The hireling or you can call it soldier in Lotro is really a joke. Both games from Turbine, but it seems that either their designers are belong to different compnay or they do not cooperate together. The hireling in Lotro Skirmish is really poor quality, I suggest whoever design the hireling path in Lotro please take a look on DDO how they make a better hireling.

In Lotro, the hireling looks so panic running around without purpose and I have to rescue the stupid soldier everytime because the soldier stupid path. The soldier path is based on the player like a circle, so even you did not move but just chance direction then the soldier will run as a circle like a clock ahead of you.

For example, if you were facing east, and change direction to west, then the soldier will run like a clock ahead of you and facing west. Thats means the soldier always ahead of you to get trouble. So I have to turn my back to the mobs so the hireling will not run into the mobs.

Anyhow, the skirmish solo is really poor quality.

1. I feel being cheated by completing so many quest and still giving the same level of trait. So remove the cheating level cap on virtue.

2. The fishing in Lotro is a delicated well made junk. You can fishing in any water, it doesnt matter if it would be a lack, stream, river or even a 5 cm water as long as there is water, and you still get large fish out of the 5cm water. And the fish uses for cooking are only 8 types or less. The rest of them are fine production junks. 

3. Remove the vocation limits or increase various type of vocation. I want to choose from:

jeweller/scholar/prospector

tailor/metalsmith/prospector

cooking/farming/woodworking

cooking/jeweller/prospector

Scholar/woodworking/tailor

I just returning to Lotro in these days but sadly I found 2 of my characters got lot of stuffs missing, especially the highest level armor set while still at lv 60 cap, plus Nimble goat are disappeared too. A minstrel and a guardian. And I have been doing these instances for so many times just for the armors. My minstrel got 2 sets of armors, one is light armor which used to doing raid or instances, another is crafted medium armor, not a set for soloable grinding. And the system just keep the medium armor.

Because It's free so you can't complain about the lost, especially, the account has been suspend for more than  a year. Anyway, I am not going to run the instance again just for armors.

I think there are some new players who never play Lotro before joined the game since F2P but the quantity is pathetically. I have been running around in the middle earth, I only see NPCs. It is strange feeling when you went back to these places, since at that time, people everywhere, it doesnt matter where avout in the middle earth, even it's a corner, you found a group of people grinding, questing, running. And now, you see only mobs and npcs.

I think Lotro may introduce to enter the game from Level 50, because it is now like you playing WOW from the first edition. I dont think anyone would questing in Angmar for the reward. I believe it will bring more players into this game if they can start from lv50, and then people will be more interesting and indepently to do lower level stuffs for deeds, traits, slaying ...etc. And the higher level zone would be more people, it helps MoM, Lorthien and the 3rd expansion.

In addition, it helps Turbine to update future contents, otherwise, I don't see future contents of Lotro, probably more like WInter Home stuffs.

For example, when I quit Lotro, I have champion lv60, minstrel lv59, warrior lv51, LM lv42, Burglar lv43. Only champion and warrior got the armor set from the Rift, (I suspect my minstrel lost the Rift armor set during transistion). I am not going to level up any other character except continue playing my champion because the way to get XP are all depend on solobility. Even they reach lv60 but they could be very fragile because deeds, traits, class skills, legendary skills, reputation and lack of decent armors, weapons....etc, before they reach max level.

But there are many shits to do in Lotro and they are much better contents than any F2P on the market, DDO is good for group play, poor solo contents, but Lotro now seems more depends on solo than group play. Since it was P2P time, it was difficult to find group doing Books, so I don't think it will be easier to find group now. Besides, I hardly see the LFF window has anyone looking for fellow or group during a day, maybe only one. Most people on my server are stay at Chetwood. When they are able to go to MoM or never, it would be least half year from now. To be honest, I don't think I would meet any one of them that I see now shows up in Lorthrien or other high level zone.  

I dont think Lotro will make the game easier for soloers, perhaps new contents but definitely not older contents. I quit Lotro when Turbine going to release Lorthien, at the time, it was huge nerf on players, stats, wepaons, armors.....everything, so I quit. As I recalled the dps damage been nerfed down least 200-300 damages which mean my champion deal 200-300 damages less and the meantime, armor nerfed as well, and then the mobs become more powerful.

Since Lotro lose paid customers and go F2P, they might tune back a little on weapons, but only the maximum level. This game is definitely designed for multiple massive online role play, but now, it is minimal man online play.

Why would you buy something you can't even find a group to play with? Just play the free to play Skirmish, because the mmorpg already turned into solo play.

