This is one of those games that fell victim to its own IP.

Lotro the MMO has extremely bland classes. They cant really improve on this since the lore has the devs handcuffed.

Seriously if they add more pure magic classes they get shit on and people leave the game lol.

Due to the stranglehold the IP has on the game it will never be more than a Niche.

A static world. "Lord of the Rings" is to me an epic story of Evil, if left unchecked encroaching on and devouring the Good life. The game missed the forced battle and defense to push back evil and protect the Good life. An ever changing world with an ever changing battlefront where player action or inactivity made a differnce in the landscape was missing. The fellowship didn't want to wage war they were forced into it to protect their homelands from the encroaching darkness. Never felt in danger in game. Never felt my actions had an impact. At least in WAR, a scenerario has an impact allbeit for a short duration.
My 2 cents worth

Originally posted by Hersaint

A static world. "Lord of the Rings" is to me an epic story of Evil, if left unchecked encroaching on and devouring the Good life. The game missed the forced battle and defense to push back evil and protect the Good life. An ever changing world with an ever changing battlefront where player action or inactivity made a differnce in the landscape was missing. The fellowship didn't want to wage war they were forced into it to protect their homelands from the encroaching darkness. Never felt in danger in game. Never felt my actions had an impact. At least in WAR, a scenerario has an impact allbeit for a short duration.
My 2 cents worth

This.

Also the complete lack of meaningful PVP was a turnoff, as were the blocky character models and terrible terrible animation. 

In my own opinion Lord of the Ring came out just when the big Lord of the Ring hype was starting to die. I remember back in 2001 when everyone on the planet was suddenly a Tolkien expert. If you didn't know Tolkien you were a loser and all. It was a very interesting moment in time, you were expected to know Lord of the Ring and quite frankly I loved it as well but that's because I had the chance to read the first book when I was really young. 

Still, you had that strange movement where everyone was reading the books and where everyone knew everything about Middle Earth lol.

When Lord of the Ring online came out, the hype of this world was dying... You had the RTS but even so, people didn't cared as much. People were talking about something else like WOW? 

I believe it's all about timing...

For my part when it comes to Lotro it's about the lack of PvP. Lotro have quite possibly one of the best starting points for an awesome RvR game. You could easy make several factions, it has races and culture. But it is more or less a PvE game which is more or less to no interest for me. Tried the game, and it loked nice, but lack of PvP really kills the fun for me.

Originally posted by decoy26517

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

Yup, the slow combat is what did it in for me.  That plus the lack of being able to PvP Freep vs Freep.

Originally posted by GoldenDog

Originally posted by decoy26517

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

 

Yup, the slow combat is what did it in for me.  That plus the lack of being able to PvP with your main character.

Combat is being adjusted. and you have always been able to PvP with you're free peoples.

Given i have a lifetime sub lotro is the game i alway play on the side of another mmo . Although at the moment i m only playing Lotro while i wait for Aion to sort itself out . I wish they would expand the pvp options because i ve always enjoyed pitting my wits against another player . Lotro in my opinion really is the only fantasy mmo that really offers what a traditional roll playing game does .It can be tounge in cheek sometimes but nowhere near as much as something like WoW or Everquest . The raids in it are a lot of fun . Is it the best mmo out ? no . but its good and it has the nicest most mature community . I ve never had to ignore someone in lord of the rings and i ve never heard anyone call someone else a noob . That says a lot fo the quality of the average lord of the rings player .

It is all true the game is very well done, the art and the atmosphere it creates is brilliant, i think its just many people are already in other mmos and so this one missed out there excess money, many people will concentrate on one or two mmos and this one came after many good ones took a lot of people. But i agree that if people tried it, they would just love it. i tried it and i do and i am a mmo veteran of wow, eve etc etc

People say LotRO numbers are quite good, but with its heritage you'd think it would have done much better. Last time I looked it wasn't doing much better than Everquest 2, which people are always saying is dying. And I'm not surprised it has underachieved. LotRO has the most boring gameplay of any MMO I've played. And it brings nothing new to the table. It looks nice and that's it.

For me, the lack of open world PvP and just another boring quest grind to level kept me from playing LotRO beyond the trial. 

There are a ton of other PvE games that require you to quest grind so as someone else already mentioned, LotRO brought nothing new to the table.

I have an account and play.  BUT I do not play this game as much as others.  I have been playing since MMO's were called MUDs :p

My issues with the game:

Basic gameplay bugs. 

