Worst MMO Ever? - Lord of the Rings Online 

I think my favorite part of this game is a quest for the Guardian (tank) class. You get sent to talk to Samwise in Rivendell because someone heard he is a great guardian. He's confused when you talk to him saying they must have misheard him when he said he was a GARDENER. He then gives you gardening tips. But the tips are actually sound advice for being a tank in the game. "Some plants can handle sunlight. Some need protection from it. "It's all about how well you watch the health of your plants and how effectively you respond to their changing conditions: by watering them, changing the amount of sunlight they receive, or re-spacing their neighbours. A guardian might learn a thing or two from a gardener, if you ask me!'" it's a cute little wink and a nod.

I also love the fact that by using morale as a "life bar", they justify in universe how Captains and Minstrels can heal other party members or how the mere presence of a black rider can lower your maximum life while they are around.

you did yourself dirty not starting as a hobbit in the shire, it has some of the most immersive, smile-inducing storytelling and atmosphere I've ever seen in an MMO. They honestly NAILED the shire.

Something that really caught my eye from this video is how Josh is simply travelling around the world without being attacked by 30 thousand mobs who will dismount you and follow you to ends of the Earth

I spent hundreds of hours playing this in highschool with my grandpa, he'd pick me up from school and we'd play for hours questing in a Duo, excellent fun. I'm sure he's playing it right now

Hey Josh! I was on the writing team for this adventure, I appreciate you taking notice of the work we put in. If anyone has any questions about the development process, I'll answer what I can.

Small note for anyone watching recently: the early game, levels 1-32, have been overhauled along with many other aspects. They also fixed the Riding problem, kind of; they added a side quest that you will find during the main quest that introduces the shop, giving you enough LOTRO points to purchase the riding skill (which is only 20 P now,) and that is an account wide effect. I heard about the update which led me to try it out and boy are they working to try and keep the game alive, it isn't perfect but it is enjoyable; even as a free player.

I'm sorry but it has to be said: The graphics in this MMO give me warm fuzzy feelings. Could all be nostalgia but i genuinely don't mind simple graphics like this.

I played this right after reading the lotr books and had much more appreciation for this game than I think I would have if I hadn't

My favorite part of LotRO was the ability to play musical instruments and run scripted music. Plenty of people who'd form multi-member "bands" with coordinated music files. It was pretty awesome.

There's a reason you're not the chosen one: _that_ guy is going across the whole land with the One Ring. You're just there to help defeat all the bad stuff that keeps popping up after he leaves with his buddies. No for real, if you like either the books or movies then please play this. Even if it's an MMO they REALLY did their research when mentioning things like the history of Middle-earth in a given quest, and the tone is spot-on.

The quest to learn riding is how they teach you to use the shop, it literally covers the cost of buying the riding skill from the store. The quest is called A Little Extra Never Hurt and each starting zone has it as far as I'm aware.

I know this game is old, but it is, to date, the best representation of Middle Earth ever done. The world building is fantastic. The way the story interweaves with the events in the books (especially with the epic quests, a.k.a. the main story quests) is very well done. The first time you ride into Rivendell, or you stand on Weathertop, or you bump into the trolls that were turned into stone in The Hobbit, feel truly special. There is a lot of attention to details from the books. Just to be able to explorer Middle Earth, this is already a game worth playing. Don't rush to the end-game, take your time and smell the flowers.

Thankfully I love this game, and even if it turns out to be the worst MMO ever, I will still love it.

Your pet does fight with you, but you have him in passive mode. That pet bar under your text box is how you control him and change his stance to guard or aggro, both of which will let him auto attack. He also have skills that you can use and each pet offers a passive bonus. Also, many of the issues presented here - especially the issue with riding - have been corrected. You now get a quest in Archet that just gives you riding and a (fairly slow) mount. You also never need to keep the cosmetics in your inventory. Once they're equipped, you can stuff them in your vault keep the visual. As for PvMP, some servers really don't bother with it, others are heavily invested in it. As soon as you finish the tutorial area, if you are interested in PvMP, ask in World chat if it's popular on that server. Not ideal, but I don't know of a better way to figure it out.

You really nailed one of the things I liked about this game ten years ago. You're not The Chosen One who who is destined to destroy the One Ring and become King of Gondor, you're some schlub who's kind of helping the people who are destined to do that, so if you decide "nah, sorry lady, I'm not gonna help you kill some spiders" it's not like Aragorn suddenly got arachnophobia or something. You get to be the Hero of Another Story, but you also get to be true to yourself in the process, which is a pretty tricky balancing act to pull off when the overall plot of the story is as well known as this one is. Also, you don't seem to have seen it, but periodically the game DOES have you play as one of the characters from the book (often but not always one only mentioned in passing) for a limited time, usually about five or ten minutes, where your goal is to do as well as those characters did in the story. For example, there's a Chamber of Mazarbul instance where the victory condition is not to "win" and kill/drive off the orcs (because that's not canonically what happened), but to avoid being overrun completely long enough for a story beat to happen. There's one that takes place beside Anduin with you playing Boromir, that offers a brilliantly hilarious insight into Boromir's personality in the form of the overhead names shown for the rest of the Fellowship (the only ones who get their actual names are Frodo and Aragorn; Sam, for example, is "Frodo's Servant").

