I have a life-time subscription account which I bought when the EU servers were still under CodeMaster's license. Back then I'd agree with OP that the game was the best and unique MMO out there. But over time the unique part kinda left the game and it became extremely generic. The only thing still worth to mention for LotRo is the story and lore, though the latter more and more becomes a rape of Tolkien's legacy.
Needless to say, despite having a life-time subscription, I haven't touched LotRo the last 18 months or so. To me it's no longer worth to play
This game is really good if you are interested in a nice story and world exploration.
Combat is NOT that bad at all. Minstrel is my favourite healer of all time! I have never had so much fun with a healer class in any other MMO. I could grind mobs for hours on end. It was that fun! The minstrel combat!
I am suprised people give ESO as an example for a good combat system. I was really bored of it by level 30. The small number of skills and the wierd feeling of it certainly did not make for a great combat system.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I have a life-time subscription account which I bought when the EU servers were still under CodeMaster's license. Back then I'd agree with OP that the game was the best and unique MMO out there. But over time the unique part kinda left the game and it became extremely generic. The only thing still worth to mention for LotRo is the story and lore, though the latter more and more becomes a rape of Tolkien's legacy.
Needless to say, despite having a life-time subscription, I haven't touched LotRo the last 18 months or so. To me it's no longer worth to play
Generic?
skirmishes
big epic battles
mounted combat
all very unique parts in MMO worlds, ... I think you just grew tired of the MMO, which happens when you play them to long... They become stale on you...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Minstrel is my favourite healer of all time! I have never had so much fun with a healer class in any other MMO. I could grind mobs for hours on end. It was that fun! The minstrel combat!
It's up to personal taste I guess, for example I don't like much the new, "killing-machine" mini... Back in the days it was slower, yes, but more fitting for a healer class. This post-HD era of "-hey, we need an AoE dps too! -I have a mini. -Cool, that's even better than a champ, bring it!" is not for my taste
But of course there's their real purpose still, just throw together a bunch of minis, there will be music: http://postimg.org/image/4uhryuqej/ (<-- last night in Frostbluff)
Unique? That's the opposite word I would use. The first impression I got from LotRO is that it's just WoW in a slightly more polished skin.
It's a shame really, the game had tons of potential. The art was beautiful, and they DID put SOME effort into the lore. But it's all ruined by incredibly lack luster quest grinding solo centric linear hand holding design that discourages socializing and community, and some of the most boring combat I've ever endured.
The only decent features in this game are stripped down leftovers from when it was a promising sandbox game called Middle Earth Online (Morale system, instruments)
Hopefully whoever gets the LotR IP next can do better. You can't do much worse.
I couldn't ever get into it.. The scenery is pretty that's about the extent of the praise I'd give it. I always found the game-play, questing etc.. to be very dull.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Originally posted by Gorwe Plus, the butchery of lore? Come on! PJ already did it with those crappy " "Hobbit" "(two of those just for a measure) movies.
Besides, it all depends how broadly are you willing to look at it. Why? Because you most likely DON'T KNOW what transpired in the background of books! Maybe LoTRO things? Maybe bfme things? Maybe neither? Who knows such things anyhow.
The same applies for those made up parts of the Hobbit(yet the b brothers don't get five minutes screen time! Oh and wtf is with Gloin??? He is the fkkin father of Gimli! Please DO feel free to mention him!). They could've happened. Or they might've not. One thing is for certain-they had no place in "the Hobbit". Perhaps they should've saved them for spin offs? A series? /meh who cares...
Still, RKs are a lore break. There's no other way around them...
its a game mate... and it was never meant to be an exact copy of the tolkien lore, still yet it comes close, and i am pretty much sure, that tolkien himslef would have loved to walk around with a character in the virtuall representation of his world.
Lore purists in general dont understand that movies require a whole different approach then just copying every letter of a book in a movie, same goes for games.
The current ingame lore and stories are far beyound anything i found in any other MMO´s so far.. espescially combined with the tools that Turbine uses to tell them.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I think you just grew tired of the MMO, which happens when you play them to long... They become stale on you...
Would you please stop this nonsense? Who are you to tell if people with different opinions are suitable for playing MMOs or not? I played Lotro too and liked it a lot. But imho Lotro went downhill very fast since Mirkwood. Haven't touched it since and never will again.
all very unique parts in MMO worlds, ... I think you just grew tired of the MMO, which happens when you play them to long... They become stale on you...
