Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar Review
"Protect the Halflings! And, while you're out, please kill 20 rats, 40 birds, 30 wolves, 16 bears, and get me a Partridge in a Pear Tree. Thanks!"
The Good: Graphics, Story, Epic Quest.
The Bad: Class diversity, Soloability, Other Quests.
Pre Review Warning: This review implies some knowledge of the JRR Tolkien world. I'm not going to give you the crib notes of The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. If I say "fellowship" or "The Ring" and you look at me like I'm insane, this is not the review for you. If I say "Istari" and you say "What", that's okay.
You cannot deny the impact that The Hobbit and its sequel, The Lord of the Rings, have had on the science fiction industry. Immortal Elves, life loving Halflings, digging Dwarves, and heroic Men all have their fantasy root in JRR Tolkien's work of literary genius. You also cannot deny the impact that World of Warcraft and Blizzard have had on the MMO industry. What are now standards in MMORPGs, such as giant floating yellow signs over quest givers heads, easy to use craft interfaces, and the ability to get yourself to the level cap without ever having to interact with others players are all hallmarks given to us by World of Warcraft. It is perhaps forgiven, then, that a hybrid between Lord of the Rings and World of Warcraft might be considered the best of both worlds. Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (LOTRO) certainly hopes so. Will LOTRO manage to fuse the ease of World of Warcraft with the story and world of Lord of the Rings, or will it fall apart before ever becoming something cohesive?
Review
Lord of the Rings Online: The Shadows of Angmar is, as you might guess, based in the world that JRR Tolkien built in his books "The Hobbit" and the "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. More specifically, the game can start anywhere from 3,000 years before the Age of Man to roughly a few days before the fellowship sets out, depending on what race you chose. Needless to say, however, everyone soon winds up at roughly the time that Frodo and Sam leave the Shire and enter Bree and moves on from there.
You might wonder why the first paragraph was devoted to setting the scene, particularly for a game in a genre that generally isn't considered to be very story driven. Very simply put, LOTRO is a story driven MMORPG. The game introduces you very early on (Okay, level 1) to the "Epic Quest" series, a grouping of quests that not only helps drive the story along but also helps intertwine your character into the existing fabric of the Lord of the Rings world. The Epic Quest is split up into 'books', each roughly 6 to 11 'chapters' (Read: Individual quests) long, and each Book is roughly autonomous, although they all do tie into both the central Lord of the Rings universe, but also to an overarching game plotline. For example, while the Hobbits and Strider were fleeing Bree, I was out with Tom Bombadil attempting to track down some of Sauron's animal spies within The Old Forest. That's Book One. Book Two took me out with Redghast the Brown, a Wizard friend of Gandalfs, as he attempted to cleanse the area around Weathertop of the undead and other foul creatures.
This 'Epic Quest' line is both the games greatest strength, and its greatest weakness. Most of the time, you'll fight new and interesting foes, such as the Dourhands, a group of 'evil' Dwarves who attempt to start an Dwarf v Elf war to get back at the Elves for killing their leader 3,000 years ago. It's interesting, it's new, it's unique, and the quests reflect that. You won't just kill forty dwarves; you'll sneak through a captured Dwarven port in the middle of the night, stealth your way onto a ship, save the Elf that's been captured onboard, and then help him fight off the crew as you make your escape. You'll make it out, cheer, give out some hi-fives...and then be immediately assigned to go kill some pigs. The Epic Quest line is so, well, *epic* that when you actually have to go do MMO mainstays such as grind quests the dissapointment will be all the greater. LOTRO doesn't help out much in this manner, either, as practically every quest you'll ever get outside of the Epic Quest is to either grab an item from the middle of an enemy camp or, you guessed it, kill a bunch of things. By the time level 20 rolls around, your character will have killed so many Orcs, Goblins, Orcish looking Goblins, Goblin-y looking Orcs, Spiders, Rats, Wolves, Bears, Worms, Spidery Rat Worm Bears who happen to be Wolves, Wolves who happen to be Spidery Rat Worm Bears, and the undead version of each that you will lose count of them.
