The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (Preview)

Posted on April 18th, 2007 at 9:47am by Ickle

Lord of the Rings.

 

The first thing I would have to say about it is wow love it, very beautiful and that was with my graphics turned down low, the water effects gorgeous same with the flames.

Loved the attention to detailed in character generation the different races you can chose from elf, human, dwarf and hobbit all of which you have the chose also as male or female except the dwarf (well can you tell the difference? and have you ever seen a female dwarf??). There are the different districts and the fact that when you pick the district some of the fetchers of your character change e.g. the hair and skin colour change on the dwarf from one district to another. Then you got information videos about each of the races and district and the different classes to allow you to really get to know your character. Not only do you get all that you then get a wide range of hair styles/colour, eye colour, facial fetchers, even scars. I also enjoyed the fact that on character generation there is a name generator which goes in to detail how to create a proper elvin name and you can do this for the different races superb and even down to the fact you can create a family tree how many games do you see that in?

Character fetchers well done movement felt good once you get used to it. No point click and the rest is done for you here nope not at all, if you wont to carve up that goblin you need to walk over face him and swipe at him which some times makes combat somewhat difficult but not only do you do this in combat you also need to do this when picking up item that have been dropped a sense of realism which is good thing but at the same time can be annoying, which I believe is going to be a marmite scenario you’ll ever love it or you’ll hate it .

When you start the game I noticed that the different races had different start points e.g. the dwarves started in the mines and the elves started in the ruins etc. I found that you started with very little as in weapons and armour but then found that the early quests are based around you getting used to the way things work and getting your armour and weapons, then before long you are receiving more and more quests and you are starting to move on and out into the world that is known as middle earth. Then you look at the map….how big is it!?  It goes on and on forever opening then once you have come to a stop with the opening of the map you just have to compare your local map with the world map and on the local map you know you haven’t been anywhere yet oh my god there is a lot of gaming hour in this game many people will be lost to it, mums won’t see the kids for some time and partners could end up turning of there pc just to get there attention lol. It’s a good job you can ride from and to some of the long distances places so long as you have been there but if you get half way there and you see something you need to do with one of your quests then hay just jump of the horse I think it is the first time I have ever seen such a thing nice touch instead of having to go to where ever you are travelling to the trek back. The structures, buildings every thing reminds you that you are in middle earth and the fact that you come across so many of the characters from the books that the film unfortunately couldn’t put in, this game has included them.

I found the fact that you can mine materials and craft them yourself was a different and innovating idea nice touch but you can’t just go and do this you have to learn how to do this and you have to find the rough materials like iron ore you have to find it and you need the skill to be able to mine the iron ore once you done that you then can take it so a crafting area like a black/weapon smiths area then you can give these materials to them or you can learn how to make the weapons or armour your self nice idea

Now then let’s not forget that this is an online game that means multiplayer gaming so if there are any partners out there that would like to spend time with they’re other half they could generate a character of there own and join they’re partners (just a thought). Even if your other half doesn’t join you the multiplayer side of the game is great you even if you are half way through you currant quest you can do what is called quest shearing with people that have joined you or that you have join which saves you having to go over the same quest latter even if you don’t have the quest in your log which in most online multiplayer games is a large issue in some cases. Not only that but say you are having a few problems with a quest you can advertise that you are looking for help with a quest then on the looking for team board it tells every one where you are and the quest your needing to do its great. It don’t stop there though there is more great stuff on here when you are in a team you don’t have to type to each other because there is a chat client built and it has VoIP (Voice over IP) in to the game the only thing you’ll need for that is a mic which means no need to download a voice chat client to the same thing sweat.

The only hang up I can say about the whole game is that I seemed to ever log in at the wrong time or there is a constant load of update to the game which is understandable to some degree but it always seem to take an age to download and by the time its done think to yourself yep I’ll have a play now nope more shutting down servers and oh look more downloads hopefully this is just the fact of it being a the beta programme and when the fall game is released  the downloads will be quicker because that is the only thing I can see that could end up letting this hole game down.

Previewer: Ickle