Well, It hides it well. I played the first 10 levels or so, an all I saw was generic quests... The intro is where you show off your game and get people hooked, and in that regard LotRO completely failed. I find personally DDO to be a better game, and the only playable Themepark out there. Yay for no fedex / kill x monster quests.
I find personally DDO to be a better game, and the only playable Themepark out there.
Am I completely stupid and forgetfull? How about I remember TSW as well? That one is pretty great too though not completely free of the fed-ex / kill x monsters curse...
I played LOTRO when it first came out, sadly, much as i wanted to enjoy it, i just found the actual game play a bit boring, oh it had some interesting features, just not enough of them to keep any interest in the game, i am not too surprised that the game eventually went F2P, at a guess i would say the only real reason the game is running is probably due to contractual obligation, life time subs probably have a minimum duration written into them? but if they are making enough money to keep the game running, then their doing well, i wouldn't lay heavy odds though on the game continuing to do so much longer, assuming it is making a profit at the moment, its one of a few games that i could easily envisage shutting down some time next year.
Well, I guess I might as well go ahead and give my view of the game. I played the original and Moria, as well as a little bit during Mirkwood, at which point the game almost completely stopped interesting me.
After the F2P conversion, I have tried getting back to the game a couple of times. A couple of things really bother me when ever I try logging in, however.
First there's the hobbit present thing. Every day you log in for the first time, a window appears in the middle of your screen telling you to roll for a "Hobbit Present" or something of the like. You press the roll button and you receive a random item, such as a piece of equipment, completely out of nowhere.
If that wasn't immersion breaking enough, after pressing the roll button the window then goes on to beg you for money. You see, you can pay real money for more rolls to get more random hobbit presents.
That alone makes the game feel like such a cheap money grab, preventing me from really focusing on the gameplay. But there's more. See, I am a lifetime subscriber, yet constantly is the cash shop being shoved down my throat, no matter where I go or what I do.
The greatest example are the quests. After level 10, every time you complete a quest objective, you are prompted to pay a piece of the cash shop currency to teleport back to the quest giver. Once again something that simultaneously completely breaks immersion and annoys me, making me feel like not a respected customer but another person to get a couple of pennies from before I quit.
Well, I don't want this post to become a huge wall of text. Having rambled on about the cash shop for a while, I'll go on to briefly list some of the game's gameplay-related and mechanical flaws , to which I will not go in great detail, but which I am sure other people can identify with.
- Overuse of instancing and zoning
- No new group content
- Clunky and ugly UI
- Clunky controls
- Sluggish movement
- Forced questing
- Overly linearized questing
- Group content made soloable
- Overly personalized storyline
- Horrible minigames like skirmishes and monsterplay
- The looting change - loot is now put in a virtual bag from which you can move things to your own bag at any time and place you want, as long as you loot it within an hour
- Character animations
- Monsters in low level areas nerfed
I used to like this game. I think it still has some of the best looking world scenery out there, and it was pretty fun to play for a time partly because of the active RP community. I never thought it was the best game ever, both because I tend to be a little bit of a Tolkien purist and because I found the gameplay lacking. And let's face it, deep down at it's core the game always was just another WoW clone. But at this stage I just don't find the game playable.
First there's the hobbit present thing. Every day you log in for the first time, a window appears in the middle of your screen telling you to roll for a "Hobbit Present" or something of the like.
The greatest example are the quests. After level 10, every time you complete a quest objective, you are prompted to pay a piece of the cash shop currency to teleport back to the quest giver.
...
And let's face it, deep down at it's core the game always was just another WoW clone.
Some parts I agree. I too raised voice plenty of times against the Presents since its launch (and you even missed to mention the worst part, the level-approproiate "bests" - as in you may roll a gear piece or a consumable which is close the best one for your current level and class. That's why some feel the urge to spend money on the extra rolls... Or that subscribers have two rolls per day, and on the Vip roll there are even better presents... yecch). But it's no longer pop up automatically, it just puts a notification on the Alert pane. Sadly there's no "Turn it off" switch, but still, it's just an option, you can ignore it. Many do.
Same goes to the mithril coins. I don't know of an UI mod (yet, hope there will be one) with which you can turn those off from showing, but those are also just convenience options, you can ignore them safely. (Never used them myself) And you aren't "prompted" per say, it's just an additional button...
