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If you're not playing LOTRO, you're missing out!
Severine
Member Posts: 14
I just started playing a few weeks ago, I'm just level 18 now. I never gave this game a glance when it first came out, being into other games at the time. Now after having done a few game migrations (woe the unhappy MMO player, looking for a fix lol), I think I'm gonna stay in Middle Earth for a good long while. Why?
well, let me start by saying, that I am NOT a lore nerd for LOTR. I saw the movies, that's about it. I know nothing else, as it were. If you are a lore nerd for fantasy in general or LOTR in particular, you will love the main quest line.
I recommend this game for people who like: roleplay, immersion, grinding, storyline,nice graphics, free games, subscription games, PVE, LOTR, very very open zones.
I don't recommend the game for people who like: PVP, item shops, crazy variety in the game (this is all very cohesive, not themeparkish), constricted zones (like in aion or FFXIV where there is a narrow path you have to follow).
It's pretty. Face it, the first time you log in to any game, you judge graphics. This is the most top notch MMO, graphically that I have ever played. The shadows and the water are out of this world, character textures and armor look great, and I was so pleased to see that my horse looked so well made.
The immersion is there. You log in, and every quest you get caters to either the TL;DR crowd with a quick summary of the quest in yellow or the immersion crowd, who likes to read 4 paragraphs about why we need to kill whatever or whoever. I am also fond of the fact that the game doesn't have a themepark feel. You kind of just exist in a world that is kind of plain, but just a little bit magical. No, there are no jousting tournaments to slay undead, no alien planets, no horse/squid/cow races, there's no robots and vampires and zombies and, no, there are no dragons, as we tend to think of them. Your armor is not going to glow like it's got lava in it, your shoulderpiece isn't going to look completely ridiculously huge, and sorry, but we don't ride tigers or antelopes or litte race cars and motorcyles. We just have horses and goats. That does a lot for immersion, really.
Housing! I won't have a house for a long time, but I have gone into the neighborhoods. Wow! That is some pretty high level work they did to build those neighborhoods and to let you customize them to such a degree.
It's very customizable, as far as UI, Graphics, audio and everything. Tinker to your PCs best performance.
As far as customization goes, you can also customize your character pretty well. There are two cosmetics tabs. So if you like a nice hat you've aquired, but one drops with better stats but its UGLY, you can keep the look of your cool hat, and keep the stats of your ugly hat. I love it!
There is roleplay, everywhere. In every town, in every inn, I have found a huge repository of emotes and conversations going on between players. If you like RP, you NEED to play Lotro. Just download the game and run straight to bree. Hang out in the Prancing pony for a bit and see what great roleplay looks like. If you decide to play, the Landroval server is the unofficial RP server.
The community in the /advice channel is really great, as are almost all people I have come across in the game.
the grindy bits have their rewards in the deed system. If there ever was a reason to kill a zillion spiders, the deed system at least gives you rewards for doing it (titles and Traits that you can equip to your character for stat bonuses as well as Turbine points that you spend in the store.)
the things I'm looking forward to doing in the next few weeks are Skirmishes and Instances, as i haven't experienced either of those yet. I have just gotten into the North Downs zone, and can't wait to get home and explore it...and take a billion screenshots.
If you DL the game, do yourself a favor, and don't watch a bunch of youtube vids that will ruin your sense of surprise. Just fire up the game and go, naturally, without knowing what's around the corner. It's free, what do you have to lose?
Comments
Thanks
I'm downloading it right now. I cant wait to test it out 
LotRO was one of the best P2P games before it switched models, and now it's no contest the best F2P game available.
I have just returned to LotRO for a series of features for this site and I have to say I'm having a great time. A lot of features have been added since I last played, and unlike in many games, they all make the game a better experience. Not sure yet if I'm in for the long haul, but I'll certainly make a point of dropping in again.
I have tried to find some good info on PvP and housing, but I cant find anything. Any good youtubes or links?
Tx
Yes, i just recently came back myself after being away for maybe 6 months. I re-rolled a new character because i have to re learn the game again. I did this after jumping on my 65 and realising i forgot what he does or where to go :P. But yeah i love and missed the game a lot.
to me pvp and housing might be two of the weaker systems in LOTRO, for pvp you have what is called monster play which is essentially a zone (Endenwaith?) where you can take your character after a certain level to face other players who have taken on the role of "monster players" essentially you get a few character slots to build monster characters like an orc,spider or warg and they can face off in that zone.
I honestly haven't played the feature much at all so it's hard for me to say how much fun it is, I am in a kinship where a few of the guys in it seem to have a blast with it but in all honesty most of the criticism about pvmp has been pretty harsh.
