Lord of the Rings Online

<entering rabid MMO fanboi mode>

I thought the books were boring and the movies contrived, but this game looks pretty awesome! I haven't been in Beta but from the screenshots and movies I'm definitely looking forward to it.

From what I've seen and been told this is similar to World of Warcraft (which IMO is ok since WoW can attribute 90% of it's success to Tolkien and Peter Jackson). The differences would be that the graphics are absolutely stunning, the quests detailed, the PvP (or PvMP) interestingly done, and there is more of a sense of community. Also, the lack of standard PvP has driven off the '1337boi12PWNDCHOO!!!shiftone' that slime their way through MMO's these days.

So far you can only travel around Eriador which is "small" (the Shire, Ered Luin, Bree, Rivendell, etc) however the devs have stated that other areas will be released with expansions (don't look forward to seeing Gondor and the like for a good while). FYI, the only races to choose from are men, elves, dwarves and pecks. You can't be a baddie, sorry.

A few things that caught my eye was the graphics (again, amazing), you can also create and play your own music using flutes and PvMP (player vs Monster). Not sure if I'm getting this right, but I believe you can create an instant lvl 50 beast or orc etc and attack human settlements etc in the PvP zone.

Anyways, the game can be pre-ordered from the usual places, there is a free open beta starting for pre-order customers (you can download the client, 2GB or so) and you'll be able to enter the game on the 6th of April. The game will be officially opened on the 24th of April (if I recall).

If you want any other info lemme know, I'll see what I can dig up.

I'll post a few screenies in a bit.

I was beta testing for awhile but I began to get bored. The quests were really fun, but after awhile I thought..will I even want to do them once the game is live? Nooope. That and I didn't find much fun in things to do other than the quests..