1) After endgame I got bored. I don't like raids and the pvp wasn't very interesting to me. Only thing after that is to grind rep or titles which was boring.
2) While the world of LOTRO is beautiful, the characters are not. This is purely subjective but I found them very homely looking. Additionally, I didn't care for the animations that much, which seemed kind of wooden or artificial.
3) I got tired of fighting something every five feet. Sometimes I want to explore and take in the land. I might go back to a much lower level area and just sight see, take screenshots, etc. But in LOTRO it just seemed like every few feet I was fighting something, and the fights started to feel very repetetive and annoying. Eventually getting agro ever few feet I just got worn down and decided to play something else.
Well, imo they should have launched the game when middle earth was complete. But that is besides the point. What you refer to, skirmishes, monster play, is extraneous to the game. People like myself, looking at MMO's to be the world-simulators we though they were supposed to be, the idea that there are no antagonistic player characters in the main game makes it too shallow for us.
translation - me no gank wen want2 me no likey
^^ This
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -Winston Churchill
2) While the world of LOTRO is beautiful, the characters are not. This is purely subjective but I found them very homely looking. Additionally, I didn't care for the animations that much, which seemed kind of wooden or artificial.
3) I got tired of fighting something every five feet. Sometimes I want to explore and take in the land. I might go back to a much lower level area and just sight see, take screenshots, etc. But in LOTRO it just seemed like every few feet I was fighting something, and the fights started to feel very repetetive and annoying. Eventually getting agro ever few feet I just got worn down and decided to play something else.
I have to say these two resonate with me very much.
Aesthetics are important to me, and while "graphics" dont' make a game, something as iconic as "Lord of the Rings" most likely conjures up something exciting. But these avatars don't do it for me either. Neither do the armor sets or most of the weapons. But when I look at DDO I also see some really horrible choices there. So someone is grandfathered in who does this stuff but doesn't do it well in my book (probably not, but that is my knee jerk reaction).
As far as the second thing OMG tell me about it. I also play Vanguard and the one thing I LOVE about it is that I can travel the HUGE world without being attacked all the time. That for the most part mobs are in areas and they make some sense.
This is not to say I don't want danger.
There "used" to be trolls on the highway but they removed them. Quite frankly they made the game much safer. But I highly suspect this was Mr. Steefel's doing. After my rather long talk with him (which he was very gracious to do and was extremely nice so don't want to seem like I'm dissing on him) he essentially informed me that he was very concerned with essentially the average plaeyr and what the average player deemed "fun". To that end, he was the one who told the designer of the first Great Forest to redesign it. Let's just say it is now one open corridor, twisting around to give it the semblance of a forest. That is a bit simplistic but I can barely go in there now without getting angry.
So I highly suspect that there is a rounding of corners in the game.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The character models, for the most part. Tried the trial, turned all graphics to the highest possible, wanted to make my first character...the first thing that glares at me is HORRIBLE armor. What kind of armor is violet? >.<
Come on, at least make my character appealing to me. Animation was wooden too...although the story seemed interesting, I just couldn't get over this, the immersion was just missing.
I have to say these two resonate with me very much.
Aesthetics are important to me, and while "graphics" dont' make a game, something as iconic as "Lord of the Rings" most likely conjures up something exciting. But these avatars don't do it for me either. Neither do the armor sets or most of the weapons. But when I look at DDO I also see some really horrible choices there. So someone is grandfathered in who does this stuff but doesn't do it well in my book (probably not, but that is my knee jerk reaction).
I'd say it goes all the way back to AC. Seems as if someone at Turbine has a very strange artistic sense. Or maybe they let their little kid draw some of the weapons and armor, and then a professional steps in and makes it all 3d and shiny. In some cases, it gives it a unique alien sort of charm, but when you want your character to look GOOD, it's just frustrating.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
I'm not saying it was a failure or anything, but it just seems like it could have been - maybe could still be - a much bigger success than it is. I've been trying MMO after MMO, and after three years away, I'm giving LOTRO a second look. This game has so much more to it than most other MMOs. Certainly more than WoW. Plus, it's possibly the biggest IP a dev could even hope for.
I know it has its flaws, but I'm wondering which really accounts for the lack of mass appeal. Is it simply poor advertising? They advertise a lot, but is it too low key? Maybe they need to push more new content that gives the impression of it being more developmentally alive, not just a fading MMO no one wants to waste resources on? Or maybe the weak first impression it makes during character creation? Maybe they should focus on adding more detail and customization to character appearance?
