LotRO (WAR, WoW, kit and kabootle :)

Heya my friends,

Pardon my rambling, but I'm trying to provide backing info. I used to be relatively hard core, but life makes me a casual player now, and not on top of things like I used to be ..

I did my WoW time a couple years ago, but managed to break free after hitting level 70 and then having a baby .. nearly 2 years have gone by and I thought I'd check in with the recent expansion to see whats up; same old boring MMO gameplay, but still also strangely fun in its simplicity and decent art style. So WoW is okay.

I did some WAR for a few weeks there, as I'm a PVPer (never raid or instance, no time for that anymore and dont' care for the politics), but found that.. since I'm a PVPer, the level grind is harsh. ie: Killing the same old enemies (elves) every day is boring. Levelling up via the scenarios is the way to go, but in the 20s you'r stuck going to Tor Anroc ervery time since as a Des the allies always pick it, since they have a knockback advantage. Anyway, Tor Anroc is almsot 100% no fun to repeat over and over, and so I let my sub lapse just the other day. I want to love WAR, but oddly enough, Tor Ancros is so annoyig it broke my spirit

Going back to when I had free time before the baby, I wanted to like LotRO, but it felt like a WoW clone, but the UI was severely unpolished and ugly. (ie: text popping up in boxes with the wrong justification and all over theplace,and so on.. this was early in the launch, but highly pathetic.) IT also has no PVP at all (the monster play is not cool). But it does have Middle Earth, which is attractive. I'd pay them some good money for noclip godmode, so I coudl just fly around and look at things, but alas I cannot.

So my question after this big long tirade is ..

Is LotRO really any fun for casual solo?

Can you solo to the cap?

Can you solo any of the instances or Moria?

As someone who never ever instances, I am tempted to try LotRO as its supposed to be a 'good time to the cap', not a 'race to the cap'.. but I'm not sure if it is soloable, or if its really any good at all for solo play.

(Problems seem to be that the classes are hihgly well defined to a role; you're a tank, and yo're only a tank, and will never be anythign other than a tank. WoW/etc are similar, but more subtle about it.. and you can play a Druid like me, where a respec totalyl shifts your playstyle so can mix it up a little.)

(I have heard Tab Rasa is good for solo, but it seems to have totally dived, sadly.)

Maybe LotRO is worht a free trial or a month to see.. or maybe I shoudl grind up to 80 in WoW and then quit out of boredom again, and maybe go back to wAR

****it, I want to like an MMO

jeff

 

WAR is awesome! Tor Anroc just sucks... I hit the same barrier you did got to 20ish level and grinding Tor Anroc was just NO FUN AT ALL.... my thoughts turned back to WoW for half a second but then i decided to continually check the map to take/defend keeps under attack. I met a guild doing that and all we do is open rvr. It crushes any WoW pvping by far! nothing like defending a keep for a couple hours straight of nonstop slaughter and finally driving the enemy off your keep lord and back out the front gates! just get a good guild in warhammer and you'll be happy. I too let life get in the way of my gaming in the past couple years but WAR does pretty good letting you pick it up for only a few minutes but still letting you get some fun in and feel accomplished. not a warhammer fanboy either. i knew nothing about it other the comic book store had tons of little figurines... just like the gameplay...

 

*rant accepted*

 

LOTRO is a great for hardcore and casual. Theres always stuff you can solo, and stuff you can do in small groups from 3 people instances to 24 man raids. Its really a well balanced MMO and you can make your own path.

Moria is great too! So far 100% solo as well.

 

For PVP, WAR is the way to go I think.. I find it hard to level up however due to boring PVE grind (always same enemies) and Tor Anroc totally kills the scenarios for a 10 level range.

For WoW.. itrs simple and comfortable.

FGor LotRO .. is it fun soloed, or is it purely a group play game? I'm pretty curious about Moria, but not sure its worth spending how many hundred hours to get there solo (and if it really is 100 hours to get there or more, its months away for me .. so maybe I shoudl stick to WoW or WAR and be done with.. sigh. ****ed MMO time crunch)

jeff

 

As far as Moria goes...
It really depends on what sort of player you are, some people can level 1 - 50 in a week, some take months, some years. Personally I usually take about 1-2 weeks to level to 50, and thats if i just straight level, no grinding traits, doing fun instances for loot etc.

