Lord of the Rings Online - Preview @ 1UP

1UP takes a look at what Lord of the Rings Online has in store for players of MMORPGs.

The catch-22 of the modern day MMORPG is that in order to generate interest, the game must straddle the conventions set forth by World of Warcraft -- however, by doing so, players often simply shrug their shoulders and find no reason to stray outside the lands of Azeroth. For Turbine, the developer behind Lord of the Rings Online, it not only has to deal with the pressure of an MMO landscape in a post-Blizzard world, but also the inherent generic nature that the Lord of the Rings license entails. As the root of all fantasy, its elves, trolls and orcs are as plain as they come. The minds behind LOTRO (as the cool kids call it) aren't allowing that to squander their vision as their obvious attention to detail and solid mechanics may just make this melting pot of ideas a winner.

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