4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

I recently switched from WoW to LotRO.  Both games have merits, but LotRO seems to have taken the genre one step further in terms of gameplay.  I do a lot less running around than I did in WoW for example, which is a major plus.  I wish they could have licensed the music from the movie though…

Anyone else played both?

I haven’t played both, but I will say I wasn’t really all the impressed with WoW and didn’t renew the subscription when my account expired.  From what I’ve seen of LotRO, it’s nice, but I really haven’t liked any of the fantasy MMOs and am pretty much sticking to City of Heroes/Villains.

I have played both as Jim knows, and I greatly prefer Lord of the Rings Online over WoW. I am a pretty casual online gamer now, and WoW just isn’t conducive to that. LotRO is much more casual friendly and you can get comparable gear from questing and crafting that you can get from raiding(they only have a couple so far, lets hope it stays that way).

I like that the focus of the game is more story based than loot centric, and that the rewards for completing deeds are better than a lot of the gear upgrades you could go after. The questing system is very nice, and the quests are not spread all over the place with no way to know where they are.

Anyway, that is just my thoughts on this subject. LotRO will be played by me for a long time to come, mostly because I signed up for the Lifetime membership .

I had quite a bit of fun with WoW. I haven’t really dug into LotR online yet. Played it a little though and had a great time. I think they took a lot of what was fun with WoW and improved on it. They dropped the annoying stuff. I was surprised at how well they adopted the Lord of the Rings feel. It doesn’t feel like an afterthought to the movies.

Kelly, It’s kind of amusing that you say that. I’ve been playing online games (started with Door games on my BBS, then MUDs, then EQ then WoW) and when WoW first game out, I remember the exact same things being said about that in regards to WoW vs. Everquest.

I wonder if it’s just the climate of MMORPGs is changing.  I haven’t yet tried out LotR Online, but it’s very tempting.

LotR is my first MMORPG aside from MUDding, but I’m a big fan.  It really sucked me in until I had to all but quit playing for lack of time to dedicate to it.

I read the series for the first time in 6th grade and feel like the game has done a pretty good job of bringing it into the visual domain.  It also looks more fantasy and less cartoon when compared to WoW.

I played LoTRo in the beta, loved it to death and bought a couple lifetime subs. The game is much less of a item greedfest than WoW and Everquest 1 were for me.. The kind where you have to spend 9000 hours raiding to get 1 cool piece of uber gear. I like being able to be more casual and do what I can when I can which so far LoTRo has mostly been (there is some areas were you will have to group or die.) I am not sure where Turbine is going with the game but I have faith in them, Ashrons Call 1 was an awesome game and I think they learned some lessons from Ashrons Call 2.

I should say though WoW is and was a lot of fun and if you don’t care about end game gear it still can be. The end game forced raiding is what did me in.  Pretty much exactly that same thing that ended my 5 years on Everquest 1.. although Sony made EQ1 impossible to even solo in the upper levels were Blizzard made it fairly possible in WoW.  Unfortunately I just no longer have 7 nights and 40+ hours a week to raid.. MMO’s should be for fun not a job!

Welcome ElmoFuntz!  Hope you’ll stick around buddy.

WoW after 40th level just becomes a 8 hour a day job and thats the main thing that made me not renew my subscription for it.

I’ll check out LotR when I get some moola.

Maybe I am still one of the few people around that thinks FFXI is better than both of those, but in terms of casual gaming, I think FF is more flexible and rewarding. You can play at your own pace with crafting and other “hobbies” other than leveling, and even on leveling you are not restricted to 1 class, if you split up your time chances are when you want to play with your friend, you’ll have 1 class available near the same level. There are also lots of storylines (although, unfortunately most people choose to ignore them and go straight for the loot).

The only real down-side to FF is the amount of time you need to wait to get a party for either leveling or some important missions that require a group of people.

Three Panel Soul doesn’t really make me too enthused about FF, but eh.

Personally, I play WoW.
I think it does fine for casual play, as that’s what I’ve been doing and basically enjoying for a few years now.

Then again, I’ve been playing for a few years and haven’t even reached level 40.
/shrug

I don’t have an opinion on LotRO, though I’ve heard some good things.

I play WoW, but I’m not too excited about raiding though. I picked it up about a week after BC released, and quickly learned that the endgame raiding is basically a waste of time (the post titled “New Shirt"). As I was just starting out everyone was replacing all that high-end raiding gear they’d spent so much time collecting with random drops and easy quest rewards in Outland, making all of their efforts a complete waste. I’m glad endgame raiding is there, because otherwise the gold buyers would be the best equipped characters in the game, rather than the unemployed. However, with the announcement of their next expansion I decided that I’d just hit 70, get my epic flying mount, and focus on alts until its release, as any endgame raiding I do would once again be made worthless.

LotRO looks awesome, but I’m still enjoying WoW.

zachol - 23 September 2007 07:58 PM

Three Panel Soul doesn’t really make me too enthused about FF, but eh.

A bunch of my friends were talking about their EQ(2) days, and it certainly looks like something I’d have no interest in playing. Things like running around for an hour shouting for an enchanter to cast a spell on you so your next two hours of questing won’t take ten hours, or a guild keeping a boss spawn camped for two days so they can be sure to first-hit it before another group shows up to kill it, or suffering a setback ammounting to the entire week’s worth of playing every time your character dies, aren’t very good selling points for a game.

I like WoW. It’s fun for me, and that’s all I care about.

Of course, my highest level character is 30… but still.

I played WoW for a while, I picked it up just after BC was relesed, but I didn’t renew after my first subscription expired. I just didn’t really feel that it was the big social experience it was made out to be - Everyone seemed to be either an illiterate ten-year-old, or forty levels above me and completely conemptuous. =/

I’m vaguely considering trying out EVE online, just for kicks, but that’ll have to wait until I slow down on my Computer/Warhammer spending habits. =P

Voleron - 27 September 2007 05:42 PM

I played WoW for a while, I picked it up just after BC was relesed, but I didn’t renew after my first subscription expired. I just didn’t really feel that it was the big social experience it was made out to be - Everyone seemed to be either an illiterate ten-year-old, or forty levels above me and completely conemptuous. =/

Try switching to Horde.

I /did/ play Horde, pretty much exclusively. I tried an Alliance Alt for a while, to see if it was any better - nope, no difference. Hell, I even tried a few different servers, and I didn’t see any noticeable improvement.

So, yeah. I have a pretty low opinion of MMO’s in general now, at any rate.