Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Benjamin Shepherd]

I do, starting a day ago.

Kindest and most helpful community ever. and the RP is amazing on the Landroval server. They changed a lot since release in 2007, with the expansions and free updates. And the free to play system works great. Anyone else play?

[John Revenent]

I play.. once and awhile with my boss. Its a alright game.

[Shintoko Akahoshi]

I'm a huge freakin' Tolkien geek.  I love and hate that game.  I love it for the community (Landroval for the win!) and the wonderful world.  I hate it for how they turned it into yet-another-WoW-clone.  Oh, and I hate it for dwarves named "Spanky McBottom" who run and leap in circles on the roofs of Bree.

That said, it's a pretty damn enjoyable game which manages to push about 80% of my buttons.  Being able to go out the east exit of Moria and see stars in the Mirrormere in the daytime is a perfect example of how Turbine manages to get the world details right.

[Akrasjel Lanate]

I played an trial some time ago the game is cool but it's the same shit all companies produce aka "yet-another-WoW-clone".

[Myrhial Arkenath]

I've played for a few months a good while ago, probably more than a year by now, on some EU RP server. Laurelin or something like that? Not a lore expert here but I did enjoy being able to play in a world I only knew from the books and movies. I hear people rave about the community all the time but I don't recall much of a community at all. Maybe I just did not play long enough or wasn't on the right server?

I might pick it up again since it is free now, just to go through the story at my own speed. Is it true you can play the whole thing for free now? Or do you have to selectively spend your points and pay up if you really want to see everything?

[KJLLV]

Years ago. Had some technical difficulty with Turbine though, which kept me from ever really getting into the game.

[Benjamin Shepherd]

All changed and updated.

Trust me, it's free so DL and play it. I'm on Landroval; add Aurath.

[Wanoah]

I was subbed for a while, and quite enjoyed it. It was really nice to see how they'd realised some of the locations, and I liked the fact that I knew my way around after reading and rereading the books so many times.

Actual game was a bit shit though. I say that, but the first time around I was too busy learning to play, building my character and socialising with new friends. I didn't particularly notice some of the bad stuff. I only really quit when I had some PC issues and my sub expired in the intervening period. I didn't feel a strong urge to get back into the game after that.

When I retried it after it went F2P, I really couldn't get past the sheer awfulness of the quests: the way they transparently maximised their assets by trying to make you run all over the map over and over again. Any given quest chain would basically consist of autorunning everywhere for hours. I got heartily sick of it real quick.

First time round, I found it interesting how they tried to fit the story around what you as the player was doing; second time round, it was just plain dumb. Interesting idea, but it didn't really work. Then I got to thinking about how awesome it could have been if it was more closely modelled on some of the concepts that underpin Eve, rather than being JAWC (Just Another WoW Clone ) and I got a bit sad and stopped playing.

[DosTuMai]

I did Beta, poked around, added some ideas, introduced other Linux nerds, added helpful code for the devs... Where the hell did all the hard work go with my damned Linux client?
Fuck it, was okay to meh in Beta, looks closer to that which shall not be named than it used to be.
So not going there.

[Benjamin Shepherd]

I sense bitter feelings, Dost.

This isn't World of Warcraft, and neither is every other MMO that isn't EVE.

[DosTuMai]

I sense bitter feelings, Dost.

This isn't World of Warcraft, and neither is every other MMO that isn't EVE.

No, really. All the hype they brought up about it made me excited, then I joined and used the combat system... Wasn't my cup of tea. If others play it, great. It's just not a game I could get into.

[Mithfindel]

I play on-and-off. I do have a founder account-for-life on the euro side, and got a life account on Turbine's side, as well, back when the euro/dollar exchange rate was bonkers (since had a few Neverwinter Nights buddies on the American side). Haven't played for a while, though, as I have time issues and currently concentrating on EVE.

The good parts is that the world (not all in it, though) is quite lore-faithful, and there's lots of little bits of joy you likely won't get unless you've read the books. The community varies server-by-server, seems pretty nice on Laurelin when I played actively, though naturally there are RPer drama queen bitch fests, too. Teh athmosphere is great and I like the area design, except a few places where the original areas have been changed (possibly by some intern), causing the textures to stretch. (Many cliffs also suffer from this.)

On the bad side, lots of the game has been nerfed to oblivion. My pet example is the Old Forest, which used to be mildly scary, and unless you knew the area, you could get somewhat lost. Which wasn't bad, unless you got somewhat lost and stumbled into the area with awakened trees in the middle. Now, that could've been "fixed" either by making the trees aggro on damage only, or adding a map. Turbine did both, turning the forest into a bore. The only good part is that if you know what you do, it's completely opposite of Wanoah's notice - many quests can be done at the same time, with minimum running around.

[Benjamin Shepherd]

It does have some intense fog, though.

[Shintoko Akahoshi]

And Moria is well worth it, if you play into the mid fifties.

One thing that occurs to me as a RPer is something I've seen in LOTRO, EQ2 and STO, and that is "static doll syndrome" in the RP.  You have these reasonably realistic looking characters running around, but you're very limited in the emotes you can do.  It reminds me of the novel Snowcrash, where this worldwide VR system doesn't gain massive acceptance until someone insists on giving people's avatars the ability to express all the nuances that we normally do in face to face interaction.  All of these character-based MMOs suffer from that. RP typically involves people standing around like static dolls typing their descriptions, much like the pure chat-based RP in Eve, with the very occasional scripted emote that always ends up looking awkward.

I'd hope that CCP learns from the experience of other games, when WIS finally comes out.

[Benjamin Shepherd]

You can't move around like an Italian when you're standing still.