Weatherstock XIII Further Proves LotRO's Community Is Among MMO's Best | MMORPG.com

System · July 2021

Weatherstock XIII Further Proves LotRO's Community Is Among MMO's Best | MMORPG.com

Weatherstock XIII took place over the weekend (We even streamed a little bit of it!) and one aspect Bradford could not shake was just how cool the Lord of the Rings Online community has been over the course of the game's life.

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Cuddleheart · July 2021

LoTRO has always been underappreciated as an RP game! I often see WoW, ESO, and FF14 rated above it in top ten lists for RP MMOs and it's really surprising. Flavor items back in 2007(pie run!), housing, wardrobes, kin halls, titles, customizable music system...This game is a RPer's dream.

Neoyoshi · July 2021

LoTRo is like the awkward nerdy kid in middleschool that everyone forgot about, but tends to forget that they work for now and owns Amazon.

Po_gg · July 2021

"LotRO's community is among the best ones" is an axiom itself, however some further proving can't hurt

Great screenshot too, I honestly was sceptical when these candles were added to the game, but this usage, especially against the night sky as background... awesome.

Now all concerts can have their own light show systems for adding an extra layer to the performance.

lahnmir · July 2021

Po_gg said:

"LotRO's community is among the best ones" is an axiom itself, however some further proving can't hurt

Great screenshot too, I honestly was sceptical when these candles were added to the game, but this usage, especially against the night sky as background... awesome.
Now all concerts can have their own light show systems for adding an extra layer to the performance.

Ohhh, how over the years I have longed for them to expand the Hobby system with not just fishing but performing. The entire music system is there already, imagine you and a couple of (npc) buddies performing on various stages across the world, wowing a (npc) crowd and gaining rewards based on your succes. New instruments, outfits, a pet, a title, you name it. It would be glorious.

And breeding, that would be a great third hobby. Raising and breeding certain pets and mounts.

We don’t need new races and classes etc. We need improving and expanding of the current systems, so many loose ends like the hobby system.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

Wizardry · July 2021

Patronizing people with statements like this is imo lame.That is one the simplest marketing tools studios like to use is tell their players how great they are and how great their community is.
A community is hit n miss in ALL games,statements like this is pretty much trying to lay claim that the community is 100% great and there are no asshats at all within the game.
How much community building does LOTRO even have,i know people who have played as a couple husband wife how is that community building?

One of my biggest peeves in mmorpg's is elitism and TIERED gaming promotes that.The EQ's did it the Wow's and the FF games adopted that as well.Tiered gaming doe NOT promote community it segregates it into it's own divisions of elitism.

When i began in FFXI we never thought about tiered gaming,we would simply gather players together and take on content and that is the way it should be.The Tiered design is like in real life we have professional sports athletes and we have amateurs,it is a form of tiered sport.

A TRUE community building game is like you could have a player standing there and just invite that person into your group without worrying about their Ilevels,gear rating etc etc.Tiered gaming is alo VERY linear and not suited for open ended gaming,you have to grind each tier one after another and that becomes your only focus not community but grinding each tier in ...succession.

Scot · July 2021

FTrunks21 said:

In every game, all in game events are garbage, even more so for community driven ones. Hilarious how some people feel the need to do or say things to get the attention of people to earn e-fame and feel special about themselves. Like they so desperately want to be cool. Just making up whatever to see if people eat it up. I never talk in chat but, when I decide to glance through it on brandywine, they are anything but a "great" community.

If everyone had your attitude, to never participate then the world of gaming would be a shallow place. It you want to find gamers who like to feel special about themselves find some streamers, people taking part in MMO events just love the events.

Sovrath · July 2021

FTrunks21 said:

In every game, all in game events are garbage, even more so for community driven ones. Hilarious how some people feel the need to do or say things to get the attention of people to earn e-fame and feel special about themselves. Like they so desperately want to be cool. Just making up whatever to see if people eat it up. I never talk in chat but, when I decide to glance through it on brandywine, they are anything but a "great" community.

There's a difference between a great community and "everyone is great." Just like life.

You're not going to find everyone great.

Also, player driven events are about community. Getting people together.

Given your attitude perhaps you are part of the problem when it comes to the "bad apples" of the community.

Cuddleheart · July 2021

FTrunks21 said:

In every game, all in game events are garbage, even more so for community driven ones. Hilarious how some people feel the need to do or say things to get the attention of people to earn e-fame and feel special about themselves. Like they so desperately want to be cool. Just making up whatever to see if people eat it up. I never talk in chat but, when I decide to glance through it on brandywine, they are anything but a "great" community.

