The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar Comments by Dan Griliopoulos

Playing this game sort of baffled me. It looked good, and played fine, but it didn't really click with me. Everyone in-game that I interacted with went on and on about how different and amazing it was, and how it wasn't the grind that other games were, and no matter how many times I pointed out that I had eight missions to bring back ten pig gizzards or vulture feathers or whatever other random object I was grinding for, they seemed adamant that yes, this was somehow new and exciting.

Weird.

I left WoW to play this, only to find out it was WoW with a LOTR skin, so I went back to WoW and continued the end-game there.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. I came from playing WoW, and I was looking for something a little different, but it's almost exactly the same, quest and combat wise.

It's nothing new really. I don't believe MMORPG's will ever re-invent the wheel. Personally I don't need them to.

But LotRO (now) is a really good MMORPG. It is as true to Tolkien as is possible, has ambience, a more organic look and feel than bloody WoW, and is actually quite funny with good writing now and then (start in the Shire for your first few levels if you want humor). Good crafting system, crafted items have real value and use. Not a half bad economy

Ok, there is a point you reach around level 15-20 in the Lone-Lands region, where you get sent off after your umpteenth boar snout, or boar belly or whatever, that you start getting that Boar'rd of the Rings feeling, but push on through that and it picks up, and at times, a lot.

The Lone Lands, that's where I finally gave up.

I think it was a fine game. I mean, I loved WoW, so it'd be hypocritical for me to say this one played poorly or something. I guess I just don't like Tolkien enough. That, and I enjoyed the more fanciful environments and enemies, rather than what I've always felt is a really drab, depressing universe (LotR).

When I played LOTRO it suffered from irritating split second pauses (hitching) when travelling about and it put me off playing the game so I cancelled my subscription. That was months ago though. Going by the forums, I wasn't the only one experiencing the issue yet World of Warcraft has always ran fine on my system at 1680x1050 with 4X AA and everything set to maximum so it seemed like an engine issue. Is this still the case or has the developers finally fixed it?

Different strokes for different folks.

WoW heart my eyes during my 2X60+ stays there, and I was afraid the saccharine graphics would give me cavities.

But more power to you, no point playing something you don't enjoy.

I have personally had epiphanies during late night sessions in LotRO, running up The Hill in The Shire, watching the sun set beautifully there, all the while listening to some Caravan prog CD or other on my stereo and sipping green japanese sencha tea.

Ha ha. No, really.

For my mind forever voyaging it has at times managed to capture that beloved Tolkien feeling, not often, but at times.

WoW hearts my eyes, too.

Well I guess we all have different tastes in mmo's, having played DAOC, SWG and WOW I've found the casual nature of LOTR suits me better. It don't soak up your life as WOW can and to be honest LOTR's community is by the far the warmest and most grown up I've found in the mmo scene, probably due in part to many players being older like me.

Personally its nice to log into LOTR and know I'm not going to encounter a teenage kid screaming noob or have an argument with some guild type over taking raiding seriously as was often the risk of WOW. But I guess we all have different needs from an mmo.

@Darren: First you have to know that at whatever setting, the LotRO engine is doing a hell of a lot more than the WoW engine, graphically.

That said, I had negative game-engine experiences with LotRO when I first started playing last year too - when it opened, and I left because of them.

They definitely seem to be gone now. I run the DX10 client with all bangs and whistles on at 1600X1200, 4XAA, you name it, and it still runs at 40-60 FPS on my rig. Now my rig is pretty high-end, but NOT bleeding edge.

As other users have said; while I enjoyed my brief time with LOTR:O, it just didn't seem to reach to dizzy, addictive heights that WoW does for me. But I could see there was a fairly decent game within what I experienced.

My only real problem with LOTR:O is the characters. When I start a new MMO, or a typical western RPG for that matter, I like to experiment with the different character types available until I find a class that I will enjoy grinding through the game with for numerous hours.

