Lotro
 

Got the strange idea to give a try to Lotro. I never played it and the game is 10 years old so I suspect than not a lot must be geared toward the newbie or would be outdated.

I am not looking for a guild or do anything grouped just discovering the game at my own pace.
I would appreciate if someone could point me to some links with information current enough?

There's https://lotro-wiki.com. Lots of information there.

pibbur who is an elfish loremaster

Hmm, after 82 years of exposure there would be no smell, nor any cat remains.

Is the cat in a vacuum?

Is crafting still useful in this game? I mean Metalsmith or Weaponsmith for example?

I stopped playing years ago but heres what I know about crafting.
If you are totallly playing solo, then crafting is useful.
If you are playing in a guild then everything you can imagine can be crafted by people way better at it than you. Only do it if you REALLY want to craft.

I'm guessing it's in a box.

I must confess than I am having fun even at very low level. UI must be tailored a lot to be suitable on a big screen but when set it is really fine.
Surprised by the World chat, did not participate but had a look : It was cool and often in character or at least in full English. That is also a good surprise.
Sure, graphics are outdated but after some minutes I did not even notice it anymore.

Also, do not want to appear smug but Gandalf who has quite an eye for potential, has already tried to approach me. I am playing hard to get, don't want him to think I am easy or something.
Locals are quite smitten by my overall warrior skills too, they have bestowed upon me some really nice titles like "Bat Killer" or whatever. I feel than a statue could be erected if I dropped some hints.

Tomorrow the 8th, SSG is launching a new server: Anor. It's meant to be a locked progression server. The first 4 months are locked to level 1 to 50, with new level cap/content increase every 4 months. FAQ

The new server will be the current version of the game with reduced XP gain and some stuff not available (because they come from later content pack like skirmishes or meant for post level 50 content).

Requires VIP.

Along with DDO - LotRO is the MMO that I would most want to see remade with the latest technology.

I'd want to see Shadowbane remade. I want to play another flying race!

(It had a birdman and a demon race which could both naturally fly)

A year or so ago I would have been able to convince a couple of friends to come mess about on the emulated servers, but now everyone's super busy with new babies or being dead so I don't think I'll bother with the lag.

But you can see in this video from sep 2018 that these graphics could use a splash of paint.


In which new games do you find sieges like that?

Shadowbane was one of the better ego-driven MMOs back in the day, I'd agree.

I have been VIP since 2010. Amazing game. Right now, I am playing on Anor (one of the two legendary servers) and it is a lot of fun. Just getting out of Moria now, and into Lothlorien on my main (guard), and building up my stable of alts. SSG, warts and all, are still putting a lot into this game, say what you will about them.

I've been a lifetime subscriber since 2007 :)

This and DDO are my favorite MMOs in terms of design.

They would be my overall favorite MMOs if only they were modernized.

ESO is probably the closest thing to a modern LotRO we'll see. It's great - but it's not Tolkien.

Neverwinter is the modern DDO, I guess - but it's a joke in comparison.

I have always liked DDO, in terms of it's design. Just never had the time to fully commit to a sub for it. I think over the years that Turbine, and then SSG have done a great job building up the content for DDO.

I played it for a couple years w/ my ex, it's a fun game that you'll get more mileage from if you're a Tolkien nerd (obviously)

We were at the time, and it was great fun in that regard

If you are deep into Tolkien lore (I fall into that category), then the game is such a treat. There are however, many situations where the developers over the years, be it Turbine, or SSG, have broken with lore and gone in a completely different direction.

Personally, I rather stick with the books.
But on the other hand, I love DDO.

I loved LOTRO, but SSG made changes which destroyed all I loved about the game for some reason. So now I just login from nostalgia.
I just wish I could buy the game and make all the changes I always wanted :p Just look at them - a team which could create a whole expansion in a year! I would create a new MMO with the same engine and the same team and I would make it pure RP with level restrictions removal. I would need 1 city for it. But still I wouldn't have money to pay for that year :(

So there is new expansion and almost all the questpack are free untill november: https://lotro.com/en/getready
And there is nothing like a youtube video about how the game is great showing first 10 levels, which is the nostalgia they milk from for quite a few years. But well, atleast it is alive and the story was still good.

tl;dr: The Joxer won't like this :)

Great news.

pibbuR who observes that while it's great news for him, others would think it belongs in the "things you don't need to know" thread, or antoher trashcan.

PS: Yes, I like some MMO's. And LOTRO is on the top of my list, and the only one I'm playing regularly. When I'm playing. Which for some reason (I blame differential equations and C++ programming) I don't do much ATM. DS.

I totally get it - for nostalgia, but it is harder and harder for me to play the game seriously. This post on general LOTRO forums sums it up and also makes me feel sorry for those players - there are the usual haters who are always in every MMO, going against community, but sadly they are those who are on the roll now:
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr…-level-events&
I wish players outside would be able to support those who somehow suffer from such oppressive behaviour of management rather than keep telling everyone the version of PR department :(.
But I know that players in MMOs complain so much, it is hard to tell when it is important.
How far they will go until you say enough? It is different for everyone.

I won't play LOTRO, because I prefer to have my - as I call it - "head cinema" (German "Kopfkino") from the books.

