User Reviews (1 - 11 of 101)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

LOTRO / Preordering

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 9
Date: March 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have been in LOTRO testing since Alpha testing in August. It . . is. . . fantastic. The game itself just gets better and better, with every addition. Kinship and individual housing is on the way (It won't clutter the landscape, they are going a different route), there's PvMP which gets rid of the negative portions of PvP, but has all the fun of playing as an evil race, as well as PvP. There is the epic chapter quests. There's the Middle Earth Lore (I've been reading the books since I was a child, and study Quenya and Sindarin, so yeah, I think I know what I'm talking about). Just a fantastic adaptation all around, for the MMO Genre. I've been playing MMO's since Meridian 59, and let me tell you, LOTRO, has what makes an MMO fun, fun.
[..]

After beta -The game is too small and offers nothing remotely new to genre

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 19
Date: March 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Just got done with closed beta and wow this game needs a lot of help. Too bad there is not enough time before launch. Search problems at auction, interface bugs, quest bugs, memory leaks, and graphics are meh for the power they take.

First of all the game is tiny. They say you can immerse yourself in middle earth. More like wading ankle deep to me. Nine areas total, each maybe twice as big as say a WoW zone. No replayability here. When and if they add new zones, they will all have to be high lvl zones which really makes no sense at all to me.

Some people say loot does nothing and thats good. Wrong! All characters become the same through traits that they can all get. Most traits do very little to enhance your character. A tree based system is always better as the players have to pick and follow different paths of specialization. In LoTR you just always get the best virtues,race traits(7 for 5 slots u do that math), and class traits. Later on in the game it is a grind to get the virtues as well(kill 100 elite gaunt men below your level). How this is better then having good loot is beyond me.

There are very few character class types and since stats do nothing to change your class the race seems to do little (except for race traits which are a nice touch, except everybody will have same ones equipped, read up). The three starting areas offer little replayability as after lvl 16-19 everyone moves on to barrow downs and lone lands anyways.

Finally crafting is terrible. No imagination here. Heavy leather gloves and superb heavy leather gloves for the win. Some items are not bound on use and so market is flooded even more so then other games.

There is however, one good thing. The chapter and book quest are nice and the streamlined storyline is fun. Too bad this is a tiny fraction of the game.

This game has been compared to WoW a lot and for good reason. The interface is exactly the same. The quest structure is similar as well. The land layout, crafting, classes, hell everything. The game looks, smells, and tastes like WoW. Except in almost all ways worse. Smaller, worse PvP, Less Classes, worse trait system. But more importantly, LoTR adds absolutely nothing new to the mmo market. Granted WoW and all other mmos have huge failings and that is why I no longer play any of them. But if they have failings and LoTR is worse, then what does that make LoTR?

Innovative, fun, great mmo

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: April 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

In this day and age, it is hard for an mmo to even get off the ground. With World of Warcraft dominating the industry, it would not surprise me if this game failed. I feel compelled by my experience with it, however, to try and prevent this, so I am reviewing wherever I can. I was in the beta, and enjoyed it quite a bit, and anticipated release fervently with my preorder. Now that I can play the final version, I can honestly say this is the best MMO I have ever played. It is simply incomparable to DDO, or at least what DDO was at release, I have heard it has gotten better. Lord of the Rings Online, though not incredibly new, is extremely fun, and has perfected most of the flaws of other mmos. Boredom is virtually absent, as even something as simply as using attacks improves your character, making them better at whatever attack you are doing. Unique means of advancement, clever design, and smooth, beautiful graphics that easily exceeded any of my expectations for my old computer and are simply spectacular on my new computer have all made this game a great experience thus far. I can't stress enough how much worthier a game this is than WoW, and how important it is to me that it succeed. I look forward to seeing the wiser of you online, and for the rest, enjoy your mmo. I know I'm enjoying mine.

WoW lite

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 18
Date: April 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game, while fun, is basically WoW lite, the graphics are about on par with Everquest (the first one) controls are a little off, tap the left key and turn 45 degrees, the quests are fun and the tutorial was interesting but it reminds me of Horizons, a few mobs spread out and large areas of nothing, not to mention about 10 of a quest mob for 25+ players hunting them, so there is alot of running around and waiting, the gear is pretty lame tho the game is suppose to not be loot driven, but there isn't really much else to do other than build a rep for yourself by completing the little achievements you get for doing quests. All in all, there is potential here... I'd wait a year or so before buying it, too many bugs and not enough substance... another MMO rushed to the shelves before it was finished I am afraid.

