Lord of the Rings Online

The Game Room
1

I quit playing Anarchy Online recently, and was hunting around for something new to play. I decided to give LOTRO a go, since it had a free trial.

Decided to try a Dwarf Guardian. Guardians are the tanks of LOTRO, able to wade into battle and absorb damage while dishing out plenty of their own. Also, you can choose a crafting profession, and I chose Metalsmith. Metalsmith gives you prospector (you can collect ore from random deposits scattered everywhere), Metalsmith (make metal armor and some crafting tools), and Tailor (make clothing, including some cloth armor).

The game is very similar to WoW, but with a distinct Middle Earth flavor. It’s structured similar to WoW, similar quest NPC’s scattered everywhere, lot of stuff to do. In addition to questing and crafting, there’s also deeds you can accomplish. These are divided into exploration deeds, which just require you to visit different areas, slayer deeds, which require you to kill specific numbers of specific monster types (spiders, goblins, etc), and skill deeds, which you raise by using a skill a specific number of times. The game is designed to keep you busy, there’s a ridiculous amount of quests, deeds, and crafting stuff so you’re always in the middle of 10 or 20 different things at once. The game is fairly simple though, your stats are raised automatically when you level, most items require only that you be a specific level to equip it (and sometimes a specific class). I’m finding this a bit…odd, as I’m used to AO where you can spend a week twinking on one item.

The game is set at about the same time as the events of the books, and you’ll meet most or all of the characters from the books, major and minor. It is very very cool to be actually in Middle Earth, the areas I’ve been to so far have a great “feel” to them, and seem true to Tolkien’s lore. I’m only up to Bree so far, but it does not seem like anything was taken from the movies, only inspired by it. For instance, I just met Strider (Aragorn) in Bree, and his character model is not taken from Viggo Mortenson (who played him in the movie). Still, everything looks just like it should. Thorin’s Hall and the rest of the Dwarf areas I’ve seen are very big and imposing stone fortresses, the Elven areas are intricate and obviously fashioned to look like they’re a part of the landscape. You’ll see ruins from past ages scattered about, and it really does immerse you in the Middle Earth culture.

To the actual game: It is, as I’ve said, very similar to WoW. Some have said not quite as polished, but I didn’t last very long in WoW so I’m not sure on this one. The crafting system is pretty elaborate, at least as far as the number of items involved in it. My crafting profession has Prospector (gather raw ore from random deposits scattered about), Metalsmith (make metal armor and crafting tools), and Tailor (cloth armor). I’d say about 1/3 of the stuff you find is crafting ingredients (including a ton of stuff for the other crafting professions), about 1/3 are vendor food (skins, claws, feathers, etc), and the rest are random items, which you can either shopfeed or sell to other players (there’s a really nice and easy to use auction system in this game).

Minor issues: up to 5 quests at a time can be listed on the right side of the screen, and will update as you complete them. But some of the little icons are a little confusing to read. What does it mean if a quest has a little lock next to it? Can’t be deleted? what? How do you change it to get a “guide arrow” on a specific quest? Bit confusing, although I’ve figured most of it out now.

Medium issue: The amount of crafting ingredients/recipes/etc you can gather is pretty staggering. Just filling my vault (the “stash” common in these types of games) with the stuff I can actually use with my own character takes up the whole space. I’ve found a lot of stuff for other crafting professions that I can’t use, but don’t really have the space for it. Yes, I could sell it all, but I’ve been cautioned by a lot of other players not to do that (it’s a bit of a pain to have to hunt for crafting ingredients, and buying them from other players is VERY expensive). I think it’s pretty much a necessity to create other characters just for additional crafting and storage. I would kind of rather just keep playing my guardian, I don’t really want to mess with other chars right now. So I guess I’ll just make a mule (or three) for now, and level their crafting skills later. On the bright side, you don’t need to level a character to craft, and you can mail items, money, etc, to any other character (yours or anyone elses).

The bottom line: the game is pretty well polished, a blast to play, and keeps you very busy. If you level out of an area and the quests/monsters are all too low for you, you can follow the main questline to the next area and grab a bunch of quests from there. You’re never at a loss for things to do, when I first moved to Bree, I gathered some 20-30 quests.

