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In two days of Lord of the Rings Online i've gotten my Elf Champion Sabrethil to level 10. I've enjoyed it so far, but at this point i don't foresee giving up WoW to play LOTRO.
For one thing, the game really requires a stronger computer than poor Fronkensteen. (Fronkensteen has a 1.8GHz AMD Sempron, 1.5 GB RAM, and a GeForce FX 5200 -- sufficient for WoW but a couple of years past being high end). Judging by the way text and other elements appear on my screen it's clear that 800x600 resolution is an afterthought for LOTRO, but at a higher resolution the processor is too bogged down and the frame rate suffers.
Moment-to-moment gameplay feels quite a bit the same as WoW. A few things are easier (no worrying about skilling up new weapons), a few things are more complicated (professions!) but overall about the same.
However, the game is very story-driven. I may find this to change in later levels. But at the early levels at least many of the quests are designed to guide you along from one stage of a story to another. On the whole it reminded me a bit of Diablo II in this regard. At the newb area, several of the encounters are very scripted, though i haven't seen so much of this in the second zone.
Instead of having one or two big cities in a zone, you have little towns every few hundred meters. These each have a few quest givers, so for the most part (with exceptions) quest givers are only a few dozen meters away from where you have to go to complete the quest.
There was quite a bit of effort to make the game seem authentic to the medieval setting of the books. I did not see any chain-mail bikinis or outlandishly-muscled men. Since music was important in the books, any character can learn how to play an instrument and, um, regale other players with their skillful playing.
Since magic was rare in the original books, it is not much used in the game. Therefore the primary metric is "morale" not "health;" when you're defeated you don't die, you retreat. So the party healer is a minstrel who sings songs to boost morale or discourage foes -- or to revive someone who has succumbed to zero morale. (It's rather funny hearing a minstrel in combat; it sounds like they're hitting with a lute.) "Lore" is another substitute for magic; bits of lore recovered from ruins or purchased from scholars can be turned into buffs or potions.
The background music is repetitive.
For one thing, the game really requires a stronger computer than poor Fronkensteen. (Fronkensteen has a 1.8GHz AMD Sempron, 1.5 GB RAM, and a GeForce FX 5200 -- sufficient for WoW but a couple of years past being high end). Judging by the way text and other elements appear on my screen it's clear that 800x600 resolution is an afterthought for LOTRO, but at a higher resolution the processor is too bogged down and the frame rate suffers.
Moment-to-moment gameplay feels quite a bit the same as WoW. A few things are easier (no worrying about skilling up new weapons), a few things are more complicated (professions!) but overall about the same.
However, the game is very story-driven. I may find this to change in later levels. But at the early levels at least many of the quests are designed to guide you along from one stage of a story to another. On the whole it reminded me a bit of Diablo II in this regard. At the newb area, several of the encounters are very scripted, though i haven't seen so much of this in the second zone.
Instead of having one or two big cities in a zone, you have little towns every few hundred meters. These each have a few quest givers, so for the most part (with exceptions) quest givers are only a few dozen meters away from where you have to go to complete the quest.
There was quite a bit of effort to make the game seem authentic to the medieval setting of the books. I did not see any chain-mail bikinis or outlandishly-muscled men. Since music was important in the books, any character can learn how to play an instrument and, um, regale other players with their skillful playing.
Since magic was rare in the original books, it is not much used in the game. Therefore the primary metric is "morale" not "health;" when you're defeated you don't die, you retreat. So the party healer is a minstrel who sings songs to boost morale or discourage foes -- or to revive someone who has succumbed to zero morale. (It's rather funny hearing a minstrel in combat; it sounds like they're hitting with a lute.) "Lore" is another substitute for magic; bits of lore recovered from ruins or purchased from scholars can be turned into buffs or potions.
The background music is repetitive.
