Well, it stops being a nice game when you start the legendary item grind. But until then it's pretty fun.

But yeah, the character models kind of suck. I was hoping they'd get something of a makeover but given the last half-assed expansion, I think the problem is still the same - Turbine just doesn't have many people working on the game.

I haven't played CO, but there's definitely a similar feel to City of Heroes, their game  before CO.

The starship combat really does remind of SFC, but a lot of that was borrowed from the game Star Fleet Battles. So sort of fair.

LOTRO was a well done game until they hit Moria. Moria was dark and bleak, which made sense, but just wasn't much fun.

But the big problem was the legendary items. Basically they were meant to be weapons that "grew" with you. But they don't - you have to level them up, but when you gain new levels, you have to throw them away and start the leveling process for the items all over again. (and that doesn't even taken into account the randomness of the legacies of the lis)

Now it seems like they are going to add to the grindiness of the game by making the horses work the same way. Ugh. I have a lifetime sub to this, yet cannot bear to play a character over 50 just because of the LIs. The least fun I've had in 35 years of gaming

Apparently something like 10,000 players did come back for this, but as near as I can tell, they must all have gone to the subscription only server (because basically a subscription is the best way to play these story arcs - otherwise they are like $5 for a 30 minute mission).

They really really need to merge the servers. Outside of the VIP one and 2 of the more popular ones, the game is a ghost town. If they added cross server grouping for dungeons (er, trials) it would help too.

On my first character, I died at level 6, just moments after getting the wary title.

I've done better since, most of them make it to 20 and beyond before dying. Really easy on a Guardian and Warden, though, LM is kind of squish but they can are very powerful if you use them right.

P2P streaming isn't the sleazy part, what is sleazy is that a for profit company like NCSoft, rather than providing patching/downloads themselves, decides to crowdsource that to users, effectively letting the people who are paying for the game foot the bill for uploading patches and the game.

Beyond that, it's great to know that so many people have wonderful internet connections that doesn't mind their constantly having a p2p program run.

But for those of us with bandwidth caps, it basically means that this is unusable.

And at any rate, it's not like gaming needs an unclogged internet connection or anything. I mean, who cares if you are constantly uploading I'm sure your commands will get through eventually.

Which basically is a peer to peer program (aka torrent) program that will upload constantly if you let it run.

Why companies stoop this low is beyond me - just put the game up on Steam if you are too cheap to pay for the bandwidth - using this Pando crap is very sleazy...

As I've now played about a dozen characters up to 20th level, I have to say that the balance between them is not very good. I guess some of this is deliberate as it's a solo vs group play thing, but still...

Mostly it's a melee vs ranged thing. In virtually every other game I've played, a ranged DPS class can just about kill an enemy before it gets into melee range - or when it gets there, it's easily finished off. The catch being sometimes you needed to fight 2 or 3.

Here, in virtually every ranged class I've tried (be it blaster or corrupter or dominator) you're lucky to get an enemy even down to half before he hits into melee range.

It depends on the powerset - fire is pretty good, dark is okay, but ice and dual pistols are very weak, and electricity is downright pathetic.

Defenders are just plain pathetic.

And survivability is very, very low and all of them except dominators - since they can easily stop enemies in their tracks. But actually killing them takes ages.

By contrast, Brutes are amazingly lethal and incredibly sturdy. Most enemies take 2 hits to kill, and taking on 6 enemies at a time is a breeze. Yes, teleporting/fleeing enemies are a pain, but still, it's just so much easier to play.

Scrappers are almost as good as Brutes, don't seem to do much more damage, but die easier. Tankers are tougher but kill slower.

Stalkers on the other hand are remarkably weak - yes, they can basically one shot most enemies, but then they have to cope with 1-2 more and for whatever reason, they don't handle combat very well. They don't have many attacks and they don't handle taking damage very well.

I realize some of this is a solo vs group thing, but at the same time, characters are apparently expected to do a decent amount of soloing. On some charactrers, I really can't (like my electricty character or my defenders) while brutes are just so much more powerful.

Should have gotten Malibu, or maybe that Turbo guy.

And with that, any pretense of "convenience, not advantage" goes out the window. Not that it had been anything but a farce, but now it's not even that.

Buying a cd-key and time card really isn't RMT.

It can be pretty shady in the case of people in wealthier countries buying keys from less well to do ones (Russia mainly) just to save money. But just evading territorial restrictions? That's nothing.

But the motive is the same as RMT - people use it to get stuff they otherwise couldn't.

And in both cases, it can end  up hurting their cause. RMTs tend to cause inflation in the game, and buying regional stuff means that a company will less likely localize a game for that region, since customers already bought it for another.

While too much nationalism is a bad thing, I think it also hurts when a country does settle for a game from another region (In English) as opposed to one localized for them.

I'm an altoholic (my highest character is 22 despite playing for 3 months now), but mostly I've played Brutes and Corruptors (I've tried blasters, but they are too fragile and have no self heal, really).

Brutes do very well against most things, but 4-5 of those zombies puking on them, and it's too much.

Corrupters can do okay when they have a lot of room and pick off mobs one at a time. But in the sewers that's really not possible.

And of course that catch with going after the Dr. first versus the zombies, is that some of them explode. If you don't get those first, you will take half your hit points or so when they blow up.

Actually, the same sort of applies to those Hydra things. I'm playing a 5th level character against them now in an AE arc, and I'm taking a lot of damage from their spit (but conversely, I'm not getting much xp)

The game is definitely better than before it hit F2P, in terms of player base.

But the real problem is what it has been since Moria - not enough new content on a regular basis. Isengard didn't really help much. And at $30 (or $40 in terms of points) it's hardly a great deal for anyone.

I have spent probably 1200 hours playing this game, and I've never even seen or heard a GM.

OTOH, I've never actually talked to anyone in the game either, since no one talks in regular channels and I don't use private ones.

But that's really thing thing - GLFF is not an official channel, there should be a large amount of leeway what is being said there, since you have to find it to even listen (er read) it.

It's a better game than it was, though it still blows once you hit 50 because of the horrid legendary item system.

A free player can hit the cap, but the quest stop at level 30 or so. You can earn points for the store by playing, but you'd have to grind a lot.

Ditto for the raids needed to get gear - you have to buy them.

I don't think you can even do PvP in LOTRO without being a subscriber. I thougth they were going to introduce something in the latest expansion that would let them, but it doesn't seem like it. I think they just added buyable stuff to the store (like skill ranks) for PvP, so you can level up your creeps quicker (since they don't have a PvE place)

But it's the same as it was ages ago.

Whatever you want to play, really, and most servers except Landroval - they're stuck up there...

Partly it's because of your server - people on Landroval are pretty much stuck up, and won't deign to talk to anyone outside of their guild (kinship). I would suggest re-rolling on a less snobbier one (I've spent 1000 hours on it, so I can judge them, I think)

Partly because early on, like from 20-28 or so, you had two choices - the Lonelands and the North Downs. The Lonelands was revamped (while still P2P) to remove most of the grouping quests because no one grouped anymore and there were very few new players.

The North Downs still has a lot of group stuff, but no one wants to do it, becaues the rewards stink and because it's not free, like the Lonelands.

And frankly, a big problem with LOTRO is the limited number of classes. I like making alts, but ugh, once you have 2 of each class it's not a lot of fun anymore.

I will say that the hair models are pretty terrible. Worst thing about the character models...