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more LOTRO questions

S

Sevin0oo0

Guest
Like a previous thread, I'm also a current UO vet, disgruntled as well, and looking for something else, and I have a few questions about LOTRO:


I already tried RoM, lasted about 30mins before uninstall - seemed like the mouse had over-steer or something; at some point, while sitting on top of a horse, all I could see was its underbelly, something very unrealistic about that. Weak hardware had something to do w/ it too I suppose.
1. Think I'll have similar graphics issues w/ this game?(1.7ghz celeron laptop,2gb ram, xp, a min. of other apps running)

I, as others, have waited as long as 9 hours to get UO in-game help - then usually just to receive a canned response, like look in the Help archives.(One got a response that said thank you for playing Warhammer online, lol)
2. Do you have good in-game support, and how long does it take?

As more and more new content is added, additional bugs arise as well, sometimes w/ in-game possessions going poof; Most people have to find 'work-arounds' for some of these bugs, while the UO Developers stay pretty much mute.
3. Do you get Dev feedback, advice,acknowledgment, or 'something/anything' on problems?

Sometimes UO content is released w/ Dev's knowing beforehand it's flaky, but telling us later 'oops, our bad'
4. Is your content tested before release, or is it all about 'get it out the door'?

UO's Dev's have openly stated they are 'forcing a play style'.
5. Can you play as you please, w/o worry about balance?

UO's current producer doesn't even play UO, and doesn't stay updated on play styles either, but calls the shots
6. Does whoever's in charge there play the game, or is it just a job?

Communication from our whole UO team is very sporadic
7. What type of communication/updates/plans/info do you get?

8. What's the total install size for the low rez version? (roughly)

UO doesn't have an official forum, just 'fansites', people are Mad, depressed, quitting(or threats of), just very, very negative
9. What is the overall mood of people playing, and posting on the forums?

10. I tend to play ONLY solo (non-pvp), is hunter-elf a fair first choice?

11. I hear your PVP system is 100% consensual?

12. Since it's Content for Sale, how much should I expect to spend, and how soon will I need it?

Thinking of sales, Some have tried to purchase game time, upgrades, items, etc and encountered a LOT of problems, Especially w/ 3rd party sanctioned sites
13. Do you get help w/ items you buy, or just a deaf ear?

14. What are subscriber rates doing?

I'll quit here, and say Thank You in advance for your answers - 10+ yrs playing UO and just looking for a new home, ya know?
And even if I don't play, your help and response may hay help someone else looking into your community
 

Valfelan

Visitor
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Hi SevinOooO,

I'll try to answer your question the best i can.
1> graphics issues, your machine should be able to run the game, you might want to go to the advanced graphics options and set then as low as possible and go from there.
2> in-game support, the support staff is helpful and seems to be on the ball, i do not post many tickets myself but from friends i've been told they are answered within an hour or so, you will get an email as well notifying you of any solution. i don't know of any items going Poof!
3> see #2
4> content is tested on a seperate server called Bullroarer, V.I.P. members can login, test and report any bugs they discover before the content goes live.
5> you can play as your please, there is so much you can do, if you just want to craft you can farm materials to your hearts content, you can solo most of the quests, explore, roam or just site-see at will, there are no restrictions except for where you travel due to the level of the mobs and moria of course, you must be at least lvl 45 to gain access.
6> I have not seen any Turbine "Staff" in-game since launch but i assume they are on the side lines if trouble should present itself.
7> Turbine keeps us informed all the time of upcoming content, patches and down times approx. 2weeks or sometimes months prior to updates and so on.
8> i don't have a low rez version but the regular rez folder is 6.92gb. i'm guessing that's about medium resolution. High rez folder is 10.2gb
9> the forums tend to be very active all the time, there is a lot of content to learn and many of the players try to answer any questions people may have. in-game the atmosphere is very friendly, most people are willing to assist any way they can to help others. it's a huge community and for the most part everyone is respected and not harrassed becouse of their style of game-play.
10> I started with the Elf hunter as my main character, i love their skills and high DPS, the hunter is a good solo class to start with, to date i have raised 5 of my 9 characters using the hunter to supply them.
11> PvP is just that, you have to travel the Ettenmoors to play as a monster or free people, going there means you consent to be hunted, there are no rules in the ettenmoors.
12> i've been a subscriber since the beginning so i really cant say, i'll have Triberius answer that for you. :)
13> if you buy the item in-game you can use the appropriate chat channel to get answers on items, people are quite willing to relay what they know.
14> subscriber rates are very affordable and worth every penny in my opinion, $10 a month is a great price for all the content and options we get.
 

