Lord of the Rings Online

Just felt like posting. I think lotro is so much fun that i think the game misses out on alot of players having no idea how cool it is.

Myself im an experienced mmorpg player, started 5 to 6 years back by now and played many many.

I even played lotro but dissapeared after 1 or 2 months, after the game went live. Reason back then was to many quests (yeah i think there can be to many) and my minstrel at the time took to long to kill things at lvl 38. That plus upgrades in armor etc making to little difference.

So there you have my reasons. I came back now and im having an aboslute ball. I started with a lore master this time. Still have to play my minstrel agan which on itself was an awesome class btw. I just wanted to start from scratch again.

The story telling in this game is great. They did alot of minor tweaks and big content updates that compared to how the game was after live i dont really even notice the real difference but it seems to play alot cooler now. The've added plenty in the free huge content updates and tweaked alot of things like the classes and item upgrades to make it all flow much better.

The graphics are sooooo beautiful. Specially if like me you got the machine to support it and run it in full glory details and dx10 (dx10 is way prettier then dx9 and dx9 was already gorgeous).

The game feels way more like a true PVE game instead of other mmorpgs where its more a feeling of killing 10 this and that in a certain place and thats how you lvl up. You do the same in lotro but somehow it feels way more ''old fashioned'' which is a good thing because that means the atmosphere, fun the zones give, goals you have and fun your class gives will just let you enjoy your game time and have a fun time.

Many long ago compared it to wow which is not the case. THe classes play completely different from other mmorpgs. Sure they have the same sort of principle (what mmorpg doesnt) but they are different and a nice change.

Great thing about lotro is you always have the feeling you are constanly working for progress and have plenty of things to do. This feeling is emphasized by the case of having several places you can lvl/quest at. Entire zones you can choose between of. Then there's the main story line which are the books in lotro which tell the story of bilbo and the ring, and his friends. On top of that there's a zillion mini stories unfolding  with fun story telling and many instanced dungeons to play either solo or with friends.

Another very nice thing i notice about lotro is that there's pug raids all day long. Sure you can have good and less good kingships (those are the guilds in lotro) that have kingship raids or need pugs. Point is that there's runs organized to the lvl 50 normal dungeons and raid dungeons pretty much constantly.

Also there's a huge activity, at least on snowbourn, of players from lvl 1 to lvl 50 everywhere.

I've not even tried monsterplay yet which is the pvp type in lotro. It seems to be fairly popular and you can get ranks from killing other players etc and get cool gear and what not. It involves an entire zone dedicated to pvp where you can also quests and what not. Its players vs monsters. Any player at any given time can start playing a monster (he starts at lvl 50) and go quest in ettenmoors or try kill the other players (who play their normal play char) and build their monster. Building meaning getting ranks by killing and questing and getting  new gear and skills etc etc.

Oh btw its also how you approach this game that matters. Dont get yourself lost in farming for deeds wherever you get them. You'll understand what i mean when you play the game. Just lvl up, do your quests and when you are about to leave a zone finish deeds that wont take long to finish or wait till higher lvl to go back and then finish them.

Anyway the game feels very rewarding with amazingly beautiful zone design, atmospheric story telling, cool playstyle of classes and loads and loads and loads of rewards to work for.The music is great too :).

Cya laters.

ya, i think lotro is the best linear pve game out. If WOW isnt your thing for whatever reason. Best start and best future of any (besides wow of coarse) too. Although some will disagree Im sure, but if they're not playing EVE..their disagreements will be generic at best usually. Im sure you'll see in the responses you get. IF you look at all MMO's for what they are..lotro is right there near the top regardless of opinion.

I agree on every point. awsome post.

Can't disagree with you, as far as linear, quest based PVE oriented games go, LoTRO rivals WOW in terms of content, features and entertainment. I think if more WOW players gave it a try they'd really enjoy it.

Now, for us folks who prefer a more sand-box type environment, where player actions have impact on the world and our mistakes have serious consequences, not quite the right game. 

But no game can really be designed to be all inclusive (oh yeah, that's right, DF will be ) so I think Turbine is doing a great job.  Props to them today on their recent announcement and lets hope it gets more folks to give the game a trial.

I agree with most of your post except for your personal view of there being too many quests.  One of the things I enjoyed was the amount of quests I had to choose from.  In fact I am actually motivated to get one of my alts up and running because I did not even do 4-5 quests in a whole section of the map (Evendum sp?)  I was able to level up just fine going places besides there.  Yeah you are going to go through an area a few times with alts, but the ability to pick and choose from a wide verity of quests is awesome.

Anyways, great post and I think your feelings basically mirror my own.  I hope you continue to enjoy the game

linear gameplay has never been my thing (im waiting for Darkfall also) but i must say.. i tried the trial.. and now have purchased this game.. its alot of fun.. like everyone says its beautiful.. and the quests, although linear often times have really cool storys and you dont get "collect 25 bear asses" quests all day long...

i suggest this game to anyone.. i mean if i can like it (and i dont even like these types of games) people who do will really like it if they give it a chance

Well when my minstrel was lvl 38 and finally arrived in trollshaws most quests there were green or grey which annoyed me alot. I like things being a challenge, or at least thats how i used to play in former mmorpgs.

Thing is i already completed all of northdowns, every single quest, and some in angmar. So it got on my nerves thinking i had to do as many quests as i did in north downs and they were already grey or green when i started. i didnt realize trollshaws doesnt have the crazy amount of quests north downs has. so that was about when i quit. I could see myself running after grey, green quests from then on. Coz angmar was already waiting also.

This time on my lore master i had a different approach. I skipped north downs entirely. I didnt do a single quest. At lvl 30 + i switched between evendin, which was also a new zone for me, and trollshaws and i had a great time. Im not busy in angmar and at lvl 45 im doing older deeds and will most likely only now go do the ranger rep quests in north downs.Finish evendin for the warden rep and so on.

I was a skeptic of LoTRO when it first came out. I didn't give it a try until the beginning of this month when I finally became bored with WoW...

After playing my guardian to lvl 20 I have no idea why I was a skeptic. The game play is great (I love the reactionary mechanics of guardians in terms of their block and parry), the quests are fantastic, the shire is probably the most fun I've ever had questing, and the game is absolutely goregous.

I am taking my time leveling, and enjoying the game; 1) because there is so much to do deeds/titles/traites,  2) because I hear there isn't terribly much to do at max level. That being said I would recommend anyone thinking about this game to take their time leveling, and read the quests. 

A truly well-crafted game, and I completely agree with one of the previous posters; If more WoW-players gave this game a try (or had the computers to run it) I bet a lot of them would jump ship. 

Originally posted by reggie   

Well when my minstrel was lvl 38 and finally arrived in trollshaws most quests there were green or grey which annoyed me alot.

At level 38 you can do several quests in Misty