Customer Reviews

The Lord of the Rings: Mines of Moria

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I couldn't help but think that, over and over, when I made the jump from World of Warcraft (WoW) to Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO). If you've never seen the original Japanese Iron Chef show, when one of the judges describes what they're eating as being "for grown-ups," it usually means that it's restrained in seasoning, elegant, subtle. A fruit ice cream that gives you more of a floral, fruity taste than a sugar rush, or an expertly-grilled cut of meat that requires you do nothing more than sit there and let it melt in your mouth. Art, in a word, the sheer beauty of which is beyond the comprehension of children.

It's sad, in a way, that it's impossible to talk about a modern Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game without talking about WoW. In essence, WoW more or less fails to be the very best at any one thing in order to be second best at almost everything. It's kind of like McDonald's. It's probably not going to ever be your favorite place to eat, but you'll probably eat there more than any other single place in your life. It's the game that everyone can agree on. When the topic is MMOs, it's a point of reference; the question isn't, "how good is the game," it's, "how is it, compared to WoW?"

What makes LotRO really shine is not that it does things in unique ways, but that it does that with a purpose, and it does it extremely well. Everything is about serving the story and the atmosphere. I cannot stress that enough. More than any of the myriad MMOs I've played to date, LotRO is an unabashed worshiper of the art of telling a good story, and telling it well.

Right off the bat, as you're making your character, you are not just told to make a "good, appropriate fantasy setting name" for your character -- you're given a primer on who those people are and where they come from, as well as a long sample list of names, suffixes, and prefixes to work with. Some MMOs will just pay some lip service to the idea of story-compatible names, for example, saying that certain character names are inappropriate, and then giving hypocritically mind-boggling examples. WoW says that you shouldn't make a character named "Technotron," but before very long, you'll come face-to-face with the quest mob (enemy character), Techbot. LotRO makes character creation fun, participatory, and dare I say it, even creative. You'll be given some food for thought as you make your avatar, with hints like, (quoting from memory) "Elven women often have names ending in -riel, -wen..." and so on.

The realistic bent to the style of the whole game makes the fantasy elements seem almost that much more extraordinary. As you're choosing skin, hair, and eye colors for your character, notice that the relatively limited palette for each selection is itself limited by where your character hails from. Will you be a dark-haired son of Gondor, or a red-headed horse-lord from Rohan? Every little thing serves the story, the atmosphere.

You don't have Hit Points (HP) and Mana, you have Morale and Power. On the surface, it sounds like a cheap distinction, but it goes deeper than that. Your Morale (roughly equivalent to HP) can be capped by powerful evils that inspire Dread, for example. When this happens, not only does your Morale total drop in proportion to just HOW evil the big bad you're fighting really is, but the whole screen rushes towards you and blurs for a moment, before settling back into place with an even MORE muted color palette. It's really wonderful theater, brilliantly designed and flawlessly executed. These little touches are everywhere in LotRO, and they add a level of polish that makes the odd bit of dodgy dialogue stand at attention and read like Tolkien.

Turbine must be given credit for their very bold art style. It's bold in a counterintuitive way; the artwork itself isn't highly stylized, in fact, it's as nearly photorealistic as it can be while still depicting a fantasy setting. The palette is restrained, drab... real. This relative dullness allows the game to really highlight visuals in the same simple way that reality does, if you let it. Run up the side of a hill in LotRO, and find yourself in a field of gently swaying white flowers, and you will stop, and just look. It's beautiful, and there is absolutely nothing remarkable about it.

Water effects are similarly mesmerizing, but the little bits of the stage that peek through here and there are more obvious with the water's surface than anything else. It handles reflectivity of objects near the surface relative to your point of view, meaning that if you are standing next to a bright copper node and you angle your point of view so that it sits before a distant pool of water, the water will appear to reflect the copper node, which is of course impossible. It is one of only two egregious examples of broken illusion I have found yet in this game; the other was an invisible wall I ran into while swimming down a stream.