Triberius

Firefall Moderator | LotRO Moderator
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Well as to how much you will have to spend and how soon...

A lot of that is up to you, but to save yourself some money here's what I'd do. Go to Amazon, order a copy of LOTRO: Shadows of Angmar. You can usually find them for about $10 or less. Make sure it's a new copy. When you get it use the code to get 30 days of free game time, this will unlock multiple features in the game you normally would have to buy Turbine Points for. Additional Storage, Removal of the Gold Cap, Riding Trait for mounts, along with multiple other things. Basically you'd get about $30 worth of Store Point purchases unlocked for $10.


If you are looking to not spend for as long as possible, you can actually go the entire game without purchasing store points, you get them as regular rewards for completion of "Deeds" in the game, usually in 5-15 point increments. It it entirely possible to earn enough points to gain access to all the games features, but I have to say it will be a huge grind fest to do this.

The earliest I would think a person would feel a "Need" to purchase from the store, is lvl 45, if they are content with traveling on foot. At this point you need either the Mines of Moria Quest Pack or the Mines of Moria Expansion pack from the store in order to acquire and use Legendary Weapons. Though most folks are inclined to pick up points earlier to unlock extra storage and remove the gold cap (after all we all want a Deluxe House right?).

Another reason to purchase early if possible... Trade Restrictions, F2P can't receive gold from other players, they can give gold to other players but not receive. I also think Auction House access has some restrictions on Slots for F2P. These are removed just for Buying Points for the Game store not actually purchasing anything on it.
 
S

Sevin0oo0

Guest
Thanks you two! Those were really great answers. I'm gonna give the trial a test, I have a couple more questions about things..


noob FAQ/Links for things like:
I just took a dirt nap, what do I do now? | I'm behind the wheel, now how do I drive this thing?
Crafting how-to (I want to start an Armsman) | and how many chars can I make?

and About the money...
$10 a month is a great price for all the content and options we get.
If it's F2P, why do you pay Anything? and just pick & choose boosters?
$10 a month, cheaper by 6-mths/yr? Can "game-time codes" be purchased and used?
with F2P, what if I want to take a break from playing for a few months? What happens to my acct, my chars, and my stuff?
Are items in-game sold for irl money by other players?

I saw the product on-line, cheap too (thanks!). Since the game will already be installed from the trial, guess I really only need the code off the box, and not the actual contents?
Will it install and run on a USB drive?

Oh, and cheaters... Is there a problem w/ this? how are they handled?

a huge grind fest
Can you give an example of this? In UO, we recently had a Grind Quest, literally takes Months, in the end - quest discontinued, you get Zero

Thanks again!
 

Triberius

Firefall Moderator | LotRO Moderator
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Thanks you two! Those were really great answers. I'm gonna give the trial a test, I have a couple more questions about things..


noob FAQ/Links for things like:
I just took a dirt nap, what do I do now? | I'm behind the wheel, now how do I drive this thing?
Crafting how-to (I want to start an Armsman) | and how many chars can I make?
Check out this site, it's part of The TGN/Stratics family, you'll find some of the info you want there..
TGN Lotro Wiki

and About the money...

If it's F2P, why do you pay Anything? and just pick & choose boosters?
$10 a month, cheaper by 6-mths/yr? Can "game-time codes" be purchased and used?
with F2P, what if I want to take a break from playing for a few months? What happens to my acct, my chars, and my stuff?
Are items in-game sold for irl money by other players?

I saw the product on-line, cheap too (thanks!). Since the game will already be installed from the trial, guess I really only need the code off the box, and not the actual contents?
Will it install and run on a USB drive?

Oh, and cheaters... Is there a problem w/ this? how are they handled?


Can you give an example of this? In UO, we recently had a Grind Quest, literally takes Months, in the end - quest discontinued, you get Zero

Thanks again!
All right gonna hit this in order!

