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xZAOx posted:It's really not near as bad as it seems. The benefit of LOTRO's model (which I really like) is you can fully play the game just by paying for the content - which is a MUCH better deal than almost every other F2P matrix (especially SOE's, where all the gear is locked). Not that I would ever, ever, ever recommend EQ2 over LOTRO, but they finally actually dropped that restriction at the beginning of this month. LOTRO's pricing model isn't awful, it just has some really stupid high prices for certain things. Mounts mostly.
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Oct 22, 2013 07:48
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Guardians vs Champs is very much and Apples & Oranges kind of situation. The sole reason why you roll a Guard is because you had this image in your head of standing toe-to-toe with a giant troll boss that has a million hit points while your squishy friends all stand behind you throwing out heals and arrows. That's your moment to shine. The trade off is that you will solo content a bit slower than the rest. The real competition for Guardians are Wardens. My Hunter always preferred Guards to Wardens for a couple reasons: Guardians top the threat chart almost immediately at the beginning of a fight. There was significantly less chance of being accused of being a Huntard as long as you knew how not to steal aggro. Wardens take a bit longer to generate the necessary threat, wasting valuable seconds that could have been spent on Pew Pew Pew. The second reason is that although Wardens technically equal Guardians as tanks, it requires significantly more skill and practice on the part of the player to be able to play a Warden well enough to do so. Any Warden can be the guy I joked about in my previous post while he's soloing, but only a small few are going to be able to hold aggro as good as a Guard in a fellowship. Frankly, I thought Wardens sucked until the night I ran one of the DG 6-mans with one. The rest of us wiped on the 2nd to last boss, but over the course of 10 minutes, the Warden whittled this guy down to nothing. I was impressed. Before that, I had only ever seen bad Wardens that couldn't keep aggro from me after nothing more than a couple little Quick Shots. Brave New World fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Oct 22, 2013 |
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Oct 22, 2013 08:12
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Guardians definitely have a much easier time at tanking than Wardens, including I think 3 oh poo poo give me aggro on everything right now skills, some of which are on very short cooldowns. Wardens have a single panic skill, which is on something dumb like a 15 minute cooldown. One of the reasons why a good Warden is so hard to find for group tanking, because even a lovely Guardian can recover with the panic skills, and especially any fight that needs tank swapping is a lot easier with a Guardian. Where Wardens shine is 3-man content. Not only can they tank everything, but a good Warden can pretty much act as the healer for 3-man stuff too. And there were the old days of Barrow Downs survival where you had a single Warden running in a circle, with the entire raid's worth of monsters chasing him for an hour. A Warden was the only class that could do that, because once a Guardian runs out of panic skills they need blocking events to generate aggro, while a Warden can simply heal and pump out massive amounts of aggro while moving constantly. A fun thing to do was to solo Carn Dum as a Warden, even though I think at this point you can probably do it with every class. It was a really good way to practice muscle memory, especially the fight with Helchgam where you had to work your power restore gambit into your rotation. All of this is changing in the expansion though, at least the last time I bothered to login to test.
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Oct 22, 2013 09:16
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Brave New World posted:My main's a Hunter, and they are ostensibly the primary ranged DPS class. They can fight multiple mobs at once just fine once they get all of their AOE and CC skills. That reminds me - coming back to my Hunter after a long break, any tips for things I'm likely to have forgotten, especially when dealing with adds? I have a couple of aoe shots, but what's good for CC? Just wondering if I've forgotten anything other than traps. I forgot I had a couple of ways to interrupt inductions for a while too. And I realize most of this is likely to change with HD anywhos. Cutedge posted:Not that I would ever, ever, ever recommend EQ2 over LOTRO, but they finally actually dropped that restriction at the beginning of this month. Huh, well, continuing kudos to SOE for making their F2P models less lovely. They're almost to LOTRO's level (which I've always liked). They can make mounts expensive all day long, since it's hardly critical.
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Oct 22, 2013 13:30
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BrokenLinux posted:would this be a pretty good pack to start with? Don't start with a pack. That unlocks stuff you won't see for a long, long time and things no one needs like XP boosters. Everyone will tell you to instead buy a one-month VIP subscription. It unlocks tons of immediately useful stuff for every character you make in that period plus more character slots. Then, make a bunch of dudes you think you'll want to play, level them to twenty, buy the Lone Lands quest pack if you've unsubbed (probably for free with all the fake fun bucks you've earned just by playing), level them to thirty to see what a class is really like, level another guy to thirty, marvel at the ridiculous number of quests, stay subscribed or resubscribe because this is the funnest casual MMO. This seems to be the story of LOTRO players and certainly it was mine.