I always enjoyed the events my RP kin did in LoTRO. It's the only graphical MMORPG I've ever RP'ed in to this day. These types of things are always subjective, though. There were definitely headaches with the in-game events(I'm looking at you chicken hockey!), but I always thought the events would at least give something cool.

If e-fame is what anyone is after, LoTRO is not where they are going to find it. Since 2007, I've never met a person IRL that plays it. Even if the game was packed, I highly doubt being involved in Weatherstock XIII is gonna get any ladies to come home with you from the bar...

I do have to be fair. If global chat today is your metric for judging the community of this game, I can certainly see how it could leave a bad impression because it gets on my nerves sometimes, too.

TwoTubes · July 2021

LotRO community was much better before it went free to play imo.

I watched it deteriorate and that was one of the reasons I left. I'ive gone back and played it a couple times since then. It's not the worst community but, it's not what it was imho.

I wonder if Joseph played it when it was a purely subscription game?

Scot · July 2021

TwoTubes said:

LotRO community was much better before it went free to play imo.

I watched it deteriorate and that was one of the reasons I left. I'ive gone back and played it a couple times since then. It's not the worst community but, it's not what it was imho.

I wonder if Joseph played it when it was a purely subscription game?

I will agree that the community was better before it went F2P from what I have heard, but that's to be expected. Even taking that into account it is leagues ahead of most MMOs, up there with the likes of FFXIV. These days of MMOs moving to base themselves on cryptocurrency or go fully mobile I can only see that distinction getting sharper.

Quizzical · July 2021

I can't see the event because I can't get the game to run at all. When I tried to register for the game, it said I couldn't because there was already an account with my e-mail address. When I requested a password reset for that account, it offered to reset the password for my DDO account. But when I use the username and password that works for DDO to try to log into LotRO, it gives me a weird error message, "No subscription for LOTRO found", and rejects it. I submitted a ticket requesting help, but SSG hasn't replied.

Does Standing Stone use common accounts between DDO and LotRO, or do they have to be created independently? Either an answer of "yes" or "no" to that question would contradict my experience above.

Sovrath · July 2021

Quizzical said:

I can't see the event because I can't get the game to run at all. When I tried to register for the game, it said I couldn't because there was already an account with my e-mail address. When I requested a password reset for that account, it offered to reset the password for my DDO account. But when I use the username and password that works for DDO to try to log into LotRO, it gives me a weird error message, "No subscription for LOTRO found", and rejects it. I submitted a ticket requesting help, but SSG hasn't replied.

Does Standing Stone use common accounts between DDO and LotRO, or do they have to be created independently? Either an answer of "yes" or "no" to that question would contradict my experience above.

If memory serves, it's one account for both.

edit: just signed into the Standing Stones Games account management and it's one sign-in to manage both accounts.

Might I advise you to do it through Steam? I always had issues with their launcher but with Steam, both games worked fine.

Quizzical · July 2021

This page somewhat warns you not to go through Steam:

https://help.standingstonegames.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002036507-I-can-t-login-to-the-game-through-Steam-I-get-the-No-subscription-to-DDO-found-or-No-subscription-to-LOTRO-found-

But that makes their login system sound extremely broken.

Basically, you can't use a DDO account to log into LotRO unless you've had a subscription to LotRO in the past. But if you played DDO before LotRO, then you obviously haven't. Presumably that would also happen in reverse if you played LotRO before DDO.

They recommend creating a new account if you want to play the other game. But when you try to create a new account, they also check to see if any other accounts use that same e-mail, and if so, then they reject the e-mail and refuse to create the account. So they won't let you create two accounts unless they're tied to two different e-mail addresses.

So why not just create another e-mail account? There are two problems with that.

It used to be easy to create a burner e-mail account. Lots of sites offered free e-mail that you could do whatever with. It's not that way anymore. They all want all your personal information and all your contact information and everything. I had a need for a temporary e-mail account a while ago, and when I tried to create an account on a number of sites, they wanted my phone number. I gave them my real phone number, and they rejected it, wanting another, different phone number that they liked better. So they wouldn't give me an e-mail account. I shouldn't have to fuss with junk like that just to play a game.

The other problem is that if you might play a game for a long time, it needs to be tied to a stable e-mail account. If you need to recover a password later, for example, and it's only linked to a burner e-mail account that has been deleted for inactivity, then you can't recover your account.

