My 2¢ on Lord of the Rings Online

LOTRO is another MMOG in the vein of Everquest and WoW, and last night I got access to the beta version. The real game will be released in a week or two if everything goes to plan, but for now you can get a taste of things-to-come.

I rolled a Hobbit Minstrel and spent a few minutes messing with his facial features. I gave him blue eyes, sandy blonde hair, and a smattering of freckles across his nose and upper cheeks. I was going to go with a scar on his chin but I figured everyone would go with a scar (you have a choice of several) and it's hardly noticeable anyway. The character creation screen seems more versatile and open than WoW, but essentially it all boils down to very similar things. You've got a choice of Face1, Face2, Face3, etc, eye color depending on which hue you click on in the color box, likewise hair color. Hair style, like faces, is a choice between Style1, Style2, etc.

What might be more interesting for character creation would be the ability to alter the shape of your toon's nose via a slider bar, then their chin, then the size of their mouth, then their cheeks, etc, but that's getting beyond a simple review of LOTRO and into the realm of dream features for MMOGs in general. Overall the character selection screen seems to offer a lot of variety and choices to make your character unique, so you're not just another face in the crowd. It's a pity that all of the changes you're making will be on the side of your toon that faces away from you, and thus you'll hardly ever see the work of art you spent 20 minutes creating.

Out of the gate my first encounter was with a Dark Rider. Actually I saw him riding by but from the LOTRO Lore the sight of the Dark Rider was enough to give me a WTF??? moment.

I'm a brand spanking new lvl 1 Hobbit and you're throwing Dark Riders at me???

With only one way to go I followed the path taken by the Dark Rider and as I walked along Pow! I took damage from...something. I didn't get attacked by anything, it was like I stepped on a trap and just took damage. Further on in the game the same thing happened, while walking along a path I took random damage for some inexplicable reason. Perhaps if I'd found the combat log it might have told me what happened, but meh, I just kept walking. Around the bend and down the road I spotted the Dark Rider yet again and knowing how bad arse they are I stayed well back and looked for a way around him, but the hills alongside the path were too steep to climb and the brush was too thick so I bit the bullet and slowly moved forward.

The Dark Rider was interrogating another Hobbit and I overheard the last of their conversation and basically the game is set around the time of the scouring of the Shire. You can't play Frodo or Aragorn or anything like that, but I'm sure people will still try to play them, although they may play a part in the future of the game. After the Dark Rider rode off I met up with the Hobbit. He told me we needed to escape and that he'd unlock a nearby door while I kept watch. So I kept watch while the Hobbit tried key after key in the door.

It wasn't until I spoke to him again that he "found" the right key. After that we moved through a series of doors and mob encounters until we met up again with the Dark Rider, now with three henchmen. One of the henchman ran off to do the Dark Rider's bidding, and then the Dark Rider spotted us. As he rode closer his two henchmen moved up to attack us when arrows from the nearby woods rained down, killing the henchmen and driving away the Dark Rider. Thank God, coz I was still just a level 1 Hobbit Minstrel. After a brief bit of dialog with my rescuers the introductory scene ended and when the next chapter loaded I found myself in a new town filled with activity. Lots of activity. Real people (like me) were running around (or at least toons controlled by real people), talking to NPCs (toons controlled by the computer) and completing various quests, and I promptly joined them.

Coming from WoW the gameplay and controls are very similar so it was very easy to just jump in and start playing, although I did need to remap my Strafe Left & Right keys, and Invert the Mouse's Y-Axis. When I use my Mouse to look around I think like a Pilot. Pushing Forward on my mouse should dip my view down, much as a plane would dive if you pushed the yoke forwards. This means if I jump into a lake and start swimming, I'm literally "flying" in the water. When I push forward on my Mouse my toon will dive, and when I pull back on my mouse my toon will "climb", and this makes perfect sense to me. I actually did a bit of swimming last night and I loved the fact that my Hobbit did the Front Crawl stroke (often mistakenly called Freestyle) while swimming on top of the water. In WoW most toons tend to swim Breaststroke...ok, I'm generalizing. My Dwarf swims Breaststroke while my Elf puts his arms by his side and kicks his legs like he's a dolphin; maybe the Humans swim using the Crawl, I don't know, I hardly play Humans. So the swimming technique in LOTRO was very realistic and looked really good and I was greatly impressed.