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Oct 22, 2013 13:39
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MartianAgitator posted:Don't start with a pack. That unlocks stuff you won't see for a long, long time and things no one needs like XP boosters. Everyone will tell you to instead buy a one-month VIP subscription. It unlocks tons of immediately useful stuff for every character you make in that period plus more character slots. Then, make a bunch of dudes you think you'll want to play, level them to twenty, buy the Lone Lands quest pack if you've unsubbed (probably for free with all the fake fun bucks you've earned just by playing), level them to thirty to see what a class is really like, level another guy to thirty, marvel at the ridiculous number of quests, stay subscribed or resubscribe because this is the funnest casual MMO. This seems to be the story of LOTRO players and certainly it was mine. This is a nice summary but one little thing which would actually make the experience even better, don't you get LoneLands for free now or something daft like 5 TP?
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Oct 22, 2013 14:16
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Fazana posted:This is a nice summary but one little thing which would actually make the experience even better, don't you get LoneLands for free now or something daft like 5 TP? I'd of thought it's mostly free since I haven't payed a cent and I've done a mess of quests there. (It never ends.) Edit: For being such a lonely place there's an whole lot of people wanting crap done.
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Oct 22, 2013 14:18
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Fazana posted:This is a nice summary but one little thing which would actually make the experience even better, don't you get LoneLands for free now or something daft like 5 TP? Shows what I know. Needless to say, it's been a while since I was first hooked on LOTRO. I think I'd still buy a lifetime sub now if they offered one. Buy Evendim then!
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Oct 22, 2013 14:40
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Brave New World posted:Flowinprose had it right. If you want to eviscerate those 5 mobs in record time, you want a Champion. If you don't mind taking 2-3 times as long to watch as those 5 mobs impotently exhaust themselves to death as you lazily sit there with a beer in your hand, you want a Guardian. Yes, that is exactly what I mean. And in my experience a champ would have a difficult time surviving a fight with 5 on-level normal mobs. It would be a pure DPS race. You would be able to pull it off if you were fully traited into the AOE line, but you would probably only have a sliver of health remaining.
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Oct 22, 2013 14:47
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Too much crap to do right now in the game. I'm pushing hard to get my 78 Hunter to 85 ASAP so I have time for other things before Helm's Deep. I really want to take advantage of double xp to get my 67 Guardian some levels since I doubt I'd have the motivation otherwise. I'd also like to take my 35 Minstrel to Eregion level so I can get through the dead zone in the 40s painlessly. Now there's the Fall Festival, but thankfully I have hundreds of tokens saved up from last year.
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Oct 22, 2013 17:03
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Looking at the Harvest Festival on the wiki....the haunted borrow sounds all kinds of neat! Does it scale up from 10 to your level or something? Is it instanced? Does it have to be grouped?
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Oct 22, 2013 17:15
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xZAOx posted:Looking at the Harvest Festival on the wiki....the haunted borrow sounds all kinds of neat! Does it scale up from 10 to your level or something? Is it instanced? Does it have to be grouped? There's no scaling necessary since there's no combat involved. It's an instanced area by the Party Tree in the Shire, and you can solo everything.
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Oct 22, 2013 17:52
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Brave New World posted:Guardians. Never. Die. Lies, I had my first death on my Guardian yesterday. I went to mine a node that was precariously placed on the side of a cliff which amusingly was too steep to stand on so I slid off the mountain and died.  But, yeah, I am loving my dwarf guardian, he kills a bit slow but he is a rock, i just wade into anything, orange elite trolls, wads of signatures, it is all doable. I should probably unleash the 2her as i don't really need the survivability but it is how I like to play the guardian.
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Oct 22, 2013 18:07
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Do people still do low to mid level group content on Silverlode (or other servers for that matter)? Thinking of picking this up as a casual game after poopsocking the hell out of FFXIV.
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Oct 22, 2013 19:02
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supercrooky posted:Do people still do low to mid level group content on Silverlode (or other servers for that matter)? Thinking of picking this up as a casual game after poopsocking the hell out of FFXIV. Maybe in primetime or the weekends on Silverlode. From what I hear there's still a lot of grouping on the top few servers (Brandywine, Landroval, Meneldor to name some).
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Oct 22, 2013 19:07
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I recently started playing (Smithberg, minstrel on Silverlode), mainly because I want to "see" Middle Earth. I've been skipping a lot of sidequests and mostly doing just the main storyline so far, but is this a good idea? I'm only lv 13 right now but nothing's gotten me past half health so far. Basically what I'm asking is if the story quests, plus a few side quests here and there, are enough to keep my level on par with the area I'm in?
