The Lord Of The Rings: Shadows Of Angmar
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Unfortunately, with the successful release of Warhammer Onlne and World of Warcraft's unwavering player base and upcoming Expansion, it seems like LOTRO may be getting left in the dust. But please, if you are considering this game, give it a try, it can still hold it's own against it's massive competitors. It's absolute brilliant and true to heart depiction of Middle Earth alone warrants it's meager $10 price, but it is also brilliant as an MMO too.
The player base is smaller than the other two, but it's still big enough, and the community by far is the most intelligent and mature. One of my biggest complaints about Wow was it's racist and childish community, but that type is virtually non-existent in LOTRO. There are many adults who play the game to immerse themselves into the LOTRO story, but it is still kid friendly, if not more kid friendly than the other two, with it's toned down and more mature community. From the quests, the programming and layout of the world, and the crafting, to the little things in the game such as player music, the genius soundtrack of the game, and the RPing, make this the most immersive of the three by far.
If you are a Lord of the Rings fan and want to enter the world, almost literally, than this is the game for you.
If you are an MMO fan, heed my opinion: For the most polish (since it's been out the longest), great PVE/PVP balance, Arena PVP, item-based play, the best mount system I've seen, and an insufferable community, go to WOW. For what is in my opinion now the best MMO available, the best and most rewarding and addictive PVP(RVR), the best character creation, the most creative and original classes, and (to describe it using it using one adjective) classy MMO, Warhammer Online is the game. And for the best story by a long shot (considering the source material), for rping, for the most lush and beautiful world, the best community, the most well-written music, and the best PVE content, LOTRO is your game (and mine, even though I rate WARHAMMER Online as a slightly better game).
One more thing
The music is absolutely brilliant. It's perfectly appropriate (the music of each race feels native to that country land), very well written, and helps to evoke the atmosphere even further. My other big complaint about WOW and probably my only complaint about WAR was the music. WAR's music is absolutely terrible, and Wow's isn't much better. But LOTRO's soundtrack is a true work of art. I can't tell you how many time's of just stopped playing for a second to sit and listen to the music intently. I even have the cd in my car.
Rating:  -
I wouldn't say that LotRO is better than WoW or any of the other great games of this type, but it certainly incorporates some of their better elements, avoids some of their worst, and throws it all into a well designed and beautiful Middle-Earth world. The beginning section of the game is designed with novices in mind, which is great for novices, but a turn-off to some experienced gamers. But once through that, it's much like any of the other MMOs. The story, environment, and vast areas to explore, have been the best parts for me and I can honestly say getting my first character to level 50 never felt like a grind anywhere along the way. The population is kept within reason to lessen server bog and to eliminate the problem with supposed "wilderness areas" being overrun with adventurers and heroes. The players in general seem to be more mature in LotRO than in other games. And as some former WoW players have commented in our kin, the game is less social because there is always so much to do - you don't find yourself waiting around with a bunch of other people for a rare MOB to spawn.
On the down side, once you get to 50, augmenting your traits (character buffs) by completing deeds (killing X number of creatures in certain areas or finding X number of ruins or points of interest in areas) can be somewhat of a grind. But again, that's really only after you get to 50. There was a lot of non-grinding play to get there and the expansion in fall 2008 will add 10 more levels on top of that. In addition, crafting is a bit of a grind, but that is only a side part of the game for me. Others, who focus more on crafting and less on story or exploration, will probably find it a bit tedious. Some of the best items in the game are only available from crafters and they tend to overprice them in the auction hall. Get into a good kin and you can often get the same items significantly cheaper, in exchange for other items, or just plain given to you, if you aren't a troll in real life.
Turbine has made various subscription plans available, plus a lifetime subscription can be purchased for a very reasonable price compared to how much a year of monthly fees could cost. I would recommend LotRO over WoW to anyone who enjoys Tolkien and recommend it as a comparable yet more story driven and graphically prettier game to anyone else.
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I have been playing Lord of the Rings Online (referred to as "LOTRO") since June 2nd, 2008 (as of the writing of this article, a month and a half). I purchased a boxed, retail version of the game.
Summary
Lord of the Rings Online is a solid, graphically lush, immersive and fun experience. The developer Turbine has crafted a game that is not only stupendous to behold on technical merits alone, but faithfully recreates much of J.R.R. Tolkein's fictional realm of Middle Earth.
Application Stability and Requirements
Stability and availability: In the month and a half that I have been playing LOTRO I have not experienced a single client crash. I have not been disconnected from the game servers. The one patch that has been released did not cause any issues. There was only one scheduled maintenance, and it occurred on a Monday and lasted from 7 AM to 11 AM EST US. In short the game is thoroughly stable and playable.
