Anyway, there’s some cool stuff coming down the pike with Book 8, as described on Massively, Dol Guldur, Sauron’s old fortress. Sweet. And they don’t stop there – they’re also adding Mirkwood – of the giant spiders from the Hobbit. Awesome. Head on over to Massively for the full scoop.

Anniversary Bonuses

To help promote LotRO for new players, Turbine is offering a special anniversary pricing plan for all subscriptions of 3 months or more. From April 24th through June 30th, players can choose any multi-month plan (90 days or longer) and lock in a monthly price of $9.99 for as long as they maintain that plan. Plus, the game itself is $9.99 on the company’s e-store through this promotional period.

During the anniversary celebration, monsters throughout Middle-earth will drop special rare items that can be exchanged for a gift box that will reward them with a variety of in-game items to aid in their adventures in Middle-earth. Plus, anyone with an active subscription on June 30th will receive a special in-game gift called the Writ of Passage which provides 20% discounts at stable masters throughout Middle-earth.

via LotRO two-year anniversary: Book 8 details announced – Massively.

I’m not entirely sure how the controls would work. Not just the attacking and combat; that could be pretty easily implemented, I think. The thing that would be tricky – as it always is on a console – would be inventory management. It’s already annoying enough on a PC to find the item you just collected… that looks exactly like all your other items. It’s annoying as hell. (are you listening, Turbine?! Give us sortable bags! Umm, no, they’re not) So with a clunky controller, this could be a very special little version of hell. We shall see, I suppose.

View the most recent of this rumor over on LotroLife:

Riders of Rohan next Lotro Expansion?.

Clicky linky: iPhone Wallpapers | The Lord of the Rings Online.

You must think I’m nuts. I downloaded 67 GIGABYTES worth of MMOGs to test. 26 of the suckers, 10 of which I’m focussing on here. As for the other 16? Well, they’re listed at the bottom of the article. If and when I get around to discussing them, they’ll be linked here as well. Let’s just say they weren’t worth my time to review, for one reason or another. Not necessarily because they were bad (although some were beyond bad)… just that I had to choose a sample that would be the games that I’d be most interested in trying out. Besides, it’s not as if one MMO isn’t enough already for most people that actually want a social life. Like you know, a social life that doesn’t involve hitting / or ENTER first.  And I had to pick and choose. So these are the ones I chose:

Dungeon Runners (overview forthcoming)

Guild Wars (overview forthcoming)

Pirates of the Caribbean Online

Everquest II

World of Warcraft (overview forthcoming)

City of Heroes/Villains

Lord of the Rings Online

Runes of Magic

Ryzom

The Chronicles of Spellborn

Happily, I can say that I managed thus far (knock on wood) to avoid severe addiction to any of them. Well, mostly.

The Scope

Before I even get started, I should mention something: I’m a PvEer. I don’t play PvP and it’s not my focus, nor interest. So I didn’t test out any PvP while playing these games. If that’s your thing, these articles may still be of interest to you, but they are talking only in terms of the PvE component of these games. Just thought I’d mention that up front.

I’m not going to be writing hard-core, in-depth reviews of each of these games. If you want reviews of them, the vast majority of these games (perhaps excepting a lot of the free to play ones) have been reviewed ad nauseum elsewhere on the web. What I’m going to do is tell you which ones I think are worth the time downloading and testing. I’ll tell you what I liked, what annoyed me, and what I thought stood out – both in a good and bad way. If you are a newbie, this might be a good place to start before you get your download on.

Just FYI, I don’t really get into that whole ‘role-playing’ business very much. I play these games to get sweet loot. I play to kill monsters.. of some sort or another. I suppose leveling and assign skills or stats has become synonymous with role-playing, which I don’t entirely buy, or take part in. But whatever, that’s for another article.

NEWB!

First and foremost, the difference between a ‘newbie/newb’ and a ‘noob/n00b’. The Urban Dictionary breaks it down like this: Newbs are those who are new to some task* and are very beginner at it, possibly a little overconfident about it, but they are willing to learn and fix their errors to move out of that stage. n00bs, on the other hand, know little and have no will to learn any more.

Read more here: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=noob.

