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WonderdogSoftware.Com - The latest updated Video Game Walkthrough; Game Guide

 
Release Date:04/24/2007
ESRB Rating: Teen
Genre: RPG
Publisher: Midway
Developer: Turbine
 
It could have gone so wrong. So badly, horribly, terribly wrong. From the very outset - from the first announcement of a Lord of the Rings massively multiplayer title, nine years ago - we had terrifying visions. The much loved world of Middle Earth, mutilated beyond recognition by the clumsy hand of a developer who needed to bludgeon Tolkien's narrative into a levelling grind. Hobbit warriors slaying dragons. Elves throwing fireballs. Bunny-hopping humans called 4rag0rn-LoL bouncing through Rivendell shouting "rofl elfs r gay".

 

Given the myriad ways in which Lord of the Rings Online could go wrong, it's perhaps unsurprising that a lot of people approached the game with a heavy sense of pessimism. It didn't help that in the wake of the success of Peter Jackson's movies, the game had the sense of a cash-in product about it. It certainly didn't help that the developers of the original iteration of the game, called Middle-Earth Online, blabbed about crazy features like "permanent character death", which instantly turned whole legions of gamers off the idea.

 

Which is why, sitting down to write about Lord of the Rings Online as it finally launches worldwide, we're thrilled, delighted and in no small measure surprised to be asking ourselves this;

How did it all go so right?