20:31 During the tutorial missions, if you talk to the other ranger in the hunting lodge (sitting in the first room, next to the bedroll), you start a dream sequence quest in which Galadriel tells you that you're special. That she sees your fate being tied to Middle Earth, and you get a brief look at some of the other dangers going on at approximately the same time. Like Gandalf fighting the Balrog. Or Wormtongue poisoning King Theoden's mind. Basically, you're special, in that you have important tasks ahead of you. But not quite Ringbearer or Fellowship special. Just, needed.

This game had one of the most immersive worldscapes ever, thanks in large part to its source material but also in its game design. The feeling you get when you walk into The Shire, or Imladris, or Moria, or Lothlorien, or Forochel, or Evendim... it was magical.

33:00 I remember playing Lord of the Rings Online when it was decently populated, though not religiously. Just something I checked out, Monster PVP, the way I'd explain it and the fun I had with it was a late night experience where players could hop in as a monster and not be messed up by vast level differences between eachother, your goal would be to unite as a group to try to raid and take over the human settlements for rewards. I'm not the Raid type of person in MMOs but the thrill and memories I had of just 'randomly discovering the monster PVP side of the game' and then aimlessly wandering and trying to figure out what I'm doing (I think I was a Wolf monster?) and I single-handedly remember recruiting everyone who was aimlessly roaming around and was able to unite everyone together for the single cause of taking down as many of the castles as we could, it was probably 3-4AM I was dead-tired but also absolutely determined to at least capture one enemy castle, I believe the Center-left castle was the target on the map. After many trials and errors, we were able to succeed and it was a fun, but very random experience. After that we were running low on other players also dipping out, but the fact remained that we had succeed and it felt great to have randomly decided to band together, unite the players who were on the same server under one banner/group and achieve something. And its a happy gaming memory I still remember to this day, even though it happened, idunno, 15 years ago? After that I basically stopped playing the game altogether and moved back to Counter-strike 1.6 probably. lmao

Played as Kenewen/Prywen on the now shut-down Riddermark server for 7 years. I cried like a baby counting down the last seconds of life there, gathered around Tuckborough with my kinship. My online name will forver be Kin, a nod to the feeling of family that game gave so many of us. Honestly fo me there will never be a better game. I want to return so much, but the pain of loss is just too great. Some of my favorite memories are; Jumping my goat up to the top of the Bree trading house and playing the opening theme from Secret of Mana on my instruments. Typing /commands to my friends in chat to unlock secret emotes. Being a Rune Keeper that could main heal the Draigoch 12 man raid. Taking players off the map in south Dunland (around where the horned frogs spawn) to the the ancient ruins not visible under normal play. Finding the secret graveyard outside the map behind the spider infested woods near Bree. Moria, top to bottom, every inch of it and the story. Fighting the Watcher in the Water. Showing complete strangers how to get the Ridge Racer deed. Endless hours filling out the deed log for virtues and Turbine Points to unlock paid content. I hope I can retire to an old floks home one day and play this game untill I forget how to breathe

Mechanical drawbacks aside, this is easily one of the most charming MMORPG games ever created.

The map in this game is the best in any MMO ever. You can walk from the Shire to Moria without hitting a single loading screen. My cousin and I used to try to make the journey as level 1 chickens after being transformed in an early shire quest. Love this game

God this takes me back. LOTRO was the first MMO I ever played and it got me hooked on the genre. Not many since have come anywhere close to the scenery and storytelling in this game, especially when you get to Isengard and the surrounding areas. Good to see some of the classic intro quests are still there in all their glory too! Human Guardian ftw

These old MMOs are really special. I started as elf-archer in Ered Luin and I was levelling, I quickly got to level 10, then grinded to level 15 and I just ran out of things to do. My quest was to get to Bree, which I thought is no problem (I assumed I will fast-travel there because it is really far away). But it turns out that I can’t fast travel there, there is a level cap. So I thought I will go to next location and level up there, but right after I move there I meet a road made of mobs that are 20-23 lvl (I am lvl 15). I hardly killed them 1 on 1. I started grinding my way for 3 hours and got to lvl 16. That was really dangerous. That forest nearly killed my 10 times, but in the end I got to local town and relaxed. I thought that I am clearly doing something wrong. Then I started googling and found out that I just have to walk to Bree, so all this terrifying adventure was actually pretty much the way it is intended. At first it pissed me off, but then I thought that it is actually really cool. It is actual challenge and I am ready for it.

