LOTRO in 2024 | New Player, First Impressions 

The rubber banding is actually a feature. It prevents one from simply walking into Mordor

There is a huge secret with this game that I learned while playing. If you star gaze; you'll see actual star signs and constellations from the real world. I had learned the Turbine not only created accurate constellations, but they are also accurate to wear JRR Tolkien lived. So the night sky we see in game would have been one the writer once saw in his live time. How nuts is that? I played this many years ago. I have able a dozen characters. I never made it to Moria before i quit, but I didn't have a many problems as you had. Turbine use to be on this game with fixes and new content. I tried recently to go back after the but out; but like you, found I was unable to gain access. Hell; the game wouldn't even finish downloading. This was a game that had in-game voice chat before anyone else did. There are some games today that still don't have it. I truly loved this game, but I don't know anything about it today. Shame; really, how far it fell

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it but, the game runs on a layer system for certain areas, each time you complete a certain quest you progress a world layer, that's why you were not seeing people too often in towns.

There is a difficulty slider now, so you can set difficulty for landscape, and die from every boar. P.S. reading quests will increase immersion:)

Correction, everything up to and including Helms Deep is accessible free of charge, putting you roughly at lvl 95 and 500 hours of content (unless you zoom). By then, regular gameplay will have you earn enough store currency for both utility and content purchases. Combat is aged, but no more than for games of similar age, and getting into a 16 year old game with corresponding amount of content, you can't expect low level zones to be booming with activity. As for lag, it comes and goes. Mostly in infrequent spikes, rather than being permanent.

this game is such a relaxing time...been addicted since i started around a month ago now, if the lag was fixed i really do believe the player base would grow x5

I played this around 2010 for a couple weeks until I hit around level 50ish and was forced to buy the expansion, where I quit and instead went back to WoW. But I was never able to stop thinking about this game. I still have flashbacks, vivid memories of quests and zones, characters and abilities. The game had its flaws of course, mostly technical. But damn, if it isn't among the few best MMORPG's that exist. LOTRO perfectly captures the oldschool MMORPG feeling. You will love your character. It will feel epic. Loot will feel valuable. The story is of course the main selling point of the game and you truely will feel a part of Eä and Arda. I'm currently considering returning once more, to relive days of old.

You do NOT have to purchase the "extra currency" You earn it while leveling. you can unlock the entire game and never spend a single real world cent.

The quest packs thing used to be a lot worse, sadly. If you didn't own a boxed copy of the game before the F2P conversion you used to have to buy the vanilla zone unlocks one by one. All of the vanilla zones are free now and all of the expansions up through Helm's Deep were made free to everyone as well, so the only quests this early on that you should be asked to pay for are in a few low-level zones that they added in the last couple of years. Edit: Oh right, the lockboxes. If you press Alt+R it will bring up a Filter window that will let you block specific loot items from dropping. Add the lockboxes to it and never be annoyed by having to throw them away again. :)

So there is a lot you missed when it comes to LOTRO and trust me, I've been playing the game since 2012. A lot has happened in the 12 years I've been playing and I've gotten to know the game pretty well, especially when it comes to new player characters. First, leveling, each region is level specific. Before entering a new region it is always best to make sure you are at level of the new region when starting. If you are having a hard time leveling up, from questing or just straight fighting mobs. Task Boards are very good for leveling up, you can find them nearly in every major camp, and getting region faction points. All those drops you get from mobs can be turned in as task items if you don't want to sell them. Also making sure you're gear is up to your level as well. Your gear says at what level you can equip it at. Second, Crafting, much like leveling in each region. Each region has different crafting items to collect that corresponds to you're crafting experience. Much like how you level up you're character's exp, the crafting also levels up with you're crafting exp at the same time. Plus using you're crafting skill to make yourself gear is always a bonus. Like if you choose metalsmith you can craft you're own heavy armor, weaponsmith to make your own metal weapons, or jeweler to make your own jewelery, woodworker to make wooden weapons, farming to make hardened food, fortifying food and stat boosting foods. Third, Deeds, are way more important than a lot of new players realize. You can open your deed log for different areas and see what they give. I mean they are basically quintessential and they give massive rewards when you complete them. You get free LOTRO points especially a lot from getting kindred in the different factions, they help you upgrade your virtue traits. Fourth, Combat, basic combat for basic enemies in the lower level regions is straight to the point, but as you get to harder areas and stronger foes they do require some strategy to fight. Also if you do want even tougher enemies to fight against, there is a NPC called the hardened traveler and speaking to him gives you the option to increase difficulty for all enemies. Fifth, LOTRO Store, always keeping up to date with weekly to monthly LOTRO Letters, they give out free or discounted items with coupon codes. I think it was a while back but LOTRO had a coupon code that basically unlocked all regions in Eriador for Free. Sixth, from Free to Play to Premium account, With just one purchase of the lowest cost of lotro points, 7.99$ your account status jumps from Free to Play to premium in which you unlock so many features that used to plague you. For instance you get 3 extra character slots, your access to the game becomes a higher priority, gives full access to your wallet, you unlock more bag space automatically.

