LOTRO NDA has been lifted

[Terina/Sinaroc]

As per patience on the beta board

Important News about the LOTRO Beta Non-Disclosure Agreement!
Greetings everyone!

We’re pleased to announce that the non-disclosure agreement for The Lord of the Rings Online(tm): Shadows of Angmar(tm) has been lifted from the Preview Agreement! The updated Preview Agreement will be displayed the next time you log into the game, and can viewed at www.lotro.com/article/148.

What does this mean? As of today (February 12th) you’re free to talk about The Lord of the Rings Online and your experiences in our beta - in person and online. The closed forums at beta.lotro.com will remain active for support and detailed discussions about the game including bugs or gameplay issues.

We appreciate your cooperation during our closed beta quiet period, and we’re excited to be able to share the game with a larger audience.

Go LOTRO!

[Terina/Sinaroc]

Proof here, regular general public board
lotro.turbine.com/forums/announcement.php?f=10&a=3

[Terina/Sinaroc]

We can move this topic to the lotr board when it is no longer private....

Just some opinions---

Quests

If you like quests, boy does this game have them. It is a pve lovers dream and no grinding on mobs to just level. Thats kinda been replaced with 'grinding quests'. A lot of kill task stuff can be tedious and there is much unfortunately. The best quests are the storyline ones that each zone has, really kinda epic type feel to it.

Grouping/Solo'ing

You can solo quite well in this game for a long time. I dare say at the moment one can easily get to mid 30's and up to 40 on solo quests. A lot of the higher stuff honestly still needs to be fleshed out 45+ specifically(they got 2 months to do it! ). Turbine claims you can get to 50 solo, it'll probably be possible but at the moment don't believe it is without some sort of grinding

Grouping is where it is though as what fun is there playing with ones self in a game. Benefit of making friends and getting things done quick, you can knock out a lot of things with a good group. There's also group based combat attacks that burglars can initiate or that happen randomly, they are quite powerful and handy on epic boss mobs. Many of the cooler storyline and epic quests require grouping.

Leveling

It is relatively painless or has been in beta. Much like every game of late though the higher you get the longer it takes to get between levels.

death/retreating

No corpse runs! Only penalty is some damage to equipment and a dread effect that is still kinda work in progress I think but overall painless.

raiding

Have not experienced it but doesn't seem to play that big a part(no uber loot junk and farming of items required to kill stuff like WoW), you can likely get by and enjoy the game without ever having to raid. I imagine though missing out on a possible minas tirith raid in some future expansion would be disappointing lol

lore

They really really are trying to keep the lore in the game and have done pretty good job. As you go throughout the land an avid tolkien fan will find many familiar things and surprises.

emotes

I remember Aeife saying, what kinda rpg is this when you can't even give someone a hug or kiss and she like never logged in again . Well guess what, you can now!

Tons and tons of emotes, one can dance and even play musical instruments. I'll have to share the thread where people have figured out and been able to play entire songs.

You can even get special titles over time for certain things like how many times someone cheers you, bows to you, gives you a hug, even one for getting /rude emote thrown at you (like 100x) lol.

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more to come later