My .02, as a Founder and participant in Open Beta:

LOTRO does have some cool PvE features. FM's, epic quests w/ cutscenes, and nice landscapes to name a few. I also liked the zone layouts, and did not feel they were small as someone else had said previously. 

To me, the game lacked an "epic" feeling...maybe because I was never that into the lore, but most likely because it is considered "low-fantasy" (I think.) An example of this would be to compare Bree with Sanctum in Aion. The 1st time I went to Bree I thought the graphics were impressive, and it was neat little town. First time in Sanctum, I was much more in awe of the surroundings.

Secondly, the lack of a true opposing faction, and the concentration of PvMP into the Ettenmoors creates an unfortunately limited PvP game.

Last, the content and design of the Moria expansion changed the PvE game of LOTRO from a casual choice-based experience in beautiful landscapes, into a much narrower, instance-grinding game in a dark depressing dungeon. Moria made me feel like I was playing ToA all over again-- this time without awesome PvP as the reward for time served.

Originally posted by Tetters

Originally posted by rmk70

Definitely a visually appealing game. My biggest gripes with it, as I'm sure many share, is character models were weak and combat was SLOWWWWWWWWWWWW (hyperbole intended). Models I could deal with, combat I could not.

Check the expac notes for Mirkwood, they are revamping the combat because of the slowness. I am not sure what and how they are doing it but details are posted on Turbine's site

Yeah I read that too. Details would be good for sure.

Originally posted by Tetters

Originally posted by rmk70

Definitely a visually appealing game. My biggest gripes with it, as I'm sure many share, is character models were weak and combat was SLOWWWWWWWWWWWW (hyperbole intended). Models I could deal with, combat I could not.

Check the expac notes for Mirkwood, they are revamping the combat because of the slowness. I am not sure what and how they are doing it but details are posted on Turbine's site

Yeah, apparently they are making it more "responsive". So I think they are getting rid of the queue system.

Like the OP I too think LOTRO is one of the best MMOs out there presently. BUT: it is like the one-eyed is king of the blind! While some things are done really cool - landscapes, storytelling, others are really mindboggling bad.

For instance those nauseated bad looking character models! Terrible. They SO lack character.

And then the entire lack of lasting group and social experience. People RUSH through the game soloing or only stick to guild mates. I never have seen a MMO where the groups you have are scattering into the four winds, SECONDS after the last objective is finished. I never have felt so alone in a MMO. And IMVPO Moria wasn't such a good idea. I always stumbled through depressive, dark caves. And that hidious radiance system which shuts out all normal players!

Then there is the Tolkien world which is relatively limited in terms of possible mobs and player characters. Many quests are wolves, bears and boars. In many ways I felt like wandering through a VERY beautiful museum. Memorable vistas for sure, but somehow more like a living museum than an actual living and changing world.

I am no PVP lover, so that wasn't any issue for me. But there is some lack of dynamic, some... sterility; I can't 100% pinpoint it myself. Somehow I feel confined in some world concept where pathways are all to beaten and known, where I have less the feeling of making my own story, as I did in SWG or EQ2, which I played a long time.

Just my 2ct.

The character animations could definatly do with some inprovment . they arnt the worst i ve seen but they are pretty average . the questing follows a coherant storyline and i would argue this mmo is more like a traditional rpg than most others . like all of them it gets some things right .

Because Lotro is boring.

/threadclosed

The scenery is amazing at times, but the aesthetic for the avatars is very displeasing atleat to me.  Adding insult to injury are the lack of decent hairstyles, and poor armor models generally, although there are some exceptions.

One of the main things that irritated me was feeling as though I had to fight every few feet.  Sometimes I just want to explore and discover things in a relaxing way, and instead I am attacked by every creature on the planet every foot or so to the point it felt like I was constantly fighting for ground, lol.  Then they started adding some grindy elements to the game, which I don't like to grind on someone else's terms.  Yes, there are times when I want to grind and even prefer it to questing.  But if someone tells me I have to grind, then it feels like work.  I bought MOM and still have not gotten in.  I got tired trying to level up my sword and quit, probably missing out on more grinding and fighthing every twelve inches to advance a few steps.

