Widescreen Gaming Forum

Firstly, sorry for the longest thread title ever, but it's not my fault!

Now the NDA has been lifted so everyone in the beta is free to chat about it as much as they want. I'm sure there must be some people here who have been in for a couple of months, but i only just got in this weekend, so my experiences and screenshots and stuff are just from one weekend of playtime.

It looks STUNNING (imo ofc), and that was one of the biggest things that kept me playing because i'm a bit of a graphics whore.
Widescreen is fully supported (16:10 and 16:9). There is a current bug with the FOV control though. If you use a widescreen res, such as 1680x1050, you have to select the AR to 4:3. If you use 16:10, then the picture gets too squished. There are plus sides to this though. If you want a lower resolution, you can select 800x600 and then change the AR to 16:10 and it will run perfectly .. +Hor. Whether this is intended or just a perk of the bug, im not sure.

Click here to go to my ImageShack collection, then click on LOTRO tag on the right. I only got to level 12, so I didn't really leave the Shire, hence why they're all samey looking!


For a beta, I'd say it's shaping up very nicely and there aren't many issues i spotted that didn't seem to be fixable. Currently, sometimes quests aren't completable, and mobs sometimes die standing up, but these are all things that I'm positive are going to be fixed.

You get an introductory zone which is pretty good and the quests are nice and varied and easy to understand, but once you leave there you get to The Shire (Hobbits do anyway). Then the first missions you do here are really really boring. Well firstly, you have a blank map. The quest says "Talk to in the north of Overhill, a bit north of The Hill". Great, apart from the fact I don't have a clue where any of those places are. Queue walking around the whole freakin' place just to discover every area on my map so i don't get completely lost. Then it tricks you some more by telling you to go places which aren't even marked on your map, but are actually places WITHIN other places. Queue more endless walking around.
Secondly, the mission structure is this...

Deliver Post.
Deliver Pies.
Deliver Eggs.
Deliver Money.
Oops!, pies were rotten.
Retrieve Pies.
Retrieve more Pies.
Tell person you gave the pie back.

ARrrggghhh. SOO tedious!
Once you hit level 8 or so you get some more fullfilling missions and i started to really enjoy myself.

Woah OK this is a long post, but you get the idea.

Graphics - AWESOME
Starter Missions - TERRIBLE
LOTR-ish - Will please die-hard fans.
Very WoW-y. I'm surprised there's no law suit, some things are such a direct rip.

- Video of the Horse Riding(same as griffins on WoW, but obviously horses don't fly) (lots of detail on screen so lowish quality encode to keep the file size lowish too. oh, and the music obv isn't ingame ;p)

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Formerly eZ`

Follow me on twitter: @theg00seberry and find me on Steam

I got a beta key for the stress test over a month ago. I tried to play, but during the stress test the servers got so hammered I never managed to get into the game world. Only made it to the char selection screen, and then my GPU died. And once I replaced my GPU, The Burning Crusade was already out, hehe... :p

My gut tells me that besides having some fancy graphics technology and The Lord of the Rings name attached to it, this is just yet another weak attempt by some game developers to get as rich as Blizzard.

i am glad that someone likes it, i really am looking forward to play this game :P

I got a beta key for the stress test over a month ago. I tried to play, but during the stress test the servers got so hammered I never managed to get into the game world.

Yeah it was 1000% better this time though. Most people got in first time, they seriously learnt from the last Stress Test and fixed what went wrong, which is why it gives me hope that they'll be pretty dedicated to making this game decent.

My gut tells me that besides having some fancy graphics technology and The Lord of the Rings name attached to it, this is just yet another weak attempt by some game developers to get as rich as Blizzard.

It's far from a weak attempt i can tell you. Although a lot of the game mechanics are a spitting image of WoW, it's got enough LOTRish stuff to keep it original. There are some very unique ideas in the game too, and the High End stuff should be interesting. There's a whole combat thing in a team called "Conjunctions" which i don't understand at all, but it allows your whole team to combine together and perform some kind of special move if everyone chooses the correct colour combination... or something. It's more interesting than i've made it sound lol.

Here's a few points listed in the beta forums on them..

6) Once a conjunction is underway, a quad-colour wheel pops up on your screen and combat is paused.
7) Everyone nearby picks a colour, and the conjuction is resolved. Some of you are colour-blind I need to check which is where on the compass ie North south East West. I'll update later.
8 ) The assist button is used if you are not currently targeting the mob, see below.
9) Conjunction colours have different effects, yellow does damage over time, red does direct damage, green heals, and blue restores power.
10) You must be in the correct range to choose a conjunction colour. Mouse over each of the colours in your conjunction tab to find out the range of each conjunction skill of your class.
11) You can only use conjunction initiation if you are a member of a fellowship.
12) All conjunctions you have used are recorded in your conjunction journal.

_________________
Formerly eZ`

Follow me on twitter: @theg00seberry and find me on Steam

There's a whole combat thing in a team called "Conjunctions" which i don't understand at all, but it allows your whole team to combine together and perform some kind of special move if everyone chooses the correct colour combination... or something. It's more interesting than i've made it sound lol.

EverQuest 2 has that, and I personally really don't like that artificial group bonus system.

I'm currently beta testing this game and I'm impressed with how well it has progressed to this point. Alot of game companies woud have already released this game in the current condiiton it is in, it's that good.

As a beta tester, they purposely try to overload the server system and have as many people as possible logging on at same time in the same area for Stress Testing. First time I have been a beta tester and it's kind of fun filling out quest questionairres when you complete a quest.

I get the feeling they really value my opinion, lol as they should because I am a veteran online gamer.

Non disclosure agreement keeps me from saying anything more, but its shaping up nicely.

Non disclosure agreement keeps me from saying anything more, but its shaping up nicely.

The NDA's been lifted, say what you like!

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Formerly eZ`

Follow me on twitter: @theg00seberry and find me on Steam

It's been lifted? Didn't know that, been playing WoW so much lately. Yeah I been beta testing for a month or two.

Sure this is your standard get a quest-go kill something-return and get a reward massive online game. There are golden rings above quest givers heads to make it easy to find them.

Standard create your character, pick a class and choose a name etc. etc...

The beginning of the game was a treat as a Shadow Rider on his black horse rears up and says a few kindly words to you and then rides off and disappears.

The Shire map was really cool, just like the movie or the book, just like you would expect it to be. It's aweseome.

There was one area in the game that simply blew my socks off, the panoramic view was just unbelieveable! Arc bridges spanning huge immense gorges with rivers flowing below and cities perched high in the mountains, a city that you can visit and explore and get quests. I have never ever seen an environment like that in an online game, it was simply spectacular!

I stood there in amazement just gazing at everything. You will be completely blown away when you see it. I forget the exact name of the zone. But the depth and scope of the scenery and buildings was truly a movie-like work of art worthy of an Academy Award. Very very impressive.

I hardly explored the maps, so I can imagine what else they might have in store for us especially the map of Mordor. I never saw it while I beta tested but can just imagine. I spent my time trying out all the classes and leveled to 7 or 8 then would log off. I didnt get into crafting but its in the game.

If you are a Lord of The Rings fan then this game is a must have. I would compare it to Dark Age of Camelot combined with Oblivion combined with Everquest 2.

The game does not have a tight, solid feel to it like World of Warcraft (no other game does in my opinion). I will definitely buy this game when it is released.

I was a Beta tester and as always the game could completely change by the time its released.