Hey,   I am planning on comming to lotro and I wanted to ask these questions to make sure it will be a good game for me. 

1. Are you able to solo to the max level?

2.  Can you log on for an hour and get stuff done or do you need 3-4 hours?

3.  Whats a good server for a newbie?

4. Is player base still strong?

5.  Is there a lot of stuff to do end game?
 

I just wanted to ask these questions to make sure my decison to come to lotro will be a good one.  I am currently playing ffxi right now and I like it a lot...  I am in the army though so I really do not have 4-6 hours to spend playing ffxi.  All feedback is welcome!

Originally posted by eveisme

Hey,   I am planning on comming to lotro and I wanted to ask these questions to make sure it will be a good game for me. 

1. Are you able to solo to the max level? 

Yes you can if you felt like it, it would be slower than grouping and you would miss out on the overriding story arc.  You can not solo all of the book quests.

2.  Can you log on for an hour and get stuff done or do you need 3-4 hours?

You can log in for an hour, kill some stuff for materials, craft, shoot the breeze in Bree, at low levels (10-39) you can roll a Monster Player and try to get in a group and PvP for an hour.

3.  Whats a good server for a newbie?

Brandywine for largest and silliest, Landroval for role playing, Elimendar for European cross-section.

4. Is player base still strong?

Still strong and only getting stronger, so it seems to me.  Especially with a lot of new content coming this year.

5.  Is there a lot of stuff to do end game?

There is not really an end game because the ring of power is not even close to Mordor yes.  Current high end content consists of crafting, PvMP and rolling alts for other crafting professions.
 

I just wanted to ask these questions to make sure my decison to come to lotro will be a good one.  I am currently playing ffxi right now and I like it a lot...  I am in the army though so I really do not have 4-6 hours to spend playing ffxi.  All feedback is welcome!

Thank you for protecting my country your service is appreciated

Sounds good,  I will pay for a month and see if I like it fully.  Thanks for your feed back hammer means a lot.

Originally posted by 8hammer8

5.  Is there a lot of stuff to do end game?

There is not really an end game because the ring of power is not even close to Mordor yes.  Current high end content consists of crafting, PvMP and rolling alts for other crafting professions.
 

 

Just to expand on this a bit, there are about 7 or 8 level 50 instances for 6, 12, or 24 players.  They are pretty challenging, but nothing like the frustrating, hyper-technical end-game content in WoW.  You could actually walk into most of the fights with a good PUG and defeat the bosses without reading a guide ahead of time.

Plus, within the next couple of months, they are adding another high-level zone, presumably full of quests and boss encounters.

Word of advice:  level 2 characters in parallel, and try not to duplicate the zones you run with both of them.  If you are interested in questing, you will miss a lot of content if you go with just one, and there are enough quests to get 2 characters to 50 with little or no repetition of content (especially if you make sure to take maximal benefit of rested xp and grind out your deeds while you can still get xp from them).

Originally posted by 8hammer8

Originally posted by eveisme

I just wanted to ask these questions to make sure my decison to come to lotro will be a good one.  I am currently playing ffxi right now and I like it a lot...  I am in the army though so I really do not have 4-6 hours to spend playing ffxi.  All feedback is welcome!

Thank you for protecting my country your service is appreciated

 

I didn't have anything useful to add but I did want to jump on hammer's bandwagon and thank you for your service in protecting our country as well.  Can't be said often enough IMO.

(and I don't care if I'm off topic)

Originally posted by eveisme

Hey,   I am planning on comming to lotro and I wanted to ask these questions to make sure it will be a good game for me. 

1. Are you able to solo to the max level?

Certainly.  Just be sure to move on to another quest hub once you run out of solo quests in a particular area.  It is hard to leav all those shiny group quests behind, but I've found I only reallyt have time to work on those on the weekends.

2.  Can you log on for an hour and get stuff done or do you need 3-4 hours?

An hour is more than enough to knock out a quest or two.

3.  Whats a good server for a newbie?

Others covered this better than me.  Londroval and Brandywines seem to be the most popular.

4. Is player base still strong?

I play on Arkenstone, which is not known for high pops, and it still seems to be growing.  I just started a new alt over the weekend and saw a lot of new players running around.  The newbie areas do tend to be pretty deserted outside of prime time however.  If you are playing at odd times, you might not really seen anyone until you level up to Breetown and environs (around the low teens).

5.  Is there a lot of stuff to do end game?
 

There are four main avenues to advance in the end game.  If you spend just a little bit of time gearing up you can jump right in to any of them.  It's not like FFXI, WoW, or EQ where there are these linear chains of raid content that must to be worked through in order.  And all yeild gear that is about on par:

1. Book quests/ high level quests: mainly group content (6 man parties), but quite a few of them can be done solo or in 2 mans (there are a lot like this in Goblin town for example).  The one I have honestly explored the least, but even folks that have been in the Rift for a good long while tend to use some of this gear if they have done all the 45+ quests.

2. Raiding: end game dungeons range from six mans on up.  However, they aren't in any order.  You can go right into the Rift and contribute without having to spend a ton of time gearing up (but I'll allow you don't want to run in wearing level 42 greens).  

3. Crafting: eminently solo able, since all you to is grind out mats to level.  You can make some of the best gear in the game crafting.  For some classes and slots it is the best gear.

4. PvMP:  you need to be a in a raid group to make progess at this.  However on most servers pretty much all you need to do is stick your head into the moors and say "anyone need class X" and you will get invited to one.  There are almost always back and forth battles going, so it's actually a great way to long on for an hour and make some progress.

I just wanted to ask these questions to make sure my decison to come to lotro will be a good one.  I am currently playing ffxi right now and I like it a lot...  I am in the army though so I really do not have 4-6 hours to spend playing ffxi.  All feedback is welcome!

Hope this was of some help  And again, thanks for your service!