Concerning cloning, I too left LotRO after the first try back then, it was way too wow-ish deep down at it's core and I loathe that. But on the second try I rolled a hobbit... maybe the game is not the best as the thread title says, but the Shire is unique, there's nothing even remotely close in wow... (ok, blizz-diots made that Whimsyshire as a spoof for their other weak game, but... no, not even close )
As for the list
Originally posted by Kuviski
- Overuse of instancing and zoning - I think no overuse here, just as much usage as in other "regular" mmos
- No new group content - I don't like BBs either, but let's face it, HD is group content - just a different one
- Clunky and ugly UI - you can modify it as much as you want (ok, within some limits)
- Clunky controls - true, it's not an action game... but I think it's not much clunkier than the average
- Sluggish movement - I don't really mind it, but yep, it can be pretty sluggish
- Forced questing - it's a quest-driven game... (but you can level also by crafting or skirms/Big Battles, or festival activities too)
- Overly linearized questing - only the Book line. All the other quests are very loosely depending on each other, you can skip as much as you want, or do them in any choosen order. Quest "chains" are usually 3-5 quests long, tops. The Book line is optional too, might I add.
- Group content made soloable - as an option. Just play them in a group, if you like.
- Overly personalized storyline - it's a story-driven game too, not just quest-driven as mentioned above...
- Horrible minigames like skirmishes and monsterplay - agree, don't like them either (but many do)
- The looting change - loot is now put in a virtual bag from which you can move things to your own bag at any time and place you want, as long as you loot it within an hour - it's just a convenience bonus. If you don't want it, you can still go back to the first vendor and sell / drop stuff if your bags are full. For those who are dumb enough (khm... happens a lot to me lately, it's easy to get used to the overlay bag... heh heh) going out in the wild / in an instance with an almost full inventory, now have the option to finish it and do the inventory tetris later. (and I even have the full 8 bags, but what can I say? I'm a hoarder...)
There's few things that keep me away from this. Most significant is the ominous character models. Can't play a game where the npc's are better looking than players. Elves are particularly disgusting. UI is horrible too. I played the game until Moria release. It's sad for me because the game itself is not bad and i'm a Tolkien follower. Please do something with the character skins!
I tought most people have forgotten about how good this game actually is for players like me that are into lore and stories... I think this was the first game that put story so high on their agenda, and set the scene for the newer story based games like ESO, TSW and SWTOR. And yet still it feels like a unique place..
here is why i keep returning to this game..
- even after 7 years the graphical art style is still convincing
- the scenery is still the best in any MMO, traveling the lands has so many beatifull sights
- despite many storie areas and dungeon being instanced, it really feels like a huge open world, more then any other themepark game
- mounted combat, best in any MMO
- big epic battles, being part of mass combat in PvE feels unique
- skirmishes... Quick group content..
- fun dungeons and raids, very diverse, many of them scaling in level
- housing, still one of the best systems, part of the sociall system
- Quests and lore, having a story paralel to the big events in the books, makes you really feel part of the tolkien lore
- Society, is unbelievable, no other game has so many player organised events
- the music system, and people performing in the game world
- all those little fun things implemented in the world, like chicken runs
- Magic in the Tolkien world feels quite rare compared to other fantasy MMOs, as it should be...
- Regular content updates, like 3 major updates over the last year..
- Class diversity, all classes feel and play totally different, with unique mechanics for every class. Adding to the replayabillity
- so much story and quests, that you need several characters to see and play it all
- monster play, i love fighting other players this way, it does not break the worlds immersion
yes, its a leveling game, not an endgame game currently, but there are people everywhere, espescially with the new class recently released, level 1 to 50 zones are booming. And while the lore is not totally true to tolkiens books, i am sure Tolkien himself would have loved to play a character in this game build around his very own world.
Yet the story is allready in the 3rd book, and progressing towards the probable Mordor Climax, which got me wondering what will happen after that, but then thats another discussion entirely. So far they they succeeded to make new content feel fresh every time, at allmost every update the game gets a new push into a different direction with new things to experience.
as a game hopper, i really hope that i can allways keep returning to this game and feel like getting home.. Its currently the only MMO that feels closer to a virtuall world then to a game
Marked
Mounted combat are boring you just target the enemy write /follow and use the combat skills, It's far from best MMO mounted combat.
