LOTR Online Beta Sign-ups Now!

[Melbosa]

http://lotro.turbine.com/betasignup

The Lord of the Rings Online?: Shadows of Angmar? (LOTRO) development team, Turbine, and Midway are excited to announce that registrations for the North American Beta Program are now open! This is your chance to play LOTRO for free and experience Middle-earth? as depicted in J.R.R Tolkien's literary works first hand!

Join the Community!
In order to sign up for the Beta Program, you must first create an account on the LOTRO forums. After completing your forum registration you will automatically be able to submit your application for the Beta Program.

Want to see how bad Turbine F'd this one up... or if they surprise me and actually put out a decent product like back in the old AC2 days!

[Melbosa]

Reading some journals on this one and found one that caught my eye:

Yesterday was my first experience with this game, via the start of Alpha 3. I feel like I should give a little bit of praise for something that made the first day memorable.


I got a quest from the hunting lodge, to go kill some spiders. Pretty much your typical go to Place X, kill Y number of things, and return here. So I head over there - these quests really aren't my favorite types, but I realize the necessity for XP and what not.

I arrived at the area, and there were several other players around, and no spiders. Just fantastic - I know how this works. Too many people and not enough mobs...let the spawn camping begin! I had some nasty flashbacks to some other MMOs.

So I'm standing there, waiting for a respawn and hoping I can tag one of them and make some progress on this quest. All of the sudden, this ultra dramatic music flares up before I even know what's happening. I spin around to see spiders all over the place - dropping out of trees, coming from cracks in the mountain, from ahead, from behind.....everywhere. Everyone in the area immediately jumps to battle, but no longer are these people nuisances standing in my way of finishing my quest, but rather comrades at arms. And no longer am I killing these things just to finish the quest; we're all fighting for our lives!

It was awesome. The music is blaring, adding suspense and drama to an already frantic fight. People are everywhere, and there are loud yells and the clanking of swords coming from all around. It was a real epic battle (in a beginning zone no less!) that came suddenly and without warning. At this point, I forgot all about my quest! We were fighting this surprise attack purely to survive.

When it was all over and the dust had cleared, I noticed I had finished my quest. Done, just like that! And what was that? It was fun? It was!

I've had too many bad experiences with quests like this one in other games. They always seem to be too much of a grind, and end up being more work than fun. But this time, in this game, with this quest, I had an experience to remember

Now if that is true, man they might be on to something here.

[Lazybones]

Need to hear about more quests fires.. Even WoW and CoH have quests where things more dynamically happen than usual, but they are few and far between.

[Melbosa]

Have read about this as well:

Arriving at my starting town, I quickly found my first contact to begin yet another series of quests. Each quest was fun as well as interesting and believable for my character. Unlike many games that have you run around and do things for no apparent reason, LOTRO quests make sense and really make you feel like you are a part of the story. You can imagine my surprise when after fighting to save a certain town, I discovered that the Inn had burned down and that it was to remain that way for the rest of my game play! I was, and still am, very impressed and fascinated by this.

Seems their version of instancing means that your quests effect the world around you.  Now I'm not sure how this translates into a group of players where some have done the quest and others not, but interesting idea no the less.

[Melbosa]

Hmmm and PvP might be worth trying out in LOTR Online:

Nik Davidson - Disambiguation

Gundo's wounds were serious.  The dwarves had beaten the poor hobbit soundly with maces and axes.  He'd lost a lot of blood.  The corpses of his friends littered the field, but he was almost in the clear.  His heart was beating fast; he had sent several dwarves to their bloody end, and he could hear their angry yells behind him.  He ran - ran as fast as his stubby little hobbit legs could take him, his hands white-knuckled, gripping the flag.  At last, he crested the hill, and the great horn sounded.  Victory!  Victory, but at what cost?

Yeah, so that's what we're NOT doing.

When we announced there would be PvP in LOTRO, I knew some people immediately would come up with the above nightmare scenario.  (Or worse. You guys are hella creative.)  As such, we just sort of shook our heads as people concluded that we were turning our game into "HOBBIGEDDON: SLAUGHTER AT BAG END."  Nothing could be further from the truth.  What I'd like to do today is clarify what we mean when we talk about playing evil races, and PvP in LOTRO.

This is a story about a world at war.  The War of the Ring is the central focus of the narrative; through a series of narrow victories, unlikely discoveries, noble sacrifices and selfless alliances, a war is won or lost.  And to truly explore that conflict in the context of the game, we wanted that war to be fought, in part, player versus player as well as player versus environment.

Now, from time to time we've dropped the phrase "monster play," and then quickly scampered back to our island fortress and pretended it never happened.  As the astute among you may have guessed, this is the cornerstone of our PvP solution.

What does this mean?  Players will have a chance to take on the role of a minion of darkness, a dark creature such as a goblin, orc, troll... or maybe even something fouler!  Your monster player character is temporary ? as a monster player, you have quests to complete, but you don't level up as an orc.  At launch, this is the only method by which players will be able to play as a member of an evil race.

So why walk on the dark side?  Success as a monster player allows you to gain a number of different benefits, "Monster Points," if you will.  These points can be used to gain access to bigger, meaner monster play avatars, but can also be used to give benefits to your main characters.  Accumulating monster play points will allow you to benefit your persistent characters, giving everyone a reason to give evil a try every now and then.  More on this later, but that's the essence of the cycle ? jump in as a monster, do some damage, earn some points, and spend those points to either play bigger monsters (which can in turn earn more points) or buy some nice little perks for your characters.

Players, on the other hand, will have optional series of quests that will pit them against monster players, giving them reasons to go out and mix it up.  PvMP is optional and consensual ? you won't "stumble across" a monster player.  PvMP will be allowed in specially delineated areas of the game.  Some of these areas will be instanced, others will be accessible only through travel NPCs.  Either way, you won't need to worry about an orc running through the Shire smacking Hobbits who are just minding their own business and eating pie.

As I'm fond of doing, this article covers the general "shape" of the system ? more details are forthcoming.  Personally, I'm pretty excited about this system.  It's a compelling PvP system that fits very well with the world we're building, it's a very different take on an age-old system, and it will give players an opportunity to experience Middle-earth from a very different perspective than they might be used to!

Very different system for PvP which doesn't encourage ganking, or bullying.

[Melbosa]

Sorry to rez topic, but thought should let anyone who signed up know that a host of new accounts is being release for beta.  Check your mail to see if you got one.

And remember, if you do get one, under the NDA you can't post on the web that you did.

[Melbosa]

Just to let you know, more beta invites have been given out the past 4 weeks (2 sessions, 1 4 weeks ago, and 1 this week).  So if you are interested you should really sign up.

[Lazybones]

If we where to get in, should we make a rule for which server to be on, assuming there is more than one?

[Melbosa]

Unless things have changed, from what I've seen, there is only one server.  It is only a beta, and I'm sure there are toon wipes periodically so no big deal if there are multiple servers and anyone in ends up spread out.

Just a note, I've taken a look at the NDA, and anyone who does get in, be sure not to post or discuss it publically.  Pretty harsh requirements on the NDA, but not for a bad reason, as they are all valid.

[Melbosa]

In release, I would think we would all like to play together, if anyone is interested.  But we can discuss that in Q2 of next year .