This is whats wrong with todays mmo gamers today. How old are these people that really don't stop to think what they are saying before they make pathetic threads like this. Level 13 and he expects it all and then writes the game off because he really didn't do his homework.
Firstly, I did not right of the game.
Secondly, i apologies I din't know the game took place before the lotr books...
Does anyone know roughly which age the game starts, is it the beginning of the 3rd?
OK First your following the ring. Frodo has it. You miss him at first. Then as the game progresses you follow him. You actually meet up with Frodo in Rivendell as they are about to leave as the original fellowship is formed.
Now here is something you should do. You should do all the quests in the Shire, and by do them I mean read the text as well. You could learn a lot, the lore is there, the places are there. For the most part the shire is perfect and so is Bree and Bree fields, Rivendell was a letdown. Moria well a lot of folks would get into an argument if that is how Tolkien envisioned it. I am sure mirkwood was just thrown together wrong.
On my first toon I was awed by the story, however after SOM they forgot how to tell the story and got into the grind. Since then the story part has suffered greatly, with the exception of the epic books.
If your looking for all the places of middle earth, your are going to be disappointed, as we not even made it to isengard yet. Mirkwood was pourly done, and well I am just waiting now to see what happens when they go to level 70.
That's the trick isnt it, the game (any game) should ideally provide grind opportunities for those that want it, equally there should be content for those that don't. Grinding is just one example of the type of game mechanic that i personally enjoy amongst others (other's wont obviously, and thats fine). Where mmorgs are failing is where they break a mechanic because of mass complaining by other player types who see a mechanic and want to simplify/change it because they cannot stand the thought that it exists and it does not suit their style of playing. The lazy player want's a uniform simple game that selfishly suits their needs and image of how a game should be, and the only way developers can do this is by lowering the diversity bar - aka themepark mmorg time. Thats what broke (or maybe just fractured) the back of WOW, just ask anyone about WOTLK expansion.
Back on topic, with regards to Lotr, what it has going for it is the high quality of questing, which even though it is still somewhat on rails, does manage to remain interesting due to the rich tolkien background.
A player that doesn't like to grind is forced to grind to find an item. Therefore, the players that do like to grind are at an advantage. That is the problem. I've noticed that in LOTRO grinding often gives better rewards than questing. In my opinion, it isn't right.
You made an immediate transition from mechanics to laziness. You're implying that people who don't like to grind are lazy. Yet, why should people do something they don't enjoy in a game that ultimately is meant for enjoyment? Some people spend a ton of time on quests - equal amount of time to a person grinding - and get rewards that aren't as good for it (or rather several rewards that are simply decent, never excelent).
This was a problem in WoW. To solo efficiently, you had to do raids or at least instances to get gear good enough for efficient solo. Quest gear and farmed gear worked, but not well. So, people who liked to solo had to join groups and didn't do too well in them and didn't have much fun in them, but they had to do it to have fun playing solo. Luckily, they largely fixed this in Wrath of the Lich King.
Also, what's this rich Tolkien background? If thousands of dungeons were cleared every day, I think Middle Earth would've been liberated from all evil a long time ago. Honestly, I don't think any game caputres LOTR fully, because the events of LOTR are actually plausible for a mortal, which is in my opinion what makes it such a masterpiece (Frodo's excursion into Mordor is no less amazing than special force troops entering another country undetected), while to make a game that's good, it'd be simply too frustrating for the players to design the "plot" the same way.
Reward should be relative to effort regardess of wether it is from grinding or questing or whatever I agree. A proportion of a player base these days however wants the rewards with less or no effort, making the reward absolutely pointless, and ruining the game - rewards that you just pick up with no effort is no reward, its just a meangless graphic or statistic.
take WOW for example. it is so utterly gear centric now and WOTLK was where it started - I 'need' epix now! to do this and that, when actually people just needed patience to practice instances and actually have fun learning instead of demanding easy access to items that out-geared the instance. As for difficulty it was a joke, nax was steamrolled with blue gear, levelling, everything was 2-3 shotted, instances you literally ran through and aoe'd everything, bosses you just stood still and ignored all boss attacks by getting overhealed, and that's not even taking into account the epix gear that some people demanded to have easy access too. Those people who wanted this are missing the whole point of gaming in that some content should be hard and challenging, some should be easy as well, get the balance right in otherwords, do not make everything easy through quick gear inflation. It is ok to have people with different skill levels playing and progressing at different speeds - it's mad and selfish to think otherwise.
