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Post by Indagatrix on Feb 27, 2007 9:14:33 GMT -5
My initial testing of it this weekend led me to believe they haven't implemented all the DDO engine functionality of it yet...or rather haven't imported all the LOTR world into the DDO engine.
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Post by Aeron Serabien on Feb 27, 2007 12:59:42 GMT -5
What's a DDO engine? I'm a tech newb.
Sollo, I would agree with your thoughts, especially regarding the combat system. Combat is super slow and incredibly painful given the lack of auto attack and turning. At level 12 my captain earned a "herald" or human pet, basically. If he can auto run and manage to face the right way. why can't my character.
And I agree, the characters are ugly. And since they all look the same, it's an ugly ugly world.
That said, I love the textures of the water and the sky. They look great and real.
We played through a couple of the instanced storyline "chapters" and they're pretty fun. I like the "idea" of crafting but so far it seems poorly implemented as you get WAY better stuff from quest rewards.
I think Night and I are going to hang up our hats for a bit as these characters are going to get wiped anyway. I would assume we'll pre-order and start over during the final beta with characters that we'll keep.
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Post by Indagatrix on Feb 27, 2007 15:47:06 GMT -5
sorry I may not be using the correct words...I just throw them out if they sound right. The Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) everything...
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Post by Tremor on Feb 27, 2007 17:04:35 GMT -5
Hey Sollo, the graphics are halted to low, no matter your settings untill release (why?, i dunno). Quests give you places by name, and they will show on your map IF yo uhave already been there. I think they want you to explore more while questing. As far as the toons being ugly... Not sure but i saw talk of them giving rewards ( i think by level or certain quests), that you can make your toon look different. While in combat I originally thought you had to keep manually facing your toon in the direction of the enemy, but I'm almost positive there is a setting you can change in options for your toon to auto on that feature. As far as gaining levels, If you explore around more while doing quests, you not only kill more enemies gaining XP, but you also find places on your map to give you markers that you may find useful on your other quests. All the while gaining XP for kills and finding more quests to do for more xp. The Horse renters or whatever you call them only cost 10 to 50 silver pieces from what i saw. And yes you have to have been there first. I do not know if this is just for the beta or if it will be the same once the game is released. I also heard at a certain level you can own a horse, but not sure if this is true. I rented a horse twice and thought it was pretty cool. The only bad part was you do not control the horse and it sticks tyo the paths only. If you let me know your in game name i could possibly help more, or keep you from being lonely while in there. Or hell, maybe you could help me!! lol
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Post by Sollo on Feb 27, 2007 17:23:36 GMT -5
I'm currently locked out until my pre-order goes through. I understand that they do this on Thursdays. I'm currently playing "RubyKnight". I've wandered so far off the map though that it will take me an hour to get back, assuming I didn't break something. Last time I logged on the map wasn't working that far out and the client hung.
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Post by Sollo on Mar 1, 2007 23:17:21 GMT -5
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Post by Sollo on Mar 31, 2007 17:15:18 GMT -5
Open Beta started yesterday for those that pre-ordered. I picked a lame character name and will probably reroll.
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Post by Sollo on Apr 1, 2007 10:34:36 GMT -5
So who's playing Open Beta? I'm on the Brandywine server with "Fenn". Human Champion, level 10 currently.
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Post by Tremor on Apr 1, 2007 17:14:21 GMT -5
As much as I liked the game I have not bought it yet. I am currently paying for one monthly fee to play CoH/CoV. Two monthly fee games a month is something I do not want to do at this time. If and when I get the game I'll post to let you know.
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Post by Aeron Serabien on Apr 2, 2007 15:03:53 GMT -5
We haven't bought it either. $20 a month plus $100 to buy two copies of the game seems like a lot of money right now.
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Post by Sollo on Apr 2, 2007 17:14:55 GMT -5
I played 20+ hours this weekend. I am learning that some of the things that were lacking are, in fact, present. For example, if you hold down the left mouse button you can swing your camera around and have a look at your character from all sides, and look upon the combat from alternate angles. There also seems to be hot keys for quickly targeting the enemy, but I am far from mastering that yet.
There are still some things that are annoying enough that it causes me to swear at the game constantly: The characters inability to turn to face combat drives me insane. I hate micro-managing combat.
I can see minor improvements with quests, but it's still seriously lacking. I'm very spoiled by how Guildwars does quests in that you get arrows and stars indicating where you need to be going. LOTR has none of that. When you get the quest the NCP gives some vague directions and then you are totally on your own. They force you to make a huge production out of figuring out where the quest is. Now this wouldn't be too big of a deal in itself, but they give you quests at a rate greater than Post Ascalon. They litterally burry you in quests. I have well over 20 active quests queued up at present and I'm still within shouting distance of where I started.
I'm not sure how they do it, but the entire world seems to be on one server. The game isn't even officially released yet and I've already encountered a queue to get into the game. Their system resources will likely be spread very thin when they release to the general public. There are some sub-maps in the form of dungeons and building interiors but a great majority of the game is played "Outside". Everyone seems to be sharing the same map all at once. I'm sure there will be either huge lag issues or huge login queues, or both.
It's probably just my Vista and/or my beta video drivers, but my client crashed a LOT this weekend. Since GW also seems to crash, it's prolly a video driver issue...
Once they expect me to start paying the monthly fee, I'll probably stop playing. LOTR has a LONG way to go before their user interface is even close to Guildwars.
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Post by Aeron Serabien on Apr 8, 2007 23:08:05 GMT -5
Night and I are definitely playing in the beta and may end up preordering after all. We stayed on Brandywine and I am a human captain named Ronwyn (Aeron was taken...... jerks!) and Night is human loremaster named Tristram.