Anyone else playing this? Opinions, advice, etc, is welcome. I’m about to hit level 20 and am having a lot of fun so far.

2

I’m not currently playing but I did play for about two years about a year ago. It’s my go to game when I get bored with WoW.

Even though I haven’t played for a year I just bought “The Adventure’s Pack” which gives you some in game stuff, a mount, a cloak that increases speed, two extra character slots and a 20-slot bag all your characters can use.

I bought a lifetime account, $199 up front and never have to pay a monthly fee again, way back when so when I purchased “The Adventure’s Pack” they threw in a digital download of the next expansion for free. They give out some neat perks for lifetime members once in a while.

I love the game and like you said it’s very similar to WoW just LOTR schemed. It is a blast interacting with characters from the books and movies especially the hobbits. I love the realistic look of the game versus WoW’s cartoony look. The water is amazing and so is the grass and trees as they blow in the wind. I love that there is almost always a rainbow over the Shire.

I love the crafting system. Besides end game content crafting provides the best gear/weapons in the game. I have three bows that do different types of damage that I crafted and they are just a smidge worse than the raiding gear. Also I love farming. It is quite relaxing to kick back and farm up some pipe-weed in the Shire.

I really only have one complaint about LOTRO and that is bag/bank space. It needs to double. I have several characters with different professions and all the crafting stuff is taking up all of my space. I even have three low-level mules and a house that provides extra bag space and it is still not enough. It really sucks that low-level mules have such limited bag space as you have to level up to open up more space versus just buying the extra space like in WoW.

I have a hobbit hunter I leveled up to 50 before the first expansion and up to 51 when the expansion came out last year but WoW came out with an expansion about the same time so I’ve been playing WoW instead of LOTRO. When the next expansion comes out in December I’ll probably switch back over to LOTRO and play that for a while.

EDIT: One thing I thought was really neat is that you are basically just behind the fellowship as you level and go to higher level zones. You really get the feeeling that they just passed through a few days ago. Then when you get to Rivendel the fellowship is there at Elronds house and you can go and visit each of the nine. If you visit Frodo you get a -1 hope proximity debuff becuase he is wearing the ring.

Also in the last expansion they added a questline where you indirectly interact with golem in on eof the higher level zones. That was a very cool surprise when I ran across that.

3

I switch between this, City of Heroes, and single-player games.

Just a clarification - Frodo isn’t “wearing” the ring, but he is carrying it. :wink:

4

LotRO is my go-to game of choice for MMOs right now, and I find it a lot of fun. I’d argue that it’s just as “polished” as WoW - moreso from a coherent world development standpoint (Sorry, WoW, but you’re schitzo as heck in this regard.)

I do wish it was a little less WoW-like, but I also appreciate all the ways they’ve cleverly ‘re-skinned’ - the genre to make it more Middle Earth Friendly. You don’t have “hitpoints” and you don’t get “healed” - you have Morale that can be raised by people, essentially, rallying your spirits. You don’t die, but you are defeated and forced to retreat to point of safety.

I have my concern that they are struggling a little bit with ideas to keep things fresh for the short-attention-span crowd (next expansion features…riding goats. Which don’t feel very Middle Earthy to me.) but the overall feel of the game is very nice. And, as has been mentioned, the game is JAM PACKED with stuff to do. It reminds me of how it felt going from EQ to DAOC (Wow! Lots of quests!) and from DAOC to WoW (Again, whoo, plenty of quests to keep me busy). But now instead of just having plenty of quests, I have a huge pile of deeds, an “epic” quest thread that corresponds to different moments in the books, and a strangely more compelling tradeskill system.

Honestly, not really sure why anyone would play WoW over this, except possibly for PvP (or, of course, previous investment of time). Inventory space is a problem, but frankly, it’s no worse than WoW where you spend your first 20 levels going “OMG! NEED MORE BAGS!” The trick to inventory management in LotRO is mostly just to figure out what’s valuable and what’s not. Most of the stuff you get, even yellow and some purple stuff (mostly the tradeskill +crit items. There’s no market for resins on any of the servers I’ve played on, for example. They’re too common to be worth buying.), is really just vendor fodder. And at least you start with 75 inventory spots.

