Thursday, November 25, 2010

Lord of the Rings Online, First Impressions

Lord of the Rings Online is a free to play MMORPG. While it is free to play it does offer you the choice to pay for unlocking certain classes and objects, but you do seem to slowly accumulate store currency as you play so it should be possible to buy these things without paying for them in real cash. It is very similar to World of Warcraft, with the same production values and similar gameplay structure; But I believe that it has many improvements, over and above the price. For example while I have only played one or two classes in both games, but the skills I have been playing with in LotRO are far more enjoyable and strategic then anything I ever played with in WoW. For example the Ranger in Lord of the Rings Online gets (right away, or very quickly) traps and some interesting bow skills in addition to their focus system. The focus system works by increasing your focus as you stand still and deal damage to foes using your bow skills, and allows you to launch very powerful attacks onto your foes when the gauge gets high enough.


Positives:
Its free to play and still features a huge world with tones of stuff to do in it.
Negatives:
Some of the content is only available to paying customers.
Summery:
A great alternative to the subscription based WoW.
Rating:
4/5
Developer:
Turbine
Publisher:
Turbine
Midway Games
Codemasters
Release Date:
April 24, 2007
System Requirements:
OS: Windows XP of newer
CPU: 1.8 GHz
RAM: 512 MB
Video Card: 64 MB
DirectX: 9.0c
Hard Drive: 7 GB
Official Game Web Site:
http://www.lotro.com/

5 comments:

  1. Glad you like it Jonathon. I did play LotRO back in its non-free days for almost half a year, which is quite amazing considering my low tolerance for MMORPGS. Especially liked the authentic way Middle Earth was presented and the quality of the writing.

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  2. Yes I love being able to travel a authentic looking middle earth.

    I wonder how much effort they put into making it correct, and how much they changed on purpose to better fit what they needed.

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  3. I've played it. It wasn't that good, but at least it's free.

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  4. Think they opted for a well-balanced correct-convenient balance, that I believe worked.

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  5. I want to try this game. I haven't played WoW in a while and I recently got SWTOR but the game doesn't feel like an MMO, it lacks a sense of world and wonder... which I've heard LotRO has.

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