Maybe I need some Redbull. 

Originally posted by Tetters

Originally posted by Stellos

 I deem it a kiddie MMORPG though and don't find it very fulfilling for veteran MMO gamers.

Kiddie as compared to what? WoW? EQ/EQ2?

Funnily enough it has the most mature and friendly community i ve encountered in an mmo . In six months of playing i ve not one person on ignore list and i ve not heard one person call another noob .

---

Originally posted by Yunbei
Like the OP I too think LOTRO is one of the best MMOs out there presently. BUT: it is like the one-eyed is king of the blind! While some things are done really cool - landscapes, storytelling, others are really mindboggling bad.
For instance those nauseated bad looking character models! Terrible. They SO lack character.
And then the entire lack of lasting group and social experience. People RUSH through the game soloing or only stick to guild mates. I never have seen a MMO where the groups you have are scattering into the four winds, SECONDS after the last objective is finished. I never have felt so alone in a MMO. And IMVPO Moria wasn't such a good idea. I always stumbled through depressive, dark caves. And that hidious radiance system which shuts out all normal players!
Then there is the Tolkien world which is relatively limited in terms of possible mobs and player characters. Many quests are wolves, bears and boars. In many ways I felt like wandering through a VERY beautiful museum. Memorable vistas for sure, but somehow more like a living museum than an actual living and changing world.
I am no PVP lover, so that wasn't any issue for me. But there is some lack of dynamic, some... sterility; I can't 100% pinpoint it myself. Somehow I feel confined in some world concept where pathways are all to beaten and known, where I have less the feeling of making my own story, as I did in SWG or EQ2, which I played a long time.
Just my 2ct.

---

Perfectly put. I agree 100% with this. I love LOTRO, but not enough to keep playing on a full monthly basis..if that makes any sense. I would actually prefer to come back to this game in a year or so once they add more stuff that I haven't seen. Hopefully the combat tweak they are doing makes a very large difference. They also need to really work on lfg/guild UI stuff and systems. Give me things to do besides level and craft and the story line. While those are fun, their should be other things I can do, and make it revolve around progressing my character. Also make ALT leveling and second, third times through just as good as the first time I go through the game.

OP.

I agree with you. I think LoTRO is the best PvE game on the market in almost every way: graphics, quests, content updates and community.

I think these might have hindered LoTRO's appeal to the masses:

1. Not enough marketing and advertising (Non-web)

2. Graphic requirements are MUCH higher than WoW's requirements. People can play WoW with no lag but if they lag in LoTRO, they tend to quit. I've done it myself with other games :) I tried Vanguard and AoC and stuttered too much with my non-epic PC and quit. So, my opinion is that NO game with higher-end PC requirements will get millions of subs- EVER. I'm not saying I wish LoTRO's graphics were on par with WoW! I freakin love that world on maxed settings and wouldn't want them to change a thing!!

3. Initial impressions. The game world is stunningly beautiful ....... BUT the characters are amazingly bland and boring. Too many people look alike.  First impression for combat is "clunky and slow". I got used to it after a month but that was my first impression.

4. The community is quiet. Some people like to play these games to gab and LoTRO is a quieter game.( It's not a population thing because my server is jam packed and it's still quiet.)

LoTRO's numbers are fine here in the US and Europe I think. They are probably in the top 3 or 4 games played in the US. Just don't compare the sub numbers of #1 game ( with millions of folks) to the sub numbers of #2, #3 and #4!  #1 is a freak of nature LOL!

They just had some crazy number of folks make LOTRO accounts in Asia when they opened the beta- like 2.7 million signed up last week !  So it's doing fine overall:)

And that's my 2 cents:)

Lori

Been playing recently and really enjoying it. First game in a long time I've bothered to stop and read the mission text. Although I haven't progressed very far, max lvl 36, I like the fact that the crafting seems worthwhile. Love the graphics.