The Breakdown

The articles are broken up into 3 main categories, as I see them:  Free to play games with cash shops (Part 1), Free to play games with caveats (Part 2), and Pay to play games (Part 3).

For each game, I’ve tried to give it an honest shot. Really. Even if it sucked and I swore at myself for doing this while playing, I pushed on. I put myself through the torture so you wouldn’t have to. For the greater good, right? That’s not to say that I played each of these games up to level 30 or anything. Heck, I doubt I broke level 10 in more than a handful. But that wasn’t really the point of these articles; if you want guides, go elsewhere. These articles are intended to give you first impressions of the games and to summarize whether or not it’s worth your while to wait several days (for anything over 3gb) to download and play.

The System

I’ll be talking a bit about how the games perform, so I should give you some context about what I’m running them all on. It’s not a dream rig, but it isn’t bad. I put it together about 6 months ago for a modest $1700 or so. You should be able to build a similar machine now for much less. Nothing’s overclocked, it’s all running at defaults.

Here’s the specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad 2.83Ghz
4 GB RAM
BFG GTX 260 896MB
Built-in Realtek sound
640 GB HDD
Windows XP SP3
26″ LCD running at 1920×1200

I attempted to run every game at full screen and at my default resolution. If possible, I cranked the graphics to the max. I’ll let you know how each game performed at those settings.

The Games

These overviews focus on three main types of MMORPGs: Free to Play games with Cash Shops, Free to Play games with Caveats, and Pay to Play games.

For the uninitiated, the first type listed are games that are (and this is loudly screamed at you on pretty much EVERY game’s site) – Free to Sign Up (no credit card necessary), Free to Download, and Free to Play. So what’s a Cash Shop? That’s how these games make their money. They offer bits & bobs for you to buy via RMT or MT – short for Real Money Transactions or Micro-Transactions – which allow you to enhance your character or overall playing experience. Whether or not you buy anything is completely up to you. So theoretically, you could play each and every one of the following games without every spending a dime.

The second type are Free to Play, but have caveats that adjust your gameplay experience. So what are the caveats? Well, that’s different for each game. I’ll outline what the limitations are on a game-by-game basis.

The final type are Pay to Play games. Clearly, if you want to play them beyond the trial, you have to pay monthly to do so. In some cases, you’ll also have to pay for the game before you can play them, on top of the monthly fee.

I’ve downloaded and tested the following games:

Free to Play games with Cash Shops
Runes of Magic

Free to Play games with Caveats

The Chronicles of Spellborn
Dungeon Runners
Guild Wars
Pirates of the Caribbean Online
Ryzom (formerly the Saga of Ryzom and Ryzom Ring)

Pay to Play games

City of Heroes/Villains

Everquest II

Lord of the Rings Online

World of Warcraft

All right, enough precursor, click on the links below to read what I thought about these games.

Other games I tried in the name of science:

2 Moons

9 Dragons

Air Rivals

Archlord

Atlantica Online

Ether Saga Online

Florensia

Rohan Online

Perfect World International

Pirates of the Burning Sea

Shaiya

Star Wars Galaxies

Talisman Online (shudder)

Vanguard

Warhammer Online

World of Kung Fu

State: Final
Website: http://www.lotro.com
Developer/Publisher: Turbine
The Pitch: You need a pitch? It’s the Lord of the freaking Rings! You know.. ‘my preciousss’ and ‘one ring to rule them all’ and ‘second breakfastses’. If you seriously expected a pitch, then you should just move on to another game.

Performance

The Lord of the Rings ran much better than I expected. Why? Because this game is freaking gorgeous. I fully expected it to run like a bag of crap. But it didn’t. I maxed out the settings, turned on AA and it runs smooth like silk. No hiccups or stalls. Just hawt Middle-Earthy vistas. Speaking of Vista.. I’m running this in XP. Although it apparently looks in better in DirectX 10, (of course only available in Vista), I’d rather shave my head than install that POS on my computer. Here’s hoping Windows 7 is better. (listens closely to hear the distant sound of MS shareholders cheering)

Unique to The Lord of the Rings Online

Middle Earth. What can I say about this that hasn’t been said already? They’ve reproduced it perfectly. Well, maybe not as perfectly as an anal-retentive Lord of the Rings nerd might want, but that’s not me. I liked the books and the movies.. and as far as I can tell, this is exactly what I figured it would feel like to kill wolves and boars in Middle Earth. And the occasional goblin as well.

