I haven't played LOTRO for a long time, so my info may be dated, but as I recall:
1. If you have a friendly robust kinship, then you are golden. You can solo, group, do whatever whenever. The game becomes great.
2. If you don't have a kinship, but can play in large blocks of time (at least 4 hours, preferably 8 hour blocks) then I found I could start off soloing, while keeping an eye on the lfg channel and using the lfg tools. During that time I'd typically be able to coordinate at least one group. Furthermore, I gradually developed enough of a social network to eventually join one of those friendly kinships.
3. IF you don't have a kinship, and can only play for small blocks of time (2 hours or less), then you can still play - solo content that is. Grouping content will almost surely be beyond you because of the travel and logistical barriers set up. The game is still fairly fun, but it will present you interesting sounding group-only quests, which may eventually become frustrating to you. It's kinda in-your-face about it (you could do this awesome group quest, or yet another kill x solo quest, or fed ex quest) The game gives you incentives to group (cooler quests, about double xp) but sets up annoying logistical barriers to grouping that are hard to overcome if you only play in short bursts.
Also a couple notes. In truth for much of the group content you do NOT need a standard tank+healer combo, but the CULTURE has more or less convinced itself you do, so in practice you do... for pick up groups. This is another advantage kinships have, because they are more likely to try non-standard groups. Also, a chunk of the population do not understand that there is fact a very large xp bonus for grouping. Monster grinding groups are actually a perfectly feasible group activity, but its rare for people to do them. Which is unfortunate, because grouping-only-for-quests is one of the logistical barriers... the population is fragmented by quest (and by level, and class) making it hard to find a good group match. In particular, if you are lonely for grouping, and you see a group forming for a quest you do not have, I recommend you JOIN THE GROUP ANYWAY. You will not be wasting your time. You will usually get a reasonable reward in xp.
Grouping logistical issues? I guess you are not aware of the insta travel options, summoning and travel abilities, summoning tools such as guardian acorns and horns of summoning, incentives to revisit quests that you have already done. I am not aware of any other MMO that has such a wide range of tools to encourage and facilitate easy grouping.
Yes thse are pretty much mid to high level things but lets face it at lower levels how much of a issue is it to run from Bree to the Barrow Downs. 3 minutes maybe?
And if you aren't a hunter? Or a captain in the right place? Or allready at the summoning horn? I found it just increased the critical nature of kinships. A kinship can work around all the travel time stuff by having mules camped out at horns (or captains anywhere), having an army of hunters bound to different campfires, etc. So again, have a kinship -> golden. If on your own trying to build a pickup group.... good luck if you only have a 10-30 minutes time budget for group formation.
When I came back after the implementation of all the summoning horns and campfires, my kinship was still operational. I had well functioning groups ready and transportation to anywhere in the world in under 10 minutes, because of all the resources the kinship brought to bear. Then I left again and AoC happened. When I came back, my kinship had completely vanished, my friends list was dry. Totally different game.
CoH is head and shoulders superior to LOTRO for easy group formation. Toontown, Wizard 101, puzzle pirates have teleport-to-friend features.
Wow kudos to gestalt11, that was an unbelievably well thought out post. You should use that as a basis for your thesis/dissertation on video game design lol.
Yes, decent post but I disagree on one point: Lotro is not quite so cookie-cutter on instance class requirements as he makes it out to be, which is one of my favorite things about the game. You can in fact run an instance *without* a minstril, or a dedicated tank, I have done it many times. A lot of the classes are very hybrid in nature, and it's fun trying out different combinations, whether it's using Burglar conjuctions for healing or a Captain or Champion doing the tanking. I've even been in 6-man instances with less than 6 characters and been successful, for level-appropriate content. The basic paradigm still exists, but it's much better than, say, WoW, where you have ZERO chance without the tank-healer-3dps class configuration.
CoH is head and shoulders superior to LOTRO for easy group formation. Toontown, Wizard 101, puzzle pirates have teleport-to-friend features.
