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The Lord Of The Rings: Shadows Of Angmar Review (continued)
More User Submitted The Lord Of The Rings: Shadows Of Angmar Reviews
Date: 2007-08-07
Good game with potential to be a whole lot better
I've played a number of MMOs, and LotRO has the usual time sinks, quests, and crafting as other MMOs. There's only a few things that makes LotRO unique, Monster Play and the fact that it's based on Tolkien's work. The graphical environment is pretty spectacular too, but the characters and the gear they equip fail to blend with the beautiful environment the game has, as the characters aren't modeled very well and the gear looks laughable. Seriously, 90% of the items look boring, re-used, and the boots that they all wear look hauntingly close to those 80's "moon boots."
The music is also very well done. I also like the fact that there's ways for people in a party to create powerful combination attacks via an event called a "conjunction." Depending on each party member's conjunction selection attacks can do massive burst damage, heal all members of the party, do damage over time to the monster, or increase the power of all members in the party (power is the stat that skills consume.) There are even special combinations that will summon aid to assist in killing.
Questing is the typical "gather X resource", "kill X number of Y mobs", "find X location", and "deliver X item." I doubt any MMO will ever break free of these types of quests, although one can dream.
The game is obviously for the casual gamer, as the leveling process is geared to allow people to advance at breakneck speed. Within a month and a half I hit the current level cap of 50. This is both a blessing and a curse, since the onus is on Turbine to churn out tons of content to keep level-capped players interested and playing. Bored players is a sure-fire way to lose subscriptions rapidly. Not coincidentally, there seems to be less people playing than at release time. This doesn't really come as a surprise since there were probably plenty of people just window shopping for a new MMO, but I can't help but wonder if a significant number of those who left hit the cap and had nothing else to do and so cancelled their account.
On to Monster Play. A novel concept, this gives players the opportunity to play as one of a select few monsters in the game to combat normal players in a special area isolated from the rest of the game. The main reason for isolating the Monster Play area is Turbine doesn't want the Player vs. Enemy side of the game mingled with the Player vs. Monster Player side, which could be frustrating since all monster players start out as a level 50 monster. It doesn't take a genius to figure out the level of frustration a new player would experience spawning in the new world and getting ganked by a level 50 monster again and again. But I digress... Monster Play is exciting because it's a way for an MMO to balance pseudo-PVP without having any impact on the PvE side of the game (just look at WoW and the juggling act they have to do to try to maintain balance between all the factions and classes.) It's fun to jump into an enemy character and join in fights with normal players, and it's equally refreshing as a normal player to fight against a human-controlled monster, as the fights with NPC monsters can't match tactics humans will leverage. This is also where LotRO fails to deliver, however.
The problem is Turbine's slow response to fixing bugs. The monster side of monster play has suffered since pre-launch days with a lack of desperately needed healing support, crowd control, and plenty of near game-breaking bugs. Other areas of concern that have major issues are the economy, crafting, and the Champion class (Champions lack any sort of skills that define the class as a desirable party member, and their "legendary" skills, which take a fairly large amount of time and effort to obtain, fail to live up to their name and are either borderline useless or there's a lower level skill that's actually *better* than the legendary!)
Other nice touches are built in voice chat, intuitive UI, and a fantastic story line. Epic quests are very engaging and well worth completing, not just for the experience and gear, but for finding out what happens to the NPCs involved and getting more insight into Turbine's vision of Tolkien's world, which is surprisingly very *very* well done (speaking from the perspective of a rabid Tolkien fan.)
To sum up...
The good:
- Beautiful environment
- Excellent music
- Storyline is incredibly compelling
- Several innovations present in this game
The bad:
- Bugs that have existed for months are still present, and Turbine has elected to release new content instead of address bugs as of this review
- Characters look very bad in contrast to the environment they're placed in
- Certain classes need borderline re-vamping
- Crafting is almost pointless
- Rapid leveling can be a potential problem, leaving players with nothing to do
I'd recommend this game for Tolkien fans especially, and also with the hope that Turbine can fix the bugs and continue to release compelling content. At this point I would highly suggest *not* getting a lifetime subscription, simply because I feel that Turbine is out of touch with their customer's needs based on months of reading posts in the LotRO forums and lack of response from Turbine. Granted there aren't many MMO companies who communicate very well or respond with customer complaints, but that's no excuse to perpetuate the stigma, and MMO companies shouldn't be rewarded with lifetime members who are stuck forever with a game. Lifetime membership pretty much equates to not being able to vote with what counts the most: your dollars.
Edited on 4/9/2008 to add the following:
I quit a while ago, but remembered writing this review. After re-reading it, there are a couple of things I wanted to add. Turbine's LotRO message boards are moderated by overzealous personnel who wantonly lock topics with no explanation as to why they were locked. This creates a serious level of frustration for people looking for answers, and finding their topics locked for seemingly no reason. BAD customer service. Also, after your account has been made inactive, the message boards are completely off-limits, and there's no way to keep in contact via them with people you'd been playing with for months. This also makes it next to impossible to get a feel for how the game is aging, since you can't see any of the forums. Talk about a stupid thing to do, this takes the cake.