5

I play on occasion, I’m up to level 40.8 with my Dwarf Champion.

Do you need Mines of Moria for the Siege of Mirkwood expansion? I haven’t bought MoM because I wasn’t high enogh level and I didn’t feel like making a warden or runemaster.

Brian

6

I played a while back, I think I got a free month from a buddy key or something? I don’t really remember.

Unfortunately ‘monster play’ (which was a big part of my interest) while a clever idea was just horribly and ridiculously unfun and stupid. The monsters were all much weaker then the heroes and while I guess it evened out a bit as you leveled up your monster, the heroes were always better. Worse, though, was the constant unended chain AoE crowd control being thrown around everywhere you would usually end up stunned and unable to move while the heroes danced around slaughtering everything. Apparently this was by design, the monsters were supposed to lose… for some stupid reason.

The actual hero gameplay was OK if you like WoW style games… I find that sort of ‘go here, kill 10 wolves, repeat for 50 levels’ style of gameplay gets real boring, real quick though so I didn’t stick around.

If only they had made monster play reasonably balanced and not such a crowd control nightmare. :frowning:

7

Been a while since I left, but IIRC, the CC problems in Monster Play come because they explicitly were not going to nerf abilities useful to PvE to try and balance PvP–it’s a PvE game, the PvP stuff was there for variety, but it’s not the prime focus.

8

Welcome to LOTRO! It’s my current poison of choice, so feel free to ask anything.

If any of you all are on Arkenstone, my main is Oisi. I’m in a great kinship if you’re inclined toward that sort of thing.

Using the quest tracker was a bit confusing at first. If it shows a lock, this means you’ve added it to the tracker yourself, so it won’t override it if you pick up a new quest. Also, you can determine which quest that the pointer on the compass indicates by clicking on the little ring icon next to that quest on the on-screen tracker and selecting “Set Guide Focus” or something like that. Also, check your map – sometimes the compass is confusing because the items can be spread over a big area.

One quick tip: to save room on crafting, sell off low level “crit” items (items that are used by masters of that tier to increase critical crafting chance, e.g. brimstones, herbs, rock salts) if you’re not actually doing that craft in the near future. They have practically nil value at auction as they are very common and aren’t frequently used – after all, there are far fewer people trying to get critical successes on low-level items than there are people finding those items.

Oh, and deed-wise: figure out what virtues you’re likely to use and do them while you’re leveling if possible, especially the slayer deeds (exploration can be put off in some difficult cases). That way, you at least get experience for it.

Well, monsters (creeps) are supposed to outnumber other players (freeps, or free peoples). I’ve found this to be true – after all, people who really want to play monster can only PVP, but freeps can do all kinds of other things.

It’s important to get into a good tribe as a monster. I’m in the top tribe on my server and it really helps – there are always good groups. Working together with other creeps is key. Head to hotspots – like the bridge south of Tol Ascarnen (called “STAB”, south TA bridge), occasionally WTAB (you can guess what that one is), listen to OOC for which keeps are being contested (usually Tirith Rhaw, TA, though Lumber Camp and Lug get flipped fairly often too).

It can be loads of fun. I have a rank 6 blackarrow and I can definitely now take on freeps 1 to 1 (at range) but you can’t do that the minute you log in as a greenie. While you’re level 60, you’re the equivalent of a “swarm” or green monster at 60. As you progress through ranks and skills, that changes. Look at your character’s little avatar – you’ll go to normal monster, signature, elite, etc. just like other mobs do.

My rules for new freeps: play on an active night (usually Tuesday through Thursday is best), ask in OOC for “open raids” and get with a group to learn the ropes. Also, blackarrows and warleaders are easier to learn to play.

Also: doing the quests to get the maps is a necessity to be competitive. Along the way, you’ll get money, which you need for potions – the remove stun and remove root potions are an absolute requirement to handle crowd control.