I'm thinking it's something very basic like that. Not the sort of details players only notice after getting serious about the game.
It's boring. Great IP, great storyline, great world... terribly boring combat system and classes.
I'd say it goes all the way back to AC. Seems as if someone at Turbine has a very strange artistic sense. Or maybe they let their little kid draw some of the weapons and armor, and then a professional steps in and makes it all 3d and shiny. In some cases, it gives it a unique alien sort of charm, but when you want your character to look GOOD, it's just frustrating.
I think DDOs avatars actually looks a lot better.
Here they made the Avatars to look like the classical LOTRO paintings but that was kinda a mistake since they didn't use the same for the background. Realistic background and art avatars looks rather peculiar.
But I don't think that is the main reason. I think it boils down to the fact that LOTROs system is too close to EQ and Wows. It might actually have done better if they used DDOs system instead.
Another thing is that they kinda made the players extras to the heroes of the books, they should have put it into another age instead. People do want to play the heroes.
LOTRO do have many good sides too. One of the things that actually hurt the game most was probably timing. If it had released 3 years later or earlier it would probably have bigger but it released during the dark time known as "the rise of Warcraft".
It's boring. Great IP, great storyline, great world... terribly boring combat system and classes.
i never understood this. its the usual target > use skills as all other mmos. whats so terrible about lotro's particular combat system? boring classes? I dont find my warden boring in the slightest.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
I'm not saying it was a failure or anything, but it just seems like it could have been - maybe could still be - a much bigger success than it is. I've been trying MMO after MMO, and after three years away, I'm giving LOTRO a second look. This game has so much more to it than most other MMOs. Certainly more than WoW. Plus, it's possibly the biggest IP a dev could even hope for.
I know it has its flaws, but I'm wondering which really accounts for the lack of mass appeal. Is it simply poor advertising? They advertise a lot, but is it too low key? Maybe they need to push more new content that gives the impression of it being more developmentally alive, not just a fading MMO no one wants to waste resources on? Or maybe the weak first impression it makes during character creation? Maybe they should focus on adding more detail and customization to character appearance?
I'm thinking it's something very basic like that. Not the sort of details players only notice after getting serious about the game.
In my opinion the game has some big flaws. Armor design, it lacks skin. I know its based on tolkien's lore and showing skin doesnt fit, just i say that, the armor design are too covered, specially women, it should have some skin. The other one flawe i see is the npc's. They lack detail, they have too few polygons so they are weird and look old compared to the awesome scenery.
After playing LOTRO, yes, good game. But I always felt the publishers were holding back a little, like they were waiting to see if money was going to roll in before they committed themselves to more serious big guns like flying mounts (Eagles, I guess, maybe dragons as an epic reward) and were also hemmed in by specific limits because they had to operate with Tolkien's ideas and not something they came up with from scratch like Blizzard did with Warcraft who could do what they wanted, so that was a boundary from the start.
Nice landscape / environment graphics though, not beaten by much else if any.
After playing LOTRO, yes, good game. But I always felt the publishers were holding back a little, like they were waiting to see if money was going to roll in before they committed themselves to more serious big guns like flying mounts (Eagles, I guess, maybe dragons as an epic reward) and were also hemmed in by specific limits because they had to operate with Tolkien's ideas and not something they came up with from scratch like Blizzard did with Warcraft who could do what they wanted, so that was a boundary from the start.
Nice landscape / environment graphics though, not beaten by much else if any.
eagles? dragons?!
Seriously dude, you obviously don't belong in LOTRO if you can willy-nilly butcher the lore that way.
It's boring. Great IP, great storyline, great world... terribly boring combat system and classes.
i never understood this. its the usual target > use skills as all other mmos. whats so terrible about lotro's particular combat system? boring classes? I dont find my warden boring in the slightest.
The warden is the only class that's mildly entertaining. It also came into the game in an expansion. Now keeping in mind that the warden is the best the game has to offer... go watch a youtube video of that gameplay. Don't forget to grab a pillow.
The combat system isn't terrible. It's just absolutely and utterly boring. Other AAA game's combat systems have things that set them apart and make them unique... WoW is incredibly reactive and fluid, AoC is very stylized and unique in nature, Aion is very flashy and twitchy, etc etc
LotR combat is just plain vanila waffer boring. The animations are lame, the skillsets are lame, and the nature of how the system ties skills together is lacking. I absolutely loved the setting and the storyline... but I had to struggle through the gameplay because it was so uninspired and average.
