Lord of the Rings Online has been a pleasant surprise.
I remember downloading the client probably a year after it was released and being thoroughly unimpressed. I think the first character I tried was a hobbit and I couldn't make it through the starting area, it just seemed so contrived and messy at the time. Uninstalled.
Enter LOTRO some four years later.
I have to say, of all the MMO's I've decided to seriously try to dig into, this one is by far the most polished, the deepest in terms of its raw amount of content, and, in many ways, simply the funnest to play. The only other one that I've ever been able to "finish" -- DDO -- was a Turbine title as well, and it, too, eventually became a solid and tight game but one that did take several years to get that way.
They've just added so much stuff over the years to LOTRO that it's hard to include it all in any short description of the game. The world has grown to monstrous proportions, the majority of Middle Earth covered in detail. They are still releasing and planning to release more content in the future, as well; The Great River, apparently coming out this Spring, is supposed to connect the region between Lothlorien and Rohan. That brings the total number of explorable regions to... sixteen? I think? Each of which features probably an average of between 150 and 200 quests, with the game's current level cap sitting at I believe 75. That's a LOT of content and believe me, until you get into the game and realize how large and full each region is, it's hard to grasp in scope.
The gameplay is exactly what you'd expect: create an unknown Middle-Earth dork and pretend you're somehow inserted into the lore while occasionally running into Aragorn and the other big shots, just barely chipping away at the sad reality of every other MMO -- you're just here to grind. But if you don't mind that kind of thing -- otherwise you'd likely not be reading this right now -- and you think that having at least some level of developed canon slathered on top of your endlessly running around fetching this for this hobbit, killing X number of these types of baddies for that innkeeper (you know the drill) may help, it tends to at least partially justify the insanity that these types of games embody, and you wouldn't be wrong. I was actually rather pleased when a cutscene playing out the scene at the Prancing Pony Inn fired off after I progressed past a certain part in Bree. It's a pretty convincing carrot to chase after, knowing how much storyline there is there to chase.
But it (the gameplay) is very smooth. That is unless you're on a rathy noisy or laggy server, and to be honest apparently they all are a tiny bit lately as of the last update, number six I guess, which added Rohan I think, but this is quite atypical for Turbine. Generally, especially if you have a decent system, it's like walking around on butter. The animations aren't completely retarded, if a little cartooney, the game models and graphical assets are pleasing in their own way (much better than WoW, about on par with DDO but slightly better, not as good as a RIFT but cleaner), everything seems to load in quickly and can be made to look quite impressive with all the DX10 and 11 features enabled.
Things like crafting and other tertiary aspects seem to have all been paid as much attention to over the years since they're equally as deep. It struck me how much input the customer base (read: ringwraith fanboy nerds) must have had as an impact on the direction and development of the game. Some of the more brilliant ideas Turbine's come up with include a levelling game-within-the-game, the so-called virtues and their related traits, and the addictive cosmetics feature which ingeniously forces you to concentrate more on how your character looks rather than plays, further adding to the day-to-day draw of logging in. Just performing the best on your server is no longer good enough; now you've got to look your best, too.
I know this game has been out for a long time and many of you have either already made up your minds about it (or burned out on it), or, like me, never dug into it for whatever reason, and if you're the latter, I'd say it's high time to check it out. It's FtP right now up to I think like level 65 (!), and most areas are accessible as a froobie. You can also stop by your local "store" (yes, these things still exist) and pick up the Mithril Edition of the game which of course saves several hours or days of downloading time, and has some nice goodies thrown in such as a beautiful little horsie to ride around on. Bronies, yeah.
Seriously, of all the MMO's I've run into in my day, which admittedly haven't been all that many, LOTRO is so far proving to be one of my favorites. I'll probably play it for, oh, I don't know, maybe another two weeks or so...
I remember downloading the client probably a year after it was released and being thoroughly unimpressed. I think the first character I tried was a hobbit and I couldn't make it through the starting area, it just seemed so contrived and messy at the time. Uninstalled.
Enter LOTRO some four years later.
I have to say, of all the MMO's I've decided to seriously try to dig into, this one is by far the most polished, the deepest in terms of its raw amount of content, and, in many ways, simply the funnest to play. The only other one that I've ever been able to "finish" -- DDO -- was a Turbine title as well, and it, too, eventually became a solid and tight game but one that did take several years to get that way.
They've just added so much stuff over the years to LOTRO that it's hard to include it all in any short description of the game. The world has grown to monstrous proportions, the majority of Middle Earth covered in detail. They are still releasing and planning to release more content in the future, as well; The Great River, apparently coming out this Spring, is supposed to connect the region between Lothlorien and Rohan. That brings the total number of explorable regions to... sixteen? I think? Each of which features probably an average of between 150 and 200 quests, with the game's current level cap sitting at I believe 75. That's a LOT of content and believe me, until you get into the game and realize how large and full each region is, it's hard to grasp in scope.
The gameplay is exactly what you'd expect: create an unknown Middle-Earth dork and pretend you're somehow inserted into the lore while occasionally running into Aragorn and the other big shots, just barely chipping away at the sad reality of every other MMO -- you're just here to grind. But if you don't mind that kind of thing -- otherwise you'd likely not be reading this right now -- and you think that having at least some level of developed canon slathered on top of your endlessly running around fetching this for this hobbit, killing X number of these types of baddies for that innkeeper (you know the drill) may help, it tends to at least partially justify the insanity that these types of games embody, and you wouldn't be wrong. I was actually rather pleased when a cutscene playing out the scene at the Prancing Pony Inn fired off after I progressed past a certain part in Bree. It's a pretty convincing carrot to chase after, knowing how much storyline there is there to chase.
But it (the gameplay) is very smooth. That is unless you're on a rathy noisy or laggy server, and to be honest apparently they all are a tiny bit lately as of the last update, number six I guess, which added Rohan I think, but this is quite atypical for Turbine. Generally, especially if you have a decent system, it's like walking around on butter. The animations aren't completely retarded, if a little cartooney, the game models and graphical assets are pleasing in their own way (much better than WoW, about on par with DDO but slightly better, not as good as a RIFT but cleaner), everything seems to load in quickly and can be made to look quite impressive with all the DX10 and 11 features enabled.
Things like crafting and other tertiary aspects seem to have all been paid as much attention to over the years since they're equally as deep. It struck me how much input the customer base (read: ringwraith fanboy nerds) must have had as an impact on the direction and development of the game. Some of the more brilliant ideas Turbine's come up with include a levelling game-within-the-game, the so-called virtues and their related traits, and the addictive cosmetics feature which ingeniously forces you to concentrate more on how your character looks rather than plays, further adding to the day-to-day draw of logging in. Just performing the best on your server is no longer good enough; now you've got to look your best, too.
I know this game has been out for a long time and many of you have either already made up your minds about it (or burned out on it), or, like me, never dug into it for whatever reason, and if you're the latter, I'd say it's high time to check it out. It's FtP right now up to I think like level 65 (!), and most areas are accessible as a froobie. You can also stop by your local "store" (yes, these things still exist) and pick up the Mithril Edition of the game which of course saves several hours or days of downloading time, and has some nice goodies thrown in such as a beautiful little horsie to ride around on. Bronies, yeah.
Seriously, of all the MMO's I've run into in my day, which admittedly haven't been all that many, LOTRO is so far proving to be one of my favorites. I'll probably play it for, oh, I don't know, maybe another two weeks or so...