LordOfTheRingsOnline
Latest
Lord of the Rings Online a contender?
On Feb. 12 Turbine officially lifted their non-disclosure on Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. Early word is that the game is actually a potential contender against the juggernaut known as the World of Warcraft. Turbine has incorporated the best elements from their semi-love-or-totally-hate Dungeons and Dragons Online game, while making LOTRO more accessible.Turbine will begin stress testing the game on Feb. 23, which is the best opportunity to try out the game for those remotely curious. A few of the people we spoke with said that the reason the game works is because the Tolkien lore is solid and robust and it is WoW-esque enough to be accessible to the masses, but different enough to be an alternative. The game has an achievement system like Xbox Live, towns apparently change after major events and the instances have a more cinematic feel (a.k.a plot line). We've contacted Turbine to learn more about LOTRO. It would be nice to see some solid competition in the MMO marketplace.
Lord of the Rings Online rewards earlier adopters
In this, the post-Warcraft society that we live in, it means everything if you can jump out of the gate running. With shades of The Matrix Online, Midway and Turbine have announced their pre-order bonus plans for The Lord of the Rings Online, due out this April. By pre-ordering the title now, players will be automatically enrolled into the Founder's Program which offers two very different payment options. Players can opt for a discounted monthly fee of $9.99 (the regular monthly price has yet to be determined), or they can press their luck and dish out a staggering $199 dollars now for a lifetime pass to Middle-Earth. Quite a bit to ask up front for an unproven product, wouldn't you say?Also on the platter for this pre-order feast is early access to the game itself via an ongoing beta. Not only does this mean you can start playing today, but your beta character will also roll over to the final game. Folks who don't pre-order and start the game at level diddly will love this decision come day one when everyone else is flying around on laser-spewing dragons while hamming it up with Gandalf. Oh, and they also get some sweet rings to beef up their characters. Sup, +1 agility?
Lord of the Rings Online: Future Competition for WoW?
With usage statistics showing World of Warcraft so far above any potential competition, you've got to whether any game could challenge the top spot. The last major MMO release, Dungeons & Dragons Online, saw a slight drop in my guild's raid attendance for a week or so, but then everyone lost interest, and was playing again. (More recently the single-player game Oblivion seems to have caused a heavier attendance drop across the realms - though that may eventually play itself out as well.) While a true test of Warcraft's dominance of the market is bound to come eventually, questions remain - when and from where? Well, the developers of Lord of the Rings Online are aiming high - with a target of a million subscribers. Though this is still significantly less than WoW's six million subscribers, it's a big jump over the next nearest competition (Final Fantasy XI, with an estimated 650,000 active subscribers). With continued technical problems plaguing Azeroth, how many people are simply waiting for the next big MMO to hit? And is Lord of the Rings Online going to be the one, or yet another passing fad?
