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The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

Brave adventurers step forth

Players can choose between four races - Men, Elves, Hobbits and Dwarves - and each one has their own subset of the seven classes available to them: Burglar, Captain, Champion, Guardian, Hunter, Lore-Master and Minstrel. These orders fill their own niche in the usual tank-healer-dps holy trinity of MMOs, but "soloability" has not been forgotten. Each class has their own unique tricks and while many players seem to be stuck with the mentality that only a Guardian can tank and only a Minstrel can heal, in reality almost any kind of group composition can be made to work - at least in the early game. I expect later instanced dungeons to be more strict in requiring the unique abilities of specific classes to be doable, but at this point I can't say as my experience is limited to the content available by level 25-30.

You gain active skills every even level and passive skills on the odd numbered ones, so there are plenty of reasons to visit a class trainer after every level. While the number of available active skills may seem small, it's because there is no need to buy Song of Doom Rank 2 a few levels after Rank 1 as the damage scales by your level.

"You need people of intelligence on this sort of... mission... quest... thing"

Questing is effectively the only way to progress, as LOTRO makes pure monster bashing grind completely unfeasible. Around level 25, an average monster might net you less than 50 experience points, while your next level might ask for 30 000 experience points. Quests, on the other hand can easily score 1000-2000 exp in one go. Elementary school math tells us that doing a few dozen quests is easier than killing more than 600 bad guys. Many traits also require questing, so in practice the only way to play is to quest - and there are loads of quests. One zone might provide almost 100 different adventures to solve.

Such missions start out simple but the storylines are rich and use the source material well. Almost immediately you are drawn to an "epic" quest line that you can follow throughout your career, and during this long series of quests you also get to meet many of the major characters of the movies. Characters like Aragorn and Gandalf will be giving tasks that link you to the book storyline - the tie-ins are stretching the established story just a teeny bit, but the concept works fine. Completion of some of the quests are also rewarded with short movie clips that follow Frodo and the ring.

Grouping is not mandatory but you will miss a lot of fun content if you stick to playing completely alone. Notably the "epic" storyline quests require grouping very quickly and that's one series of quests you don't want to miss. Thankfully many of the early group quests are very easy and even a pick-up group can usually manage them safely. On the flipside, the early game is extremely easy for a dedicated group of seasoned MMO veterans. Sure, it makes the game very accessible to everyone, but it also means that, to start with, the only way to get defeated is to do something completely silly or suicidal, and the lack of challenge can get a bit boring.

Fellowship Power

If you have a Burglar or a Guardian in your Fellowship (a group of players, up to six strong), you can open special Fellowship moves against Elite and higher level targets. Once an opening is triggered, each member can choose one of the four different icons to create a combination with 1-5 different icons. Alone, red icon deals direct damage, yellow icon does damage over time, green icon heals players and blue icon restores power. "Flushes" with same color icons give an amplified version of the basic effect, while mixing icon types can create all kinds of combination effects. There are dozens of different moves you can uncover by experimenting. These combination moves can completely turn the tide of battle by fully restoring the power of the whole group or dealing massive damage to a target and amplify the effectiveness of a seasoned group in a big way, making things rather simple for group instances initially in the game.

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