9

Monster play was what killed it for me. Early on it was fun because the monsters, though weaker, outnumbered the heroes and most of the heroes weren’t maxed out in power. Then everyone started hitting the level cap and, for lack of anything else, joined the PvP game and outnumbered the already weaker monsters. Add to that the cheaters who’d use Ventrilo to have guildmate spies on the other team broadcasting all of the other side’s plans and movements and it just got stupid. This is ignoring the individual issues with monster types.

The main game was entertaining but I got hooked into the PvP game which (at the beginning) was pretty innovative, fairly well balanced and fun. Then it became incredibly unbalanced, not fun and I just lost interest in LoTRO as a whole rather than returning to the PvE content.

10

Yes you would need Mines of Moria for Mirkwood.

Quests on the sidebar which have the lock are those you have added to the Quest Tracker. Usually as you get new quests the Quest Tracker would be updated. But those with the lock will always stay there.

Quest with an arrow next to it are being tracked by the Quest Guide. The arrow will show you where to go in the general direction (not Fable 2’s path of gold) and when you are in the right area the location name under the mini-map will flash.

Yes, I have sort of given up on crafting, but now crafting items stack up to 100. I usually have an alt to hoard stuff. I don’t find crafting in LOTRO to be enjoyable. One advice is that crafting is very much for end-game players, when you have the money and time and less distractions - though I dislike how crafting is a chore in the game. Ironically, end-game crafting materials are far easier to come by than the middle of the game thanks to the crafting instances.

I play as a Loremaster, and I can’t emphasis enough to play a class that you like. I hate being Warden or Guardian because the tank gets a lot of stress. I find straight-forward DPS like the Rune-keeper and Hunter boring. I am quite partial to Captains, Burglars and Minstrel. My first character was a Champion, got him to level 30, and was sick of him while my Loremaster alt becomes my main.

Arik, LOTRO is already wearing thins its charm on me - especially the radiance grind for the end-game. I heard that they are going to rectify that in Mirkwood and I am looking forward to it. I wish they make crafting more open-ended. I also wish there are many more set dungeons like Goblin Town and GF. When I was level 50 before Moria, I kept doing those because it is just fun to get together a little group and see how far you can go. Now all the hard mode instances are frustrating, bosses resorting to cheap killing tricks and it takes forever to put together a group. I hate ‘one-wrong-move-and-you-are-dead’ sequences.

I never played WoW before, so I can’t compare. But I believe I like LOTRO over WoW because of the lesser emphasis on PvP, and the incredible details on the lore. I don’t mind the developers taking some leeway; but the beginning quests where I was fighting Dunlending, finding mysterious cargo of pipeweed, hearing references to Sharkey, all make it fun. Talking a walk with Frodo in Rivendell before they set off is neat; though at certain parts I wish we get to play a bigger role for the fellowship.

One thing to be sure, the landscapes in LOTRO is beautiful and atmospheric. The Barrows Down remains one of the scariest place in the game, and Rivendell is as glorious (even more than PJ’s version). The music is haunting at times - you have to be on the top of Amon Hen to appreciate it.

11

One thing you need to realize is that if you’re at the end of “the game” (where the game is ANY MMO) and you’re suddenly feeling “this game is boring and grindy”… that’s because that’s how MMOs work.

There is no goal in the modern MMO. There’s really nothing to work for. It’s all completely hollow. You fight monsters to get items and levels so you can get better at fighting monsters to get items and levels. That’s all there is to it. There’s no real story (LotRO is actually better than most in this regard, because you get the sense of “following the fellowship” though how they’re going to make that work for Seige of Mirkwood is beyond me.) There’s no final boss. You can’t save the world. There’s no closure. You just get to the end and suddenly you start discovering how hollow it is. PvP can potentially fill this gap (it’s the “go to” for most games in the space for “end of level” content.) but it too is essentially meaningless - and probably less good than just sitting down to play a game that was made exclusively for multiplayer competitive play, rather than one that is saddled with all the MMO baggage and still trying to make PvP work.