Housing are very limited, check Wildstar and EQ2 for better housing.
Rest that you wrote I agree on, I also keep coming back and I've been playing since open beta.
- Group content made soloable - as an option. Just play them in a group, if you like.
- The looting change - loot is now put in a virtual bag from which you can move things to your own bag at any time and place you want, as long as you loot it within an hour - it's just a convenience bonus. If you don't want it, you can still go back to the first vendor and sell / drop stuff if your bags are full. For those who are dumb enough (khm... happens a lot to me lately, it's easy to get used to the overlay bag... heh heh) going out in the wild / in an instance with an almost full inventory, now have the option to finish it and do the inventory tetris later. (and I even have the full 8 bags, but what can I say? I'm a hoarder...)
Most of the stuff comes down to personal preference, however, concerning these two points I quoted I want to post a reply. This isn't a single player game, you don't just mod it to your liking. That's just not how it works in a world filled with other players.
Yes, you can do the soloable group dungeons with a group. But that is artificially making content more difficult by going through the trouble of finding a group. Say that I thought a dungeon wasn't difficult enough - would you tell me to do it without my equipment on? We aren't playing a tabletop game here where the Dungeon Master can make stuff up on the fly, nor are we children at a playground arguing about whether or not that bullet hit one of us or not in our little game of cops and robbers. There's in-game rules at play.
The same goes for the loot thing. It breaks immersion and I feel takes away from gameplay. Now, carrying multiple sets of armour in your bags never was very realistic to begin with, but the virtual bag really makes you (or rather, me) realize just how ridiculous the whole thing is. It distracts me, and I cannot just pretend its not there, just like I cannot pretend the Dungeon Finder doesn't exist in the majority of games, with it's side effects like allowing for constant teleportation around the world.
I have a life-time subscription account which I bought when the EU servers were still under CodeMaster's license. Back then I'd agree with OP that the game was the best and unique MMO out there. But over time the unique part kinda left the game and it became extremely generic. The only thing still worth to mention for LotRo is the story and lore, though the latter more and more becomes a rape of Tolkien's legacy.
Needless to say, despite having a life-time subscription, I haven't touched LotRo the last 18 months or so. To me it's no longer worth to play
Generic?
skirmishes
big epic battles
mounted combat
all very unique parts in MMO worlds, ... I think you just grew tired of the MMO, which happens when you play them to long... They become stale on you...
Yup very generic and the features you bring up as 'unique' have all done been done before...
Skirmishes - Yet an other instance with a quest to do. Not sure, but World of Warcraft kinda started this already 10 years ago and since then almost every MMO copied the idea in one way or an other. Skirmishes is yet an other quest instance.
Big Epic Battles - Done before huge as raids in lots of MMORPGs out there. World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI are the 2 that have perfected this topic with lots and lots of parties. Also, a lot of open world (no instanced) MMOs have had big epic battles as well - Lineage II with the world bosses to name one.
Mounted Combat - Age of Conan made this one 'big' and then it was already yet an other remake of the feature. Lineage II (once again) already had some sort of mounted combat where you could ride a (dragon) strider while a select few could fly a wyvern. Of course you could do battle with these mounts as well, and if you were a spellcaster you could use your spells as well (though with less effectiveness since you can't wield weapons when mounted). I gotta agree though, LotRo did somewhat perfect mounted combat, but it's far from unique!
And yeah, I've grown tired of (themepark) MMOs, I'm looking for something really unique, but I'm afraid that's some dream that can't be lived any more after the 10 years of MMO playing I did.
My main issues with LotRO are that I didn't care for the writing after around Lothlorien, and the F2P aspect. Mainly in that every aspect of the game is plastered with cash shop services. Even if you have a sub, you still have to stare at all that @&;*#.
The world is really well designed. I would say it is the most immersive mmo out there. Also it is Lotr which for a lot of people is enough. Very few other mmos have such big IPs maybe you can argue that Star Wars is comparable. The only big universes (but no where near Star Wars and Lord of the rings) are the elder scrolls and Warcraft. I found the rest of the MMO worlds I have experienced completely forgettable. You just don't have the same amount of lore and engagement.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Originally posted by Gorwe It is a nice game that is sadly outdated on every front.