After it's all said and done, if I could re-rate the game overall, I would give it 2 stars out of 5 for the horrific customer service.
Date: 2007-08-06
A Tolkiens Fans Wet Dream!
Oh damn! It does Tolkiens world justice. Story line for the quests are set during the time of the gathering of the fellowship and has characters from the book that the movies never included. The graphics are amazing and the game play is great (imo). If you love Tolkien and love mmogs then play this game. I do however recommend a good pc with a good graphics card :)
Date: 2007-08-01
Words can't truly descibe it.
Wow, could just about sum it up, but I'll go a little deeper.
This game amazes me on so many fronts. This is the first MMO I have played, and I have jumped into it without a hitch. The controls and options that are available to me could easily make me frustrated, but the developers have crafted a simple interface for everything. I haven't gotten into much of the story yet. For those in the "know" I'm only on book 2 chapter 1. What I have completed storywise has been fun and entertaining. The non-epic quests are alot of fun too. There is the occasional kill "850,000" orcs and collect their "whatever", but those are few and far between.
The graphics are completely awesome. I don't have a top of the line computer, GeForce 6800; Pentium 3 gHz with HT, and 3gb ram, but I can run all of the graphic options at their highest level. I experience a slight stutter or lag when a new area is loading, but its hardly noticable.
The most enjoyable part of the game for me is the social aspect. I have never played for an extended period of time without joining a fellowship of other players. This game a great community. You won't be dissapointed with this part of the game at all. I have a long list of online friends that I can call on and they will join up with me and offer help whenever they can.
I could go on for a while longer so let me sum up my review with this. I swore that I would NEVER play an MMORPG. I thought the idea of paying upwards of $[..] or $[...] for a game, and then having to pay a monthly fee on top of that was stupid. This game changed my mind. It's totally worth it.
Date: 2007-07-31
Tolkien's World
I truly believe this game has the potencial for being the best MMORPG around, as the story and the scenarios are so real and beautiful.
I read the books and watched the movies at least 10 times each, I'm a real fan of the series, but the game is just too good... And as the time passes by, more updates will come and more players will be playing.
The biggest advantage of the game is that you can easily play 10 hours in a row, but you can also play 30 minutes and you will be fine. It's addictive, but not life-destructing.
Date: 2007-07-29
Not a die-hard MMO or LOTR fan - honest review
I don't typically write reviews, but I use Amazon extensively and always love to read the reviews from my peers, so I thought I would contribute. Especially given that this game retails for $50 and then has a $15 committment, I think it's worthwhile to give my impressions. Bear in mind, I *like* Lord of the Rings movies, hated the book (too long) although I enjoyed the creative aspect of it. I also enjoy MMO's that are not overly complex or simplistic.
From an MMO perspective LOTRO provides great value to me. It has enough options to keep you busy customizing your character, becoming an apprentice, etc. while not burdening you with "ship schematics (SWG)" and other fine-tuned details that prevent you from having a normal life. I have a GeForce 6500 PCIe with 512mb of RAM and the graphics are simply stunning. I have to say the combination of graphics and no lag has made the gameplay fantastic. Combine that with an authentic LOTR soundtrack that is truly moving and playing in the game is almost real. Far better than any other MMO I have ever experienced.
One of the downsides of no lag in MMO-land is generally - no people, and for LOTR there is no exception. In my first week of playing up 15 levels and a few quests, I have to say I only saw 40 real people playing? Of the 40 I saw playing, if I did happen to bump into them on the "trail" of a quest, they might give me a health bonus or help me slain a goblin who is attacking... but for the most part, my best "fellowships" were actually in the tutorial-land. The cities are expansive and vibrant, but filled with NPC's. I've heard on other sites that fellowship play is required at the higher levels, but I did not see that, and if it's so, they must hang out in the higher areas. At my level, I can't really pass through some of the higher-end content without being chase down and destroyed. Dying kinda sucks, unlike SWG and other games I've seen, you basically regenerate back at the closest "city" and the walk can take awhile, so hopefully you get a horse as soon as you can.
The quests are very original and the content is good as well as the voices. Overall I enjoy the game but right now there aren't many people playing and I spend most of my time in awe looking at the scenery. From a "I love to play this game" perspective, I can't say I agree... it's just too boring. A combination of no one to talk too and simple minded quests (although creative), you feel like a pretty unimportant player in the LOTR universe. Maybe I picked the wrong class though?
Anyway, if you have a high end machine and a few friends to play with you, I can see how this game would be a blast! But if you are a lone wolf who plays late at night... I would pass on this and join a larger community elsewhere.
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