In LOTR:O the characters classes available seemed a little limited, you have three different warrior type classes that can all pretty much carry out the same role in different ways, then you have a spell caster class... only it isn't a spell caster class because wizards/mages etc. are a rare breed in Tolkien's world and in all fairness to Turbine, they have tried to honor Middle Earth lore as much as possible, and then finally you have two other misc. classes that, from what I could tell, hardly anyone played in game because they were a support class, and there weren't many other people to support...

In WoW, you have a number of very different classes that all allow you to play the game very differently and they all also have their own unique look and feel. While I understand Turbine have to stick closely to Middle Earth lore in order to not piss off the huge Tolkien fan base, I just think the classes available in the game, at this point in time anyway, are a little too limited.

But as always, that's only personal opinion.

It's like a LOTR total conversion for WoW. It's almost entirely identical, but without the huge community and personal attachment we've developed with the WoW classes, locations and raids. (Yes, I know we know Tolkein lore, but I haven't spent years playing there).

"It's like a LOTR total conversion for WoW"

Just wait till you play Warhammer

I did think the Traits system was very well-implemented, if a bit grind-heavy at points. Reminded me of the City of Heroes Badge system, but with more flexibility and functionality.

there's a tremendously decent community in LOTRO, almost no trashtalk on channels in the year I've been playing it, always lots of helpful advice, it self polices really well, and I'm not talking about roleplaying servers.

PVP is a zergfest, and consequently dull, raids are cool, but the whole level system is depressingly DAOC/WOW, and I'm a huge fan of the UO skill based progress.

If you're a hardcore mmo player you'll probably moan the instances aren't as numerous or as big, pvp not that great, identikit builds for classes at the endgame, with only subtle variations.

If you just like Tolkien's world, you'll find they've really given it some love, Weathertop looks spectacular, as does the shire, Elrond's house is gorgeous, angmar is bleached out with some great ambience and the quest dialogues do fit with the feel of this point in the third age, great synergy with the book as the reviewer points out.

I'm a hardcore tolkien geek, but I get this is a videogame, what they've matched to my expectation is great, it's a tremendous go at creating this world.

Lord of the G Strings.

Dildo Saggins FTW.

I had a good few months on LOTRO, but I got to the stage where I felt I was just grinding for the sake of hitting a magical number that actually didn't do anything. The PvP, while fun, is weak and I think that's what killed me. If I could've taken my character up against other ones I may have seen more point in bettering myself. Tis a beautiful game tho.

I've started a WoW trial in search of the hype. Will see, but unless the PvP is good it's going to bore me too.

Good stuff, now can we get on with playing Power Grid? ;)

I play both and I am a serious end game WoW raider. I have NO problems to say that LOTRO is the superior game on almost all fronts. The mechanics are the same but all aspects are better. The only thing that is a downside is the smaller playerbase making it harder to find parties for some of the instances. Turbine has taken great care to avoid some of the pitfalls of WoW and I can also see that improve over the next few years.

If you are looking for a MMORPG then LOTRO is IMHO the best choice. WoW has incredible good moments but has incredible low moments as well when it feels like work. LOTRO avoids this a bit more and has a much better math engine RPG system behind it all (greater experience of Turbine IMHO). WoW is getting more mellow as well but Blizzard is stuck with a totally broken game engine that powers it all, hence the attempts to fix it by tweaking stuff all the time (yeah right Resilience!). As a game designer, math freak and WoW player I sometimes wanne go over to Blizzard and shoot someone ;)

"I've started a WoW trial in search of the hype. Will see, but unless the PvP is good it's going to bore me too. "

PvP is WoW is total shit. It breaks the first rule of (European) games design. NEVER take control AWAY from the player!!!

I misread the article tagline as "Pure Shite", and was then very surprised when I checked the article and saw the 9/10. That's what you get for being blind, I suppose.

I'm starting to break out of the lone-lands (there's a real lull) and it's getting really good again. Just need to finish book 2 and I can leave Ost Guruth behind for good.

Aye the Lone Lands is a real bore especially for the 5th time but it does get much better later on.
As well as Huntards and Burglars, Guardians can set off conjunctions with Turn the Tables iirc.

After reading this, I'm downloading the 7 day free trial. Plus it's only £7.72 on Play.com!

Mawkish?

