Player Review: Lord of the Rings Online

Fellowships

Fellowships are the title given to LotRO party system and like most, of not all, MMO's they are a crucial part of your adventures. As stated before, you will end up taking on side quests and Epic quests that will require the aid of others for success. It's evident LotRO wants players to play the game as they see fit, but also engage in social activites together with a common goal.

The fellowship panel (Pressing O) will introduce you to a list of all players in your area, which can be filtered to find players on the same quest as you, or players simply looking for some partners to adventure with. You also have a series of options to set yourself as a player seeking a Fellowship, adding what quest(s), and additional notes you'd like others to see about what you have planned.

Fellowships add another benefit; In Game Voice Chat powered by Gamespy. Enabling the system is as easy as checking a box in your Audio options and have no fear; You don't need a microphone/headset to be involved. Just having it turned on will allow you to hear your fellow companions speak and give instructions so you're not left out.

Adjusting the overall settings for the voice chat can be touchy though - at least in my experience. Adjusting the game sounds just to hear companions over voice was the first issue. It's hard to tell if there's a disconnect with the voice output max, or the sound quality of the game just drowing people out. However, after a few short minutes of adjusting, I was hearing others and speaking to others without having the need to find my Ventrillo, or TeamSpeak software. However, my output system is rather out of date, so my issues with having my voice work well is not an issue of the game, but my unwillingness to invest in a proper headset.

Kinships

Kinships act as the Guild System in LotRO and, from what I've seen so far, it's clear Turbine wanted such a system to be more than just a random game feature where everyone could make a Kinship just for an additional title over their name.

Kinships in LotRO go through a series of "Life Spans", and after each comes, a new one is introduced with a longer time span to achieve. Each Life Span grants additional features to the Kinship, such as various titles, ranks, member limits, and chat features. Such a system is clearly designed as an incentive to provide activity for Kinships and reward for the players involved.