Same here and update 6 is great....really look foreward to RoR.

Like you said, its better not to talk to much about Lotro because it keeps away some sorts of players. Not to be called elitist, because Iam not, but I like lotro community and game the way it is. Its still most friendly community,mostly because there are mature players, but if you are new to the game nobody will tell you you are noob, insted they will try to help you like normal people do. Lotro is not perfect game, but there is no such thing as perfect game. It still got some great features and great lore, so if you like Tolkiens world, give Lotro a chance.

I also keep coming back to LOTRO.  The game has some kind of weird hold on me...like a certain ring...hmmmm...precious.

This game escapes troll posts and hype posts. It is good and is returned to often.

Agreed. Came over to LoTRO initially after playing WoW and City of Heroes, GW, RIFT, and DDO. Since that time, I left to play STO and SWToR and both were disappointing in their own ways. In STO the Universe felt like it was really small. Planets were minature sandboxes. Galaxies were not explorable ... which is the theme of star Trek. On the other hand they had great space combat and I liked the PvP. I came back to LoTRo and felt like I was in a GIANT world. Middle Earth feels larger than the entire Universe in STO.

SWToR felt like a sandbox with the same cookie cutter pieces reorganized to make one planet appear different from another. The starting zones and ultimate playing zones were boring and the 4 man maximum team was inconvenient. The cosmetics were also limited. Aside from great storytelling mechanics, SWToR was just like any other MMO but more frustrating. I think that given a year or three it will be great. they had decent customer service, I'll give them that.

I came back to LoTRO and just felt a wash of familiarity and satisfaction. I rolled an Elf RK and quickly moved through the tutorial and into Celondim and I wondered why I ever left. I was encouraged to explore and by performing deeds I unlocked my traits and felt like I was always accomplishing something other than just the mass slaughter of everything in my path. There was plenty of room to run around things and try to avoid combat if I could. Open world and instances work extremely well and getting a team on the Elendilmir server is extremely easy. The CS is also excellent. One of the best in the business.

Why did I ever leave? Perhaps it was my love of ST and SW as a child ... but in truth, no game has compared to LoTRO yet. Not for me anyway.

Pretty much the same.  LOTRO has been my favorite MMO overall and my fallback game for the past 5 years.  Just wish it would improve and expand PvMP, not to mention better balance. 

Same here.  LOTRO is like an ex-girlfriend that I can't seem to get out of my mind, and usually end up drunk dialing late at night when I'm feeling bored of my other prospects.  

Originally posted by Cthulhu23

Same here.  LOTRO is like an ex-girlfriend that I can't seem to get out of my mind, and usually end up drunk dialing late at night when I'm feeling bored of my other prospects.  

 

Those pay-to-play girl numbers aren't officially girlfriends.

Originally posted by avalon1000

Same here and update 6 is great....really look foreward to RoR.

It definitely was a redemption update after RoI.

But yeah, OP... I didn't like LotRO when it launched, but I've been subbed nonstop almost 3 years to the day.  Other games get me for a month here, a few months there, but I always come back, and I never really go more than a few days without logging in.

Originally posted by theblurch

I also keep coming back to LOTRO.  The game has some kind of weird hold on me...like a certain ring...hmmmm...precious.

I lol'd.

Not sure why but when I tried the game shortly after launch it seemed like there were no players on the server I picked. After a couple hours I had seen only one other player and was not impressed. So I tried Aion and eventually just went back to WoW for the friends and company.

Then in 2008 I tried it again and fell in love with the graphics, lore and community. For various reasons, most of my WoW friends don't care for LOTRO but I love it and wish I'd stayed with it long enough at the beginning to buy a lifetime sub.

Excellent post OP and rings true for me as well. There will always be other games I'll want to try but when my only complaints are the look of the player characters and to a much lesser degree the combat it's rare for me to find a game that has done so much right.

Even going back to my beloved EQ1 (not live servers) LoTRO improved on some things that I really didn't like (although I'll still play there as well because it offers things I can't find in other games) and gives me a great alternative when I start feeling the grind and need something more casual.