What’s the answer? I don’t have one, but it’s important to understand that right now, MMOs are about the journey, and the last thing you want to do is dash madly to the end because that’s where all the cool kids are. (Note: I am not saying that anyone in this thread has done that or is doing that, but having come from years and years of Everquest and heard crazy people going on and on about powering through as much of the game as possible, getting to max level, X number of AAs and then expecting somehow for the game to magically change and become more fun…)

LotRO has one major advantage that I can see over some other MMOs (not sure about WoW, but certainly, my old EQ) is that it’s …less old. That doesn’t mean that it’s new and shiny and better designed, it just means that the player base is less clumped together at max level, making the “journey” of the game a bit more fun. It really isn’t very exciting if you have to solo through the first 50 levels. And LotRO, you don’t have to. I’ve just recently been levelling a Champion on Arkenstone to play with a friend, and I’ve had very little trouble finding fellowships for Book quests or just general group questing. And that’s without joining a kinship, so I give the game a good bill of health in that regard.

12

I’ve had a lifetime sub since shortly after it opened and have recently started playing again. I think the most breathtaking moment was that first ride down into Rivendell. The music is perfect and the scene is simply amazing.

13

Fluiddruid I understand that the monsters were supposed to outnumber the heroes, but like Jophiel I found that was rarely to never the case. It’s primarily a PvE game so most people already have high level heroes, combined with heroes being stronger means most people are going to want to be the hero rather then the weak monster. Who wants to be the weak guy, especially in a gametype that attracts competitive players?

At best numbers were roughly even, which meant the weaker monsters frantically tried to stall the heroes at the keeps and were ground down and forced to retreat, then the heroes would camp the front gate of the uncapturable fort for a while and everyone got bored and left, so the monsters would run around and take everything over with no opposition.

Anyway, that was at least a year ago so maybe it’s different now, or your server is better balanced.

14

I’m pretty sure they’ve rebalanced monsters sometime in the last year. It’s not something that I remotely care about, however, so I have paid no attention to updates in that area.

15

I gave up on it shortly after they released rangers/trolls, burning oil & monster tribes. Nothing then really addressed the major issues (they may have tweaked since then) or seemed like it was going to change the “Lots of Overpowered PCs” vs “Few Underpowered MPs” paradigm. And I can’t think of any solution to the Ventrilo spies who took any fun out of trying scrappy tricks & sneak assaults to make up for the power imbalance.

I also dropped out while I was on the $9.99/mth “Founders” plan. Since I’m not longer eligible for that and would have to pay the $15.99 standard, I can’t justify paying 50% more for a game I lost interest in originally.

16

Meh, they have deals where you can sign up for $9.99/month every few months anyway, so your cost doesn’t have to increase.

But there’s not really much the devs can DO if people don’t want to play monsters. :stuck_out_tongue: Sounds like the problems you faced aren’t technical, or solvable, technically.

17

Well, the obvious answer would be to find a way to either make the monsters more attractive to play or to increase their power so less are required to keep balance. That might be easier said than done but it’s still the obvious solution.

I didn’t have any real complaints about the PvE game. It was a bit grindy sometimes (“Kill 1000 goblins for this trait”) but no worse than the competition in the fantasy MMORPG field. The classes were remarkably well balanced from the start which is something of a marvel in the genre. Quests were entertaining and a viable route for leveling up. And I had some great experiences in the Barrow-Downs and the big orc encampment/city you come across around lvl 25ish (I don’t recall the names any more). I just got hooked, then soured, on the PvP game.

18

Anarchy Online is pretty cool in that aspect, you can be level 220 (max), ai level 30 (max), and have all research xp finished, and still not be close to done with your char. I think the characters that I did “max out” in that game, I spent more time on them after 220 than I did before. This is mostly because getting end game gear requires a lot of time, money (in game), and luck. But the difference between someone who just hit 220 and someone who’s “end game” is pretty big.