Anyhow, if you want to play those contents, first thing find yourself a good Kin, there are still many P2P players in the game from the past.

I just reactivated my account today. Amazingly, spot a few guys on my friend list. Otherwise, the world is deserted except for the Solo camp. There are many zones need to pay for the adventure, I run from Bree to Esteldin then Trollshaw then Eregion then Moria, I didnt see one player during the road, Finally, I seen 3-4 people in the Dolven camp,

You can see many people run around in the Bree town but compare with the glorious time of Lotro in the past, the number of people today really less than a guild's members. And they must have difficulty to do Books and many quests. In that case, their performance will be minimum since they dont have skill books, traits, deeds ....etc. I guess what F2P can do is just XPing but level isn't everything if you dont have important traits, class skills etc.

The world is huge, low level start blind invite for group, but in the end, they wouldnt be able to play with you in certain contents.

I am playing DDO at the moment, but Lotro definitely is another valuable F2P if your sick of Korean and Chinese type of F2P. It's still a good game to killing time.

My review or Tips for the UI: (just an example for general UI, not necessary meant to be logging out)

When you clicking Log Out, the window pop out: Do you want to log out?

OK, this is normal just to be sured you were loggin out.

But the FFXIV is anti-mistake UI, so after you clicked Yes, the window pop out again: Are you sure there is nothing you can do but loggin out? 

OK, it's friendly reminder. Again, you clicked on Yes.

Then you still can't loggin out, the window pop out again: You choose to stay in game, if you want to log out, click on Log Out.

OK, this is too much, thanks. Just press Reset button would save you time. .

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

LOL Wait...wait wait wait...why? Why would there be a ton of gold farmers in a game that no one's really playing? I am so confused...and how did this even happen? With such a small population of players one would think they could keep better tabs on the people there.

I hate conspiracy theories, but considering how desperate they are for funding right now I'd be willing to believe they know those botters are there, and are letting them have their fun for now. Once those free months are up, which is soon, those sub fees will still be getting paid. Beggers can't be choosers, I guess

 Gold famrers deliver any gold amount you ordered in 15 minutes so they need to keep minimum stock of gold for business. Since the server is low population, it could be their best time for exploit. After a month or two, they all grown up to max level and away from the low level zones. Botting and farming gold is their business. And your business is playing the game and pay every month subscription fee. It's something you wouldn't know, not everything you don't know is considered as conspiracy, at least this one.

Originally posted by Fourplay
If your a first impressions person. I would hold off another 4 months to purchase. Around that time the game should be close to it's first real expansion. Right now it's light on content. I know that in the more distant future, the game will be super content heavy. But if your considering purchase now. The distant future means little.

 I am not sure about that. Seems to me that FFXIV is silimar to the fate of Pirates of the Burning Sea, I founf Pirates pf the Burning Sea at extremely low price, I though I could play least 30 days for free. But it is disppointed, because Japanese game has its own style, I was barely able to play one week then never log back in. Anyhow, the retail price from game shop still as high as they shouldnt be. Perhaps the game shops stil do not  want to reduce the price  because low price won't help to get rid of the dead stock.

Square Enix is going to grab a strong hold on PS3 market while already failed in PC market, so I think it doesnt matter how they tweak the UI from worse to better status, however, still far away from being Good.

After watching several reviews on Youtube, the problem is not just UI, you still need to do many clicks and browse through the entire UI to get one simple job done. In the past, you may lost in the UI maze, now, you may not lost in the UI, which it means better.

The spirit of DDO is PUG, imo.  

Although you can play with friends but everone has different playing time, so you still need PUG. OK, you say guild play? Guild play is also PUG because people is not playing their main character every time. If the quest needs a Wizard, they will not taking extra ranger even you are guildies. But if your officer contributed real money and guild favor to your guild, you may have better chance to join as extra ranger. Otherwise, don't expect what your guild can do for you more than you can do for your guild.

You also need a bit solo ability because you may not able to find a PUG when you were login, or the PUG don't need your class, so people exploring wilderness for XP or killing time. however, DDO is not good for soloers even you have the ability to solo a few quest. Because you still not able to solo hard or elite quest equivalent to your level.

But soloing a quest or doing wilderness helps you to know the quest better and remember the area better so when you are in a PUG next time, you will know what your doing. For example, wilderness, soloers will know the area much better as well as the location of named mobs, you may see from website but it would be different when you are in the virtual world.

