This baffles me. I have played many MMORPGs. I have played FFXI, WoW, EQ, EQ2, Vanguard, WAR, AOC, Lineage 2, DAoC, and I have NEVER come across an MMO as amazing as Lord of the Rings Online.

I'll start off with the obvious - the graphics are amazing. The scenery is unbelievable, and the scale of the world is so well done that you feel miniscule in comparison. The atmosphere is THE best I have ever encountered in an MMO. It is as if you are actually in Middle Earth. The music is great, the story is awesome, the classes are fun, and there are a ton of things to do. Not to mention that it has one of the best, most mature playerbases that I have come across.

If all of this is the case, then why isn't it more popular? Is it the lack of PVP? Does PVP really matter that much? I think it may have something to do with the case that it isn't extremely well known and not many people have played it. I'm sure if they tried it they would absolutely love it. Does anyone have any idea why? Better yet, is it more popular than I am led to believe?

Edit - added some pictures

I thought it was quite popular, Xfire shows it as second most played P2P game after WoW. Xfire might not be very reliable, but a lot of my friends are playing it though.

Originally posted by bastii

I thought it was quite popular, Xfire shows it as second most played P2P game after WoW. Xfire might not be very reliable, but a lot of my friends are playing it though.

Oh then I could be wrong.

I thought LotRO had very good numbers? It's one of the most popular MMOs out, I believe.

And yes, it does have outstanding scenery, music and atmosphere. Also the epic quest line is very well done.

Well i have been following LOTRO ever since the web domain was first registered and i went through the phases with more and more info about it coming in, and i got into the closed beta as soon as it started and i was a real huge lord of the rings fan so i thought this game was gonna be so great and when i got in it actually was really great, infact the best game i had ever played.

And then i continued as a happy LOTRO player for around 2 years, then turbine failed really badly with Mines of Moria (like as bad as SOE in SWG) they turned the game into another gear gated, raiding, repetitive, WOW style game, WHen the game was first released in shadows of angmar, it was really great because it focused on the story and roleplay, not about how long it takes you to kill a giant octopus with your 600 member large elitist guild. Thats where they failed so badly, i quit about a month or two after the release of MoM expansion. The thing i loved about Lotro was walking around feeling as if i really was a character in middle earth. then the Lotro General chat on most servers turned into some sort of barrens chat replica from wow and people were not friendly and everyone just cared about how much gold they can get and how much more +HP their gear gives compared to yours. It turned from a game all about story, immersion and roleplay into another one of "those clones". Nowadays i think only like 1/10th of lotro players even read the quest dialogs, when it was first released that was what it was all about and reading the story.

Its so sad how they could ruin such a great game but you know its happened and previous games before and it will happen again in the future so, just gotta move on i guess.

So thats my experience with LOTRO, great when it started, FAILED LIKE SWG after the first paid expansion called mines of moria.

Also in response to OP - the friendly community that used to be is now a rare find as most of those people got driven out by the arrogant hardcore players.

So in conclusion i dunno if it was too many players from other "clone games" ruining it for the originial lotro players or if the developers just stuffed up bigtime, but one things for sure it just hurts me so much i can never return to LOTRO ever again unless they completely remove the changes laid down in MOM.

Thanks for reading my opinion

Lack of real PvP , lack of a second faction, the fact that it's a story game, and not GO GOGOGOGOGOGOGGO to 60.

Well actually I think Lotro is doing quite good.

Why it's not doing even better? I think that is because it doesn't really bring a new experience from either a gameplay or world perspective. It's no secret that The Lord of The Rings series has been very important for modern fantasy, and it's obvious that games like World of Warcraft and Everquest draw inspiration from TloR in some way.

The problem with Lotro is it's late release. We already have a lot of traditional fantasy MMORPGs around with orcs and elves. Lord of the rings might have started it all, but Lord of the Rings Online is just late to the party.

I will mention, on my server, I notice lots of new, low level players, and players just getting to 60.

The fact that its got no pvp (from what ive heard) is a kind of a dealbreaker for me. Also, i loved Tolkiens lore from the books but the movies were so long and boring they kinda killed it for me (they werent bad and were good adaptations, still...).

I also thought it was doing good tho, seems like a very popular game.

Lack of PvP. But the game is good enough for me even as pure pvp player to try it out, but i can't  *mod edit*.

Originally posted by Tyrantas

Lack of PvP. But the game is good enough for me even as pure pvp player to try it out, but i can't *mod edit*

Lotro-europe.com

I gave LotRO a try, and I found it to be very average. Playing it felt like playing a game I had already played and was tired of. I didn't find it to be anything special.

To the comment about how the community is not friendly.. are you playing the same game?

Yes, your right, LOTRO is all that and more. But its lacking one major feature and thats PVP.  If you strip an mmo with one of the two major features, its going to split your player base.  It doesn't matter if it has gorgeous,detailed graphics or outstanding gameplay. If you take PVE or PVP out of the game, don't expect it to be as popular as games that implemented both PVP/PVE into the game.

Tried it, played it for some months. I do agree that the world looks great, and the feels in it is good. But, I found the combat to be just boring.

Originally posted by bastii

I thought it was quite popular, Xfire shows it as second most played P2P game after WoW. Xfire might not be very reliable, but a lot of my friends are playing it though.

Where do you see that?  I haven't perused Xfire much, but all I could find was this (sort by rank) which ranks things as:

1. WOW
2. Aion
3. Silkroad Online
4. Guild Wars
5. EVE
6. Cabal Online
7. Basma (a foreign MMORPG I've never heard of before.)
8. Runes of Magic

Is there a better way of ranking the games?

lotro was fun the first time, but didn't have much replay value afterwards, since you knew all the quests/books, and didn't have many other things to do except pvp at higher levels.

Lotro is still popular today though, and probaly will be for awhile so long as they keep making new content.

i really don't know why people complain about Monster play TBH it reminds me somewhat of Old DAoC rvr...i really enjoy it and my Black Arrow. Plays as the "creeps" really seems to bring out the mob mentality of the Orc armies. and yeah we are underpowered but when we have numbers on our side...i don't know  i feel like this is a good places for the game and both sidse are good since the Orcs are more about numbers anyhow and the free people are supposed to be heros and all

Originally posted by Wolfenpride

lotro was fun the first time, but didn't have much replay value afterwards, since you knew all the quests/books, and didn't have many other things to do except pvp at higher levels.

Lotro is still popular today though, and probaly will be for awhile so long as they keep making new content.

Like any MMO, you do the quest once, it's the same thing for any game.  I enjoy leveling in LotrO more than any game outside of GW.

I think lotro is doing well already.  I think the mmorpg market isn't big enough for it to have better numbers.