LOTRO or BDO?

xpowderx

So a question, if you had the choice between LOTRO(VIP) with 20shared slots and account wide mounts or Black desert online.  Which would you choose?

GorlanGMO

LoTRO .

flizzer

LOTRO.  I'm a Tolkien fan.  For most people who don't care a fig for Tolkien or Middle Earth, I'd imagine the choice would be BDO. 

I also refuse to deal with that Xingcode or whatever it is called that  is stored on your computer and not removed after uninstall.

Realizer

 BDO personally, I'm currently playing it, and I have many game accounts that are mostly retired even though they have loads of progression, items ect. If you're thinking about playing a different game, you're probably bored of the old one. No harm in moving on to new experiences, if you don't like BDO you can always go back to whatever you payed before. 

Scorchien

LoTRO ............... i am playing both currently .. LoTRO since launch ... BDO currently lvl 31.... I just see LOTRO as a much more rounded MMORPG with longevity ...  (for my liking) ...  BDO i dont see holding my interest much longer ..

Azaron_Nightblade

I'm gonna go with BDO, since I've had the chance to play LOTRO for years, yet I could never drum up enough interest to actually play with it. =/

While BDO I am currently playing.

Theocritus

Havent tried BDO yet but is LoTRO really an option anymore?

Deltois

LOTRO by a mile. Played BDO at release, really didn t like it at all. Have LOTRO VIP and still enjoy it.

Forgrimm

I'd choose both. They're 2 very different games that will scratch different itches.

Copperfield

if you like lore and pve defo go LOTR

Dragonsfire9

LOTRO founder and though I did play it for over a year and have gone back to it a couple times I like BDO a lot better.  Part of it is that it is that BDO is new but mostly it is I hated the looks of the characters in LOTRO.  I could never get into DDO for the same reason.

Ramajama

Both are excellent, so you are in a good spot. Whatever you choose, you will win. Both are my favourite games, relogged to lotro couple of months ago, still heavily populated. 

Try BDO first though. Its honeymoon time, population is booming and excited. Hot stuff. 

carvalho677

BDO for me though they're very diferent games so best is to try them both out and see

Sovrath

xpowderx said:

So a question, if you had the choice between LOTRO(VIP) with 20shared slots and account wide mounts or Black desert online.  Which would you choose?

I've played quite a bit of LOTRO and I think I'm done with it. For me the developers never created a compelling game. I logged in a few months ago and felt like I was in a tepid game. I feel they bungled Helm's deep and I've never liked the avatar/gear aesthetics. 

However, they really are different games. Additionally, LOTRO has been out for many years and Black Desert is only a few years old.

I plan on making Black Desert my home until I see what Pantheon is like or unless Dragon's Dogma Online comes to the west.

I don't foresee every going back to Lotro. 

UnleadedRev

I like LOTRO better.

pantheron

I never really liked LoTR's lore, so it'd be an easy choice for me. The gameplay was also significantly less compelling to me. 

Phry

LOTRO is a bit of a dated game now, its long past its prime, i can't imagine that the playerbase is all that large either, and without a decent sized playerbase, any MMO will suffer.
BDO is a more modern game, it has a sizeable population, but its a completely different game to LOTRO, which makes it a bit of a strange thing to choose between.
Having played both, and have played Lotro both before and after it went F2P, its not a game i would consider playing again, its time is long past, so if the choice was solely between Lotro and BDO, then hands down, BDO is the much better option.

cameltosis

I've not played BDO but I played LotRO for 5 years and have kept up to date with development / xpacs since I stopped. 

LotRO is definitely a shell of it's former self but there is still fun to be found. I hate questing, but LotROs quests are some of the few that I've been able to tolerate. I think it is because the whole game is based on a very familiar IP and story, but you aren't the main hero. Virtually everything you do in game seems to be indirectly contributing to the war effort, so there is no hero complex but still satisfying to contribute. 

