I loved the non-instanced housing that AC/Asheron's call had. There was clusters of neighborhoods all over the world. I had a notebook that I kept notes/coords in every time I would find a new cluster. The neighborhoods were all unique because the landscapes were all different.

 I had my heart set on this one villa and I had a toon parked at it for a year. I would log her in every couple days to check on the rent to see if it might become available. It took me over a year but I got the house of my dreams upon a mountain, overlooking winding rivers in the valley.

 Instanced housing just isn't the same. It feels generic...like a hotel.

LoTRO- beautiful world and the nicest community. I log in and have a looooooong list of things to do and that makes it a joy to play.

Good grief! I didn't know there was games that had ppl run like that. It is jarring to watch!

Originally posted by skeaser

Budget.

That is all.

Agree but I'd add their game engine too. It runs so smoothly on low PC requirements and that makes it so consumer friendly.

I quit when I'm bored also. In two games, it took me 3 years to become bored (AC and my current game). In two other games, it took 3 months (WoW and Warhammer). And in two other games, I quit due to lag after the first month ( AoC and VG).

Lori

1- LoTRO

2- AC- Asherons call

3- No 3rd. I've tried many but I left them all within 3 months out of boredom

I just read an article about him this month in a magazine. He reports there are .....

62 million Zynga game players per month!!!! 62 million- OMG!

That puts MMO's to shame!

Originally posted by unbound55

Originally posted by jpnole

I measured it up to about 400K over the past weekend. Still, I used to see this go into 1-2 million on weekends during P2P earleir this summer. Any thoughts as to why less people appear to be playing? Check the numbers for yourself:

 

http://status.warriorsofnargathrond.com/?numbers=yes

The highlighted portion alone should tell  you that this is a troll.  LOTRO never got into the millions of subscriptions.  It peaked at around 275,000 last summer.

 

Please don't feed the trolls.  It only results in more baby trolls that will need to be fed later...

Unless that application counts each log in as a single unit. I play LoTRO and probably log in 3 times over the weekends and perhaps it counts me as 3 log-ins. See what I mean?

LoTRO

I hated the books in school and had no plans to try the game. I was very bored with the game I was playing in 2006 and thought that maybe I was getting too mature to play MMO's altogether. None seemed fun to me anymore.

Then I saw an "LoTRO Open Beta"  promo on this site and it had the cutest screenshot of a hobbit house! It was so freaking adorable. I applied so I could see the hobbit houses and have been playing that game ever since- from Jan of 2007. I expected to be bored and it still hasn't happened. I thought the game would be silly and it's very complex with cool classes.  I thought the hobbits would look silly and....well they do look ridiculous LOL! So, I only play human chars:) I thought the game would be lame and it's not- it's brilliantly done.

I had zero expectations and hated the books. The lore means nothing to me but I really , really love the game.

Thank you mmorpg.com. I've had 3 years of fun because you showed a screenshot  of a hobbit house=)  You saved me from the agony of watching crappy TV shows these last 3 years:)

Lori

Originally posted by Muridan

I play on Landroval and as I type this I am #50 in the que with a wait time of >3 minutes...wondering where all these alleged 20 minute waits are....

I'm VIP too and I was 329th in line with a 21 minute wait. I played until my family called for our once a week chat and now can't get in at all. It's stuck on 'Gathering Data' now.

What the heck?! I tried every server and the waiting lines range from 300-1000 people!

This ain't good:( It'll make the old players mad and the new players frustrated:(

I think that the only game that will give WoW a run for it's money is Guild Wars 2. They had 6 million boxes sold to GW1 and I figure at least half of those 6 million will try GW2.

And there's many ppl like me that never played GW1 but are planning on trying GW2.

I almost stopped reading when I saw WoW get  a 9 on 'Game World" and LoTRO a 8 !  Dude!! Let me buy you some visine  =)

But I kept reading and agree with many of your points except this is how I would vote:

Lotro Game world : 10/10

WoW: 5/10

Character  : WoW : 10/10 ( Those models fit that neon world perfectly)

Character LoTRO:  6/10   ( The models are average compared to the beauty of that game world)

Here are some categories that I wish you would add in the future and how I would rate these two:

Classes-

LoTRO: 10/10 - no duds in any of their classes. Makes playing alts a joy.

WoW: 6/10

Game Engine:

LoTRO: 8/10

WoW: 10/10

Content Updates

LoTRO: 10/10

WoW: 3/10

My most memorable and fun times were had in Asherons Call. I've played other games and love the one I'm currently playing  but nothing compares to AC. 

This pleases me:)

I'm going to buy a new machine at tax time next year and maybe this game will run on my old machine until the new belssing arrives=)

Originally posted by RobertDinh

Originally posted by drauss

Originally posted by RobertDinh
q3 2011. Releasing anytime near cataclysm would screw them quite badly.

LOL!!! Who Blizzard? or Arenanet?

6 Million copies sold of Guild Wars 1. Arenanet would be ok I am thinking.. They don't depend on subs, only box sales.

Its one thing to buy the box its quite another to keep paying for the box over and over and over...

 

Well there are almost twice as many active subscribers to wow than there are total box sales for gw ever in many years. Hell, blizzard matched gw1 box sales if you just combine the 24hour first day sales of tbc + wotlk. Let alone total sales + wow vanilla (which is required to play any expansion) And sorry to say but if catacylsm is freshly released it is going to dominate sales, just like every other wow expansion. The worst thing anet could do is try to compete with cataclysm release. Better to avoid that fight.

Of the 12 million playing WoW, only 4 million of them paid for the boxed game. Only US and Europe have to pay for their boxed releases of WoW.. Asia and other eastern countries get it for free because MMO's are only played at the Internet Cafes there. It is downloaded for free and then people pay to play as they go.

And again, only 4 million folks in WoW have to pay monthly sub fees. The other 8 million folks  pay  5 or 6 cents to log in and play for 1-2 hours at a time.

Both games are gonna have huge sales.  I'm guessing both wil sell 4 mill or so. I find it so cute when fanbois get their panties in a bunch:) "My dad can beat up your Dad! " "No! My Dad can beat up YOUR Dad!".

Originally posted by wintersborn

Simply put a monthly/sub based MMO's that turns into a FTP/RMT/Micro transactions etc. game means only one thing.

1. A financialy dieing game that they are trying to squeeze the last drop from before its dead.

 

ALL the MMO companies gotta be sitting up and taking notice of what happened with DDO when it went hybrid and increased their profits 500%. This model will spread like crazy in the next few years and we will be seeing a ton more MMO's take this route.  They should. More cash coming in means better and more frequent updates. It means they will have to work harder to retain their players and lure in new ones. Monthly fees can = complacency by the MMO devs:(

Why did WoW sell a $25 horsey a few months ago? You think they're dying?

It's all about the cash. They want higher profits. Simple as that:)

Voted other for Asheron's Call

LoTRO cus it's so perty:) And there's lotsa pubs too LOL!

Land of the Lost- a prehistoric MMO

~ A Time Travel MMO would be cool:)