Lord of the Rings Online

branthor_sl said:

Is it still walking only if your are FTP? Spending all that time to get from 1 area to the next is what turned me off.

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Riding skill costs 95 tp and a horse is 500 siver. Both of which are easy to earn in game. Doing deeds gives you 5 to 20 tp each. Stuff like killing 60 wolves etc. You can get the horse at level 5 if you buy the skill, you have to wait to level 20 if you are subbed and just want to do the quest.

I'm pretty sure you can wait till level 20 and buy the riding skill with gold, like any other skill. You only have to pay Turbine Points for it if you want it earlier (level 5?).

Edit: Grim1 said it better than me. That's what I get for leaving my half-finished post open for several minutes before hitting reply.

Hmm, could be. I always just buy the skill with tp asap on my alts. Getting around without a horse all the way to level 20 is a lot of loooong walks. Usually only takes a few hours to earn the tp on a new toon.

Anyone interested in getting into this game and putting together a group?

AlekseiFL_sl said:

Bro DX11 been options for more then few years now if have the system to run it, cant recall when they added it, but in DX11 on Ultra,Ultra its bad ass for such old mmo, and never drop below like 145 fps.

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Well like I said in my post, with ultra settings and DX10 the game barely ran, so it wouldn't surprise me if my video card didn't support 11.

McCheese_sl said:

Well like I said in my post, with ultra settings and DX10 the game barely ran, so it wouldn't surprise me if my video card didn't support 11.

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Point of reference for performance stuff:

Firstly I will agree that the game looks amazing for an aged engine on dx11. I ran everyone max'd out lastnight including 8x AA on dx11. I could not stream through FFsplit without slow downs, but I could play for the most part silky smooth without streaming. There were some noticable dips when a group of players were on the screen (10ish). Running through Rivendell caused some dips.

Using an i5 3750k and a single GTX 680. I wasn't doing any monitoring of FPS or bottlenecks so I can't say what my average FPS was or what was limiting performance


@ level 50, logging in since vanilla was a complete overload on what I needed to do to get going again. My quest log was crammed full of quests, 5 action bars full of abilities that I couldn't place their use for, traits I forgot about, and expansions versus quest packs to decipher the need for.

I logged off without making any decisions on what to buy/sub for.

Plaid_sl said:

@ level 50, logging in since vanilla was a complete overload on what I needed to do to get going again. My quest log was crammed full of quests, 5 action bars full of abilities that I couldn't place their use for, traits I forgot about, and expansions versus quest packs to decipher the need for.

I logged off without making any decisions on what to buy/sub for.

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That describes logging into any MMO on an established character after a long hiatus. I found it was easier (and more enjoyable) to start a new character when I picked the game up after not playing for about 2 years. Lots of the low level stuff had been revamped and there were quite a few new areas for me to explore.

So... what server does everyone go to these days? Still Brandywine?

I'm so uncertain I want to get into this game again. Free to play really takes me out of character. It's been a disappointing experience because of this. I want to have all content unlocked and all features enabled which is looking like it's going to cost me $69.99 + subs. Gives me a similar feeling I had during planetside 2 beta about the alpha squad advertisements. I think the conclusion for me is that I hate f2p games. Maybe mmos aren't for me anymore.

Started up a hobbit minstrel on Brandywine, name is Sandiago. Havin fun so far, not sure if I wanna pay for anything yet tho.

Has the combat changed much over the past year or so? For many classes, I remember it being just a slow, tedious game of whack a mole with timed abilities and conditionals. Keyword being slow (compared to modern/modernized MMOs)

I subbed to this game for a month after watching the Hobbit and lasted about 2 days before I uninstalled it. I've had the game since launch but just couldn't get into it. The graphics are decent. The character models are kinda weak though. The game just feels so generic to me. I had a problem with bank and inventory space. There is so much crap that drops from mobs and a lot of it is useable for something. Your given 5 bags with like 12? slots and your constantly juggling stuff around. You can unlock a 6th slot for like 950 turbine points though. In the way WoW has steamlined the game by instantly giving you abilities when you level, LOTRO has you visit a trainer to get new skills. All the things that made the quality of life better in WoW is missing in LOTRO but for TP you can bypass that. I rolled a Warden and started checking out her abilities and I think I would have more buttons to press than I would in EQ2. Just about anything can be purchased with TP. Don't feel like walking back to a quest giver? Buy points and be teleported there. I found the P2P here the worst so far. It's embeded into everything in the game. Crafting is also a crazy grind if you want to make the good stuff. There is also a system in place that gives you deeds to kill 30 then 60 of the same mob for small upgrades to your charcter and titles etc. I found this tedious and a lazy way to add content. It's a shame because the game could of been amazing. Maybe Bioware could make the next attempt awesome like they did SWTOR....oh wait

Level 20 burglar on Brandywine. Steeks. Look me up.

I'm just rollin' around not givin' a fuck, with my big ass feet.

Decided to take earlier advice and start a new character. I bought Moria and rolled an elf warden. Had a blast lastnight duo'ing with a friend. We went warden/rune-caster. I have to say the warden is a refreshing character to play and is largely why I am enjoying lotro as much as I am. The javelin/spear+shield gear encouragement adds much uniqueness to the class.

I would say the combat is quite slow compared to, say, anything else except EQ, and hasn't developed much at all since launch. The abilities are more responsive than at launch, that's about it. Its not furiously mashing buttons, more of a slow poking at alot of buttons. The PvP still sucks, but some people seem to love the shit out of it. There is a shit-ton of grindiness, the endgame is pretty sketchy (though the rebuilding of a town through dailies in Rohan is pretty damn cool in my opinion), and plenty else to poo-poo if you really want to tear this shit down.

It remains something that you can only truly love if you love LOTR (which I do, so I love this game perhaps more than any other MMO); you aren't going to play this for scintillating gameplay or a deep and varied endgame...its more about being a badass in a beloved world. The community is solid; the mid-level zones aren't exactly overflowing with people but there are a few folks everywhere I've been, and the beginning and endgame zones seem as full as can be expected. Really, the most maddening thing is that there is a group finder for instances that isn't that bad, but that everyone seems to not use. Not sure why the hell that is, perhaps I haven't been back into long enough to discover why it sucks or something.