The latest entry into the already crowded market for massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) is the game for which I've been waiting for years. The Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO) is the first Tolkien-themed game that gives the player the opportunity to become a citizen of Middle Earth. The game's scope is enormous, and it has been a long time in development. I was fortunate enough to be a beta tester since the very beginning, so I think it's fair to say I've got a good perspective on its strengths and weaknesses.
I've seen some good looking MMORPG games, but LotRO is truly the best of the best. The graphics in World of Warcraft (WoW) still hold up surprisingly well, but the graphics in LotRO make them dated by comparison. By default the visual settings are pretty moderate, but turning up the sliders takes the game to a whole new level. I found the auto-detection function to be conservative in its recommendations, and I was happy to discover that I could turn up settings to the max and still enjoy a smooth frame rate.
With the graphical settings cranked up, water shimmers and reflects as well as any first-person shooter (FPS) game I've seen. The level of detail in the world is fantastic; everything from the majestic beauty of the mountains to the grassy fields looks great. The textures are beautiful. And the special effects are absolutely wonderful. The developers spent the final months of the beta polishing and refining the little touches, everything from the riveting dread effect to the subtle distortion of the "air" when executing a powerful special attack. The results speak for themselves.
I won't prattle on much longer, but I would be remiss if I failed to mention the artistic direction. This is surely a matter of taste, so bear that in mind, but I find the artistic direction for LotRO to be the most compelling I have ever sampled from a fantasy-based MMORPG. As much as I like WoW, and to be clear I do really like WoW, I have always been less than thrilled with the "cartoony" style of the artwork. As a friend of mine put it so perfectly, it's refreshing to graduate from the cartoon to something more adult. The visual aspects of LotRO are wholly satisfying to me, both in terms of its artistic direction and its implementation.
There are but three negative comments I can muster. The first is that the "imposter" feature really needs some work. The game can be configured to show "imposters" beyond a certain distance, the point being to use lower-resolution artwork for distant objects in order to boost the frame rate. But the algorithm that fades objects in and out as the player moves makes it painful to watch. The imposters look great until you approach the transition point, at which time they begin to fade to nothing; the problem is that they fade to nothing before the real thing even starts to appear! So the imposters fade out, there's a short delay, and then the real artwork pops into place. Jarringly. I can't believe they didn't fade in the real stuff as the imposters are fading out. It's so obvious it's painful.
My second negative comment isn't much of a flaw, but some of the animations are occasionally less than perfect. The focus on realism is welcome, but it brings with it very high expectations; it's clear from the results that the animators behind LotRO could learn a trick or two from WoW. Of course, Blizzard is about the very best in the business when it comes to animation, better than any other game company of which I'm aware, in fact, so in making the comment I'm stacking LotRO up against the very highest bar. Like I said it's not a serious flaw, but on rare occasion I have noticed the running and fighting animations looking a wee bit stiff.
It doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the game at all, and I don't think it even rises to the level of valid criticism. But WoW is essentially the elephant in the room, and, as such, it's the standard against which all newcomers are inevitably judged. If it's fair to point out how LotRO trumps the competition, the same fairness requires me to mention it.
Finally, the game could really use some intelligent transparency. All too often the tops of trees, overhead beams, and other objects occlude the player's view. Whenever such things get in the way, they block the player's view completely. That's more than a bit irritating, particularly when running through the old forest—which is hard enough to navigate in the first place. It's a feature I hope they'll add in a future patch.
Happily, the audio is almost as good as the visuals. The sound effects are top notch, the vocal work is well done, and the music... Oh my, the music in LotRO is absolutely perfect. The score is sweeping, majestic, and nothing but beautiful. But beyond the "merely beautiful" score is the ambient music. Traveling through the world of Middle Earth is an aural treat, insofar as there are so many different bits of ambient music that play, perfectly setting the tone of the various locations.
I think it hit me when I first wandered into the hunter's lodge near the starting town of Archet. There was this haunting melody playing all the while, the deep, sonorous tones of a guitar speaking foreboding and sadness at things to come. I sat down on the floor and just listened. It sounded so real, precisely as if someone were plucking away just out of sight. I've had the same experience in a number of other locations, and I have been compelled to sit and listen.
