Sometime last week the Lord of the Rings Online NDA was lifted.  Now that I'm free to talk, I'll talk a little!

I've been in closed beta since September (Alpha 2 stage).  A lot of changes have happened since then, mostly for the good.  The game has always been good in my opinion, but it's been getting better over time.

I'll start with the negatives.  Really the main bad thing about it is the size of the world.  Now I don't mean TOTAL world size, I mean the size of the areas in relation to each other.  I'm a HUGE Lord of the Rings fan.  I have been for THIRTY YEARS.  The areas are supposed to be a certain relative size.  It's not supposed to be a quick trip from the Shire to Bree.  Well, in the game, it is.  It's about a 5 minute, tops, run.  That's fine from a gaming standpoint, but as a Tolkien fan, it's ... weird.  It's livable though. 

Another negative is the team's turning of the game from what was supposed to be a Tolkien fan's paradise to a more mainstream marketed game.   Don't get me wrong, I understand this.  It's a business.  It has to make money.  I just think they totally underestimated the market for staying more true to the spirit of Tolkien's works.  One big thing was the abandoning of the "no PvP of any kind" policy.  First they decided to put in Monster Play, where players would become monsters temporarily and other players would fight them.  Then they added dueling, something they said would NEVER appear in the game  Yes, we have hobbits and elves killing each other in the Shire.  Well, not anymore.  But for a month we did.  You can't duel in the Shire or in any town anymore.  Thankfully.

Anyway the positives far outweigh the negatives.  The classes are well done: familiar enough for MMO vets to jump right in, but slightly different enough to feel somewhat new.  And definitely flavored properly for the Middle-earth setting.  Graphics are fairly incredible, especially on max settings.  They took a chance with the "health" system too. We don't have "hit points", we have "morale", and we don't "die", we get "defeated" and flee to safety.  Sure, at a numbers level it's still an HP system, but it feels different enough to work.

There is NO overt magic.  Middle-earth did not have spell-slingers all over the place.  Gandalf and the other wizards were immortal near-gods, not common adventurers.  So the magic like effects are all couched in non-magic terms.  "Healing" is done mostly by Minstrels, as "songs improving your morale".   "Nukes" are done by Hunters as archery, and by Lore-masters as "throwing burning objects" and such.  It's very well done.  Most of your damage is done by cold steel, just as it should be.

You'll see major characters in the story right away.  Men and Hobbits see a Nazgul right in the introduction instance.  Dwarves and Elves see Elrond, Gandalf, Thorin, and others in their newbie areas.  It's pretty cool.  Rivendell is incredible looking.  The Shire is incredible.  

More later...