Tag Archives: lord of the rings online

Today is the last day of the LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online) closed beta and it will be a deadly day for all the characters. All current characters will be deleted tomorrow. At 7PM Eastern time today the developers will drop high level monsters in towns all over the place. My level 28 minstrel will die a glorious death while healing as many people as I can. It’s been fun and I haven’t even touched half of this game.

Seeing blurry view due to being drunk

I saw frodo at rivendell protecting the ring

I participated in a pub run from one side of the world to rivendell which is a deadly place for low levels like me. I made it through because I was in a group of 10 people all running with some high level hunters for protection. We stopped at the pubs throughout the world to drink beer. Yes when a character drinks beer they get drunk and the world gets very blurry. Put your graphic setings to medium or higher to see these effects. At lower levels you will see little difference.

I ran from Thorin's Hall to Rivendell

A beautiful waterfall at rivendell

I also joined up with fellowships to finish some hard quests with success and some failures. Some of these quests which are labeled for low levels are very hard. Any quest in the Great Barrows should not be done at levels under 20. Also the quest to retake weathertop needs a high level group to finish it.

The open beta starts on the 30th for all people who have pre-ordered the game. A week later the open beta will be opened for everyone else who can get the game cd. I think they will have them in a certain magazine. I’ll find out more before it all begins and post about it. Only pre-ordered people will have their characters moved to the live game.

There’s only 4 more days for the closed beta for LOTRO to end which will wipe all the current characters. On March 30th the open beta for Lord Of The Rings Online will begin for the people who have preordered the product. Everyone will start from level 1 on the first day. I’ll be one of those and all ready to make my permanent characters. I don’t know how much time I will have to play but at least I know the way to get over level 20 and where the dangerous places are.

Johnnyo is my hobbit burglar

Johnimli is my dwarf guardian

johnsono is my hobbit minstrel

It took me 3 weeks for my minstrel to get to level 22 but I’m going to probably go slower this time so I won’t fail in a fight. In this game you don’t die but you actually flee from battle after your morale goes down to 0. You will reappear at the nearest respawn location with something called dread. This causes your morale, which is your life status, to be lowered for 10 minutes. It also causes lot of damage to your armour and weapons which you have to repair and can be costly. The benefit of not fleeing from battle is you gain titles like “The Undefeated” which is more of a pride thing to show other players. I was able to get to level 8 before I was defeated in a fight.

Lowest graphical settings

Medium graphical settings

Highest graphical settings

These pictures don’t show how amazing this game looks on a really good computer system. I played it on my slower system, which is an amd athlon xp 2500 with 1 gig ram, and kept it on the lowest settings with little lag but can’t play any higher. My brother’s new computer, which is an intel core 2 duo with 2 gigs ram, can be put on the highest settings with almost no lag. More memory seems to make a big difference in this game and obviously a better graphic card.

The most impressive thing about this game is the graphics and the weather system. I haven’t played a intensive graphical MMO before so this gets my notice. Probably in a few months I’ll take it for granted. You will also have day and night changes. The stars are fantastic at night and some of them twinkle if you look closely. Someone mentioned that all the constellations are there but I haven’t checked that for myself.

Moon and stars at night

Rainbow after the storm

Raining storm while I travel

One day it can be a beautiful day fighting orcs and then the next day you can find yourself in a lightning storm with pouring rain. In some places the fog rolls in and is hard to see what’s coming at you. This can get scary in the old forest where trees and roots move around you. After the rain you might get the chance to see a rainbow.

They recently had to stop the rain because of a bug in the sound system. Hope they get it fixed before open beta because it adds a lot to the realism of the game. My biggest warning for people who don’t want to fail in a fight is not to run through an area with high level mobs. They will chase you and some will hold you with nets or webs. This is how I failed for each of my characters. It would be better to fight 1 or 2 enemies at a time when going into dangerous areas. You can also start a fellowship with other players or a bigger raid party. Lots of fun to have in this game and it’s nice to check out the scenery too.