The Lord of the Rings Online E3 Preview

The folks at MMORPG.com are offering up a preview of Turbine’s The Lord of the Rings Online, after seeing the game firsthand at this year’s E3. An excerpt to follow:

One point that was emphasized is that Tolkien made it very clear that there were only a select few wizards. Lord of the Rings Online will not let everyone be Gandalf. What limited magical tricks can be learned will be very small in nature. There will be no Wizard class and no ability to chuck fireballs at your enemies on a whim. This absence of magic really takes the game in a different direction than other MMOs and could change the dynamics of group and class relationships quite a bit. These dynamics have been given a great deal of thought by the development team. They want to make a game where everyone can contribute to a party and there is no need to turn down someone for your group because you need a (tank) or some other preferably combination. At the same time, they also want the entire game to be open to the solo player. After all, what is more fitting than the solo ranger?