Five MMOs better than World of Warcraft - Part 3
Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Game mechanics, Lore, Opinion
There is little magic, healing is spread out among several classes, and every class fights. Each player works together to build weak attacks to stronger ones, choosing them according to their needs and waiting for the correct group combos to appear which can instantly turn sure defeat into triumphant victory. The dungeons are incredibly challenging for people their level, and you must constantly be on your toes, thinking far ahead to be sure the attacks you need to use in ten seconds are being built up now.
Where Lord of the Rings Online really shines, though, is in its lore. How could any story be greater than that of the Lord of the Rings? You can walk where the Fellowship walked; clear their way, or help from behind the scenes. Without your aid, the Ring would fall to the Enemy. As you move through the story – and there is one, a strong one – the world changes. A town is burned and rebuilt; a powerful friend and ally is turned; the wizards of the land try to push back the darkness.
LotRO's first expansion will open the Mines of Moria to adventurers. WoW has its share of lore, but will anything compare to sneaking past the Well of the Watcher and staring out at the vastness of the Hall of Kings? If lore and story is why you play WoW, you need to come to Middle-earth for awhile.
_thumbnail.jpg "Aion Beta: Asmodian Ascension Quest")
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cabral said on 2:19AM 4-21-2008
That's not really a fair comparison. LOTRO does not create much lore on its own. It adheres to prexisting lore created by someone else. World of Warcraft has a little of that of as well, adhering to the Warcraft lore, but it creates much more of its own lore and the prexisting lore was obviously created by Blizzard.
How about highlighting a game company that developed *in-house* more indepth lore and highlights it better than WoW, rather than one that trumps it due to having Tolkien's massive body of work to draw upon and allude to.
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me said on 12:37PM 4-29-2008
There's a lot of LOTRish lore in WoW too, but they go beyond that and have a ton of different stories that eventually work themselves around to fit in with the big story.
I have to completely disagree with this part. LOTR was a great and incredible story for a book, maybe even the best, but as far as game lore goes, I haven't seen any better than Wow.
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