You can just buy quest packs etc, that's a perfectly acceptable way to do things... I personally bought a box because A: $10 for the box was Cheaper than a Single month sub ($14) or buying all the unlock store stuff separate (about $30-$40 worth of Store Points), plus I got 500 store points for the 1 month of Sub time that came with the box. You don't have to, but I thought I'd share it as an option.

If you take a break, nothing happens unless you have a house. Houses have a weekly upkeep fee. Standard houses it's about 50 silver, Deluxe about 150 silver a week. You can pay up to a month and a half in advance, so it's easy to take a break, just pay up ahead, then log on every month to add to pre-pay til you get around to playing again.

Cash for Item sales are very Taboo, I know one person that recently bought $20 gold from a broker, next day when he logged in there was a note from the GM's stating it was being removed. They are hard core against RMT sales. I'll cover cheating with this as well, they do not tolerate it, honestly coming myself from UO and other games LOTRO probably has one of the most polite and friendly communities I've seen in any game. Trash talk in the chat is minimal and then it's usually more like ribbing a buddy than anything. The game is very well policed to keep cheating and detrimental behavior at a minimal or non-existent.

Yeah you'll just need the code off a box, but having the box is nice it comes with a few Keyboard shortcut cheat sheet, and a nice manual that contains some good info for when you are getting started. Some of the info even applies for non-Newbs, like info on Riding mounts which until F2P hit was restricted til level 20.

USB Drive, It probably would if you have a big enough one, but... I've never tried it. One thing I will say though is USB has a lower data transfer rate, than a HDD. Because of this the Patches that come (which are every month to 3 months) are generally large, and you might have increased time for patches.

As to Grind Fest...

F2P players on both the Standard F2P and Premium F2P Tier, only by default get content in The Shire, Bree-lands, and Lone Lands for free, outside "Epic" story content, which is free pretty much everywhere. All other areas require purchase of Quest Packs from the game store. What I ment about Grind Fest, is many of the deeds you can obtain Store Points for are "Kill 150 goblins in the Shire" and will tier up.. Once you kill 150 you'd get 5 store points then get a new deed for killing 300 more, and get 10 points for finishing that one and get a final deed for 600 goblins and get 15 more points for finishing that one. On an up side this is also how you acquire traits, and advance traits, equipping traits will make your character stronger over time as the traits become stronger from completing applicable deeds.

Pretty much every category of Creature, Orcs, Goblins, many Aggressive Beasts, Evil Humans, Dragon-kind like Worms etc., will have slayer deeds in each region of the game. Sometimes multiple creatures inside a category will have seperate deeds as well. Some Racial traits often are tied to specific types of creatures and come from killing them in any region.

So while it might get dull going out and killing 1000 orcs, then 1000 goblins, then 1000 Blackwold Raiders (type of evil humans in Bree-land) you will get multiple rewards for doing so, and almost everyone does it sooner or later just to get the perks.

On the whole the majority of the game is geared towards being quest driven and a bulk of your Experience for gaining levels comes from Quests, but you can be successful through completing deeds. Good example of this is I have a lvl 57 hunter I play the majority of the time. I took a quest yesterday to go and destroy 5 barricades around orc camps, and kill 10 of the orcs... The barricades give 0 XP for destroying them individually, the Orcs gave me about 250-350xp each (lvl 60-61 mobs on a 57 character) Turning in the quest gave me over 9000 XP. along with some money and Item Experience (Legendary Weapons and Items gain Levels through Item XP) along with Reputation with the Galadhrim (elves of Lothlorien). All of these things can be obtained by strictly grinding away, but...Questing is far faster.
 

Valfelan

Visitor
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Gratz to Triberius, his main character on the Windfola server has graduated to the top tiers of Middle Earth, wont be long he will be telling me what to do lol, :p
 

Triberius

Firefall Moderator | LotRO Moderator
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Gratz to Triberius, his main character on the Windfola server has graduated to the top tiers of Middle Earth, wont be long he will be telling me what to do lol, :p
I wouldn't say that, I'm still learning and still have much to accomplish. I'd have to say one thing I've realized is I sorely neglected Deeds as I went along. Those will have to be worked on. And there's still several Traits I need to acquire. Not to mention I have the Rune Keeper creeping up towards access to Moria and beyond.
 
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