Best of all by far is the mature and friendly community. It is so pleasant to play an MMO without all the trash talking idiots spamming a mixture of hate and inanities all the time.

It's feeling like a long term project for me :)

As someone who tends to solo in most games, usually due to the immature behaviour of other players, I have in two months of playing joined a Kinship (Guild) and teamed reguarly. Now if I seem to be teaming a lot, as someone who generally prefers to solo, I do wonder why others are having a problem finding teams?

Lotro has good landscape and environment graphics but the character models are horrible. The animations are very subpar. Combat was slow and the queue system it uses is annoying to people who are not used to it. I'll say again the animations sucked. Made combat feel even more dull. I never connected with my character because of these reasons. There is also no UI customization, except changing the skins. Default UIs in MMOs are horrible, and LoTROs doesn't even scale correctly, unless they fixed it, it just zoomed in on your UI and stretched it instead of scaling properly. And Lotro really is just more of the same, I'm not gonna leave a character from a previous game just to play the same thing with better graphics.

NO PVP and u you cant play as saurons minions is mainly why i dont play it and most people i play games wiht won't. If they would've had two sides like wow wiht pvp  the game would have as many subs as wow hands down. Monster play doesn't count as pvp for anyone that decides to mention it. The draw of Lotr is the massive battles that take place imo between good and evil yet the game only allows you to play good.

Outside of the wow factor of walking around middle earth the game just doesnt offer much. It only takes a week for that to wear off and then soon after you realize how boring the game is.

Before MoM expansion was release the game wasnt doing to well ( estimated to have less than 150k players ) but now its probably back around 200k or more.

Because you're railroaded for almost all of the game.

Played for about 3 months. Great game. Client is spectacular, graphics beautifu.

Here's why I quit...

Lack of antagonist player faction.

The fact that the big world of ME was being parcelled out a section at a time. That works fine for an IP you're making up, but if you're working off an IP that has a world map that everyone knows and you don't provide that map, its a bit of a downer.

Most importantly though was the storyline. By deciding to restrict the storyline to the events of the book they, for me at least, killed the feeling of participating in anything of substance. By following the books you know everything is set in stone and you're just playing out the line at the pace the devs decide to let you. Had they made Middle Earth Online (as opposed to LotR online) and given the whole of the land to play in (at your own risk of course) set just after the events of the books, I'd still be playing today. Think of it. Sauron's gone but his evil is still all over the place, needing to be weeded out and cleaned up. Orc/Goblin races could have been offered.

Think about this: Assuming the eventually make all of ME avail to play in, because of the way they made the game, on rails because of the storyline, Bree will still probably be the main hub of player activity even though presumably Gondor would be there.

That said, as I understand the game is doing quite well, and its probably just the rash of latest mmo releases that make it seem less than busy, I'd guess.

Hobbits are not as big a draw as one would think,  their lore the look their backstory starts to give one a headache after awhile.

cause the combat is slower than most MMORPGs and is filled with creepy roleplayers.

I dont think there is ONE reason why LOTRO failed (is not as popular as it should be with that license).

Most people who left it will probably say "it got boring, dont really know why". And that is the closest answer you can get.

For me it was:

- Lack of epic feeling, i was herded through a mainstream theme park with middle earth graphics wrapped over it like hundreds of others, gaining the identical rewards for my almost identical looking toon. There was no feel of a plot going on in middle earth - it felt like a single player game where u are rewarded with some cut-scenes when you klicked the right buttons at the right time.

- 100% linearity of the carreers and stories, no player made choices to influence anything.

- no complex skill tree that got me into it.

I agree that the landscape graphics are nice, while i never really liked the animations. The running animations, combat animations, crafting animations all sucked and looked clumsy and unfinished.

In the end my guild moved on to Eve and Ryzom where we have a thing that we could not find in LOTRO: F U N. Main difference being that Ryzom and Eve are are worlds, where we can almost do what we want and not a boring theme park where we have to follow railed carreers.