Housing to me is another weakness for LOTRO, I don't care that the houses are instanced at all it's just after having played a game like SWG with the housing system they have systems much more simpler can seem alot more restrictive. In LOTRO you basically get two sizes for houses small and medium and then there are also kinship houses which are much bigger and offer alot more storage (but quite honestly I could just as easily think a kinship house is a good size for someone like me with the number of high level alts we have, and to decorate you are given a set number of hooks while housing items fit into a certain size category, you can put smaller items into bigger slots but that's it and you can turn them to face different sides. I do enjoy the simplicity offered in contrast to a system like SWG's but not sure if it's worth the sacrifice in creativity.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
LotRO Housing
There's no pvp. There's pvmp, where you can create monsters to throw at other players in a designed zone, but that's it. If you're looking for pvp, LotRO is probably the last game you'll want to play. It's basically a strictly pve game.
Thanks
Ok i where hoping for free world PvP and housing like EQ2.
You made a good description here. Could you explain why you play the game then?
what are the good points?
And how is the look of armor and weapons. Do all characters look the same?
The housing in LOTRO is NOTHING like eq2. nowhere near as flexible or allowing you to do any of the creative stuff you can do in eq2. EQ2 to this day has probably the best housing system in any game.
The look of the armor and weapons is dull as it's more realistic. Yeah all characters look pretty much the same though you have appearance slots and all the gear isn't varied enough for it to really matter. There's not enough hauberks and such.
LOTRO puts me to sleep. Sorry, but it is just my opinion. The graphics are nice to look at, yes. But combat is too slow, animations seem too stiff, and I really could not get into the story. I liked the movies, and that is as far as that goes. LOTRO captured none of what made the movies enjoyable, to me.
Also I disagree with the way Turbine set up its F2P content system. Plenty of F2P games offer most, if not all, actual content (As in quests, area's, ect.) and do just fine with the cash shop for the things like extra bank slots, better housing, extra bag slots, ect. Granted you can get all the content by grinding deed's for TP... but where is the fun in re-rolling a toon to do the same thing over and over?
No, SWG had the very best housing system of any game. It was open world, allowed for player created cities, supported crafting, and had lots of customization of both decoration and house style.
There's nothing wrong with LotRO's combat system, it's simply not a clickfest like some other titles. Especially in groups, the pacing of the combat allows for fellowship manuevers to add a little extra kick.
LOTRO is great. I havne't played in awhile and I'm about to reboot some of my old characters. Looking forward to getting back into the game.
The combat in Lotro is a bit laggy for example, if you shooting a mob, the first shot got it, but for unknown combat reason, your second shot was been held because waiting for the mobs response. In other words, the player side often have to wait for mob's response more like a turn game style sometimes. And the combat speed always different during the game even for same mobs you are slaying everyday. One other thing I suspect is that the mob seems deal more damages if you are not targeting the mob or certain sneak attack.
Although I do have a long list of reasons why i left lotro after a year or so of playing it, its still a great game and everyone should give it a try. However i have'nt played it since it went F2P.
I recently played this with a few friends, got to level 23 before i got bored. I played a hunter, found it to be very easy to solo as the majority of mobs died before they got to me. Very nice game, but my biggest problem with it was the lack of mobs in the area's. Especially when doing quests that had you kill 20 mobs or the deed quests, lack of mobs and 25 other people in the area doing the same quest but refused to team with you made questing long and boring.
Crafting was fun, worked on it a lot and leveled it up pretty good and was pretty proud of it until i did skirmishes. Seeing how you can level through skirmishes and the items you got via skirmish marks made crafting seem pointless. It was pretty depressing seeing better items via skirmish marks then i could craft. After that it was pretty downhill as far as playing that game, imo crafted items should always be the best stuff in game, if not, then it makes crafting a pointless feature.
Despite those few things that bugged me, the game is good to play every now and then and i didn't even get into everything, i'm sure there is a lot more that makes that game a blast.
I have a lifetime sub and all I can say is that was a huge error. I will never buy another lifetime sub to any product after having been let down by the folks at turbine.
Ive read your post , and surly it is as nice as you say.
Only thing about LOTRO is that is has no endgame what so ever, you have a few dungeons, but thats it, you will get my point at endgame. its a bit hard to explain.
The way to max lvl are very fun indeed after that you roll a new char , and after that 2 other char, and after that you quit the game.
When you quit you feel like it was a good game, you havent wasted time on it, but it just lack the engame content.
So if you are a raider , and such , you might have to look another way.
System Specc
Intel I7 4770K 3,5 ghz
16Gb RAM 1600 mhz
Nvidia GTX 780
Combat just bored the hell out of me in LOTRO.
I've just started playing LOTRO and so far I've found the lack of character customization to a big problem. I rolled a guardian and my stats are all set and I haven't seen any sign of being able to choose my skills sets or customize my build at all. I'm getting that " on rails" feeling.
To be fair, i've just started playing. I'll keep playing for awhile, perhaps things will open up a bit more as I gain more levels. if it does, I'll likely sub. If it doesn't ...I'll stick with my DDO sub. DDO offers tons of character customization, but is a bit too grindy.
Played this game since the beta and I am moving on; the game does not feel fun or adventurous anymore, just grindy and repetitive. The extreme railroading on character customization and character development was and is a letdown. The game is waaaaay to gear dependent. Frankly it just feels like the game has lost it's soul and is no longer as magical as the books.