I've expressed my love of random map dungeon crawls in other game reviews (like Alien Syndrome and Phantasy Star Portable), and an MMORPG (MMO Role-Playing Game) is nothing if not a truly enormous dungeon crawl. The problem with that is often how to get the user to understand where to go next without talking down to them. In the latest update to the game, which was released about a week after I started playing, you can select up to five quests to track with some text on your screen. With each of those, you can click the little ring icon next to the text and examine the quest log entry for that quest, in case you need to re-read some of the content and figure out what to do next. As far as where to go next, this is handled with a simple arrow pointing towards the nearest quest-related area for the quest(s) you are tracking. It's not quite talking down to the player, because the arrow points straight in that direction, and does not account for changes in terrain or elevation, what kind of hostile forces you may run into on the way, and so on. It's a brilliantly simple solution, though I am occasionally annoyed that I haven't figured out how to select which quest I want to get directions to, as it's not always the one that's closest.

Customization is not quite as deep as it is in WoW, with no user-created add-on support (to my knowledge), but what's there is certainly serviceable. So far, I've found myself missing only the auction-house tracking add-on, as I now have to try to guess at the value of my goods to sell to other players, and can't build a long-term reference of the market on my server. You can scale the entire user interface (UI) to your liking, and move the components around by entering a UI-editing mode with a simple key command, and then keying back out of it when you're satisfied with where things are.

MMOs are often about loot, which means you need space to carry things that you pick up. LotRO starts you off with all the bag space you will ever have, which is good and bad. For the beginner, it's great, especially if you're familiar with WoW and the very limited bag space you start out with. As you progress, I imagine it's quite limiting, because you can never replace your starting bags with much more generous ones. You do have immediate access to a vault, and you can purchase additional vault space at certain levels.

Combat seems, in a general sense, pretty standard; you target (or get targeted by) enemies who are near enough, you fight them or you run away, and it's basically Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots with 3D models until someone runs out of steam and drops dead. Between just the two classes I've played with so far, there is plenty of variety in the specifics of how this happens. Combat in modern MMOs seems in large part to be how to make each class its own minigame when the battle is joined. All I've seen in LotRO so far convinces me beyond any doubt that I will have a very unique (and likely enjoyable) experience as I make my way through all the classes.

My Minstrel uses ranged song attacks and can't take very many melee hits, but she also has strong heals, so she's reasonably survivable against single enemies of a similar level. The Warden has a unique UI widget to handle "gambits," LotRO's word for the combo-and-finisher system of play they've developed. As your Warden progresses, more gambits become available to them, and the number of moves you can drop into the gambit widget grows. The gambit widget fills automatically as you perform any of your basic types of attacks -- a quick thrust, a shield bash, or a battle cry, to start -- and once you've created a combination out of at least two of them, your finishing move becomes available, with enhanced effectiveness that relates to how the gambit was built. For example, you may use your shield bash twice, and then clear the gambit with a finishing move that improves your block rating temporarily.

Another given for the modern A-list MMO is crafting -- give players components, tools, etc. and allow them to make their own loot. LotRO again goes for the unique factor by combining sets of the basic trades (which you cannot select individually) into careers made of three parts. For example, the Armourer (British spelling abounds) is a Prospector, able to mine and smelt ore, a Metalsmith, able to fashion their ingots into chains, plates, and ultimately, armor (I mean "armour"), and a Tailor, able to take prepared leathers and create various lighter forms of clothing, as well as the connective pieces used in the heavier gear you can fashion with your Metalsmithing. At first, this system feels limiting, but in reality, it's no more limiting than any other MMO that imposes limits on how many tradeskills you can take, and it's another example of the atmospheric, story-centric approach that LotRO has taken to the MMO.

Still one more truly singular aspect to LotRO that stands with one foot outside of the game world is the developer's relationship with the user community. They flat-out ask the community what feature(s) they want most, and have actually changed the course of their development plans in order to satisfy those user requests. The biggest example so far is the inclusion of player-owned housing and guild halls. While this was always a feature intended for inclusion at SOME point in the game's future, my understanding from what I have read and heard to date is that it was the user community clamoring for it that caused Turbine to put it at the top of the feature list, and implement it more or less immediately (that is, before just about anything else). If you really get caught up in the expertly crafted world that Turbine has made for you to play with, you can literally move in to your own house within LotRO.