Anyhow, I’m a little bit further along with my Dwarf Guardian now. He’s 25, and finishing up the Bree-lands area now, and preparing to move on to the Lone Lands. I made 3 other characters to craft with, carefully choosing my professions for maximum coverage. In addition to my Guardian’s Metalsmithing, I also have Forester, Woodsman, Jeweler, Scholar, and Weaponsmith covered. Also farmer and cook, which don’t seem as useful right now but might be later. The Forester is the most useful right now, with his ability to process hides into leather that my Metalsmith can use to make armor. But I’ve crafted some useful jewelry and Weapons too. The nice thing is I can just mail recipes and supplies my Guardian finds to them, so I can raise their crafting abilities without leveling them. My dwarf has made some very nice armor, and bought other crafted pieces in auctions. Most of my weapons, armor, and jewelry are crafted pieces right now, and I think I’m pretty decently equipped.

There’s so much stuff to do. I finished all the slaying and exploration deeds in the first and second areas, and upgraded my weapon skills (by using them 80 million times each). I noticed when I first went to Bree that a lot of the quests here were lower levels, but I found higher ones on the outskirts. I mostly explored north and west of Bree, including the Barrow Downs and the Old Forest. You talk to Tom Bobadil and Strider, but you don’t really interact with them that much, which is a bit disappointing. I finally figured out that the best way to do things is try to take side quests that are blue or above, then when they start to get too low, wrap things up and take the storyline quests to move to the next area. I have tons of traits now, having done all the deeds in the first two areas, so I’m going to have to figure out which would be best to use.

Also, I’ve been playing the hunter I made for one of my crafting professions. I really like the way bows feel in this game. You can stand quite some distance away from an enemy, under cover (mostly), and thwip! thwip! bring a lot of enemies down before they even close on you. Weaker enemies and birds are usually just insta-kill. It’s more tactical than just wading in like I can with the Guardian, you have to pick most fights to try and minimize the number of enemies you fight at once. Melee combat is tough, hunters are pretty weak there. I usually just keep attempting bow shots until I can get one off. Even at close range, they still do more dmg than melee. I like this char a lot, and will probably alternate between him and the guardian. What’s kind of cool is I can do stuff with the one that I missed with the other, focus on different areas of Bree, for instance.

I really like the in game auction, I’ve gotten a good portion of my gear there, mostly crafted stuff made and then auctioned by other players. I made a really nice set of armor and sold it for close to 200 silver, then realized I could make that much in one trip out of town, and I should have saved that emerald shard to make something I’d use. I’ve only gotten 3 shards so far, they seem quite rare.

I haven’t gotten into the minigames or festival aspect of the game, mostly been killing and crafting. I also haven’t done that much teaming, although I did do a couple Great Barrow runs that were fun. And you need teams for most of the dungeons, it seems like. I’m mostly soloing for now. I found a horse ranch in the upper part of Bree-lands, I think I’ll be able to afford a horse in a couple levels. Not sure what the restrictions are, if any, with horses, but I definitely plan on getting one as soon as I can. Riding on “rails” from town to town is fun by itself, being able to free roam on a horse should be pretty cool.

19

You can get your first horse at 25 I believe, but it’s fairly slow. At 35 you get a better horse, I believe the current cost is 4 gold. I’ve heard rumors that there will be far cheaper horses when Mirkwood comes out, but take that for what it’s worth.

The only real ‘restriction’ with a horse is that it can’t go through deep water (you’re dumped back to running at a certain point) and if you get hit a couple of times, you’ll be dismounted.

I’ve hit a slight bit of a slowup at level 44 since there are so many group quests and I’m also mostly a soloer. But I’m having fun exploring the Misty Mountains and hopefully will finish chapter 5 of the epic line soon.

20

Precisely why I’ve never tried MMORPGs. I once wrote up an alternative design approach here as a brainstorming exercise (search for my name and “Gods”), in the hopes that some dev somewhere would try to break the mold and make a truly dynamic multilevel living breathing world where factions can lose and win and one can ultimately gain the “Prize” via utter world domination, but maybe the CW on MMORPGs is correct, and the griefers will make any such attempt fail miserably. Still don’t grok why nobody’s even tried such (well Warhammer did a halfhearted effort in that general direction).