Getting that Feeling
So…LOTRO launched today. Cue excitement and music and general fanfare…OK, I can’t muster it. I’m sorry. I can’t pretend that this is great news or…for that matter…even news that I care about.
I played it. I was, shall we say, under-impressed. It wasn’t that good. It wasn’t bad, of course, but it wasn’t good. It…exists. I must be playing a different game or something than all these other bloggers I’ve been hearing from because all I hear is constant praise for a mediocre game. Is that what we are reduced to? Praising games that are ho-hum because there hasn’t been an actual decent release in, well, a while? I hope not.
I do like the payment structure that was offered to people that pre-ordered. I think all games should do something like that. But…um…that’s about the most interesting thing I found. Sorry.
I guess I’m just stuck waiting with WoW for a while longer to get my MMO fix.
Enjoy Tolkien fans.
tolkien, lord of the rings world of warcraft, new releases, lord of the rings online, lotro
April 24th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Yeah, I’m with you. I was REALLY excited about it for the first 4-5 days I played in the beta… and then I realized that I was basically playing WoW, and I have way more invested in that game already, so I went back to leveling my neglected paladin.
April 25th, 2007 at 2:31 am
Mediocre compared to what standard? To the one-and-only league-of-its-own World of Warcraft? Yeah, probably. But if you compare it to the other MMORPGs that came out in the last couple of years, lets say EQ2 or Vanguard, LotRO is cutting a much better figure. I would call it “good”, I just wouldn’t call it “excellent”.
Unless you are a Tolkien fan, there is no compelling reason to stop playing WoW just so you can play LotRO. It isn’t “better”, it is “similar, but different”. But besides being for the Tolkien fans, it is a decent alternative for those who burned out from WoW after over two years, and who don’t want to wait for Warhammer Online.
April 25th, 2007 at 9:28 am
I don’t really disagree Tobold. I’m fairly burned out of WoW as it is. It’s no longer captivating me that much either. I still play it, and enjoy it, just not as much as I used to.
It is definitely a much more polished game than Vanguard, as for EQ2 I can’t say, I didn’t ever really touch it but if we are talking about release than LoTRO is far better, yes.
But that’s kind of my point, so many downright bad games have come out that comparing it to them seems silly. It has an obvious advantage in not sucking. Even comparing it to WoW it is a good game. It is nearly if not as good, as World of Warcraft is.
I guess this could sound like an innovation rant, which it partially is. LoTRO does everything a current generation MMO should do, and it executes it all nearly flawlessly. That being said, I think, with the LoTR license, there was so much more it could have been.
As it stands currently I think that some of the elements it borrows from various games make it feel disjointed at times. Those elements work great within the individual games they come from, but wrapping all of it together makes it feel like it is trying to hard to be liked.
April 25th, 2007 at 10:13 am
The music system in LoTRo is one thing that makes it unique. People playing all sorts of tunes is wild. Dude busting out Nirvana after slaying a bear. In June they are adding a free upgrade, Shores of Evendim, to upgrade that system.
May 18th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
[...] Over at Gaming MMO, Brandon gave his thoughts on the new Lord of the Rings game. The bf is considering playing this game (a switch from Everquest, which he plays now), so I’m trying to keep up with what people are saying about it. [...]