The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar Comments by Robert Purchese

I bought LOTRO after EG's review but despite it being a solid MMORPG, there seems to be something missing from it that makes it inferior to World of Warcraft, which I've since rebought along with the Burning Crusade expansion and started playing again. I can't quite put my finger on what it is but it doesn't help that I have constant hitching on my system and that the game has loads of hideous popup which kind of prevents you from being immersed completely in the game world. WoW doesn't look as pretty but it has a slicker, more solid engine. Otherwise, LOTRO looks good and the quests are interesting but for some reason it is just not gripping me like I expected to. Instead I've found myself sucked in to WoW all over again; end result is that I've cancelled my LOTRO sub in favour of WoW. Hmmm...

Anyone else feel like I do about LOTRO?

Exactly the same for me Darren. I gave up WoW and joined Lotro, and was really impressed by it. The graphics are fantastic and the quests are well thought out. As you say its a solid MMO, but i never had the urge to always want to log on to it, like i had when i was playing wow. It lacked that certain something that keeps you gripped and makes you want to log on.

I guess what lotro did for me was make me want to resubscribe to wow. So here i am back in Azeroth with a new found enjoyment for the game, taking it slow with my druid rather than rushing to 70 like i did with my rogue.

I do hope lotro is a sucess though, sadly it just wasn't for me.

I'm similar, though rather than going back to WoW I've just abandoned MMOs altogether. I thought that when I was getting bored with LOTRO it must have been the "WoW" factor I was missing, but then I went back and played WoW and got bored within 20 minutes.

Then I bought a 360 instead! Then it broke within a week! That's a different story however.

Wow one month subscription to be bored withing 20 minutes?

I'd like to pick up my 46 in WoW again but am worried that that'll happen to me too, and am too tight to risk it!

lol yeah it wasn't the best 8.99 I ever spent. Oh well!

My experience is different from the initial posters. After playing most commercial MMO's coming out for the past 8 years, LOTRO is one of the few that has really captivated me.

I play most every nights, often duo'ing with my wife or on exciting and story driven fellowship quests with our Kinship and there is always something fun to do and a new sight to see. We just can't get enough of it.

It's polished, there is lots of contents, lots of lore, lots of fun details.

I also love the fact that Turbine is going back to its AC ways as far as expanding the world is concerned. It's all good. :)

Wendelius

I must say I am quite interested in trying this; however, I don't get much game play time on my PC (~ 5-10 hours a month).

I think it would be great if games like these also had a 'pay as you play' scheme as well as a monthly subscription.

There must be loads of people who feel the same way?

Bear with me, Xiphos. It's Monday and I'm still week-end addled. But what on earth are you trying to convey in your comment? :)

Yes I'm too struggling with LOTRO. I bought the 6 months membership but rarely log on. Just doesn't grip me. Still have a live sub with WoW but resting on that too. Back on Football Manager - strangely!

Games and MMORPGs are for a distinct group of people who have no responsibilities to worry about.

Since when? It's only about managing your spare time. Playing a MMO doesn't always mean you have to log ten hours a day while your house is on fire.

I bought Dungeon Siege II for bloody cheap and I'm actually having more fun with that. I began by enjoying LOTRO and then on Friday night (after 3 weeksd) I logged on and just felt meh about the whole thing.

I realised that as a mainly solo player it was going to be another bloody hard slog like WoW was (played for 9 months) and then I'd still not be happy with this and that. Besides which the choppyness of the engine when accessing the drive was terrible on my machine - at least WoW managed not to do this.

Xiphos
My wife doesn't join me in the general rejoicing of all things gaming if that makes you feel better. Oh apart from Katamari Damacy and ICO.

I think it helps if you're a Tolkein fan to really appreciate the environment. I for one am not a massive fan, though I did enjoy the books and films. I think, like SWG, most of LOTRO's interest stems from the original material; being able to go, "Wow, I'm actually in the Prancing Pony" would be the same feeling I got when I first played a game like Medal of Honour, feeling as if I was straight out of Saving Private Ryan.

"Tolkien fans thought they really were in Middle-Earth; it really was the place that they had come to expect - to some extent. All of us read the books and had different images in our head."

Pffft. This Tolkien fan gave up in disgust after a few hours' play.

edit - Mo0k, yes, that would work IF you were in the Prancing Pony. Any old dev can cobble together a 3D space with a few textures and a generic cod-celtic soundtrack and say "hey look it's the Prancing Pony" - that doesn't do it for me. I was all ready to be won over by this game, I've been following its development ever since it was first announced years ago. As I say, it left me stone cold. It might work as a generic MMORPG but it doesn't work as a recreation of Middle Earth. I've come to the conclusion that it's utterly futile trying to recreate a subjective experience, especially when its so well-loved by so many people around the world. The films failed, and the game fails. Why even bother? The books stand on their own. Create your own world and stop trying to make money off the back of other people's cherished reading experiences.