Plus the avatars and itemization look like crap. I dunno how you make such a pretty environment and then you fill it w/ characters and items that are so poorly constructed.
After playing LOTRO, yes, good game. But I always felt the publishers were holding back a little, like they were waiting to see if money was going to roll in before they committed themselves to more serious big guns like flying mounts (Eagles, I guess, maybe dragons as an epic reward) and were also hemmed in by specific limits because they had to operate with Tolkien's ideas and not something they came up with from scratch like Blizzard did with Warcraft who could do what they wanted, so that was a boundary from the start.
Nice landscape / environment graphics though, not beaten by much else if any.
eagles? dragons?!
Seriously dude, you obviously don't belong in LOTRO if you can willy-nilly butcher the lore that way.
Get back to WoW.
One massive thing missing was flying mounts, which wasn't really featured in the books other than Eagles giving various characters help in the Hobbit and LOTR novels, so they are a possibility. Dragons, maybe, but only after a chain of Epics, and Tolkien loved his dragons albeit not as mounts.
WoW is dead to me. Long gone and buried. Roll on Guild Wars 2.
Originally posted by nyxium Originally posted by Dimensional
Originally posted by nyxium
After playing LOTRO, yes, good game. But I always felt the publishers were holding back a little, like they were waiting to see if money was going to roll in before they committed themselves to more serious big guns like flying mounts (Eagles, I guess, maybe dragons as an epic reward) and were also hemmed in by specific limits because they had to operate with Tolkien's ideas and not something they came up with from scratch like Blizzard did with Warcraft who could do what they wanted, so that was a boundary from the start. Nice landscape / environment graphics though, not beaten by much else if any.
eagles? dragons?! Seriously dude, you obviously don't belong in LOTRO if you can willy-nilly butcher the lore that way. Get back to WoW. One massive thing missing was flying mounts, which wasn't really featured in the books other than Eagles giving various characters help in the Hobbit and LOTR novels, so they are a possibility. Dragons, maybe, but only after a chain of Epics, and Tolkien loved his dragons albeit not as mounts. WoW is dead to me. Long gone and buried. Roll on Guild Wars 2.
The eagles wouldn't let people ride them. They'd literally tear the player characters to shreds if we tried to mount them.
There are no true dragons left in the LotR world. Smuag was the last one. The dragons you see in game are drakes and lesser worms. They also have a history of working for Suaron/Morgoth.
We're not using them as mounts end of discussion.
No offense dude, but it's pretty clear you're not hip with the LotR lore, and lore is pretty much what this game has going for it.
I guess "huge" is relative, but personally I consider the game "huge" for an MMO. I mean look at all the markets the game is in and has been adapted for. This is no "niche" MMO, it's a huge mainstream MMO.
2nd largest market share next to WoW says it is a huge success in the western market. Kind of an odd post.
Although I'm skeptical of how accurate that is, it's probably close enough to being true. Let's assume LOTRO is actually huge. Why hasn't Turbine expanded it more than they have, in three years??? I remember back in beta, people would ask about this area or that area from the books, and why they weren't in the game, and people would say give it time, there will be expansions. But what have they added?
That might be why I thought the game hasn't been doing that well. I've heard very little about it growing in all this time. That's why it's taken me this long to give it a second look, which I probably would never have done, if not for a whim during a lull between other recent games, and then the $10 offer that popped up during my free trial. I've been under the impression this game was developmentally dead, so didn't have much interest in returning to it.
Only upon doing so did I remember how good it is, and start wondering...
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
2nd largest market share next to WoW says it is a huge success in the western market. Kind of an odd post.
I guess it all depends on where you look for numbers. I don't believe most of these 3rd party sites, but just to show how different sites have different numbers heres another look.
2nd largest market share next to WoW says it is a huge success in the western market. Kind of an odd post.
I guess it all depends on where you look for numbers. I don't believe most of these 3rd party sites, but just to show how different sites have different numbers heres another look.
Using Xfire as a gauge of game popularity is inherently flawed I think. Yeah, you might get a good number, but personally, there are a number of games that I disable xfire while using, just because I notice the game runs smoother with it off. And I can't be the only one.
On the same note though, I thought LOTRO was considered a major success in the genre?
