LOTRO opens doors

By Robert Purchese Published 16 April, 2007

Pre-orders can hobbitat world.

Those of you who pre-ordered The Lord of The Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar can now enrol on the live game servers.

It's part of the exclusive 10-day head start that "Founders" are rewarded with, giving them the edge over normal customers who roll in on 24th April.

Founders can also enjoy an in-game item in the shape of a Wayfarer's Cloak, some Lord of the Rings Online stickers, and a choice of a lifetime subscription offer for GBP 99.99, or a six-month subscription costing GBP 35.94 - which works out at about GBP 5.99 a month.

Lord of The Rings Online is an MMO created by Turbine Entertainment, which takes place in Tolkien's well-known world of Middle-Earth. But although you'll be able to bump into "Mr Frodo sir" and his merry band at various points in their journey, the main focus of this adventure is elsewhere. You see, that pesky Witch King is creating an evil army in Angmar, so you and your fantasy chums will have to deal with that. There's no time to dally with Baggins and old big nose.

We recently delved into the beta test and found it to be hugely promising but still in need of a little polish. Head over to our Lord of The Rings Online preview for more information.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (24) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • quantumsheep #1 5 years ago

    "hobbitat"

    Nice ;)

  • Eldritch #2 5 years ago

    I think the bloke was called "Tolkien".

  • AcidSnake #3 5 years ago

    I hate that expanding ad by the way...

  • mkreku #4 5 years ago

    Hmm.. A lifetime subscription deal? Now that's something that I'd be interested in.

  • Royal Fool #5 5 years ago

    Funny how there's 4 SKUs: Pre-order, retail, special edition and collector's edition. The CE goes for £179.99 / €249.99. I think that's the highest I've ever seen a collector's edition for a game at.

  • Maldoror #6 5 years ago

    Wir haben kein Tolkien hier!

  • rudedudejude #7 5 years ago

    SKU = gay

  • Freelancepolice #8 5 years ago

    griiiiiiiiiiiiinnd

  • Whizzo #9 5 years ago

    The CE goes for £179.99 / €249.99. I think that's the highest I've ever seen a collector's edition for a game at.
    That includes the life time subscription as well, so that's £100 quid of the price plus there's the usual over the top CE stuff like "Lord of the Rings Online leather wristband, impressed in Elvish" which I'm sure some one must want. Only 5000 being produced so they're pretty limited.

    Started my pre-order reroll of my beta character on Saturday and then lost my internet connectivity yesterday, bloody poor timing Virgin!
    Edited by 1 at 16/04/07 @ 12:57

  • Katsumoto #10 5 years ago

    i'm really enjoying it thus far, absolutely loving the solo instances, the deeds and accomplishments etc

  • Whizzo #11 5 years ago

    The deeds/accomplishments get to be quite addictive, quite handy too as they'll bump up certain stats and abilities.

    It's nice that things are a bit different from the beta as well, I went charging off to Bree town and suddenly realised things had moved around and changed a bit. It took me a while to find the captain trainer for a start.
    Edited by 1 at 16/04/07 @ 13:02

  • Katsumoto #12 5 years ago

    What server did you start on? I'm on evernight or whatever it's called, playing Merovech - a Hobbit burglar!
    Edited by 1 at 16/04/07 @ 13:04

  • Dizzy #13 5 years ago

    Playing on evernight..

    Game is pretty good... the deed system is indeed MUCH better than the stupid rep system of WoW. Graphics engine is nice and the game has a certain AC feel to it (loved AC1 ;). Looking forward to testing the monsterplay soon. Very solo friendly. Crafting seems a bit sucky IMHO.. but I never really craft anyway.

  • Whizzo #14 5 years ago

    On Snowbourn, playing a human captain called Jonty.

  • Katsumoto #15 5 years ago

    i've heard of people having trouble on Vista until they fiddle with security or admin settings or some such - it's all on the tech forums if you have a search

  • Dizzy #16 5 years ago

    >Think it's because I'm using Vista.

    Running on Vista 64... never had any probs.

  • Quine #17 5 years ago

    I'm playing a Human Guardian called Spearwyn on Snowbourne.

    Liking it so far- easy to solo upto lvl 12 so far with only a couple of instances needing a small group. I wonder if this will adversely affect it compared to their efforts on D&D Online- which required small groups so you got to meet a lot of other players. LOTRO has a lot more people soloing which means I feel less connected with the group so far.
    I expect higher levels quests will involve more grouping, though.

    Also I never noticed you have to turn map features on in the map filters options, after wandering around Bree for ages looking for the auction house and trainers.

  • Whizzo #18 5 years ago

    The trainers and auction house were much more obvious in the beta, most of them were outside what is now the town hall, which used to be the auction house as well. Got a bit of a shock when I went in there after having spent ages in there selling stuff before.

  • flec #19 5 years ago

    I don't actually get why this is any different froma proper launch. you can get discs when you pre-order, you then install it and play. Oh ok, first 10 days is free (which i jsut realised) and thats nice but apart from that?

  • Wendelius #20 5 years ago

    @flec

    Apart from that, using the preorder also qualifies you for the lifetime membership or lower monthly subscription rate. If you order after release date, you will have to pay more monthly.

    For this alone, it makes the preorders very attractive.

  • Krusty #21 5 years ago

    I'm on Vista and fine for me... runs in a Window, everything.
    Crazy considering nVidia drivers still (yes, still) blow goats.

    I'm enjoying it for my first dip into MMORPG-land - not sure my missus is enjoying the fact though...

    Still, ho hum.

  • MaxiSleep #22 5 years ago

    Have to say I am very very impressed so far. Only thing I dislike is the fixed size icons. On a high res screen they are a bit small.

    On the plus side I am running at the same res I used for WoW with most of the features on.

    The gameplay itself is good and the graphics are breathtaking at times.

    Anyway this might be the one that cures my WoW addiction :)

  • AOFanboi #23 5 years ago

    <em>Anyway this might be the one that cures my WoW addiction :)</em>

    Looks more like it has replaced it. :)

    I am glad I have (mostly) switched to Mac, since there are relatively few MMOs for it. But there is WoW... Warhammer Online might be the game that makes me buy Vista and dual-boot though.

  • Kostabi #24 5 years ago

    Been playing the pre-order phase since the weekend and I'm really enjoying my time with the game so far.

    I'm not a big MMO fan but there are times when LOTRO feels more like a well crafted single player RPG, plus those deeds are more addictive than 360 achievements. The gotta catch 'em all mentality is only helped by the fact that most of them boost stats too. The fiends!

    The world is lovely to run around in, although I'm at a point where a lot of the quests are "kill so many of xx'' which is a little disapointing, even more so when I've got three quests that all involve killing the same patch of wolves in the Old Forest. Lame.

    Also, the storyline structure reminds me a lot of how Guild Wars does things which is more of a compliment than anything else.