Lord Of The Rings Online Beta

Faricazy

Got an email earlier today with a key and download instructions. Installing right now. Anyone else got invited?

rayofash

You are late to the party. We have a thread on this from the last beta. It's basically WoW with an LotR paint job.

Faricazy

Monoxide

I guess if another round of invites went out we can talk about it some more.

Just don't break the NDA or they'll threaten you with the same thing they threaten EULA breakers with.

Faricazy

Well, this is for a Stress Test.

There are prizes involved.

Reynolds

I just got re-invited back, yeah. But I've got TBC to play...so I don't think I'll be playing. I sorta want to, though.

Oh WoW, return to me my free will!

BaronVonSnakPak

WoW with LoTR paint job you say?

sounds tempting enough for me.

LondonBridge

If it was based on the films rather than the books then I'd be all over it. The game needs Peter Jackson!

Citrus

Don't get too happy, Stress test invitees can't play till friday night.

Fencingsax

How's the WarHammer MMO going?

poshniallo

The trouble is, WOW is so massively derivative (of EQ, generic fantasy, LOTR etc etc) that almost any fantasy MMO will seem to copy it.

It's like when the LOTR movies came out and young illiterate types around me kept saying how hackneyed it was - dwarves and orc and elves etc.

People have it backwards.

xzzy

poshniallo wrote:

The trouble is, WOW is so massively derivative (of EQ, generic fantasy, LOTR etc etc) that almost any fantasy MMO will seem to copy it.

No, it goes deeper than that. LoTR pretty much rips off the WoW interface, pixel for pixel. There's a difference between two games having orcs.. and two games putting HUD elements in the exact same positions.

s3rial one

Been in LotRO since the first wave of beta invites, and just got my reinvite a day or two ago. Not crazy about downloading the client again, but I agree that the game has taken a lot of cues from WoW. Cool class system, but what I was hoping they'd do is take Tolkein's low-magic setting and use it as an excuse to flesh out a really cool combat system. But instead, they just gave normal MMO abilities non-magic explanations.

xzzy wrote:

poshniallo wrote:

The trouble is, WOW is so massively derivative (of EQ, generic fantasy, LOTR etc etc) that almost any fantasy MMO will seem to copy it.

No, it goes deeper than that. LoTR pretty much rips off the WoW interface, pixel for pixel. There's a difference between two games having orcs.. and two games putting HUD elements in the exact same positions.

That's not fair. WoW's interface is ripped from half a dozen other games. I did a screenshot comparison in the Vanguard thread a week or so ago. WoW's default interface is good, for a default interface, so why not stick with it?

Besides, the interface is supposed to be customizable, isn't it?

JeffH

Little bit of a bump, but I got my invite and DL'd the client, so I'll be set to play sometime this weekend. Is Minstrel the only healing class?

Dashui

So the jist of it is if you've played WoW, you've played LotRO? I was kind of interested in it before I knew how it played. I suppose I'll wait for Age of Conan if that's the case.