MMO'S
The LORD of the RINGS ! Just the name itself conjures up images of Dwarves, Orcs, Black Shrouded figures, a Burning Mountain and most of all a Fellowship of Humanity out to save the world from the darkest evil ever known. What better setting for an MMO than Tolkien's vision of light and dark, lands filled with happiness and despair, joy and terror, bravery and heroism beyond recollection. Create characters, Humans, Elves, Dwarves or Hobbits and explore the beauty that is the real Middle-Earth. Journey along the roads from village to village, town to town, delivering the mail, passing on messages and destroying the beginnings of evil as it awakens. As you finish quests and kill monsters you gain experience, just like in any role-play game, and as your experience grows so you gain levels and can do more, fight harder and run away from even bigger monsters (err, I mean do harder and more intriguing quests). LOTRO is hardly any different from the majority of high-fantasy MMOs in its gameplay. You create a character, you do quests, you gain money and xp, you go up levels, you continue to grow in stature and wealth etc etc. The real difference is that you are actually in Middle-Earth and if the great author, JRR Tolkien could see how his world is presented by the graphic artists and designers I am sure he would have approved 100%. I'm not sure how he would feel about you getting to level 10 and then being able to go play an Orc or Urak but I'd like to think it would have caused him to smile. As far as I can ascertain unlike games such as Guild Wars and World of Warcraft where player interaction against other players (pvp) is the mainstay of the game, LOTRO has very little pvp and also has (except for the aformentioned monster possibility) no room for players to portray evil characters. Whether this will come about as the game grows I don't know, but there is certainly scope and a wanting for it. In LOTRO you meet all the famous and nearly-famous characters from the books and recent movies, helping them in one way or another and often going on mini quests with them. All of this helps provide the atmosphere that the Jackson films created or should I say recreated from Tolkien's novel. Angmar is the realm of the Witch-King - the evil leader of the Nazgül who got short shrift in the books and films. Now he is a power to be reckoned with. Every village and city is different, though as you would expect, most of the citizens/villagers are immobile. Those with gold rings floating over their heads are quest givers, others you can just talk to as you would pass the time of day, but their AI is extremely limited and they get repetitive very quickly. The Shire is almost exactly as I envisaged it as I read and Michel Delving is a joy to explore. I do get fed up (in all MMOs) of growing to a relatively high level of experience and still be expected to do menial quests but LOTRO makes up for this in some ways by being so beautiful to explore. LOTRO also has a great selection of payment schemes going from a monthly fee to a one off fee that lasts a lifetime, though obviously it doesn't cover the purchase price of new expansions as they arrive. Definitely a game that newcomers to MMOs will be able to play and understand quickly. A knowledge of Middle Earth is not necessary and I wouldn't even say, game-wise, it's any help at all, but a love of Tolkien's world definitely does make everything you do and everywhere you go just that little bit more exciting.
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