GU Comics by: Woody Hearn

It's been a bad month, so I really needed an escape this weekend. I found that escape in the form of Lord of the Rings Online. Ahhh leave it to an open beta to temporarily soothe the soul. And where the comic may be a touch brutal, the graphics aren't that bad. Granted, they're not Vanguard. They're not even EQ2. But the truth is, at least for me, it didn't matter. I enjoyed the game just as much as the more graphically intense MMOGs out there. It didn't hurt that I could crank up the graphics settings as far as they would go and my computer yawned and went back to playing solitaire. No stuttering, no lag.

That being said, I was disappainted at the quality of the armor texturing, and the lack of details in elements that look great in the distance but look like non-specfic mud close up. I do like that in Vanguard, when I'm standing half an inch from a tree, it looks like I'm standing half an inch from a tree. In LotRO it looks like I'm standing half an inch from a flat polygon with a blurry texture assigned to it. And I'm an armor whore, so when I see poor dithering and pixelation when I zoom in close, my eyes get sad. Again, I went through and made every effort to make sure every graphics related option was set as high as it would go. But, I fully accept that I might not have something toggled properly in the game. So if someone (including Turbine or Midway staff) has some suggestions, fire away.

Beyond the graphics, I have some other issues with the game. They are mostly personal preferences though. So, I won't go into detail. But, I would like to close this writeup on a positive note. I thuroughly enjoyed the game right up until I hit the open beta level cap. The game's scheduled release date is tomorrow. I would recommend it to the MMOG-lovers in the crowd.

UPDATE: I didn't realize that open beta had intentionally low rez graphics. (Thanks for the correction forum folks.) I received a copy of the game today, I'll let you guys know my opinions of the regular graphics as soon as possible.

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