I think this is the first video of your "worst mmo" series that actually motivated me to play a new game. On my next day off, I will try this out. Thank you for this!

I remember playing this game a long time ago. I met a friend and we had an RP session of traveling the world which was probably one of the best experiences I've ever had in any MMO. Then he invited another person into the party and cybered with them in party chat. Good times.

I'm a new player and apparently there is a quest to get the riding skill for free in the hunter's lodge in Archet. I think it's called "A Little Extra Never Hurts You". I felt relieved since when I first downloaded the game and saw the cash shop, I thought I wouldn't get any mounts. Now I got myself the prized liver steed and is currently lvl 33. Overall, one of the best mmos I've played as a free to play player.

Start as a hobbit, and run around the Shire at night with all the lampposts on and turn up the ambient sounds. It's pretty amazing.

This video actually made me start playing this game. Finally I get to live my dream of being a hobbit! I've played for like 15 hours and I'm still just chilling doing incredibly low-stakes side quests in the Shire, an extremely chill and relaxing MMO, with absolutely fantastic ambience and tone.

25:45 - The Herald does fight for you, but you need to either use the "pet attack" skill (available in that mini skillbar under the chat box, but you can move it to your main bar) or set the pet mode to aggressive or guard (on the same skilbar). I do agree, however, that this should be explained or set by default. Or both, to be honest. The herald is useful - he has some of "save my bacon" options, like taunting an enemy, stunning an enemy or sacrificing some of his morale to heal yours. And later on you can equip items that change the herald's appearance and skillset (people typically go for an archer that pelts enemies from a distance, while you tank... which isn't surprising, since the Captain class is essentialy *THE* tank, despite being listed as a support class).

If you fly the eagles to Mordor, then you would be instantly leveled to 120 and it would be a game-breaking experience. \[T]/

My favorite thing about this game is simply the opportunity to be in the world of Middle Earth. I'm sure many people enjoy the game who don't know much about Tolkien's writings. I'm a hardcore Tolkien fan from just reading all his books. To me, this is one of the greatest works of fan-fiction ever! And big credit to the developers, from what I've seen the game storyline doesn't stray from the books, like so many movies do. It just adds to it! Sure, it doesn't have as good quality graphics as some other games, but if all you want is to be a hobbit or an elf and explore Middle Earth, it's perfect!

I played this game as a hobbit cook. I was low level, maybe less than 5, I can't remember, but I had nearly end game quality recipes I could make thanks to a vary difficult assisted run up to weathertop to get a recipe. I made food for other people to use for adventure and enjoyed my brief time in middle earth immensely. I've also played a level 60 fisher in world of warcraft, back when 60 was the cap, because on a 56k modem I couldn't do raids. I don't honestly understand why I play games sometimes.

Hearing you praise the music in this game made me unbelievably happy, it truly is an incredible work of art, both in quantity and quality! Great review, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Just started this game thanks to this vid and I’m really enjoying it! It’s dated, but very fun and the players have been so helpful and patient with me. Really nice community so far. 😊

I love how based on who you pick as your character i.e human, elf, dwarf etc. you begin in a different place, so this is just how humans start. I've been playing LOTRO on and off since it came out and while it is not perfect, and still is not with all the new updates, I still love it and enjoy it, especially since it is so fun to play by yourself but also with friends, be it quests or just farming. Also one of the few games where I never regret spending money on at times, and the scale of how much you can explore and how many quests there are is amazing. I do think that those that have reached the cap now are pretty bored and it's the most fun until level 60, but regardless one of my faves for sure. Hopefully, they will keep improving the game.

My entire family plays this game, so I am fairly blinded by it's flaws other than monetisation and generally unpolished early stuff, and with that context I expect this video will be useful and quite eye-opening.

I feel so nerdy admitting this, but during the book fairs I always grabbed the fantasy stuff and comics and just read them all weekend long. This game came out right after I played Baldurs Gate and Planescape Torment (My PC couldn't run many games at the time so I opted to play old school stuff), and a few other MMO’S. I remember playing it and feeling so immersed and really honestly felt so giddy doing a slow-ish mmo game as opposed to the more faster paced, anime garbage floating around. I felt like I was living out one of those epic books I read, and being in a new world. I know it's not that great compared to today, and I'm sure as a kid my feelings were amplified, but man, I never felt more calm than when I was playing this game, reading through everything, and killing some baddies, lagging cuz my computer couldn't keep up, and admiring the ambience of the world and how beautiful it was, even at 10 FPS LOL.