But that's not what really blows me away about the audio content. The game mechanics of LotRO embrace music unlike any other game I have ever played. Other MMORPGs let the player repeat a few bits of music here and there, playing as a bard, entertainer, and the like, but LotRO has a fully functional music system. I realize this won't be such a big deal to others, but to a musical geek like me it's magnificent! The player can produce musical notes merely by pressing keys. It makes it possible for players to form bands in the game, compose original music, and enhance the world in a way no other game can touch. I find it as amazing as it is wonderful.
Still, there is one complaint I can levy against the game in the audio department: there aren't enough bits of dialogue. About halfway through the beta cycle, I started a thread on the beta forums lamenting the fact that none of the NPCs had any spoken lines. It made the game seem surprisingly "flat" compared to WoW and other MMORPGs. I was very happy to find my complaint addressed by the next major content update, but it didn't go quite far enough. To be more specific, there aren't any vocal sounds for emotes and other such things. Typing "/cheer" as a command causes the player to jump and celebrate, but without any audible cheering. The same is true of laughing, crying, flirting, and all the other bits that help make the game more personable.
It's not a deal-breaker. It's not even a major complaint. But I do think it detracts from the game, particularly in crowded situations and at key accomplishments. My hope is that the developers will address it in a future patch. In the meantime, it's more of a minor irritation than anything.
Pretty good. To be less opaque, that's how LotRO makes me feel. I have played enough MMORPGs to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. Though I still think that WoW has the best interface of all current MMORPGs, LotRO is already a pretty serious competitor. At bottom, the action bars are easy to modify, the key bindings are simple to configure, and the indicators and elements of the game's interface panels all serve exactly their purpose. The interface is aesthetically pleasing and works well.
But not all is perfect in the land of Middle Earth's interface. A first but minor complaint is that I haven't found any way to alter the zoom setting or the size of the radar that appears in the upper right. In this I may be spoiled by WoW, which allows modification of both, but I miss it in LotRO. Some kind of real-time clock up there would also be helpful, given how easy it is to lose track of time when playing.
Another minor complaint is the inventory interface. Perhaps it's just me, but I find the items in my bags far harder to distinguish than in other MMORPGs. The icons are rather small and, to my largely artistically untrained eye, not sharply distinguished in some cases. I have yet to find any kind of interface-scaling function, but I haven't looked very hard either; there might be a way to work around this issue.
I must also gripe that it doesn't seem possible to link quests in chat. Item links can be provided in chat windows by dragging inventory items, but I haven't been able to get the same sort of thing working with quests. I'm so accustomed to being able to do that in WoW that it's downright unpleasant not to be able to do so in LotRO. It makes it far too complicated to communicate with fellowship members.
Strange as it seems, I must also complain that the font used for much of the interface text isn't right. It looks like Microsoft's Verdana to my eye, or something similar, which seems completely out of place in Tolkien's world. I expected something more aesthetically satisfying; I expected something more... well... Middle-Earthy for lack of a better term. I realize the text needs to be readable, but something old English or vaguely Dwarvish or Elvish would fit so much better. It's like a blunt spot on an otherwise sharpened blade; it brings the experience down a bit.
In the interests of full disclosure, I am aware of some complaints about quest objectives and locations not being indicated as clearly as they could be. In WoW, bright yellow dots appear on the radar to show where most quest objectives, some items, and all quest-related NPCs can be found. In contrast, LotRO marks only NPCs. This is a deliberate decision on the part of the developers, one intended to transport the player more fully into the world from needing to read conversations and notes more thoroughly, and so far I'm conflicted. Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't; make of that what you will.
One unmet desire is that that I wish it were possible to annotate the map. It's so easy to find fun places when exploring the world, but there isn't any good way to make notes (in the game) as to precisely where they are and why they matter. Middle Earth is so big and beautiful, the ability to annotate the map would be a very welcome improvement.
Another unmet desire is that I wish it were possible to create more powerful macros within the context of the UI. WoW has great macro features, which allow the creation of both character specific macros and macros available to all characters for inclusion in the command bars. I've dabbled in the WoW scripting language (Lua) enough to to create macros to cast the proper level spells—before this functionality was included in the basic game—as well as some fun other bits. I miss that power in LotRO, which has a nice system of "aliases" that but doesn't allow variables, flow control, or other such advanced features.
There remain a number of other things I could mention, all minor to be sure, but the point is presumably made. What must be remembered in reading this section is that the interface is shockingly solid and functional for such a huge MMORPG at its launch. I was in the WoW beta right up until its launch date, and I don't remember it being nearly that polished when it launched.
