Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Numbers up
Athisar
Member UncommonPosts: 666
I've noticed things have been quite a bit busy lately. Not sure why - perhaps the new race has brought in a lot of new and returning players.
On Gladden it's almost always showing 100+ people in Bree, AH is very busy, world chat is busy. Grouping is still hard, but that's Turbine's fault for not making the instance finder better. People are regularly asking for instance/raids though.
It's great to see an older MMO doing a lot better than most people seem to think.
Comments
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Underrated? This game was ruined for a greedy company. They must give thanks that still have players
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
The community is brilliant. An example, I asked in world chat if anyone had any worn elf scholar mats, these are normally very expensive. Someone said he'd send some for free, I checked my mail and he sent 100, as well as lots of other things like about 20 well kept mathoms (also valuable). I've never seen people this generous in any other MMO, and it's not that unusual. Quite often when I ask if anyone's selling something I'll be given it for nothing.
Agree about the combat. After playing GW2 I find LOTRO combat hard to deal with. I still come back! I always say it is like the proverbial old brown shoe. The game is casual and comfortable. I make some tea and sit down during a cold night and have a blast.
I don't mind the combat really. It feels a bit clunky because of the poor animations, but there's a massive range of options to let you play how you like. None of this two click combat. Also the classes do range a lot. I just started a minstrel, and it couldn't be more different from the others I've played.
But yeah, there's something very warm and fuzzy about it. It's great for slower pace gaming as there's so much to explore, and the quests are brilliantly written.
Community is great, though I'd mention first the friendly and helpful tone, or the mature approach, the player events, etc.... and yep, somewhere in the line the generousity as well
Worn elf and the Well-kept mathom are not really a big deal, both dropping from mobs - by a small rate, but still, if you're not a scholar or already are kindred with them hobbits, those items just consuming your inventory. So if you don't want the hassle of going to an auctioneer, put it up for sale, checking the mailbox, etc. it's easier to simply give it away within the kin, or to a fellow player. (20 Well-kept is just 3-4 gold anyways, not a large sum at higher levels. A 100 stack of elf carving is better, but mostly just because of the time you save with it, gathering them from vases could take several hours)
For generousity I'd rather say the gear, that's also pretty frequent on /world, giving away lvl90-100 teal gear pieces for the first tell. Or the many helping hands at the crafting halls, if you need some wood or leather processing.
I have just returned after more than a year. For me, accepting the change to f2p and the new "exec" attitudes of WB was hard. I don't like changes anyway, but those 2 happened close together and it was tough. But things seem to have gelled now between the community and WB and f2p is easier for me after trying a couple of others, so I am slipping back into my comfortable "brown shoes."
I love the community in this game and the wide and deep options given the player. So many choices and I am doing it all different this time. I am having a ball and I am very glad to be back.
As to why the numbers may be up, and it seems to me they are, the recent expansion surely plays a roll, but others may also be returning now that some distance has healed the angst of changes. Just a thought.
They replaced the producer this year, bringing back the guy who was around for Moria (arguably the peak of the game?). From what I can see it's a subtle change of direction which hopefully will go into 2015 with new things. Certainly there are some obvious changes - the weekly twitch streams, more communication on the forums, more acknowledgement of players. For example there's a thread at the moment asking for the most annoying QoL type bugs, I'm guessing they want to fix a few of them in the next update.
What saddens me the most is that WB has seemingly no interest in investing more in the game. They seem to be happy with the amount of money the game is pulling in and cutting costs as much as possible to maintain that rather than expand the game or the player base. An engine/model refresh like WoW has had could give the game a massive boost. One of the things that puts people off a lot is the dated animations and character models. There's a ton of brilliant content there that people are missing out on, and of course a brilliant community.