@r3n

The £7.72 (or £7.99 as it seems to be on the good old high street) version of LOTR:O doesn't come with a months subscription as the normal version of the game does. So by the time you factor in that cost, you'll be paying the same amount as getting it for close to £20.

This review appears in your RSS feed 3 times, each with slightly different titles.

I'm starting to think that rather than being paid for each article, you are in fact paid for the number of times that you link to that article.

Vrai au faux?

No Mac client = no WoW substitute. Guess EVE and Vendetta Online are the only other Mac options for MMOs. Oh, and Oberin.

Liked it for the free month on the PC though, but too many Fed-Ex quests and that %$"#ing labyrinth forest drove me away. Too "samey" as well, at least the early zones, perhaps better later on.

Bland shite.

After Beta and a further two trial attempts, to see what all the fuss was about, I decided it was needlessly instanced and bland to the point of no return.

The game just feels soulless, in terms of art direction and style. Seriously do not understand why its being praised as much as it is.

Well, as I mentioned earler, WoW had turned to turnips for me, so I'm now into my 2nd week of LotRO.

Ultimately, if you're looking for a true rpg mmorpg with an amazingly supportive community and an astoundingly beautiful and immersive game world, you're doing yourself a disservice not at the least trying the free trial.

Of course, at 19.99US, why not support a talented developer and give it a go for a month? Trust me, the game has come a long way since launch.

I don't get it. LotrO doesn't get 10 because it has the same flaws as WoW - a 10 game?

Not that I mind the 9, I just think I may have missed something concerning what I wrote above...

Well considering WoW is just the basic ideas from old MMOs just refined and Blizzard's 'new' ideas have all been in other MMOs serval months (even years) before, of course MMOs will 'be like WoW', you'll have find suttle differences within them at the basic level which what WoW is, it's a good base level MMO, LOTRO takes it past that basic level with a lot more throught put into how skills work, events play out, great story telling (as thats what LOTR is), and a lot more upgrades and little achivments. Where WoW is like a console action game were you 'win', LOTRO is more like a true RPG were you 'live'.

Even so MMOs are all based off the orginal pen and paper D&D, so anyone expecting any RPG online or not to 'reinvent the wheel' you'll be looking at a totally different game to do that, you'll be looking at Second Life, people have commented on WAR, yes that will be like other MMORPGs, it wont be anythin completely different however the game does offer a lot of new twists in old ideas and improvments on past experiences, it's those differences in all MMOs we should be looking at, problem is we are looking at whats the same... If we continue to do that everything will look like the same game, which yet theres not been a 'complete clone' to date (besides the ones that just change the name and slap a p2p option to it)

To pick on the different aspect of the review and sidestepping the fruitless LotRO versus WoW discussion...

Monster play deserves more praise than given. Confusing? Chaotic? I can only assume the reviewer hasn't joined any monster play tribe (kins aka guilds for monster side) nor has really hooked up with a raid group during the battles. There's no NPCs to hold your hand or direct you during the free-for-all battles. It is players and players only who determine the direction of battle. On my server (Gilrain) there's some excellent monster players who are very capable of directing a raid group in offensive and defensive maneuvers. And they draw up various tricks, like fooling free peoples (normal players) into camping a token force at Gramsfoot while the REAL main group hits Tirith Rhaw at the far side of the map.

First and foremost, if you want to accomplish something in the massed battles, it is all about cooperation. You can go solo and tag along a raid group, but if you want to be on the ball and informed, you are in a team. Many quests in the PvP area can be completed solo though.

Going entirely unmentioned is the big change brought by Book 12 update. Now, besides taking fortifications just for the sake of holding them, the side with majority of forts under their control can access the Delving of Fror, the underground caverns. The reason for going there is to kill its mobs for various types of barter stones, which can be exchanged - depending if you're a freep or creep - to PvP equipment or new abilities. If balance of power shifts aboveground, players inside the Delving are not simply ejected but must be hunted down by the opposing side.

As for the lag and related problems at the Ettenmoors, did he play during a patch day? I'm a semi-regular monster player and can't really recall having had any game-breaking problems as described. Of course, you will experience some hitching when you first run into that massed raid group, since lots of textures are being loaded into memory. But it should be smooth sailing afterwards.