Story? Swtor/TSW - So if one game has slightly better story than another (and that's your opinion as well) but they both have an amazing storyline, the second best one should not be played? Flawed logic. Also I would argue that LOTR has better story than SWTOR and TSW. World? wow/eso - questionable. I can't directly compare game's worlds when they are all so well done. ESO, WoW And LOTRO have amazing worlds. Same logic as above applies. If they are all great, you experience one, then the next, then the one after that. I would rate them LOTRO> WOW > ESO though. Combat? Everything - TSW combat is not better? I don't like LOTRO combat much. But I absolutely loved playing Minstrel. It was like playing another game. The combat felt awesome playing minstrel and incredibly boring champion/hunter. Animations? You haven't played Rift, have you? That is the clunkiest MMO I have ever played. Other notable examples are EQ1 and EQ2. Both games have horrible engines, ultra clunky and in the case of EQ2 horribly optimised.
As is evident, there is very little reason to play LoTRO besides the IP and community. If I were to suggest a game to LoTRO fans, it'd be ESO. Maybe swtor, but that one is SF so... A lot of LOTR fans want LOTR lore. They love the IP. Questing in ESO is improved because the game launched like 7 years later? LOTRO's quests at the time were a lot better than other MMOs.
One mustn't forget that if you want a themepark game, there are 2 HUGE games out there(wow/eq2). - I have played WoW to death. There is no way I can have any fun in that game anymore. The game simply is all but exhausted on me. EQ2 had tons of cons too. Horrible engine which even on the latest i7 and gtx 960+ runs like shit. Horrible animations. The old zones are incredibly ugly. Horrible quests. It's also a very raid focused game.
With all this said, if only they updated combat(to feel more responsive) and animations(lol horrible! :P ) - I agree, they can work on those areas but I find it wierd that two of your examples above (TSW, EQ2) suffer from these exact problems.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Yes, you can do the soloable group dungeons with a group. But that is artificially making content more difficult by going through the trouble of finding a group.
....
The same goes for the loot thing. It breaks immersion and I feel takes away from gameplay.
I agree with the overflow bag is up to personal preference. I can see why it is immersion breaking, but as a hoarder I welcomed its addition to the game, it really helps a lot - especially with ad-hoc stuff... "I'm doing xxx slayer deed, anyone interested?" then a "Yep, count me in" is a better response than "Yep, just could you wait 10 min while I jump back to the vault and selling some stuff plus free up the inventory?"
Same goes to the swift travel, I prefer to riding myself, then stable routes, and only on the 3rd tier I like swift travel option. But on some cases I love that's in the game, when I just hop in to do some quick crafting for an alt, or helping out a buddy. For the same reason I love Hurried traveller, and the option for multiple Milestone skills. I'm not jumping around the world all the time like Hayden Anakin did in Jumper ( ), but I love to have the option for that convenience in need.
However I believe there's a misunderstanding with the solo option. There's no "artificially making content more difficult" when choosing the group option, that's the default one. Nothing changed with the group content of the game. A lot of group content doesn't even have the IG option.
Inspired Greatness only removed the forced grouping. Those instances which weren't optional, which were (and still are) mandatory for advancing your story in the Book quest line, are no longer forcing you to do them in a group. Doing them in a group is still the better and more fitting way, no changes in that part. But there's a second option added, to do it alone. That's just an option, and it's even tougher than going in with a group (but I agree, in some cases it has the same, or a bit lower difficulty. Depends on the actual instance and the player's class. There was a thread on the forum back then, gathering which instance / class matches are very tough or close impossible with the solo option.)
IG doesn't mean "now I can stroll through the whole game smoothly in solo, since group is just trouble anyways, an added difficulty I don't need". Nope, it just means if you can't find a group for a specific instance, you have the option to choose the tougher way and try that in solo. (before IG, since it was forced grouping, you were stucked in your Book line until you managed to gather a full group).
I too prefer grouping, but I don't mind when they give more options to the players.
I've yet to find any game that I couldn't fault at all. There are certainly problems with lotro, but it's still one of the most satisfying games for me. It's easy to return to at any time, it's easy to get straight back in.
I'd love it if WB invested money into the game rather than continually squeeze it, but I don't think they have any real interest in the MMO market. It's getting a good number of updates though, and I like how the last update fixed a few long standing bugs.
