Clubs?
Yeah, we took the plunge over the weekend — a “birthday treat,” Margie framed it — and downloaded Lord of the Rings Online. Many thanks to Avo for the reference trial keys (10 days rather than the current 7 day offer), and a hat tip to him and Doyce both for offering some sage council.
We fired things up early in the afternoon on Sunday, and continued playing (with a couple of evening breaks) until about 10 p.m. Initial thoughts.
I had to download the low-rez version, because of system restraints. I also installed it on an external (USB2) drive. This wasn’t ideal, by any means, but it actually worked pretty darned well. Margie was capable of much higher rez on her machine, of course, but is having some performance problems.
We started off with two humans (duoing with the same race looks to be significantly easier early on), and, at Doyce’s suggestion, went with a Captain and a Champion (myself and Margie, respectively) as fairly versatile starter characters. Managed over the course of the day to get them up to 10, and be hip-deep in Coomb quests.
Generally speaking, had fun. Some basic thoughts:
Like:
- Plays a lot like CoX, with a few keybaord/mouse tweaks. The game mechanics are similar enough that it’s not that big of a problems.
- I like the idea of “morale” as the “hit points” — it finesse around death-vs-defeat, and also provides some nice mechanics for “healing” classes. Plus, it just feels epic.
- Though folks have noted the character generator is not as fancy as the one in CoX, it’s pretty good, and does some nice origin localizations with color tones and the like.
- I love the storyline-driven play, with careful instancing for certain events (the attach on Archmet, for example) and their aftermath. Feels very “real” and immersive.
Dislike:
- Running everywhere, though this isn’t — yet — a horrible burden. The teleport map helps. Disappointed my Captain’s “move faster” shout (which increases running speed, too) isn’t a toggle.
- Facing is sometimes annoying. I should be able to say, “I have X targeted, keep me facing X,” especially since people and critters can clip through each other.
- Oh, dear Lord — crafting quests. “Can you find me three redberries, a block of granite, and a rowan axe-haft?” Yeah, bet you’d ask Boromir that, too. Far as I’m concerned, the whole crafting system could vanish — I just don’t know to what extent I’ll seriously regret it if I ignore it.
- A lot of mechanic subsystems and icons that pop up and pull you into various windows where it’s not clear what’s going on or what you should (or shouldn’t) do about it. I’m sure that will be mitigated with some experience, but it’s more than a bit confusing early on.
- Finding your way to things, quests, etc., can be — challenging. Sometimes that’s okay — it’s part of the story. Other times, it’s just annoying.
- Slow repop of certain mission goals (“Bury Will Wheaterly”) — if both of the folks on a team (fellowship) have the mission (which makes sense, right?), why does it take a minute or three for Will’s body to reappear after someone on the team buries it. That would be nightmarish with a larger group. And when you have multiple teams running around in a non-instanced area (see Will, above), they can make it really difficult for you to ever get to slowly-repopping goals.
- Non-instanced sites mean you spend a lot of time watching other adventurers fighting bad guys without lending a hand. There’s a bit of that in CoX, too, but it feels worse here.
- Yes, I see what you mean about people getting irked at their mismatched (and ever-changing) wardrobe. “I found green shoes! No, wait, the red leather boots are better armor! Hold on, what about this stylish set of black, patent-leather pumps?” It’s whacky.
- There are times when the action stop because you have to click on someone who’s standing there so that they can give you some story dialog. That’s almost unavoidable in these circumstances, but it still sometimes feels a bit like railroading.
All that said, the “likes” are pretty darn keen, vs. a lack of deal-breakers for the “dislikes.” I’m pretty sure we’ll continue to play for at least the 10 day trial period, and likely beyond.
That said, as enjoyable as it is, I don’t feel a burning urge to play hooky from work and Just Play. I think (mercifully) I’m over that level of fanaticism for a game. 🙂 Heck, I have plenty of TV and DVDs I still want to watch, not to mention various other evening activities. This will be a passtime, not the passtime.