The Good

Polish, polish, polish. That’s “pahhlish”, not “poeelish”. From the starter area to the quests to the graphics and animations, LotRO simply shines. It’s intuitive and easy to use, even for those who’ve played few online games. The UI is enhanced with attractive flourishes, further infusing the game with a Lord of the Rings feel.

Lore. Many people who compare this game to World of Warcraft will discuss how well written LotRO is, from the quests to the dialog. And they’re right; it is exceptionally well-written. From the comments that NPCs will often blurt out while standing next to them, to the quest text, to the description of a new Deed or Trait you’ve earned; it all works to draw you into the world.

Exploring the world. Playing LotRO compared to some of the other MMOs I discuss, the difference I feel is immediate. This isn’t a game that urges you to “Level up! Find loot! Be uber!”. Yes, you can do all three of those things here. But more than anything when I’m playing, I just like to explore. Not necessarily to complete a quest, but those things do often go hand-in-hand.. but just because you turn around and see a cool ruin in the distance on the top of a mountain next to a waterfall.. and you say ‘Hey. I want to go check out those ruins. Cool.” Oftentimes, Chris and I will remark on what we feel like doing while in game. And frequently, we’ll just say ‘let’s head off towards that quest marker and see what we find’. The hallmark of a good game is where you find yourself immersed in the world, and not in the game.

Titles/Deeds/Traits. Yes, it’s been done before. Compare them to XBox Live Achievements or Warhammer’s Tome of Knowledge or Warcraft’s Talents. Yes, they aren’t always implemented well – for instance, to complete one Deed (and the subsequent Trait), I’m required to kill I think 1300 wolves. Seriously? Not awesome. But those aren’t the ones that I like so much. The ones I find intriguing are the ones that are offered on completion of a quest tree in a particular city or town or ones that I earn after using a skill a certain number of times. These are much more natural and reward me for doing things I’m likely already to be doing. I really enjoy the ones that award me for exploration. It’s the type of addition to the game that makes me think… ‘oh I’ll just head over that ridge and see if there’s another part of the elf ruins over there..’. It’s dangerous (to my sleep patterns, that is), but exciting.

Cutscenes in instances. This is done by some other games as well (CoH/V), and it works equally well here. It helps to get you involved in the storyline as well as the instance that you’re in.

Music. Music permeates LotRO. Not only are there bards throughout the world, the minstrel is a playable class. Beyond that, everyone who plays has the capability of learning and playing an instrument. Even more interestingly, you can form a ‘band’ with your fellowship to make music together. Very cool idea. See here on YouTube for a various selection of Middle-Earth hits.

Combat. Even though I bemoan the lack of flashiness in it, the combat is exceptionally well done. It’s very visceral, with excellent animations and lots of audio cues; clangs of sword on shields and grunts of the dwarves and bellowing minstrels galore. This helps to raise it to a level beyond most MMOs. It makes you feel a part of the combat, beyond just mashing at the hotkeys.

The Bad

Wolves and boars and flies, oh my! Okay, so the enemies at lower levels could use something of an overhaul. Yeah, I know I’ve just started the game and it’s all new to me and everything, so maybe a cave troll is right out. But seriously, how many wolves and board do I need to kill? It would be fine if I didn’t aggro them while running by, I could ignore them. Maybe farm them if I need a bit of cash. But no, I have to run all over the place just to try to avoid inciting aggro on every freaking wolf, boar, and fly in the freaking game. ARGGH. Apparently they figure they can take a level 13 Hunter, no prob, even if they’re a level 5 fly. Nothing is less heroic than fighting your 800th wolf whilst attempting to thwart Sauron’s plans.

Face target/too far away. Get used to reading those messages. Why? Because there’s no built-in way to face your target or run to attack. Hm. Not a game-breaker, by any means. I’d really love a way to turn the visual messages off, though. The ‘bing’ sound is okay and that’d be enough for me.