I disagree Otto. I am level 25 now. I have started ranging around and there are many places in Middle Earth (Great Barrows, Old Forest, Meluinen, Fornost (Deadman's Dike), Buckland, Weathertop) which I have seen and loved. I find those highly atmospheric and reminiscent of Middle Earth. Bree is not the be all end all of Middle Earth.

Also, the quests are continuing storylines which help flesh and bring the world to life.

Add to that effects like the Dread which match the feelings described by Tolkien when really bad creatures are encountered.

I find that Turbine really put some effort into this. sure it's a game first and it's not meant to be a still picture that gives a static and perfect image of Middle Earth. But as a game in ME, I find it works very nicely.

Just my opinion...

"But it also enjoyed a bug-free and polished launch, earning wide critical acclaim and a hearty pat on the back from yours truly."

Lmao, obviously not running vista then, go on the support forums and read the horror stories of people having BSOD's, lockups, blank screens, monitors switching off .. etc.....

theyve been advising people to turn down their graphics settings and in some cases to turn off sound in an attempt to alleviate the problems.....

I see that several other people have mentioned the hitching or framerate drops that LOTRO has when loading new areas, usually you see trees and buildings suddenly pop into view as well. This hitching is what is spoiling the game for me not to mention the jarring pop up... WoW runs silky smooth at 60 fps on my setup, scenery in the distant is shown as a silohette with detail that fades in slowly as you approach with only the odd bit of noticeable popup and there are no hitches whatsoever. Surely WoW is an older, less demanding game but even so LOTRO isn't exactly a resource hog nor does it look that amazing so why does the engine judder on my PC even if I set everything to low or high? If the developers fix this irritating issue then I'll go back and give the game another try...

I found the whole experience totally boring. Linear quests, poor loot, lots of quest bugs (mostly location points). LoTRo is just another grind fest to reach lvl 50. Theres also no sense of community, despite being in a guild/kinship.

Really its about time developers moved away from thousands of crappy quests and actually created engaging content. Star Wars Galaxies was far from perfect at launch but the whole skill tree idea it had (no levelling) was alot better giving users the chance to be unique.

Overall, LoTRo is a very limited experience

I played it in Beta, I was totally put off buying the final game by it, the animations were terrible, granted the environments were pretty, but some of the models weren't scaled properly, it just seemed like a total hash job to me.
I went straight back to World of Warcraft like it seems many others did.

a lot of us wow players stayed too ;)

I got into LotRO a few days ago and so far, have not really been taken in by it yet. It seems like WoW without much of the charm. The beginning was pretty decent but then I got my hobbit to the Shire, and 90% of the quests there are 'run to X to talk to Y' followed by 'Y wants you to talk to Z halfway across the map'. Really poor quests so far. I'm going to stick with it because I bought the limited edition and a 60 day timecard and that's a lot of money to just throw away. However I've really only had 2 long sessions yet so it could improve. But mainly this is just tiding me over until Tabula Rasa!

Don't judge the quests based only on the early ones which are there to get you to know the area.

Once you start the epic quests and other story quests, you will find a lot to enjoy.

Wendelius

I’ve found Bree and the Lonelands to be very well written and engaging! Some of the quests in Straddle particularly are very charming and funny :)

Even so, there always seems to be a looming element of dread in the background that isn't always obvious... WoW's quests seem very dull in comparrison.

Otto:

I think the main reason for fans being disappointed by both the film and game was the fact that LOTR came from a book, ergo, people had in their own minds what particular characters and places would look like. I know I for one was shocked to see how the movie represented trolls - I didn't have them pictured like that at all.

In the end, I believe it's the individual's willingness to put their own ideologies about the original canon on hold in order to taste what someone else, in this case Codemasters, saw the world as. Yes, it was highly influemced by the movie, but I think as soon as you put a book so well-loved into any visual format, people will complain.

For me, the game wasn't good enough, but I did like the setting, even though I'm not a huge LOTR fan.

[edited for typos]

Wendelius, I do confess that I am very interested in seeing what they've done with other locations in the world - not quite interested enough to keep playing (I had a few issues with the gameplay early on too) but interested enough to want to see it! :) Does anyone have any links to some in-game footage of the Old Forest, Bombadil, etc? :)

"...the Old Forest, Bombadil, etc? "

Tom Bombadil is a jolly fellow or a flirt. He kept dancingand sauntering in little circles around my wife's hunter all the time we spent in his house.

The Old Forest I've only been to twice and I'm not keen to repeat the experience with my other chars. Not because it's a bad zone but it's a creepy and sometimes scary one. It's full of mean old elite trees who will try to squash you if they get the chance and roots who won't let you pass. Old Man Willow is in there too. :)

Unfortunately, I can't point you at game footage as I haven't seen any yet.

Wendelius