Quoted from your linked thread :


It imho basically boils down to this : https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p…eringToTheBase


This is what I don't like of DDO as well, but I think it's there rather because of the forums being dominated rather by end game folks.

I have noticed something like that happening many years ago, and I call it (perhaps i took that from another site ages ago ?) "content rot".
This term means, that meanwhile end game is usually pushed into being better and better content, old content gets neglected for ages, or, as in DDO, "epicified", meaning : overhauled for end content.

In DDO, this had led to some instances of "epicified" level 3 quests ("Catacombs" chain) which has lost a lot if not all of its former charm by totally reworking the quest line. Everything is far more obvious now, and "the thrill is gone", imho. In all fairness I must admit, though, that they added a few interesting new points into the story.

The jump in terms of quility is imho quite noticeable towards higher level quests, but equally I must say that the situation has become a bit better through SSG releasing quests for BOTH end game AND low level folks. These aredifferent instances, with the stats of enemies and of obstacles just being different

I understand, however, that I might be a niche within a niche - playing mostly for story, not for socializing, so to say.

Even in SWTOR; a few bits of lowest level content has been made prettier a bit.
They destroyed LOTS of that when they had made KOTFE, and for it, wanted EVERYONE to be forcefully pushed towards then endgame (KOTFE was end game then) as fast as possible.

If someone is happy with LOTRO now - don't read further - this is my complaining, I don't want to upset anyone.

Yes, it will be one of those gaming good advices :( sadly 90% times the usefulness of those advices is questionable. The worse version of those advices is that it is adviced by managers from other studio of an MMO you don't play because of their great ideas, then they come and give their advices free of charge.

I have nothing against good changes - SSG made a lot of those actually, but those are ordinary devs, doing great job. But then comes those "professional" advices which can kill any game.
How making players angry will push them toward endgame?
isn't better to find out why players don't play endgame and have content around that? Or change what is hindering them? But when you tell them why as a player - you are called "entitled", but when some managers give them advices who have no knowledge about the game - they are the professionals?
it seems like the only and "professional" advice from gaming industry available is to cut the content, give it for free to players who don't like it even.
So first SSG was pulling out one expansion after another, then after good advice they gave it for free - I don't see the logic. And I'm not there anyway.

the same with festivals - LOTRO used to have the best and funniest festivals, so as a popular feature, SSG decided to enlarge it, but then those certain players came and demanded endgame content because they don't like funny events as serious players, so they added boss fight into an existing event, then the next time they added new rewards for them, the next time they removed one existing festival - as "too many of them" - where is logic in that?
Or maybe someone told them that is it "professoinal" to have an event with boss fight?

I'm sorry to complain - but that is out of desperation. That is the problem of MMOs - they can change to worse for you and then you can complain anywhere else but on their official forums and reddits.

I'm sorry if someone here is one of those endgame players - but I just wish all groups could have fun in MMOs if it is possible, so if there are funny events and they are popular - why change it to an event of a group who don't care about events?

Another one - they added daily/3 days/weekly/3weeks to festivals, in order to have dailies with enough of rewards they made it grindy, so I wouldn't play festivals anyway, maybe they spoiled for me anyway. I think that was another reason why they removed 1 festival - less players played festivals for some reason.

Someone should write list of the most horrible MMO management decisions. But maybe MMO groups would start argue over it.

"Content Locusts".

It's exactly the same in every MMO, and that "end game crowd" is called at TV Tropes a "vocal minority". They are 99% of all active persons in any game's forum, meanwhile they are only 10 % or even less of ALL the established player base.

So, it's like that 1 % shaped the whole game via that too great influence on developers via the forums - it's exactly descroibed in that linked article called "pandering to the base" - and it's ALWAYS THE SAME in ANY MMO.

Which is why you shouldn't put your hear too much into any given MMO - because sooner or later this "vocal minority" will destroy it - if they get too much influnce, that is.

And if developers remain resilient to their outcries, then you can be sure that badmouthing through reviews will happen - or even worse things, Mass Effect showed me the worst side of self-proclaimed "gamers", who were too ready to bully people out of the dev team.

I still don't understand where they come from - I knew some players from raiding community a bit, who could say about themselves that they are hardcore, but I didn't hear them demanding anything except new content - they were usually very nice, helping others. But I didn't know anyone from WoW community, which was bigger.

You have to take what I say with grain of salt, because my assumptions can be so wrong ofcourse, but when I was still watching their streams, it seems to me that they first attacked the community manager - he is a bit clueless, but nice, and he did the mistake of saying that he is casual player and disagreeing with them. It caused wave of hate toward him and the next time they were praising the producer, who was suddenly changing course and catering them. Also when they sold the game to their publisher, they don't have to care anymore I guess, they just follow orders. Maybe it is more safe to have a publisher even if it does mean less of control over your game. I wonder how much control do you have anyway, maybe really devs are tired of all those MMO groups fighting with each other, demanding something all the time?

I believe a lot of youtubers are honest and nice, but the problem is when they have inner circle where they share their opinions first, then they have one and only opinion in public, it is worse in areas which aren't their expertise. They just repeat what they have heard from "trusted" sources.
It worked well in fight against lootboxes, but does work badly in subjective things and with youtubers who does have strong agency=demanding group behind them.

What did happen with Mass Effect?

I actually never played Mass Effect, but there were one or two writers bullied by self-proclimed "gamers".