You can even join with your friends for some impromptu in-character jamming, as equipping any of the various instruments (even for non-Minstrels) will let you type /music and then press numbers 1-8 to play notes in an octave. You can shift them up or down with the ctrl or shift keys, and there's even some polyphony. It's clunky if you want to take it as an instrument, but this sort of feature is everywhere in LotRO, and the complete effect is pretty amazing. For a few silver pieces, you can even establish familial relationships between characters. The in-game support for roleplayers is fantastically deep.

Sometimes it seems like they've gone overboard in skinning the game to make it really unique. They've renamed just about everything but the mailbox and the Auction House, like "Fellowships," instead of groups or parties, "Kinships" instead of Guilds, and so on, but it cannot be said that they've gone about their mission half-heartedly.

If you felt like WoW was too cartoony for you, but you shuddered when you thought back to how obfuscated everything was back in Everquest I: The Anniversary Edition, give LotRO a crack. It's not just a good-enough fantasy MMO to distract yourself between WoW expansions. It's an elevation of MMO development to art, and it's not likely you'll find anything quite like it anywhere else. The one exception, and you can be glad for it, is that like most major MMOs these days, there's a free downloadable 10-day trial. If you can't wait to upgrade, like me, your 30 free days that come with the game itself are just tacked on to the 9 trial days you'll have left when you realize you just want to subscribe and dive in headfirst.

Turbine did a great job with this expansion.

They added two new classes: the warden and the rune keeper. I was happy with concept behind the classes.

The warden is a mix between the champion(melee AOE DPS), and the guardian(tank). Great solo class! They are officially a tank class, but again, they have decent DPS as well. They have a "gambit" system. What this is, is when you click skills in a certain succession, you will come up with a certain special skill to use. It's good to memorize the gambits and what skills get them to pop up. Some heal, others do extra damage, still others give better blocking, etc...

The rune keeper is a fairly advanced class. I thought it was a lot of fun, but there is a bit of a learning curve - especially if you are new to the game. That said, once they come into their own, they can be great ranged DPS(second to the hunter), and great healers(second to the minstrel). There is a range bar that goes both ways. The more it climbs one way, the more the skills get powerful. The reverse is true as well though. If you are blasting things with your DPS skills, your heals will be weaker(some will not even be available) - and vice versus.


They overhauled the graphics a bit. I noticed they looked sharper right away.

I like the new legendary items. Even if you are one who likes to race to the max level, you can still continue to advance because the items also level up as well. As they level they get more powerful.

Next is the new areas themselves. I have only been playing a few months, so I am not an authority in this area. That said, many of my kinsmen(guild mates) have been there. They say the graphics are really awesome, and give you a real sense of being in an underground ancient civilization. They also commented on how enormous and how epic the place felt.

As far as PvP - or PvMP in this case, They revamped and did some balances to the Moors. The moors, for those who don't know is the Ettinmoors. There is a instanced area where players fight against monster players and also do quests/objectives in a very large valley. The valley is a lot bigger than AV (Alterac Valley from WOW).

I want to point out one thing that was true before the expansion, and continues to be now: the crafting. The crafting in this game is very well thought out. It's not perfect(besides we all have different definitions of that anyway), but it is fun and relevant. I can buy items that were crafted that are pretty much in the same ball park as PvP and raid items. This makes for a decent player economy. It's not as complicated as EQ2, but more so that WOW, IMHO. A good happy medium if you will.

Anyway, as a long time 3+ year WOW player who recently moved on, I can really appreciate this game, and the great job they did on the expansion.
If you are a fan of the Lord of the Rings, or simply love MMO's with a good but not stifling story, then this is a good place to invest some time into.

*edit 2/27/09*

I still love this game. In fact the soon to come book 7(free content update) will open up all of Lothlorien! They wanted to release this content with the expansion, but decided to hold off as they only wanted to release it when it was refined and done well. I can really respect their attention to detail. As for Moria, I am loving it! It really is epic and well done. There are many different "environs" in it so you don't get bored with the same ole same ole. If you haven't yet gotten it, or were thinking of getting back into the game, now is a great time to do so!