Moria is really for level 50+ I am sure of it before you can go in you have to a quest that would be difficult at a level to much lower, but eregion as a whole you can go to at any time, sure you may die if you fight a mob, but you can still explore and stuff.

I went into Moria the first time last night, first of all the video you watch before entering is REALLY cool (SPOILERS)


The video is of the fellowship, fighting the troll and orcs in Balins tomb, when suddenly Gandalf percieves a greater threat and orders the fellowship to fall back. As gandalf is trying to cast a spell to lock the door of the room, the balrog begins to fight him with counter-spells, and eventually destroys the door and bursts through chasing the fellowship.

I thought this was really cool, especially because the movie omitted this scene, despite it being in the book. Its done in some really really nice CGI as well, it was almost like watching a deleted scene from the movies.

Moria in the game, I didn't get very deep, but it is really Imense, even the first room is pretty stunning in its granduer. I really suggest LOTRO to any MMO player its A LOT OF FUN!

 

Assuming you get to 45+, can Moria be soloed, though? ie: Grou p of 3, 5, etc.. no way, I have a small baby around who wakes up a lot (No I'm, not a loser.. when I game its 9 or 10pm and the baby is asleep)

jeff

 

Yea you can solo your way through the whole game if you want. You might miss out on the very top end raid gear, you might miss some fun boss fights, but there are thousands of solo quests, and there are even plenty of solo boss fights, etc. etc.

some of the book quests require small groups, but you dont HAVE to do the books (at least not all of them) You can usually group for those and not need sound (so you don't need to wake the baby) so its still do able only some people are sticklers about being on vent or listening to chat in game, but not most.. Get yourself on brandywine, and into a good friendly kin and you will be all set m8.

alternatively, you can get a headset

 

LOTRO is a great game overall.

Whether you want to group or solo, there are MOUNDS of gameplay to go through.

Each class does well on its own solo, and isn't ALWAYS define by its role. What I mean is you don't HAVE to have 1 of each character in a group to get through quests, more often than not you can have wacky groups and come out fine.

All the new things they added in the Moria expansion are a welcome addition.

Not to sound elitist, but many, many players from other mmo's who come to LOTRO think its the best thing since sliced bread

Hightower the Strong
Noldorin Descent
Meneldor

 

Oh thought I would add, apparently they have improved pvp, im not much a pvper, and generally speaking I dont think the pvp is great in LOTRO, but there are plenty of people who really enjoy it and are into it.

You can become a lvl 50 creep when your freep hits lvl 10, so if you just like pvp I suggest that... just lvl a char to 10, make a creep and then work on that! (lots of people just do this too I think)


if you decide to play drop me a tell if your on Brandywine

Farandor
on
Brandywine

 

I would recommend giving Age of Conan a try if you are looking for something different with some good pvp with the ability to solo to 80 without a problem.

Before I get flamed I admit it had it's problems at release and for the first couple of months, but it has been out for 6 months and it is much improved. The game is currently very stable and has the best graphics, combat, and music for any MMO currently out.

If you decide to give it a try roll on the Tyranny PvP server as it is the most populated.

 

No offense, but I found AoC to be an absolutely terrible game. I can point you to my blog if you dare, but in essence..