i lost interest in world of warcraft and a lot of the players were not friendly as they raced toward end game, i was persuaded to play lotro, and i love it

If I could play any game at launch again, it’d be this. It was so fun raiding in the Ettenmoors until 6am, walking around Bree, all of it. Amazing gaming memories.

The lag in LOTRO is unfortunately a well-known and prevalent problem, thô I've only had it as bad as what you showed a couple of times. It happens the most when there's a lot of players online. It's clear to me that Standing Stone Games has been trying to do things to improve the lag situation for some time, but I guess it must be a hard problem to solve for one reason or another. Regarding difficulty, you seem to have missed the Hardened Traveler NPC. There was one in Archet and there's another in Bree, near the Prancing Pony milestone. That's not going to solve the issues you experienced with the lag or mechanics or the monetization, but it definitely enables making the game a challenge. The Hardened Traveler offers 10 difficulty levels, where 0 is the default and 9 is the hardest. In difficulty 3 and higher, in addition to all enemies taking less damage from you and inflicting more damage to you, if the enemies you're fighting are at or above your level, they get random corruptions (buffs that are normally only found in instances), and after a while, you get a debuff called "The Eye of Sauron" which spawns AoE attacks that you have to dodge in addition to the standard enemy attacks. I've been playing at higher difficulties for awhile now and it makes potions feel actually important, as well as some mechanics I initially didn't really notice or feel I needed to care about originally. I wish the lootboxes that get dropped all over the place could at least be sold to vendors for coin, or disenchanted into other currencies. I've only ever opened lootboxes on the occasions that they give out free keys. Otherwise, same as you, I just toss them. The filter feature can help with that, thô: you can use a filter to make it always destroy any lootboxes you pick up. The only reason I don't have that enabled anymore is because of that one time when I did want to get lootboxes because of a free key and forgot that I had the filter set.

Just some notes from a longtime casual player who goes in and out of phases of playing this game. That rubberbanding and the connectivity issues... yes, I have seen them be this bad before, but it is rare. In the 2000ish hours that I have played this game over the years, I have maybe see it be this bad a grand total of 3 times. Connectivity issues are a problem sometimes, but it looks to me like you got unlucky on when you gave the game a try. This is, from what I have seen, not the average experience at all. The monetization criticism are fair, and I won't take away from them. I would however like to add a little context. First off, the game regularly has events where it gives away these quest packs, and sometimes even entire expansion packs, for free. I own most of the content in the game, and have spent under $10 on the game personally. I run into some things I can't do, occasionally, but the amount of content I am able to do has been enough to warrant over 2000 hours of gameplay for me for $10. A movie ticket costs more nowadays. There is also the fact that, if you focus on them, these deeds (achievements) you briefly mentioned, fairly generously reward lotro points as well. As a completionist player who does all achievements in a zone before moving to the next, the added premium currency is fairly substantial. Not enough on its own if you want access to everything, but it adds up. As someone with a similar mmo experience to you (growing up on Runescape and Wow, and playing most other big mmo's around at least to some extent to see what they have to offer), I would be the last person to try and claim your criticism of the game are invalid. I don't think I have very rosetinted glasses on when I say: This may be one game that genuinely deserves another try at some point when connectivity issues may not be as bad. The game may yet surprise you.

as someone who's been playing lotro for 13 years. Lag of the Rings is still one of the games out there.

The monetization has relaxed a lot since it's inception, I remember not even being able to quest in the Lone Lands without buying the region. You also had to buy most of the dungeons and raids separate. You can make a lot of points from doing the deeds, completing deeds in the 3 starter regions is almost 1000 points, and it's per character.