The fundemental problem remains however in that WOW is all about the gear, and the constant tiering feeds into this problem. A great solution would be to do what GWars does for example and give no stat increase for gear from a new instance, problem with that ofc is that those people not prepared to learn fights and used to being overgeared would complain with no thought to the actual implications - they just want the gear asap which continues to feed the gear inflation problem and so on and so forth.
As for LOTR and the original OP, post here have shown that LOTR is Lore-rich, and Im seeing that as a new player as well, which is a good thing hopefully for the OP. edit, well at least with my first char and reading all the quests, im happy to play it by eay and enjoy the ride for as long as it is fun.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
I went into LOTRO expecting to be able to explore and see the legendary places of middle earth. I rolled a elf hunter, I got to lvl 13 (at this point I thought ye this games pretty good) I decided to go off and explore the places of middle earth.
I got to the shire and upon entering hobbiton I was very dissapointed. Wheres bag-end? I expected to be able to go in and explore it. I'm guessing the game doesn't really have that many references to the books. correct em if im rong.
If I created a game based on a book or film especially ones as legendary as Tolkien's I would have given them some respect. I would have a monument where Boromir died, where gandalf fought the Balrag. But there seems to be nothing. I dread to think what Tolkien would say if he was still here, I doubt it would have even been licensed.
LotRO does a pretty poor job with the Lord of the Rings license. Rohan, Gondor, Isengard, and several other areas you'd like to explore from the movies or books are either not included or, in the case of areas like Bree, are included yet look terribly generic.
You owe it to yourself to check out Rivendell though, which while not the most practical MMO city, is one of the most initially beautiful sights I have ever seen in a game. I hear areas such as Lothlorien are done well too.
SWG, for all its criticism, offers tons of neat little nods to fans of the fims and expanded universe.
I loved the look and feel of bree etc, really looking forward to rivendell etc now thanks I guess as the game population dropped the resources available for developing the new areas got squeezed, its a shame if thats the case, but maybe with the new surge of players there will be more money for the new areas being developed - we can hope
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
I loved the look and feel of bree etc, really looking forward to rivendell etc now thanks I guess as the game population dropped the resources available for developing the new areas got squeezed, its a shame if thats the case, but maybe with the new surge of players there will be more money for the new areas being developed - we can hope
I don't think that was the case.
We have to remember that another studio was developing this game prior to Turbine. It's interesting because I've seen accounts from people who claimed to have been in moria when the game was in first development.
And if one goes to north east breeland it suddenly is more of a world for exploration with no real purpose but interesting nevertheless.
That topped with the original old forest which was absolutely beautiully done. Even the second iteration is better than what we have now. Though in fairness the original Old Forest was created by a Turbine employee.
I just think Turbine took was what was made and it helped them get a lot of stuff out. Then they reached a bit of a dead end and had to rely more on their own resources. That's just a guess but it does seem right. Heck, I remember seeing a video of the first version of middle earth online only to see the exact dwarf with the axe breaking down a door in the tutorial in LOTRO. So they did use assets from the previous developer.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
This is whats wrong with todays mmo gamers today. How old are these people that really don't stop to think what they are saying before they make pathetic threads like this. Level 13 and he expects it all and then writes the game off because he really didn't do his homework.
QFE!!!
OP, this probably isn't a game for you. Patience is a large part of lotro and there is lack of that demonstrated in your post. It's a great game and a helluva lotta fun IMO, but not the kinda game you seem to want.
You're telling a gamer to be patient? People are patient at work, with friends, but games are for entertainment; why should you have to be patient with them? "Oh wait for the enjoyment later." I hate that crap. If the game isn't fun in the bulk of what it was designed for (leveling), then the game probably isn't designed well except for hardcore gamers.
This is whats wrong with todays mmo gamers today. How old are these people that really don't stop to think what they are saying before they make pathetic threads like this. Level 13 and he expects it all and then writes the game off because he really didn't do his homework.
QFE!!!
OP, this probably isn't a game for you. Patience is a large part of lotro and there is lack of that demonstrated in your post. It's a great game and a helluva lotta fun IMO, but not the kinda game you seem to want.
You're telling a gamer to be patient? People are patient at work, with friends, but games are for entertainment; why should you have to be patient with them? "Oh wait for the enjoyment later." I hate that crap. If the game isn't fun in the bulk of what it was designed for (leveling), then the game probably isn't designed well except for hardcore gamers.
