Who's in? or planning on it?

[trug]

I played in the last few days of the closed beta, and I am very undecided on this game. I was wondering how many of you all plan on playing.

I guess i should explain my reservations about the game from my testing. While there were many things I liked, the large world, huge array of items and equipment and I really thought the traits sytem and rewards were a very nice touch. Oh and Monster play was very cool. Please dont think I'm bashing the game below I do like it, below are just my observations and hang ups.

I thought that the need to constantly quest over and over and over again for crap rewards and xp was annoying and monotonous. I really had problems because i felt like this creates a linear game play feel, meaning u can not choose to level via another route, ie. farming mobs etc.

Another issue for me was well is the maze like maps, instead of going up hills u have to run around and around until you find the only path up, or finding yourself in a forest and running around and around in circles until u find the correct branch of the maze to get where your going. That especially drove me nutz, while the terrain is beautiful having to run around in mazes because of pathing makes me insane.

The combat system, ehh. Really made me appreciate DAOC combat mechanics alot.

Oh and a really stupid pet peave. WTH do they have a walk-key command for, this made me almost cry laughing, as if movement isnt slow enough without it. I MEAN come on there is a walk key, but there is NOT a run key, ROFL.

With all that being said though, I think this game would be alot of fun and very playable for an even small sized guild as it seemed that the game was much easier when grouped even with only 1 other player.

So help me figure out what i want to do, who in and who else is thinking about it. ;D

[trug]

Opps I didnt see Marna's previous post.

[Terina/Sinaroc]

Might as well respond here...

Let me guess....you went to the old forest . That is supposed to be a hellish twisting maze and is hated by many. You are also really only locked into a certain area/path in the newb starter instances, not sure what you mean by pathing other then the old forest.

Yeah it is quest after quest but would you rather sit in a task dungeon and kill a bunch of mobs that just stand around instead to level up . The game really is heavily story based with the epic quests being the most involved/interesting ones. You can farm mobs but it'll likely take longer unless you find a 'sweet spot' or have a fast killing group going :/.

Combat is much clicking buttons in certain combinations but is better in groups when you can pull off conjunctions, they add a good element to combat. Basically can give yourself morale,power, drop a DoT on the mob or hit it really hard.



Monster play is a lot like the daoc battlegrounds but perhaps more closely related to the old frontier zones being as there's no locked in cap, at least not yet. I imagine expansions will offer higher level pvm zones.

---------------------

BTW
What type of class/race did you start with, IMO burglar has a larger learning curve then most other classes(it is also the only class that can start on command those group conjunctions,making them very handy later on). Also starting as a hobbit in the shire is a totally different experience then being an elf/dwarf or human. The early hobbit quests in shire involve a lot of running around and delivery type, non combat quests. Although all areas have a few of those annoying daoc'ish quests where you run all over the place.

-----------------
As far as people playing, it is really so far who Marna said in his post but I'd include jaxs and his neighbor in there. Hoping few others that have been in beta come to but I think everyone undecided.

If you come maybe we can drag in Faulken and Taysen *ducks arrows*

I'm really hoping to stick around a little bit and have the kinship be a good close group of people like the old UO and daoc days. I've advertised the guild around so we shall see.

[trug]

I played a Captain to lvl 21 a loremaster to 13, hunter to 11 burglar to 8, minstrel, champ and guard.

Yes my example was the old forest, but other examples would be alot of hills etc. force you to run around til u find the path over or around.

I love questing you should know that from DAOC, I've prolly done most quests on all 3 realms multiple times. The problem is with the force into a linear gameplay style where you have to chain quest in order to level as there is no alternative way to level through killing mobs etc. Running thru instanced dungeons to level is a grind, but it is only 1 option available to level in DAOC, you can quest, instance, farm mobs and even PL if Cimba's on, lol.

The pathing and the forced questing gives the game a strong Baldur's Gate feel or any other console type of rpg, thats all I was saying.

Ya and the moster play zone is similar to a DAOC battleground which is very cool, however the combat engine isn't quite as advanced. But i did like moster play alot.

And the Trait system is very cool an excelent idea.

[Terina/Sinaroc]

For some of the hill areas where you are stuck going around might be an area that could be opened up in future but probably not what you mean. Here's some examples

Near weathertop there is an area called weather hills, for the longest time that area was all blocked off by artificial mountains and now it is open.

An entire section north of bree and archet was once an impassible wall now there's a couple open areas there. Also an area that opened up in western edge of Breeland that was once blocked off. Starmere lake I think.

Eventually there is going to be a whole new zone between the Shire and Ered Luin so that transition will be more fluid and open. I think this is going to be one of the 1st changes in their bi monthly updates but heck if I know heh.
================

Power leveling type leveling through grinding mobs is kinda dead I'd say That's one thing that sucks but you still can help lower people on their quests, they just dont get as much for killing regular mobs when grouped though. The quest xp remains the same for them.

There are A LOT of stuck in a line quest chains, I think that was a big complaint to and Turbine also claims to be working on more solo'ish content.

BTW If you are say a human you really don't need to stay around archet you could use the stablemaster fast travel option to go to a different area to start earlier experiences. Works for other races as well.


-------
Trait system is good but it was better lol. They've so nerfed that, used to be able to have more.

The economy is in transition big time at moment used to be real easy to make money, with nothing to spend on except the player controlled horse. The rewards get better as you get higher and there's some good craftable items that are equivalent.

Guess I rambling but does it help any?

[jim]

I was able to find some good stuff to farm in the 10-20 range while waiting for a group to form. They wiped that guy so when I started the next one I avoided all the group quests except for maybe 5 of them for the item reward. I leveled up fine just doing the solo quests and farming stuff along the way to lvl 31. That was at the end of beta so I'm not sure what happens after that.

I never finished all the quests for any level on either guy and was constantly deleteing quests that got too low to be worth doing. If you switch areas a few times you can find more quests for your level to keep playing in new areas and to keep some of the travel time down. It seems like they have way more quests available per level than you need to finish. I found it easy to pick and choose the ones that would limit my travel time a bit. My first guy was a hobbit and took too many deliver quests but I don't think the other races offer as many.

Some of the terrain forcing you to go around mountains or be on certain paths to get where you want to go was a bit irritating the first time. I wasted a lot of time trying to run up slopes finding the limits of the game. Knowing how the terrain was setup on my second guy made it much easier to put up with. I suppose once the game gets going there will be online maps with the paths laid out so you could always look at them if you want to know the fastest route. There is stuff out in the areas you explore that you won't find by going the direct route though that will probably be on the map too (dam internet heh).

You did hit on one of the problems with level based games. All level based games seem to be pretty much linear to me. It just the way the developers use to keep from getting all the newbies killed and to limit farming of the low areas by higher level characters. I liked the skill based game of UO best of any online game I've played. SWG could have been a great game too but it lost it's way somehow.

I think with the range of activities in LOTRO it will be easy to find stuff to do. One thing I really like is how monster play allows the developers to separate the code for pvm and pvp. It should eliminate a lot of nerf problems other games have since they won't be trying to balance two different play styles.

Anyway, you can still play in open beta and wait to decide. Check out this page on how to get in.
www.lotro.com/worldtour I'm sure someone will post which server we will be before it starts.

Hope to see you there.