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Preview: Lord of the Rings Online

02.26.07 - 09:48pm

I have had the pleasure of joining thousands of other players in the land of Middle Earth for the LOTRO stress-test event this past weekend. LOTRO has been in the beta stage for a month or so and I completely forgot to apply for it so I had to wait for an open event to check out this new MMORPG. I typically enjoy two gaming genres, RTS and MMORPG, so I’d like to say I have a fair amount of experience in judging these particular genres. This latest wave of games that will be hitting the market over the next few months are part of an entirely new generation of MMORPGs. The first generation consisted of founders such as Ultima Online and Everquest that set the groundwork. The second generation consisted of improved games that worked on improving the gameplay and lowering the learning curve and featured titles such as Asheron’s Call, Everquest 2, and World of Warcraft. This particular generation of games still had a few bugs in them and they had varying learning curves ranging from easy (WoW) to moderate (AC) to stupid complicated (EQ2). This next generation of MMOs are trying to break down the enormous time requirements while providing even more content and so far the prospects look good with Vanguard, Age of Conan and Lord of the Rings Online leading the pack. Well I think that’s enough history, time to dive into LOTRO.

The designers and programers of Turbine have done an amazing job rendering Middle Earth in a similar manner to the LOTR movie series directed by Peter Jackson. I managed to visit a few of the locations that were highlighted in the movies and I was stunned by how realistic and precise the areas were rendered. It has been a good 5+ years since I read the entire Hobbit and LOTR series but from what I remember it felt like I was reliving the series. Some might find it disturbing to experience a sense of nostalgia as you walk through the zones within the game but there were many locations that Tolkien described so effectively in the novels that you could almost swear you were re-enacting the books. Character classes within the game cover the range of traditional options but I didn’t have enough time to fully test each class. You are restricted to playing as hobbits, elves, dwarves, or good humans, sadly you won’t be able to gather arms within the armies of Mordor and wreak havoc upon the little hobbits. Weapons, armor, and landscapes all play the part very well with the cities and items looking like they belong with nothing obscene standing out like guns or mechanical vehicles.

I created an elven champion over the weekend so I spent the majority of my time exploring their starting zone of Ered Luin. Just within this one zone I spent roughly 15 hours of gameplay tracking over every square foot and I never ran out of things to explore. From there you could travel to the Shire, Bree, and my travels ended at Rivendale. Thankfully there will be horses to purchase and pre-selected horse travel routes that can be traveled swiftly for a minor fee. Traveling on foot from Ered Luin to Rivendale took me an astonishing 30+ minutes just traveling on the most clearly labeled roads. In a few cases I was forced to take a detour when the road was broken off such as the ford before the Misty Mountains. From my brief travels I would say that the sheer size of Middle Earth will keep individuals occupied for weeks at the least, and with very few load-points distributed between certain zones it was a most pleasurable experience.

The combat and experience system aren’t all that innovative but nothing has really changed in this system since Ultima. I really wish someone would create a more interactive combat system, I think the Wii-mote needs to be ported to the PC. Either way combat isn’t dull as you have your dozen various skills to smash in hopes of bashing the critters faster. Some features of combat were still unclear, I think the hunters can initialize a sort of chain attack but nobody could get it to work. Otherwise you have you standard meat-tanks, back stabbers, casters, and healers. Combat can get to be a bit boring as you do the standard “Kill 10 critters and report back to me” quests but you have to start somewhere, right? Speaking of quests, there are a ton of “Run to Point A and talk to jibba jabba, Run to Point B and talk to jabba jibba, then run back to Point A and tell jibba jabba that jabba jibba doesn’t want to kill jabba jabba jabba”. Other quests include your standard “Deliver this to needy people” and “Go find the dwarf that got lost in the spider webs”. Suffice to say the quests will range from easy to difficult and not all of them are necessary but I highly suggest following the Epic Quest. Oh, perhaps I should mention that..

Unlike most MMORPGs that fail miserably at trying to form some sort of story-line, LOTRO does an excellent job at weaving a story that is only overshadowed by Tolkien’s actual novels. The game actually starts out with this Epic quest that will drag you through the newbie zone and then continue to lead you through theoretically the entire game. There is a chunk of the quest that should be completed at nearly every level, so it’s good practice to actually advance a little bit with side-quests and then group up with some friends and crush a few chapters at a time. If you actually listen to the entire dialogue, which there is a ton, you will notice that you are following a rather intricate quest. I won’t spoil much more of it, but saying the Epic Quest is one of the best features would still be an understatement.

For some players crafting is something to do when you can’t find a group while crafting can make or break a game for others. I sadly fall into that second group, my desire to construct stuff doesn’t get left behind in the real world. Now ironically I didn’t spend a SINGLE second crafting within LOTRO so I have almost no experience crafting. I did however spend quite some time gathering resources, I chose to be a weaponcrafter so I was then given 3 sub-professions, metalworking, prospecting, and 1 other(I forget..). The crafting system within LOTRO heavily stresses interdependence between the classes, for example weaponcrafters will need woodworkers to form the beams for their bows. Every class relies on another class for a portion of their final products making the auctionhouse an essential location for crafters. Gathering actual resources works rather well, for your primary resource you are given a sort of radar trait that will cause the resource nodes to showup on the mini-map which makes searching for these precious nodes so much easier than WoW or EQ2. Besides this little dabble crafting is unknown to me, when I participate in the open Beta on March 30th I may write more on this subject.

In general I found LOTRO to be a well balanced and built game. From the ground up it follows the previous models of Middle Earth while not ringing of a terribly constructed licensed game as most movie to game franchises work out. Current pricing will be $9.99 per month OR the option to purchase a lifetime membership for $199. This option for a lifetime membership is most intriguing as it asks users to drop a large chunk of change on a gamble but it does give the developer a vast quantity of instant capital to continue improving the game. Considering how most MMORPGs have a lifetime ranging from 2 to 3 years, you are looking at $5.50 to $8.29 per month based on a 2 and 3 year gameplay. Considering how most other MMORPGs are charging upwards of $13 per month, LOTRO looks to be a steal. From my initial gameplay I can’t guarantee that LOTRO will keep you occupied for 3 years as that requires me predicting if Turbine will continue to maintain the game but if they do continue to maintain and add to LOTRO then the lifetime fee would be an excellent purchase, especially if you are a Tolkien fan. It was a pleasure to play LOTRO for free and I will consider adding this to my growing library of PC games but that will be unlikely due to the amount of time picking up an MMORPG requires. Now the question is will LOTRO be able to make a foothold with WoW dominating the scene? If you have the chance during the next open session I’d suggest checking out LOTRO even if you only listen to the fanboi arguments about how much WoW and Vanguard suck, it made me smile. The complete set of screenshots that are featured in this post can be found here, they are either 600px or 1680px wide.

Bag End
Gate to the Shire
Legolas and Myself.. what a pimp
Shot of the Night Sky near Ered Luin.. look at those stars!

Category: Articles, Gaming, Preview