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Post by Indagatrix on Apr 9, 2007 8:43:00 GMT -5
If you haven't already -- please feel free to create a BGN and enough people are playing we can create a section on the forums for it.
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Post by Aeron Serabien on Apr 9, 2007 12:22:52 GMT -5
Will do. This beta truly is open, so everyone is invited to grab a code off PCGamer or the LOTRO website. I like free gaming!
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Post by Quintare on Apr 9, 2007 22:10:32 GMT -5
I got the PC Gamer today for the asura pet, and maybe I'll spin it up. Aangy was not impressed with the closed beta though, for mostly the same complaints I have seen here. So, maybe.
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Post by Aeron Serabien on Apr 10, 2007 9:44:04 GMT -5
Fortunately, they seem to fix what was one of my major frustrations, facing in combat. It seemed like I had to micro-rotate my melee character every 2 seconds in order to be facing the right way. That seems to be much better.
I'll be honest, I probably wouldn't be playing if it wasn't for the hubby. But if we want to play together, that's what I'm stuck with. He doesn't like pvp and he doesn't want to reply GW campaigns with second or third characters, so....
We picked LOTRO for now because it is a lovely world with a great story and if we pre-order the cost is less than COH/COV etc. It, as much as I was complaining that it's like wow, it's definitely more FUN than WoW, for me because there's an actual storyline to move along, just just brainless fedexing or slaughtering for levels.
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Post by Eldarion on Apr 10, 2007 14:52:07 GMT -5
You can also get into the open beta preview without buying PC Gamer.
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notrub
In Ascalon
[BGN]
Posts: 86
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Post by notrub on Apr 11, 2007 5:22:33 GMT -5
But I noticed that in the PC Gamer they have a card with all the keyboard hot keys.... If some one wants the beta code from mine let me know and I'll send it to you. Mike
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Post by Eldarion on Apr 18, 2007 14:03:03 GMT -5
9:00pm - installed client using CD from PC Gamer 10:30pm - finished installing the bloody updates and went to bed
Maybe I'll get to play a little before the beta expires...
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Post by Tremor on Apr 18, 2007 17:23:15 GMT -5
I am in the beta already as Haleywen. I did not read your message Aeron, untill it was too late, lol. I messaged the one who took your name. She is a first timer female who's boyfriend introduced her to gaming online. She was really nice, even when i thought it was you pretending not to know me....
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Post by Aeron Serabien on Apr 18, 2007 22:37:09 GMT -5
LOL @ Tremor. Did you yell at her for stealing my name? I was very sad not to get Aeron, but that's pretty funny that you thought I was pretending not to know you.
BTW-I did go ahead and buy a kinship charter. We just need 6 members in order to use it.
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Post by Sollo on Apr 20, 2007 16:28:42 GMT -5
I tried a new technique this week and it seems to be going well. I'm only taking the primary quests. I'm finding that this moves you through the story quite fast and the quests are a lot more managible now that I only have one to worry about at a time. The only down side is that I've gotten to a point in the quests in which I need to be 3 or 4 levels higher before I can continue, so I've started picking up easy quests to get exp, and killing things too.
I only have 4 days left before I have to subscribe or quit.
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Post by Aeron Serabien on Apr 20, 2007 23:25:02 GMT -5
I've been thinking about doing that too. The only downside is that without completing the area's quests, you do miss out on the traits available for that area. They're small bonuses, but they are bonuses and I'm guessing they get better at higher levels. But a non-grind way to play would be nice.
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Post by Tremor on Apr 21, 2007 7:58:07 GMT -5
She was so polite I was not going to say a negative word to her about it. I was a lil embarassed.
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Post by Sollo on Apr 21, 2007 8:47:36 GMT -5
I still plan to do the side quests, but the way I have been doing it is to take every single quest I come across. Doesn't take long before the list of quests is so big that I no longer know what I'm supposed to be doing. I think I'm going to experiment with having only a primary quest and one secondary quest at a time.
Actually, I've reached a point where I have to do some secondary quests because the primary quest boss is way too hard for my current level. Need to step back and gain a few levels before moving forward.
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Post by Eldarion on Apr 21, 2007 15:52:43 GMT -5
I've created a character on Brandywine named Eldariondragonbane. (No spaces or mid-word caps? Lame.) I've just dabbled a bit, but so far...meh. GW has ruined me for any other game.
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Post by ronin on Apr 21, 2007 23:25:48 GMT -5
You can add surname at level 15 Eld.
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Post by Sollo on Apr 23, 2007 12:17:28 GMT -5
They seem to have added a week to my time so I can play through next weekend.
They have a level 15 cap during the beta. I started an Elf Champion (Tank) and got to level 15, then I started a Human Captain (Warrior with Command skills) and got to level 15, and last night I started an Elf Lore-Master (Uses magic but isn't a Wizard) and got to level 6.
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Post by Aeron Serabien on Apr 23, 2007 14:11:56 GMT -5
I hope they extend my beta access too!
Night and I have been going back and forth on this game. We've had fun playing it, but are still having crazy lag in towns and feeling like for $10 each/month plus $100 to buy the game there might not be enough content. But we keep going back and forth.
I made an elf hunter name Aeraen and got her to Level 8 last night. Hunters are super squish, but I can see how in a group they'd be fun to play.
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Post by Sollo on Apr 23, 2007 17:27:29 GMT -5
I tried a Hunter on the stress test weekend, but that character was on a different account and wasn't saved. I was still trying to figure things out so that character wasn't very well developed.
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