The 30-Minute MMOG: Lord of the Rings Online Beta
Posted on
Thursday, February 15, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
This week brought news of another soon-to-be-released MMOG lifting the curtain of secrecy surrounding its beta. Lord of the Rings Online dropped the NDA prohibiting public discussion of the beta. As a beta participant, I'm now ready to give my impressions of the game. These thoughts are based on my play in the Stress Event as well as a bit of time in Beta Stage 2. As with any new MMOG I evaluate these days, LotRO got the same 30-minutes that Vanguard got, and the same 30-minutes any other new MMOG I write about will get. For those who haven't read my 30-Minute MMOG Rules, I'd suggest you do so now to understand what I mean. 30-minutes is all MMOG's get from, and is more than most deserve. Lord of the Rings Online actually managed to squeeze almost two whole hours out of me before I came to this conclusion.
I've been here before.
I don't mean that I've traveled to the virtual places pictured in Tolkien's books that are represented with loving care in this MMOG. I've read the Middle Earth saga, including some of the history texts on the world like the Silmarillion, and am quite familiar with the lore this game is based on. No, the familiarity with which I view LotRO is a similarity that is sure to raise my ire and lower any score I might give the game.
You see, I've played this game before. I've played it. It is at heart the same gameplay I've experienced countless times before in every other Diku-based MMOG since my first experience with Everquest in 1998. I've played with this graphic engine in Dungeons & Dragons Online, I've played with this interface in World of Warcraft and I've used this combat engine over and over again. In two hours of play, I can honestly say I saw absolutely nothing new other than the setting. I leveled a human burglar to level 4, I bought skills and armor, I did a number of quests, I wandered a bit and then I logged off in boredom.
What is this game supposed to bring to the MMOG medium? Instancing? We've done that, in WoW, DAoC, DDO and others. Is it a sea change to combat mechanics? No, it feels just like DAoC combat, slow and plodding and even worse, it feels like DDO combat with all of the "twitchy" components removed. I say that having been brutally disappointed by DDO's combat. Both DDO and LotRO combat suffer from something I'll call the slog effect. The underlying numbers and mechanics to this combat doesn't bother me, but something about the pace, something visceral that i feel down in the sub-cockles of my bloodthirsty heart, is off. I can't pin an actual name on it, but the combat feels like a guitar with a delay filter on it, as if the actions I'm taking with my keypresses are only implemented seconds after I make them, instead of concurrent with my keypresses. Perhaps others do not experience this, but for me, it makes me feel as if I'm only watching combat instead of actively participating in it. Again, this is a problem I had with DDO's combat, and since both games seemed to based on the same underlying technology I'm going to have to lay the blame for this one at Turbine's feet.
So if the mechanics, leveling, and quests are the same, what about LotRO that I experience in the first 30 minutes is supposed to make me want to test or even pay for the game when it's released? All of the "innovations" to the medium like Achievements and Monster Play are so much farther down the leveling track that any hopes of me getting a gander at them after 5, even 10 hours is remote. Why would I pay for this game?
Don't get me wrong, LotRO is not a BAD game. I'm sure were it my first MMOG and I could get over the slog effect, I might enjoy it quite a bit. But it isn't my first MMOG, and I'm guessing it won't be for a lot of other people as well, especially the potential hordes of WoW castoffs. It's only distinguishing feature then is the Tolkien license, and I'm not quite sure that's enough of a draw to hang this game on, at least as it has been built.
The sad part of LotRO is that with such a rich heritage as Tolkien's works provide, the results of years of MMOG development is something so bland and uninspiring. Every single one of my 30-Minute MMOG Rules gets broken by this game. Every single one. As such, I won't be buying this game on release, and unless it would be your first MMOG or you've such a hard on for Tolkien that you must play as a hobbit in an MMOG, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else. If I had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it 6 meh's and go play something fun.
I've been here before.
I don't mean that I've traveled to the virtual places pictured in Tolkien's books that are represented with loving care in this MMOG. I've read the Middle Earth saga, including some of the history texts on the world like the Silmarillion, and am quite familiar with the lore this game is based on. No, the familiarity with which I view LotRO is a similarity that is sure to raise my ire and lower any score I might give the game.
You see, I've played this game before. I've played it. It is at heart the same gameplay I've experienced countless times before in every other Diku-based MMOG since my first experience with Everquest in 1998. I've played with this graphic engine in Dungeons & Dragons Online, I've played with this interface in World of Warcraft and I've used this combat engine over and over again. In two hours of play, I can honestly say I saw absolutely nothing new other than the setting. I leveled a human burglar to level 4, I bought skills and armor, I did a number of quests, I wandered a bit and then I logged off in boredom.
What is this game supposed to bring to the MMOG medium? Instancing? We've done that, in WoW, DAoC, DDO and others. Is it a sea change to combat mechanics? No, it feels just like DAoC combat, slow and plodding and even worse, it feels like DDO combat with all of the "twitchy" components removed. I say that having been brutally disappointed by DDO's combat. Both DDO and LotRO combat suffer from something I'll call the slog effect. The underlying numbers and mechanics to this combat doesn't bother me, but something about the pace, something visceral that i feel down in the sub-cockles of my bloodthirsty heart, is off. I can't pin an actual name on it, but the combat feels like a guitar with a delay filter on it, as if the actions I'm taking with my keypresses are only implemented seconds after I make them, instead of concurrent with my keypresses. Perhaps others do not experience this, but for me, it makes me feel as if I'm only watching combat instead of actively participating in it. Again, this is a problem I had with DDO's combat, and since both games seemed to based on the same underlying technology I'm going to have to lay the blame for this one at Turbine's feet.
So if the mechanics, leveling, and quests are the same, what about LotRO that I experience in the first 30 minutes is supposed to make me want to test or even pay for the game when it's released? All of the "innovations" to the medium like Achievements and Monster Play are so much farther down the leveling track that any hopes of me getting a gander at them after 5, even 10 hours is remote. Why would I pay for this game?
Don't get me wrong, LotRO is not a BAD game. I'm sure were it my first MMOG and I could get over the slog effect, I might enjoy it quite a bit. But it isn't my first MMOG, and I'm guessing it won't be for a lot of other people as well, especially the potential hordes of WoW castoffs. It's only distinguishing feature then is the Tolkien license, and I'm not quite sure that's enough of a draw to hang this game on, at least as it has been built.
The sad part of LotRO is that with such a rich heritage as Tolkien's works provide, the results of years of MMOG development is something so bland and uninspiring. Every single one of my 30-Minute MMOG Rules gets broken by this game. Every single one. As such, I won't be buying this game on release, and unless it would be your first MMOG or you've such a hard on for Tolkien that you must play as a hobbit in an MMOG, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else. If I had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it 6 meh's and go play something fun.
Labels: MMOG, Tolkien, Video Games
posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:39 AM
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1 Comments:
Pretty but boring. Like some women in my sordid past =)
Almost everything that LotRO does, someone else in the genre does better. The 'wow, that was COOL!' moments are few and far between.
Things they did right-
Achievements/Traits- very interesting system. I would have like to see it expanded to really make each character an individual, though.
Graphics/mood/setting- a lot of places looked and felt like Middle Earth.
Monster play- didn't get a chance to try too much of this, but I like the concept a lot.
The rest is basically boring, derivative crap. Pity.
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