A typical combat goes like this: Mob out of range, mob out of range, *smack mob hits me*, you must face target *smack mob hits me* and then I can start hitting the mob. 

I think that is just plain silly that after all this time basic combat is so bugged that every mob can hit you at least twice before you can hit them.  The mob runs up to me and I think I can hit it, but no the mob can hit me, but I cannot hit the mob.  The the mob runs behind you, continues to hit you while you still cannot hit it even when it runs through you.  And then you have to spin around. 

Dazzling graphics...but poor animations. 

Every single room is instanced...I mean what is the point of that? 

Lag.  10 people in the auction house and the game laggggs.  I have a new machine, 10ms normal latency (not in this game).

That being said I like LoTR so much I play the game for content. 

Unfortunately there are other MMO's out there, even older ones with better gameplay, less lag. 

Here are just a handful of reasons I found myself unable to enjoy it..

1) The classes are absolutely and utterly boring.  Not a single one of them interested me.

2) The character graphics are poor.  I don't care how beautiful a game world is.  If your "avatar" looks like trash, the game looks like trash.  Aion realized this and focused on character graphics, and the end result is much better.  I notice you didn't display any character faces in your posts, and you know the reason for that.

3) The armor & weapons are painfully bland.  Not bland in that realistic AoC kind of way.  Just bland.

4) Animations are horrible. Not Darkfall horrible, but pretty bad.

5) PvP is awful/nonexistant

I have been a big LotR fan all my life.  Started reading the books in Jr High and absolutely fell in love.  The game itself only held me over as long as my excitement at visiting some of the locals in the books lasted.  Beyond that, the game was dull.

They did do an excellent job of crafting the world however.  It's very well done and looks outstanding.  Quests are better than average, but a quest is still a quest.  Dialog pops up, you click accept, to go collect eggs or kill wolves or some nonsense.

I just reactivated my account this month to give it another try, and am having a hard time enjoying the game again.

The biggest problem I have with the game is the lack of solo quests, and the low amount of xp you get for killing mobs. I am level 39 and am having a hard time finding quests I can do. I rarely have more then 2 solo quests I can do at a time, and each quest makes me run/swim clear across the zone to complete it. It takes me 15-20 minutes to complete a quest, and I get a measly amount of xp for completing it. At this rate it is taking forever to level up and move on to new areas.  Plus, you are stuck in the same boring zone for several levels at a time. Hopefully they add more zones and quests to level up in very soon.

You also are pretty much forced to quest to level up, since mob xp is so low. Lack of solo quests and low mob xp is a bad combination. The lack of quests wouldn't be so bad if you could grind xp on mobs during those levels where there are so few quests.

Group quests are difficult to do because there are rarely other players in your zone looking to do them. My typical gaming session includes running the few solo quests I have and keeping an eye on chat and the social panel waiting for others looking to do the same group quests I need to do....but I rarely find anyone.

It's just a frustrating boring level grind....

Posted by sevitoth
Group quests are difficult to do because there are rarely other players in your zone looking to do them. My typical gaming session includes running the few solo quests I have and keeping an eye on chat and the social panel waiting for others looking to do the same group quests I need to do....but I rarely find anyone.

It's just a frustrating boring level grind.... endquote

I found the same situation in playing over a year of LOTR - all grind and slow level growth unless you could group. Not ideal for a causal player...WoW is more fitting for my gameplay style

I just started playing Lord of The Rings this week and i have yet to have any trouble what so ever finding fellowships to complete the tougher quests not sure what server you are on but on brandywine there is no issue finding groups if you are looking.

i like lotro but in small doses sadly it doesnt hold me for long shame as it does look very nice and has a lot of good features it just gets boring and slow quicker than other games

Originally posted by pawmaul

I just started playing Lord of The Rings this week and i have yet to have any trouble what so ever finding fellowships to complete the tougher quests not sure what server you are on but on brandywine there is no issue finding groups if you are looking.

Wait till you hit your high 30's. There are a lot more people to group with at lower levels.

Originally posted by sevitoth

Originally posted by pawmaul

I just started playing Lord of The Rings this week and i have yet to have any trouble what so ever finding fellowships to complete the tougher quests not sure what server you are on but on brandywine there is no issue finding groups if you are looking.

 

Wait till you hit your high 30's. There are a lot more people to group with at lower levels.

