO that nobody played. the post-release additions and story elements they brought to that game have been unequalled in any game before or since.
Pre-order bonuses. This is really interesting to me. Lotro is the first MMO that i've seen that seems to have taken actual steps to fight against the behemoth of WoW. The first steps can be seen just in they way they have ammended the normal release scheduling. Prior to this the general scenario has been Closed Beta>Open Beta>Stress Test>Release. I may be seeing things into this but the change in scheduling that Turbine has employed seem to be aimed directly at getting customers playing and involved in the game much earlier than the norm. The schedule they are on has been shifted to Closed Beta>Stress Test>Open Beta>Release. By opening this Stress Test earlier they can give a lot of people a taste of the game and create a level of loyalty in customers much earlier than the normal schedule would allow. Add to this their pushing of preorders and you may have a system that actually has a chance to put some level of dent into WoW and keep it.
The preorder bonuses they offer aren't just limited to extra in-game items etc. by preordering you gain a slot in the beta when it starts, you get to keep your character from beta into the release, and you get a reduced cost for your montly fee. (9.99 as opposed to 14.99) or the option to purchase a lifetime subscription for $199 (200 bucks initial buy-in for an MMO seems pricey but this roughly equates to 14 months of play, how many months have you been playing WoW? yeah, not that bad...)
I guess we'll see how this evolves over the next few months.
Some thoughts so far:
Visual:
Obviously won't be as popular as WoW, it's much more of a "hardcore" MMO with much more complicated character development. And the graphic requirements will limit subscribers. In the graphics department you do get a lot of bang for your buck, however. This game looks GOOD. there are times i've been running along a mountain ridge and have thought that i haven't seen an in-game vista as good looking except while playing Oblivion. And this is no single player game. i'm very impressed.
The graphic requirements do show in highly populated areas though. In WoW if i got FPS slowdown chances are something was wrong. even in the big cities with everyone casting AoE. When running into a city in Lotro i can pretty much expect a slowdown and some time of nearly full stop as things load in. is it a big deal? not really. and with pretties as nice as the game gives you, i can be really forgiving.
Visually this game is somewhere between WoW and EQ2. there are a lot of stylistically unique elements that you would expect from a Lotr game which brings a lot of WoW-like character to the environments. The quality of the visuals are on par with EQ2 without a lot of the downsides. Most of the time while playing EQ2 i never got to enjoy the nice graphics because you had to turn it all down if you wanted more than 2 FPS. Lotro balances quality of visuals with performance really well and it's not very hard to find a nice balance between quality and performance. It does have higher requirements than WoW though, so individuals with lower end set ups will suffer, or be shut out entirely.
Gameplay:
I'm not sure yet in this area. I've only got a level 12 character so far but there are a lot of very interesting things going on here.
The first thing that really stands out is the alternative character development methods. they have incorporated a system much like Xbox Live Achievements (the closest thing i can equate this to in an MMO is Star Wars Galaxies Badges, only they actually do something) As you naturally complete quests and explore, you will gain all sorts of achievement opportunities that, if completed, will offer bonuses to your stats or titles for your character. For example i had not died yet when i hit lvl 10 and achieved the title "the Undefeatable" Very Nice... B) Other achievements involve killing an amount of a type of mob, exploring certain places, or completing a certain amount of quests in an area. These are all really nice because you naturally will gain these rewards through playing and it's not as static or predictable as the level grind.
Character choices don't seem quite as interesting as in other games. i'm not going to talk much about this because i don't have a lot of experience yet. but most classes are highly melee oriented. the normal character classes of mage/warrior/priest/etc. aren't found here. initially the differences between characters classes seem very suble, it will be interesting to see how this plays out at higher levels.
You've got your guardians that operate as a standard tank, Captains which from what i gather are much like the paladins of WoW and are the rezzers, minstrels which operate as healers/buffer, other classes include AoE melee dps, and crowd control. I can forsee in the future the developers adding a lot to the individual classes to differentiate them or easily adding new classes in expansions etc. there is definately a lot of room to work with and not bump into the issues that other MMOs including WoW have seen where one class tends to overshadow another. instead of the mentality of having a lot of classes that are supposed to be very different and then finding that they still end up stepping on each others toes, you have a handful of classes that start out extremely similar and have a lot of room to grow apart.
Misc:
Built in Voice Chat! Not much more to say about that. it's built in, as this feature evolves it will be interesting to see how it influences the game and it's limitations.
Developed by Turbine. If any developer can maintain and create the ongoing story and environment that the Lotr requires of a game, they can do it. They did Asheron's Call which is generally accepted as the best MMO that nobody played. the post-release additions and story elements they brought to that game have been unequalled in any game before or since.
Pre-order bonuses. This is really interesting to me. Lotro is the first MMO that i've seen that seems to have taken actual steps to fight against the behemoth of WoW. The first steps can be seen just in they way they have ammended the normal release scheduling. Prior to this the general scenario has been Closed Beta>Open Beta>Stress Test>Release. I may be seeing things into this but the change in scheduling that Turbine has employed seem to be aimed directly at getting customers playing and involved in the game much earlier than the norm. The schedule they are on has been shifted to Closed Beta>Stress Test>Open Beta>Release. By opening this Stress Test earlier they can give a lot of people a taste of the game and create a level of loyalty in customers much earlier than the normal schedule would allow. Add to this their pushing of preorders and you may have a system that actually has a chance to put some level of dent into WoW and keep it.
The preorder bonuses they offer aren't just limited to extra in-game items etc. by preordering you gain a slot in the beta when it starts, you get to keep your character from beta into the release, and you get a reduced cost for your montly fee. (9.99 as opposed to 14.99) or the option to purchase a lifetime subscription for $199 (200 bucks initial buy-in for an MMO seems pricey but this roughly equates to 14 months of play, how many months have you been playing WoW? yeah, not that bad...)
I guess we'll see how this evolves over the next few months.