After playing LOTRO, yes, good game. But I always felt the publishers were holding back a little, like they were waiting to see if money was going to roll in before they committed themselves to more serious big guns like flying mounts (Eagles, I guess, maybe dragons as an epic reward) and were also hemmed in by specific limits because they had to operate with Tolkien's ideas and not something they came up with from scratch like Blizzard did with Warcraft who could do what they wanted, so that was a boundary from the start.
Nice landscape / environment graphics though, not beaten by much else if any.
eagles? dragons?!
Seriously dude, you obviously don't belong in LOTRO if you can willy-nilly butcher the lore that way.
Get back to WoW.
One massive thing missing was flying mounts, which wasn't really featured in the books other than Eagles giving various characters help in the Hobbit and LOTR novels, so they are a possibility. Dragons, maybe, but only after a chain of Epics, and Tolkien loved his dragons albeit not as mounts.
WoW is dead to me. Long gone and buried. Roll on Guild Wars 2.
The eagles wouldn't let people ride them. They'd literally tear the player characters to shreds if we tried to mount them.
There are no true dragons left in the LotR world. Smuag was the last one. The dragons you see in game are drakes and lesser worms. They also have a history of working for Suaron/Morgoth.
We're not using them as mounts end of discussion.
No offense dude, but it's pretty clear you're not hip with the LotR lore, and lore is pretty much what this game has going for it.
I'm sorry but lore is only loosely followed in LOTRO to begin with. Why not have dragons and eagles and crap for flying mounts? You get to face a flippin Balrog and you don't cry foul? The psuedo ring wraiths all over the place don't make your hackles rise a bit? If you had actually read the books, and understood the books, including the Silmarillon and not just watched Peter Jackson's butchery of the story then you wouldn't be so quick to defend the lore of a game that has already been trashed to hell and back.
For me, it just got boring. I can't put my finger on it, but I just would log in less and less after the launch of Moria. The content is fine, there is plenty there to do. Crafting is ok, but just the same as anywhere else. I just got bored doing the same thing over and over using the same combat sequences.
Just like anything else, you start to get burned out and need to try something else. The game is good enough, but the lack of PvP or progression gets to you. I may go back once they get to Mordor. That way, I can go through the entire story, but there is nothing to keep me interested at the moment.
This is what happened to me as well. I've been back to Lotro twice, and for both times I lasted about 3-4 months before I just stopped playing it.
Before I state the negatives for me, I want to say that I do dig this game. It is quite good when you compare it to other theme-parks, but after a while it still feels like more of the same.
One thing that bugged me about it is how close it is to being a sandbox type game, but just misses the mark. This could have been the ultimate sandbox/themepark hybrid. What you get is a game that sort of feels deep at first, but soon shows how shallow it is. Crafting is pretty weak, instanced player housing sucks, player customization sucks, the player/combat animations are weak, social features are almost there, but not quite. In fact that is the best way I can describe this game for me: "Almost there, but not quite".
Lord of the Rings is another IP like Star Wars that screams for a sandbox where we can all live out our own adventures being whoever we want to be. It's a very rich world, and giving it the Disneyland treatment just doesn't cut it IMO.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
This game isnt "huge" because its generic. I downloaded the trial of this game and couldnt find anything particularly interesting about it. Its just a bog standard mmo.......boring repetitive gameplay divided up with text files to read. Meh.
I love the game, although don't play it currently. My biggest gripe is the character models just aren't that great. They look kind of funny sometimes, like when running. I hear they are adding new models soon?
Comments
I'll tell you why I'm not playing.
1) After endgame I got bored. I don't like raids and the pvp wasn't very interesting to me. Only thing after that is to grind rep or titles which was boring.
2) While the world of LOTRO is beautiful, the characters are not. This is purely subjective but I found them very homely looking. Additionally, I didn't care for the animations that much, which seemed kind of wooden or artificial.
3) I got tired of fighting something every five feet. Sometimes I want to explore and take in the land. I might go back to a much lower level area and just sight see, take screenshots, etc. But in LOTRO it just seemed like every few feet I was fighting something, and the fights started to feel very repetetive and annoying. Eventually getting agro ever few feet I just got worn down and decided to play something else.
^^ This
I have to say these two resonate with me very much.
Aesthetics are important to me, and while "graphics" dont' make a game, something as iconic as "Lord of the Rings" most likely conjures up something exciting. But these avatars don't do it for me either. Neither do the armor sets or most of the weapons. But when I look at DDO I also see some really horrible choices there. So someone is grandfathered in who does this stuff but doesn't do it well in my book (probably not, but that is my knee jerk reaction).
