by Aethyna Dec 3, 2014 | 2 Votes | 0 Played | 0 Reviews Your vote 9 rate
RPG , MMO
Turbine , Codemasters
Download , Fantasy Setting , Mounts , Dungeon/ Instance , Player vs Player (PvP) In Lord of the Rings Online you are playing a hero fighting at the same time as the main books occur in the history of Middle Earth. You will adventure with Aragorn, The Hobbits, Legolas and Gandalf too. Immerse yourself in this gorgeous MMO and be a Hero of Middle Earth. Play Now Similar Games Played Post a Review
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In Lord of the Rings Online you are playing a hero fighting at the same time as the main books occur in the history of Middle Earth. You will adventure with Aragorn, The Hobbits, Legolas and Gandalf too. Immerse yourself in this gorgeous MMO and be a Hero of Middle Earth.
Venture forth into virtual Middle-Earth in this exceptional MMORPG – the Lord of the Ring Online (LOTRO)! In this game, you will be able to experience Tolkien's universe and lore first-hand, as well as being able to participate in exciting adventures with well-known characters, like Aragorn, Legolas, Gandalf and most certainly, the famous Hobbits. You will also be able to enjoy all the MMORPG features in LOTRO, such as questing, instances, skirmishes (PvP), completing deeds (achievements) as well as decorating your own house in Middle-Earth! LOTRO requires a hero to unite the free people of Eriador… are you the one?
Plotline
The game began with Gandalf telling a story - The One Ring had revealed itself and the fellowship had started to prepare themselves for the long and arduous journey to Mount Doom. However, time was not in their hand as Sauron surged forth to reclaim Middle-Earth as its own. Gandalf and Aragorn had hoped the Ring would hold back the dark forces of Angmar, but they were wrong. Without a coordinated effort from all the races in Middle-Earth, the army of Angmar will certainly lay Middle-Earth to waste and the land will fall into darkness and despair. For Middle-Earth to be saved, you will need to stand up and be the hero that the free people need and bring all the races, Elves, Dwarfs, Hobbits, and Men, together in a final battle against evil! War is at hand and the time is now… Are you ready?
The storyline in the Lord of the Ring Online (LOTRO) unravels through various 'books' (Epic quests) in which each book has several chapters. As you progress in the game, you will be able to take part in many monumental events in the Lord of the Ring (LOTR) lore along with notable characters, such as Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Gandalf, as well as to watch the drama unfold.
As with any MMORPG, you start off by choosing your character's race and class. There are a total of 5 races, namely man, dwarf, hobbit, elf and beorning. Each race will have their respective racial characteristics that may be advantageous or disadvantageous to your character. For instance, elves have lower morale (morale represents health in LOTRO) due to being more sensitive to emotion, so you wouldn't want to create a defensive character (a tanker) with an elf. The Hobbits on the other hand have lower strength due to their smaller size, but are tougher and thus, has higher vitality.
After selecting a race, LOTRO offers 10 different classes for you to choose from, including burglar, captain, champion, guardian, hunter, lore-master, minstrel, rune-keeper, warden and beorning. The classes available to you are dependent on your character's race. For example, elves cannot be burglars or captains while men have the largest selection choices – men can be any of the above classes, except beorning (which is reserved for the beornings). Furthermore, as you progress in the game, you will also be asked to choose from 3 character specialisations for each class and are given trait points to invest into your chosen character specialisation. Some of these more unique classes will require money to purchase before you can unlock them though, such as beorning, rune-keeper and warden. Players are only given 2 character slots for free in LOTRO, so do use them wisely!
Next, you will be asked to pick your place of origin. If you've chosen elves as your character's race, you will get to select a place of origin from the following locations – Lindon, Lorien, Mirkwood, Rivendell or Edhellond. A naming guideline is even provided for both males and females of the race to help players, particularly role-players, in the naming of their characters. This game is indeed a role-player's haven as role-players are also allowed to create their own family tree along with a biography for their character! In addition, players will be able to dress their characters in cosmetic outfits, outfits that serve no particular purpose except to look good on your character, to match the festivities or the players' mood. LOTRO players are even given the option to buy a house at level 15 and to decorate the walls of the house with trophies from their travels.
To the delight explorers in LOTRO, the size of the map in this game is absolutely massive! There are so many regions in Middle-Earth and each region will have several sub-regions of its own, including a range of towns and cities modeled after the various races' cultures in LOTR. These regions are frozen during important moments in the LOTR timeline, hence, allowing you to be exactly at the right place at the right time when exciting events happen.
Moreover, questing in LOTRO is not too challenging… all thanks to the nice quest tracker provided in the game as well as the efficient travelling methods in place. In LOTRO, you can 'swift travel' by either teleporting to the village where your saved milestone resides (1 hour cooldown per teleport) or by buying the services of a horse from the stable master. There are also mounts that you can buy in this game to aid in hastening your travels, but most of them require real money (in the form of Turbine points).
There is also a special type of quest called tasks. Tasks are repeatable quests whereby you collect 'junk' items from monsters and turn them in for reputation with the many factions in LOTRO. Besides, if you have some real money to spare, you could consider buying quest packs or expansions from the LOTRO store, so that you can enjoy more of the delicious LOTR lore.
Most quests in LOTRO involve killing something, if not collecting items. Therefore, it is vital to familiarize yourself to the combat system in the game. Each class will have their respective set of skills that you can use to defeat your enemy. Some classes will be more tuned for area-of-effect (AoE)–type damage while some classes are mainly support classes and will have very weak damaging skills, but strong crowd control skills. Finding the perfect combination or rotation for your character's skills will be important in order to reduce the downtime in between kills and also improve your overall damage in instances and in PvP. As your character levels up, you will unlock new class skills that may require you to adjust your skill rotation accordingly.