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Oct 22, 2013 20:10
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Zvim posted:Lies, I had my first death on my Guardian yesterday. I went to mine a node that was precariously placed on the side of a cliff which amusingly was too steep to stand on so I slid off the mountain and died. I generally would run into an area, pull 5-6 enemies and then kill them, rinse and repeat. If you're not doing overpower and you're engaging enemies 1-on-1, you're doing it wrong. And even in overpower, you can generally pull 3 or so.
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Oct 22, 2013 20:33
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ManSedan posted:I recently started playing (Smithberg, minstrel on Silverlode), mainly because I want to "see" Middle Earth. I've been skipping a lot of sidequests and mostly doing just the main storyline so far, but is this a good idea? I'm only lv 13 right now but nothing's gotten me past half health so far. Basically what I'm asking is if the story quests, plus a few side quests here and there, are enough to keep my level on par with the area I'm in? The game has like....four times as much content as you need to level. More-so right now because of the xp boost, and even more if you use extra xp potions. Not sure what you mean by "sidequests" and "main storyline". If by "main storyline" you mean "epic quest", it isn't consistent enough to keep you leveled, and you run into areas like the end of Volume 1 where it's all level 50 stuff for a long, long, long time. Later areas have better standard quest flow too, so most of it isn't optional to progress each hub's mini-storyline, although you can usually jump ahead to a later hub if you want (usually a guy there who will kick it off, even if you don't have the breadcrumb quest). However - you'll miss a lot of cool areas. That's the "pro" to my dumb "do every quest in order" craziness. Get to see it all. of course if you love alts, this game is great for that, as you can take drat near totally unique routes through the game to max level, rarely doing the same content twice.
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Oct 22, 2013 20:43
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Does LOTRO delete characters after so long of inactivity? Looking to come back to play with a friend who is trying to play for the first time, but as far as I know - my account was wiped clean. I was a F2P player when it first went F2P. Also, I may have other accounts but Turbine is terrible at sending lost password/lost account information.
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Oct 22, 2013 22:48
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Harlock posted:Does LOTRO delete characters after so long of inactivity? Looking to come back to play with a friend who is trying to play for the first time, but as far as I know - my account was wiped clean. I was a F2P player when it first went F2P. Also, I may have other accounts but Turbine is terrible at sending lost password/lost account information. I've never seen them delete characters, but last time I did a password reset it took a day or two to arrive. Really lovely back end infrastructure at Turbine.
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Oct 22, 2013 23:16
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Harlock posted:Does LOTRO delete characters after so long of inactivity? Looking to come back to play with a friend who is trying to play for the first time, but as far as I know - my account was wiped clean. I was a F2P player when it first went F2P. Also, I may have other accounts but Turbine is terrible at sending lost password/lost account information. We have people in the kin still that are like...well over 1000 days since their last login. No MMO that I know of has really deleted inactive accounts ever. My EQ toons were still there after agggeeeesss of not playing. The most I've seen is like....deleting characters on accounts that had been inactive for a year or more, and that was only toons that were under level 10, and pretty sure that's only games that were actually emulated servers (although it may have been on some F2P game(s)).
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Oct 23, 2013 01:56
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Harlock posted:Does LOTRO delete characters after so long of inactivity? Looking to come back to play with a friend who is trying to play for the first time, but as far as I know - my account was wiped clean. I was a F2P player when it first went F2P. Also, I may have other accounts but Turbine is terrible at sending lost password/lost account information. It doesn't give a list of characters in the launcher, but if you log in and go to https://www.lotro.com/en/character_copy it will list all the characters on the account. I had a guy I hadn't logged into in more than 4 years.
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Oct 23, 2013 02:41
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supercrooky posted:It doesn't give a list of characters in the launcher, but if you log in and go to https://www.lotro.com/en/character_copy it will list all the characters on the account. I had a guy I hadn't logged into in more than 4 years. Are you joining back into LOTRO some? Because that'd be 
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Oct 23, 2013 04:42
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After taking a break since June I'll be coming back this week on Quinnon and assorted alts to take advantage of the double XP and get ready for Helm's Deep.
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Oct 23, 2013 05:20
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We're gonna need a new thread for Helm's Deep if somebody has the time to make it. I wish we could do something to put a call out to some of the people that haven't played since Moria and get them back into the game while there's double xp.