And, for the time being, I’ll be recording my LotRO thoughts here in this blog. Not that I plan on renaming it — and I still haven’t canceled or uninstalled CoX, either.
But I certainly feel heroic …
And here I thought you were talking about Dual Blades and the alternate graphocs for Battle Axe and War Mace!
I’m glad you’re enjoying it!
Another thing EQ2 does better. Equipment Tab and Appearence Tab. So if you have a really cool suit, helm or whatever, you can put that on the Appearence Tab and it overides the item on the Equipment Tab. Nifty. 🙂
Nice to see that several of the things a friend hated about Beta are still there in live. :p Though it sounds like they fixed the stupid naming convention issue at least.
P.S. Comments are still borked.
Welcome to Eriador!
Starting out in the same area is definitely a good idea for folks that want to play together. Eventually you’ll want to create a Dwarf and an Elf for the different intros (and maybe a Hobbit to do the early Shire quests, though things like delivering pies and the post can quickly become tiresome).
I tend to play ranged fighters in these games. I was surprised to find that Avoin Ironbottom, my Dwarven Champion, became my main. If you’re on Silverlode and you see him, please /mock him; I’m trying to get the “Ridiculed” title. 🙂
I expected that storyline-driven play would appeal to you. 🙂 Note that the updates are named for the Epic Book quest lines (Book 11 is the most recent update).
Regarding your specific dislikes…
1. Travel gets better when you get a horse (at level 35, or 25 if you opt for a lifetime membership) or if you have a high-level hunter in the group. I sure do miss CoH travel powers, though.
2. In a large fray, I sometimes find that my attacks haven’t gone through because of incorrect facing, what with friends and foes all bunched up atop each other. One thing that may help with melee characters is to turn on “automove to target” in combat options (though this can lead to dangerous situations if also set to allow selecting a target by using attacks).
3. I learned quickly not to take any crafting quests for professions I didn’t have. Ignore them. They’re completely optional, as is crafting itself. I would suggest, however, that if you don’t want to do any crafting, you still pick up the Explorer trade for your character. This will let you harvest wood and ore to sell or to provide to friends who might craft cool stuff for you.
4. I’m not sure what you’re talking about here. Are you referring to the alerts that tell you when you’ve opened a new deed?
5. It doesn’t help that many of the quest directions are (often intentionally) vague. If you’re really stuck, look it up at MEHQ and use the ;loc command to see where you are (I recommend doing this in a /tell to yourself if in a group so you aren’t spamming everybody with your location; I set up a slot on my toolbar to do it with the a click or the Shift-2 key).
6. It’s weird. Some things everybody can grab, some you have to take turns on. It’s the same with loot drops for quests; sometimes everybody gets one, sometimes only the first one or two to loot. You can try doing it at the same time. Sometimes that lets both people complete the action.
7. Often you can get other players to team up with you so you don’t have to take turns. Failing that, if you help them defeat a tough foe, they’ll often wait around to reciprocate. Most of the players I meet are pretty good about that.
8. Devs are planning to implement a system to allow customization of characters, allowing you to display one piece of armour while wearing (and getting the stats of) another. No word on exactly when or how this will be implemented (it may be similar to BD’s example).
9. I sometimes keep my teammates waiting because I want to read all the quest dialogue the first time I get it. And there can be a lot of dialogue on some quests! 😉
Avo.
For EQ2, when you bring up you Toon and all of your armor/weapon slots are shown, one tab is what you are using. Right next to it is a second tab for appearance with all the applicable slots shown again and then you can moce the items you want shown into those slots.
For instance, I notice that the Finger-twidlers (mages, etc), at least the women, tend to like to wear the Dresses for appearance. For myself, there some really nice armor bits that really look cool, so I will move the things I like that I have outgrown to the appearence slot.