I played a 14 day trial of this. Pretty good for a "WoW-ish" MMORPG, but that's not what I'm looking for so I was disappointed.

What's the point of a persistent world if it never changes? What's the point of PvP if nothing's at stake?

"What's the point of a persistent world if it never changes? What's the point of PvP if nothing's at stake? "

You didn't play LOTRO did you?

LOTRO does have a world that changes. Turbine was one of the first (and only actually) that had a changing world in Asheron's Call due to the world being streamed to the client (something the big MMOs do not do now... I wonder why?). They had citities being destroyed and rebuild and changed the landscape from time to time. In LOTRO they have done this as well on a more limited scale by having some parts of the story "instanced", sometimes triggering a change in the landscape after you have completed that part of the questline. IT works very well, but is not used often enough IMHO.

BTW what do you want at stake in PvP? You own life? Or do you want hardcore PvP like in AC where you can actually lose equipment? In that case I agree that all MMORPGs should have hardcore free-for-all PvP servers with equipment loss on death. Can you imagine how much this would upset the carebear WoW PvPers?

"After Beta and a further two trial attempts, to see what all the fuss was about, I decided it was needlessly instanced and bland to the point of no return.

The game just feels soulless, in terms of art direction and style. Seriously do not understand why its being praised as much as it is."

My thoughts exactly.

By now I tried to like LotRO for about 3 times (open beta and two 14 day trials) and each time the game just felt incredibly dull and bland. Also while the graphics are nice the animations are some of the worst I've ever seen.

One major point why the game just fails to grip me is the nearly complete lack of character customization. If I haven't missed something important the only way to disversify your character is by getting the "achievements" which mostly read "use skill X for 5000 times" or something along those lines. It's a total mystery to me why Turbine blatantly ripped of nearly everything other MMORPGs achieved earlier but didn't include any kind of talent system.

All in all LotRO imo is the definition of mediocrity in the MMORPG genre. The gameplay is solid, the quests are solid, classes are solid, graphics are solid but there is absolutely nothing which lets it stand out in the crowd. And as such a clear and definite 5/10 from me ;)

I too recently left WoW, tired of it after 3 years; LotRO is fine work, but it's just another EQ1 clone like WoW is.

You're a stupid faggot Wyrm. Wow isn't even original yet all you wanker fan boys sing its praise to the fuckin stars.

Ive been too and from LOTRO since relase, its a good game, but i just can't throw myself into it. As someone else said, its solid, just not exceptional.

So it has more innovative content than WoW but gets a lower review score because it shares the same flaws?

Balls.

LOTRO is an MMO for grown-ups, plain and simple.

Never played WoW, I'm thinking of giving it a try, but I'm playing LOTRO for 3 months (I'm moving to lone lands). I like the atmosfere, and people is very friendly, you always find someone to help you in a quest (even if they have already done it).

Never played WoW, I'm thinking of giving it a try, but I'm playing LOTRO for 3 months (I'm moving to lone lands). I like the atmosfere, and people is very friendly, you always find someone to help you in a quest (even if they have already done it).

----

If you love the questing element of LOTRO and are a fan of solo play, you'll love WoW. However, I don't know if it's simply because it's more mainstream, if it's because there are more players or if it's because of the way WoW plays, but the community has a much larger percentage of OMG TEH GHEY ELF LULZ players in it.

Of course, there are some very good WoW players, just as there are some arsey LOTRO ones, but in my experience, WoW has a larger percentage of "12-year olds."

EDIT: One other point: with WoW being more established, I don't know how easy or hard it will be for a new player to find groups of his level. You can solo pretty effectively in WoW but if you're looking for the social aspect you may find it lacking at lower levels, simply as the other players may be of a higher level than you...

I'm dusting off my old account and gonna resub this for a month. Haven't played LOTRO for almost two years but I'm sure there has been loads of changes since I quit. I'm sick and tired of WoW, Warhammer will have to wait and I need something else to do when I'm not losing my house and wife in Football Manager Live.

Can't be a coincidence they're offering a free week at the same time can it...?