Player Review: Lord of the Rings Online

J. R. R. Tolkien and his realm of Middle-Earth has been the staple of our concept for the Fantasy Genre for decades now. From varient books, to todays online gaming, The Lord of the Rings has its firm grip in what we imagine as a make belief word of adventure, magic, mystery, danger, and living the life of a hero. It was only recently that Tolkien's world became an online reality though, well after the success of such games as World of Warcraft, Lineage, Ultima, and Guild Wars.

Much like the amount of time it took from Tolkiens original books to Peter Jackson's films, The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King), creating Tolkien's world is not an easy thing to do. With such an epic scale of landscape, characters, story lines, and attention to detail, it takes more than just castles, villages, a rider dressed in black, and a hobbit named Frodo to bring life to the vision. In 2001, that changed for film when, "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", arrived on the big screen and gave the world its first taste into a living Middle-Earth. In 2007, our online gaming world changed as, "Lord of The Rings: Shadows of Angmar", came to stores shelves, allowing players across the world to experience Middle-Earth first hand. Turbine.Inc, the holder of the license, did not disappoint Tolkien's fans.

LotRO (Lord of the Rings Online) has remained under the radar, for the most part, in the online gaming world. In a dominant market controlled by World of Warcraft and longer known competition, LotRO gold has gained a loyal base of fans, new and old, confident in their creation, the license, and the lore. A belief so strong that Turbine, Inc released its first expansion to the series, "Mines of Moria", against Blizzard's Litch King. Often scoffed as a poor choice in release dates on behalf of Turbine, Inc, the reality seems to be that the timing couldn't have been better. You don't have to look far in searching for new game releases to see Mines of Moria being reviewed beside World of Warcraft. The timing has worked. At least for this player.

Like a majority of gamers I find myself requiring a change of scenes after a prolonged adventure in a previous title. So when my adventures came to a close in Guild Wars due to reaching all achievements I desired (and a ton of issues from nVidia drivers which made the game nearly unplayable on this system) the search began for a new game to fill in my spare time after work. Admittedly my first attempt was World of Warcraft. However, after purchasing the product at my local Best-Buy store, Blizzard rejected not one, not two, but three of my Credit Cards when signing up for my account. Yes, it was Blizzard who did the rejections due to my inquiries to my Credit Card companies support and being informed that neither American Express, Visa, or MC, reject my attempted purchase of the subscription plans. Back to the store I went to exchange the game. LotRO became that exchange. And so, for the past 33 days, I've been sucked back into the world of Middle-Earth.