Starting LOTRO this eveing !

[Damien.]

Picked up a bargain whilst browsing a high street retailer yesterday. LOTRO compilation edition and 3 months gaming card for £19.99. Anyway, ive installed it and left it updating so that I can start playing it tonight.

I haven't had much experience with this game so would like some advice as to which character would be best suited for a beginner and what server should i choose.

 

[Tute]

Me and the girlfriend tried the demo a few months back. It's not bad at all, but sadly nowhere near the level that WoW has got to.

We both started with humans, I think I was the equivalent of a Paladin? I had these big shouty spells and a large polearm. She was a healer class.

All was well until about level 20, at which point the quest log fills to the brim with "fellowship" quests that require a competent group to accomplish, and the lack of a well sized subscription base lets it down.

But up to that point, we were thinking it was great, really enjoying it.

Well worth a go.

 

[eekfek]

to be honest you need to sample them all before making your mind up ...

Captain is a good starter class, they are great for solo play and a valuable group member.. you get a Herald who carries various banners raising your morale or stats and also fights mobs with you. The Captain can raise a groups morale, heal them and debuff targets to make things easier and has a whole bunch of excellent skills..

most players will tell you to start with a Hunter and whilst i agree they are great fun they are not really a challenge and servers are flooded with them..

one last tip, everyone welcomes a Minstrel to their group .. whilst they are primarily healers they can sure dish out the damage and again prove a challenge to play and are the difference between a grp completing a task or dying..

have fun, i have seven chars and still dont have an all out fave .

 

[eric_knapper]

Install it as soon as you can as it will take all night to patch up to the current version and then the new book 8 patch should go live tomorrow from about 1pm. Looks like you may be patching for a couple of days.

Eric.

 

[Tombstone]

All was well until about level 20, at which point the quest log fills to the brim with "fellowship" quests that require a competent group to accomplish, and the lack of a well sized subscription base lets it down.

But up to that point, we were thinking it was great, really enjoying it.

Well worth a go.

There are a lot more solo or "small" fellowship quests around now. For instance I levelled one of my characters from 1 to 60 totally solo apart from the occassional epic story quest. At 20 there are a bunch of soloable quests from the Forsaken Inn, those lead onto the Lone Lands and Ost Guruth which has another load of soloable quests, then from there you can go to Trestlebridge which has another load of soloable quests, then onto Esteldin which has absolutely stacks of soloable stuff. By the time all that is done you are into the low 30s.

In terms of subscription base, obviously its got far less in total than WoW, which is why I heartily recommend Laurelin server to the OP (as long as you arent planning on having a ******* name or behaviour). I never see a low population on that server at all. In fact I havent seen the globallff channel drop below 600 people in it for weeks, given that relatively few people on a server even know of the globallff channel..I'm guessing that theres several thousand online when I play in the evenings. Which is pretty comparable to many individual WoW servers.

I agree with Tute, definately worth a go. I have to confess that just as I was losing all hope for the sheer immaturity of the playerbase of most MMOs these days...feeling like I was constantly in a mire of 14 year olds using swear words to look macho and going on and on about Chuck Norris/noobs/whatever other stupid behaviour is "hip" these days...I was sooo glad to find that the level of maturity was considerably higher in general on LOTRO. I still think in the long run that the playerbase in MMOs is becoming like standing in a school playground for me, but at least for a while longer I can enjoy LOTRO and some "old-timer" MMO'ers.

 

[xxalxx]

hmm i bought this the day it cam out but never took to it. may have to give it a go again. Hopefully more polished now

 

[Ethics]

The character creation tells you a pseudo difficulty level of each class, but it's pretty rubbish.

Burglar - De-buffer, conjunction (Fellowship manouvre) starter. Crowd Control. Melee based
Captain - Buffer, resurrection skills, group survivability - Melee/shout based.
Champion - AoE Damage, off tank (can be Main tank in most situations) - Melee based
Hunter - Single target damage, taxi service, decent enough off tank for ranged mobs. Sub-par crowd control with right traits. Range based
Guardian - The main tank class, high armour/morale/mitigation. With the right traits and gear is actually a viable form of damage too - Melee/Shout based.
Loremaster - Debuffer, Crowd Control, Battery for power - Ranged fire/tactical ( a form of skills) based.
Minstrel - The main healing class, all sorts of skills for removing dread, increasing morale etc. Has some damage (nerfed in new book) shout/light based
Runekeeper - Hybrid healer/ranged damage, can play both roles via an attunement system, will expereience a lot of 'balancing' in the near future. Ranged fire/lightning based
Warden - The new tank class, wears medium armour, gains threat via leeching other members as opposed to force taunts. Melee/ranged combination

That's a basic overview of the classes. Out of the above the most straight forward are champions and hunters IMO. But funnily enough, they are the most common and badly played. A lot of people say those classes are 'easy mode' when they just haven't met a good player.

As already suggested, i'd try them all, you get plenty of slots and they are per server so using 2 servers you can have every class.

 

[Damien.]

Thanks for the advice, i cant wait to play it now.

Its already installed and patched, just a matter of clock watching and training before I can sit down to some games this evening.

One last question, do you get any missions etc that would interact with any of the main film characters etc ?

 

[bushmins]

Thanks for the advice, i cant wait to play it now.

Its already installed and patched, just a matter of clock watching and training before I can sit down to some games this evening.

One last question, do you get any missions etc that would interact with any of the main film characters etc ?

Yes, thats the main story line, you meet the fellowship throughout the game.

All was well until about level 20, at which point the quest log fills to the brim with "fellowship" quests that require a competent group to accomplish, and the lack of a well sized subscription base lets it down.

I played on and off from the start and didnt find this problem at all. Im on the Snowborne server. Some of the harder parts of the game need a good group but if you try hard enough one comes together, but thats too be expected they, like any mmo, have to accomindate the hardcore.

 

[Ethics]

Thanks for the advice, i cant wait to play it now.

Its already installed and patched, just a matter of clock watching and training before I can sit down to some games this evening.

One last question, do you get any missions etc that would interact with any of the main film characters etc ?

Shadows of angmar (the original game) Starts from the beginning (Strider meeting the hobbits etc.) and culminates in the fellowship leaving Rivendell.

The first expansion, the mines of Moria is you following behind them, through Moria and into Lothlorien. SoA has a fair bit of interaction, MoM not so much (but that will change as the new free content comes out).

 

[Perywinkle]

I started last week, don't play much so my champion is only level 16 so far, enjoying the game a lot so far
On Laurelin server, seems nica and mature as others have said.

 

[spudbynight]

Started today on Laurelin as well. Liking it so far.

I have played a lot of MMORPGs over the years - this should give me a fix for a few months.

 

[Afran]

When I played, I played a Champion (for about the first 6 months of the game) and with the best gear in the game was just stupidly overpowered No one could near match my DPS (be it ST or AoE) and tanking was pretty stupid too