Very good MMORPG.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 10
Date: April 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have to strongly disagree with some of the previous reviewers. I was surprised and very pleased at the quality of this game, the attention given to the community by the dev team, and the attention to Lord of the Rings lore put into the game. The questing and gameplay are similar to World of Warcraft, but lack the redundancy and disconnected feeling I got from WoW questing. This is BY FAR the least buggy beta game I have ever played. The only bugs I have encountered are almost exclusively cosmetic, such as typos and some sound glitches. I have yet to experience any server lag or outages despite having played during the Stress Test and the Open Beta. The graphics are on par with Dungeons and Dragons Online, another Turbine game, which are (in my opinion) extremely good. Some people have said they think the graphics are bad, but this is a minority and is most likely due to the fact that they do not have the system needed to run any modern game at acceptable levels. If you play on Very Low settings, then yes the game won't look pretty. Stick to 2000-2004 games which were built for your older system. Overall, this is a great game and very affordable with the pre-order.

Same Old engine, Same old Grind

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 33
Date: April 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Nothing too new if you've played any of the other Turbine games. Got so bored I didn't even play out the preview. Don't bother buying it based on shill reviews from Turbine insiders, wait for the inevitable free preview. A rehash of Stormreach with Hobbits filling in for halflings, funny how they move exactly the same. Oh and expect much less fun items compared to the D&D license

never on-line gamed before

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: April 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

i love the lord of the rings and signed up for closed beta on this game. i started playing on the 1st stress test weekend and have been hooked ever since. i have a decent pc so i run on medium . the landscapes and towns are stunning . the gameplay feels right and having two sons who play world of warcraft i knew what mmo's were but wow never interested me. i can sum up what makes lotro better than wow in two words. story ,and community. It is a very cool thing to join a 6 person fellowship made up of people on different continents and time zones and go questing. the character classes are designed to need each other and a group that understands this will do well and have a great time. i will end with this. me my wife and my two sons all have played in the same group and have really had a blast (4 pcs and world tour access)

Ogre sized Potential... Hobbit size delivery.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 38 / 48
Date: April 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Ogre sized Potential... Hobbit size delivery.

I have a good amount of experience with this game having played it in both closed and open beta and truth be known, I really wanted it to be great. The unfortunate fact of the matter however is that it's just average at best.

At first it really grabs you as the world that Turbine has created to explore is very nicely done. The system requirements are steep but not off the charts for a game like this. I suspect that people who buy games by judging the screen shots on the box will go wild for this one. The characters and their animations are unfortunately not the same quality as the environment. Once walking through a field my wife asked me what that "thing" over there was... It was a bear, a bear walking with 4 completely straight legs and looking like a Lego animal that my daughter would make. Not a game breaker but unfortunately all the animations in this game have a great deal to be desired.

What is a game breaker however is the combat system and lack of player vs. player combat. I found all of the battles to be completely scripted and not interactive. While playing, I never once reacted to something my computer opponent did. Combat only requires button mashing and it really doesn't matter which ones. It is very difficult to tell when you executed a combat move as there is no real feed back from the UI other than the animation of your character. This problem is not helped by the fact that the UI is not scalable which means that if you play at a higher resolution than 1024 x 768, the icons get increasingly small to the point of being unusable. There is no solution for this and Turbine has stated that it will take a major overhaul to fix it. I don't see a solution forthcoming for a very long time. Other combat problems include the fact that armor just doesn't matter until very late in the game. Many players run around playing with out wearing any armor as the cost to repair it is prohibitive (more on this later) and it doesn't mitigate damage in any way.

Lord of the Rings Online does cater to group play as many of the higher level quests (Level 30 and up) require a group to complete. This is not a game for the solo player or for people who like to grind levels. The experience received for just killing monsters is very minimal. Quests are the way to level in this game. These quests are somewhat on the easy side and without the threat of PvP they are no problem to complete as long as you group. For my tastes, there are too many go to point A then to point B type quests. I know one quest chain where I traveled between 2 points, 11 times before I was finished. It is time consuming and maybe working as designed?