Going on 17 years game play soon too. The game keeps getting better and better with each update, and expansion. 👍👍 & 10⭐ to Voice of the Rings Kinship for all the help they offer New Players, and fellow Kin-mates.

I love this game SO much. It's such a vast and wholly connected world with so many great locations story and lore. The epic story is the best of any game I've ever played.

Downloaded tonight and played maybe an hour so far, only saw one person. I like this game, and will probably put on many hours in the future.

I agree 100%. I also tried to get into this game and had a very similar experience. The game is beautiful but had too many issues with performance or just frustrating things like questing issues.

lotro point is not that bad because you can unlock everything doing deeds and personally i unlock everything like that mostly

I am also a type of mmo gamer that likes the journey. Hence i ve been playing the game almost 9 months now and i am only at around lvl 105 with my character. I don't play every day or for longer periods of time but i always have the itch to come and play coupe of times in a week :) Such an amazing journey

Making comments along the way..... the deed for 60 Brigands did not give you that armor. That armor likely just dropped from random mobs and you didn't see it in your inventory yet..... the deeds do give you LOTRO Points (LP) though. And they start racking up quickly. Also, VIP gives benefits that stay after the VIP lapsed, so it's definitely worth it to get it at least once....

The game needs to be remastered with an overhaul UI

You need to go to the cosmetics tab in the character paneled set your actual visible gear. Otherwise as you keep adding gear (loot, quest rewards, etc., etc.) and equip it, your actual equipped gear can look like a complete fashion disaster. But you can choose to 'display' different gear than what you have equipped and put to gather a ... nicer looking outfit..

There is a difficulty slider to make the landscape much harder, also yellow (aoe) champion is probably one of the clunkiest specs in the game, which might have made the combat feel more slow, wish u tried red its smoother.

Not to be an asshole but you get the base game plus 5 whole expansions worth of content(Mines of Moria, Siege of Mirkwood, Rise of Isengard, Riders of Rohan, Helms Deep) plus all of Eriador which consists of Angmar, Enedwaith, Eregion, Evendim, Forochel, Misty Mountains, North Downs and the Trollshaws. You get the Rhovanion quest packs f Lothlorien, Great River, and Wildermore all completely free. You get all the deeds with these zones where you can earn LOTRO points and by the time you get to Gondor you should have enough to buy all three quest packs to get you to level 105 without paying a cent. This is well over 1,000 hours of content for free, how is that not free to play? LOTRO points are account based, you can create a new character and run them through the early deeds earning over 100 Lotro points in under 2 hours, delete the character and do it again and keep all the points if you can't afford to purchase expansions or quest packs. If you would have made this video a few years ago, I would agree with your premise back then you had to pay to ride a horse, you had a limit on the amount of gold you could have, the free content ended at the Lone-lands around level 35. Now? I think LOTRO has one of the best models in MMOs to be honest.

24:50 Honestly, I feel you don't know what you're talking about with "predatory monetization". Nothing is required out of the cash shop unless you decide you want a mount much sooner than you normally would acquire one. In addition, you've got 95 levels of content to play through before you ever run into needing to spend money on expansions.

Reading the fellowship of the ring currently and it’s great

Even with the lag, LOTRO a better actual RPG than a game like ESO which has so many small zones, copy and paste quests, wayshrines every 2 feet and an assault of over the top mounts and cosmetic skins every time you step into a city.

I don’t think anyone NEEDS to spend a dime to enjoy this game, all the stuff that is paywalled doesn’t prevent you from doing a LOT without much difficulty, obviously the paywall stuff is better, but you can find adequate gear to complete the right difficulty level of quest no problem

Gotta try Elder scrolls online!! I think you'll really enjoy it!! Tip though UI is funky until you customize it a bit

They added the Legendary servers recently and they're trying out the 64-bit servers which so far there was no lag on them.

I am sure this has been mentioned before but this is one of those MMORPG's that you want to sub for one month to unlock the "premium" player experience. Can't confirm this but the servers never run poorly for me like you experienced as a "premium" player. Bag space is automatically maxed without purchase. You get access to everything while vip until the sub ends so you can level through a certain spot. Gold limit is increased as well to the point I haven't ever had to think about it again. Just my 2 cents that it is worth it but with the caveat that you need to sub for at least 1 month to get the best experience.