As far far as cash grabs go, this is very low on the list. It's nothing like ArcheAge for example. Since I subscribe I don't get any requests and never have to buy anything from the cash shop, though the 500 TP per month included lets me buy the odd useful thing like storage expansions. I don't see hobbit presents as anything awful; the free item can be worth up to about 150 TP and there's nothing there that's necessary.
Comments
I have a life-time subscription account which I bought when the EU servers were still under CodeMaster's license. Back then I'd agree with OP that the game was the best and unique MMO out there. But over time the unique part kinda left the game and it became extremely generic. The only thing still worth to mention for LotRo is the story and lore, though the latter more and more becomes a rape of Tolkien's legacy.
Needless to say, despite having a life-time subscription, I haven't touched LotRo the last 18 months or so. To me it's no longer worth to play
This game is really good if you are interested in a nice story and world exploration.
Combat is NOT that bad at all. Minstrel is my favourite healer of all time! I have never had so much fun with a healer class in any other MMO. I could grind mobs for hours on end. It was that fun! The minstrel combat!
I am suprised people give ESO as an example for a good combat system. I was really bored of it by level 30. The small number of skills and the wierd feeling of it certainly did not make for a great combat system.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Generic?
skirmishes
big epic battles
mounted combat
all very unique parts in MMO worlds, ... I think you just grew tired of the MMO, which happens when you play them to long... They become stale on you...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
It's up to personal taste I guess, for example I don't like much the new, "killing-machine" mini... Back in the days it was slower, yes, but more fitting for a healer class. This post-HD era of "-hey, we need an AoE dps too! -I have a mini. -Cool, that's even better than a champ, bring it!" is not for my taste
But of course there's their real purpose still, just throw together a bunch of minis, there will be music: http://postimg.org/image/4uhryuqej/ (<-- last night in Frostbluff)
Unique? That's the opposite word I would use. The first impression I got from LotRO is that it's just WoW in a slightly more polished skin.
It's a shame really, the game had tons of potential. The art was beautiful, and they DID put SOME effort into the lore. But it's all ruined by incredibly lack luster quest grinding solo centric linear hand holding design that discourages socializing and community, and some of the most boring combat I've ever endured.
The only decent features in this game are stripped down leftovers from when it was a promising sandbox game called Middle Earth Online (Morale system, instruments)
Hopefully whoever gets the LotR IP next can do better. You can't do much worse.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
its a game mate... and it was never meant to be an exact copy of the tolkien lore, still yet it comes close, and i am pretty much sure, that tolkien himslef would have loved to walk around with a character in the virtuall representation of his world.
Lore purists in general dont understand that movies require a whole different approach then just copying every letter of a book in a movie, same goes for games.
The current ingame lore and stories are far beyound anything i found in any other MMO´s so far.. espescially combined with the tools that Turbine uses to tell them.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Would you please stop this nonsense? Who are you to tell if people with different opinions are suitable for playing MMOs or not? I played Lotro too and liked it a lot. But imho Lotro went downhill very fast since Mirkwood. Haven't touched it since and never will again.
Well, It hides it well. I played the first 10 levels or so, an all I saw was generic quests... The intro is where you show off your game and get people hooked, and in that regard LotRO completely failed. I find personally DDO to be a better game, and the only playable Themepark out there. Yay for no fedex / kill x monster quests.
Am I completely stupid and forgetfull? How about I remember TSW as well? That one is pretty great too though not completely free of the fed-ex / kill x monsters curse...
Unique lololololololol
LoTRO literally paved the way for a decade of WoW clones.
Well, I guess I might as well go ahead and give my view of the game. I played the original and Moria, as well as a little bit during Mirkwood, at which point the game almost completely stopped interesting me.
After the F2P conversion, I have tried getting back to the game a couple of times. A couple of things really bother me when ever I try logging in, however.
First there's the hobbit present thing. Every day you log in for the first time, a window appears in the middle of your screen telling you to roll for a "Hobbit Present" or something of the like. You press the roll button and you receive a random item, such as a piece of equipment, completely out of nowhere.
If that wasn't immersion breaking enough, after pressing the roll button the window then goes on to beg you for money. You see, you can pay real money for more rolls to get more random hobbit presents.
That alone makes the game feel like such a cheap money grab, preventing me from really focusing on the gameplay. But there's more. See, I am a lifetime subscriber, yet constantly is the cash shop being shoved down my throat, no matter where I go or what I do.