 

 

 

So what you're saying is that once people hit 30, they leave the game?

id say its a good game,, has good graphics and a good crafting system .,.... the pvp sucks ..... that ends it for me this game is for pve's / roleplayers

It's a good, solid game, with probably the best community in any MMO I've played.

For me, it's too group oriented for the leveling process.  I don't mind grouping, but when I quit, my main was level 37 and I had 35 quests in my quest log, and 30 of them required a group.

I'm sure what many consider to be subpar PvP keeps the numbers down a bit, but on the plus side, IMO the good community is a nice benefit of not attracting the PvPers, so I could live with that if I didn't have to group all the time just to level.

Originally posted by Ponico

Originally posted by sevitoth

Originally posted by pawmaul

I just started playing Lord of The Rings this week and i have yet to have any trouble what so ever finding fellowships to complete the tougher quests not sure what server you are on but on brandywine there is no issue finding groups if you are looking.

 

Wait till you hit your high 30's. There are a lot more people to group with at lower levels.

 

 

 

So what you're saying is that once people hit 30, they leave the game?

No. I don't speak for other people. That is just why I left.

Originally posted by sevitoth

Originally posted by pawmaul

I just started playing Lord of The Rings this week and i have yet to have any trouble what so ever finding fellowships to complete the tougher quests not sure what server you are on but on brandywine there is no issue finding groups if you are looking.

 

Wait till you hit your high 30's. There are a lot more people to group with at lower levels.

 

 

 

 I'm LVL35 and honestly I never experienced some major problems finding PUG. Post to GLFF channel instead of LFF, ask people you met in the area but more importantly find a kin that is supportive. Occasionally I got stuck, but a endgamer fellow helped me get rid of the problem.

Help other players along the way, even low level ones. I once helped a 15 LVL Warden which happened to be the ALT of a 60 LVL Champion. The player switched to his toon after I helped his ALT.

If you are waiting idly that a deus ex machina will fall from the sky to help you, well ...good luck. If you go around and make friends and kin, well sooner or later your efforts will pay. As in real life.

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Before I read any of the other replies I'll tell you why I quickly lost interest in it during the free trial I tried.

1.  Solo quest grinding.  I hate it.

2.  The rest of the game would have to be absolutely amazing to compensate for the flaw in my first point, and it wasn't.  The graphics were fine but nothing special.  The combat was very ordinary.  Mobs were ridiculously weak (as usual because it's meant to be a single player game).  There was no sense of community, adventure, exploration or anything else good and fun because it was just a single player guided tour, content on rails type of game.

Don't need to read any more replies as this sums up how I feel about the game. Sure some of the group content is fun but it was just a quest grind. Sometimes I like to explore and kill stuff and I'd like some XP reward for that but it doesn't offer that at all. I needed to do quests to progress when the rewards for that quests I wasn't even interesed in.

I resubbed 12 months ago and played for a while but it almost literally sends me to sleep.

Now if Turbine had created a sandbox called Middle-Earth Online.....................................

Originally posted by Darth_Osor

It's a good, solid game, with probably the best community in any MMO I've played.

For me, it's too group oriented for the leveling process.  I don't mind grouping, but when I quit, my main was level 37 and I had 35 quests in my quest log, and 30 of them required a group.

I'm sure what many consider to be subpar PvP keeps the numbers down a bit, but on the plus side, IMO the good community is a nice benefit of not attracting the PvPers, so I could live with that if I didn't have to group all the time just to level.

WHAT? Sometimes I wonder if I live in another dimension. I thought LOTRO was WAY TOO solo friendly, and there was way too less grouping happening! Hmm...

I never was really interested in PVP. My ideal MMO was like a pen and paper game like D&D or The Dark Eye, just that you can get into a large open world between the adventures, but heavily focussed on story and adventuring. Everything else, PVP, crafting, trading, whatever, is actually of zero interest to me. Thats why I am looking forward to SWTOR as the ideal MMO for me. I want that hero-feeling I have in story driven single player games, but share them with friends in a group and have that big open world to meet people and travel. LOTRO got a good step into that direction, but the world is a bit too clean and sterile in some way.

A thing I dont like about LOTRO is this, that every centimeter is filled with mobs. I loved SWG for being vast and NOT every place full of evenly placed mobs, which repopped 5 seconds after their death. Such MMOs kinda kill my sense of immersion, since it just feel so unrealistic to have evenly spread out mobs. Feel more like an artificial hunting park in that way. Same goes for Aion, WOW and all the like. Never seen a game with better world design and mob placement than SWG imo.