Sauron gives Arthas the Evil Eye

LotRO vs Warcraft

Well in my opinion, the game is definitely a significant competitor to World of Warcraft, even more so when it goes free to play. It has that much potential and is graphically astounding to boot, stick it on Ultra High graphics and you’ll be drooling. In all honesty the game of Lord of the Rings Online is for the most part World of Warcraft. For example, mounts, interface, configuration, instances. But this doesn't deter you from trying it out, because the game itself is promising and has an epic story behind it with a veritable feast of characters, story lines to follow, nooks and crannies to find and the all important monsters to fight. Not only that, but the development and content still to be created.

One feature that does strike you as very similar as in World of Warcraft is how people level in Lord of the Rings, the levelling in this is based on questing, yawn. Don’t get dis-heartened tho. Too often, MMORPGs  base their levelling on killing lots and lots of monsters for your level. While, questing in LotRO is just as important for people to continue further into the game as it is with any other, there are hundreds of quests from each city, but on top of this is the Epic Storyline within the multitude of other quests to do.
It's not just one story tho its broken down, bite-size into many chapters from story we all know, involving the character we all love; I met strider at the Prancing Pony in Bree and Farmer Maggot just across from the Brandywine Bridge..
There's a array of things to do: instances, solo-able missions and normal/ epic missions. Each type are enjoyable and have goals well worth trying for.
Not to mention the rewards you get for complete Deeds, which also give bonus to players.

My favourite in World of Warcraft was doing instances, I’ve not had a chance to do a major 5 man instance in LotRO yet, but I am looking forward to what LotRo has to offer. In LotRO, I have read its very different to World or Warcraft, in that as you proceed thru the instance, you have action and tense moments when you run in trying to complete a complex quest with a party that you have to work well together to succeed, not just about killing bosses and moving on to the next. No co-ordination and you're basically gone. How this really differs to World of Warcraft I have yet to experience.

From viewing the map when I was playing in the small bit I have done in Bree-Land it is vast, immense even. It’s not just one huge map that you would look at normally, instead it’s set out from city to land to countries. Honestly, it is the biggest map I've ever seen, I wonder what new features will appear in future to fill up them spaces...
This is just one section of the huge map of middle earth>

The graphics and looks of the game are absolutely amazing. In World of Warcraft, most people recognise the game as too cartoony and this can be said for maybe LotRO too but not from my stand point, the graphics are more akin to Guild Wars than the cartoony World of Warcraft. You get the full detail and realism without seeing any cartoony effect on it but in my opinion, that's fine.

The interface of the game isn't too confusing or hard to get to grips with, it's well laid out and you can customise the skill bars UI scale to fit your needs, and if you have played World of Warcraft again it’s very very similar. And I am told very soon you will be seeing LotRO addons as you would see at Curse.com for World of Warcraft.

The game is heavily concentrated on the original book itself, but that's what makes the game so exciting. Experiencing new challenges and chapters and interacting with the main story characters.
Well, you may think that this game requires you to be a big fan of LOTR. But to me it isn't. Just from this game, you will practically get to know the whole story but in a slower and exciting way of achieving it.

I will be paying for this game in near future for the VIP service when it goes free to play on Sept 10th, just so I can experience the full outcome that it will bring to the MMORPG genre and I know it will be fantastic.