The greatest example are the quests. After level 10, every time you complete a quest objective, you are prompted to pay a piece of the cash shop currency to teleport back to the quest giver. Once again something that simultaneously completely breaks immersion and annoys me, making me feel like not a respected customer but another person to get a couple of pennies from before I quit.
Well, I don't want this post to become a huge wall of text. Having rambled on about the cash shop for a while, I'll go on to briefly list some of the game's gameplay-related and mechanical flaws , to which I will not go in great detail, but which I am sure other people can identify with.
- Overuse of instancing and zoning
- No new group content
- Clunky and ugly UI
- Clunky controls
- Sluggish movement
- Forced questing
- Overly linearized questing
- Group content made soloable
- Overly personalized storyline
- Horrible minigames like skirmishes and monsterplay
- The looting change - loot is now put in a virtual bag from which you can move things to your own bag at any time and place you want, as long as you loot it within an hour
- Character animations
- Monsters in low level areas nerfed
I used to like this game. I think it still has some of the best looking world scenery out there, and it was pretty fun to play for a time partly because of the active RP community. I never thought it was the best game ever, both because I tend to be a little bit of a Tolkien purist and because I found the gameplay lacking. And let's face it, deep down at it's core the game always was just another WoW clone. But at this stage I just don't find the game playable.
The Weekly Wizardry blog
Some parts I agree. I too raised voice plenty of times against the Presents since its launch (and you even missed to mention the worst part, the level-approproiate "bests" - as in you may roll a gear piece or a consumable which is close the best one for your current level and class. That's why some feel the urge to spend money on the extra rolls... Or that subscribers have two rolls per day, and on the Vip roll there are even better presents... yecch). But it's no longer pop up automatically, it just puts a notification on the Alert pane. Sadly there's no "Turn it off" switch, but still, it's just an option, you can ignore it. Many do.
Same goes to the mithril coins. I don't know of an UI mod (yet, hope there will be one) with which you can turn those off from showing, but those are also just convenience options, you can ignore them safely. (Never used them myself) And you aren't "prompted" per say, it's just an additional button...
Concerning cloning, I too left LotRO after the first try back then, it was way too wow-ish deep down at it's core and I loathe that. But on the second try I rolled a hobbit...
maybe the game is not the best as the thread title says, but the Shire is unique, there's nothing even remotely close in wow... (ok, blizz-diots made that Whimsyshire as a spoof for their other weak game, but... no, not even close 
)
As for the list
Lotro morphed from decent game for certain user niche years ago to cheap facebook-like trash. I don't recommend it.
Marked
Mounted combat are boring you just target the enemy write /follow and use the combat skills, It's far from best MMO mounted combat.
Housing are very limited, check Wildstar and EQ2 for better housing.
Rest that you wrote I agree on, I also keep coming back and I've been playing since open beta.
Most of the stuff comes down to personal preference, however, concerning these two points I quoted I want to post a reply. This isn't a single player game, you don't just mod it to your liking. That's just not how it works in a world filled with other players.
Yes, you can do the soloable group dungeons with a group. But that is artificially making content more difficult by going through the trouble of finding a group. Say that I thought a dungeon wasn't difficult enough - would you tell me to do it without my equipment on? We aren't playing a tabletop game here where the Dungeon Master can make stuff up on the fly, nor are we children at a playground arguing about whether or not that bullet hit one of us or not in our little game of cops and robbers. There's in-game rules at play.
The same goes for the loot thing. It breaks immersion and I feel takes away from gameplay. Now, carrying multiple sets of armour in your bags never was very realistic to begin with, but the virtual bag really makes you (or rather, me) realize just how ridiculous the whole thing is. It distracts me, and I cannot just pretend its not there, just like I cannot pretend the Dungeon Finder doesn't exist in the majority of games, with it's side effects like allowing for constant teleportation around the world.
The Weekly Wizardry blog
Yup very generic and the features you bring up as 'unique' have all done been done before...
Skirmishes - Yet an other instance with a quest to do. Not sure, but World of Warcraft kinda started this already 10 years ago and since then almost every MMO copied the idea in one way or an other. Skirmishes is yet an other quest instance.
