Lord of the Rings Online

[Local Ardenweald Faerie]

I tried searching for a megathread for this game but I couldn't find one anywhere, so...

I figure it'd be a good time to post a thread like this after the big announcement of monetization changes: A Letter from Producer Raninia – March 2022

Who else is surprised that the game is still going? I joined recently on the Landroval server and I'm having a blast. There's still a ton of players and a lively community. Getting new content still, too!

Looks pretty as hell despite the dated graphics, too.

[Edge-]

Looks pretty as hell despite the dated graphics, too.

And it's reportedly going to get a graphics overhaul - https://www.pcgamer.com/lord-of-the-...ing-tv-series/

Sadly no news since then, but I'm hopeful. I've always wanted to get into LOTRO but never could. Do want to come back and give it another spin once the monetization changes are in and I can make some of the locked classes.

[Local Ardenweald Faerie]

And it's reportedly going to get a graphics overhaul - https://www.pcgamer.com/lord-of-the-...ing-tv-series/

Sadly no news since then, but I'm hopeful. I've always wanted to get into LOTRO but never could. Do want to come back and give it another spin once the monetization changes are in and I can make some of the locked classes.

I'd imagine the graphical overhaul will come into play not long after the release of the show, probably a few months from now, hopefully.

The monetization changes are really good. I'm told the soft level cap was effectively 30; from there you had to purchase quest packs and expansions. But now everything up to level 95 will be free, and if you hold a subscription, everything but the latest expansion and zone pack will be free.

It'll breath new life, for sure!

[Edge-]

I'd imagine the graphical overhaul will come into play not long after the release of the show, probably a few months from now, hopefully.

Probably longer, it's a huge lift to do for the whole game and SSG isn't a big studio. Even with that EG7 money they likely don't have a massive team of artists and technical folks to speed this along.

The monetization changes are really good. I'm told the soft level cap was effectively 30; from there you had to purchase quest packs and expansions. But now everything up to level 95 will be free, and if you hold a subscription, everything but the latest expansion and zone pack will be free.

It'll breath new life, for sure!

IIRC it was higher, I think I got at least a few characters to that level on a free account (only a few goodies from the store, but I think those were from giveaways). But yeah, it opens up a huge amount of the game for free players and should hopefully help fill the world and provide more grouping opportunities for veterans.

[ldev]

Who else is surprised that the game is still going? ]

I mean it's Lord of the Rings. If it was an original IP - game would be long dead.

[druchii5]

It's indeed a great MMORPG and a very chill game to play. But it's also very dated in many aspects unfortunately. I wouldn't get my hopes up for the graphic overhaul--I wouldn't expect anything too drastic in improvement. The engine is just too old to handle any big changes. But I hope I'm wrong.

[Katchii]

It's indeed a great MMORPG and a very chill game to play. But it's also very dated in many aspects unfortunately. I wouldn't get my hopes up for the graphic overhaul--I wouldn't expect anything too drastic in improvement. The engine is just too old to handle any big changes. But I hope I'm wrong.

I'm less concerned with the engine and more with the netcode, or whatever causes the stuff I'm going to describe. Graphics could indeed use an update, but if the gameplay still feels as clunky as it currently is, I'm not sure it will help. The most notable things for me are abilities that require you to be standing still won't activate when you ARE standing still but just recently stopped moving, or where the enemy health isn't registered appropriately or whatever and you activate an ability while the enemy is still alive, and the enemy just drops dead in the middle of it OR the enemy should be dead yet still manages to get an attack off even when dead.

The overall feeling of being in sync with what's going on, on screen, just isn't there. The back end calculations and the on screen display of those back end results sometimes don't align. It feels weird.

[PACOX]

Not my kind of MMO but I heard its been doing well for itself. Great news for the community.

[druchii5]

I'm less concerned with the engine and more with the netcode, or whatever causes the stuff I'm going to describe. Graphics could indeed use an update, but if the gameplay still feels as clunky as it currently is, I'm not sure it will help. The most notable things for me are abilities that require you to be standing still won't activate when you ARE standing still but just recently stopped moving, or where the enemy health isn't registered appropriately or whatever and you activate an ability while the enemy is still alive, and the enemy just drops dead in the middle of it OR the enemy should be dead yet still manages to get an attack off even when dead.

