General Questions

Talyn

Not sure if anyone has reached the current end-game or not, but I am curious if Turbine took an EQ/WoW approach with forced grinding to get better gear? For that matter, is player-crafted gear on par or superior to drops?



I recently retired from WoW when TBC went live because I was tired of being forced to grind everything at end-game. I had three 60's all of whom raided regularly and, sorry, but I consider raiding to be grinding. It's fun the first time or few until you learn the patterns, then it's just play by numbers. I'm very very curious about LOTRO, and I'll find out in the open beta in a couple days but I'm giving thought to pre-ordering.



Also, I've heard a few people describe LOTRO as linear. Could you elaborate on what your opinion of linear is versus your definition of a "free open world" (I think that's the term I saw tossed around). I'm aware LOTRO isn't out to break new grounds, so it's probably "here's the level 1-5 zone, here's the 6-10 zone," etc. Even while WoW was considered linear, I could certainly explore to my heart's content around to zones that I had no business being in at my level, and I knew if a single mob aggroed on me, I was a goner. But I don't mind if an NPC quest giver reminds me "oh, by the way, you should be able to handle yourself in [insert zone here]" for me, I'm still free to explore anyway. Compared to what I've read of the Vanguard guys where it was "we'll plunk you down in the world, and you do your own thing, we have no story to force you along" and the fans were excited, "yay, hardcore, I can do my own thing, no hand-holding" but as soon as the game was released, they're all whining about being plopped down with no idea what to do. Careful what you wish for?

Keogh

Originally posted by Talyn

Not sure if anyone has reached the current end-game or not, but I am curious if Turbine took an EQ/WoW approach with forced grinding to get better gear? For that matter, is player-crafted gear on par or superior to drops?



I recently retired from WoW when TBC went live because I was tired of being forced to grind everything at end-game. I had three 60's all of whom raided regularly and, sorry, but I consider raiding to be grinding. It's fun the first time or few until you learn the patterns, then it's just play by numbers. I'm very very curious about LOTRO, and I'll find out in the open beta in a couple days but I'm giving thought to pre-ordering.



Also, I've heard a few people describe LOTRO as linear. Could you elaborate on what your opinion of linear is versus your definition of a "free open world" (I think that's the term I saw tossed around). I'm aware LOTRO isn't out to break new grounds, so it's probably "here's the level 1-5 zone, here's the 6-10 zone," etc. Even while WoW was considered linear, I could certainly explore to my heart's content around to zones that I had no business being in at my level, and I knew if a single mob aggroed on me, I was a goner. But I don't mind if an NPC quest giver reminds me "oh, by the way, you should be able to handle yourself in [insert zone here]" for me, I'm still free to explore anyway. Compared to what I've read of the Vanguard guys where it was "we'll plunk you down in the world, and you do your own thing, we have no story to force you along" and the fans were excited, "yay, hardcore, I can do my own thing, no hand-holding" but as soon as the game was released, they're all whining about being plopped down with no idea what to do. Careful what you wish for?

You can not gain usable gear or experience by grinding mobs. What you can get grinding mobs are racial/class/epic traits, virtues and skills that you can slot at a bard to improve yourself.
The game is linear, in the sense that the quest are story driven and follow the plot and timelines in the books. You can choose not to do any of the quests if you like, and just roam around picking up one time quest to kill 20 wild pigs.
There are 24 man raids that are story driven at level 50.
Crafted gear can be equal to and sometime, far superior to quest rewards.

mckanna

"Cannot gain usable gear or experience?"



What do you mean I can't gain experience by grinding mobs.

Khaunshar

Thats basically not correct.

You can get loot, rare drops , recipes and all that stuff from mobs you kill. Kill exp isnt very good, so questing as means of levelling is almost a must. Which is the reason why its called linear... you basically venture from area to area, following a storyline in form of instanced epic quests (their name, doesnt have to do with difficulty or reward quality at all. Most are rather easy), and do random quests. A few of those touch on aspects of the storyline (for example getting equipment for guards for a war that you later try to avert) but it doesnt have any effect, other than getting exp of course.



If you havent played Guild Wars, I think its not too far off to compare it to games like Gothic, or Oblivion, though with more emphasis on the storyline, as the secondary quests are almost all very simplistic WoW-style "kill X, get Y and talk to Z" stuff.



Basically goes like this. You start in your own tutorial instance, then enter a newbie area where you meet with other people. That one is instanced too, but allows more players, and actually takes place in an area that ll later be possible to re-visit under different circumstances. You cannot go back at any time so far. After completing your first storyline instance, you get moved halfway across the first map to your starting point in the persistent world, at a quest hub. From then on its regular questgrinding and the occasional storyline mission till, 3 missions later or so, you are shown the door and basically told "to be continued in Bree". While you CAN move between the newbie zones, actual travel and exploration arent very encouraged (though with dying through, quite possible to reach some mid 30s places with a lot of knowledge and time commitment, just for the sake of it). This repeats itself until towards the end, the storyline missions get longer, harder, and come to a finale, after which you can revisit them, but are out of content for the time being in that area. Whats left is then 2 raid instances, the PvP minigame (not real pvp, its not balanced, just some fun player vs. monster stuff) and grinding up your traits/virtue traits to roxxor a little bit more. Some of them are a pretty rough grind btw, be warned. Maxing out your char both loot- and traitwise is no small time investment.

Did I miss anything? Ah yeah, there are max-level instances pretty much exactly like WoW in what they are meant to accomplish, so right now you can say its a pretty precise copy of the WoW endgame pre-Zul Gurub.