Really loved this game. Wish I didn't have a job and could live in a Hobbit hole and play this for the next 111 years. Then I would disappear see mountains again and find a quiet place to finish my book and live happily ever after until the end of my days. :)

Your negative checklist made me chuckle a little bit. Its an older game, so of course it will be a little clunky and janky. TBH, that's part of the charm. I personally would play an older MMO like this over a newer one any day. It's a throwback to great past times. Not to mention (like you said in the +s), the setting is amazing. Even with a remake, I doubt it would encompass middle earth like this game does. The monetization isn't really a thing as well. Not any different from some other MMO's. As for the ghost town, there are a ton of social events and the world chat to help you get into the community.

I've been grinding for titles for like 50 hours and im only lvl 26. there are so many deeds to do

Watched some of your videos and they are pretty well done and good quality. love the view on some of the games!

This is a great video thank you, I haven't played this game for years, in 2008 I purchased lifetime membership because it was available at the time, but I still haven't made use of it my account receives 500 LOTRO points each month so it allows me to purchase all the expansions, but I still haven't really played it I've walked around the game just to see the famous locations and I really need to get back into this now I've seen your video and actually make use of my VIP membership

I can't say much about the lag and rubberbanding. It usually isn't that bad, as expected it is worse on the weekends. With rubberbanding, it is best to just wait a bit as the game loads in all the assests in your area. As for difficulty, you can progress the epic quest line until you get into an area that provides you with more of a challenge. Also as others posted, there is a NPC that lets you up the difficulty for landscape. As for wanting a multiplayer experience, it is best to join a kinship/guild. You might find other players at similar levels. Or players willing to run Epic Battles which puts everyone at level 100 no matter their actual level. Finally with monetization. While the game may reveal a lot of things early on that you can purchase, LotRO has one of the best F2P methods. Complete deeds and earn lotro points. Use those lotro points to buy stuff like inventory space. You can grind out so many deeds that you never need to buy lotro points. Then it becomes a question of time versus money and which is more important. If you do spend money, it is always worth it to buy the subscription for at least one month. You get some permanent benefits even after you cancel your subscription.

Oof, this was very unfortunate. I hear the server and client-related lag issues are partly because there are too many people simultaneously online in the server - which, I know, it seems like it's a ghost town (and I know it's definitely not the most populated MMO) but the world is so big that the existing population is spread out so thin (like butter scraped over too much bread, heh). Some are doing the festival like you saw, some are doing the latest expansion, some are in Bree or other major hubs, and the rest are scattered all over the world map, across all 150 levels. There are 64-bit servers supposedly coming next year and I hope that it helps markedly with the lag. Having mentioned this, I recommend waiting 6-12 months and then check back for news regarding lag and try out the game again, if you plan to. Or, if you were actually in one of the biggest servers (Arkenstone, Evernight, Brandywine(?)) and if the lag issues were caused by current player density, maybe try again in a month or so in a smaller server? The monetization criticism, while fair, I think is a bit too soon in your coverage to fully judge. It needs to be pointed out that, while there are buttons to the store seemingly everywhere, the game is fairly generous when it comes to rewarding LOTRO points through deeds, which some people do farm (some by essentially "exploiting" the system by doing something like: create a throwaway character, earn the LPs in your starter zone, delete the character and make a new one, farm LPs from the same deeds, rinse and repeat. Virtually, the whole game can be unlocked for free if one were willing to tirelessly grind for LPs. This has been a thing since the game went F2P probably; the devs are aware of this but they have no intention of ever removing this "exploit", as far as I know. That said, most people earn a good deal by just passively completing deeds as they quest and do stuff. And, before buying anything, you already have access to the content of all the original zones up to level 95, which is at least a few months if you're fast until you'll have to make a major financial decision. And by then, you would have accumulated enough points to unlock another quest zone or two or unlock more bag space or storage, and all these store-unlockables go on sale throughout the year. Plus, the VIP sub unlocks nearly *everything* that one would need for the duration, with permanent unlocks even after you unsub being more bag space and swift travel. I understand, though, that you - seemingly - are not a big fan of F2P-style monetization, and it's hard to justify financially supporting a game that hit you with a lot of rubberbanding when you played, but: I think it is not so easy for them to free up the monetization even more since the slew of monetization updates in 2022 and the giveaways from 2020-2022, among other concerns. It's still not and it hasn't been a big-budget MMO for a long time, and there may only be a couple more things left at most, I believe, that they can make-free while still 'encouraging' enough people to pay with the paywalls. I and many others can vouch for having had years' worth of enjoyment out of this game without paying for anything. The criticism on LOTRO's monetization would have been almost entirely valid before 2022, but not as much anymore, if at all, I would say. Combat-wise: You missed the Hardened Traveler which is your NPC-gateway to the game's difficulty system, introduced months ago. And your class choice is arguably the blandest in the game, though don't quote me on that 'cause I've never picked Champion. Change either one (your difficulty or your class) and you'll likely see a noticeable difference, or keep it as it is and aggro groups of mobs which I've found fun with my Difficulty 0 characters. I hear it can be more fun with the Champion with its AoEs. Re the quest cap: Hitting the cap, while it can happen, is rare in my opinion. It would only happen if you pick up too many quests and didn't finish them before accepting more. It happened to me and my younger sister once or twice (mostly just her) because we had too many unfinished quests and we went to the festival at the time which, of course, gave us more quests. lol Re Sara Oakheart: I'm pretty sure it's a self-aware joke based on how slow escort quests in games can be, haha. Plus, the spoilers I won't spill. :3 - - - Anywho, these first impressions still are valid; I just wish others fare better. o.o