Sovrath · July 2021

Quizzical said:

This page somewhat warns you not to go through Steam:

https://help.standingstonegames.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002036507-I-can-t-login-to-the-game-through-Steam-I-get-the-No-subscription-to-DDO-found-or-No-subscription-to-LOTRO-found-

But that makes their login system sound extremely broken.

Basically, you can't use a DDO account to log into LotRO unless you've had a subscription to LotRO in the past. But if you played DDO before LotRO, then you obviously haven't. Presumably that would also happen in reverse if you played LotRO before DDO.

They recommend creating a new account if you want to play the other game. But when you try to create a new account, they also check to see if any other accounts use that same e-mail, and if so, then they reject the e-mail and refuse to create the account. So they won't let you create two accounts unless they're tied to two different e-mail addresses.

So why not just create another e-mail account? There are two problems with that.

It used to be easy to create a burner e-mail account. Lots of sites offered free e-mail that you could do whatever with. It's not that way anymore. They all want all your personal information and all your contact information and everything. I had a need for a temporary e-mail account a while ago, and when I tried to create an account on a number of sites, they wanted my phone number. I gave them my real phone number, and they rejected it, wanting another, different phone number that they liked better. So they wouldn't give me an e-mail account. I shouldn't have to fuss with junk like that just to play a game.

The other problem is that if you might play a game for a long time, it needs to be tied to a stable e-mail account. If you need to recover a password later, for example, and it's only linked to a burner e-mail account that has been deleted for inactivity, then you can't recover your account.

Well, you should make a game account with Standing Stone Games but download the game through Steam if you are having issues with their launcher.

As I said, I couldn't make the game work. I even tried to download it in their recommended directory over my "games" directory but it didn't work.

I finally downloaded through Steam, their launcher then comes up, I logged in and "bam" it worked.

Now, it's a bit more involved to pay a sub as you need to add money to your Steam wallet but "whatever" I say. Working is working.

Theocritus · July 2021

lahnmir said:

Po_gg said:

"LotRO's community is among the best ones" is an axiom itself, however some further proving can't hurt

Great screenshot too, I honestly was sceptical when these candles were added to the game, but this usage, especially against the night sky as background... awesome.
Now all concerts can have their own light show systems for adding an extra layer to the performance.

Ohhh, how over the years I have longed for them to expand the Hobby system with not just fishing but performing. The entire music system is there already, imagine you and a couple of (npc) buddies performing on various stages across the world, wowing a (npc) crowd and gaining rewards based on your succes. New instruments, outfits, a pet, a title, you name it. It would be glorious.

And breeding, that would be a great third hobby. Raising and breeding certain pets and mounts.

We don’t need new races and classes etc. We need improving and expanding of the current systems, so many loose ends like the hobby system.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

It was really enjoyable to hear the players perform with their bands and play music...That was a fun feature for sure.....It was a great community but the rest of the game was not so great....The quests got old pretty fast and I found myself just running around constantly, which is never fun.

Sovrath · July 2021

Theocritus said:

lahnmir said:

Po_gg said:

"LotRO's community is among the best ones" is an axiom itself, however some further proving can't hurt

Great screenshot too, I honestly was sceptical when these candles were added to the game, but this usage, especially against the night sky as background... awesome.
Now all concerts can have their own light show systems for adding an extra layer to the performance.

Ohhh, how over the years I have longed for them to expand the Hobby system with not just fishing but performing. The entire music system is there already, imagine you and a couple of (npc) buddies performing on various stages across the world, wowing a (npc) crowd and gaining rewards based on your succes. New instruments, outfits, a pet, a title, you name it. It would be glorious.

And breeding, that would be a great third hobby. Raising and breeding certain pets and mounts.

We don’t need new races and classes etc. We need improving and expanding of the current systems, so many loose ends like the hobby system.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

It was really enjoyable to hear the players perform with their bands and play music...That was a fun feature for sure.....It was a great community but the rest of the game was not so great....The quests got old pretty fast and I found myself just running around constantly, which is never fun.

In truth, I'd much rather wander around and explore constantly. The problem in Lord of the Rings Online is that many places that one could go won't let you in unless you are on a quest.

Unlike, say, Vanguard where one could explore, could wander, and find something new and interesting.

Even if it was dangerous.

Po_gg · July 2021

Sovrath said:

In truth, I'd much rather wander around and explore constantly. The problem in Lord of the Rings Online is that many places that one could go won't let you in unless you are on a quest.

