Is There Finally an Opponent for World of Warcraft?

LoTRO - a new MMORPG - fights its way to the top of the Leader board and tries to compete with the most well known and highest rated MMORPG of them all: WoW. But does LoTRO win?

For a long time now World of Warcraft^TM has been the leading MMORPG. It has fantastic graphics, excellent gameplay, a good storyline and to top it all off: a friendly community. However; a fearsome beast of a game has recently been released and it has fought its way to that second spot on the leader board. Fast. WoW is the only resistance. The challenge has been made - but who will win? Will it be WoW? Or maybe, just maybe WoW's time has finally come to fall... A new leader might have been born and raised to take its place. This leader can only be one game: LoTRO.

The Lord of The Rings Online^TM (Created by Turbine Inc. and Codemaster Gamers Online) is one of the newest levels of MMORPG: it has a realistic feeling while still remaining fantasy. It has a great community while still having amazing solo-play. It has superb graphics while still remaining a game and lastly comes the addition of all those miscellaneous features like jumping while moving (even in combat as tactics) and playing your very own musical instrument (you can even choose the notes to play!) which just liven up the game so much more.

Seeing as both of these games are extremely good we decided that it would be worth sending two of our very own "under cover". Playing like any other normal MMORPG players, George and Robert created their very own characters in both WoW and LoTRO - without the two companies knowing that they were actually reviewers - and they then played them through to their max levels (well very close) while still testing other classes, races, crafts and so on. Both of them have provided their reviews and points of view to us so that writing this article was possible. They have the extreme computers to test graphics capability as well so don't worry about the fact that testing the graphics hasn't been possible. It has.

"The Graphics of both games are excellent" Cobus stated within 1 week of playing both "the main difference though is the fact that LoTRO is more of a realistic style world where as WoW is a fantasy style world therefore explaining its "cartoony" effect". "I find that even though the graphics are different styles, the LoTRO graphics still beat the WoW graphics: by far" was what George Belsten had to say about these graphics. So which is better? Clearly both have good graphics, as both reviewers have stated, but is LoTRO really the one with better graphics? Let's take a look.

Snow Terrain
WoW 0-Score-1 LoTRO

Water
WoW 0-Score-3 LoTRO

Now it is as clear as a diamond. LoTRO wins in graphics with a whopping 3-0 score. But graphics isn't all a game is about. The gameplay itself plays a big part in the game (obviously) and can determine whether an amazing graphics game looses against or beats a extremely "sucky" graphics game. Let's ask our two agents what they think. "LoTRO's gameplay is excellent. You can equip very many skills at the same time. You can also equip items in skill slots (therefore there isn't a need to search for these items in your bags to use them - rather just use them as a skill). There are also the fellowship skills, AKA Conjunctions, which give you the opportunity to perform special skills and maneuvers while in a group; questing together or even bigger groups raiding enemy camps etc" was Robert' s opinion.

"The WoW gameplay on the other hand is not too great at all - sure you get skills and all but the skills you used are more restricted, skill spammers are common (people who just use the same skill over and over again) and just the fact that the combat is very unrealistic - even for fantasy. Your equipped skills are more limited so a wide variety of options aren't available and what about emotes and items? Do we really have to type commands in or search in our inventory to use them? I mean c'mon what's the point of using a healing potion of some sort if it takes so long to find that you have died before finding it. Overall I think that the LoTRO gameplay just completely obliterates the WoW gameplay".
Of course there is much more to talk about before judging these two gamer even further for example crafting options, hobbies and PVP but we decided that just with the gameplay and graphics comparisons there was an obvious winner (we might release a follow up of this article in next week's issue though).

George and Robert have agreed to share with us exactly that, having played through the whole storyline in both games they certainly are reliable sources. "LoTRO is certainly the more advanced one and will without doubt wipe WoW off the top of the Leader board and snatch its rightful spot." Is what Robert had thought and clearly George agrees with him as he uses this expression: "Imagine a sand castle - it is stable and normally holds against small waves. This castle is WoW and the small waves are other MMORPGS. WoW has with stood many of these small waves but as always there is a big wave once in a while and it completely wrecks the castle. Well you know what LoTRO is? It's a tsunami. Wow stands no chance."