Running around the countryside, on the other hand, was terrible. My Hobbit leaned over at the waist and ran moving his arms and legs, and nothing else. His body and head stayed rock solid in a slightly bent over position that did not look natural at all. The characters in GTA:Vice City, WoW, Mario Bros, (almost every game I can think of) they all run in a realistic looking fashion, my Hobbit did not. It was not horribly obvious but it was something I kept noticing, each time I glanced at him, which detracted just a little bit from the game. How are you supposed to empathize with your character and get into the game when your avatar doesn't move around in a realistic manner?

While character movement seemed stilted, actual navigation of the countryside was made a breeze by a very detailed Minimap. It showed things such as vendors and quest givers...although the people I needed to talk to in order to finish my quests seemed strangely absent. They were in the game, they just didn't appear on the minimap, at least not that I could see. The intro area initially seemed overwhelming but once I'd done a couple of the "Kill X of Y Mobs" quests, or "Gather X of Y herbs" I'd become reasonably familiar with the zone and had little trouble finding my way around. Unlike WoWs seamless world, LOTRO's Inns and Stores are instanced, but load times (at least on my PC) were very quick. Open a door, step into the portal and a second or two later you're inside the building. Open the door, step into the portal, and a second or two later you're outside again. Not painful at all.

As I ran around I figured I'd concentrate on quests rather than grinding, and this appears the smart way to level in LOTRO anyway. I'm sure you get more XP/kill for a same level mob in WoW than you do in LOTRO, but then the XP needed to level in LOTRO seems to be less as well, at least for the initial levels. One quest asked me to kill some pigs and bring the meat back to the quest giver. After collecting all the meat I needed I killed one extra pig, but I did not feel compelled to grind out the XP I needed to level, or even just kill piggies for some "bonus" XP. Just completing quests earned me substantial XP and I leveled reasonably quickly anyway. I also loved that LOTRO shows you the vendor prices of your loot. In WoW I need to have a 3rd party program installed to see how much an item will sell for. In LOTRO they tell you, which makes choosing between two Quest Reward Items, neither of which you'll use, very easy to make. Usually I could use one of the items, but I think once or twice I completed a quest with no useful reward, so knowing which item would sell for more more money was a big plus.

At level 5 I earned the privilege of being able to add a title to my name. Because I hadn't died on my journey to level 5 I could choose to display myself as Bilimac the Wary, which I thought was hardly fair. One quest had my lvl 4 Hobbit take on a lvl 5 Pig and here's a definite difference between WoW and LOTRO. In WoW, a lvl 1 Toon taking on a lvl 2 Mob is a foregone conclusion. The Mob is going down. Most Toons in WoW should be able to take on two Mobs their own level, or one Mob a couple of levels higher than them, and know without a doubt they're going to be successful. This lvl 5 Pig had me worried and I was casting spells as fast as I could, only being a Minstrel my "spells" were Ballads that buffed & healed me while damaging my opponent. It didn't help that as a Minstrel I can currently only wear cloth armor which offered little protection against the razor sharp tusks of my foe. Fortunately a couple of people who'd turned up to kill the Pig as well joined in but it was still touch & go and even with their help I finished the fight with about 1/4 of my health remaining. Oddly enough I was actually concerned I would be defeated by the Pig. In WoW I was never worried about dying, and while LOTRO has a very lax Death Penalty, I'm still determined to advance as far in the LOTRO Beta as I can without dying once. I think it's also that I knew the Pig was a tough opponent so I did not relish coming back for a rematch if he defeated me.