Hey look! A bear! Where have I seen you before?
At least the game will look absolutely stunning as you kill four thousand three hundred and ninety six Worm Rats. Although two years old at this point, LOTRO still manages to make the Tolkien world jump to life. Bree looks like an actual city, the desolate area of the Lone Lands looks spectacularly lonely, and lets not even get started on how amazingly breathtaking the entirety of the Shire is. That being said, there are still some graphical hitches and head scratches. Wearing a sword on an elf, for example, looks fine except for when you begin to run, at which point the swords swing animation looks like a very bad slide show. Not every area is fleshed out, either; Rivendell's environment looks especially spectacular, but for a city populated by elves, the six or so buildings that inhabit the valley, while exceptionally well rendered, make the supposed home of the elves seem very...barren.
But, hey, who cares about if the capital city of the elves only holds housing for roughly twenty inhabitants! This is an MMO we're talking about, and if the classes and combat aren't in order, it doesn't matter if you have the prettiest game on the market. LOTRO is more hit or miss in this department. There are seven classes you can chose from (Two more if you buy the Mines of Moria expansion pack), and they range from tanks to healers to DPSers to those that control the battlefield and every possible permutation inbetween. The problem doesn't lie in the number of classes given to you, but rather what happens when you're inside the game world. Essentially, each class can really only do one thing well. Tanks can tank, and DPS-ers can DPS, but if a tank wants to DPS or a DPSer wants to maybe switch to healbot or controller for a bit, you're out of luck. Now, that doesn't mean that you absolutely positively cannot switch; you just won't even be within the same ballpark as someone with a class designated for the role you're attempting to fill.
Combat, on the other hand, is quite fun and varied...for being an MMO. There are practically no classes that don't have some form of unique ability that they have to work with. Guardians (LOTRO's tanks), for example, have 'reaction chains'. Instead of staring a mob in the face and spamming your threat abilities, you wait to, say, block an enemy attack. At that point, you have to make several quick decisions in a certain order to get an outcome you want. So, lets say a Guardian blocks. The first decision is 'damage + threat or healing'? Chose healing, and your character will give him or herself a quick self heal; if you chose damage, your character will hit the mob in the face...at which point you'll be faced by another branching tree. Do single target damage + threat, or do a large amount of threat to several mobs at once but no damage? Hunters (LOTRO's ranged DPS), on the other hand, have 'focus'. Completing some abilities will give you focus, which can then be traded in to shoot faster or to do more damage. The kicker is that you'll lose focus once you start moving, but if you stand still you'll never lose any of your focus. It leads to some interesting decisions. Do you move away from a mob about to hit you and risk having the mob live long enough to kill a healer, or do you stand still, take the hit, and hope to burn it before it burns you?
Almost every class has this sort of unique ability/quirk to it, and mastering that particular class feature is key to mastering your ability to play the class. Even a master of the class, though, might have a bit of trouble soloing. It's not that the game is hard; in fact, it has a very well done difficulty curve. The problem, once again, falls into the questing system. Nearly every quest chain you'll ever complete will have SOME form of group quest tacked onto the end of it, and given how few players there are on at lower levels, it might take you hours just to finally get two people together to take on a six person quest. It's frustrating and annoying, especially since almost no one uses the built in group finder, instead preferring to sit in the zone that their quest is in and spam the looking for a fellowship (this games version of groups) channel, which forces you to stick in the zone that your group quest is in, even if that is the only quest you have left in the zone.
I was unable to test the Mines of Moria expansion pack, PvMP (Player vs Monster Play, the LOTRO version of PvP), or raiding. These will hopefully be tested within the next two weeks in my Mines of Moria review.
Conclusion
LOTRO is certainly a unique MMO. It places emphasis on story and interacting with the world, and although this gives LOTRO its best strengths, it also gives LOTRO its worst weaknesses. That being said, LOTRO is an extremely well done MMORPG that fans of MMO, fans of Tolkien, and fans of a good story can all love. If you're a fanboy/girl of the genre, or even someone who merely enjoys a good read of The Hobbit from time to time, Buy It. For everyone else, your mileage may vary.
