Is it rubbish?

[Btone]

i ve been plaing it. running on a top spec machine it look bloody fanstice (it also sound dam good if u got a good setup as well). but at the end of the day that only eye candy. it how it plays will make or break the game.

at first i didn't like it that much
The interface is as nice as wow or as easy to setup (tho to be fair i am still working out how to set stuff up in the UI so it may/may not turn to be better)

and it seemed that we hand the same old quests collect this/kill that/talk to sombody and at first i jsut ran round collect a quest, read the bare min i need to to finish the quest move on

then i started reading the background info you got on the quests and i found my self really injoying the game. they have put a lot of efford in to the story of them

over all

is it the next gen of mmo, NO it the tried and trusted model that been in place since EQ

will it remove WoW from being the number one mmo NO. over all i think WoW will remain no1 mainly casue it easyer to play. i would say LoTR may well turn out to be the thinking man game

is it fun YES, once you realise it not wow/eq that while you might think you know how to play the classes in LoTR casue you played similar class in other games, truth is you don't. also it not a PL game to get most injoyment out of it you will need to sit back, read all therre is and just taken in the general feel of the game as you quest

at the moment from playing a bit of the beta and the pre order i would give it 7/10, how ever i would have to say that when i played at the same point i would be giving wow 8/10

 

[SadSurfer]

The servers have a weekly downtime of a couple of hours every Tuesday. There were major problems after the server restart today. I would bet a gazillion dollars that it is either the French crappie internet services or the tech guys they have employed (ie its an infrastructure issue) rather than any problem with the game. Why on earth they choose Codemasters to represent them in Europe is beyond me.

Oi you ^^
The problem is the SAN with the databases on it and is hardware not software related.
The tech guys at Codies are good guys, I know, I employed them
Likewise Codies are doing LOTRO for Turbine because I signed it from Turbine for Codies.

Dont get me wrong, since I left the guys there have done some interesting things that I would not have let slide but most of the people there are good peeps.

Now, step outside

SS

 

[Flight]

Oi you ^^
The problem is the SAN with the databases on it and is hardware not software related.
The tech guys at Codies are good guys, I know, I employed them
Likewise Codies are doing LOTRO for Turbine because I signed it from Turbine for Codies.

Dont get me wrong, since I left the guys there have done some interesting things that I would not have let slide but most of the people there are good peeps.

Now, step outside

SS

Techies will blame all sorts of shit - at the end of the day who is going to/who can argue with them ? And I did say it was hardware (infrastructure) defintely not software (the game). If it was a software problem they would be having it on Turbines servers also.

Bottom line any system should have resisliency and redundancy built into it. Someone has messed up, whether it is the techie who built it, the techie who rebooted it or the techie who, maybe, forget to put power backups on one piece of system critical hardware.

I'm also betting now that its no longer a hardware issue but that they are trying now to sort the corrupted data - that comes down to a decision about take more time vrs a roll back vrs a wipe.


Zero excuse for this amount of downtime.

 

[SadSurfer]

Agreed m8 - to long downtime, not sure what happen to n+1 but then I have not been there for a while.
SS

 

[Zed]

Some of the things i liked..

1. It felt like Middle Earth. I started playing way before the shire was open as a starting place or the Elf region or the dorf region. Seeing those become available was tremendous.

2. The quest system, talents etc. Very nice. You would get titles just by running around clearing out quests. Even in early beta (last summer) there were more quests than you could shake a stick at, myself and Sorontar got to level 20+ without having to touch quests in the lone lands or near weathertop.

3. The sites and sounds... the first time we ran into the Barrow Downs we both went "Woah". The first time to the top of Weathertop it was the same, The first time we rounded a random corner in the old forest and who should come upto you singing but Tom Bombadil.. tremendous.

4. The crafting system. Very very simple and without even trying you could get fairly high into it fairly quickly without it ever feeling like a grind for ingredients.

That said it got stale for me ... i have the preoder and the game on order. Im still undecided if i want to play or stick with DDO until Gods and Heroes arrive. Its nice to see we have a thriving guild though.

 

[Bezra]

Btone sums up my thoughts pretty well.

I'm taking it nice and slow on the RP server which is something I've not done before and I'm enjoying the game a lot more as a result.

I quit WoW after 5 months but am guessing, as I'm a Tolkien geekboi, LOTRO will keep me a bit longer!

 

[Kegs]

You're just a geek boi anyway Bez mate.

 

[Flight]

Nearly a week after release and my highest character just dinged 10. I am in no rush whatsoever. Most fun I have had in a game for a long time.

The Shire really is terrific

 

[Cullhaven]

It just feels so "right" that a lot of the Shire quests concern food. And theres a major quest/trait line concerning bad pies...