I wouldn't say "many", but it's a long debate as I remember

In the open world, there might be 2-3 places you can't go before completing a quest - but those are story-locked with a reason, and while it's up to personal taste, in my opinion rightfully so.

If you're talking about beyond the open world (tucked away doors, small caves, etc.), places with loading screens to access, then yep, a lot of those are related to quests.

LotRO doesn't lack the "go free wherever you want, even if it's very dangerous" aspect of Vanguard. What it lacks is diplomacy

(couldn't help it, loved that system...)

@Quizzical it's possible, just really clunky.

Last year when they gave away DDO's content through coupons I too made a new DDO account (just for keeps) on my mule LotRO account, and I could do it with the same mail, but I remember it wasn't smooth... just the memory fails me what was the exact solution.

The easiest solution would be what this thread suggests:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/488289-Adding-LOTRO-to-DDO-account-via-MyAccount-page?s=2c4bf12cee2908a6091da68826708981

Namely just send a ticket from your DDO account and ask them to create and link a LotRO one to it.

ashiru_1978 · July 2021

FTrunks21 said:

In every game, all in game events are garbage, even more so for community driven ones. Hilarious how some people feel the need to do or say things to get the attention of people to earn e-fame and feel special about themselves. Like they so desperately want to be cool. Just making up whatever to see if people eat it up. I never talk in chat but, when I decide to glance through it on brandywine, they are anything but a "great" community.

I don't like cosmetics in games, so I don't use them ... I also don't like and don't participate in events in MMOs, but that doesn't make them bad. The people who enjoy them also make up a big portion of the game, they support the game and they are part of the reason it's still alive.

So to dismiss them like this is immature and ignorant of you.

Quizzical · July 2021

Po_gg said:

@Quizzical it's possible, just really clunky.
Last year when they gave away DDO's content through coupons I too made a new DDO account (just for keeps) on my mule LotRO account, and I could do it with the same mail, but I remember it wasn't smooth... just the memory fails me what was the exact solution.

The easiest solution would be what this thread suggests:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/488289-Adding-LOTRO-to-DDO-account-via-MyAccount-page?s=2c4bf12cee2908a6091da68826708981
Namely just send a ticket from your DDO account and ask them to create and link a LotRO one to it.

Thank you for the reference. (And you, too, Sovrath.) I submitted a ticket on Sunday asking how to fix it. I'll see if and when they do fix the account. I'd think that I've spent enough on DDO recently that they'd really want me to try LotRO, too, though customer service people likely don't look at that.

For now, I've picked up Wargroove instead. It doesn't seem like the sort of game that will keep me busy for months, but hopefully it will be fun for longer than it takes for SSG to fix the account problem.

Quizzical · July 2021

Just to give an update for the benefit of some future person who has exactly the same problem and gets pointed toward this thread by a search engine, someone from SSG replied to my ticket this morning with the following:

------------------------------------------------------------

Greetings,

Thank you for your interest in Lord of the Rings Online! Please follow the directions below, with the included key, to add your new subscription:

Go to https://myaccount.standingstonegames.com
Enter your new key in the "Have a Product Key" field: (product key redacted)
Select YES when asked if you already have an account.
Enter your account login details.
Set your subscription nickname.
Read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy then click 'Submit'.
Then start or restart your game launcher and play!

Welcome to Middle Earth, and if you have any additional questions or concerns, please respond to this email and I will be happy to assist you.

Thank you,

Customer Service Supervisor
Standing Stone Games

------------------------------------------------------------

After I did that, I was able to log into LotRO. That looks like a form response, so presumably they're aware that this is a problem and they deal with it by handing out keys one at a time. While that works, it's a pretty terrible way to do it, though it's possible that the code that causes the problem is such a mess that no one is willing to touch it for fear of breaking it worse.

Po_gg · July 2021

I believe it's more about being lazy, since the system, as Todd's phrase says "It just works"

To the account linking the product key was needed since launch, but after the f2p switch there's no "product key" you type, just automatically gets one during the (free) new account creation.

And since DDO is f2p since 12+ years now (LotRO 11), most likely there aren't enough veteran players left, with just one of the games and in need to try the other, to justify the work of the the account system's re-do.

Easier to just send them a key occasionally, when requested...

(with that said, it's also very possible they're afraid of touching the code

)

Anyhow, welcome to LotRO!

ed. for the

Quizzical said:

I can't see the event because I can't get the game to run at all.

While it's quite an early call, there's a counterpart event towards the end of the year, called Winterstock. It's even larger, spreads over three days of concerts, near Thorin's Gate.

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