Iconography. Maybe it’s just me. I dunno. But for whatever reason, I find the iconography in LotRO is just harder to figure out than in other games. In most MMOs, I can look at a skill icon and say ‘okay, that’s likely a lightning attack’… or whatever. In LotRO, even after playing for a while, I still have to mouseover some of the skills I’ve had since level 4 to remember what one does. They just aren’t visually very distinguishable from the rest. In addition to that, many of the icons are red, and the ‘unusable’ indicator for your skills is a red icon, overlaid in the top right corner. I prefer it when skills are dark, indicating they can’t be used, but this is how LotRO does it. So you’ll often have to squint to be able to tell if you can use that skill or not – kind of a pain if you’re a distance-oriented damage dealer.

Not very flashy skills. This is one thing that bugs me quite a bit. If I’m going to involve myself in this big, beautiful world and become it’s biggest hero, I want to feel like a hero. I know that early on, I’m just an apprectice hero. Or a hero-in-training, if you will. But so what? If I’m the one to ultimately rise to notoriety (okay, maybe not as much as say, Frodo, but whatever), I want to feel like I’ve got some appropriately mad skillz up my sleeves. I never quite felt that way in LotRO. I feel competent, sure. And possibly a little bit badass now and then. But never flashy and uber-heroic. I think I’m just a little bit partial to big ol’ light effects and particles when playing as a magic user. And but for the Rune Keeper, there’s precious little fancy heroic effects going on here. If your skills deal with sword use and such, expect exactly that – lots of sword swipes and things. Not overmuch in the way of particles and light displays. Of course, they did this to stick to the lore of the world .. which is good. But I still likes me some flashy.

Summary

The Lord of the Rings Online is a simply fantastic, immersive experience. It’s  interesting to explore, it’s entertaining to discover new areas, deeds and traits, and more than anything else, it’s fun to play. I highly recommend it.

Download value: [rating:9] (9)

Sadly, the options are slim for a non-Bluetooth headset. I didn’t feel like mucking with Bluetooth again (see my upcoming article on Keyboards/Mice problems) so I picked up a Logitech ClearChat PC Wireless headset. The headset isn’t cheap. It goes from around $90 – $100 in the US, or $110 – $150 in Canada. I encourage people to shop around for this as you can usually find a sale. Oh, and because I’m smart I also checked EBay. I found one for around $65. But after currency conversion, and shipping I’d be looking at $100. I also didn’t feel like waiting.

Down to the review. So the headset itself is an attractive design. They feel fairly solid in the hands. The boom mic swings down, and the mic is nice. The headphone part…meh.  Although the foamy parts are nice, I generally prefer closed-ear cans instead of over-the-ear cans. They are pretty small and probably suit a smaller ear than mine. I will probably get tired of the pressure on my ears after a long use. Plus, there’s no way you can look cool in these; even the model at right looks odd with them on.

As far as the sound quality…well that’s where things get interesting. Somewhere along the way I thought that if a game has voice chat capabilities, that they’d have figured it out to make it clear and useful. I think I was let down a lot by Lord of the Rings Online’s (LOTRO) voice chat. The quality frankly was less than desirable. It’s hard to put it in terms for this article, but unless you turn everything down (music, sound effects, etc) then hearing the game along with your friends is just hard to do. If I didn’t know there was a better solution out there, I would have returned these things for the $110 I paid for them.

But I knew there was a solution, it would just have to be through a third party solution. To the best of my knowledge, there are a few voice communication tools for gamers out there. Software like Roger Wilco has been around since my Counterstrike days. But I wanted something that was more full functional and less single purpose. My friends in China didn’t use Roger Wilco to chat, and no business client of mine would want to install it to chat about a project. So the next two options that came to mind were Skype and Google Talk.

Hands down…Skype is supreme master of voice communication. The clarity was perfect. As we both commented while trying these out “it’s like your inside my head”. The one downside to Skype is the memory usage it takes up compared to Google Talk. While playing LOTRO we weren’t seeing any major speed problems that would prevent us from using Skype while we played. Another advantage is having a conference call capabilities. Unless you hack Google Talk, you’re limited to single person chats. Lame IMO.

So there you have it. With the right software this headset is a winner. With the wrong software you might as well pull out the cans on strings.  I’m getting no end of warm fuzzies for Logitech equipment these days!

Rating: [rating:8]