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Oct 23, 2013 07:39
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ruffz posted:We're gonna need a new thread for Helm's Deep if somebody has the time to make it. I wish we could do something to put a call out to some of the people that haven't played since Moria and get them back into the game while there's double xp. ArchWizard fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Oct 23, 2013 |
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Oct 23, 2013 07:42
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And while we're on the subject of XP... Thanks to a request made by none other than *Yours Truly* Turbine is holding a sale on XP Disablers for 25% off that's good for 5 uses per account. Coupon code: SLOWME I know, I know, who the gently caress in their right mind would want to disable XP? People that don't want to level from crafting and festival quests, like me. 
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Oct 23, 2013 07:44
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ManSedan posted:I recently started playing (Smithberg, minstrel on Silverlode), mainly because I want to "see" Middle Earth. I've been skipping a lot of sidequests and mostly doing just the main storyline so far, but is this a good idea? I'm only lv 13 right now but nothing's gotten me past half health so far. Basically what I'm asking is if the story quests, plus a few side quests here and there, are enough to keep my level on par with the area I'm in? Never skip the epics. The stories are pretty good, and they tend to have good awards attached to them too. Also, don't skip any of the group content in Moria. IMO, it's still the best this game has to offer. If any of you want to run the 20+ Great Barrows stuff or the 30+ Garth Agarwen stuff, let me know. I'm looking forward to healing goons.
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Oct 23, 2013 07:51
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Skip the epics after Mirkwood. And forget Book 1 the second Book 2 opens up. Moria's the only time epic quest rewards are really meaningful.
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Oct 23, 2013 13:37
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sassassin posted:Skip the epics after Mirkwood. And forget Book 1 the second Book 2 opens up. Yeah, but given the typical MMO gear treadmill, even that's fleeting. I really only found it valuable in that you can get them nice and early for free, but LIs drop like candy. Nice to do if you're gonna do it anyways, but if someone really wanted to play a different way, not like it's going to make/break any realistic scenario. I've heard the Rohan epic is also worth doing the start of at least, for your warhorse. But I'm completely ignorant of Rohan and warmounts, and what it takes to get them otherwise. In other news, the quest to run around the shire getting drunk was fun and funny, especially the league members as you progress in the quest. The Haunted Barrow was also fun, a nice little maze - although the "freeze you for 5 seconds that you can't avoid" thing gets annoying.
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Oct 23, 2013 15:16
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Vol 1 of the epic goes on forever; I suspect it's because they kept making more books and chapters of it as placeholders before Moria dropped. I've only managed to finish the entire thing once; that character ended up being something like level 55 before setting one foot in Moria. (Moria is better; just go to Moria.)
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Oct 23, 2013 15:19
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I'm thinking about playing during the 100% EXP being for the story and lore of the game. What would you guys recommend for someone who had a sub when the game first came out and never bought anything off the Store when F2P hit. I'm talking area progression, quests, and anything I would need off the store.
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Oct 23, 2013 20:01
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I haven't played this game since its initial launch, and I never made it very far in, so I have kind of a weird question. How interesting are the zones, visually and story wise? I'm basically looking for something to casually play while I listen to podcasts or watch TV shows, so what draws me in the most is places that are interesting to explore. The game actually doesn't look bad, based on screenshots I saw, but I just get kind of bored moving forward if I know the next 3 areas are going to be samey fantasy countryside areas with no variation. I understand that Middle Earth is not the World of Warcraft, so there won't be wildly different areas right next to each other. I know I could look up pictures of all the areas, but I don't want to spoil myself in exploring them for the first time. I'm the only person I know whose primary motivation for moving forward in an MMO is to see the art and design in new places, so I understand if this is a really odd question.
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Oct 23, 2013 20:04
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xZAOx posted:Are you joining back into LOTRO some? Because that'd be I ran a minstrel through most of Combe last night on Brandywine. I have another just out of Archet on Silverlode, but the low level areas are a bit too empty for a first character.
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Oct 23, 2013 20:21
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supercrooky posted:It doesn't give a list of characters in the launcher, but if you log in and go to https://www.lotro.com/en/character_copy it will list all the characters on the account. I had a guy I hadn't logged into in more than 4 years. Although my account has two display names associated with it? Dunno how that happened.