As far as the second thing OMG tell me about it. I also play Vanguard and the one thing I LOVE about it is that I can travel the HUGE world without being attacked all the time. That for the most part mobs are in areas and they make some sense.
This is not to say I don't want danger.
There "used" to be trolls on the highway but they removed them. Quite frankly they made the game much safer. But I highly suspect this was Mr. Steefel's doing. After my rather long talk with him (which he was very gracious to do and was extremely nice so don't want to seem like I'm dissing on him) he essentially informed me that he was very concerned with essentially the average plaeyr and what the average player deemed "fun". To that end, he was the one who told the designer of the first Great Forest to redesign it. Let's just say it is now one open corridor, twisting around to give it the semblance of a forest. That is a bit simplistic but I can barely go in there now without getting angry.
So I highly suspect that there is a rounding of corners in the game.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The character models, for the most part. Tried the trial, turned all graphics to the highest possible, wanted to make my first character...the first thing that glares at me is HORRIBLE armor. What kind of armor is violet? >.<
Come on, at least make my character appealing to me. Animation was wooden too...although the story seemed interesting, I just couldn't get over this, the immersion was just missing.
I'd say it goes all the way back to AC. Seems as if someone at Turbine has a very strange artistic sense. Or maybe they let their little kid draw some of the weapons and armor, and then a professional steps in and makes it all 3d and shiny. In some cases, it gives it a unique alien sort of charm, but when you want your character to look GOOD, it's just frustrating.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
It's boring. Great IP, great storyline, great world... terribly boring combat system and classes.
I think DDOs avatars actually looks a lot better.
Here they made the Avatars to look like the classical LOTRO paintings but that was kinda a mistake since they didn't use the same for the background. Realistic background and art avatars looks rather peculiar.
But I don't think that is the main reason. I think it boils down to the fact that LOTROs system is too close to EQ and Wows. It might actually have done better if they used DDOs system instead.
Another thing is that they kinda made the players extras to the heroes of the books, they should have put it into another age instead. People do want to play the heroes.
LOTRO do have many good sides too. One of the things that actually hurt the game most was probably timing. If it had released 3 years later or earlier it would probably have bigger but it released during the dark time known as "the rise of Warcraft".
i never understood this. its the usual target > use skills as all other mmos. whats so terrible about lotro's particular combat system? boring classes? I dont find my warden boring in the slightest.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
In my opinion the game has some big flaws. Armor design, it lacks skin. I know its based on tolkien's lore and showing skin doesnt fit, just i say that, the armor design are too covered, specially women, it should have some skin. The other one flawe i see is the npc's. They lack detail, they have too few polygons so they are weird and look old compared to the awesome scenery.
After playing LOTRO, yes, good game. But I always felt the publishers were holding back a little, like they were waiting to see if money was going to roll in before they committed themselves to more serious big guns like flying mounts (Eagles, I guess, maybe dragons as an epic reward) and were also hemmed in by specific limits because they had to operate with Tolkien's ideas and not something they came up with from scratch like Blizzard did with Warcraft who could do what they wanted, so that was a boundary from the start.
Nice landscape / environment graphics though, not beaten by much else if any.
eagles? dragons?!
Seriously dude, you obviously don't belong in LOTRO if you can willy-nilly butcher the lore that way.
Get back to WoW.
The warden is the only class that's mildly entertaining. It also came into the game in an expansion. Now keeping in mind that the warden is the best the game has to offer... go watch a youtube video of that gameplay. Don't forget to grab a pillow.
The combat system isn't terrible. It's just absolutely and utterly boring. Other AAA game's combat systems have things that set them apart and make them unique... WoW is incredibly reactive and fluid, AoC is very stylized and unique in nature, Aion is very flashy and twitchy, etc etc
LotR combat is just plain vanila waffer boring. The animations are lame, the skillsets are lame, and the nature of how the system ties skills together is lacking. I absolutely loved the setting and the storyline... but I had to struggle through the gameplay because it was so uninspired and average.
Plus the avatars and itemization look like crap. I dunno how you make such a pretty environment and then you fill it w/ characters and items that are so poorly constructed.
One massive thing missing was flying mounts, which wasn't really featured in the books other than Eagles giving various characters help in the Hobbit and LOTR novels, so they are a possibility. Dragons, maybe, but only after a chain of Epics, and Tolkien loved his dragons albeit not as mounts.
WoW is dead to me. Long gone and buried. Roll on Guild Wars 2.
