Why do people still play LOTRO?

[Deleted]

I could ask you the same about WoW.

Why do you still play WoW?

Because it is a good quality game. Unlike Lotro.

Infracted: Please post constructively.

[sethman75]

I really want to play it, but the outdated graphics hurt my eyes, the movement feels clunky and they try to sell you crap every 5 mins ingame.

I'd play the shit out of a fixed version of the game.

- - - Updated - - -



While I agree that saying 1 type of combat is the only good one is lame, time has shown that close to no game try something new and succeed without making it feel clunky.

Weither it's a budget, engine or attitude thing I don't know. I just new games would invest more to finish their products when trying something new insted of making it half assed and call it inovations.

Dude it sounds like you never played it. The graphics especially the environments are some of if not the best in any mmo, combat is great with the right class and there is a shedload of content.

They really nailed the feel of middle earth. Im in mirkwood at the moment and its gloomy and creepy as hell. Not many games at all can instill that in a game.

Yes it will take you a while to get to max level but isnt that what people are crying out for anyway?

You wont be getting to max level in a month and crying there is nothing to do in this game.

[RoninaThorstone]

Dude it sounds like you never played it. The graphics especially the environments are some of if not the best in any mmo, combat is great with the right class and there is a shedload of content.

They really nailed the feel of middle earth. Im in mirkwood at the moment and its gloomy and creepy as hell. Not many games at all can instill that in a game.

Yes it will take you a while to get to max level but isnt that what people are crying out for anyway?

You wont be getting to max level in a month and crying there is nothing to do in this game.

About this, some people are opposed to them selling quest packs but... Since that is a huge part of their income, they are incentivized to do add more (lots more). Now, if they offered turbine points for doing group activities like dungeons and battlegrounds instead of grinding wolves you would have more people participating in group activities (thus making the community more 'lively' per player). There is just so much content in that game. It's a little mindblowing.

[Feranor]

Due to immense community pressure, swtor delinked it's damage from animations about half a year after launch.

(Also, I hear allods has WoWeske delinked damage)

I haven't played SWTOR myself, just watched a friend pretty much solo Battlegrounds by stacking consumables on an overpowered class. Allods looks very much like WoW, but from I've read it's shameless Pay2Win.

[Sastank]

People play whatever game they personally enjoy.
So..the people who enjoy it play it? Lol Idk why this thread/question needs to be asked :P

[Fayth]

It has possibly the best area of any mmorpg in existence, the Shire.

All those disgusting hobbits.

It is a fun game. Did play it for awhile.

[RoninaThorstone]

I haven't played SWTOR myself, just watched a friend pretty much solo Battlegrounds by stacking consumables on an overpowered class. Allods looks very much like WoW, but from I've read it's shameless Pay2Win.

You could also grind it out in allods. I would classify the purchasing power for effort even lower than lotro though.

You can't stack consumables in swtor. I mean, if you are talking about stat stims you can only have 1 active at a time... Do you mean using a trinket while using a wz adrenal? That's no different from using one of those like +crit vials and poping a trinket in any other mmo.

And every mmo has op classes. Remember in cata when warriors had the 1 shot macro? That alone made blizzard change how macros work.

What standard are you holding swtor too? FPSers?

[feellucky]

An honest question; I fancy dabbling in a bit of RP as I'm a fan of Middle-earth and apparently Lord of the Rings Online is, apart from WoW, the single best MMO for roleplay.

However, about an hour in I can already feel that, unlike WoW, LOTRO hasn't aged very well in the mechanics department. Movement feels sluggish owing to a momentum system, the UI is very rarely clear and easy to read (Finding quests on the map is a pain in the arse for example, I'm meant to find a pale red ring on a map that's about 50% orange and yellow?) and the combat also feels a bit slow compared to WoW.

People bash WoW's combat all the time but I've always thought they hit the nail on the head with it, it's fast, responsive and fluid. It may just be me being used to faster paced combat in games but when I play LOTRO I can't help but feel everything is moving at half speed both in movement and combat.

So apart from RP, how and why do people still play this MMO over others? A genuine question, no bashing intended.

First off, you can easily change the color of the ring on the map by clicking on the color box on the map and changing the color. For example all mine are usually set to white as its the easiest to see. There's more you can do with the lotro basic UI and there are a few mods out there too. Secondly I play both wow and lotro off and on, however I've tried almost all major and some minor mmos since 2004 and these are the only two I continued playing.

I don't RP really but I play on an RP server and if you enjoy that lotro has probably the best community for it, server feels more alive than any other mmo I've played even years later. There are still lots of lower lvl characters running around at all times and some people play with no intention of trying to hit max lvl or end game. There's more other options of play that are viable in lotro.