Book 12 has a serious amount of Character Customization coming with it. Housing is going to get a little tweak but the main focus is character customization and some tweaking to play zones. I can’t wait for it to hit the public preview server.
Coolness.
One thing I do like (again, hat tip Doyce for pointing it out) is that you can “turn off” the helm, cloak, or footware display. So your Hobbit, e.g., can still have bare feet, even though you’re getting the AC bonus (etc.) for your Boots of Kick Ass.
Few additional notes.
1. Hunters get a ‘toggle’ run speed boost that affects the whole party when there is no combat going on. That makes it better for getting around. The CAPTAIN move boost is not good for getting around — it’s good for a group-wide expeditious retreat, and you’ll LOVE it when it’s there for that purpose.
You can buy pony rides to get long distances, but you should always consider just running there — there’s lots of resources (and fights) you miss on the way, otherwise.
2. All I can say about the facing thing is (a) you get used to it and (b) ranged characters have it MUCH, MUCH, easier. There’s a reason my first guy was a hunter.
3. Ditto on what Avo said: skip any crafting quests for professions you don’t have the profession for — he wants heavy leather gloves and you (or Margie) don’t make em? Skip it. They are never important from a story point of view.
(Bonus thing though: if you’re leaveling up someone later, having them take and complete crafting quests (thanks to items made by your mains) is a nice way to get a big chunk of xp fast.)
Also, ditto Avo again: even if you don’t want to craft, get Explorer: you can collect wood and ore and either give it to Margie or sell it on the auction house to make money — two different gathering skills guarantees that no matter what Margie is doing, you’ll still have SOMETHING you can gather an not get in her way. Scholar (in Historian) is also a good, self-contained trade — you use the same skill to both gather and craft. I just ignore the other two skills in that profession.
Avoid Farming. Just my opinion.
Myself: I lllllove the crafting professions (though not the quests, much) — they are very evocative of the setting in many cases, and when you consider that the heart of the LotR story is all about Crafted Items (swords, pendants, palantiri and, of course, rings…) well, I wanted to do it.
4. Deeds (those achievement notifications that you have popping up are accomplishments that you can earn and then ‘slot’ into your character with the help of a bard — they are, in short, Traits that you become known/famous for (and which, in turn, buff you in various ways). Captains especially can really customize their characters in very different ways from another captain, depending on which Traits they’re known for.
5. I hate the ;loc command. Hate it. Haaaate it. The directions on TheBrasse.com are written like people talk, and pretty easy to follow.
That reminds me — look up the LotRO section of RandomWiki — more links there.
6. Most of the game works in the way you’re talking about, with regards to glowy-clicking. Some of the earlier stuff isn’t done that way. They’ve learned since then.
7. The ‘waiting in line’ problem tends to go away pretty fast after the first areas — thanks to the expanding locations with each new book, it doesn’t even come back much at level 50.
8. The thing that Stan mentions with EQ2 — how you can show one set of items but DISPLAY another item — is coming to LotRO in Book 12. Me, I just make dye and keep everything the same color.
9. Those lotro devs suuuure like to hear themselves talk… err. type. Something. They write long quest descs sometimes. usually… USUALLY, it’s worth the read.
And oh yeah: in the mid-game… early twenties… hunters start getting map-teleport-like abilities that will ‘port the whole party back to major towns or important locations.
And oh yeah: in the mid-game… early twenties… hunters start getting map-teleport-like abilities that will ‘port the whole party back to major towns or important locations.
And Captains can later “summon” their allies to them, I believer. Or Champions can. One of the two.
It’s Captains.
The Hunters get the ability to “port” to certain locations, and also get to bind themselves to a campfire, rather like a milestone. This is very useful when the group has to keep going from a quest-giver to quests in a particular area, as is often the case with quest chains.