"Protect the Halflings! And, while you're out, please kill 20 rats, 40 birds, 30 wolves, 16 bears, and get me a Partridge in a Pear Tree. Thanks!"
The Good: Graphics, Story, Epic Quest.
The Bad: Class diversity, Soloability, Other Quests.
Pre Review Warning: This review implies some knowledge of the JRR Tolkien world. I'm not going to give you the crib notes of The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. If I say "fellowship" or "The Ring" and you look at me like I'm insane, this is not the review for you. If I say "Istari" and you say "What", that's okay.
You cannot deny the impact that The Hobbit and its sequel, The Lord of the Rings, have had on the science fiction industry. Immortal Elves, life loving Halflings, digging Dwarves, and heroic Men all have their fantasy root in JRR Tolkien's work of literary genius. You also cannot deny the impact that World of Warcraft and Blizzard have had on the MMO industry. What are now standards in MMORPGs, such as giant floating yellow signs over quest givers heads, easy to use craft interfaces, and the ability to get yourself to the level cap without ever having to interact with others players are all hallmarks given to us by World of Warcraft. It is perhaps forgiven, then, that a hybrid between Lord of the Rings and World of Warcraft might be considered the best of both worlds. Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (LOTRO) certainly hopes so. Will LOTRO manage to fuse the ease of World of Warcraft with the story and world of Lord of the Rings, or will it fall apart before ever becoming something cohesive?
Review
Lord of the Rings Online: The Shadows of Angmar is, as you might guess, based in the world that JRR Tolkien built in his books "The Hobbit" and the "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. More specifically, the game can start anywhere from 3,000 years before the Age of Man to roughly a few days before the fellowship sets out, depending on what race you chose. Needless to say, however, everyone soon winds up at roughly the time that Frodo and Sam leave the Shire and enter Bree and moves on from there.
You might wonder why the first paragraph was devoted to setting the scene, particularly for a game in a genre that generally isn't considered to be very story driven. Very simply put, LOTRO is a story driven MMORPG. The game introduces you very early on (Okay, level 1) to the "Epic Quest" series, a grouping of quests that not only helps drive the story along but also helps intertwine your character into the existing fabric of the Lord of the Rings world. The Epic Quest is split up into 'books', each roughly 6 to 11 'chapters' (Read: Individual quests) long, and each Book is roughly autonomous, although they all do tie into both the central Lord of the Rings universe, but also to an overarching game plotline. For example, while the Hobbits and Strider were fleeing Bree, I was out with Tom Bombadil attempting to track down some of Sauron's animal spies within The Old Forest. That's Book One. Book Two took me out with Redghast the Brown, a Wizard friend of Gandalfs, as he attempted to cleanse the area around Weathertop of the undead and other foul creatures.
This 'Epic Quest' line is both the games greatest strength, and its greatest weakness. Most of the time, you'll fight new and interesting foes, such as the Dourhands, a group of 'evil' Dwarves who attempt to start an Dwarf v Elf war to get back at the Elves for killing their leader 3,000 years ago. It's interesting, it's new, it's unique, and the quests reflect that. You won't just kill forty dwarves; you'll sneak through a captured Dwarven port in the middle of the night, stealth your way onto a ship, save the Elf that's been captured onboard, and then help him fight off the crew as you make your escape. You'll make it out, cheer, give out some hi-fives...and then be immediately assigned to go kill some pigs. The Epic Quest line is so, well, *epic* that when you actually have to go do MMO mainstays such as grind quests the dissapointment will be all the greater. LOTRO doesn't help out much in this manner, either, as practically every quest you'll ever get outside of the Epic Quest is to either grab an item from the middle of an enemy camp or, you guessed it, kill a bunch of things. By the time level 20 rolls around, your character will have killed so many Orcs, Goblins, Orcish looking Goblins, Goblin-y looking Orcs, Spiders, Rats, Wolves, Bears, Worms, Spidery Rat Worm Bears who happen to be Wolves, Wolves who happen to be Spidery Rat Worm Bears, and the undead version of each that you will lose count of them.
Hey look! A bear! Where have I seen you before?
