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Lord of the Rings Online - Shadows of Angmar Pre-launch look

After the lackluster launch of the Dungeons and Dragons Online, Turbine have turned to the other licensed project they had in their pipeline - Lord of the Rings Online or LOTRO for short. Turbine's plan has been pretty straightforward - to make a traditional MMO for the masses with a great license to get new players into the genre. Based on playing two characters to their teens in Beta, I can say that Turbine have got some things right, some things nearly right, but left some BIG question marks open. YouGamers will definitely return with a full review, but until then, here are some impressions on the game and some personal pondering on the future of LOTRO after launch.

Important notice: This Preview is based on the BETA version of Lord of the Rings Online, and all screenshots shown are taken using the downloadable beta client, which is missing the High Resolution Texture Pack of the final game. So the accompanying screenshots, while pretty, do not reflect the final game at it's highest settings.

The basic gameplay formula of LOTRO is tried and true - almost everything on the fundamental level is lifted from World of Warcraft (and World of Warcraft is lifted from most of the first and second generation MMOs, but that's beside the point). You create a character, you do quests and kill monsters for experience and collect items to improve your character. Many basic game systems are almost 1:1 carbon copies from WoW, right down to default key mappings. Things like quests, level/skill system, the majority of the crafting system, auction house, in-game mail, minimap... If you have played World of Warcraft, you already know how all this works. Now don't get me wrong - if it works, there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. 8.5 million players say "WoW works", so copying the proven fundamental bits from it is a good thing.

Something original

Thankfully Turbine did not stop the development once their photocopier cooled down and Lord of the Rings Online does bring some original ideas to the table. In addition to skills and stats, characters have traits which are a bit like the talents of WoW, but they are far more customizable. Instead of rigid talent trees, your character has a number of trait slots, and it's up to you to fill them with traits obtainable from completing different accomplishments and quests in the game. Unlike the talents of World of Warcraft, these traits appear to be more minor - early ones give small bonuses to things like power regeneration, armor rating and resistances.

So how do you get your traits? Lord of the Rings Online has a deed log - an achievement system similar to one present in all Xbox 360 games and similar to the badge system of City of Heroes/Villains. You continuously find new accomplishments to fulfill, and completing these open up new accomplishments to do and present you with a reward. Sometimes it's just a title you can display next to your name, but in many cases it's something that you can really use. And there are tons of these: by the time your character is level 20, you will have several dozen different accomplishments to work on.

Some are as simple as 'use this special move in combat 500 times' which will naturally fill up as you play; some will ask for killing certain type of monsters but many are completed by doing things like exploring certain areas or completing a set amount of quests in an area. Collecting all these accomplishments in all game zones is a great way to encourage people to actually do all the available quests instead of just power-gaming their way up. In fact, due to traits given from accomplishments, it's pretty easy to see that grinding mobs for advancement just does not work in LOTRO. You have to work on questing and exploring or you will miss most of the available traits.

Some also increase the efficiency of your combat moves and special abilities - and since these usually come from actually using the ability repeatedly, it's a kind of an use-based skillup system. You get the skills by levelling and buying them from a trainer, but to improve the skill you have to use it and dedicate a trait slot for the upgrade. There is also no way to mess up your choices - you can freely reorganize your active traits for a small fee, choosing from all the traits that you have unlocked.

Page 1: IntroductionPage 2: PvP and current issuesPage 3: Fans and ServersPage 4: Something for everyone?Page 5: Subscription woesPage 6: Longevity of LOTRO

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