Oy vey! MEO! Just the name evokes some…memories. Well if you never heard of MEO, it was the name of this game when Vivendi Universal had the title. “Middle Earth Online”. But it was as close to Middle Earth as the Bronx…
I came across the MEO forums late in 2005, while searching Tolkien sites. MEO was a project that at the time was underway for about 1 year, and they would post screenshots of their work periodically (alot of which I saved). Their concept of the world environment of ME was fairly accurate, but not filled with the realistic scenery that people were hoping for. It wasn’t the scenery that had people up in arms, it was their weird idea of the appearances of the races (and their roles), that had folks riled up. Their Elves used to be called ‘David Bowie Elves’ because of the strange pompadours on their heads.
Their Hobbits were rustic, but had Elvis sideburns (thankfully Turbine changed all of this when they picked up the game).
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g88/Aldamiras/TalkbytheFire.jpg
But besides the appearances, Vivendi had a plan to include server-wide pvp!! Yes that is what they wanted to do, and after so much complaining by a very dedicated Lorist community, they altered it to a separate server for pvp.
But not even that could stay the wrath of the Tolkien purists. Elves ganking Hobbits in the Shire?? Bree being the scene of ambushes?? And so when Turbine picked up MEO, and renamed it LOTRO, the plans were happily given a proper burial. Vivendi had financial issues and they had to sell their development to Turbine, who in turn made use of a sizeable portion of the existing map when Lotro went into Alpha testing. Basically the Vivendi people had already laid out Breeland, Ered Luin, the Shire, the Lone Lands, the Trollshaws and Rivendell valley. They ALSO laid out the South Downs and Mithlond, none of which are open to us yet, and a part of Moria (I think the Moria section was used as Othronogroth in Lotro, they look very similar).
The MEO forums went dark in November or Dec. of 2005, and in March of 2006 Turbine’s went up (I took the day off to set up our Kin forum and threads). At that time, when Lotro went into testing, the map was very basic. There was no Horsefields, Brandy Hills, Oatbarton, or open back side to Weathertop leading to the ND. The Bree Town Hall couldn’t be accessed, neither was there any stable system or rep/barter system. There was no Evendim, Forochel, Angmar or Rift, and no Goblin Town. Elrond’s House was closed until a bit later, and there were scant few npc’s in Imladris. But the books 1-3 were in place when I joined Alpha in Sep. of ‘06. Meeting Strider in the Pony was a great thing for us, and of course Gandalf too. Alpha and Beta testers were the most wonderful crowd, and we all marvelled at how well polished Lotro was even for Alpha.
Above is me at level 6 in Archet, which in Lotro Alpha was the start zone for all races (Beta started in Thorins). As you can see, the quickslot bar was quite different. For the most part we could buy our class skills from trainers, and you could buy Athelas potions from vendors in Bree! (Yes we became addicted to them). Our weapons and gear in testing were very, very basic, and mostly consisted of what uncommon items we could scrounge, along with some purple icon quest rewards. Chests in Alpha-Beta yielded rare items on occasion, buy they changed that to what you see now, coin, vendor trash and components. My absolute fave bow was the Bow of the Silver Swan, which in Alpha-Beta had some dps to it (it’s still in the game, but much reduced):
bow-of-the-silver-swan-14783.php
You can see it on my back in this picture in front of the Pony in Beta:
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