After purchasing Everquest (the original), all the expansions there (up until like 3 years ago), EQ2, and the first couple expansions there, WoW, and the first (and only, so far) expansion, one would think that either I’m a MMO fan, or, I’m gamer. Well, I guess both could be said to be true. Yet, I’ve not seen ANYTHING that can stack up to the detail and quality of LOTRO so far. Check some of this stuff out!
First, you have the attention to detail that’s seen in some of these shots
* WPG2 CANNOT LOCATE GALLERY2 ITEM ID 7611 *
* WPG2 CANNOT LOCATE GALLERY2 ITEM ID 7619 *
* WPG2 CANNOT LOCATE GALLERY2 ITEM ID 7627 *
* WPG2 CANNOT LOCATE GALLERY2 ITEM ID 7647 *
* WPG2 CANNOT LOCATE GALLERY2 ITEM ID 7667 *
* WPG2 CANNOT LOCATE GALLERY2 ITEM ID 7675 *

Now take a look at those (in full screen mode) and tell me they don’t just scream sweet! They do, really!

Next, we have the obvious build on the Lord of the Rings trillogy. Duuh. I’m not a huge fanboi of LOTR, but I’ll say the game looks sweet!

Next, we have the actual implementation of the game itself. This one is where it’s actually 50/50. Of course, I rate it so low because I’m not used to the system yet. There are good things, there are bad things about it.

Good
Houses!
I miss my house in EQ2 from time to time, and WoW, well, no intention (so far) of adding them. Houses are more of a ’status symbol’ thing, someplace to store things, say “hey, I’m me”

Storyline!
You’re following a (somewhat) well known storyline. They don’t follow it to the letter, and in fact, they expand upon it, which is GOOD! If it followed it to the letter, it’d be boring as shit, we’ve all seen the movies about a ziillion times, and SOME of us have even read the books (heaven forbid we READ in this day and age)

Quests / etc
We’re not just talking QUESTS here, we’re talking DEEDS, which are side quests, such as kill x number of creatures with X skill, or get to level 5 without dying (easily done thank you!). Each deed has it’s own rewards, some with custom ‘titles’, some with ability enhancements, some other stuff

Abilities
We’re not just talking the standard str/dex/wis/int stuff here, we’re adding things like patience, and more. Of course these have to take different approaches for each race/class

Races
NOT your standard (orc, human, etc), here, we follow the book very very well

Classes
Again, following the series very well, not your standard

Sub-Classes
kind of standard, haven’t played too much there though

Hi-Def!
Having a ‘high def’ monitor, I want video that can play ‘high def’ quality. Thank you Turbine!

DX-10 (No, not talking about D-Generation X!)
Turbine puts in DirectX 10 which is the new(er) version of DX. Thankfully they don’t REQUIRE it to be used, but if your hardware supports it, the option is there. Mine does, so I’m happy there.

FREE TRIAL!
Seriously, you can NOT go wrong with 7 days free trial. That’s how I got hooked in EQ2, in WoW, and apparently what’s going to hook me into LOTRO!

Bad
Poor (read choppy) really high res settings.
I would prefer to be able to run this @ my default rate, but it’s just seemingly impossible without lag, lag, lag. Of course, drop it down to 1280×1024 and it’s just dandy. Seems that things need to catch up there.

Disk Usage
I get that hi-def takes up more (about 1.5 gig more),but WITHOUT an expansion, LOTRO right now takes up almost 8g of space. Figure 6.5 for low-def version. EGAD. Wow, at its BASE (no expansion) doesn’t take up but just over 4!

Free Roaming Camera
EEK! This is one of the things I HATED about EQ2. it’s entirely possible to get yourself utterly confused and lost here, and even better, the camera can (easily) cause someone to stumble say off of a bridge, due to the poor allignment. OOPS, happened a couple times!

Documentation sucks!
Hey, it’s a MMORPG, but the documentation really does suck. I mean where to I find how I’m progressing with my deeds, a simple question, but I’m LOST! Should be simple and easy.

In case you haven’t already tried it, do yourself a favor and check it out. Yes, you can signup for a ‘trial’ without paying anything. You can even download the game for this trial, without (again) paying a dime. So far, I’ve gotten Oxeab up to 7, and that’s in < 24 hours of really ‘playing’.

Check the game and site out at http://www.lotro.com . There’s a REASON it became Gamespy’s MMO of the year this year! Check it out, what have you got to lose, beside a lot of diskspace (which can be recovered) and some time (sorry, can’t get that back for ya ;))