So I was reluctant to add the title "...the Wary" to my name because my Minstrel had not been a cautious fellow or shied away from danger. Fortunately I had a second choice, being the addition of a "family" name, and so I became Bilimac of the Fallohides which matches both my appearance and the class I chose. I'm a fair-skinned, blonde, Minstrel, all of which are traits of the Fallohide Hobbits. Apparently if I can make it to lvl 10 without dying I can become Bilimac the Undefeated, but again that probably describes more of a cautious, wary player so unless something better comes along at 10 I shall remain Bilimac of the Fallohides.

A big change from WoW was less of the Kill X of Y Mobs quests. There were a few of them, don't get me wrong, but it never seemed like I was on a treadmill, killing mob after mob after mob. Rather many quests had you running around, exploring the zones and talking to people. You can do those one of two ways. The fast way, "Shut up already and give me my reward!" or the slow way, where you read what they have to say and immerse yourself in the game world. There are also delivery quests that are quite different from what WoW has to offer. Delivering Pies for a baker I cannot get into combat or the pie will naturally get ruined when I'm forced to defend myself, nor can I swim across rivers, Pies do not like water, for some reason. I also have to avoid Hungry Hobbits. Not all Hobbits are hungry...ok, they all are, but there are certain Hobbits labeled as Hungry, and they're the ones to avoid. There are also Mail Run quests, again where you cannot get into combat or swim across rivers, but this time you need to avoid Nosey Hobbits. Get too close to a Nosey Hobbit or a Hungry Hobbit (if you have Pies) and you fail the quest. These quests are also timed so it's not like you can take the long way around but you still need to give these interfering Hobbits a wide berth. Cutting through someone's front yard was not enough, as I found out trying to avoid a Nosey Hobbit on the path, and I failed that particular Mail Run quest. All of these quests serve to introduce you to the game world and make you feel like you're part of something real, and it's a definite change of pace from WoW's typical Kill 10 Rats quests.

As I completed quests I acquired new items, both from the Mobs I slew and from generous citizens grateful for my help, but as the Quest Reward items were generally better than anything I found on defeated foes, I never felt compelled to kill Mobs just to see if I could get some good loot. Of course we're still early in the game. In WoW, especially at higher levels, it's not uncommon to spend literally hours killing the same Mobs in one area over and over and over again for the cloth, money, and items they drop. By the time my Hobbit was level 5 I'd acquired a hat and some shoulder pads (armor) as Quest Rewards. Such items are not available in WoW until lvls 15 or higher. More pieces of armor, hats, etc, serve two purposes. More armor obviously helps to keep you alive longer, but it also helps to give your character a slightly more unique appearance. Of course two Hobbit Minstrels completing the same quests will most likely choose the same Armor, so you might still end up looking very much like every other Minstrel out there, but when I found a green pair of gloves with the same armor as my current gloves, but which sold for less, I promptly equipped the cheaper gloves and sold the more expensive pair. I also picked up a pair of ear rings and a bracelet which I was able to wear and which showed up on my Hobbit, so there are always choices to make that can individualize your toon.

I have 1 more week to play the Beta at which time the game goes live and I'll need to buy a copy of the game if I want to continue playing. Given that I don't know anyone who's going to play LOTRO, and that an MMO is really a social experience and is a lot more fun with friends, and given that there's still so much for me to do in WoW, I currently cannot see myself buying LOTRO, yet. If I had several friends who I knew were going to play I might give up WoW and join them in LOTRO, as two gaming subscriptions is not something I'm prepared to take on just yet. Although chances are if I was going to play LOTRO I'd probably do the $200 Lifetime subscription. Pay once and play forever. I like that option.

Overall I liked what Turbine have done with the game. There was just enough LOTR Lore thrown in to make you feel like you really were in Middle Earth, and once I got out of the lowbie area and entered the Shire, a considerably larger zone with many more Hobbits running around, it really was like the book come to life...which is sort of like being a part of the movie. I think Turbine have a winner with this one.