TIPS for NEWBS: LOWEST LAG SERVER is CRICKHOLLOW. 1. How to Load/Save your UI Layout. Press CTRL \ Then adjust all your UI points where you want them. Then in chat type the following without " /UI Layout Save "Name" hit enter. To load for another character change Save to Load. Name can be whatever you want. 2. Best Initial (Learn the game" Solo class would be Guardian, and Ranger. Right off it's like a Tank and hard to be killed. 3. DEEDS... If you have DEED Boosts, Fellow with a high level player/friend and complete them for LOTRO Points and a couple quick levels.

He's back! Happy holidays! 🎉🎉🎉

Haven’t played in years, but loved it when it came out. Me and a few friends used to play as spiders and would wait underground for players and ambush them…..ahh…almost nostalgic

I played as a warden, it was somehow an enjoyable combo building class, the main quests in Eriador were amazing, some scenes were amazing But my cons were: - server lag (it was a nightmare for the warden to build combos) - rubber band - stable travel interface was the worst UX that I have ever had (always need to open main map hover the stable, memorize the name, and then search of it in stable UI) - map is confusing and is not the same as the mini map, they should sync (once spent 3 hours lost in Moria) - a lot of filler quests (a bit too much of fetch and kill) Other than that it was enjoyable. I reached Rohan and stopped due to frustration from lag ruining warden combo building...

The absolute peak was Mines of Moria expansion. The game was alive. One could raid from 24/7. Miss those good old times.

On the german EUW servers i never had an issue with rubber banding, in over 1.000 hours

That predatory monetization exists more than 10 years ago when i first played it, so it's not from a dying game, they are just greedy OR they would've died as a game if it weren't from that, we'll never know. The truth is i love this game but not a single one of my friends enjoyed it, they all are MMORPG enthusiasts that love Lord of the Rings but they all hated this game, i never knew why because they themselves can't explain properly why they can't enjoy the game. I myself think that the main issue with this game is combat system (which you pointed out), it lacks a lot in animations and stuff, feels weird everytime you hit someone with abilities, the first time i played this, i was a Menestrel and i got pissed by how extremely simple the abilities animations were.

It may be worth revisiting in a year or two as they are currently working on 2 major fixes to the lag issues. 64 bit servers are being tested right now, and will move to the live servers sometime in the near future. The other big fix is something to do with mob pathing, and how they would spam the server and cause lag. Both of these should fix a majority of the issues.

It's a shame you didn't enjoy LOTRO like I do, but I can count the performance issues I've had since 2009 on one hand so I can understand why performance issues would sour your experience. You actually get A LOT of content for free in the game, and you also get a lot for just subbing for one month, which iirc doubles your inventory space but I cant recall. The game has become significantly easier to level through since when I started, but there is a difficulty adjuster to make the landscape content more difficult if that's your thing. Oh and that slow horse you got at level 4, you used to have to wait until level 20 and then pay a fortune of in-game currency for lol.

so there is a common misconception about their currency the deeds and such you can do to get Lotro points are account bound and their are many people that play the game and enjoy the content exclusively free to play and haven't payed a dime