Furthermore, instead of using health and mana like any other MMORPGs, LOTRO replaces health with morale and man with power. So, if you see that your morale is low… you should definitely be very worried. Even if you are defeated - don't worry! You are given a free revive without any penalty every 30 minutes (if you're unlucky enough to die every 30 minutes, that is). This cooldown will gradually increase as you increase in level though.
Similarly to any MMORPG, LOTRO has instances – both solo as well as fellowship (meaning 'group') instances. Instances in LOTRO are mainly for quest progression and are linked to the storyline. For solo instances, you will usually be accompanied by at least 1 major non-player character (NPC). In fellowship instances or more accurately, instances that are not solo-able, you will definitely need a group of players to take down the harder monsters in the instance. Sounds like fun? Well, you can easily find a fellowship for an instance by using the instance finder provided in the game! LOTRO also caters to the PvP community by providing skirmishes. Skirmishes are battlegrounds for players to test their combat skills against other human players.
For players who love to game the auction house, well, you're in luck! LOTRO has its own auction system whereby players with free accounts can list up to 25 items and can bid on up to 20 items (additional slots for bidding and listing items can be bought at the LOTRO store using Turbine points). If you dislike auctioning your items, you can also sell your items via chat to other players.
Considering that the bulk of the items sold in LOTRO are usually crafted goods, professions are a vital source of income for LOTRO players. In this game, players are allowed to take up 1 vocation from the 7 different types of vocations provided, namely armourer, explorer, armsman, tinker, yeoman, woodsman and historian. Each vocation consists of a combination of 3 professions that has overlapping skills. For example, armourers are well-equipped to produce heavy armour since they have both Prospecting (a profession that allows mining for metal ores) and Metalsmith. With supplies from a fellow friend with the Forester profession (produces leather and wood), they can also craft light and medium armour via the Tailoring profession. There are currently 10 different professions in LOTRO, so it's pretty hard to 'get them all' with your 2 free character slots.
The inventory management in this game is very unique. Each player is given 6 bag slots as well as a personal vault (with a total of 10 chests), a shared vault (also 10 chests) and even a wardrobe (for you to share cosmetic outfits among all your characters in the same account). However, instead of equipping bags with increasingly bigger sizes into these slots, you are allowed to rearrange the rows of bag space that you already have (and as usual, additional slots can be bought at the LOTRO store with Turbine points). This means that these bag slots and vault chests only function as a way for you to orderly organize your items into groups and not as a way to extend your inventory space. Even though you are given free bag and personal vault space, you will need to shell out Turbine points to buy inventory space for your wardrobe and shared vault.
Last but not least, achievements! Achievements in LOTRO are called deeds and they usually involve slaying a substantial number of monsters, completing almost all the quest in an area or exploring all the locations in a zone. These deeds, when completed, will reward you with some very nice goodies, including virtue traits to give your character a permanent boost to stats (unless you 'unequip' the virtue), marks that you can use as currency for special items and of course, the jackpot – free Turbine points! However, deeds may take some time and effort to complete, so be sure to get yourself a huge bottle of soda and lots of snacks before you start grinding for that deed!
As you go onto higher levels in LOTRO, you would also unlock many other features, such as titles and pets for your characters. You could even have your character 'learn' the many musical instruments in the game, including bagpipes, clarinet, cowbells and many others, and create your own music! With so much to do, huge volume of LOTR lore to enjoy and so many places to explore, LOTRO is certainly one MMORPG that you mustn't miss!
The community in LOTRO is extremely huge and this is evident in the number of highly-populated servers they provide. It is reportedly the one of the top 10 MMORPG of all time.
The community in LOTRO usually band up in kinships (guilds/ clans). Most kinships are filled with experienced players who are very willing to give advice to new players to the game. Furthermore, the community in LOTRO is very generous as well – there will always be giveaways in the chat channel, whereby people actually give away low/middle-level, crafted, uncommon and rare items to other players.
Following Tolkien's heavy use of music in his books, LOTRO also provides a way for in-game characters to 'learn' musical instruments. Due to this, there have been many musical bands formed in-game and these bands organise performances at The Prancing Pony Inn in Bree or even mini-concerts for their fans!
Graphics/Sound
The game has absolutely top-notch graphics even at lower resolutions. However, if you would rather opt for the high definition format, you will need to install an additional 6 GB worth of data.
Similarly to its movie counterparts, LOTRO is filled with award-winning music that is almost as good as the soundtrack in LOTR movies. In fact, the game's soundtrack has received much praise from many reviewers (including this one!) for its quality and variety. And, the best part? All 61 music in LOTRO are available for free on the Turbine website! In addition, as mentioned repeatedly in previous paragraphs, players are also allowed to compose their own music using the musical instruments in the game as well. So, you may occasionally hear players playing their composed music in crowded cities.
The Lord of the Ring Online is certainly a MMORPG that is determined to be different from every other MMORPG and it is successful to some extent… just take a look at its amazing music system, cinematic cut-scenes and drama or the various traits that you can mix and match for your character! Don't forget that the entire game is practically covered and dripping with rich (and syrupy) LOTR lore that will drive any LOTR fanboy or girl crazy! This is the game that has a believable and beautiful Middle-Earth that any LOTR fan will love to be able to role-play in! Don't wait - Sign up today!
Lord of the Rings Online Blog
New Game Added: Lord of the Rings Online
by Aethyna Dec 3, 2014 In Lord of the Rings Online you are playing a hero fighting at the same time as the main books occur in the history of Middle Earth. You will adventure with Aragorn, The Hobbits, Legolas and Gandalf too. Immerse yourself in this gorgeous MMO and be a Hero of Middle Earth. Read More Be the First to Post a Review!
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