The game mechanics take the addictive game play of WoW and shift it to fit the medieval milieu of Middle Earth. All the basics of MMORPGs come through loud and clear: races, classes, quests, character stats and development, quests, items, and so forth. What really sets the game's mechanics apart to my way of thinking are all the innovations that LotRO brings to the genre, many of which are tied directly into the world of Middle Earth.
For starters, there is the inclusion of achievement-based recognition and rewards, regarding which the player accomplishes deeds that come in three flavors (class specific, racial and social, and region-specific), all of which grant various helpful bonuses and/or abilities. In addition to deeds there are also titles, which while optional are a surprisingly fun addition to the game. A character's active title appears under his name and can range from the silly (e.g., champion pie eaters) to the impressive (e.g., champion of the lone lands). Finally, the game has a welcome traits system that allows characters to reconfigure themselves to a minor degree by talking to a bard. All MMORPGs I've seen have attributes, skills, etc., but LotRO is the first I've seen that has such neat achievement systems. It makes each character more interesting.
Second, LotRO places a deeper emphasis on teamwork than any other MMORPG I've played. The fellowship system in LotRO is quite similar to the group systems in other MMORPGs, but I find the classes to be more sharply delineated. The developers have managed to find a way to make even the burglar class desirable in a group, despite its relative weaknesses in combat. Even the smallest, weakest, hobbit burglar can be an important part of a fellowship for his ability to initiate fellowship maneuvers, which can turn the tide of combat.
Third, the combat mechanics and crafting are pretty deep. I particularly enjoyed playing my minstrel character during the beta because of the way ballads could be chained together for different effects as needed. I find my lore-master character equally interesting for the various ways to approach different sorts of combat. The signs allow my pet's role to be tweaked while the various lore abilities let me achieve various goals depending upon the nature of the situation.
The hope/dread mechanics play a part in the combat as well, insofar as hope dissipates damage and dread increases it. The more powerful servants of the enemy induce dread in those who face them, and the special effects surrounding it are fabulous. I love how the screen blurs and the audio makes this whooshing noise; it definitely draws the player's attention right into the moment. It makes the situation all the more real. Running into a Nazgûl, for example, is really something as a result. And it makes the minstrel class all the more useful in a fellowship.
Fourth, the mechanics surrounding the main story are structured in terms of a book/chapter metaphor, which allows each character to experience the epic story at his own pace. Players can choose to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the main story or ignore it completely as they choose. There are clear benefits to playing through it, and I know there are a lot of missed opportunities without it; it may even hamper character development at some point—I haven't played through it far enough to know. What I do know is that the story can be experienced in pleasant, bite-sized chunks.
Fifth, and arguably best of all, the leveling treadmill doesn't feel much like a treadmill at all. I can hardly believe I'm saying it, but the leveling process in LotRO isn't nearly so painful as it is in other games. I can still remember all the hours I spent just killing water beetles back in Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC), and I wince whenever I think of it. The leveling treadmill in DAoC wasn't a treadmill so much as a miniature version of the Bataan death march. The leveling treadmill in WoW was far more pleasant and better paced, but even then it was pretty onerous at points, to say nothing of the faction/reputation grind that comes after hitting the level cap. The leveling process in LotRO is far more enjoyable in my experience.
Finally, the ability to define a character's history and familial relations, while not at all central to game play, is pretty neat. I haven't messed around with it, but I find it a welcome idea. Given Tolkien's insistence on a believable, historic feel, , it fits nicely with the rest of the mechanics.
Whatever else LotRO has going for it, its story is excellent. Granted, I'm surely biased from the outset because I happen to think The Lord of the Rings (LotR) is the greatest work of literature in the English language, but even those who haven't read the books should be able to enjoy the game's story. The developers have managed to link the quests into the larger LotR story, providing glimpses of fabled characters from interesting angles just outside the mainstream of the continuum. I was completely geeked the first time I walked into The Prancing Pony in Bree.
There is a very personal aspect of this to me. One of my fonder memories from childhood is of my father reading The Hobbit to me and then later The Fellowship of the Ring and much of The Two Towers. He and I never finished the story, which is one of my regrets, but it was his introducing me to Middle Earth that opened up so many things. It was because of Tolkien that I came to love history. It was because of Tolkien that I had so much fun playing Tunnels & Trolls, Dungeons & Dragons, Boot Hill, Gamma World, and a host of other pen and paper based role-playing games with my friends. It was because of Tolkien that I took up fencing (and came to excel at it). It was because of Tolkien that I did so many things and learned so many things.