There is an overland difficulty setting you can mess with. It makes the leveling far more challenging. If you bump it up all the way you need to progress through the game in a Fellowship, so it becomes even more accurate to the story since you can’t lone wolf the journey anymore. I disagree with some of the negatives here beyond just the difficulty point you made. I don’t see the games monetization as predatory at all, unlike most heavily monetized games you can earn all of these things ingame without spending money, most games don’t even allow that. Also, it’s unfair to hold this against the games feet. This is a small team, they need funding, and unfortunately as we all know this game isn’t popular at all, so I mean money has to be earned. The combat being unresponsive is a mixture of two things, one being something they definitely need to improve which is latency, but also another factor why you might think it’s unresponsive is because you didn’t understand how Skill Queuing works. This isn’t WoW where you press a button and it automatically happens, think of this as a more real-time turn based game. You can queue up abilities way before they actually go off. So if you didn’t understand that, it could’ve led to moments where you were pressing buttons waiting for something to happen, but you are actually activating and deactivating abilities that were being queued up for your character to use on an enemy.

Sarah Oakheart is a recurring character, much to your (and everyone else's dismay). Though there is an interesting ending to her character arc. Won't spoil it, but stick in there despite her irritating speed.

I divine from the fact that you ran out of space in your quest log, that you aren't particularly completionist in your play. If you were, you'd get LOTRO points often enough that you wouldn't feel the cash shop as predatory as you report. Yes, it's a pain that Riding is in the shop, but it's priced well within one's ability to earn the LOTRO points in-game. And, heck, if one's time is less valuable than one's money (perhaps for a child or someone from the developing world), it's perfectly valid to create alts specifically for the purpose of farming deeds for LOTRO points. The rubber-banding issues are well-known, even by the devs. People who know more than me suggest that the problem is a server architecture problem stemming from decisions made in 2005-2007 that today's devs are unable to completely fix. But most people seem to have fewer problems with it than you seemed to. Yours is an outlier among other "trying LOTRO in 2024" type videos in that your experience was mostly negative. That doesn't mean that you're wrong, only that other people reached different conclusions from the same facts.

I’ve never rubber banded like that. The only time I experience lag is really when there’s 100 people in a pvp battle.

1. The lag is not happening to me, looks like a client side issue. 2. Money, they need to make money (give them credit for not using Blizzards disgusting methods. I'm a little let down that you we were so negative about the game because its a good game if you really look at it. Again, the server stability is perfectly fine as i type this. You really disrespected years of hard work but saying they are milking the player base on a dead game? Give us a break. THis is a crappy review and the game is much better than you think. Thank you for the video though!

disagree with the take but I hear your arguments. I think the game is solid af, love the landscape and the lore. No doubt I would love a ground up remake up all the current content, but that isn't realistic. But for anyone that started when the game came back, it is crazy coming back and opening up the map and seeing how much of Middle Earth is available to explore. The classes are all fairly unique as well imo for MMO standard, the buff/debuff icons are distinct and clear to read, anyways - huge fan. Hope they keep improving the landscape difficulty and borrow a bunch of ideas from Path of Exile.

The joy i feel when i hear of someone else that loves runescape is indescribable. Makes me feel like a kid again.

Good job Man! Thanks for Your video. I think it's hard to find reliable and trustworthy streamers like you these days.

Its one of they few mmos actually worth playing,

I live in Germany and play (on and off since 2013) on the Antonia Bayle server (USA)... never experienced that rubberbanding.

Don't understand the rubberbanding and freezing you were experiencing. I started playing way back during the beta and have been playing on/off ever since. I haven't had any of the constant struggles you had since the early days. To me it's a relaxing lore filled atmospheric game which I enjoy and like you said it's very cool to meet and contribute to the fellowship storyline. Sorry it didn't work out for you, maybe it was the server you were on or graphics settings since it is an older game.

