Lord of the Time Wasters
By SteveI have a total man-crush on Lord of the Rings Online. I wasn’t able to score a freebie copy—boy, all my industry juice evaporated overnight, sheesh—so I’m a paying customer just like all of you. (Or at least most of you.)
But man, I’m loving being a Hobbit and running around the Shire delivering mail. Seriously, I even have my “Friend of the Post” title, or whatever the hell it’s called. (It also gave me a pretty swank cape.)
I love that there’s more to do here than just “go kill 9 goats,” even if it’s pretty simplistic. (”Deliver mail while avoiding nosey Hobbits.”) And it’s gorgeous, and runs incredibly fast.
Turbine really hit one out of the park here, at least in its first X hours. I’m not sure how long it’ll hold up, but I paid for three months of play. If I’m satisfied with that, it’s worth it to me. (I’m not sure why people have expectations of playing forever in MMOs; just enjoy the thing and forget about it when you’re sick of it.)
Or to put it another way, my World of WarCraft press account ran out of time in March (and I couldn’t get Blizzard to extend it; see, no one wants to help the unemployed guy) and I don’t care. LOTRO is better than WoW… right now.
May 10th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
It sounds kinda like Guild Wars (especially the “looks really good, but runs & loads REALLY fast” part) but then, Guild Wars is also the only ORPG I’ve even played since Ultima Online. I didn’t play Ultima Online for very long either, so it’s really the only ORPG I’ve ever played. I don’t even have true MMORPG experience.
I do have a 100% maxed out (I used all my maxed out items though… >_> I’d have to go buy those again) Gauntlet Legends (N64) character though. That’s enough of a multiplayer experience for me. Too much tag and “I like food!” for a lifetime.
May 11th, 2007 at 6:11 am
Dude, I can’t believe you just uttered the words
“I’m loving being a Hobbit”.
May 11th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Does that make me gay?
(I’m hoping the combination of Hobbits and gay leads to some wonderful Google ads.)
May 11th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Gyro, while it does match up well visually with Guild Wars, it’s nothing like it gameplay-wise. Guild Wars is a pedestrian PvE MMO with a superduper PvP game.
LOTRO is more like a ginormous single-player RPG you can play solo or with friends. It’s really one of the best games I’ve played in a long time.
May 11th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
“Does that make me gay?”
Not unless you *also* jump up and down on a bed with several of your male companions.
While wearing a little cape.
And singing about Tom Bombadil.
May 11th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
I’m pretty sure Tom Chick does that nowadays. He’s become a rather terrifying LOTR fanboy. He’s read the books, plays the boardgame, and now loves the movies.
And he told me he had a girly crush on the game, whereas mine was merely a man-crush.
May 11th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
I’ve considered getting one of the two main boardgames, but so far I haven’t moved beyond a simple Lord of the Rings Risk package that I got as a gift for… Something or other…
I’ve read the Appendices in the book twice now. Oddly, I’ve never read the second half of The Silmarillion.
May 11th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
loving being a hobbit doesn’t make you gay — but saying “man crush” does.
May 11th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
I thought “man crush” made me metrosexual, not homosexual.