The Lord Of The Rings: Shadows Of Angmar

List Price: $29.95 Discount Price: $7.99

Features:

• The only MMO based on the extensive and beloved fantasy universe of J.R.R. Tolkien, and the first MMO to provide a compelling story behind players' actions
• Unique Combat and Advancement Systems -- game mechanics surpass skills and levels to include accomplishment, traits and titles to help you gain experience in a variety of ways
• Jump in as a monster and battle against other gamers in a fast, action-packed session of monster vs. player combat
• Besides in-game mail, chat, crafting and guild management tools, The Lord of the Rings Online uses next-generation features like integrated voice chat, instant messaging and automatically updated web pages with your characters' in-game stats

Accessories:
The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (Prima Official Game Guide)	PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine	The Lord of the Rings Shadows of Angmar Prepaid 60-Day Game Time Card

Customer Reviews:

Beats WOW bad! [Posted on 2008-04-16]
The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar is an MMO developed by Turbine. It is the best one I have played yet. It may have the same basic gameplay as others like World of Warcraft, but it also adds new stuff. You create a character of a race from LOTR, like Dwarves, Hobbits, Elves, and Men. There are several classes, with interesting names. Rather than Warrior, Mage, and stuff like that, theres Guardian, Champion, Lore Master, and several more. They are more balanced then WOW classes. My reasons for liking this better than World of Warcraft dont end there. The graphics, also, are WAAYYY better than WOW's. They are arguably the best and most real looking graphics....ever....in an MMORPG. The game also has much more interesting questing, especially at lower levels. Quests go beyond "Kill 10 bears bring back their paws". There is some of that, but most quests require some interesting objective. Overall, LOTRO is a great masterpiece. Good with Tolkien's books, and fun to play, LOTRO is my favorite MMO!

OVERALL:

The good: AMAZING Graphics, Good Music, Fun to Play, Interesting Questing, Better than WOW, Nice Coomunity

The bad:PVP elements not YET complete, Dosen't do much different from Previous MMORPGs

PvE - 4 stars, PvP 1-star [Posted on 2008-04-28]
Overall , the game is fun, and visually very impressive. The questing is not a grind like some onlines. The one serious drawback is once you have maxxed out your character at 50, the game is effectively over. Unlike a lot of online games where PvP kicks in at upper levels, the PvP in LOTRO was added as an afterthought, and in order to feed the fires, once your first character hits either 10 or 15, you can roll a level 50 monster player and go into the ONE PvP map and fight the players who have taken the time to level their main character to level 50. No time limit, no limit on sides being balanced -- whoever shows up fights for their side.

Needless to say, there are very few times where sides are what you would call even close to being balanced. And, since it takes a lot longer to level a non-monster to 50 than it does to roll a level 50 monster, the monsters usually have many more players.

And usually own every keep in the PvP map.

If you want to play a mindless game, this is a good one. If you want PvP, this game's PvP is bad.

Would've been better if I wasn't a WoW vet. [Posted on 2008-05-21]
I had a lot of hope for this. The screenshots looked beautiful and I've always loved Tolkein's Middle Earth. Further, I was looking for something to replace World of Warcraft, which I'd quit several months previous citing boredom and repetitive gameplay.

This was pretty cheap, so I picked it up and got started on my trial period. I rolled up a Burglar and logged in. The game started off great. Epic quests are the one excellent feature of LOTRO, and when you create a new character, you're dropped right in the middle of one. Epic quests are heavy on stories and scenes acted out in front of you, and they eventually tie into the main storyline of The Lord of the Rings. As a Man, my character started off imprisoned by thugs, and escapes with the help of a Ranger named Amdir. He's stabbed by a Ringwraith, and you set off to find him help. It all feels very personal, even though every other character goes through the same quest. Still, I was starting to get sucked in.

Then they turned me loose, and I started noticing little similarities.

My character had a handful of skill trees. As I earned levels, I would get a point to spend on those skills. If I progressed high enough, I would earn enough points to fill out one of the trees with a few left over for a couple skills elsewhere, thus giving my Burglar a specialty. Wait...I've seen that exact model of character development somewhere else. Where could it have...oh, right. World of Warcraft.

But that's ok, right? At least the items system will be diff--wait. No. Looting, crafting, gear storage, banking, auctioning, the paperdoll screen, the inventory screens, the menu system, the reputation system, the quest system, the minimap, the chat system, and travel were all identical to World of Warcraft.

After a couple days of playing I realized I was just playing a repackaged WoW. The graphics were different, the backstory was different, and the names of places were different--but everything else was the same. Heck, even class skills are just renamed class skills from WoW. The UI is identical.

Now, don't get me wrong. There is good here. Not EVERYTHING is identical. Like I said, epic quests are a great feature.

I also like the inclusion of player housing. I was a big fan of this in the opening days of Ultima Online--at least until houses filled up all empty space on the entire face of Britannia. LOTRO handles it better by zoning you into "neighborhoods" where a certain number of pre-placed houses are available for purchase. Thus, all players can have a chance at a house, and the wilderness remains unpaved.

The world also feels much larger than WoW's. The newbie area felt like a full region, and a region felt like half a continent, and so on. There's much more to explore. The inclusion of things like artifacts and ruins that can be activated to earn deeds is great. It gives a soloist more to strive for than just grinding away for rep. And it really encourages you to check out all corners of the map instead of just doing your quests and moving on.

All in all, I can't say this is a bad game. It's not. It's rock solid. It just felt very derivative. If I'd come into it without having played WoW, I probably would have loved it. As it is, I got bored very quickly, because I felt as though I'd already played it.

Great Game [Posted on 2008-06-16]
A very good MMORPG, I've been playing only WoW has an online game so I decide to make a change, so if you're tired of playing WoW this is your second choice on the market cause the graphics are great and the gameplay is very simple to learn.

Great game! [Posted on 2008-07-03]
I've played this game for a year now since it was in beta. I have a lifetime subscription for $199.

This is a fun game, I've enjoyed it very much. The graphics are awesome, better than most game as long as you have a video card that is fast and can support the higher resolution graphics... otherwise you have to lower the graphics quality if your card is older.

The gameplay is very good. There is a death penalty in this game, but its not a bad one like a lot of other games. You don't end up feeling like you just wasted hours playing due to having died like many other games do.

I see negative reviews most likely from WoW fanboys. They try to claim this game is a copy of WOW. Well its not... for one thing this game has 100x better graphics than the cartoon graphics of WOW. All of these online games will take ideas from other online games... I'm sure WOW got most of their ideas from Everquest1, which was the original king of Massive Multiplayer Online Games

Another nice thing about this game is they give out a LOT of free content updates, unlike other games that charge you for every single update. They have one yearly major expansion that requires you buy the expansion. All the free content updates, along with the great lifetime subscription costs, show that Turbine is a great company.

No game is perfect, but this game I have enjoyed playing most.

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