Screenshots :.
Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar
PC
Jay
08-06-2007
"Character customization options aren't OTT but they offer enough of a variety"
"Nice, big wooly mammoth looking thing...pat pat"
"The landscape can look really nice while not causing you to lag out"
"Hi Ho...horsey! Away!"
Well hasn’t the world been gripped in such an MMORPG fever recently? While World Of Warcraft has taken the hotspot since it’s release, there have been other great contenders to challenge that spot. I have to confess that I didn’t expect LOTRO to compete on the same level, predominantly because it not only has to compete with solid MMO titles, but the books as well. As we know from often reading books (ok, I mean the ones that don’t have lift-up flaps) that the books are better than the film for the most part. With that in mind, how does anyone expect to do justice to Tolkien’s epic masterpiece?
The game is based around The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, although not limited to a strict structure, offering a huge variety of quests for the player to go on. In effect it’s the same template for most MMO’s these days: you face the grind of killing monsters over and over, you can get some shiny new armor and go on quests / raids with friends. The only thing currently that differs greatly would be the equivalent Player Vs. Player combat, which is instead Player Vs. Monster-Player. This works by players choosing to become monsters for their session and go against a team of players who remain as they are. The likes of Everquest have tried this before, but how it’ll pan out for LOTRO is another matter.
I tend to have great faith in Turbine’s ability to make a solid, playable game since my days with Asheron’s Call. Unfortunately the sequel to aforementioned game went tits-up and folded in December 2005, although I was fortunate enough to reach 55 before they shut it so had a good stay at least. What I’ve found straight off with LOTRO is that the gameplay style’s smooth - there’s no lag, even playing the US servers – and soloing is as easy as grouping, which is always a big want from most MMO players. This made me a happy boy.
You get to choose from a list of classes you’d probably expect, with one exception. There’s a lack of magic in Tolkien’s world, which is most odd and rather a bit pants. Remember the scene with Gandalf and Saruman in the films? Throwing each other around with force-power? It was like an old man catfight. So, instead you can choose the Loremaster who has some spells, and a bear [er, sounds great! – Matt]. It’s an interesting compromise, but not one you’ll spend much time whinging about. To go further into detail, for your race you can be Man, Elf, Hobbit or Dwarf (Note the lack of baddies) and for your class one of the following:
Champion – The damage dealing class that can dual wield, and from level 20 wear heavy armour.
Guardian – The main Tank class (Guy who can take a lot of hits) who has a moderate damage output, but mainly focuses on taunts and wearing beefcake armour from early on.
Captain – The natural leader class who has some decent group buffs and a little pet man who follows you around thinking you’re great. No, you don’t get to have a nubile elf instead.
Burglar – Stealthy damage dealer that uses surprise to his advantage with some good debuffs.
Hunter – Basically the rangers, good with bows and dual wielding and can lay traps. Wears light armour so prefers to keep critters at a distance.
Minstrel – The heal class, although for some they’ll find the class some what bodged as you only really get 2 heals to play with unlike some other titles.
Lore Master – Pet class with some debuffs. Can call forth birds and bears. Lucky chap.
You wont get to play any of the bad guys like you might expect, whether this is something to come along at a later date or not it’s hard to say but looks doubtful. You also wont get to play as any of the characters from the books as they’ll be the ones dishing out the quests.
The crafting system is fairly straightforward, in that you find recipes dropped as loot, learn the recipe, then find the components to create the item. You can never fail, but the more time you spend on crafting, the higher your level in it will go and thus how well you create items. The downside is currently that it’s actually too expensive to craft, and that the end result is rarely better than something that can be found as loot. This in turn has somewhat bodged the economy until Turbine get around to fixing it.
On the whole if you think of this as more of a Guildwars type of online game, where you complete quests to get to 50 and then put it down, it certainly seems that way at the moment. With some other big titles such as Conan and Warhammer on the way it will be interesting to see where this ends up.
The game is based around The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, although not limited to a strict structure, offering a huge variety of quests for the player to go on. In effect it’s the same template for most MMO’s these days: you face the grind of killing monsters over and over, you can get some shiny new armor and go on quests / raids with friends. The only thing currently that differs greatly would be the equivalent Player Vs. Player combat, which is instead Player Vs. Monster-Player. This works by players choosing to become monsters for their session and go against a team of players who remain as they are. The likes of Everquest have tried this before, but how it’ll pan out for LOTRO is another matter.
I tend to have great faith in Turbine’s ability to make a solid, playable game since my days with Asheron’s Call. Unfortunately the sequel to aforementioned game went tits-up and folded in December 2005, although I was fortunate enough to reach 55 before they shut it so had a good stay at least. What I’ve found straight off with LOTRO is that the gameplay style’s smooth - there’s no lag, even playing the US servers – and soloing is as easy as grouping, which is always a big want from most MMO players. This made me a happy boy.
You get to choose from a list of classes you’d probably expect, with one exception. There’s a lack of magic in Tolkien’s world, which is most odd and rather a bit pants. Remember the scene with Gandalf and Saruman in the films? Throwing each other around with force-power? It was like an old man catfight. So, instead you can choose the Loremaster who has some spells, and a bear [er, sounds great! – Matt]. It’s an interesting compromise, but not one you’ll spend much time whinging about. To go further into detail, for your race you can be Man, Elf, Hobbit or Dwarf (Note the lack of baddies) and for your class one of the following:
Champion – The damage dealing class that can dual wield, and from level 20 wear heavy armour.
Guardian – The main Tank class (Guy who can take a lot of hits) who has a moderate damage output, but mainly focuses on taunts and wearing beefcake armour from early on.
Captain – The natural leader class who has some decent group buffs and a little pet man who follows you around thinking you’re great. No, you don’t get to have a nubile elf instead.
Burglar – Stealthy damage dealer that uses surprise to his advantage with some good debuffs.
Hunter – Basically the rangers, good with bows and dual wielding and can lay traps. Wears light armour so prefers to keep critters at a distance.
Minstrel – The heal class, although for some they’ll find the class some what bodged as you only really get 2 heals to play with unlike some other titles.
Lore Master – Pet class with some debuffs. Can call forth birds and bears. Lucky chap.
You wont get to play any of the bad guys like you might expect, whether this is something to come along at a later date or not it’s hard to say but looks doubtful. You also wont get to play as any of the characters from the books as they’ll be the ones dishing out the quests.
The crafting system is fairly straightforward, in that you find recipes dropped as loot, learn the recipe, then find the components to create the item. You can never fail, but the more time you spend on crafting, the higher your level in it will go and thus how well you create items. The downside is currently that it’s actually too expensive to craft, and that the end result is rarely better than something that can be found as loot. This in turn has somewhat bodged the economy until Turbine get around to fixing it.
On the whole if you think of this as more of a Guildwars type of online game, where you complete quests to get to 50 and then put it down, it certainly seems that way at the moment. With some other big titles such as Conan and Warhammer on the way it will be interesting to see where this ends up.
8/10