Simple, quick, and FUN.
One more before I begin. I believe, if someone can take an idea and improve them to make it better, then I say WHY NOT? Music industry does it all the time. Some of the old musicians are not better than modern days; however, IMO they are famous because they were the creator of that style. I believe we all know which topic this goes with. Honestly, I am not a crazy fan of LOTRO; however, I have been looking for a good MMO game to play. As a very casual player (2-4 hours a day max if I even get a chance to play), I wanted a game that had quick quests, easy to learn, and just good overall. I believe LOTRO provides all that for me. Interface is easy to get used to. Like many MMO's, you have your simple interface with 1-0 keys on the bottom along with other side stuff on the sides (talent, items, options, etc.) Your health is on the top left and mini map is on the top right. However, the game lacks to provide players with the way to customize the interface when it comes to re-sizing. This often leaves your eye's to become blurry if you are the type who plays games for the story as the primary reason. Graphics: Beginning graphics may leave the players thinking "boooo," or so I've heard. It did met my expectation when I first began playing the game. However, as the game continued, my character eventually was released into the real world from tutorial area. Although I don't have the top of the line computer, the graphics still looked amazing. Gameplay: This is where many people either get into the game or gets out within few hours of gameplay. Quests are quick and simple, most of them can be done within half an hour. Directions of where to go are easy to follow (east, west, north, south, etc. from certain area). Dungeons are easily soloable if you are few levels above the recommended level. In addition, because most of the quests are around the area of where it was given, running to the destination of the quest isn't all that bad either. I never had a big wish to own a mount for now. With the use of minimap, you are easily find quest givers, enders, and whatever materials you can acquire depending on your profession. There are only few skills for you to learn. If you are an experienced player and knows exactly what kind of character you want and what kind of skills will benefit you, then your available skills to train becomes limited. However, the good part of the game is, you don't have to run back at every certain level to learn the next level of your skills. As your character advances, your skills advance as well. Crafting is simple and fun. Most ingredients tells you which profession the it is used for under description. Those that doesn't say anything are scraps you can sell for extra money.
Kinship: As of now, there really isn't a big reason to be in a rush to join a Kinship besides making few friends and being involved with a group. Some things I want to see added to game will be described later.
Few other things I want to mention which people who are looking into this game have asked are: Yes there is a mount, yes there are stable masters that will get you from one area to the next for a fee of course, information about instruments can easily be found on various websites such as youtube.com (you can play some really crazy songs), and the biggest question "Is this game better than WoW?" Let me go into this very quickly. I stopped playing WoW after a year because of excessive running (5 mins minimum from one town to another), dungeons take forever to begin and it is so hard to find good group if you are not in a guild or high level, instances can take up to few hours to complete, and I constantly get killed by players that are 20+ levels higher than me. Some WoW hardcore players may say "then just go to role play server you NOOB if you dont want to get ganked." LOTRO gives players a chance to play the game without distraction and when you are ready to PvP, you can Monster Play. Unlike Battle Ground in WoW where you wait for a game to start and when it does, its pretty much push and pull type of game with Capture the flag type of thing. Monster play is another whole world where you can do quests, pvp, explore, etc. In addition, whatever you monster acquires while playing Monster Play, you're character acquires those traits as well. I can't really get into too much detail on this because I still need to play some more.
Few things I want to see for improvements:
Fighting sound seems like something I want improvements. As I attack NPC's with skills, I seldomly get the feeling like I've actually HIT the mob. With better slashing sound and an animation that slightly stops when the weapon gets in contact with the mob, may make me feel as if I've actually done some damage without looking at the NPC's health bar. World Map: I love how the world map marks stores, places, and other things on the map. However, some things just gets too crowded. Without the ability to zoom in, it is near impossible to find an NPC in a town when the marks are overlapped. Maybe a way to either Zoom in or if the icons can move aside like CoH/V, it may be easier for some to find a certain NPC for training, crafting, purchasing, selling, etc.
Kinship: There isn't too much things to do with Kinship besides go on Monster play together, dungeons, or whatever. Few things that I may want to see in the future are:
1. A base for some of the leaders to be able to make furnitures or stuff with the ingredients we collect throughout travel. 2. A bank for Kinship to share items (and again, leaders should be able to tell who has access and not). Probably even to take a step further, the leaders can decide the levels of this bank; meaning, which section is for ALL players and which is for the leaders only.
3. A store for the kinship where items are made by the Kinship members and the price is set cheaper than other regular stores. This price should also be set by the leaders. The money earned can ONLY be used for the Kinship.
4. Kinship PvP with wages. With an agreement from both Kinship, they can wage from few silvers all the way to their entire base. This must have limitation by the leaders such as max level and players. ***I do want to mention, Some of these ideas are from CoH/V. Just wanted to give them credit. Their guild system is very nicely done IMO. If LOTRO can improve upon them, I say YEY. ----------------------------------END-----------------------------------
I know I haven't fully answered the question above regarding whether this game is better than WoW or not. Honestly, I think its up to the players. As for me, I like this game better because as I've mentioned before, i'm a VERY casual player and I do enjoy PvPing, So, I can play when i want and PvP when i want without getting killed half the time im running to go do my quests.
Hope this review helped for some. If I've offended anyone I apologize and this review is purely from my perspective. I am not here to argue or anything because there is no particular winner in argument.
"No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate to change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or by emotional appeal" -Marily Ferguson
Thanx LOTRO developers and everyone affiliated with the development of the game. Keep it up!