In the comments of our pieces on Amazon’s second go-round with the Lord of the Rings IP in the MMO space, multiple MMO gamers pointed out that they weren’t particularly interested in anything Amazon has to offer, and besides, we have LOTRO at home. But the reality is that it’s very likely happening this time, and if you can look past Amazon executives’ tone-deaf comments as ignorable bluster, there’s quite a bit of interesting stuff to discuss here.
LOTRO has become one of my main MMOs only in the past couple of years, and I love it – but there are plenty of things I wish were different. My characters still look out of place in the pretty landscapes. The Asheron’s Call-esque rubberband lag is still a thing. I don’t love the heavy reliance on faction-grinding. Several classes are still dreadfully dull. Housing could use more prominence. I wouldn’t mind more impactful combat. The cash shop is still pretty excessive.
There’s a lot that needs fixing and updating for the modern vibe, in other words, and a new MMO could either do it… or drive SSG to do it to compete. Either way, we win. So as long as these two MMOs play nicely and don’t turn into a SWTOR vs. SWG death match where an old game is murdered for a new one without staying power (which is a valid concern), I feel like we can get something valuable out of the situation.
What do you hope Amazon’s LOTR MMO does differently from LOTRO?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