All in all there are things I like about both wow and lotro that they do differently because of their approach. Lotro feels clunky and slow to you because its a more realistic approach. Lotro has realistic slow combat. You can't stab or shot someone 3 times in a second, or swing a large two hand sword quickly. Also some of that depends on the class you play, champion or hunter being quicker attacking than the slow swinging captain. I enjoy wow's combat too but sometimes I like the more realistic design and not just in the combat system, the actual game world is much more realistic. Mainly I like the fast pace of wow for pvp, arenas and RBG and I play lotro for the pve because I enjoy the lotro universe and realistic feel. The combat system is great in my opinion though coming from wow it did take until about lvl 30ish on my first character to get used to it and every class has a different combat feel. I feel like on my captain and burglar at least I use more of my skills on average than I do in wow and have to plan and think about what I'm going to do in a given situation more often in solo and group play.


TLDR: wow is cartoony fast and fun, lotro is realistic slow and fun. Though both games can be complex and challenging, slow does not equal easy.

Final note with 35 bucks, 15 for one month sub to get the upgraded membership lvl and 20 for the mithril edition pack (comes with 2000 points and expansions/quest packs plus bonus items) you can get most of the game and some extras. Remember it cots nothing to start lotro and see if you enjoy it and you can hit max lvl without paying a dime, though I wouldn't recommend doing that. I quit wow when I run out of things to do, not a huge fan of alts and I go back to lotro for awhile until something interests me in wow. 35 is all I've ever spent and and I haven't run out of fun in lotro yet.

[Absintheminded]

and that MMO seems to be the next best option to WoW.

I lol'd.


No seriously.

Infracted: Please post constructively. If you have nothing to add to the conversation, don't post.

edit: LOTR is not a good game IMO and I am as surprised as the OP that people play it. (hence I lol@2nd best MMO)

Is that "constructive" enough for you, Wynnyelle?

[sethman75]

I lol'd.


No seriously.

Infracted: Please post constructively. If you have nothing to add to the conversation, don't post.

edit: LOTR is not a good game IMO and I am as surprised as the OP that people play it. (hence I lol@2nd best MMO)

Is that "constructive" enough for you, Wynnyelle?

Let me guess, you like pvp only and like to gank noobs in the starter area.

You seem like the type lol

[Absintheminded]

Let me guess, you like pvp only and like to gank noobs in the starter area.

You seem like the type lol

No and no, I put a lot of time on a Warden quite a while back and was let down by a) graphics, b) fluidity of combat, c) class mechanics execution, and d) extremely tedious/boring/grindy character progression.

[Noomz]

An honest question; I fancy dabbling in a bit of RP as I'm a fan of Middle-earth and apparently Lord of the Rings Online is, apart from WoW, the single best MMO for roleplay.

However, about an hour in I can already feel that, unlike WoW, LOTRO hasn't aged very well in the mechanics department. Movement feels sluggish owing to a momentum system, the UI is very rarely clear and easy to read (Finding quests on the map is a pain in the arse for example, I'm meant to find a pale red ring on a map that's about 50% orange and yellow?) and the combat also feels a bit slow compared to WoW.

People bash WoW's combat all the time but I've always thought they hit the nail on the head with it, it's fast, responsive and fluid. It may just be me being used to faster paced combat in games but when I play LOTRO I can't help but feel everything is moving at half speed both in movement and combat.

So apart from RP, how and why do people still play this MMO over others? A genuine question, no bashing intended.

No idea either. I downloaded it and tried to play it, but it's archaich, it's ancient. The mechanics are awful, the graphics are terrible. I had couldn't play more than 10 minutes. I really don't see what people like in it either, and I love LotR.

[Deleted]

I wish I give more thought to that game in the past.

[Feranor]

You could also grind it out in allods. I would classify the purchasing power for effort even lower than lotro though.

You can't stack consumables in swtor. I mean, if you are talking about stat stims you can only have 1 active at a time... Do you mean using a trinket while using a wz adrenal? That's no different from using one of those like +crit vials and poping a trinket in any other mmo.

And every mmo has op classes. Remember in cata when warriors had the 1 shot macro? That alone made blizzard change how macros work.

What standard are you holding swtor too? FPSers?

IIRC he was using about 4 different consumables. A flask type buff (long duration), a portion type buff (short duration), a healing cast and something like food. It was the class with dual pistols, Scoundrel I think. The fact that there were low level and undergeared opponents in the mix didn't exactly help the game, either.

Standard? Well, the problem is that new MMOs (i.e. since WoW) have at most roughly 2 months to get things in order. Failing that, they lose a big chunk of their player base that is never going to return, even if they manage to make improvements later. Virtually all MMOs since WoW have been kaputt for much longer than their first 2 months (and most of them still are in that state), and thus have been irrevocably labeled as broken.

