Lord of the Rings Online

[cookinwithgas]

If you are experienced with these kinds of games you might like Rune Keeper if its available for F2P. my alt is an elf champion and its a LOT better of a solo character than my minstrel - but I like being a mini, as groups tend to seek you out, and don't depend on you to lead groups LOL.

Guardian is the tank and is always in demand, and the healer always watches you first in groups...

[Porn Shop Clerk]

I try to play whatever is easiest to get in a group. Healer, or support generally.

[d-dave]

I've been playing LOTRO for the past couple of years and I love it. I played EQ for four years, but that was a long time ago. I tried out WoW but was totally not impressed and kinda bored. LOTRO got me with the franchaise of Lord of the Rings, and the story, the places, the quests, and all the other little things got me into it. I love the game. Turbine does a good job of updating old quests and areas while adding new stuff. For a new play, I think most people with an interest in the Lore will enjoy it. As far as MMOs, its not ground breaking mechanically, but its still a fun game.

Some will hate it because its not WoW. That's cool. I love being able to work with the Fellowship and my other favorite middle earth characters. My main is Filorin on Gladden. Look me up if you ever come on line.

[Kurb]

tempting

[natty]

Well I've played a good bit over the past couple days and just can't get past the reason I quit playing 3 years ago - the combat. It feels sluggish and boring. I really can't stand any combat system where an ability gets queued. It seems like a slight step up from turn based combat, which I detest(the reason I never played through knights of the old republic). When I hit an ability I want it to happen right then - if my char is doing something else then just do nothing, don't queue it up. I can understand why pvp was never emphasized, because it's probably boring. I want to feel like I'm in control of my character, not just pushing a button every couple seconds.

I really wish someone could come up with an awesome combat system for an mmo. Age of Conan tried but it was a complete disaster(really everything about AoC was crap). Wow is pretty good in that it's very responsive but it can be repetitive.

I'm trying to like lotro, as I want something to play until swtor comes out, but so far I'm not digging it too much. I'll keep playing to see if it grows on me since at least it's free.

[Khyber53]

I'm with Natty on this. I keep plugging away at it, but I just keep coming back to the idea that this is, well, kinda boring. WoW was great, but I've chewed all the flavor out of that piece of gum, so this will have to do in the interim.

[cookinwithgas]

I think they tried twitchy combat in Conan and it failed - when they did it to star wars online it killed the game. With latency and multiple players it's pretty hard to do fairly.

[natty]

AoC wasn't twitchy at all, it just failed on everything it was supposed to deliver. They were trying to get away from the auto-attack model and introduced combos to make it more like a console fighting game. They mocked the WoW 'hit 2, 2, 2, 2, 4, 5, repeat' style and claimed their combat was more advanced/skillful/etc. But what it really boiled down to was instead of using ability X then Y then Z it was use combo X then combo Y then combo Z. A combo worked by clicking the combo button then hitting anywhere from 3 to 5 attacks in order(left, upper left, up, for example) then the combo would trigger, usually dealing significantly more damage than the regular attacks. So in a way it was the opposite of twitchy, you had to build up to your big hitting combos. But what happened in practice was people would 'charge' up their combos so they were swinging in thin air and only hitting with the combo attacks. So it ended up being exactly what they said it wouldn't be. That was just one of the many, many, many, many flaws in the game.

[cookinwithgas]

Im sure you are right, I never played it. I just knew they tried something else they described in the beta as "real time".

[Raskle]

Just started this two days ago due to the suggestions here.. I'm liking it for the most part so far, but two things are kind of annoying:

1. Not enough Turbine points: Yeah, busines model and way to lure folks to pay for the game. I get it... but damn, lvl 18 now and still only have like 100 points? How the heck does one save up enough to buy a freakin horse, much less any quest packs?

2. I'm so friggin sloooooooow... at least in AO, if you spend points into run speed, you will eventually become faster than a snail... on crutches... full of drugs... crawling uphill in January... all while raining molasses...

Human Champ btw.. fits my playstyle very well. On Silverlode.

[Samuel L. Jackson]

I got a whole crew I brought over from another gaming community, and we are setup on the Landroval server...

[cookinwithgas]

I'm sure i have gotten over 200 points in the past two weeks without even trying - make sure you get on those book quests and keep up with the deeds for your area - that may involve a lot of grinding but its free

[d-dave]

I've been playing a lot on Dwarrowdwelf on my newbie guard, hunter and champ. Since its been a long time since I played the low level, I think its still fun to get into.

Regarding Combat, it beats the pant off of WoW to me. Then again, I didn't enjoy it at all while 10+ million people think its the beezkneez. If you like re actives, play a guardian. Once you get level 13, you'll have a slew of reactive skills based on parries or blocks. Other classes have other abilities based on mob health or other skills. I know its not for everyone, but I enjoy each class for the differences. Play a minstral if you want busy combat.

As far as the points, I'm racking them up on my three newbies. I think between those three, I've racked up over 400 points in a couple of week of not constant play time. Plus with the specials on items, you can find some good deals out there. I just prefer my VIP membership, though I still haven't bought anything yet...

[Raskle]

I'm sure i have gotten over 200 points in the past two weeks without even trying - make sure you get on those book quests and keep up with the deeds for your area - that may involve a lot of grinding but its free

Just got over 200 points to get the horse for my champ. Did it by completing just about every quest in the Shire up to my level (also nice to be liked by the midget faction, lol)... started a new toon there too - Hunter.

Both are good soloers, which is what I prefer to play as 99% of the time in these games. A lot of folks told me to just start random toons on other servers and get em to like level 10 or so to earn points. So that and keeping up with the book should net me a few more.

Question though: If I buy the next set of quests from like North Barrow-Downs for one toon, does that translate to others? Or is it just the one toon can do the quests and I have to buy it for the others as well? That's kinda pricy, but overall worth it to earn even more points in the long run.