i can't even conceive how boring EVE would be without death penalty. I am really glad a lot of people do not agree with you OP.

I have no problem with gaming like farmville. The people i want to play with in MMO's are not the farmville type. Therefore it wont affect my fun in the least. As a player who loves EVE i have not a single bit of desire to play anything even remotely like farmville. I would like to think that other players who love games like  EVE feel the same way. So what the hell do i care?

Vanguard is an amazing game. IMO its the closest thing to perfect we have in the high fantasy pve oriented MMO realm. However, SOE has decided that their hugely inferior Everquest 2 is a more important project .....so Vanguard gets the shaft and development has been slow to put it lightly.

You dont give much information about what kind of game you are looking for. But since you like LOTRO i am assuming you dont care much for pvp. And since you are worried about the population I am assuming you want a game with a strong one.

To be honest LOTRO is probably your best bet lol. Other high population theme park games with a lot of pve are Aion, DDO, WoW, maybe AoC....i think the population is growing in that game but not sure. Other then that i dont know.

Its very narrow minded to think the only reason to play an MMO is to do everything in a group. I am sure everyone before me covered the reasons why this is narrow minded so i wont bother.

I think feeling heroic in games is overrated and the absolute wrong thing for an MMO to try and simulate. To me a good MMO is about options and versatility......classes are the worst thing to come to MMO's IMO.

options - allowing someone to become a king, a janitor, a spy, a knight, a jester, etc. and interact with people after making there choices is what is great about an MMO.

Versatility - If someone wants to become a janitor/spy then let them in your game! why the heck not.

In EVE i am a miner/covert ops/business man and i love every minute of it.

Bill Ropers Interview at Cryptic

Interviewer: So what have you been doing for the last 5 years Mr. Roper

Roper:  I was CEO of flagship studios (while he eats all the M&M's off of the interviewers desk)

Interviewer: Isn't that the company that created the absolute failure Hellgate London

Roper: Yes

Interviewer: .........

Roper: ........... (Roper lets out a slow high pitched fart in the silence)

Interviewer: Welcome aboard Bill Roper!!!!!

I will not be pre-ordering the game.  I will stick with EVE as my sandbox game of choice for now. But i really do hope people pre-order and hopefully make this game a success as it sounds really cool.