Big Epic Battles - Done before huge as raids in lots of MMORPGs out there. World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI are the 2 that have perfected this topic with lots and lots of parties. Also, a lot of open world (no instanced) MMOs have had big epic battles as well - Lineage II with the world bosses to name one.
Mounted Combat - Age of Conan made this one 'big' and then it was already yet an other remake of the feature. Lineage II (once again) already had some sort of mounted combat where you could ride a (dragon) strider while a select few could fly a wyvern. Of course you could do battle with these mounts as well, and if you were a spellcaster you could use your spells as well (though with less effectiveness since you can't wield weapons when mounted). I gotta agree though, LotRo did somewhat perfect mounted combat, but it's far from unique!
And yeah, I've grown tired of (themepark) MMOs, I'm looking for something really unique, but I'm afraid that's some dream that can't be lived any more after the 10 years of MMO playing I did.
I have to agree with the OP even though i don't like to.
Best mmo that actually makes you feel you are living in another world, world immersion is second to none.
Only mmo that really does cater to RPing with what was the European Laurelin server being one of the only official RP servers in most mmo's to date.
Best community in any mmo i've played since EQ and maybe Vanguard.
Yes you really do meet Frodo and the rest of the felloship.
Moria has to be one of if not the best expansion in any mmo to date.
The burglar class is or was the best rogue type class i've ever played.
Yes lotro has a lot of kill quest especially boars but hey that's the same for every mmo in some form or other.
I've never really stopped playing it.
Also it is Lotr which for a lot of people is enough. Very few other mmos have such big IPs maybe you can argue that Star Wars is comparable. The only big universes (but no where near Star Wars and Lord of the rings) are the elder scrolls and Warcraft.
I found the rest of the MMO worlds I have experienced completely forgettable. You just don't have the same amount of lore and engagement.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I agree with the overflow bag is up to personal preference. I can see why it is immersion breaking, but as a hoarder I welcomed its addition to the game, it really helps a lot - especially with ad-hoc stuff... "I'm doing xxx slayer deed, anyone interested?" then a "Yep, count me in" is a better response than "Yep, just could you wait 10 min while I jump back to the vault and selling some stuff plus free up the inventory?"
Same goes to the swift travel, I prefer to riding myself, then stable routes, and only on the 3rd tier I like swift travel option. But on some cases I love that's in the game, when I just hop in to do some quick crafting for an alt, or helping out a buddy. For the same reason I love Hurried traveller, and the option for multiple Milestone skills. I'm not jumping around the world all the time like Hayden Anakin did in Jumper (
), but I love to have the option for that convenience in need.
However I believe there's a misunderstanding with the solo option. There's no "artificially making content more difficult" when choosing the group option, that's the default one. Nothing changed with the group content of the game. A lot of group content doesn't even have the IG option.
Inspired Greatness only removed the forced grouping. Those instances which weren't optional, which were (and still are) mandatory for advancing your story in the Book quest line, are no longer forcing you to do them in a group. Doing them in a group is still the better and more fitting way, no changes in that part. But there's a second option added, to do it alone. That's just an option, and it's even tougher than going in with a group (but I agree, in some cases it has the same, or a bit lower difficulty. Depends on the actual instance and the player's class. There was a thread on the forum back then, gathering which instance / class matches are very tough or close impossible with the solo option.)
IG doesn't mean "now I can stroll through the whole game smoothly in solo, since group is just trouble anyways, an added difficulty I don't need". Nope, it just means if you can't find a group for a specific instance, you have the option to choose the tougher way and try that in solo. (before IG, since it was forced grouping, you were stucked in your Book line until you managed to gather a full group).
I too prefer grouping, but I don't mind when they give more options to the players.
I've yet to find any game that I couldn't fault at all. There are certainly problems with lotro, but it's still one of the most satisfying games for me. It's easy to return to at any time, it's easy to get straight back in.
I'd love it if WB invested money into the game rather than continually squeeze it, but I don't think they have any real interest in the MMO market. It's getting a good number of updates though, and I like how the last update fixed a few long standing bugs.
As far far as cash grabs go, this is very low on the list. It's nothing like ArcheAge for example. Since I subscribe I don't get any requests and never have to buy anything from the cash shop, though the 500 TP per month included lets me buy the odd useful thing like storage expansions. I don't see hobbit presents as anything awful; the free item can be worth up to about 150 TP and there's nothing there that's necessary.