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Oct 23, 2013 20:25
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Contest Winner posted:I haven't played this game since its initial launch, and I never made it very far in, so I have kind of a weird question. How interesting are the zones, visually and story wise? I'm basically looking for something to casually play while I listen to podcasts or watch TV shows, so what draws me in the most is places that are interesting to explore. The game actually doesn't look bad, based on screenshots I saw, but I just get kind of bored moving forward if I know the next 3 areas are going to be samey fantasy countryside areas with no variation. I understand that Middle Earth is not the World of Warcraft, so there won't be wildly different areas right next to each other. I'd say the overall world design is one of the best parts of the game, the main issue is that in the midlevels are two of the most boring looking zones in the game, Lonelands and North Downs, once you get past those there are some cool looking zones like Evendim, Angmar, Forochel, Moria in general is pretty interesting to explore, then Lothlorien and Mirkwood are cool, the later zones are a bit less exciting in landscape but some of the story elements are interesting like meeting the Rohirrim and going to Isengard. One of the weaknesses is variety of mobs you will encounter, expect to kill loads of orcs, goblins, wargs and other humans, not a whole lot of variety there but that is because of lore restrictions.
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Oct 23, 2013 21:24
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Contest Winner posted:I haven't played this game since its initial launch, and I never made it very far in, so I have kind of a weird question. How interesting are the zones, visually and story wise? I'm basically looking for something to casually play while I listen to podcasts or watch TV shows, so what draws me in the most is places that are interesting to explore. The game actually doesn't look bad, based on screenshots I saw, but I just get kind of bored moving forward if I know the next 3 areas are going to be samey fantasy countryside areas with no variation. I understand that Middle Earth is not the World of Warcraft, so there won't be wildly different areas right next to each other. Start downloading right now. Right loving now. LotRO was always called the best looking MMO, but now it's considered old compared to new games with "better" graphics. Like I said a few pages back, it's the ultimate in masturbatory fan-service, and they knocked it out of the park in regards to bringing Middle Earth to life. Some of the zones(particularly the Elven ones) are truly beautiful. For the best visual experience, roll an Elf or Hobbit to start with. Or Dwarves if you want the snowy mountains effect(think Dan Morogh). Don't roll a Human unless you want to be bored with a very typical medieval-type starting area. Fried Sushi posted:I'd say the overall world design is one of the best parts of the game, the main issue is that in the midlevels are two of the most boring looking zones in the game, Lonelands and North Downs, once you get past those there are some cool looking zones like Evendim, Angmar, Forochel, Moria in general is pretty interesting to explore, then Lothlorien and Mirkwood are cool, the later zones are a bit less exciting in landscape but some of the story elements are interesting like meeting the Rohirrim and going to Isengard. You left out the most beautiful zone in the game- The Trollshaws. Harlock posted:Thanks! This worked. I found my characters on Landroval. I mostly play on Landroval. If you need some crafted gear or just some hookers n' blow, hit me up. My main's Athansala.
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Oct 23, 2013 21:36
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Pft, you both left out Misty Mountains! I still absolutely love the path through the mountains (pretending you don't know about the shortcut), through the windy narrow path with snow storms on it, until you're finally overlooking the outcroppings of golbin camps, leading into goblin town... I'd say the same for the Old Forest and Barrow Downs. Just absolutely loved how that was all done. On the negative side, post-Moria/Lothlorien/Mirkwood, it's just fields for a while. They do their best to even mix it up with the "sub-zones", like swampy areas, or forested areas, but it loses some of the variety of other parts of the game. Dunland / Great River has gotten pretty stale for me (note that I haven't been to Rohan yet). But yes, Middle-Earth is well realized here - it's obviously scaled down, but it's still very fun and if you're a LOTR nerd, you're going to love the poo poo out of it. Best part of the game.
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Oct 23, 2013 21:43
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Well I didn't want to list every zone in the game, I agree that Trollshaws and Misty Mountain are awesome as well, going through Goblin Town for the first time was incredible.
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Oct 23, 2013 21:47
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Thanks for the info, I will certainly give this a go then. Since I plan to really only solo and I don't give a poo poo about group content(mostly) or endgame, I'll have to do a bit of poking around to decide which class seems like I'll have the most fun playing solo. I don't mind playing a dungeon now and again if I think it will look cool and have interesting mechanics, but I don't like replaying them after I've finished them once. Thanks for the tip about men, I don't really want to play in another rolling-plains-with-a-hamlet starting area so I will avoid them. I guess my last question is, since I am mostly interested in casually strolling through the game, am I better off picking the most populated server so the game world doesn't seem like a ghost town? Or is it better to tend towards a less populated one due to queues/crowding in certain areas/whatever? Red Alert 2 Yuris Revenge fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Oct 24, 2013 |
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Oct 23, 2013 22:30
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