I am tempted. Looks ok, got fairly good reviews but then its done by turbine who have produced nothing but grade A shit. I was going to give beta a go but couldnt be arsed with all the different accounts you had to create

Was alright, there was a lot of sparsity to it, lot of running around and still a fair bit buggy when i tried it

Might be better to wait for a few patches and updates really

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From what friends have told me its basically just another level treadmill born and bred to sucker in LotR / Tolkien fans with nothing particularly impressive about it bar the pixel crack. Staying away from it meself.

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and from what ive seen the pixel crack is pretty much the same as wow pixel crack

Ive been playing for around 12 days now and I have to say its one of the best MMOs ive played, and I have played alot.

Graphics are amazing, you dont need a great PC to play it, mine is a few years old with quite an old graphics card and I can play on High settings and experience no Lag, even in heavily populated areas.

Combat is the same as all MMO so nothing amazing there, some of the animations are pretty good tho. You can do Fellowship (group) specials that do alot of damage and look amazing.

The basic quests are intresting you actually have to read the quests to find the lcoations of certain things, where other games you have a massive waypoint or arrow, which kinda takes the fun away.

There are epic story quests, which have really got me into the game. You meet charchters from the books and help them do various stuff. When you finish an epic quest a movie will be shown, which are a pretty cool feature.

There are also lots of little things which make it great, like the ability to play instruments and make your own music. You can also grow and smoke your own pipe weed, all pretty good for rp.

The game is pretty polished, I am level 20 now and not had any major bugs with the gameplay, except for one quests which a GM helped me fix.

My only gripe is camping, sometimes when you need a named mob there will be lots of other people after the same person and it can take quite awhile to finally get the chance to kill him. This will probably settle down in a month or so when the rush dies down.
Oh and repair costs are abit high, my charchter is pretty much skint at all times.

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Sig Expertly designed by Falcon *thumbs up*

Although I haven't played it, my friend who has says it's nothing special thus far. Quests take too long to complete and any items of worth are far too expensive to buy. Pretty much he rates it as nothing new and uninstalled it to resume playing WoW.

Myself, am waiting for Star Trek online to come out. But that could be months and the latest news says it might end up being nothing more than an online version of Legacies.

Heh well, I'll jump in here as well...

I played during the beta for a couple of weeks.

Initially I was impressed at how polished the game was and it was also relatively bug and lag free. The starter quests are pretty cool first time through but after that you get the usual mmo quests fare which is go there kill x of that etc... not that you can really expect any more than that I guess.

Game looks nice enough, though I am not a fan of that style of graphics where everything has a misty dream-like sheen to everything... still it's better looking than WoW I guess.

Anyway, rather than ramble on for ages... it was fun for the first couple of days until I realised it offered absolutely nothing new (except perhaps for the music system which is pretty fun) - it just felt like WoW with a different skin minus the WoW-factor
If you're looking for a solid, WoW-like mmo set in middle earth then you should definately try it. If you're looking for something a bit different you'll have to go elsewhere...

Personally I'm waiting for Age of Conan

Age of Conan is sadly looking like it'll be another generic effort Abanyir. There were some high hopes it would offer something new to the MMO market, but press-releases say its largely the same auto-hit / 1-9 button business.

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Can you quote me any of the links? Everything I have read on the official site bangs on about the action oriented combat with directed swings and whatnot...

Back to the LOTRO question, never trust anyone else opinion on MMORPGS, ebcause they will always be so so biased either:

LOTR Fan Boys
WOW Fan Bois
Havnt actually Played it
Only played it for a few days
Hates LOTR generally
Not really looking for a new MMORPG at the moment anyway.

Anyways, its cheap enough to just buy the package and try the free month.


(P.S If its any good, let me know!)

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"Not really looking for a new MMORPG at the moment anyway."

Thats probably to me the most relevant point - most of these MMOs end up looking/playing the same really so why spend more money on something if you are happy with your current game[s]?

I cant see any reason to switch to LOTRO unless your actively seeking a change of game?

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sigged by Firebird of Stratics! Thanks!

Some guildies and I got invited a while back, and we all checked it out on the American Beta (for some reason they insist on separating US and European players). I played for around 6-8 hours before I got a Deja Vu overload and was forced to erase it from my computer. It felt unbelievably like WoW with a Tolkien skin, and I failed to see anything exciting and immersive about it. There is an interesting offer to pay £99 for it and get lifetime membership with no fees ever again, which isn't too bad I don't think.

All in all, it really is generic, formulaic and if you are looking for something different then you won't find it here. If you care for Lord of the Rings, and feel playing the Tolkien inspired WoW-port may be fun, go for it.

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I dont get all these claims its like WOW. Surely if this one is the same then all these games are alike, from EQ and DAOC upwards?

Cant see what makes it more a WOW clone than say, a EQ clone

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I am tempted by it, the "its a lot like wow" argument actualy favours me at the moment as I still enjoy wow but thanks to my wonderful job found myself guildless, as I have now got to 70 and done fairly much all I can solo I am fairly screwed until I get into a guild. And since rogues arent really in demand, and my gear isnt really all that good now at 70 finding an opening proved hard. So basicly just had to give it up. Yes I could level a different character but been there and done that its the high end stuff I want to do and do it as the char I have played for the past 2 years. So the draw of something wow like to fill my time sounds very good but then again the days of me spending all my time playing a single online game may be over...not because I have a life but because I got an xbox 360 and now play other games as well

I think the reason everyone says its like WoW is because WoW is leading the market in terms of MMO. I thought WoW was a good game can pick it up quite easily, play for a short while and have fun.

Which is what I find with LOTRO.
WoW wasnt a game that broke any moulds copied things from lots of other games, but that is the same with just about all MMO currently, excpet UO and pre NGE, CU SWG.

The same goes with LOTRO, nothing really new apart from a few things like the music system(think that was taken from AC1/2 not sure) and IG cut scenes. What is does do it does really well.

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Sig Expertly designed by Falcon *thumbs up*