- it was totally unfinished and nigh-umplayable at launch imho
- the 'single player' first 20 levels was really asnnoying to me (though many peopel did like it); its an MMO, dont' try and make peopel have a crappy-single-player-game and then switch them to MMO t 20, which is what they bought it for in first place
- it was totally not designed for pvp whatsoeever; ie: you're questing and talk to someone, so it zooms in for the dialog .. ie: so you cannot see around you. So people ganked each other like mad at the talkables; to repair that problem a couple months later, they made it 'bannable offense'.. never occurred to them to make peope unattackable while talking or any number of in-game fixes
- more for the bad PVP, and total lack of emersion in PVE .. instanced out the rear. ie: For an MMO to be an MMO to me, it has to feal expansive so you can explore it. When every zone is both small and has a 'teleport talk' to get out, that you cannot walk around .. its a single player crappy game (ie: single player Oblivion whips it . Further, for PVP.. people could just walk and talk and teleport out, since you couldn't chase them
- more for PVP again with istancing.. you coudl switch instances any time, so you coudl try to meet up with peopel in the same area on a different instance; but it also meant you could escape anything by switchign instances (!!)
- just all around bad bad bad design.
- yes, there were some innovations, such as combat having some combos and so forth .. but that didn't help when the core stunk

A big pont to is .. since everyone is 'on the neutral side', you can always talk to everyhone (so peopel trash talk after being ganked), and more to poiint.. there is little sense of 'war'. If everyone is on the same side its random killing. There no sense of 'my side' and 'us versus them'. Sure, you coudl go to 'race pvp' servers, but that is just a lame attempt tacked on .. not 'horde vs alliance' and 'order vs destruction' level of war.. further, since each 'race' had very limited class selection, to be in racepvp basicly meant you had very limited choices of class in a given faction. Other games let you be a variety of classes and races, and still part of the us versus them war

AoC was total fail.

jeff

 

pshh whatever the new warden class in LOTRO can do combos too.. big deal if AoC had it.. AoC was a Epic Failure... beyond the realm of epicness. Hence why barely anyone plays anymore (not that it matters cause the game is basically all instanced.... what sort of modern has that many intsances, MMO's are supposed to be single giant worlds, not a series of instances gah!), and why there was a mass exodus to LOTRO.

same thing is sorta happening to WAR tho not to such an extreme.


Its basically a worse version of oblivion with lag. and lame quests. (AoC is)

 

Wow... ok I think you are over exaggerating a bit and most of your response Fails.

-I agree a lot of problems and launch and it was launched too early

-the first 20 levels are very good; you do not have to do the night time quest if you do not want to... you can just play during the daytime multi-player quests.

-Not designed for PvP? are you kidding me? There have been two major PvP patches that added a consequence system, PvP leveling and gear. If someone try's to gank you while talking to a quest NPC a guard will kill them and they will be flagged a criminal.

-Yes there are instances so if you do not like them I can not help you there, but if you want good graphics you need them.

-You can no longer just switch instances whenever you like... that has been fixed.

-Everyone is no longer on the "neutral" side as you put it... if you kill someone who is innocent you become a criminal and get murder points if they are much lower then you. Once you get enough murder points you become a murder and guards will kill you on sight. If you see other players that are criminals or murders you get bonus PvP XP for killing them.

 

I doutb any of my post fails -- ie: some of it has been fixed, but that is long since I and a lot of people bailed out (it shoudl never have been launched with some of those issues, but such is life.) I'm not going to give it a second chance (and the instancing is a huge part of it, and a fundamental design flaw so unfixable.)

The 'us versus them' is also pretty key I think .. so it is stil everyone is neutral, but you have a murder system finally in place. Nonetheless, it is still random murder in the dark, etc, and ganking without purpose. There is still then, no 'reason' -- its just random "he looks weak, let me kill hm" .. I want to feel a motivation and a team .. I want to pvp with a 'reason', that my team wins. (ie: WAR has a lot of this.. your guild raising levels, your side capturing cities, even guild versus guild conflict. There is a lot of reason for trhe war and inner-faction conflict.)

So the PVP was launched as fail and is still not designed for me (like I said, no offence.. if it works for you, peachy. But to me it still seems a really bad PVP system.)

It is good they're fixing things, and I do believe in Funcom as a company -- Anarchy Online was laucnhed in the same terible way; they're small guys, sothey don't really have the budget to develop forever and fix the bugs. so they release alpha onto the world, and fix as they go. Thats very bad.

But what is good is Funcom will stand by it, and improve it, which is more than most; they also plan a business model around this, so they don't just die off like so many other badly released MMOs.