I most certainly did NOT!
Don't put words in my mouth.
Maybe you'd like to read and reply again?!
You basically implied that he'd have to be patient to enjoy LOTRO. I'm just summing up the implication of your post.
Maybe I didn't word that well. "You're saying that to enjoy the game the player has to be patient?" Well, how is that a great game? It becomes half job.
I think a little common sense is needed here. He was basically saying be patient and don't expect to see the whole game by level 13. Then used that example to generalize about the current culture of instant gratification. For whatever reason the poster wants to take that to the extreme and argue that lotro is boring and you need to be patient to play it.
I think a little common sense is needed here. He was basically saying be patient and don't expect to see the whole game by level 13. Then used that example to generalize about the current culture of instant gratification. For whatever reason the poster wants to take that to the extreme and argue that lotro is boring and you need to be patient to play it.
When did I ever say that LOTRO is boring? These people are telling a person to be patient about a game when:
1. he isn't really even arguing about that aspect of the game
2. shouldn't more than a dozen levels be enough to see the quality of a game?
I personally don't think LOTRO is that boring with certain classes.
Every MMO needs patience, its the nature of the game. Anyone who ever rerolled a max level raid geared char will tell you that, man those first levels are just torture ... Running around with maybe 2-4 skills, fighting single mobs that you can kill with like 2 button presses etc ...
One just has to keep in mind that these early levels are balanced in a way to make it not frustrating for someone totally new to the genre, not to be interesting for a experience MMO veteran.
Edit: And no, a dozen levels are never enough to see the Quality of a game. Cause otherwise Warhammer would be a totally awesome pvp game, while WoW would be totally shit. Or does anyone really think bashing murlocs in the elwyn forest is the awesomesauce and representative of the later game?
I went into LOTRO expecting to be able to explore and see the legendary places of middle earth. I rolled a elf hunter, I got to lvl 13 (at this point I thought ye this games pretty good) I decided to go off and explore the places of middle earth.
I got to the shire and upon entering hobbiton I was very dissapointed. Wheres bag-end? I expected to be able to go in and explore it. I'm guessing the game doesn't really have that many references to the books. correct em if im rong.
If I created a game based on a book or film especially ones as legendary as Tolkien's I would have given them some respect. I would have a monument where Boromir died, where gandalf fought the Balrag. But there seems to be nothing. I dread to think what Tolkien would say if he was still here, I doubt it would have even been licensed.
You should have made the title of this thread; "Very dissappointed; because I played the game for a few hours and was expecting to help Frodo fight Gollum over the One Ring at the Crack of Doom, but didn't."
If you had done that a person browsing would have immediatly known your expectations were absurd and would not be negatively affected by your ignorant conclusion.
This is an MMORPG, not a 3 hour movie.
Does it bother you that a few, or perhaps many, people may have browsed the threads on the first page and decided to forgo trying the LOTRO because of your irresponsible and selfish post, who otherwise might have enjoyed playing it for years to come?
I'm not trying to slam you personnally, because I don't think you meant any harm by this. But you may have done some harm anyway.
Every MMO needs patience, its the nature of the game. Anyone who ever rerolled a max level raid geared char will tell you that, man those first levels are just torture ... Running around with maybe 2-4 skills, fighting single mobs that you can kill with like 2 button presses etc ...
One just has to keep in mind that these early levels are balanced in a way to make it not frustrating for someone totally new to the genre, not to be interesting for a experience MMO veteran.
Edit: And no, a dozen levels are never enough to see the Quality of a game. Cause otherwise Warhammer would be a totally awesome pvp game, while WoW would be totally shit. Or does anyone really think bashing murlocs in the elwyn forest is the awesomesauce and representative of the later game?
I quit WoW because when I said I was bored of some of the repetitive quests, they told me to wait until endgame to have fun participating in high level raids. For the average player, it takes many, many hours to get to max level. Why would i waste all that time getting up so I can actually start having fun? It doesn't make sense to me.
Anyway, the only qualm against LOTRO I have is that until higher levels some of the content iis repetitive but mainly because people don't want to group to tackle higher level content at a lower level.
Bag end is right where it is supposed to be. Go to the party fields of Hobbiton and look up the hill you will see it.
The game is filled with references to the book, the events of the book happen in the epic storyline which most of it you only see happening in cutscenes but you get to experience and see many of the epic places that Frodo and company go to, including some places that they never got too. The game currently goes up to the border near fangorn forest, isengard and such. Those are coming in the fall. Fangorn probably later but Isengard and bits of the areas surronding Rohan are coming in the fall.