Seriously dude, you obviously don't belong in LOTRO if you can willy-nilly butcher the lore that way.
Get back to WoW.
One massive thing missing was flying mounts, which wasn't really featured in the books other than Eagles giving various characters help in the Hobbit and LOTR novels, so they are a possibility. Dragons, maybe, but only after a chain of Epics, and Tolkien loved his dragons albeit not as mounts.
WoW is dead to me. Long gone and buried. Roll on Guild Wars 2.
The eagles wouldn't let people ride them. They'd literally tear the player characters to shreds if we tried to mount them.
There are no true dragons left in the LotR world. Smuag was the last one. The dragons you see in game are drakes and lesser worms. They also have a history of working for Suaron/Morgoth.
We're not using them as mounts end of discussion.
No offense dude, but it's pretty clear you're not hip with the LotR lore, and lore is pretty much what this game has going for it.
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I guess "huge" is relative, but personally I consider the game "huge" for an MMO. I mean look at all the markets the game is in and has been adapted for. This is no "niche" MMO, it's a huge mainstream MMO.
http://www.lotro.com/
http://lotro-europe.com/
http://lotro.cdcgames.net/
http://lotro-russia.com/
http://lotro.hangame.com/
I think the fact that they don't release subscriber numbers is the reason a lot of folks are under the impression that the game isn't "huge".
Not for long. With the aquisition, I believe they will have to release numbers now as part of WB, a publicly traded comapny.
2nd largest market share next to WoW says it is a huge success in the western market. Kind of an odd post.
Although I'm skeptical of how accurate that is, it's probably close enough to being true. Let's assume LOTRO is actually huge. Why hasn't Turbine expanded it more than they have, in three years??? I remember back in beta, people would ask about this area or that area from the books, and why they weren't in the game, and people would say give it time, there will be expansions. But what have they added?
That might be why I thought the game hasn't been doing that well. I've heard very little about it growing in all this time. That's why it's taken me this long to give it a second look, which I probably would never have done, if not for a whim during a lull between other recent games, and then the $10 offer that popped up during my free trial. I've been under the impression this game was developmentally dead, so didn't have much interest in returning to it.
Only upon doing so did I remember how good it is, and start wondering...
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
I guess it all depends on where you look for numbers. I don't believe most of these 3rd party sites, but just to show how different sites have different numbers heres another look.
Top Massively Multiplayer Online Games
Heh....xFire. Well, now we know the numbers for 14-year olds. Now that's representative.
Using Xfire as a gauge of game popularity is inherently flawed I think. Yeah, you might get a good number, but personally, there are a number of games that I disable xfire while using, just because I notice the game runs smoother with it off. And I can't be the only one.
On the same note though, I thought LOTRO was considered a major success in the genre?
I'm sorry but lore is only loosely followed in LOTRO to begin with. Why not have dragons and eagles and crap for flying mounts? You get to face a flippin Balrog and you don't cry foul? The psuedo ring wraiths all over the place don't make your hackles rise a bit? If you had actually read the books, and understood the books, including the Silmarillon and not just watched Peter Jackson's butchery of the story then you wouldn't be so quick to defend the lore of a game that has already been trashed to hell and back.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
This is what happened to me as well. I've been back to Lotro twice, and for both times I lasted about 3-4 months before I just stopped playing it.
Before I state the negatives for me, I want to say that I do dig this game. It is quite good when you compare it to other theme-parks, but after a while it still feels like more of the same.
One thing that bugged me about it is how close it is to being a sandbox type game, but just misses the mark. This could have been the ultimate sandbox/themepark hybrid. What you get is a game that sort of feels deep at first, but soon shows how shallow it is. Crafting is pretty weak, instanced player housing sucks, player customization sucks, the player/combat animations are weak, social features are almost there, but not quite. In fact that is the best way I can describe this game for me: "Almost there, but not quite".
Lord of the Rings is another IP like Star Wars that screams for a sandbox where we can all live out our own adventures being whoever we want to be. It's a very rich world, and giving it the Disneyland treatment just doesn't cut it IMO.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
This game isnt "huge" because its generic. I downloaded the trial of this game and couldnt find anything particularly interesting about it. Its just a bog standard mmo.......boring repetitive gameplay divided up with text files to read. Meh.
I love the game, although don't play it currently. My biggest gripe is the character models just aren't that great. They look kind of funny sometimes, like when running. I hear they are adding new models soon?
ColdSun