The world building starts great but gets worse as you move through the expansions. It starts off very natural, open world kinda place but quickly the world designs moves from semi-realistic and into clearcut quest hubs / zones (mirkwood is especially bad at this). 

For leveling, pretty much all group content has been removed from the open world. I view this as a bad thing, however, as the game is now so old it makes sense, otherwise you'd spend too much time searching for groups. 

Combat...used to be the best I've ever seen in an MMO. Its tab-target, skill based with a long GCD, so not to everyone's tastes. However, it isn't just holy trinity. There are 3 dedicated support classes and this opens up a wealth of new tactics and approaches that I've not seen in other games. Got an inexperienced healer? Bring a loremaster to debuff and a captain to off-heal. Missing DPS? Captain to buff DPS, loremaster and burg to CC everything, or get everyone to spec DPS. Can't find a tank at all? Doesn't matter! Debuff / cc / off-tank. LotRO offered such a massive variety on group setup and tactics. In addition, your power (mana) is a large pool that regens slowly. When I was playing, you could follow your typical rotation for 60-120s before you ran out of power, at which point you had to rely on pots, slow regen, loremasters or conjunctions. This added a much needed dimension to every fight. All in all, LotRO had the deepest combat system I've seen in an MMO. I'm told it's been nerfed a lot as they've chased down more generic combat, but its still better than most. 

Gear - Goes through cycles. When the game first released, they had horizontal progression at endgame. This remains the best system I've ever seen. The game was based on skill, not gear levels. They went vertical with the first expansion and it went really badly (radience). So, eventually they went back to horizontal, then back to vertical again. Looks wise, its all over the place. Some is "realistic", some is massive shoulder pads, some is just garish. Legenedary Weapons is a big thing in LotRO. From lvl 50 onwards, you start collecting LIs. These are weapons that gain XP as you use them, they level up and gain traits. I believe that these days, you can get a weapon at 50 and keep it all the way through to 100, but that's not optimal. Still, best LIs will have awesome looks, dps, stats and trait modifiers. When I played, I had 5 maxed LIs to match my varying playstyles. 

Crafting - Whilst I mastered 4 crafting professions, there hadn't been a vibrant economy since before the first xpac. Horizontal progression promoted crafting, vertical killed it. Actual crafting was your usual farm mats, craft recipes, get xp. No skill involved. 

PvP - There is a zone called the Ettenmoors where all PvP happens. There are 5 keeps to fight over. The combat design means long time-to-kill, something I feel essential for tactical combat. The good guys are the same as PvE toons, called the Free Peoples (freeps). The enemy are orcs, uruks, spiders and wargs, called the creeps. Progression for freeps is all through PvE, then ranking up at endgame in PvP. For the creeps, you start a toon at max level and as you PvP and rank up, you get more skills / traits etc. I had loads of fun in the PvP. I love fighting over keeps, I love open world pvp. You also won't cap out any time soon. On my old server (Snowbourn) I think it was nearly 2 years before the first person capped.

Payment Model - One of the first MMOs to convert to F2P (3 years after launch?). Has one of the fairest shops, but if you sub then you can probably ignore it completely. 

Other - Animations in this game are terrible. Its the biggest bug bear I've had when returning. The graphics are OK, but the animations really show their age. 



Overall - This game provided me with the best PvE experience and one of the best PvP experiences I've ever had, the reason being the deep combat and inter-group dependencies. However, the game as it stands these days is mostly just solo-questing to endgame, then grinding out legendary items. I don't think there are any endgame raids at the moment, but devs said there might be one later this year. 

Po_gg

cameltosis said:

 On my old server (Snowbourn) I think it was nearly 2 years before the first person capped.

:waving:  Snowbourn
(just some updates for camel, I won't address the topic question since LotRO is one of mains and I won't poke BDO with a long pole, also I agree with Picard, it's like apples and oranges)

cameltosis said:

For leveling, pretty much all group content has been removed from the open world. I view this as a bad thing, however, as the game is now so old it makes sense, otherwise you'd spend too much time searching for groups.

