LOTRO NDA is lifted

[TwiNCannoN]

Only thing that might be different is lacking the high-res textures (as far as I've seen, they only come from a disc installation, not downloaded)... can check if you have them or not by looking for "client_highres.dat" in your LOTRO directory

[Draegan]

I see. I'll just flush out all my LOTRO directories and install from the disc. I'm at work so I'll wait till tonight.

[Azziane]

Originally Posted by Rayne

Damn! Near a half-million open beta invites so far.

The Lord of the Rings Online™:Shadows of Angmar™ > Open Beta World Tour

If AoC and Warhammer experience similar results, i'd expect WoWs population to thin out quite a bit as the gamespace begins to spread out among these three games.

Invites is the key word there. Through beta it felt like they were desperate to get players to play their game, even for free. A lot of cash/gift certificate prize events to get you to log on, buddy beta invites and whatnot. I may not be very familiar with beta processes but it definitely felt that way.

Anyway... They can invite 5 billion people to their beta it doesn't tell us much about how many of them will actually try it or how many will stick with it.

[Lonin]

Originally Posted by Draegan

I see. I'll just flush out all my LOTRO directories and install from the disc. I'm at work so I'll wait till tonight.

I just put the pre-order disk in and "repaired" the download client to add the high-res textures. Worked fine.

[Shots]

Originally Posted by TwiNCannoN

Only thing that might be different is lacking the high-res textures (as far as I've seen, they only come from a disc installation, not downloaded)... can check if you have them or not by looking for "client_highres.dat" in your LOTRO directory

Son of a .... Now I need to get a DVD somewhere with the client on it. :/

[Lonin]

Originally Posted by Shots

Son of a .... Now I need to get a DVD somewhere with the client on it. :/

PCGamer's latest issue has it.

[Lonin]

Here's a good class write-up someone posted on my guild forums:

Burglar - Stealth, Crowd Control, Starts Conjunctions (like an HO kinda), has a nice self heal for soloing, they have tons of utility and save your ass skills. Burglars are great if you love to have strict control over your soloing situations....(scenario: aim (auto-crit you can use every minute) crit-backstab the first mob, tab, riddle (mez), tab back, finish that mob, hit the 3rd mob and kill it, heal yourself on that one, then go for the last one, and you just took 3 equal level mobs at once and end the fight with almost full life)

Captain - a new kind of class to LoTRO, it is actually really nice way of making a fair damage support class.... it fills the role a paladin usually takes up in most games, but does it in a different play style, you are a melee, but you get a little herald pet that follows you around and buffs the group, but also does damage and has nice HP, captain has reactive group buffs and can heal others and rez also.

Champion - Biggest DPS, they have the best AE damage, like 4 or 5 ae attacks, they are pretty much like a fury speced warrior from WoW, the most melee combat moves, a small self heal, they get heavy armor at 20 and heavy shields at 30, so they can be decent tanks higher level

Guardian - The tank, pretty much every skill they get has a taunt or threat increase that goes with it, and evade/parry buffs, they dont do much damage, but they can absorb tons

Hunter - The ranger basically, all their big damage comes from ranged, they also get traps for minimum crowd control, they get a few melee skills, but seemed to be geared at getting them back into ranged combat (e.g. a large slow melee attack), they have the highest damage moves usually, they have a thing called concentration that is like the champions fervour they have to build to use some of their better bow shots, hunters also are the evac‘ers and the people who get group ports to other towns.

Lore-master - The caster, pretty nice damage, they cast your basic array of fire spells, some earth spells that are ae and roots, they also do Crowd Control, and get a few Heals for other classes, they get a pet (crow for resist debuffs, or bear for tanking), a mix between a caster and a pet class.

Minstrel - They are the healer, as far as soloing minstrel is very very powerful, they can do a fair amount of damage, and they twist songs in a stacking fashion 1, to do 2, to do 3, to do a ballad, etc. it‘s real fun if you enjoy pushing buttons constantly over and over, they buff groups, get alot of heals, and in a group situation they are the main healer, but unlike other games healers, they are expected to be in melee range of the mob instead of out in back jerkin off. They also get feign death.

[Twobit Whore]

I loved the low level trap the hunter got. It's like the ice cube WoW hunters get, but you can hit them a few times before it breaks. Plus it looks like a bear trap that clamps onto their ankle!

[Cuppycake]

Whoa, a healer with FD? Sign me up for that class.

[eVasiege]

Some general questions:
These have to have been mentioned somewhere, but how is the leveling compared to WoW/VG etc?
Is the game more group or solo oriented and to what extent?
Are groups solely for the purpose of doing instances or are they feasible for leveling out in the uninstanced zones?
Is it feasible to grind mobs for exp or is it strictly quest progression leveling? Thanks.

[Lonin]

Originally Posted by eVasiege

Some general questions:
These have to have been mentioned somewhere, but how is the leveling compared to WoW/VG etc?
Is the game more group or solo oriented and to what extent?
Are groups solely for the purpose of doing instances or are they feasible for leveling out in the uninstanced zones?
Is it feasible to grind mobs for exp or is it strictly quest progression leveling? Thanks.

- Leveling is far closer to that of WoW than VG. Pretty casual friendly.

- Again, I'd say the grouping/soloing is quite similar to WoW. It's quite solo friendly, but groups make leveling and obtaining loot considerably faster/easier.

- Grouping is more oriented for dungeons and instances but can be done on overland stuff. LOTRO uses a similar plain, elite, elite+ mob rating system.

- It's probably feasible to grind mobs, but in my experience questing is far faster.

[SalTheBard]

Minstrel - They are the healer, as far as soloing minstrel is very very powerful, they can do a fair amount of damage, and they twist songs in a stacking fashion 1, to do 2, to do 3, to do a ballad, etc. it‘s real fun if you enjoy pushing buttons constantly over and over, they buff groups, get alot of heals, and in a group situation they are the main healer, but unlike other games healers, they are expected to be in melee range of the mob instead of out in back jerkin off. They also get feign death.

For anyone that played a Bard in EQ and a Minstrel in LOTRO how similar are the 2? They sound really really similar.

[Shots]

Originally Posted by SalTheBard

For anyone that played a Bard in EQ and a Minstrel in LOTRO how similar are the 2? They sound really really similar.

Pretty similar, in that you'll be basically playing x number of songs in an order over and over. But in LOTRO it's more reactive, if you get a resist on say a Tier 1 damage song it won't unlock Tier 2. So you may end up using another Tier 1 song for the next attempt (which may also get resisted). It's more noticeable when you're fighting monsters 3 or more levels above you.

EDIT: Oh, except that the Minstrel gets heal, revive and feign death.... So, it's more like it includes the EQ Bard abilities while going more hybrid. Really, all LOTRO classes are Hybrids except maybe the Guardian (I'm not sure, I never played one).

[SalTheBard]

Originally Posted by Shots

Pretty similar, in that you'll be basically playing x number of songs in an order over and over. But in LOTRO it's more reactive, if you get a resist on say a Tier 1 damage song it won't unlock Tier 2. So you may end up using another Tier 1 song for the next attempt (which may also get resisted). It's more noticeable when you're fighting monsters 3 or more levels above you.

EDIT: Oh, except that the Minstrel gets heal, revive and feign death.... So, it's more like it includes the EQ Bard abilities while going more hybrid. Really, all LOTRO classes are Hybrids except maybe the Guardian (I'm not sure, I never played one).

I just might be playing LoTRO then. Sounds awesome. Can you explain the Tier 1 damage / Tier 2 damage thing to me?

[Twobit Whore]

You have to land a tier 1 song on the mob to move up to a tier 2 song.