Just wanted to add a quick review of this online game. Awesome, beautiful, extremely well thought-out, very polished. I tried this game during late beta and couldn't get past the "noobie" area ~ thought it was boring... Well I was in between games a few months ago and saw LOTRO had a 14 day free trial and gave it a second look. Again was bored during the beginning noobie section but I forced myself to play through it... sooo glad I did! This game really starts to shine at around level 10 and only gets better as you level-up.

I would say the player base is perhaps a little older than the average MMO and is top notch! I have asked questions in the /advice channel several times and have always got a respectful and helpful answer. Try that in EQ2/AoC and chances are you will get flamed =(

Some servers are more populated than others... I started (unbeknownst to me) on a newer, sparsly populated server and ended-up switching to another server after about a month. Just go to the forums and do a search to find the more populated servers.

I have played MANY MMO's over the past decade (showing my age a bit there ~ lol) Even met my Husband in one. To compare your MMO likes/dislikes with mine: my favorite MMO was DAoC. WOW just never appealed to me and is one of the few MMO's I have not tried. LOTRO is perhaps the closest thing to DAoC EXCEPT it's "RvR" is considerably different.

Anyway, there is a lot more to this game than meets the eye at first, give it enough time (and research on their forums) and you will probably not regret it. They add free (and worth while) content regularly.

LOTRO is the best kept secret MMO out there!

I left WoW for this. Not because WoW is a bad game but because I was at my wit's end with the brats, the idiocy, the over the top difficult raids that created the brats and the same with pvp support on non pvp servers. It's also nice to get away from the gold farmers and the incessant materials farming that makes it next to impossible for many players to gather materials for crafting.

Many of the WoW "innovations" with the last couple of content upgrades and the latest expansion have all been ripped off from LoTR online. The difference being, LoTR have implemented deeds (accomplishments) and other things far better than WoW has. LoTR has a much friendlier and more mature community. In the two months I have been playing I have yet to see a single farmer or begger. Many players are very helpful in getting you started with information without being snobbish and calling you "newb" and other derogatory names. In short, it's a refreshing breath of fresh air.

You don't feel rushed to "max level" just to join the rest of the herd. There is a great central storyline and many side story lines. The graphics are much better than any mmo I've seen with perhaps the exception of eve online. There are no arena's and no dueling or traditional pvp and this goes a very very long way to keeping the brats away as they have nothing to brag about all day long.

I just can't say enough about it.

The technology is finally advanced enough, and Turbine's game design, writing, and quality control are finally good enough to adequately celebrate the deepest fantasy story of all time in The Lord of the Rings Online, and more specifically in this new expansion, the Mines of Moria.

Your story in Middle Earth is in support of the Fellowship's: You choose your tasks, selected from a wide array of things that need to be done to enable the Fellowship's quest to take the One Ring to the Crack of Doom, where at last its insupportable Evil can be destroyed.

Characters, just as in all MMO fantasy worlds, have basic stats that define your characters' qualities and abilities, but then in addition each gains many various traits and virtues from the very act of adventuring. These further differentiate your character's abilities from those of other characters. In Mines of Moria this differentiation is furthered by the introduction of legendary weapons and class items, resulting in a constellation of possibilities open to the evolution of your alter-ego.

The graphics and lighting are superb, and the world design is magnificent. XP/DX9 as well as Vista 32 and 64/DX10 is solidly supported. The sound track in game, and also available in the Collector's edition, is a real treat for those who appreciate supportive, even impressionistic music.

The clientele you will be joining is by-and-large more mature-seeming than you normally find in these online worlds.

With the option of buying a lifetime subscription, and considering the hours of adventuring entertainment available, there is no more thrifty form of entertainment than Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria.

I've been a player of Lord of the Rings online now for over a year. I have found it to be a fantastic MMO that really captured the lore of Tolkien, while giving you a nice casual gameplay feel. The game is setup in a way that makes it friendly for young adults, while maintaining simplicity for adults. The community is fantastic, and comes across very mature when compared to other MMOs.