In short, I owe so very much of my life and who I am to Tolkien's genius, and LotRO allows me to walk into the world I have enjoyed through his books for decades. For me it's a dream come true to step into the role of a crafty hobbit burglar, an Elven hunter, or a Dwarven guardian. Just playing through the introductory quests take me straight into the story of the great war of the ring, and it's a magnificent tale by any reckoning. Trust me, you won't be disappointed in the LotRO story.
It's hard to grasp how large the world of Middle Earth is until you've played this game. The first time I hit the map key I found the immediate boundaries of my world to be rather small, encompassing just a few towns. But then I clicked the right mouse button and found myself zoomed out and looking a quite a few areas the size of my map, all bundled into the region of Eriador. Then I made the mistake of right clicking again and found myself confronted by virtually all of Middle Earth. At the time of this writing, the world of Middle Earth is merely huge, but it's clear the developers have left themselves colossal, monstrous amounts of real estate for future development. I can't imagine running out of places to explore any time soon.
More important than mere size, though, is how they've used all that space. LotRO manages to make each of the areas interesting in its own right. Because the game has a more realistic bent than most you wont find the kind of abrupt transitions in other MMORPGs, but every area I have visited has managed to have its own flavor nevertheless. The Shire is a beautiful, rustic place to explore, while Bree is clearly a bit rougher around the edges. In contrast, wandering into the Old Forest is an exercise in claustrophobic menace, and the Barrow Downs... Well, let's not go there. Suffice it to say that great attention to detail makes every area worth exploring.
The variety of races and classes provides a nice diversity of character options. All of the free peoples of Middle Earth are represented by the Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits. The player may further differentiate his character's ethnicity by a background region, which provides nothing in terms of character attributes or skills but does alter the boundaries of character appearance. For example, humans can be from Rohan, Gondor, and so forth, each choice altering the set of choices available for the character's look and providing different naming suggestions to be consistent with the overall mythology.
And that's to say nothing of the monster play. I confess I haven't spent much time with it (any, in fact), but what I understand is that any character of L10 or beyond can choose to play as a monster. It's not clear to me where in the world this takes place, but apparently the monster play provides quite an engaging PvP experience. The player earns a single pool of destiny points from all his characters on a particular server, and they can be spent to upgrade his monster avatar. I've spent nearly two-hundred hours with the regular game play and have been having too much fun even to try monster play, but I'm glad to know it's there.
But not everything is rosy. My main character is a lore-master, and I've been more than a bit disappointed with the quality of the pet AI, and more specifically the pathfinding causes frequent problems particularly when using a summoned bear. Walk down too steep a slope and your bear will just stop, or worse take an alternate path that aggravates every nearby enemy. Even worse, try walking through a narrow doorway; the idiot bear will freeze in the doorway and go non-responsive. The player can always dismiss and re-summon the pet, but that gets really old really fast.
Compared to my main complaint, though, the AI issues are pretty trivial. My main complaint with the game is that its itemization is poor. One of the great things about WoW is that it's always possible to get some great item drops. Granted, this leads some people to grind the same instances hundreds of times, always seeking for an epic item, but even the casual player will pick up some great stuff here and there. In LotRO, by contrast, the drops seem far more rare and far less powerful. If you've seen one sword, you've pretty much seen them all. Occasionally you'll find something that has a slight bonus to this or that, but the main source of good items seems to be questing. To be clear, I'm not knocking getting items from quests, but it makes for a game where everybody at a particular level tends to have the same thing.
Which brings me to another complaint. The degree of character build customization is surprisingly minimal. As a character levels, he can buy new skills, but so can any other character at that level. So many other MMORPGs give the player classes different "paths" or "builds" to pursue. My main character in WoW, for example, is a "balance" druid, specializing in offensive spell-casting, but other druids pursue more healing-oriented builds or builds focused more on shapeshifting. Every class in WoW has three different skill trees with more skills than can be acquired by any individual character. The result is a very deep game with many different ways to play a character. In contrast, one LotRO guardian is almost identical to any other guardian. This wouldn't be quite so obvious a failing if characters were more sharply distinguished by gear, but as I've said the itemization also needs work.
