I played the game at launch and started playing the free week trial.  I noticed some differences.

I started a new character and noticed the starting area for the elves has a lot of quests removed.  Did they only do this in the starting areas?

It seems like some the fight anganst  the signiture mob was easier they I remember.  Have they made signiture mobs a little easier?

How has the rest of the lower level game changed?  One of the biggest concerns I have returning to the game is doing the story line quests.  They used to be all group oriented.  Is this still the case?  Do some people just skip the storyline quests?  Can you go back and do them solo after you have outleveled them?

why arent you playing Vanguard? We miss you.

Originally posted by ethion

I played the game at launch and started playing the free week trial.  I noticed some differences.

I started a new character and noticed the starting area for the elves has a lot of quests removed.  Did they only do this in the starting areas?

It seems like some the fight anganst  the signiture mob was easier they I remember.  Have they made signiture mobs a little easier?

How has the rest of the lower level game changed?  One of the biggest concerns I have returning to the game is doing the story line quests.  They used to be all group oriented.  Is this still the case?  Do some people just skip the storyline quests?  Can you go back and do them solo after you have outleveled them?

They didn't really remove any quests, to my knowledge.  They just changed the location of where you get the quests.  They tried to make the starter areas a little smoother.  A little less running around.  As far as signatures,  I don't think they made them easier.  A few were changed from signature to something a bit less....hard.   I don't think the book quests changed that much.  A fair bit of them are still group oriented, but I always see people "LFF" for certain group chapters, or people that wanna group for an entire book. 

As far as the solo thing, not really, sure.  Sorry.

Originally posted by ethion

I played the game at launch and started playing the free week trial.  I noticed some differences.

I started a new character and noticed the starting area for the elves has a lot of quests removed.  Did they only do this in the starting areas?

It seems like some the fight anganst  the signiture mob was easier they I remember.  Have they made signiture mobs a little easier?

How has the rest of the lower level game changed?  One of the biggest concerns I have returning to the game is doing the story line quests.  They used to be all group oriented.  Is this still the case?  Do some people just skip the storyline quests?  Can you go back and do them solo after you have outleveled them?

Yes, Erid Luin (Elf & Dwarf starting area) received a face lift in the Book 7 update (plus a smaller tweak of The Shire).

Breeland has been overhalled in Book 8 and has now become more structured with new quest hubs in the Barrow Downs & North Breefields with less running backwards and forwards needed. (Plus new repeatable quests (up to 3 times) thrown in, to earn some nice crafting crit items)

Another thing that's happened is that the early game content has become more solo friendly with a lot of early difficulty 'spikes' smoothed out (such as the infamous Book1-Chapter11 'Othrongroth' instance with Tom Bombadil which is now a solo quest).

Overall, the early game flows more freely and with more purpose, and until about level 22, is almost completely soloable (really until you get to the Great Barrows in the Barrow Downs,which is the first big instanced group area). This has made the game easier in my eyes, but that's isn't a critism as people who like to group can rattle through the quests quite quickly and move onto the un-updated (read 'harder') areas of the game.

I for one, hope that these updates and overhalls continue on to the Lone Lands/North Downs/Trollshaws and beyond, as i think they are helping to keep the game fresh.

Originally posted by Bodeus

why arent you playing Vanguard? We miss you.

I play all games periodically.  Vanguard has been on the back burner for over a year.  I still think it is a great game but I've played it with various alts and done most of the stuff other then raiding.  I keep wanting to get into it for raiding but haven't been able to.  My wife is a hard core eq2 fan so she keeps me coming back to eq2 which isn't a bad game and certainly gets a lot of updates.   I wish SoE would put dev effort into VG cause I believe it is the best PvE game ever but still not polished enough and in need of new content and life.

This week I got a veteran invite back to both LoTR and to AoC so I'm taking this opportunity to check them out and see how they are.  I kinda liked LoTR when I first played it but because of other issues I had to stop playing for 3-4 months.  When I came back to it my guild was gone and I couldn't seem to get groups to do the burrows dungeon or the main storyline step I was on.  After a couple weeks I got tired of it and went back to eq2.

I'm reinstalling it now. Have not played it in over a year. Recommend any servers or would my old toon still be around?

Originally posted by karat76

I'm reinstalling it now. Have not played it in over a year. Recommend any servers or would my old toon still be around?

They've never deleted any characters, so your original one will still be where you left it.

Originally posted by karat76

I'm reinstalling it now. Have not played it in over a year. Recommend any servers or would my old toon still be around?

My old characters were still around :) but I'm not playing them since I don't remember how to play :) so I started fresh.

Enjoy, Lotr is a really great game, as for servers in EU I would recommend Laurelin and for NA i would recommend Brandywine. I am going to be doing a review and a state of play feature on my blog on LOTR so check it out in the near future. Link at the bottom.

I finished my trial and decided to subscribe to LoTR.  I'm enjoying the combat systems and looking forward to seeing more about the game world and the end game.

Originally posted by shakermaker0

Enjoy, Lotr is a really great game, as for servers in EU I would recommend Laurelin and for NA i would recommend Brandywine. I am going to be doing a review and a state of play feature on my blog on LOTR so check it out in the near future. Link at the bottom.

Nice Avatar :).

Bill Hicks rocks... A shame he died so young :-/

That said... I keep thinking "maybe..." about going back to LoTRO... The thing is, maybe it's just that I didn't get in with a good Kin (went through a few), or didn't join the right ones early enough... but LoTRO just never keeps me "hooked" and wanting to come back for more. I'm kinda ambivalent about it, to be honest... It's a shame, because I *love* the environments, I really like the lore and the classes themselves are fun to play... 

Something about the game itself, though, just doesn't keep me wanting to play :-/

Might have to check it out again sometime... I did pick up Moria and all.

 

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by shakermaker0

Enjoy, Lotr is a really great game, as for servers in EU I would recommend Laurelin and for NA i would recommend Brandywine. I am going to be doing a review and a state of play feature on my blog on LOTR so check it out in the near future. Link at the bottom.

 

Nice Avatar :).

Bill Hicks rocks... A shame he died so young :-/

 

That said... I keep thinking "maybe..." about going back to LoTRO... The thing is, maybe it's just that I didn't get in with a good Kin (went through a few), or didn't join the right ones early enough... but LoTRO just never keeps me "hooked" and wanting to come back for more. I'm kinda ambivalent about it, to be honest... It's a shame, because I *love* the environments, I really like the lore and the classes themselves are fun to play... 

Something about the game itself, though, just doesn't keep me wanting to play :-/

Might have to check it out again sometime... I did pick up Moria and all.

 

I know where you're coming from.... I have a lvl 60, a 53, a 45, a 40 and 35 toon, basically made them since i'm a bit maximalist, and I wanted to try all the crafting professions as well as 5 different classes. In this way, I can use almost every single item that drops, and most toons can be supplied fully with armor, weapons and jewelry :) kinda neat, but occasionally very tedious too.

But, being a casual, naturally I could not keep up levelling all 5 of them as quickly as updates come, so I'm always lagging behind, and the lag will only grow. Still, somehow I cannot give up any of the guys :) but playing through all quests 5 times is not exactly the best of fun, so this is a vicious circle.

Currently I am taking a couple of weeks break (also has to do with the fact that I recently bought a HD4890 card, and can play all games at breathtaking graphic quality... playing Crysis and the like :), but I know I will be back, I'm just not sure which toon to play this time :)

DB