Please pardon typos.....
I am a LOTRO n00b but a veteran of MMORPG's and online gaming since the late 80's.
The Good; Rich gaming environment of J.R.T. -
Both my kids and I love LOTR the books and movies. LOTRO provides an epic setting in which players can experience all of key components of the LOTR setting. Interacting with Strider and the other key members of the "Fellowship" is essential to immerse the player in the game from the beginning. Pipe weed and the various effects it produces are fantastic. The quests make sense and fit into the spirit of LOTR.
The graphics are excellent and very detailed. I spent over 2 hours in Rivendale when I first reached it looking around at everything from the buildings to the grass and trees. I spend at least 40% of my game play time looking at the ruins and other structures around the area in which I am questing. I also stray from the quest areas just to see what else is out there.
I would say that 99% of the players that I interact with and just meet in passing are absolutely stellar people. I found a great Kinship of like minded individuals that use the "pay it forward" idea. Pay it forward was a movie about helping others without expecting something in return. It is a great idea and I wish that all of the people in real life would get the concept. Most players are willing to help you if you are getting pwned by a mob, have a question or just need some general help on where to find something or how to use a game feature.
Crafting and resource gathering -
While the system is not overly complex or customizable in terms of the items look, feel and color when made, crafting of any profession is easy and pretty straight forward. The resources are easy to gather and there are not many "resource node" ninjas that will run up and steal a resource node that you are standing on top of and fighting a mob so you can mine. While a bit over whelming with respect to the number of crafting components one can find along ones travels it is pretty easy to level up your crafting and make useful items right from the start. This covers everything from potions, weapons, armor and yummy food to heal and buff. I personally love the hobbit food because it looks like some of the best buff and regen rate food available. It also fits in well with the hobbits love for food and makes sense that it would have wonderful and helpful properties. I look forward to trying some Elf bread, if it is in game.
Coming from WoW with the 10,000 GUI and game play add-ons I have to say that the current LOTRO GUI, while not perfect, is pretty easy to use and customize to suit ones needs. The quest tracker is swell and pretty helpful on where to find your objective.
Wow at least on my server things that I find myself needing are reasonably priced. The AH is easy to use and a good source of money and supplies that you would not otherwise find (or have time to find) in game. The economy, tied into the inter-dependent crafting system, is relatively anti-inflationary yet allows one to make some money for housing, horses, repairs and other things that one may want or need.
Well now, what can I say here I bought a Hobbit house and although rather limited in its ease of decorating compared to Star Wars Galaxies I still love it.
Getting bonuses to various abilities for finding ancient ruins, general exploration or killing so many evil creatures of a certain race is very interesting and fantastic. The titles one can get fits in great with Bilbo's many titles. The use of a Bard to rearrange your skills at will rocks!! It is pretty easy to work towards a desired end skill by using your base class attacks, buffs or traits a certain number of times and it makes sense that after so much use that you would move to another level of skill or develop an advanced talent.
Kid friendly and easy to play -
My daughters 9 and 11 watched me playing and now have 3 characters each of their own. They were able to jump into the game and with the help of the tutorials get up and running without my help.
There are so much more good points that I could point out but I want to wrap things up and get to playing...... so here we go ...
The Bad; TDM - "You shall not pass"
Turbine Download Manager is a pain in the rump to manage and use if it does not like your network equipment or fire wall. I spent about 5 hours changing ports and reconfiguring my 3 routers and various network devices in order to get TDM and LOTRO working properly. I still need to do some additional work in order to get my kids LOTRO working on their computer. It does not make any sense that my other computer, ran off of the same router, with all of the correct ports open will not run TDM and allow LOTRO to update.
The information available is generic, not very helpful because it is web / email based and it does not address any out of the ordinary issues that someone like me with a complex home network may experience. Not having a level 2 or 3 tech support person that you can actually talk to just plain sucks.
At first glance the Lore book was great and pretty useful but after my initial bliss at such easy access to relevant game information I soon found myself googeling the items or quests that I needed information because the wiki based lore book fell woefully short of delivering useful information. Two thumbs down on the Lore book until such a time when it actually contains information beyond the intuitively obvious, even to the most casual observer.
Getting around hills and mountains -
I understand that even a billy goat cannot scale a sheer vertical cliff but come on now an epic hero should be able to walk over a slight rise in elevation. It is also frustrating when your objective is 150 meters away but you need to travel 1230.3 meters around a mountain to get to it.
The Hobbits; I love them their food, housing and the shire. In fact every race and class in the game makes infinite sense with respect to LORT.
Over all this game is a 9/10 and well worth playing! I only hope that Minas Tirith is in the works. I would love to spend a week there looking at the city then pressing on to Mordor!!!!
Edited, Jul 17th 2009 2:11pm by Gortias Edited, Jul 17th 2009 2:15pm by Gortias