Back to repair bills. The game economy if very tight making it somewhat a struggle to achieve any wealth. This has unfortunately been a boon to gold farmers who have already descended on the game en mass. In fairness though, Turbine has acknowledged the economic problems and will be "tweaking" the economy in a patch predicted for a month or so after release.

Monster play is the only player verses player combat in the game. If you're not a fan of PvP, this may be a game for you if it's other problems aren't deal breakers. Monster play is confined to one zone and you play against other players who have been given level 50 monsters to combat you. Turbine has no plans of expanding this system at this time and really is not marketing the game for people looking to PvP.

Kind of negative so far so here is the big positive...

If you are a Tolkien fan you will enjoy exploring the world and seeing the familiar characters in it. Don't expect the movie version. This is different yet still nice. While I'm a fan of both the books and the movies this appeal just doesn't have any legs for me. I really couldn't play this game for more than 3 weeks tops which is prohibitive considering the purchase of the game plus a monthly subscription.

Bottom line: Nice eye candy but very flawed game play make for a flash in the pan type experience that will have you looking or another game in a couple weeks.

This is NOT a PvP game!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 31
Date: April 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I love how people review a game based on what "they" wanted it to be and not for what it is. Although this game has a PvP "Monster" area the main game is PvE or Player vs Environment.

So if you want to run around killing other players this is not the game for you. It was never supposed to be this type of game. To review a game because it was not made the way you wanted it to be made is just silly at best.

So in closing if you like WoW but want a change, if you like WoW but wanted better graphics, if you like the lower levels of EQ1 or EQ2 (when you could solo) and if you like to be placing "in" a world that seems alive and real then give LOTRO a try.

If you want to blow things up real good, if you want to "own" other players and brag how uber you are then move on or keep playing the other PvP games. The internal moster place battlefield are a blast but the main part of this game is overcoming quests and computer controlled AI either solo or in fellowships (groups) and not to beat the other side.

This is a game for mature people who are looking to avoid the randon "duel requests" from the pre-teens who snuck on their parents computer *smiles*

So what is LOTRO?

1. Perhaps the best graphics of any MMORPG out today. Graphics, while not making a game, do help get you into the game as long as they do not do so at the expense of fun. Since this game looks good on a 4 year old computer and great on a newer computer it is "you" who decide how important graphics are.

2. Nearly bug free which is more than I can say for a certain other game that was just released because they ran out of funds and needed people to pay to beta-test the game.

3. Rich history and storyline that is without question better than anything past, present and most likely future. This hitory was gathered over years and years of thought and not fudged together in months in order to fit features of a game. This game was made around the lore, not the lore around the game.

4. Quests are nearly as good as those in WoW and in some respects better. This is a game about questings and not about rinse and repeat massive MOB kills.

5. Solo Play as good as in WoW. Try soloing to high levels in most of the other games. You a hard core massive raider... well this is not that type of game. While there is raiding it is more down to earth than some of the other massive "required" raiding games.

Whenever you see reviews that are either 1's or 5's it falls into the...

"Whatever game I play rules, whatever game I do not play stinks"

I discount all 1's for the most part because 90+% of those reviews are just trash talk. Show me the 3 star reviews backed up with some reason why they like this feature or why they do not like that feature.

I only give this game 4 stars overall because I do not feel that any game is perfect. As they add to LOTRO this will go higher but days before release after playing for a few months it's clearly a 4-star game right now.

Former Guild Wars fanatics review

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 13
Date: April 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I must admit that before this game, i played Guild Wars Guild Warswith the zeal of a crack additic. This my new poison. It has everything that i have ever like about MMORPGs but without the stuff that i didnt. it is true that this game isnt for PVP people, but it is heaven for PVE players. This game is perfect for players that want to get immersed in a story and care little for PVP. I have been playing the beta, and i am in love. This is a game that you can play alone or with friends. thus far it seems very well balanced. the only difficulty i have found thus far is that my life keeps interupting my playing time :-(

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next 

Actions