** As you know, LoTRO is now a "Free to Play(F2P)" game. You do not have to pay a single dime to enjoy the game. Simply create an account, download the client and you are off with a "free" account. However a Free account has restrictions which can be seen on the main homepage and honestly, in the end will require something along the lines of $150 for you to unlock everything via buying Turbine Points(TP)

* By purchasing this package at its current price ($17.99) You will be getting LoTRO: SoA and the first major expansion, Mines of Moria. (after installing you'll need maybe 1-2 hrs to download and update the client but beats downloading the entire client!) You also will receive VIP status for 30 days.
- Free = basic access to the game, you get the starting areas (lv1-15 zones), and access to the entire Shadows of Angmar Epic quest line (goes lv 5 - 50) but no quest packs, major storage and can only carry 2 gold per toon.
- Premium = you purchased a copy (like a physical copy, or let your subscription expire). Basically it is a Free account w/ less restrictions
- VIP = subscription based account, currently it is $14.99/mo or $9.99/mo (if you sign up for 3mo or more in advance)

If you have wanted to try LoTRO I ** HIGHLY ** recommend you create a free account and download the client to test the game out. It only gets better past the initial starting areas so if you had a blast with those you definitely should purchase this edition. $17.99 for 30 days of VIP service, SoA and MoM unlocked. You only will have to purchase Siege of Mirkwood then for something like $19.99 worth of TP (it was a $19.99 expansion at launch so makes sense) and you are all set. You end up saving quite a bit of money with this box set

$9.99 (or 14.99) for a free month, $19.99 for MoM purchase so right there is a $30 value for just $18 not even including the fact you now get PREMIUM status if you decide to unsubscribe/not subscribe which grants you a few extra perks.
** If you subscribe you get 500 TP per month, Siege of Mirkwood costs I think 2000 TP so after 4 months of subscribing you can purchase SoM w/o paying anything more than simply having been subscribed for 4 months as a VIP **

****** for those who have never played Lord of the Rings Online
- This game has a very casual feel to it. There is no need to rush or mega grind.. yet if you do grind deeds you are given rewards in the form of free TP to use at the store, Traits to buff your character, titles, experience etc.
- With Mines of Moria you gain access to customizable weapons known as "legendary Items" . These are pieces of gear that you can acquire when venturing into Moria that produces randomized stats and legendary perks. As it levels up you can unlock additional random perks (you get to pick from a list of 2-4 per level up) so in a way you customize your weapon and offhand. They are a dime a dozen so if you are not happy with the sword you found? Just find another or trade at a NPC for another sword to test your luck.
- Trait system allows you to customize the stats of your toon to create a unique feel, cover up a weakness in your stats, or enhance existing stats
- Plenty of Raids and epic raid battles which drops epic loot ^_^
- Plenty of repeatable dungeon spots to grind unique coins to purchase radiance gear (special gear with amazing stats and set perks that grants "radiance". Allows you to offset the negative effects of areas; but you want this gear. Amazing stats!)
- Crafting perks as you become loyal to factions and your crafting guild (unique recipes and ability to craft legendary upgrades etc)

The game went through a major "cosmetic" overhaul the past few months, since turning F2P, fixing many little annoyances the community had; and now truly provides a fantastic experience you should at least test out

edit(7/29/2011)
- Radiance has since been removed to make instances/raids easier to get groups for
- Rise of Isenguard pre-order pack is available via the Lord of the Rings Main Page (good until 9/26/2011). For $49.99 you can get Moria, Isenguard, Mirkwood + Trollshaw, Eregion, and Lothlorien quest packs. + tons of bonus items (including a +25% exp item). Ideal for someone who does not own any of the expansions and is on a Premium or Free-2-Play account

Seriously, I've played WoW for 3+ years then hopped over to Warhammer. When WAR started to go south due to server population I was struggling to find something to play. I refused to go back to WoW. I picked this up as a trial and all I can say is... Amazing. I can't believe I waited this long to try this game out. The graphics are A+. Quests and storyline are deep and engaging. The world feels alive with its rich details. Hobbiton, Bree, the Barrows... its all here. The world is HUGE! But for me, the best part of it is the community. I have not seen such a helpful, easy going and mature group of gamers since the old days of Asheron's Call. I really appreciate the players in this game. It's true when they say this is the MMO of grown-ups. I can't tell you how thrilling it is to be standing atop Weathertop, bow notched staring a charging troll down as it rampages toward you. Wow... it doesn't get better then this. Buy this game.... NOW!

