Lord of the Rings Online MMORPG

[Elmo]

he couls tell us all he wants its not like they're spying on Lord of the Rings messageboards looking to see if anyone blabs

[Farael]

Originally Posted by hewhoarisesinmight

he couls tell us all he wants its not like they're spying on Lord of the Rings messageboards looking to see if anyone blabs

Actually, they are very strict with that... it only takes one barrow-downer who is also in the beta and agrees with the NDA to get me in trouble.

I can't show you any screenshots (I didn't take any anyway) and I don't think I can give you any specifics about the mechanics of the game. As mentioned before, there is no PvP but there is something like it... so if you like that aspect of the game, it's not totally missing. Some have even said that what they have going on is even better. I didn't try it myself.

The game seems to be very well developed. You get to choose your player from any of the four races of "free peoples" (Men, Hobbits, Elves and Dwarves). There are both male and female characters... unless you want a drwaf, they are all male

The creators of LoTR Online have made the game in such way that you can play by yourself for most of it... but there are some things that you'd be much better off doing as part of a fellowship (a temporary group, sort of like a short-term guild).

The quests are interesting... there is a heavy storyline behind most of them, it's not just "er... go kill 100 orcs because we don't like orcs". Having said that, there are more quests for each level than what you NEED. Which is great, if you want you can go and do every single one before moving on... or you can move on and then come back if you feel like it (although they will be much easier, obviously).

There is a crafting system in place that encourages players to work with each other as well, so while lone wolves can definitely play, there are clear benefits in working with others.

The graphics are very interesting, to me they have the right "feel"... the music was a little bit lacking at times, but I wasn't playing the finished game so I'm thinking they'll improve a bit on that before the release.

Answering Thenamir's question, I think it's very worth playing. I'm not a big fan of MMORPG's, I had some bad experiences (especially with pvp, getting constantly killed by players immensely more poweful than me... that and the sudden realization i was playing in a community that had several neo-nazis as prominent members, which was quite a shocker!) but this one feels different.

This is all I can think of right now... if you have any question ask away!

[Durelin]

I've heard more good things about it from other beta testers, too...this is getting me excited. Perhaps I should start looking for some more income soon...

I do have a question, Farael (or anyone) if you can answer it: Do you know much about the guild system in-game? I remember bits and pieces from way back, when I was actually in a guild, but I imagine quite a bit has probably changed since then.

My computer isn't the best out there but still at times the game ran very smoothly (at low graphs levels) so I'm guessing that if I ever get to play when it's not a stress-test (stress-test meaning that A LOT of people are on at the same time to try to test the limits of the servers and whatnot) it should run just fine.

That is definitely good to hear!

[Kuruharan]

I'm going to give it a try.

In fact, I'm planning on using my name from here so it'll be easy to find me.

(Guess what race I'm going to play...go on, guess. I'll give you four chances.)

I have my Pre-Order in and I have my application for beta testing. If anyone is looking for a guild visit http://elvenhome.wordpress.com/ some Downer members who have joined are Alkanoonion and Luthien

save your $$ and get the founder deal.

[Durelin]

I find the founder deal - the one payment of $199 for "lifetime membership" in particular - mighty enticing, but then I think... I haven't even seen it or played it (though I applied to beta testing recently...heh, what are my chances?), I don't know if it will work on my computer, and I don't know how much time I'll have to play when I go off to lovely college next year...etc., etc.

And of course it's only after you pay that you're guaranteed the beta test. Do you think I could pay for a month, and then pay for the lifetime membership? Hmm...

Ah, I'm so torn.

Goodness...apparently it requires 1 GB of RAM for the beta (backs down to 512 for the regular release, at least)... Farael - You said the game worked fine for you, though on low graphics (which is no problem with me) - how much RAM does your machine have?

[Farael]

Originally Posted by Durelin

I find the founder deal - the one payment of $199 for "lifetime membership" in particular - mighty enticing, but then I think... I haven't even seen it or played it (though I applied to beta testing recently...heh, what are my chances?), I don't know if it will work on my computer, and I don't know how much time I'll have to play when I go off to lovely college next year...etc., etc.

I have to say that your chances might not be great... but you loose nothing by trying! I think I read somewhere that there's a higher likelyhood for kinships to be invited to the Beta than for individuals alone, but since then I've heard nothing of the like.

And of course it's only after you pay that you're guaranteed the beta test. Do you think I could pay for a month, and then pay for the lifetime membership? Hmm...

Don't quote me on this, but I THINK SO. If you pre-order you are guaranteed a spot in the open beta (which starts by the end of March/beginning of April I think). You don't have to pay until the day the game is released (I believe late April) therefore you'd get to try it for about month, and then you could still opt for the 199 "lifetime membership". Keep in mind that founders get a lower monthly fee regardless.

Goodness...apparently it requires 1 GB of RAM for the beta (backs down to 512 for the regular release, at least)... Farael - You said the game worked fine for you, though on low graphics (which is no problem with me) - how much RAM does your machine have?

512

I should mention two things:
*First of all, the game did not run perfectly though. Usually, after I'd log in I'd have about two hours of gameplay where it would run from extremely smoothly (as good as it would if I was just playing it alone on my computer and not on the Internet and connected to servers and whatnot) to just a tad slow, but nothing that would hinder gameplay... just movements a little jerky and perhaps the occasional two second freeze. After a while though, the game would REALLY start to slow down... until it became unbearable. I believe I wasn't the only one having this problem, it's been reported and I'm sure it'll be fixed.... even then, it could be easily solved by logging off and back on. I should also mention that my computer is slightly messed up, so the fact that it ran smoothly at times is quite encouraging.

*While I'm greatly impressed by the game, I'm actually waiting to see if I get in the closed beta so that I can try out the game after fixing up my computer to see exactly how much of the troubles was the fact that it was a stress-test and how much was my computer not being up to it. I'm pretty sure it was just the fact that I barely have enough disk space to run the game, and that there are some errors that I never managed to fix.

[Farael]

Originally Posted by Durelin

I do have a question, Farael (or anyone) if you can answer it: Do you know much about the guild system in-game? I remember bits and pieces from way back, when I was actually in a guild, but I imagine quite a bit has probably changed since then.

I haven't had a chance to try the Kinship (guild) system, I only tried out the fellowship one. Fellowships are easy to form, easy to run and other than some minor glitches it worked just fine. I'm sure those glitches be fixed for the final release though.

For the record, a fellowship is like a short-term Kinship (guild)... there are probably some more bonuses for a kinship, but you definitely get benefits if you form a fellowship... the game is developed in such way that, while all characters COULD play by themselves almost all the time (save some few "fellowship quests" that you can still try alone but you probably won't be able to survive that) being part of a fellowship definitely makes the game easier.

There's also a way of configuring your chat window for a fellowship-only chat, and you get to see the other players in your mini-map. If you are on a mission of "kill X amount of such creature" or "find X amount of Y thing" all the players pool up their results, so it's A LOT faster that way.

Anyway, is there any interest in forming an (unofficial 'till we all get to play ) Kinship for the 'downers?

I'm guessing (or at least, hoping) that you like to play focusing on roleplaying rather than mad leveling... and if you are, I'm sure we could all work something out. If you aren't, you all can work something out but I'm prolly not joining in... I'm not that interested in playing just to be the "toughest kid in the block".