I have a minstrel, LM and leling a hunter. No problems with logistics or getting to where the group is. Maybe you should play toontown or puzzle pirates sounds like they are probably a better match for you.
Comments
I haven't played LOTRO for a long time, so my info may be dated, but as I recall:
1. If you have a friendly robust kinship, then you are golden. You can solo, group, do whatever whenever. The game becomes great.
2. If you don't have a kinship, but can play in large blocks of time (at least 4 hours, preferably 8 hour blocks) then I found I could start off soloing, while keeping an eye on the lfg channel and using the lfg tools. During that time I'd typically be able to coordinate at least one group. Furthermore, I gradually developed enough of a social network to eventually join one of those friendly kinships.
3. IF you don't have a kinship, and can only play for small blocks of time (2 hours or less), then you can still play - solo content that is. Grouping content will almost surely be beyond you because of the travel and logistical barriers set up. The game is still fairly fun, but it will present you interesting sounding group-only quests, which may eventually become frustrating to you. It's kinda in-your-face about it (you could do this awesome group quest, or yet another kill x solo quest, or fed ex quest) The game gives you incentives to group (cooler quests, about double xp) but sets up annoying logistical barriers to grouping that are hard to overcome if you only play in short bursts.
Also a couple notes. In truth for much of the group content you do NOT need a standard tank+healer combo, but the CULTURE has more or less convinced itself you do, so in practice you do... for pick up groups. This is another advantage kinships have, because they are more likely to try non-standard groups. Also, a chunk of the population do not understand that there is fact a very large xp bonus for grouping. Monster grinding groups are actually a perfectly feasible group activity, but its rare for people to do them. Which is unfortunate, because grouping-only-for-quests is one of the logistical barriers... the population is fragmented by quest (and by level, and class) making it hard to find a good group match. In particular, if you are lonely for grouping, and you see a group forming for a quest you do not have, I recommend you JOIN THE GROUP ANYWAY. You will not be wasting your time. You will usually get a reasonable reward in xp.
Grouping logistical issues? I guess you are not aware of the insta travel options, summoning and travel abilities, summoning tools such as guardian acorns and horns of summoning, incentives to revisit quests that you have already done. I am not aware of any other MMO that has such a wide range of tools to encourage and facilitate easy grouping.
Yes thse are pretty much mid to high level things but lets face it at lower levels how much of a issue is it to run from Bree to the Barrow Downs. 3 minutes maybe?
I miss DAoC
And if you aren't a hunter? Or a captain in the right place? Or allready at the summoning horn? I found it just increased the critical nature of kinships. A kinship can work around all the travel time stuff by having mules camped out at horns (or captains anywhere), having an army of hunters bound to different campfires, etc. So again, have a kinship -> golden. If on your own trying to build a pickup group.... good luck if you only have a 10-30 minutes time budget for group formation.
When I came back after the implementation of all the summoning horns and campfires, my kinship was still operational. I had well functioning groups ready and transportation to anywhere in the world in under 10 minutes, because of all the resources the kinship brought to bear. Then I left again and AoC happened. When I came back, my kinship had completely vanished, my friends list was dry. Totally different game.
CoH is head and shoulders superior to LOTRO for easy group formation. Toontown, Wizard 101, puzzle pirates have teleport-to-friend features.
Yes, decent post but I disagree on one point: Lotro is not quite so cookie-cutter on instance class requirements as he makes it out to be, which is one of my favorite things about the game. You can in fact run an instance *without* a minstril, or a dedicated tank, I have done it many times. A lot of the classes are very hybrid in nature, and it's fun trying out different combinations, whether it's using Burglar conjuctions for healing or a Captain or Champion doing the tanking. I've even been in 6-man instances with less than 6 characters and been successful, for level-appropriate content. The basic paradigm still exists, but it's much better than, say, WoW, where you have ZERO chance without the tank-healer-3dps class configuration.
I have a minstrel, LM and leling a hunter. No problems with logistics or getting to where the group is. Maybe you should play toontown or puzzle pirates sounds like they are probably a better match for you.
I miss DAoC