(EU version)
I've tried Lotro once before and I didn't like it but so much time has gone by and a new expansionw as released I thought I'd give it another go. Nothing from what I've seen has changed at all since I played played with the same tutorial and all of that so it was pretty boring going through that again because it is linear and once you've done them starting areas once you wont wanna do them again... or in my case at all.
I downloaded the game and created an account and then went to install the game and from what the website told me all the links it gave were from book 14 or whatever and upto date. I decided to get mine off Gamershell which said book 14 on the file so I expected no patching. I have no clue what "book" the game is on but since it said Moria i thought everything would be well. I found out I needed to do patching but when I went to download from an outside source that didn't help and the game still needed patching....... so I went and used the Codemasters or Turbine patcher, whatever it's called.
I frigging then had to wait 6 hours to play as it downloaded every file one by one and there was 14,600 odd files and because it was doing them one at a time, it wouldn't get time to build up speed and it was going at like 250kb/s. I went off and did something else and when I came back I didn't really feel like playing anymore so I watched some TV instead. I then came back after watching some Top Gear on Dave lol and decided to give th egame a go only to find out that it was saying my account didn't exist. Even though I kept getting emails warning me about an attempt at someone trying to login to my account. I know I havn't got the password wrong because I wrote it down in a text file and I use that password for lots of other games. So I made another account and it said I havn't got a Lotro subscription even though I put in a trial key and I kept trying to login and nothing..... so I made a third account and it worked.
The problem is with the account process is you have to make a username within 8-12 characters long and a password within 8-12 characters long and it's like FFSSSSSSS! I can't use any username I normally use for these games so I had to make something up that I don't like and probably would end up forgetting. Why restrict me like this? Fucking dumb.
After all that and a headache later I played for an hour and it is all I can stand of the game.
The tutorial is pretty lackluster because if you're going to go to all that effort to make something immerse and tell a story then atleast put in voice overs. I don't want them crappy Warcraft style ones where you click on people and they say something irrelevant to whats going on. I mean you have time to put them in but you can't even put voice overs in for the characters on main linear story quests? I can understand if I'm in the world but if you're going to put me in a cinematic instance like this then make an effort.
I get out of the tutorial and sure enough the starting zone is dead and I want to go and explore the world abit to get a sense of it only to find out it wont let me out of the starting area until I've completed all the quests or something. So I go and do a few quests and sure enough they're "go and kill 4 of these and come back" and then the next one "go and kill 6 of these and come back" and then I get a "talk to this guy" and a "deliver this to this guy"....... I couldn't do it anymore! I've had enough of these quests in everyother mmorpg.
If you're going to give me quests then just make them epic and have me doing epic things. I don't want to kill 4 wolves and I don't want to deliver some letter to someone. I don't mind all that SWG stuff where you can do stuff that isn't epic but when it comes to quests THEY SHOULD ALWAYS BE EPIC! I don't want them to feel like a grind.
I eventually got into this other linear bit where the town was burning down and again it put me in a instance to tell a story without any voice overs....... I just feel this weird disconnect with everything, like I'm watching some foreign film and having to read the subtitles. That is fine for when I'm doing real world stuff but in a instance telling me a main part of the story I want it to be more immersive. I hate all these linear story bits too because I feel like this is a mmorpg and not a frigging single plater game. I could go and play single player RPG's with the quality of Mass Effect or Fallout 3 and Lotro when it does these parts feels like some subpar RPG on the PS2. They're not good and they're not fun.
So I got bored of doing quests and it wouldn't let me out still so frigging I decided to call it a night.
I have other gripes which really make the game unfun too...
- The character models look ugly and I've made a post about this already but they just feel all cartoony and kiddy like they came outta a comic book. They are shaped all wrong and lack detail in the face and just end up being very lifeless and horrible to look at. Don't play a GTA4 before you play this game because that games character models are spot on and animate really well and just feel real. Thats how I expect Lotro character models to be like because the rest of the world looks sooo relaistic and instead you get some rigid, stiff and poorly animated ones that look more like they came outta a bad WoW clone.
- The animations are very poor and I just hate it everytime my character runs and does combat and just stands there all lifeless. They're just soo poor and I dunno.... why couldn't they have spent time on making characters feel more lifelike and realistic looking along with the world. There was one upside though, when I was swimming my character did a backstroke and I havn't seen that when swimming in other mmorpgs before, normally if you hit backwards you just turn the other way.
- When I jump it feels all laggy as I leave the ground, like I hit the jump and then the animation comes..... I want it to be instant.
- The combat aswel just feels very poor and I found myself frustrated with it and not having fun. I hit a button and I get this weird lag between be hitting the button and the animation and damage being dealt and it just end sup being unsatisfying. I remember WAR suffering from this too making that combat really unfun and I dunno having Played WoW you just want all combat systems to be like that one where you hit the button and straight away you get the result on the screen... there isn't this weird lag of lotro. Before any of you say it isn't my connection of computer, it's just the combat system feeling very off and it isn't fun. In the end I just gave up and mashed the same 3 buttons over and over until I died. The combat doesn't require much input because you just stand still and hit 123 and it gets boring.
- There seemed to be a real lack of sound effects which made the world seem dead, specially in those linear instanced cinematic bits like the tutorial. You'd see something happen and there wouldn't be a sound effect to it. Wheres the roaring of all th flames? Wheres the sounds of the gates opening or me walking through a puddle etc etc.
- The starting area atleast was one of the most depressing places from a sound point of view because I just felt very lonely and it all felt very drab and lifeless. I got some horrible looping ambient music in the background which made everything seem even sadder and more boring like being in a retirement home.
- Why do I have to go through a loading screen each time I enter a building? The interior of them isn't somthing that would require it because I've been into buildings in other mmorpgs with more going on and more detailed. I just find it annoying having to keep going through these loading screens. When I'm playing a mmoprg I want to be in a seamless environment and this just breaks my immersion.
- The classes were all pretty boring and nothing stood out to me as something I wanted to play.
- The races were all pretty boring and nothing I wanted to play too and this is partly due to the horrible character models but also because I wish'd I could play as a Orc or something like the other races and go through the game telling their story.
Theres only one thing I can say that was good about Lotro and that is the Environment looks beautiful. It's just a shame the rest of the game isn't upto the standards of that.