 

[Flight]

Yup yup, meant to mention the whole pie thing for Roch

I've been playing on the RP server as well as the Clan server and have to say I have very much enjoyed it. Have to turn pretty much all the 'open' chat off on our server; the vast majority of the folks on the RP are real Tolkien fans and really nice folk. Even joined a group to RP and had a great time.

 

[SadSurfer]

to be honest the more I play the less I am taken with LOTRO - I cannot put my figure on it but there is something holding me back from thinking it is awesome.
Don't get me wrong as it is a good game and all.
SS

 

[Ollwen]

I change my mind everytime I play. Last Night I enjoyed it a lot, the night before was very meh. I think I can echo the comments here, at times there is real brilliance in how things are strcutured and set up, at others its just a bit bland and lacks energy.

However, it is a refreshing change to WoW/EQ and so on. Its not hardcore at all and I felt the game was poor until I hit level 10 when things started to settle a bit more. I feel there is a fair amount of work to be done with class skills and balance, they dont seem quite right yet and I also think early immersion needs to be worked on. My major complaint is the same as that for WoW though, everything is far too easy, an unfortunate outcome of the WoW factor.

Overall I'd say it started as a 5/10, some tweaks to the 'detected graphics' and the lag went which moved it to 6/10, currently at 7.5/10 and starting to impress more - key is to work with the game and understand what it is aiming at.

 

[Guy]

There seems to be a pretty tight line of opinions here, ranging from awful to great, so for me I think it's gonna be at least a 3-month wait to see what happens with the game before I dip a toe in...

 

[Janie]

It's a decent enough game. But we won't be upgrading when the 10 days runs out.

Last night we had ago at the main storyline chapter quests (between us we did the first 4). I was really hoping these would be something special as these are classed are fellowship (need group for) quests, so I expected something like the Deadmines or Rage Fire Caverns. They were nothing like those, none of the 4 we did took more than a few minutes there was no tactics or group communication, at no point did we feel we were playing as a group. The first one was typical - we couldn't find 4 people so entered it as a group of 3 and expected to fail repeatedly. But it was easy yet confusing, you have to protect a ranger as he moves though a 'raider' camp - thing is he moved on his own so he starts a fight up, you and your team mates wade in (in total confusion) kill them all and look around to see the 'ranger' has moved to the next area and set off a plot conversation of which you've missed because you weren't there. At the end I had no idea what was going on in the plot or gained any real insite into how to play the class in group play. The other chapters we played were equally as disapointing and easy. It reminded me more of the missions in Guildwars (where everyone runs around like a headless chicken attacking anything - but that seems to work so why not!, rather than the tactical group instances in wow.)

Everything else in the game works decent (I do like the way the skills level up with you, instead of buying ranks) and some of the map area's are very good (like the shire!), but I just don't think it offers much I didn't see in leveling in Wow.

Haven't yet tried the Monster PvP thingy yet.

 

[Cullhaven]

Totally hooked now, grinding wolves at the moment for the advanced wolfslayer but to be honest, it dont feel like a grind, more like, as a Bounder, I'm doing my job protecting the less adventurous Hobbits from the wilderness encroaching on their petty lives. Cancelled WoW and gettting this. WoW will always be the best mmo, in my opinion, but this is good enough for me to warrant a break from it.

 

[Treebeard]

CE Edition shipped from DVD.co.uk today. \o/

 

[Medivac]

Haven't yet tried the Monster PvP thingy yet.

tis good nothing like going into a hobbit village ...... and killing every last one of them stealthed as wargs, even better that culling the Ewoks in SWG

 

[Flight]

CE Edition shipped from DVD.co.uk today. \o/

Aye got me email too Tree.

This bit interested me :

If the item does not turn up
----------------------------
If 14 days have passed since the dispatch date, please email us at [email protected] and we will arrange for a replacement to be delivered. Please include your order reference number and the date of dispatch, and state that the order has not been received. We will use this email as evidence for the investigation and claim that we will make with the Royal Mail and as confirmation of a lost parcel.

 

[Treebeard]

Aye got me email too Tree.

This bit interested me :

If the item does not turn up
----------------------------
If 14 days have passed since the dispatch date, please email us at [email protected] and we will arrange for a replacement to be delivered. Please include your order reference number and the date of dispatch, and state that the order has not been received. We will use this email as evidence for the investigation and claim that we will make with the Royal Mail and as confirmation of a lost parcel.

Do you know if we get any other item in the CE mate?

 

[Flight]

We get the leather wristband, an extra in game item and of course, if mad lucky, a gold or silver ring

Not sure what else to be honest, not spent any time looking.


Theres a post here saying they messed up and will be shipping the wristband separately, so they are including a CD of the LoTRO soundtrack on CD with the CE; happy with that personally.