To be fair, the game is still a lot of fun, and I have had a great time playing the different classes. Playing a guardian is a very different experience from playing a burglar, which is very different from a lore-master, which is very different from playing a hunter, and so forth. There's a lot of room to try different playing styles with the character classes provided, but LotRO has nothing like the complexity and flexibility of WoW or other MMORPGs with more build options. I just can't help being a bit disappointed that my characters are defined more by their classes than by any choices I've made—surely the very heart of any game with 'RPG' in its genre.
Another complaint is that the game's crafting system needs some work, and I say this for two reasons. First, it doesn't seem as if the crafting advancement paces the character level advancement very well. Even when I've focused a lot of attention on crafting, I rarely find that I can make many items that are genuinely useful to the character making them. By the time my lore-master had figured out where to find the materials necessary to make essence of athelas potions, they provided too small a morale boost to be all that worthwhile. Worse, my main metalsmith (a guardian) can make some great bronze armor, but he can't wear it yet; the only things he can make that he can use aren't nearly as good as what he's been getting as quest rewards.
One final complaint is that the auction house (AH) doesn't seem to provide as vital a market as I've seen in other MMORPGs. I've had surprisingly good success selling dyes and other consumables manufactured by my scholar, but I've yet to make a good sale of any non-consumable goods. The economy of WoW is so vibrant that I've spent time doing nothing but speculating in the AH, so it's disappointing to see such a limited market by comparison in LotRO. Of course, that could be because the game doesn't yet have a big enough subscriber base. I suppose the jury has to remain out on this one.
Though LotRO is multi-player game from stem to stern, it brings more to the table in terms of its multi-player capabilities than most other games of its kind. For example, LotRO provides built-in voice over IP (VoIP) communication. This inclusion is a serious boon, insofar as it avoids all the hassles of using an external chat client like TeamSpeak or Ventrillo. The voice communication is limited to the fellowship level, and it works transparently with virtually no effort. Other MMORPGs take note: LotRO gets it exactly right. The voice quality is good and the implementation is nearly flawless.
I'm also quite impressed with the support for kinships, which are roughly equivalent to the guilds offered in other such games. The main difference seems to be that kinships age, as do players' memberships therein, gaining new options along the way. The result is an almost self-administering set of rewards and incentives for joining a long-term group of players. It's not entirely clear to me what all the various levels bring, beyond status, but it seems like a great innovation.
The looking for fellowship features (LFF) aren't quite as transparent as I would like, but they do seem reasonably well developed. LFF provides a dialog where players can increase their visibility to potential fellowships (and vice versa) with details like level, class, desired quest/instance, and so forth. In all honesty I haven't used it much, but that's only because I've typically been able to hook up with kinship members or form ad-hoc fellowships as needed. I've heard a few players complain about not being able to get into a fellowship for a particular quest, but I haven't had any trouble.
The only negative comment I can make is that the game has been rather laggy at times. For example, one of the chapters in book one left me facing Amdir the wraith for nearly a minute before the quest picked up and continued. Our fellowship grew increasingly concerned that the game was about to crash as the seconds ticked away. It eventually sorted itself out, but it isn't the only example of lag I've seen. On more than one occasion my connection has been dropped, resulting in my character's death, er, defeat. That hasn't bugged me, but there is a series of titles that require the player to remain undefeated, and I could see how it could be rather frustrating for players who care about such things.
I've said a lot and there remains a lot that could be said, but I think I can sum up LotRO in a single sentence: it was already the second best MMORPG in existence at its initial launch. To be objective, I still think WoW is the best MMORPG out there, but LotRO is a close second and is likely to get even better going forward. The first new content was released in June, bringing a lot of welcome additions to the table, and another huge chunk is due shortly. Only time will tell if the developers can maintain such a high level of quality, but they're off to a great start.
To be subjective for a moment, LotRO is the best MMORPG out there for me. I love WoW, and I have loved playing WoW for roughly a year and a half at this point, but I have always found its cartoony setting and quasi-goofy approach off-putting. In contrast, LotRO brings exactly the sort of more realistic vibe that I have hoped for in an MMORPG. The world of LotRO is beautiful, deep, down to Middle Earth, fantastic, and just happens to be the world I have dreamed of experiencing for the last thirty years.
I'm not saying that it's the best MMORPG for everyone, but it certainly is for me. It likely is for any other Tolkien fan as well, and it's unquestionably a great game for the newcomer. My advice is to give the trial a look. You might find that it isn't for you, but if you're a Tolkien fan you had better be prepared to cough up the monthly fee (grin).
08/17/2007