The Daily Grind: How's LotRO treatin' ya?

May I ask how you ended up with that educated guess?

Since my educated guess (http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html) puts LotRO somewhere around 200k subs at best, which isn't really enough to put in in nr 2 place.

ecause of the NPD report that put them number 3 behind runescape and
WOW. And take that website with a grain of salt.

OT: LOTRO has been great to me, been playing for about 6Mo. and
cannot not wait for Moria!

#2? lol...

I'm still having a great time in LoTRO, just over a year since I started. The game could use more work in some areas (crafting...) but everything else is solid and enjoyable, I am more than happy with the game as-is and am looking forward to Moria.

I used to play WoW, but quit - nothing against that game, it is fine - partly because the time commitment of the end-game meant I was working towards a goal I couldn't even participate in. I will likely check out WAR out of curiosity.

Its pretty neat, I bought it for $10 from on of their promotions and only pay $10 a month for it. I honestly got really tired of it, just about to cancel my account. Its a neat game, great graphics. The fighting is pretty dull, the questing is terrible. The only way I can complete any quest is to look up the quest guide at lotro.mmodb.com.

That is the only reason I am cancelling it, it takes longer to look up how to do the quest than it is to complete it... I with LOTRO had the quests like AOC where it would show you on the map where to kill the mob or where to get the item, but it doesn't, it make you read the entire quest story OR it makes you look up the quest information from one of the databases...

Thats why I am getting rid of LOTRO soon, got it for a $10 and only pay $10 a month, but I just don't enjoy playing it... I wish funcom would fix their game, but they have already screwed it up... :(

I am looking forward to warhammer, but I'm pretty sure the mines of moria will be taking up most of my gaming time later this year. The amount of polish lotro has seems to be rare in mmo's these days and I can't understand why more people haven't jumped on the lotro bandwagon.

I started LoTRO at launch, took a few months off, but am back in-game now.
I'm having fun gearing up for MoM, although I may try a WAR demo just for fun.

LOTRO has been treating me remarkably well. The three reasons that make it my #1 MMO: the story, the polish, and the players. Crossing off the days on my calendar until Moria...

I love(d) lotro, i played for it just about a year, but found that really i'd done literally everything there was to do in it, i had one totally maxed out character (ok he was rank 8 not 15 but still) and just didn't see the point in doing it all over again, im waiting until moria, then ill deffo be back, although now darkfall has caught my eye again, and an earthrise beta looming, im not sure how much ill be playing it, but to anyone wandering, pick up the free trial, the gameplay, while slow is IMO very good and entertaining, and as said above you have to read the quests story to know where to go, its a slow paced but entertaining and deep MMO, with a great dev team who keep adding more and more interesing and original content.

LotRO is an amazing game. I warmed up to it slowly and once I got into it, I never got out of it. I'm hardly a big Tolkien fan (most of the time I spell his name wrong), but this is the only MMORPG where I read the quest text and feel actually involved in the story,

As the two things mentioned in the comments:

1.) I like the fighting system, it rewards using the right skills at the right time and I love the skill queue system. The fact that I don't have to press a skill the second another one ends to keep up is nice.

2.) The questing, to me, is fine. All of them tell you where to go and, sure, sometimes you'll wander around a bit... but I don't want to be told EXACTLY where to go all of the time. AoC and Warhammer do that and basically all that does for me is highlight how much of a fetch and kill game these things are. There's no reason for me to pay attention to the quests or what's going on.

But that's me. I don't know how well LotRO is doing, but it's clearly doing well enough for Turbine to put out significant content updates out every few months and make a pretty cool looking expansion pack.

I'm really interested in seeing what else they do in terms of live events too. With Book 14, they had GMs actually playing a major, really powerful character... She ran around beating the shit out of people and getting monster players to work alongside her. It was a really cool thing and added a nice personal touch these games tend to lack.

I also think the game doesn't get enough credit for its graphics. Any time I would get to a new area in LotRO I'd be impressed. It's hardly perfect, but it comes together well. The DX10 support doesn't hurt either.

I'm sure, like with many MMORPGs, people made their minds up on this one a long time ago... And a lot of them seem feel they're not into Lord of the Rings enough and are going to feel dorky or out of place in this game as if everyone else in it is going to judge them over it or something.

But if it's other reasons, the game has really changed and been expanded since launch. And while that's true of any other MMORPG out there on some level, I feel like Turbine has REALLY gone the extra mile with this one.

I have more fun in it, play it more and play with more cool people in LotRO than any MMORPG I own... and at the end of the day that matters more to me than whether it has 200,000 players or 500,000 players.

Since I started in January they've added what would've been a whole expansion for some games. Putting in non-combat activities like costumes and fishing, adding a very large zone with tons of quests, adding in a new PVP zone opened by which side controls the most camps, redoing older zones making them much better. They even add smaller extensions to maps from time to time. Their festivals and the rewards at those festivals are extremely fun(Kegs that make you pass out and teleport to random areas for example).

To the guy that complains about the quests... try reading the quests haha. I love questing in LOTRO, the game tells you where to go, but you have to know how to use a map. Unlike Conan which puts a dot on the exact item you need. They let you play the game and use people's prior knowledge of the area. Putting on your map exactly where you need to go just seems like people are dumbing down MMO's even more than WoW did.

All in all, bottom line is, Turbine supports their game and cares alot about it, like no other team since the original WoW launch.

Out of Turbine games, i enjoy DDO vastly more than LotRO, i just wish DDO had more of that "world map" solo questing. LotRO is is pretty nice for that slow paced mmo fix though. Yes i do subscribe to both.

Off topic, can other companies ever introduce a thing like Station, where you pay a little more for access to all their games? I'd do that in a second with Turbine and NCSX.

Well, for myself LotRO has:

- CM's/Devs that actually listen to, play with and interact with the playerbase.

- Fantastic community. I seriously don't know if its just my realm (Gladden) or across most servers, but I've never been in a bad group. Even in PvMP.

- Quests which not only expand on existing lore, but actually draw you into it. They make you care about and long to see what happens next (the first time around at the very least).

- Regular content releases. Innovative bits of flash and convenience added without much fanfare or recognition. (Character customization at the Barber, Housing & Guild halls, etc)

- Low monthly subscription pricing if you are able to get in on founder subscription offers (they offer them periodically - $ 10/month). Great for multiple account households, cheap a**ed friends.

Highly anticipating Moria. Presently holding off on rolling alts so I can level a character in each of the two new classes when its released.

LOTRO was the last game I had an active subscription to, but it was only active for a month.

The first impression LOTRO made on me was excellent - I would say it made the best initial impression of any game other than WoW. It was attractive, it led you into the game gracefully, and you were quickly introduced to the innovative idea of trying to combine the feel of a single-player CRPG with an MMORPG, via the chapter quests.

But.. after playing for a month or so, I just lost interest. The actual gameplay was just.. lacking. The combat system really wasn't fun. There seemed to be an inordinate amount of walking from place to place. I dunno, it just joined the long list of MMOs that couldn't hold me for more than a month.