Lost to LotRO

[Seeria]

Check out the headlines at Yahoo


World of Warcraft officially launched on November 23, 2004. On that momentous day, the query "world of warcraft" ranked in the top 400 overall searches (competing quite ably with hot searches like "virgin mary grilled cheese") and had risen in popularity over 200% during the previous 30 days.

In comparison, buzz on Lord of the Rings Online, which hits the shelves today, has risen over 160% over the last month. Yet the all important Search rank—in the top 10,000 searches—might mean Shadows of Angmar could be overshadowed by Warcraft's headstart in the hearts and minds of gamers. Still, if you know anything hobbits, you know you should never count them out too soon.

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http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/68719/will-one-game-rule-them-all

 

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Interesting

 

[Silverblade]

I pre-ordered and rolled up a number of characters and played a couple to the teens. The game is really beautiful. People say VG looks better but I beg to differ. VG looks decent when you zoom back with panoramic views but up close, it's horrible. LotRO looks great anywhere and you can see the love it got from the artists by just looking at the fine details.

The epic storyline is a great read and fun to do. Crafting is similar to WoW. All in all, it's a very polished game.

Yet, I am still struggling to purchase the retail box to claim my Founders' title and the reduced monthly rate (or lifetime sub). Why?

I mentioned in a different thread that I feel very limited in my roleplay because of the timeline. Pretty much the entire game takes place within the nine months of the War. I just think that's too confining.

I also thought LotRO is much harder to solo than WoW. As you level up, the Fellowship (group) quests increase and more importantly, the epic storyline becomes much more group focused which happens to be the best stories. And for some reason, I don't know why, but I feel the grind in LotRO.

The zoning isn't as bad as EQ2 but it's still there. If you didn't have to zone everytime you entered a building, it would have been a lot better but you do. The zoning is fast but it breaks immersion.

So right now, I'm on the fence. It's a great game and I'm sure it will (is) successful but I keep saying to myself, "If I'm going to play LotRO, I might as well stick with WoW."