I think you are either looking in the wrong spots. The world is fleshed out and I would say to this date, is the best game representation of Middle-earth made.
Uhm.....THIS ^^^^^^^^^. Sounds like to me you didn't take your time looking for things. I've never played a game that so perfectly laid out the entire world from a known story. LotRO is spot on most of the time, but you have to LOOK.
Comments
^^ ooh weathertop, Forgot about that, cant wait to be standing up there at night
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
OK First your following the ring. Frodo has it. You miss him at first. Then as the game progresses you follow him. You actually meet up with Frodo in Rivendell as they are about to leave as the original fellowship is formed.
Now here is something you should do. You should do all the quests in the Shire, and by do them I mean read the text as well. You could learn a lot, the lore is there, the places are there. For the most part the shire is perfect and so is Bree and Bree fields, Rivendell was a letdown. Moria well a lot of folks would get into an argument if that is how Tolkien envisioned it. I am sure mirkwood was just thrown together wrong.
On my first toon I was awed by the story, however after SOM they forgot how to tell the story and got into the grind. Since then the story part has suffered greatly, with the exception of the epic books.
If your looking for all the places of middle earth, your are going to be disappointed, as we not even made it to isengard yet. Mirkwood was pourly done, and well I am just waiting now to see what happens when they go to level 70.
A player that doesn't like to grind is forced to grind to find an item. Therefore, the players that do like to grind are at an advantage. That is the problem. I've noticed that in LOTRO grinding often gives better rewards than questing. In my opinion, it isn't right.
You made an immediate transition from mechanics to laziness. You're implying that people who don't like to grind are lazy. Yet, why should people do something they don't enjoy in a game that ultimately is meant for enjoyment? Some people spend a ton of time on quests - equal amount of time to a person grinding - and get rewards that aren't as good for it (or rather several rewards that are simply decent, never excelent).
This was a problem in WoW. To solo efficiently, you had to do raids or at least instances to get gear good enough for efficient solo. Quest gear and farmed gear worked, but not well. So, people who liked to solo had to join groups and didn't do too well in them and didn't have much fun in them, but they had to do it to have fun playing solo. Luckily, they largely fixed this in Wrath of the Lich King.
Also, what's this rich Tolkien background? If thousands of dungeons were cleared every day, I think Middle Earth would've been liberated from all evil a long time ago. Honestly, I don't think any game caputres LOTR fully, because the events of LOTR are actually plausible for a mortal, which is in my opinion what makes it such a masterpiece (Frodo's excursion into Mordor is no less amazing than special force troops entering another country undetected), while to make a game that's good, it'd be simply too frustrating for the players to design the "plot" the same way.
Reward should be relative to effort regardess of wether it is from grinding or questing or whatever I agree. A proportion of a player base these days however wants the rewards with less or no effort, making the reward absolutely pointless, and ruining the game - rewards that you just pick up with no effort is no reward, its just a meangless graphic or statistic.
take WOW for example. it is so utterly gear centric now and WOTLK was where it started - I 'need' epix now! to do this and that, when actually people just needed patience to practice instances and actually have fun learning instead of demanding easy access to items that out-geared the instance. As for difficulty it was a joke, nax was steamrolled with blue gear, levelling, everything was 2-3 shotted, instances you literally ran through and aoe'd everything, bosses you just stood still and ignored all boss attacks by getting overhealed, and that's not even taking into account the epix gear that some people demanded to have easy access too. Those people who wanted this are missing the whole point of gaming in that some content should be hard and challenging, some should be easy as well, get the balance right in otherwords, do not make everything easy through quick gear inflation. It is ok to have people with different skill levels playing and progressing at different speeds - it's mad and selfish to think otherwise.
The fundemental problem remains however in that WOW is all about the gear, and the constant tiering feeds into this problem. A great solution would be to do what GWars does for example and give no stat increase for gear from a new instance, problem with that ofc is that those people not prepared to learn fights and used to being overgeared would complain with no thought to the actual implications - they just want the gear asap which continues to feed the gear inflation problem and so on and so forth.
As for LOTR and the original OP, post here have shown that LOTR is Lore-rich, and Im seeing that as a new player as well, which is a good thing hopefully for the OP. edit, well at least with my first char and reading all the quests, im happy to play it by eay and enjoy the ride for as long as it is fun.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
LotRO does a pretty poor job with the Lord of the Rings license. Rohan, Gondor, Isengard, and several other areas you'd like to explore from the movies or books are either not included or, in the case of areas like Bree, are included yet look terribly generic.