[Valeron]

he probably had an xp buff, a stim, and then just popped an adrenal (which lasts about 15 seconds). The only one which would make any sort of noticeable combat difference is the adrenal.

[RoninaThorstone]

he probably had an xp buff, a stim, and then just popped an adrenal (which lasts about 15 seconds). The only one which would make any sort of noticeable combat difference is the adrenal.

This. It's no different from having a flask on and using a trinket in other MMOs.


also, "all mmos since WoW have been kaputt"? Really? How long as lotro been out. I think only a few mmos have actually shut down like warhammer, tabula rasa, and one other I can't think of. Other than that, mmos don't go "kaputt"

[Kelimbror]

People still play LotRO for a variety of reasons: it's free, it's actively developed, and it has strong roots. You don't really need to look any further.

But to get technical, that little team at Turbine keeps managing to make innovative features that other games shamelessly steal (and rightfully so), but you'll never notice because the other games are 'bigger'. AOE looting, scalable content, solo content, mounted combat, personal story driven content, etc.

All of those things have become huge features in more popular MMOs, except maybe mounted combat? Really it's like LotRO is the R&D for the whole traditional MMO genre.

And for straight up lore, story, immersion, RP, etc...all the intangibles...they nail it. They do better than probably every MMO out there. There's nothing like growing your own pipe weed and having unique visuals from smoking it while watching the sun set in the Shire. Even with the older graphics it's awesome.

Gameplay suffers from outdated engine isses, but their class design is still pretty solid. This would be the exact reason why people still play it, but it never got mainstream coverage after F2P.

[Feranor]

This. It's no different from having a flask on and using a trinket in other MMOs.


also, "all mmos since WoW have been kaputt"? Really? How long as lotro been out. I think only a few mmos have actually shut down like warhammer, tabula rasa, and one other I can't think of. Other than that, mmos don't go "kaputt"

Why, yes.

WAR: EA'd. Released prematurely, ability delay, broken abilities, game-breaking bugs, non-existent class balance. Also Gershlol (Bright Wizard)

AoC: Also released prematurely, level 50-80 content wasn't remotely finished, item stats weren't working, stupid combo + shields system, animation lock, casters getting outhealed by healing potions while everyone else one shots each other

AION: Also released prematurely, asinine leveling grind, PvP zone filled with aggro mobs, flying, animation lock, ridiculously powerful consumables (literally one shot potions on Sorcerer)

RIFT: Gershlol 2.0 (Pyromancer), game-breaking bugs (Pyromancers wielding 4 staffs at once, Warriors with 95% ArP, infinite PvP points exploit etc.), extreme PvP rank grind granting overpowered items

TERA: Animation lock, "aiming with your camera"

GW2: Bottlenecked login server breaking guilds, partying, instances, auction house and mail, some animation lock, short maximum camera distance, low FoV, unreliable abilities, downed state, WvW ridden with bugs, no class balance whatsoever

And those are just the ones I played. Why do people still play them? Probably the same reasons people still play LotRO.

[RoninaThorstone]

Why, yes.

WAR: EA'd. Released prematurely, ability delay, broken abilities, game-breaking bugs, non-existent class balance. Also Gershlol (Bright Wizard)

AoC: Also released prematurely, level 50-80 content wasn't remotely finished, item stats weren't working, stupid combo + shields system, animation lock, casters getting outhealed by healing potions while everyone else one shots each other

AION: Also released prematurely, asinine leveling grind, PvP zone filled with aggro mobs, flying, animation lock, ridiculously powerful consumables (literally one shot potions on Sorcerer)

RIFT: Gershlol 2.0 (Pyromancer), game-breaking bugs (Pyromancers wielding 4 staffs at once, Warriors with 95% ArP, infinite PvP points exploit etc.), extreme PvP rank grind granting overpowered items

TERA: Animation lock, "aiming with your camera"

GW2: Bottlenecked login server breaking guilds, partying, instances, auction house and mail, some animation lock, short maximum camera distance, low FoV, unreliable abilities, downed state, WvW ridden with bugs, no class balance whatsoever

And those are just the ones I played. Why do people still play them? Probably the same reasons people still play LotRO.

None of those in bold are "kaputt". They are all still releasing content.

Furthermore, do you think people are playing Tera for the lore? If so you are insane. That games quests were painfully written. "This tree sap is odd. Go collect more sap." The main draw of Tera is it's combat. Aiming with your camera is one of it's biggest draws, not a flaw. Same with the combo and shields system in AoC. Prtty much every thing you listed as your reason for disliking it (other than bugs) is the reason the fanbase loves it.

[Valeron]

they all went kaputt for him, and that is all that counts