Middle Earth Online

Thats right a Lord of the Rings Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Its being developed by Turbine and is still in alpha. Here is a little quicktime trailer of it: http://my.ign.com/my/sb?action=doDwn&method=nrm&dwnId=573125&network=99&q=f (rightclick and select save target as)
The graphics, in my opinion, are better then World of Warcraft's. You can play as an elf, human, hobbit, or dwarf. Depending on your actions you will be welcomed differently into towns. You can be good and work for the alliance or you can become evil and work for sauron, all depending on what you do.

 

New information, they are building a system in which you can learn new skills and advance abilities while off-line. This will let people enjoy the game without having to spend every waking hour to advance. They also announced more on the good evil system. Based on your actions and solutions to quests your good/evil meter will change. Depending on your meter you can equip certain items. For example if you are evil on the meter then you can equip the sword of Iliketokillchildrenintheirsleep but not the sword of puregoodness. This system also changes your job, for example if you are a sage and you are good then you become a sorcerer, but if you are evil then you become a necromancer.
There will also be a privet encounter for some quests. This means that in some areas you go into will be private, meaning just you and your group, to prevent people from camping quests. However this is only for some quest areas. Areas for harder quests may require multiple fellowships to fight together.

I think the graphics are amazing: http://media.pc.ign.com/media/012/012112/img_1880055.html

Here is a gallery: http://media.pc.ign.com/media/012/012112/imgs_1.html

 

No I don't think you understand. They built a system so your character can gain abilities and skills while you aren't playing. Meaning, you don't have to play the game constantly to get to a reasonable level.

I think you thought that this stytem let you play the game offline, which is un-true, and doesn't really go with the idea of a MMORPG.

 

There is new information at ign http://pc.ign.com/articles/446/446583p1.html. For those of you too lazy to read it, the new information says that in the character making process you get to choose what vocation your character has and what their upbringing was. Also the experience system is not just general exp. For example if you are an elf scout and you kill a few orcs with knives, your knife skill will increase however your archery skill won't go up, so experience is only given to what is used. Also the battle system will be more key stroke based, meaning actual tactical fighting instead of the click on monster and attack like in some mmorpgs (*cough* final fantasy xi *cough*). There is also an update on the private encounters. When you enter dungeons and what not, you are given the choice to enter it privately or openly. There will be PvP but that system has yet to be fully announced.

 

sorry about that