You owe it to yourself to check out Rivendell though, which while not the most practical MMO city, is one of the most initially beautiful sights I have ever seen in a game. I hear areas such as Lothlorien are done well too.
SWG, for all its criticism, offers tons of neat little nods to fans of the fims and expanded universe.
I loved the look and feel of bree etc, really looking forward to rivendell etc now thanks
I guess as the game population dropped the resources available for developing the new areas got squeezed, its a shame if thats the case, but maybe with the new surge of players there will be more money for the new areas being developed - we can hope 
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
I don't think that was the case.
We have to remember that another studio was developing this game prior to Turbine. It's interesting because I've seen accounts from people who claimed to have been in moria when the game was in first development.
And if one goes to north east breeland it suddenly is more of a world for exploration with no real purpose but interesting nevertheless.
That topped with the original old forest which was absolutely beautiully done. Even the second iteration is better than what we have now. Though in fairness the original Old Forest was created by a Turbine employee.
I just think Turbine took was what was made and it helped them get a lot of stuff out. Then they reached a bit of a dead end and had to rely more on their own resources. That's just a guess but it does seem right. Heck, I remember seeing a video of the first version of middle earth online only to see the exact dwarf with the axe breaking down a door in the tutorial in LOTRO. So they did use assets from the previous developer.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I most certainly did NOT!
Don't put words in my mouth.
Maybe you'd like to read and reply again?!
You basically implied that he'd have to be patient to enjoy LOTRO. I'm just summing up the implication of your post.
Maybe I didn't word that well. "You're saying that to enjoy the game the player has to be patient?" Well, how is that a great game? It becomes half job.
I think a little common sense is needed here. He was basically saying be patient and don't expect to see the whole game by level 13. Then used that example to generalize about the current culture of instant gratification. For whatever reason the poster wants to take that to the extreme and argue that lotro is boring and you need to be patient to play it.
When did I ever say that LOTRO is boring? These people are telling a person to be patient about a game when:
1. he isn't really even arguing about that aspect of the game
2. shouldn't more than a dozen levels be enough to see the quality of a game?
I personally don't think LOTRO is that boring with certain classes.
Every MMO needs patience, its the nature of the game. Anyone who ever rerolled a max level raid geared char will tell you that, man those first levels are just torture ... Running around with maybe 2-4 skills, fighting single mobs that you can kill with like 2 button presses etc ...
One just has to keep in mind that these early levels are balanced in a way to make it not frustrating for someone totally new to the genre, not to be interesting for a experience MMO veteran.
Edit: And no, a dozen levels are never enough to see the Quality of a game. Cause otherwise Warhammer would be a totally awesome pvp game, while WoW would be totally shit. Or does anyone really think bashing murlocs in the elwyn forest is the awesomesauce and representative of the later game?
You should have made the title of this thread; "Very dissappointed; because I played the game for a few hours and was expecting to help Frodo fight Gollum over the One Ring at the Crack of Doom, but didn't."
If you had done that a person browsing would have immediatly known your expectations were absurd and would not be negatively affected by your ignorant conclusion.
This is an MMORPG, not a 3 hour movie.
Does it bother you that a few, or perhaps many, people may have browsed the threads on the first page and decided to forgo trying the LOTRO because of your irresponsible and selfish post, who otherwise might have enjoyed playing it for years to come?
I'm not trying to slam you personnally, because I don't think you meant any harm by this. But you may have done some harm anyway.
some people dont realise they ake an 20+ year game out of an 10 hours lasting movie :P
https://ashesofcreation.com/r/Y4U3PQCASUPJ5SED
I quit WoW because when I said I was bored of some of the repetitive quests, they told me to wait until endgame to have fun participating in high level raids. For the average player, it takes many, many hours to get to max level. Why would i waste all that time getting up so I can actually start having fun? It doesn't make sense to me.
Anyway, the only qualm against LOTRO I have is that until higher levels some of the content iis repetitive but mainly because people don't want to group to tackle higher level content at a lower level.
Uhm.....THIS ^^^^^^^^^. Sounds like to me you didn't take your time looking for things. I've never played a game that so perfectly laid out the entire world from a known story. LotRO is spot on most of the time, but you have to LOOK.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club