I think it's a good review, not because of what you say (you are very unlucky with technical issues and only saw the solo part, so you can't talk about what you don't see), but because what you show : you show that when you try this game without the smallest preparation, you will not like it. There is a lotro community on youtube, so look at the videos for beginners, then don't do the same mistakes new players usually do. Lotro is an old game and the community is not in the beginners zone. But there are kinships (name of guilds in lotro), forums, and channels, so talk with players, they know the mistakes they did them. It begins with not taking the first server you see, and know the servers can't support a big number of players (but there are things you have to avoid on your computer too, in order to play easily). The review shows too the importance of patience. If you want all at the beginning (for example a mount before the others, or a big inventory before the others, or access to an area too dangerous for you for now) the only way is to pay. But if you take your time and play the game as it is, you will earn lotro points, and with them you'll buy a mount or a bigger inventory (or expansions : I never paid for one, thanks to lotro points). If you are interested in the journey, don't rush it. Free to play does'nt mean there's nothing to buy in the store it only means you can play without paying with real money. If you hate stores even if they sell free stuff, you should play another game.

What region are you in? That lag you were experiencing seemed really bad, but it definitely fluctuates depending on where you are playing from. I disagree with your review overall, but still glad to see you shine some light on the good that this game has to offer. LOTRO is for sure not a perfect MMO, but it is amazing at certain things that it does, and for a Tolkien fan, it’s easy to look past many of it’s shortcomings

You should try Embers Adrift, its a low fantasy game but I think you'll like it.

Monetization has been like that since 2011.

Solid review I enjoyed it! I'm currently playing lotro and loving it but those servers are jank for real.

paths of valour ups difficult for landscape anything fearless +3 you get unique titles, emotes etc. the game really picks up after moria imo enedwaith to gondor felt like it took no time at all

If they "A Realm Reborned" this game and relaunched an updated & modernized version 2.0 I think it would be a huge success.

I'm a huge LOTRO defender. I'm currently 120 on my main with over a dozen alts. Been playing nearly a decade

This used to be one of the best games in 2007-2010. Amazing community back then, it'll never be the same again.

Seems a bit weird monetisation left a sour taste in your mouth, when its a F2P MMO. They need to make money somehow dude, just because players want everything to be free doesn't mean it should be.

Your take on free to play and lotro points is way off. You can get free pts very easily.

Overall a nice video, cringed intensely with your segment on in game purchases. You don’t need to do that quest, you unlock the riding skill for free as your progress through the game. You can also grind for LP very easily, which most of us have done for 15 years. Every mmo has grinds and in game purchases, most of which are worse than lotro. They also have given away 90% of content for free on multiple occasions. This is a free to play mmo, it’s very plausible to play completely free. I’ve got an account which has lifetime, and another which is solely f2p. Both have the same contents :)

i will try

You are totally playing this game wrong. LOTRO is a story driven game. If you are not reading every quest and paying attention to the story, you wont like this game. Unlike other MMO's this game is more about the journey. The story is fantastic. To put it in perspective: Alot of people in this game have been playing for years.. and still arent max level.

LOTRO is easy to play for free and one of the best f2p models out there in my lengthy mmo experience.

I had bought this game when it first launched and was having fun when i was able to play it, but life got in the way and i didn't play for the longest time. I came back to it to try it out and actually had alot of fun playing it but like you, the predatory monetization, and the rubberbanding and login issues completely drove me away. It's really disheartening as well since this game has so much potential

just started palying im at lvl54 on gladden server , goes good sometimes the lag spikes but other then that it feels like a classic mmo which i have missed used to play wow back in the day

Sara oakheart is the most famous quest in Lotro. Even though you missed out on something that standing Stone games did I think last year but for a certain amount of time if you log in you could claim all of the older expansion Quest packs for free which was quite a lot of money if you were to buy them with lotro points.

I am at level 21 and am around a very similar point to where you stopped (I just got taken to rivendell by gandalf, I just did the quest underneath the forbidden inn, etc) And i gotta say I am loving it. About 2 weeks into the game. The community is the most wholesome part about this game. Regarding your complaints, I do agree with the monetization problem although I manage to ignore it for the most part. Rubber banding / freezing has only hit me about 5 times and they only lasted about 20 seconds at most. The gameplay did feel really clunky and mediocre at first but after upping the landscape difficulty and getting used to each of my skills (hunter is very fun), I can now say I quite love the combat Overall you should give it a go :)

I've only started playing early last year for free. Don't know about many of you, but anytime I make a new character (I usually skip tutorial), when I get to the hunter quest where you can get a horse, I get those for free. When I started last year, I remember having to go to the lotro store and use in game points to get the riding skill, but now I get that crappy steed for free, but still useful. Now, as some said on here already, I did subscribe for three months last year, so I don't know if that's why I get the horse for free, but I think they now made it free to get just by doing the easy quest where you don't do anything but turn it in. I don't subscribe to games anymore, but I did for this last year because people are right on here when they say you get to keep the extra inventory slots and stuff when you're done subscribing. It's a gorgeous game for it's age...I like a lot of the scenery much more than GW2 (which I also play), and the environment is just amazing, I think that's why many people love this game. Good journey through Middle Earth all! Oh, by the way, I play on Gladden (U.S.) and it can get annoying when I get stuck and can't move, usually it fixes itself after about 10-15 seconds, but I did have to log off and back in again once or twice. Not good if you're in the middle of a fight.