At least the game will look absolutely stunning as you kill four thousand three hundred and ninety six Worm Rats. Although two years old at this point, LOTRO still manages to make the Tolkien world jump to life. Bree looks like an actual city, the desolate area of the Lone Lands looks spectacularly lonely, and lets not even get started on how amazingly breathtaking the entirety of the Shire is. That being said, there are still some graphical hitches and head scratches. Wearing a sword on an elf, for example, looks fine except for when you begin to run, at which point the swords swing animation looks like a very bad slide show. Not every area is fleshed out, either; Rivendell's environment looks especially spectacular, but for a city populated by elves, the six or so buildings that inhabit the valley, while exceptionally well rendered, make the supposed home of the elves seem very...barren.
But, hey, who cares about if the capital city of the elves only holds housing for roughly twenty inhabitants! This is an MMO we're talking about, and if the classes and combat aren't in order, it doesn't matter if you have the prettiest game on the market. LOTRO is more hit or miss in this department. There are seven classes you can chose from (Two more if you buy the Mines of Moria expansion pack), and they range from tanks to healers to DPSers to those that control the battlefield and every possible permutation inbetween. The problem doesn't lie in the number of classes given to you, but rather what happens when you're inside the game world. Essentially, each class can really only do one thing well. Tanks can tank, and DPS-ers can DPS, but if a tank wants to DPS or a DPSer wants to maybe switch to healbot or controller for a bit, you're out of luck. Now, that doesn't mean that you absolutely positively cannot switch; you just won't even be within the same ballpark as someone with a class designated for the role you're attempting to fill.
Combat, on the other hand, is quite fun and varied...for being an MMO. There are practically no classes that don't have some form of unique ability that they have to work with. Guardians (LOTRO's tanks), for example, have 'reaction chains'. Instead of staring a mob in the face and spamming your threat abilities, you wait to, say, block an enemy attack. At that point, you have to make several quick decisions in a certain order to get an outcome you want. So, lets say a Guardian blocks. The first decision is 'damage + threat or healing'? Chose healing, and your character will give him or herself a quick self heal; if you chose damage, your character will hit the mob in the face...at which point you'll be faced by another branching tree. Do single target damage + threat, or do a large amount of threat to several mobs at once but no damage? Hunters (LOTRO's ranged DPS), on the other hand, have 'focus'. Completing some abilities will give you focus, which can then be traded in to shoot faster or to do more damage. The kicker is that you'll lose focus once you start moving, but if you stand still you'll never lose any of your focus. It leads to some interesting decisions. Do you move away from a mob about to hit you and risk having the mob live long enough to kill a healer, or do you stand still, take the hit, and hope to burn it before it burns you?
Almost every class has this sort of unique ability/quirk to it, and mastering that particular class feature is key to mastering your ability to play the class. Even a master of the class, though, might have a bit of trouble soloing. It's not that the game is hard; in fact, it has a very well done difficulty curve. The problem, once again, falls into the questing system. Nearly every quest chain you'll ever complete will have SOME form of group quest tacked onto the end of it, and given how few players there are on at lower levels, it might take you hours just to finally get two people together to take on a six person quest. It's frustrating and annoying, especially since almost no one uses the built in group finder, instead preferring to sit in the zone that their quest is in and spam the looking for a fellowship (this games version of groups) channel, which forces you to stick in the zone that your group quest is in, even if that is the only quest you have left in the zone.
I was unable to test the Mines of Moria expansion pack, PvMP (Player vs Monster Play, the LOTRO version of PvP), or raiding. These will hopefully be tested within the next two weeks in my Mines of Moria review.
Conclusion
LOTRO is certainly a unique MMO. It places emphasis on story and interacting with the world, and although this gives LOTRO its best strengths, it also gives LOTRO its worst weaknesses. That being said, LOTRO is an extremely well done MMORPG that fans of MMO, fans of Tolkien, and fans of a good story can all love. If you're a fanboy/girl of the genre, or even someone who merely enjoys a good read of The Hobbit from time to time, Buy It. For everyone else, your mileage may vary.
