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Thinking of a return but....
Heffy424
Member UncommonPosts: 524
So i've been considering on returning to LotRO from when I last played which was right before F2P went live back in 2010 I believe? I mainly stopped playing due to other life factors and when i returned my guild had left for SWG then SW:ToR in its wake. I'm here asking what is the game like now a days for a returning players plus how leveling friendly has it become I remember I hit a wall at 45 (I mainly) soloed since everyone was so far ahead of me. Is it much of the same? should I look else where such as EQ2? ESO? FF14?, I did really enjoy a lot of the features this game offered from the crafting to the legendary weapons (I hear thats just awful another grind not sure really) to the classes and races.
Comments
Lots of questions
For returning players it's mostly fine, there's a server transfer going on currently, so the selected remaining servers are pretty crowded on every level range.
Leveling friendly, much faster than it was, there's even an XP disabler (added 2 years ago) for those who don't want to over-level the areas. Crafting/gathering gives xp too now, festivals give level-appropriate xp instead of being lvl10, etc.
Solo option, that's there, you can solo almost everything (but the group content is still there as well)
LI system is still a huge grind, but at least it won't get worse in the future
Class/race, there's a new one, beornings.
Just click on the transfer button and it will list all your characters (with name, class and level) on every server. *
If your home was Meneldor then you'll need to move off your characters since the poor eagle will left behind after the transfers... If it was Brandy, that's the most crowded server on US side nowadays, others can't even migrate onto Brandy because it's full.
*edit: my bad, just checked the transfer, it only shows the character names and the date of last played.
Probably that's still the case presently, just after the server move it's tougher to confirm that due to the performance issues and bugs (for example you can bump into false "server full" messages even during off-peak hours, a known issue with the login server).
I will say the community is perhaps the best in any MMO I've played. I play on Landroval, perhaps that makes a difference, and if you ask a question expect to get taken seriously. I rarely hear a troll remark or put down for asking a question. I had taken a break and coming back to the game had a question. A stranger spent about 45 minutes with me showing new things in game.
I do prefer the early LOTRO with Shadows as opposed to the later updates. I'm a lifer so I get 500 pts a month so spending is not a big deal, but my friends who are not lifers complain new content is very much tied to the cash shop. The grind for rep or anything else becomes onerous to the point you really feel the need to spend in the shop to make it bearable.
Brandy, that's the busiest server since years, that's why the transfer was disabled onto it for long, it was stuffed with players. The lack of incoming players (and that they had to go onto the other servers) closed the gap between Brandy and the others, but it remained one of the most crowded servers.
Crickhollow, it was a moderately crowded server last summer, I too relocated my US characters there from the closing servers, because of the notion of smaller pop (plus it was the hobbit themed / named one, Arken is dwarven obviously, and Gladden is more like elvish
Landy, I'm pretty sure has the most characters in the whole game (since almost every roleplayer has a few chars there), but lot of those characters only active during roleplay events. Still, even on an average day it has a crowd close to Brandywine's levels. Anyways, if you like roleplay, it's a good pick, great folks there, and great events.
So yep, if you want highly populated but not overcrowded servers, Gladden or Arkenstone may be the winner. Which one, I guess depends on you have friends on any of them, or the timezone (I think I've red somewhere Oceanic players moved onto Gladden for example). Personally I'm not familiar with those two, I used to play on Landy and sometimes with my refugees on Crick, but I spend much more time here on Eu.
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?580327-Oceanic-Server