Nice video I subscribed ,actually ur the only streamer I subscribed to

In the previous years playing this game, I've never had too much issues. I've always had fun. I am a returning player to see if anything has changed for the better.

I'm a pretty casual player and even I play on Difficulty 3. This is also the kind of game with really good writing that helps you get immersed in the world. The issues you've talked about in this vid are the main reasons this can't really be my main MMORPG.

In one of the taverns there used to be a player bard that managed to play Remember When by Alan Jackson on his instrument. They used to do free concerts lol

I laughed at your joke about Sara Oakheart. As someone who has 10+ characters in Lotro, early game quests are mostly repeating the same, meaning that the slowest rescue has to be completed multiple times.

idk about that , just playing the game gives you more than enough lotro points to buy the essential stuff .

"exceptionally tall and absurdly manly" in the full deadpan was amazing

Just reached lvl 20 . Its a solid game but if you do not like to grind/invest time, it will annoy you. The best part is you can Still unlock past helms deep IF you save up your earned coins throughout your grinding/questing/lvling up/ and log ins. Just takes time and grind and that is not for everyone..the again you can zoom skip that mess buy buying.

Before You did your review you should have researched the game thoroughly because some of the things you complained about are fixable. There are Npc’s in every big city that let you to change your difficulty mode through Landscape difficulty and I think it has nine different levels. And you can increase your bag space without using LOTRO points by going to the bank and auction house areas. There is an NPC in that area that allows you to use in game currency to upgrade your Inventory space. And about rubberbanding and lag or other playable issues can be fixed by the many videos out there that explain how you can change your settings to make it playable.

Sara Oakheart is a running gag itself. But she is pretty a important person tho

I just came back to the game as a lifetime sub, was also in the beta, I loved this game and even have a full raid set from Moria. I've come back to finally finish everything after moria and the original $200 has gotten me everything I need except the newest expansion. I know that most don't have the lifetime sub, but looking back I'm glad I made the investment.

The lag mainly comes from what sever you pick and where you live, if you live in the UK and pick Arkenstone you will run into problems compared to if you live in the US. I haven't had any major lag but I use a less populated server (Crickhollow) and live in the US.

This is actually my second favorite mmorpg. It's an amazing game. But that's from the perspective of someone who started playing it shortly after launch, when it was sub only, and decided paying $200 for a lifetime sub would be well worth it. But now, it's not very newcomer friendly. The execution of the store is pretty bad. It's 100% possible to grind deeds and never pay a dime to unlock content, but then it's not the same game. Calling it free to play does bring in new eyes, but it's really just a subscription game. (that's worth the monthly fee, for all you get) The lag only happens at most maybe once every 50 hrs worth of game play for me, and it's making me wonder about a conspiracy theory that F2P sits on crappy servers to save the company money? lol

Oh wow - I have NEVER seen rubberbanding like that. And I've been playing since about 2017 or 2018. I wonder if you could put the 100 hours in another time.

When i played this game i just paid for the VIP pass since its the same price as WoW... so i didnt even notice the monetization stuff because it gives you enough tokens to not have to worry about it if youre just questing.

So, for the stupid boxes that you need the black-steel key to open, I can tell you that they never give anything worthwile. As someone that has played Lotro since 2008, I’ve never found any use for those boxes and always end up destroying them.

I've jumped in and out of this game over the years, I'm going to jump back into it for a while but the lag is something that has always been present, I've never made it as far as Moria but Bree has always been a nightmare for lag, if it's still in the game now it will always be there. The only part of your video I wasn't sure on was where you said that guys 'Hero' gear was from a boost, it may have been but there's also a bartering system with some vendors where you hand over trophies for sets of named gear so it could also have been that or similar.

Mr. Waydot, there are 2 new servers with 64 bit arhitecture, it should improve the performance. They were released yesterday.