A fairly flattering review of Lord of the Rings Online by the New York Times’ Seth Schiesel, level 26 lore-master. Kudos to Seth for sticking with lore-master AND for logging out of the game long enough to complete his assignment.
5 thoughts on “NYT and the LOTRO”
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He’s such a jackass. Every article he’s written in the last several months has mentioned his characters accomplishments. Way to try to extend your e-peen into the real world there, Seth.
Dunno, I’m both a fan of the Tolkien world and interested in “the future of online entertainment”, but the LOTRO beta left me flat. It was fun to run around in Middle Earth for a little bit, but the game wasn’t very much fun and it didn’t compel me to buy the game at release. It might just be me, I see a lot of other bloggers I respect enjoying the game, but I don’t see the appeal outside of the quick Middle Earth costume party. If I had to guess, I’d say once the shine is off the novelty of running around Middle Earth, people will start to get bored with the actual game. I’m prepared to be wrong though…maybe I’m just old and a curmudgeon and I’m missing something fabulous.
Rick,
I’d say that depending on when you played the beta, you may be out to lunch on that. I played beta in December and then did the pre-order thing. A lot had changed in the intervening four months. All those post-quest fun-rating quizzes seem to have been taken to heart. My longer take is here if you want my opinion in detail, though.
I just think LOTR has no soul. It’s vaguely fun, but it has no emotion. WoW may be a grind but it also has buckets of character. And, as much as I love the Tolkien lore (hell, I went to the same college as Tolkien and it’s actually in the location that gave him the idea for The Two Towers), the lack of magic in a fantasy MMORPG just hurts it.
“I just think LOTR has no soul.”
Yes, and going to instances over and over to possibly get some random drop is very good for the soul. I am in no way inexperienced in WoW. About half a dozen high level chars on 3 diff servers. I just cant go back now. LOTRO is the next gen, Turbine did well.