Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar takes place during the War of the Ring and follows the same basic timeline as the first book in the trilogy. Four races are available at launch - Elf, Human, Dwarf, or Hobbit -and seven classes. Your character has a main quest to follow as they play their part in the defense of Middle-Earth. While you don’t actually play as a member of the Fellowship, you will interact with them over time as you gain experience. In addition, there are plenty of side quests for gaining experience, cash, and items.

Of course Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar is going to draw comparisons to other MMORPGs, especially World of Warcraft. The game has incorporated some of the best features of other MMOs, such as the auction house, mail system, hotbars, quest tracking, and rested experience. It’s not a clone, though. Turbine has added plenty of unique features to Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar that distinguish it from its peers.

Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar uses interactive cut-scenes along with some clever instancing to tell parts of the story. In the course of telling the story, the persistent world actually changes to your character. For example, in one starting area, you help defend a city while it burns. This scenario is the bridge between the starting area and the area as it exists to the rest of the game population. So for starting characters, the city is intact, but afterwards, the city is in ruins. Not only that, but the changes that occur in each of the three starting areas are persistent as well. So, even though you weren’t there to see the assault on Archet, if you traveled there, it would be in shambles. I think it’s a clever idea that adds to your immersion in the story and the game.

As you level up and complete quests, you can earn accomplishments. Some of these manifest as new titles that you can turn on - Guilwyn The Wary becomes Guilwyn, Spider-Foe if she kills enough spiders. Other accomplishments earn you Traits. Traits are a way to customize your character by boosting stats. To activate Traits, you visit the local bard. You can only have a certain number of Traits active at one time, and you can change them at any time. In this way, you can customize your character without a skill-tree system.

Fellowships – i.e. grouping – are encouraged but supposedly won’t be required. Solo play will still be possible with all classes. Groups can get a bonus in the form of Conjunctions, which are group-executed combination moves that will result in a powerful effect, for example doing damage or healing players. A cool feature for groups is the reflecting pool, which will allow you to more easily rejoin your group if you die or otherwise leave an instance.

Once you reach level 10 you can try your hand at Monster Play, which is Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar’s version of player-vs-player. In Monster Play you can temporarily play an evil character such as an orc. In addition, you can pit your normal character against other players who are playing monsters. I haven’t seen it in action yet, but I think this is a great answer to the call for PvP (and for those who want to play the nasty guys) without having opposing factions actually present in the game.

The crafting system works by combining complementary skills. You can choose from a list of professions which each have three skills. These include the usual armorsmith and weaponsmith types, as well as cooking and farming. Many raw materials are available from vendors so you don’t have to gather everything.

There are some things I hope Turbine can address at some point. The side quests sometimes fall into the same formulaic mold. There are only so many kill quests and carry quests you can do before it gets old. Also, quests aren’t always well confined to certain areas, perhaps because the world is smaller than in some other games. I found that it’s very easy to move on the next town before finishing quests in the previous town. It’s also surprising that player housing is not in at launch since it’s always something that people want in every game. Lastly, there’s only one mage class, which Turbine explains by pointing out that there are very few Wizards in all of Middle-earth. I wonder if players will be satisfied with only the Loremaster as a mage option.

Overall, Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar looks like a promising addition to the crowded MMORPG market. The graphics are polished and natural looking - stunning if you have the hardware to support it, and still pretty even if you have to turn down the settings. There are enough new features to keep it interesting, while the old features that we’ve gotten used to in other games are still available. The crafting system adds plenty of new options for crafters. The clever use of instancing, new PVP angle, and interesting group play dynamics make Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar worth a look.