The instancing is instant kill for me, so I won't try it again, and it just seems poorly designed for whatI think most PVPers would want. Still, I'm gld it is your cup of tea and you're enjoying it.

jeff

 

BTW, I just picked up the Moria expansion (fool that I am, never even played the earlier stuff that I already bought a year ago , as I just didn't want to download patches for a year and a day.

I'll sign up on Brandywine and say hello .. assuming it lets me into that server; everyone I've seen online says thats the server to go to, so I bet its full up!

Now, which class.. everyone says they need burglars and it is tempting (and I'm surprised its not a case of 70% burgs, 30% legolas..); Warden sounds like a tank (which usually means boring for solo) but sounds like it was also made a good solo class...

Mabe its time to go slow and enjoy, rather than focu son PVP action all the time, we will see.

jeff

Hmmm. Dwarf Runekeeper sounds interesting, and Hobbit Burglar of course. Brandywine has a 5min queueue .. querue times are 100% unaccepgtible to me, so might have to ditch that server .. I mean, when you have limited time (or even a lot of time), who would pay to wait?

Edit: still some oddities .. hover the mouse over somethign and a hint box appears at the top of screen. nowhere near the mouse?

 

Great welcome to LOTRO... The servers are never full up as I don't think there is a limit, sometimes you get in a que but its usually not more than 5 minutes!! just grab a drink and by the time your back you should be in!! Also remember moria just came out so a lot of people are trying to log in, more than usual give it a week or two and it will be back to normal to enter, you can always get in though! - Join Brandywine, its the most populated and down the road you will regret joining a empty server I think (lots of people end up transfering to BW).

Warden is a tank (ish) class, But actually very soloable, and very fun. Its more of a DPS tank, you actually where medium armour not heavy too. Warden is probally fairly difficult though as you have to do combo skills called gambits to be effective. Truthfully its probally the "most fun" class to play because its less of a button mash, you have to really think out what combo you want to do before you do it.. I would recommend it though!

The hint box is not a hint box, its a item description. You can move where it displays by hitting Ctrl / (this is how you customize your UI) but infact wherever you move it it will always display when you hover an item. I leave it at the top. I think they did it this way, so it doesn't get in your way exploring, or fighting who would want a box popping up on thier mouse when they are trying to fight right!

Anyway, for real, I would stick with Brandywine, 5 minute ques aren't that bad, and they won't last long (this week is the first I have seen ques since basically the game out - its because of the expansion)

look me up!

 

I created a Hobbit Burg named Tookit (get it?) on BW .. I don't have as much free time as I used to, but I'll be around. Running on my 8800GTX is a treat, as I cranked every setting to max and installed the high def textures.. looks WAY better than it did on my old machine 2 years ago (on min everything

I created my guy and had to log out .. 2 years ago I remember doing the first few epic quests so I'll have to redo those, and figure out how to get through the starting area.. I think I ever got out into the real world before getting tired of it last time .. should be fun.

Get me a guild invite so I don't feal lonely

jeff

 

Hahaha I will try, technically we are end game kin so although I might be able to get you invite so you can chat with people to ask for advice, but don't expect to much "power leveling, or 1 on 1 assistance" especially since everyone is enjoying the moria expansion at the moment.

I will try to help you with the more difficult book quests if you decide to do them though, and point you in the direction of completing other quests if you want. Not sure if you like being helped a lot, or like to explore for yourself.

in chat you can always do /advice or even ask in /ooc I'll find you in game and give you tips though!

at work now though - be back tonight.

(p.s. its a KINSHIP not a guild this isn't no WoW LOL!! jk hehe)

 

Power levelling and such is lame really; especially in LOTRO where the whole game is levelling up really .. why skip it? I'm in for gameplay. Maybe I'll only be there a few weeks, or maybe long term, but certainly very casual hours with my new life .. but thought I'd like some folks to say hello to

jeff

 

LOTRO seems really interesting, i've thought abuot trying it many atimes....but being into WoW, I just can't seem to leave it yet...nor can i accept to play ANY other game....

as far as WAR goes, people still play that?...My brother and my cousin were really into WAR before it came out....and once it came out, they quit and went back to WoW....just the same happened to their friends...my brother signed on the other day and the guild he was in had a lot of active members at launch and a couple weeks into launch, but no one was on....