One note on the resource-tracking skills: I discovered recently that it’s using skills that damages equipment, not taking damage yourself (aside from defeats, which cause equipment to degrade by 10%). I discovered even more recently that this applies to tracking skills. That means that every time I flipped tracking between wood and ore, I was damaging my stuff (at least jewellery; I heard rumors that the problem is a bug that affects only jewellery). So now I just track one and stumble across the other.
Oh, and if you’re just going to sell materials to the vendor, rather than post it on the auction house, don’t bother smelting or treating it if you don’t need the xp. Raw ore sells for as much as ingots, which typically are made from two units of ore. The same goes for wood, which also requires the expense of wax for treating it.
Good note on selling to the vendor vs. the AH. It rarely comes up for me, but I mentioned it to Dave, since he doesn’t like AHs in general. 🙂
Between Kate and myself, we’re actively leveling every skill (except cooking and farming, which I regret, for cooking), so I rarely need to auction any craft materials. It’s really why my Scholar has the most cash — I always have an excess of dye I can sell off.
Here, let me renumber things, just to confuse them.
1. Re Hunter stuff — by a wild coincidence, we rolled up a Hunter/Guardian pair last night that was much fun. I like thwacking at things from a distance. Glad to hear there will be a running toggle …
2. Check out the LOTRO section in RandomWiki. Um … duh, yeah, I should probably do that …
3. I don’t mind long quest descriptions. They are colorful … as long as I can then skim back to them and figure out what/where I’m doing quickly. I wish the little Quest display onscreen included a location field, since that’s what I tend to look at most often as we’re jogging around.
1. Guardian (me)/Hunter (kate) is one of Kate and my favorite pairings. Our “main” if you will. (The second pair is a Hunter (me)/Captain (kate) where I have to remember to not use any special attacks for a little bit at the start of the fight — hunters are, bar none, the highest DPS in the game; the only non-tank that generates more aggro is a minstrel.
Any guardian that can hold aggro against a hunter partner is getting goooood tanking practice. 🙂
On most of my characters, I have the option on to show me the target of my current target — this puts a purple ring around the person the mob is currently targeting, so I can see when I lose aggro (or gain it). I didn’t like where that option displayed the NPC health bar though, so I used CTRL+\ toggle command to move things around on the screen. (Great command for customizing your UI layout, but use with caution.)
2. Heh.
3. The little golden rings next to the quests in the quest tracker on your main UI is a hot-link back to the larger quest summary. Also, you can click on the ‘history’ button at the bottom of each quest summary to see the full-on text from each quest in that chain, including the more detailed text from when it was first given to you.
The descriptions of where to go, within the quest texts, DO get better in the tweens-levels. I think they just got better at given directions, with practice.
When I decide to spend time questing in a given area, I click on a ring in my Quest Tracker and choose “Remove All.” Then I go to the appropriate section of my Quest Log and add five quests that I expect to work on to my Tracker. (I also unlock some or all of the quests so that new ones can be added to the Tracker as I acquire them.)
Note that Deeds can be added to the Quest Tracker now. If I’m hunting something to increase my Determination (arguably the best* Virtue Trait in the game–Agility, Morale regeneration in-combat, and Morale), I may add that Deed to the tracker. (Currently, my Champion is working on blocking attacks for a Class Deed, and I’m monitoring it in my Tracker. If I let combat drag on, he blocks about three attacks per fight.)
Be advised that your Quest Log holds only 40 quests. It may seem like a lot now, but after you’ve been to the Lone Lands and the North Downs, it’s going to fill up quickly. You can drop quests and take them again later if you need to free up space for new quests. Also, if you’ve completed the previous quests in a chain (or there are none), a member of your Fellowship can share the quest with you if you have space in your log.
*Early in the game, I suggest favoring Traits (and armour pieces) that grant Vitality, as every point boosts your Morale by three. Later, if you want different Traits, just pay a Bard to change them.
Upcoming changes to your Guardian are listed here:
http://lotro.turbine.com/article/481
It’s actually Margie’s Guardian. I like standing back from battle and thwonking things with fireballs — er, arrows.