Requirements: I play on a quad core AMD Phenom 9500 system, 4 GB of RAM, running Vista Premium SP1, with a MSI Nvidia 8800 GTS video card. I am able to play the game at full graphical settings with very little loss of frame rate. In fact, performance degradation only occurs within major cities, when there tnds to be 20 - 50 other players in the immediate vicinity.
Audio Visual
LOTRO has, by far, the best looking graphics and highest quality of sound of any MMORPG on the market (massively multi-player on-line role playing game). The effects from DirectX 10 are amazing. Plants, even down to the tiniest blade of grass, sway and dance in the wind. Every object produces realistic and sharp shadows - they dance about your character, passing convincingly over the contours of your figure, as you move through them. Visual lighting effects are dazzling and colorful.
The music and sound effects are top notched. Each area (and even smaller areas within some areas) have their own score. Some are cheerful, some melodic, and others fear inducing. As night closes in a symphony of sounds erupts, depending upon the area it can be a chorus of crickets, solemn songs of night birds, and more.
Game Play
Turbine has created the most immersive experience available for the MMO market, in my opinion. The world is beautiful and extremely well realized. You can lose yourself for hours just exploring The Shire, watching the believable hobbits frolic and engage one another in discussion and trade. The architecture and world design, inside and out, is nothing short of spectacular and intricate.
Since I can't find the words to accurately convey how immersive the game is, I'll give an example, from my own experience: You may find yourself trotting down the road through the Shire at noon, gazing out for miles up and down the hills, romping through realistic-looking streams and farms as other players and computer-characters alike convincingly act out in the world around you. You stop at an inn where other players have formed a small band, and like a session of Guitar Hero joke as they play familiar songs while on-lookers cheer and make requests (you are able to create and use your own sheet music in the game, or manually play a variety of instruments). Night may begin to fall as you pass over Brandywine Bridge and head into the land of men in Bree. You pass by Buckland and spy the Old Forest - its dark, menacing trees stretching into the sky. And that night sky is alive with moving clouds and twinkling stars. Shortly, the darkness closes around you, and where once you could see for miles, you now struggle to see but fifty yards away in the darkness - until the moon breaks the cloud coverage for a moment, and the eery landscape once again stretches out before you. Finally you see Bree, and the gates that the Hobbits passed through on their way to the Prancing Pony. The city is huge, with a thousand candle-lit windows sending dancing beams of light. This game is amazing in detail.
Combat is well realized, mature, intuitive, and fun.
Quests are fun and diverse. A story line known as The Books, which can be followed as an optional component to the game, runs parallel to the events of the Lord of the Rings and features cut-scenes and scripted, personal experiences for yourself or your fellowship (party of players). These quests make you an integral part of the story without injecting you into the core story seen in the movies or read in the books. You are able to easily avoid these quests and play solo all the way to level 50 (the current level cap).
The crafting system is very deep. Each crafting profession consists of two trade skills focused on gathering and resource refinement, and one trade skill that focuses on crafting. Nothing feels like a chore as far as crafting is concerned. The economy of the game is very strong and is heavily influenced by tangible market factors that the players themselves drive.
Player versus player combat in LOTRO is novel, and approached differently - you have the ability to create monster characters and play them in their own, huge, PvP zone, complete with quests for the monster players. High level player characters can enter the zone and attempt to capture objectives and engage in combat. You can create a variety of orc classes, giant spiders, wargs (the wolf-like creatures goblins ride in the movies), and more.
Player housing is implemented.
The "end game" consists of a series of small and medium sized raiding instances.
You can easily see that this game has been polished for the better part of a year in the game play department.
In short, I cannot recommend this game highly enough. I have zero complaints.
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I've played this game for a year now since it was in beta. I have a lifetime subscription for $199.
This is a fun game, I've enjoyed it very much. The graphics are awesome, better than most game as long as you have a video card that is fast and can support the higher resolution graphics... otherwise you have to lower the graphics quality if your card is older.
The gameplay is very good. There is a death penalty in this game, but its not a bad one like a lot of other games. You don't end up feeling like you just wasted hours playing due to having died like many other games do.
I see negative reviews most likely from WoW fanboys. They try to claim this game is a copy of WOW. Well its not... for one thing this game has 100x better graphics than the cartoon graphics of WOW. All of these online games will take ideas from other online games... I'm sure WOW got most of their ideas from Everquest1, which was the original king of Massive Multiplayer Online Games
Another nice thing about this game is they give out a LOT of free content updates, unlike other games that charge you for every single update. They have one yearly major expansion that requires you buy the expansion. All the free content updates, along with the great lifetime subscription costs, show that Turbine is a great company.
No game is perfect, but this game I have enjoyed playing most.
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A very good MMORPG, I've been playing only WoW has an online game so I decide to make a change, so if you're tired of playing WoW this is your second choice on the market cause the graphics are great and the gameplay is very simple to learn.
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