I have play Pirate of Carribean Online as well, but that game has no difference from other F2P grindings, DDO is mainly a quest grinding, so you don't need to kill X for Y times, except for the wilderness, but the wilderness is just an optional, as said, doing wilderness only if you cant find a PUG.

So there is no grinding presure to kill the same mobs over and over again, instead you just need to join a PUG and receive your XP. So I call it a lightweight since not everyone suits heavyweight mmorpg.

When people login the game and find only himself and the NPC, I bet you would say the same thing.

It stops when the susbscription discontinued just like the same fate of any other game on the market.

Originally posted by Mannish

Originally posted by Fuhyo01

Originally posted by wizyear2099

 site.

LOTR wasn't in the top 10 when it came out either lol, it shouldn't be a top 10 game anyhow because the longterm content isn't as great thats why it went F2P in a year. 

 

LoTRO was out for a few years before it switched to F2P and that was only after DDO proved to be wildy successful when it switched from subscription to F2P.  Also, LoTRO was in the Top 10 MMOs when it was a pay to play game and remains so now as a F2P game.

 DDO and Lotro are both failures. Anytime a game has to make a swtich from Pay To Play to Free To Play only afther being a couple years old  thats bad regardles of how many people play it once it goes free.

I have played DDO and Lotro while they were P2P without option of F2P. I don't really care how much money Turbine made from both games, but I am pretty sure that it was a good time when I was playing both games, especially Lotro, it was my second best time playing mmorpg. The first best time of playing mmorpg was WOW doing the raid. Also Lotro has the best  community while I was playing Lotro. Third game was Warhammer, lot of fun which means entertainment.

The quality of FFXIV just proves itself the same quality like Pirates of the Burning Sea and other totally failed game, even Warhammer is playable and better than FFXIV. How you can compare a game between playable and unplayable?

Originally posted by ScribZ

 Do you mind if I ask you a question on that part in red up there ^^? Why, if you honestly believe this information is so important to others, do you not post this kind of data on any other game besides FFXIV? I'm just curious, you would think if it was in fact important information, and you were just a civil servant of the people, why won't you post this type of information about all the other games out there? I play LoTRO, how come I dont have these nice charts for that game? I also play Aion, CoX, WoW, WAR, and FE, why not post some of this useful information about those games too? I mean you dont even play FFXIV, why the single minded interest in putting out data for this ONE game only if in fact it really is for the good of everyone?

The OP post is apparently more valuable than your question. The post from the OP making the forum alive, it has nothing to do with the game is dead. But I understand you prefer the other way around, the forum is dead but the game is alive. People might think if the game is so good then they wouldn't have time to post in the forum, but I think the forum activities has nothing to do with the game good or bad if the game is not totally dead. There are many dead games but the forum activity still in active.

One thing for sure is that people getting bored with lower level, mid level even high level quests because for people wanted to do reincarnation, they are just XP, especially if ones already own multiple characters, so there isn't any fun to repeating same quest over and over again. If you play DDO for longer time, even you are not a rogue but you already knew exactly where are traps as well the location of trap boxes. Really, don't know what else needed to know to doing the same quest. That's why just XP.

Reincarnation making your character stronger with additional stats points plus you can chose a Feat from your past life, the class you had before reincarnation. It's slightly stronger than non-reincarnated. This is for sure. If your in a group with all reincarnated players, you will found its lot easier than non-reincarnated. The choice is your if you wanna reincarnated or not but, reincarnated character is stronger for sure.

Since most capable people already repeating the same quest over and over again even ransacked the quest, it is becoming more soloing who already knew how to get XP in a better way. Or 3 reincarnated players would be capable to run even elite with hirelings. The PUG left for those newbie or non-reincarnated players.

And it becoming more and more difficult to forming up a PUG for quest.

I also believe if there is other better mmorpg on the market, DDO would need to merge servers. I think ddo already need to merge servers now even the peak time still with many players. But the peak time is like a sparkling of electricty short out.

I am just opposite because I prefer DDO has no end game. Because it is an old game, if Turbine remove level cap, for instance, from lv20 up to lv25, adding new contents for end game, and after a short period of time, people will say where is end game again. A game with end game contents means really end. I believe there would be contents for lv20.

As matter of fact, there are already exist in the game, The Battle Field. I am pretty disappointed to see so many level 20 playing battlefield on casual or even normal difficulty. Because elite is not for non-reincarnated players. You must be reincarnated once or twice to be able to experience the real challenge of level 20 contents. So, for those don't want to reincanated players, the performance will be greatly reduced when Turbine release high level contents.