Anyone who says it failed is dead wrong. It's the second most popular MMO out there, behind WoW.

Yes I am aware of all the asian games that they says have 50 million players but no one has any way of actually tracking numbers on.

I've been playing Lotro for over a year and I love it.  I have to agree with the initial poster and say that yes the graphics are amazing. The world is huge and attention has been payed to the smallest detail.  This makes Middle Earth look very real.  The story and quest lines are awsome .  The races and classes are well thought out and yes, the game is a lot of fun and should be more popular.

I think, however, that there are misconceptions out there about Lotro.  People tend to think that because it is based on the book and movie, you have to know the lore in order to play.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Yes, the game is based on the book, as a matter of fact, it tries to stay within the boundaries of the book for the most part, but you can start playing and know nothing about Middle Earth and as you level and progress you will be an expert.  It is that  well done. 

Roleplayers and non-roleplayers play it and have fun with it.  There is something there for everyone.  The crafting, though not as challenging as Vanguard's or EQ2, is very well designed and will not disappoint.  The game has player housing, mounts, challenging mobs to fight , awesome armor and weapons, both crafted and dropped  and the expansions tend to be focused for higher level players so there is always something to do and something to attain.  Some expansions you have to buy and others are free  The player base is mature and friendly which is another plus.

As to PvP, there is some pvp in Lotro.  There is a zone specifically designed for it.   In my opinion, the concept was borrowed from DAoC's RvR but does NOT cut the mustard.   Anyone who ever played DAoC knows that  RvR there, in the good old days, has not been equalled by anyone.  Although Lotro "RvR" is fun and sometimes there ARE epic battles that remind me of the old DAoC days, I think here is where the developers dropped the ball.  Any player can make a "bad guy" for RvR separate from their regular characters.  There are some players who devote their time in Lotro exclusively to their "monster" characters.  The RvR does involve the conquest of keeps etc like in DAoC and there are global benefits to the side who holds them.  However, these "bad side" characters are created at level 60 and I think this was a bad decision.   There should be a player investment in the character that is just not there as a result.  If I were in charge I would revamp that whole facet of the game and create a world for the bad guys where they would have to level and develop their characters.   A good example would be the ability to play then  Angmar races and classes in addition to the present monster fare.  However, this would be very time and resource consuming and I dont believe the developers would do it.   If they did, there would be no contest.  Lotro would be the best game out there imo.

I was going to write up something intricate but then I read Rheanon's post, which echos my sediments exactly. Thanks for saving me the time. :)

I would however like to stress how well done the storyline is and that you don't need to know anything about the background in order to get right into the heart of the matter. The writers have done an excellent job deserving of the highest praise.

Also, the role+playing community was the best that I've ever found in any MMO to date and wasn't in your face while never being hard to find either. I loved visiting the Prancing Pony where it always felt like a real Middle Earth tavern chalk full of role-players at all hours of any day.

LOTRO is hands down the best MMO that I've ever had the pleasure of playing and I have every intention of re-visiting in the near future. Props to the devs for a job well done.

Anyone interested in MMOs by any measure shouldn't pass up at least the free trial as it will probably grab you in more ways than one. Two thumbs up in my book.

http://www.xfire.com/genre/mmo/massively_multiplayer_online/

Basically not really reliable but best data we have .It shows LOTRO as 30th overall and about  4th after wow  ,aion ,eve as most popular p2p mmorpg which is impressive considering aion is new anyhow .

Originally posted by Sain34

Anyone who says it failed is dead wrong. It's the second most popular MMO out there, behind WoW.

 

Yes I am aware of all the asian games that they says have 50 million players but no one has any way of actually tracking numbers on.

Actually there have been quite a few asian mmorpgs that have been open about their subscribtion numbers. Lineage and Lineage 2 for instance has been hovering around the 1 million mark for some time now. Square Enix mentioned Final Fantasy XI has around 600k subscribers last year.

How many subscribers does Lotro actually have?