I've been playing LOTRO since beta testing. In the many online games I've played in the past the first expansion was usually my cue to quit the game. Such expansions invariably cater to the hard-core gamers and mega-guilds, and usually tip the balance of power so far in their direction that a casual player like me just couldn't keep up.

Invariably that is, until now. Though the overwhelming bulk of the Moria expansion is meant for levels 50+ it IS easily possible for a player of the appropriate level to go through the quests solo. An adult with a full-time job can come home at night, log in for an hour and actually have some fun. I've never seen an online RPG do that before, and it's a refreshing change.

Gameplay itself is top-notch. The environments are gorgeous and faithfully rendered from Tolkein's descriptions. This game also has, on average, the most courteous and least "in your face" player community I've yet been exposed to. Highly reccommended.

Lord of the rings online has now gone free to play. What that means for you as a gamer is that it no longer cost 15$ a month, but you can play it for free choosing which aspects of the game you wish to purchase with TURBINE POINTS (The mode of game currency that can be bought with real life $$ or earned in game) With the purchase of this expansion from amazon you will get many things that would cost several times the amount in turbine points. As for example.

You usually start with 3 inventory bags..this expansion gives you two more.
You usually will not have the warden class to play...this expansion gives it to you
Same with the runekeeper class.
It opens up all your virtue slots
It gives you 500 Turbine points for going VIP for the 1 month playing time (which comes free in the box)
It gives you 2 extra character slots.
It gives you the mines of moria expansion

.....and you get to keep all this stuff even when you drop from vip back to ftp (free to play)

As stated before the cost for all these that would be bought with turbine points is several times the cost of this box set sold by amazon, thats why these box sets are being sold like wild fire, so if you play LOTRO then you should buy this box set as soon as possible. They are not going to last long, and word is supplies are already dwindling. If you play LOTRO you owe it to yourself to get this box set, save yourself some heartache and some hard earned $$ and just buy it now.

As far as the box itself i ordered 2 copies of it. One for me and 1 for my wife. One of the boxes was a little banged up and dented, but i didn't really care since if you have already downloaded the game client and are playing... the only thing you really need from the box is the "product key code" to open up all the stuff for you.

All in all a purchase worth every penny many times over.

I can't believe it has been over 2 years since LotRO first came out. While I have gone through periods where I set the game aside, I always came back to a game that has grown in my absence.

Perhaps that is the hallmark of a Turbine game - first with Asheron's Call and now with LotRO - the quality of their free content updates. Every few months they release a new update with new content, UI improvements, fluff and player driven "fixes". This is a company that cares about their players (they are driven by their fans [pun and motto]), listens to many of them and ultimately makes the game right. When you leave for a few months it always seems like you are coming back to a new game.

If you get the opportunity, I strongly recommend getting the lifetime subscription. Typically $199, it frees you both from the monthly fee and the constant debate over whether you should cancel if you want to take a break. While it only pays off financially after 20 months, the piece of mind of knowing that you can always go back works well with the casual environment of the game.

This is a game that favors the casual player. If you want to melt faces, grief noobs or climb the ladder of eliteness there are much better places to showcase your talents. LotRO does however feature multiple avenues for advancement and entertainment. There are:
- a series of quests where you play a chicken (what they call session play);
- an interesting PvP system that allows you to create characters in Sauron's forces (orcs, wargs, etc) that advance in a manner totally unlike the "free players" that come in from the PvE side;
- an extremely advanced player music system;
- a legimate series of raids;
- a meaningful crafting system;
- and an elaborate housing system that motivates you to participate in all the other areas to collect decorative knicknacks.

My greatest pleasure, however, is simply to explore the faithfully and beautifully rendered Tolkienian world. It is amazing to read the books and then see them in person.

Have fun.