 

As with any MMO .. on launch it will bulk up, and then slim down after a few weeks; the question is does it slim down to a big number, a sustainable number, or an unsustainable number. A big number is nice, a sustainable is fine and the last.. dead

I think WAR will be at least as successful as LotRO, but obviously its not WoW; WoW is the prodigy, so unlikely anyone will catch up until StarCraftMMO comes out, or DiabloMMO

Doesn't mean anything else is bad, just not the big guy; you always have to discount WoW from all statistics, since it skews it sooo much; you count the MMOs against each other, discounting WoW, to make any sense of things.

WAR is pretty good, and certainly one of the most pollished on launch.. they shoudl be proud; I just think the fact they'r eusing WAR lore means that well.. as a dark elf, the entire PVE grind is basicly against the elves. Its gets tiresome; further, since the Games Workshop peopel are keeping tight fist on the ore, they want everyone ot have a 'look', as opposed to WoW where everyone is a mishmash of random colours. So class members tend to look the same, sice they all have 'their class look.'. But game wise its very good. The PVP elements are pretty wicked, but it doens't have the fludity of WoW. If they used the WAR PVP mechanics (body collisions, lot sof scenarios, keep taking etc) but with the WoW smooth moving client... but WAR will get there. I'll check in again in a couple months maybe, but the PVE grind is just too boring for me, and Tor Anroc made PVP no fun for 10 levels

Maybe MMOs aren't my thing anymore.. I really njoyed WoW for the year I played it, and I played it hardcore, and then had 2 years off MMOs. have often wondered if WoW entirely killed my interest in the whole genre .. the whole mix/maxxer thing just destroys you. Tabula Rasa sounded interesting, but it flopped so I didn't bother..

jeff

 

I got pretty interested with Tabula Rasa, too, because at the time it was coming out, I had just left WoW, looking for another game....but when i was about to get it shortly after release, it did flop....my friend bought it, paid a month's subscription, and stopped playing before the month was even half over.....

 

If it were not for Ultima Online or EverQuest, then that statement would be correct.

Doubtful those would ever become MMO's. However, with the advent of the SWTOR MMO, I imagine we'll see many people play and continue to play that game long after the "new MMO in town" title has worn off. Besides, the MMO industry needs a solid sci-fi MMO to replace the wreck that SWG was after the CU and NGE. And no, I'm not referring to Tabula Rasa, AO, or CoH either.

I agree. WAR had a lot going for it. The problem was in its execution, not the gameplay. I played WAR since release and am seriously tired of the grind. I don't like being spoonfed quests, and the Tier zone system is downright insulting. Just as you said, PvP is the only thing that saves WAR, but the problem is that XP slows to a terrible grind post level 20. There needs to be more instances, more true dungeons, better loot and loot distribution, and more server community involvement where PQ's are concerned, especially at the lower levels.

 

Tabula Rasa just declared as being shut down in Feb. A shame..

jeff

 

Ahh my friend you forgot about Fallout MMO!!! Boo...ya!!!

And its supremely unlikely that they'll become MMO's because they're all owned by Blizzard and therefore Vivendi. Why would you want to cut your own turf? If we assume the number of people that will pay for (and therefore play) an MMO is almost a static number (given flucations +/- a few 1000 coming and going which are meaningless with 5mill players) realistically you're almost hitting your market share cap with a game like WoW. Releasing DiabloMMO or StarCraftMMO is just going to take people away from your current game that's more or less a cash cow for you now since the besides releasing a major patch every 6ish months your workload is minimal. BUT if you were to release a brand spanking new MMO the work would be immense. Not worth it economically...

 

I guess this is why SOE has such a tough time with supporting their own MMO's then?