I have seen many lv20 just there to farming ingridients. But the game has changed, Turbine made this game to continue to next life and stealth buff for true reincarnation character. But anyway, there are too many contents for lv1 to 13, only Vale of Twilight for level 16, it is difficult level for reincarnated player to leveling since it requires much more XP and it is a bit too low to play level 19 contents. I wish Turbine would provide more contents for reincarnated player to gain XP easier.

lol, every f2p has its own story in behind, i was playing ddo since day 1 after ac2 then stop playing until level cap at lv13. the game was more difficult long time ago, but it still difficult to someone today if you have never play enough. I am playing ddo from time to time, sometimes stop playiung up to a couple months as well.

I was trying to play other games but none in my watch list after failed to like them. DDO was the only one on the market provides reasonable item shop items still balancing the game play. Although the contents getting a bit bored to me but the game quality is above average, only a bit laggy, and more importantly is, whenever I wanted to spend time in gameplay, I loging ddo and I found a PUG doing 1 or 2 quests, then logging out for a cigarette. voila.

the longer you play the more favor point you earn, and you could own the game in a long run, just like lifetime subscribers to play for free. I dont really love ddo so much but I got no other better choice, do I? anyway, even I found a new game to play but I am still able to come to ddo at anytime I wanted.  

I have been playing Lotro as well while it was p2p, it was a fun game, but it is also a heavy weight grinding, so I chosen ddo as light weight grinding, although you repeating the same quest but it is much better than grinding the same mobs over and over again. when you hit lv20 just do true reincarnation to make your character stronger, and lv20 again, do another reincarnation, believe me, it is much durable and stronger.

the pug group is 6 persons play, so everyone has clear function during the quest, it is clear to tell if your good or bad with your character.

anyway, I wish Turbine may change those colletibles into coin and we could use them to change for faction favor or anything better than the current junks.

Originally posted by Gintoh

Yes, many complain about the lack of freedom and such which is a problem, but the real problem is that the minute to minute gameplay isn't fun. Lets take WoW. You click on a guy, watch you Avatar hack on him for a little bit, maybe spam a few skill combos, then one of you falls over.

 

Thrilling.

 

This is why I would much rather play Fallen Earth then Eve. Yes I like the idea of Sandboxes better, and that's what eve has going for it, the metagame. The metagame is interesting, upgrading your ship and world polotics and such. But is the actual gameplay itself fun? Not really. Yes FE is a Themepark, but imo it's far more entertaining even though it lacks alot of depth. The real problem is that MMO's have crappy, boring gameplay. Not that a game is streamlined or open or whatever.

If you don't feel fun to play WOW, you wont have fun even on Fallen Earth or EVE or any other game. Because you might think you were using your mouse to make the PC interact with lifeless objects in the game doing math calculation.  If the game has item shop which you might think it would be the most stupidity thing hapened in your life to buy something from item shop to make the math calculation with faster result.

I'd think a game makes people satisfied with the thing you'd never happen in real life. For example, violence, brutality, bloody shed, crime, heroic, thief, psychic, vice versa, there could be holy god, sacred warrior as well as evil thing. And, protitution, women killer. First you drops yourself in an environment filled up with those things, then you start move on with your mouse to get satisfaction.

Instead of these things, all mmorpgs just provides leveling, armors, weapons, oh yeah, and monthly subscription fee so they can buy better car in real life.

DDO is the first P2P turned into F2P style. Not because Turbine is the first company doing it, it is because Turbine has very good business strategy. Unlike the other F2P, the item shop from DDO is quite acceptable by so far. I have seen many P2P players bought the adventure pack for F2P players, most of the time was healers. There are many pay to play subscribers in the game. They just want to play in a group whenever they are loging in and DDO is typical a PUG for most of the players.

Also, I have seen many times, people buying reviving cake from item shop while the group wiped. And, people buying hirelings from item shop. Why people wanted to spend 100 favor point just to buy hireling to run maybe 1 or 2 quests? Simply because they enjoy it. I have playing many other F2P mmo but they are all same style, even website looks alike.

DDO is the only one qualified as P2P mmorpg, that's the fact. The other F2P don't even have chance to make their game so valuable to charge fee from players every month. In other words, the company making the game lack of confidence in their own game. Otherwise, learn from Guild War just selling the first copy and play for free. Nope, those F2P are too cheap to sell for any coin. That's how they work on item shop and it sucks.

Unlike the other F2P on the market, DDO still has many pay to play subscribers who paid $15 every month. That is one of reason to keep DDO at better shape due to those P2P players. If your F2P and up to lv20 then you will be able to buy some adventure packs also free.