A few were removed during zone revamps, but most of those are still in there, except they are not "mandatory" anymore, as in not gating other questlines or advancement. So if you have a group, it's just like in the old days, if you're solo, you can skip them.

cameltosis said:

Combat...used to be the best I've ever seen in an MMO. ...

Yep, the support section was strong and meaningful - for some extent still is, but with the trait trees it's much more forgiving now. Still, great classes, nice class synergies, fun group mechanics.

cameltosis said:

Legenedary Weapons is a big thing in LotRO. From lvl 50 onwards, you start collecting LIs. These are weapons that gain XP as you use them, they level up and gain traits. I believe that these days, you can get a weapon at 50 and keep it all the way through to 100, but that's not optimal. 

That was the plan at Moria, but later it turned into a huge grind. With the previous Update they changed the system with imbuement, but that only works with LIs already at 100. It's in the plans that it will "roll down" to lower level items, so maybe in the future we'll be able to stick to and level with us a trusty weapon from 50.


I don't like pvp but I agree with the 'Moors section, it's quite fun and also have a nice PvE part too. Cool mechanics. Agree on the payment model section too, it's a cool model if you get the gist of it. Or just sub and forget it.

cameltosis said:

I don't think there are any endgame raids at the moment, but devs said there might be one later this year. 

Dungeon and raid grind is still there, and the new Update (or at least its second part later ) will bring a new raid allegedly. U18 (the new zones, instances, level cap raise, etc.) will go live tomorrow, if there won't be any more delays... it was planned for today

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Brenics

1. Gameplay = LOTRO
2. Community = LOTRO
3. Lore and story = LOTRO

I played BDO and in less than a week uninstalled the game. With LOTRO I can take breaks but it is always updated on my system. I may not like how they do their store but as VIP I never really need to use it but if I do I just wait till I have the TP from my monthly sub. I just wish they would make it possible for a subbed player never having to look at store because we can do everything in the game with our gold. 

Anyway LOTRO hands down. 

ceratop001

The Lotro is a great game that really opens up when you get into it...

Malathoos

ESO

Brenics

Malathoos said:

ESO

ROFL, if you love lag and bugs that never get fixed and only built upon with more bugs then yes ESO is your game. 

Erda

My days in LOTRO were awesome.  In fact loved the game so much, bought a lifetime.  With that said though, I did go back and revisit the game on a different and more populated server a few years back.  My old guilds had long ago vanished and most were just a shell of the folks I used to know.  It was great taking a trip down memory lane however I got the same feeling that I did with EQ2----seen it, did it, prefer to look back and think to myself, "What a fantastic game and I'm so glad that I played it during its heyday."  I got many years of enjoyment out of it.   When I returned last time, it was a bit sad to see my friends long gone.


OP, assume that you've played it before or is it something completely new for you?  If it's completely new, why not try it out?  I certainly wouldn't skip an older game just for the sake of being older.  I assume that the game still have the books you do for story and if everything is doable solo, why not?  You can play it through at least once and get the full game experience.


As to BDO, it is really a matter of preference.  I'm a crafter and explorer and am playing BDO alongside ESO.   This weekend I popped into ESO to take advantage of the experience weekend and had fun.  At this point, I've done most of the content aside from Thieves guild which I soon will start.  If ESO starts getting stale which admittedly it has, I can pop over to BDO.  There are some big things I really don't like about BDO but having so much to do and so much to sink my teeth into, it was a good choice.  

Setzer

Phry said:

LOTRO is a bit of a dated game now, its long past its prime, i can't imagine that the playerbase is all that large either, and without a decent sized playerbase, any MMO will suffer.

Actually the with the server mergers they did last year it helped significantly. All the remaining servers are fairly populated and active. Also, the game may be a bit dated but it's still a helluva lot better than most of the MMO's being released today and graphically the game still holds up as well.