The overall feeling of being in sync with what's going on, on screen, just isn't there. The back end calculations and the on screen display of those back end results sometimes don't align. It feels weird.

Oh yeah, for sure. The delay in movements and animations have probably been super detrimental to player retention over the years, I imagine. I mean, the fact that we can't even sheathe/un-sheathe weapons on-demand speaks to this...

[Local Ardenweald Faerie]

I have to agree with the gameplay complaints here; while I enjoy the game very much, it does indeed feel a bit clunky in places. There's also intermittent lag here and there. I can have perfectly fine internet but the servers freeze up for a few seconds. Never happens more than once or twice in a play session, though.

[quras]

All the things mentioned here I've ran into during my time in the game but one of the things I disliked most was the amount of "downtime" when questing.

Far too many times a quest sends you so far away to complete it and it feels like you wasted 10 mins just traveling to say one thing to a NPC in under 20 seconds and then to just turn around and make the 10 min trip back. My play time felt so wasted.

I didn't care for how the questing was setup up. It gets better in the newer expansions but there are a lot of levels in the beginning game that you seem to waste a lot of time in travel.

This was even for a subscriber with a mount and fast travel. It gets worse as a non-subscriber. So while not mentioned, I hope travel gets better. It's one area I really dislike about lotro.

[Katchii]

All the things mentioned here I've ran into during my time in the game but one of the things I disliked most was the amount of "downtime" when questing.

Far too many times a quest sends you so far away to complete it and it feels like you wasted 10 mins just traveling to say one thing to a NPC in under 20 seconds and then to just turn around and make the 10 min trip back. My play time felt so wasted.

I didn't care for how the questing was setup up. It gets better in the newer expansions but there are a lot of levels in the beginning game that you seem to waste a lot of time in travel.

This was even for a subscriber with a mount and fast travel. It gets worse as a non-subscriber. So while not mentioned, I hope travel gets better. It's one area I really dislike about lotro.

I'll agree with all of this. I totally forget about it when I'm not playing, but yes...absolutely yes, travel sucks.

[Glosef]

I honestly have not played it)

[Black Rider]

And it's reportedly going to get a graphics overhaul - https://www.pcgamer.com/lord-of-the-...ing-tv-series/

Sadly no news since then, but I'm hopeful. I've always wanted to get into LOTRO but never could. Do want to come back and give it another spin once the monetization changes are in and I can make some of the locked classes.

Wow, graphical overhaul and little bit of systematic overhaul would get this game on it's legs.
Amazon TV show will bring some new batch of players

[gondrin]

Wow, graphical overhaul and little bit of systematic overhaul would get this game on it's legs.
Amazon TV show will bring some new batch of players

Biggest thing they need to do since the early levels(anything below 60 or maybe 70) should do an overhaul of difficulty as far as, what would be, elite mobs and dungeons. Make the dungeons solo(they have the tech there as the MSQ give boosts for quests that normally would require groups) and change the group quests to make them soloable. The biggest issue is what plagues most MMOs of this age, not a whole lot of people low level anymore so the ability to do this content is near zero, especially if you play in off peak times.

It made sense when the game was newer but it is time to change those things. Not saying it is easy or anything but that would do a lot to help retain players.

[ONCHEhap]

I sadly just do not trust SSG (and Turbine before that) with this game anymore honestly.

LotRO was a mountain of untapped potential. Its early days was better than anything WoW could have ever hoped to produce, and for a while after that it still had a spark of hope with the quality and quantity of content the devs were putting out, but sadly it released when WoW was at its peak and that really killed the game in the egg.

After it went free to play, the quality and quantity of content steadily decreased and even previously great aspects of the games were neutered and watered down as the years went by. The final insult was when they released "legendary servers" to try and cash in on the popularity of WoW classic, but those were literally just retail with a level cap, which was honestly insulting.


I loved this game and I really wish it gave me a reason to keep loving it, but there's not much really. The only thing LotRO has left is an extremely strong, and very positive community that probably will never die. These people deserve better than what SSG is giving them

[Fencers]

Josh Strife Hayes just covered this game on his "Worst MMO Ever" video series.