Fire in the Hole

To me, WoW's end game just seems like too much work with too little challenge. But enough about WoW in this thread--LotRO (I hope) will be a different game entirely. My friend and I have decided to roll Dwarves, Hunter (myself) and Champion (him), on the new Firefoot server (assuming it's up in time for the public open beta tomorrow). If anyone wants to join us there, let me know. I'll drop a line with my character name here as soon as I secure it, although he'll be away most of the day so we probably won't get into it much until later tomorrow night. The saddest part about this is that I was seriously considering dropping a pre-order today, just to play 23 hours earlier, even though the whole reason I want to play the beta is to see if I want to pre-order it so I can get the $9.99 monthly long-term.

http://www.lotro.com/index.php?page_id=20&pagebuilder[module]=faq&pagebuilder[display_item]=19#adventuringinmiddleearth33

From the countdown on the sign-up page, it looks like it's starting at 2 PM EST tomorrow (23 hours). Also, they're opening up four new servers for all the open beta chaps, so I'll probably be joining one of those (Nimrodel is an... interesting name).

Well, my interest in playing (and time available for) WoW has been dwindling, but I recently tuned into this little gem coming out of Turbine. Turbine is the latest (and, apparently, last) in a long line of developers that have been playing a sort of hot potato with this license to develop an MMO based on the books. This means that the game has technically been in development for over four years, and now it is finally set for release on the 24th of this month with. Live content is claimed to cover approximately the first book of Fellowship, with the playable region limited to Eriador and the final areas being Trollshaws (around Rivendell) and Angmar (Ringwraith city in the North), but Turbine expects expansions to follow Frodo's journey as a "parallel storyline" all the way through. LotRO is most directly (and often) compared to WoW in terms of play mechanics, but there are very big differences. Probably the most noticeable is the lack of true, honest-to-God PvP; as the four playable races are all of the Free Peoples (Men, Hobbits, Dwarves and Elves--Wood-Elves, mind you, not the High-Elves of Rivendell), combat on that front is limited to "sparring." Instead, Turbine has introduced a Player versus Monster Player system, in which players may travel to designated regions and either assume command of a monster character (Uruks as fighters and archers, spiders, and worgs at present) or simply use their standard character (level 40+) to battle it out. This makes PvMP separate from those who want to just go through the game free of harassment and incredibly available for more competitive types, which is just fine by me. Another big (but less noticeable at the outset) difference is the classes. Although many parallels can be drawn to traditional MMORPG classes, every class (except for Guardian, the tank class) seems somehow unlike those of any other game. One class (Captain) seems to be completely original to me, as I can think of no other class in any other game remotely like it. These differences are most probably because of the lack of traditional magic, which means there is only one real "caster" class (Lore-master) and only magic-like effects present in the abilities of each class. Hell, the squishy healers wear shields and sing songs! Other things to note include the graphic style (which is refreshingly beautiful and very well produced, coming out of the cartoony feel of WoW) and the challenge aspect (LotRO is supposedly one of the easiest MMORPGs to get into and begin levelling, but the challenge increases as you level to become very interesting and engaging closer to the level 50 cap). There are also cooperative abilities called "conjunctions" that may be used by groups of players (which, creatively enough, are called "fellowships" in LotRO, with guilds being called "kinships"). Anyway, the reason I'm opening this thread now is that LotRO's open beta is unlocked to the general public tomorrow (the 6th), so I figured I'd let everyone know about it who hasn't heard. It's nearly a 4-GB download, but I had it done and installed in 8 hours (and there's a Bittorrent option if your direct download speeds are suffering). Open beta is capped at 15, but from what I've heard about the time and challenge involved in getting to that cap, one should be able to try out several classes to the full extent of the beta before the game goes live. Anyone who pre-ordered becomes a "founder," and had early access to open beta (beginning last week on the 30th), but if you like the game enough there's no reason not to pre-order still, because other founder benefits include the option to transfer five of your beta characters to the live servers and access to a "special" $9.99 monthly subscription (normal subscription costs are yet to be determined, but almost certainly more expensive than that). If I really like the game I'll probably pre-order a few days before release just for those benefits. [sign-up and download for open beta can be accessed here (link).] This is the site for North American and Australian players only--link for Europeans is at the bottom. So, this thread is currently for anyone who plans on joining the beta, or simply wants to hear about it from those who do. Maybe if there are any founders on OCR who are already playing we can organize a server for everyone to join; if not, I'll be creating a Dwarf Hunter ASAP tomorrow and posting name and server for anyone who wants to join me. I've got a RL friend planning to join me as a Dwarf Champion already, but the more the merrier. For any tl;dr comments: stfu. ; /

I paid it off at EB with the reserve I had for Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (won't come out before I move anyway, and iirc reserves are locked in to the store they're made at) plus a few trades that a friend of mine never got around to scrounging up cash to take from me. It's too bad Spring Break is this week.

I saw someone wearing an OCR hoodie at a Red Robin in Fair Lakes, VA not too long ago. Didn't say anything, but it put a big grin on my face. Anyone remember doing this?...

So... Brawl was never slated for launch.

You expect people to read anything on the first pages other than the OP?

ctrl-f "Wii" No matches found?

Last I heard it the looks of things were that they'd probably come in exactly that order, but who knows how it's panned out more recently.

Hm... ?

I still have yet to hear any official confirmation (read: not "this one guy at this one developer said...") from solid sources (read: Nintendo) that this is happening for all games. Yes, we know it is happening for Battle Revolution, but it's probably necessitated by its functionality with the DS games, and there's no indication that other plans are not in place for other games.

YES !

I thought the Black Temple attunement chart and the Heroes of Azeroth announcement were by far more hilarious.

Yeah, you missed the point, but explaining it will ruin it. Hell, you missing it ruined it.

Did you really miss the point of that post entirely, or are you ranting for other reasons? also awesome != not that bad

i like guns i like swords i like japan red steel had three things i like and yet it still wasn't awesome

Concur also Baha your controversy is made of fail. Although FFTA really isn't worth more than $10.

and when offtop gets bored offtop gets angry

Shut up. Maco, buy Golden Sun. You won't regret it.

Are you retarded? BUY THE FIRST ONE.

If you do not get the original Golden Sun and beat it before playing The Lost Age you will be sorely deprived. So I hear FFV and FFVI Advance are worth the purchase, regardless of whether you played them before or not. FFIV Advance was all right, though I couldn't get over Rosa's portrait and the ridiculous amount of cheesy pop references, but I don't have a verdict on the other two because I just got them today.

Kill yourself. Please?

You're one of those buffoons who believes there's no such thing as a stupid question, aren't you? I'll give you case in point: Master Chief.

I'd ask why, but wouldn't object.