This game is not only a good mmo from the old times, it's also the best documentary on middle-earth !

The eagles would have been obliterated by the Nazgul on their flying drakes, thus hand delivering the Ring to Sauron. The end. There's your reason.

This was exactly the review this game deserved. A bit repetitive and tedious, a lot of quests where you just go to a place and push a button or kill an orc… But just such a nice world to exist in. I have so many amazing memories from this game. There’s a quest line where you rebuild a village and can see it start to get repaired as you complete quests. There’s a quest line in the shire where you control a chicken and navigate past dangerous mobs to go all the way to Rivendell. There’s festivals and silly little wholesome things and… Everything about this games core experience is just pleasant. It’s easily the most relaxing MMO I’ve ever played. I love this game to bits, even though all the reasons I love it are why it will never top the charts as an MMO. This is one of those games that has found a niche and perfected it.

The eagles are only able to enter Mordor AFTER the ring is destroyed. From the top of Barad-dûr, Sauron would have seen the eagles coming from miles away. When they were within his reach m, he would have brought them down with arrows or magic. The Nazgul were able to fly on their fell beasts and also would have been able to intercept the eagles. If the eagles were to get to Mordor and evade those arial attacks, Frodo would still have have to get the ring into Mount Doom. The top of the volcano is not a wide open lava target. To get to the heart of the Cracks of Doom, the eagles would have to land and then let Frodo (and Sam or Aragorn?) walk the rest of the way up to the entrance of Mount Doom and the. down the passageway that leads to the heart of the volcano. By the time the eagles landed, the foot of Mount Doom would be swarming with Orcs and Trolls. Even with Gandolf, Aragron, and Glorfindel there is no way the hobbits could fight their way through that. The essential part of the anti-Sauron plan was to enter Mordor undetected. The whole reason for the final assault on the Black Gates from the Gondor side was to draw away Sauron’s attention. Aragon looks into the Palantir and drives Sauron crazy with anger, fear, and anxiety. Here is Sauron’s most hated enemy right on his doorstep. When the “new king” brings an army to attack Mordor headed on, Sauron sends all of his forces to meet them. The forces of Mordor are emptied which is why Frodo and Sam are able to get in without a massive orc force in their way. The orcs that they do encounter are a fraction of the “challenge rating” they would have faced if Mordor was full. No matter how funny the youtube video is by “How It Should Have Ended,” the eagles flying Frodo to Mordor and dropping the ring into the volcano from the sky was not going to work.

what you need to remember about LOTRO's cash shop is that the currency used in that shop is farmable, you can very easily (although it may take some time) farm enough points to purchase whatever you want. also when it comes to the stat boosts you can actually buy those in the player markets with in game currency.

Another really cool part of the game you can experience is the music system. You can buy instruments from vendors, and these can be used as weapons by bards. However, if you type /music, and you will enter music mode. You can press the number keys for notes, and press shift for higher octave and ctrl for lower octave. You can also download premade files from other players, get a group into music mode, and have the characters play premade music in a band. This aspect gives instruments another use other than a single use tool for a one-off class, and is a lot of fun to play around with and socialize with.

i noticed your herald was set on passive the whole time.... when captain's herald is set up defensive with the right traits, it can actually tank a bit for you

my problem with LOTRO is is that it became completely bloated with mechanics over time. the legendary grind was a pain . i still love the game for just "being in it", nothing quite like riding your horse from the shire to rivendell and running into all the little bits and pieces of lore

Thanks for taking me back! One of my favorite experiences was using a plugin that could read text files like sheet music if they were formatted correctly, and would sync with anyone else using the same plugin and sheet music. On my little Hobbit bard, I collected a band of other little Hobbit bards, and each using different instruments, we played the Jurassic Park musical score on repeat for hours. Just playing for anyone who walked by, chatting with each other and the audience we'd gathered. Some other Hobbits came along and made food for everyone, and it was probably the most wholesome MMO experience I've ever had. This video and that memory has prompted me to download and give LotRO another shot!

This was a great video man, really made me feel the nostalgia for this game. I remember falling in love with how they visually represented my favorite literary world. The storytelling of this game was also really unique and in line with Tolkien, I really felt like I was a character in one of his stories when I was playing. Man, this video is giving me the itch to pick this back up again!

hey! super, genuinely glad you had fun playing. worked for ssg for a few months as a game master for lotro & ddo and the team is small enough to fit in modest sized room, so this really is a labor of love at this point. also, if it makes you feel better (or worse,) while working as a gm, the lotro wiki was genuinely my number one source for figuring out systems.

I wasn't familiar with the "worst MMO" series so I expected this to be a super negative review of my absolute comfort MMO for the past 6 years XD I'm glad I watched it anyway and it turned out into such a favourable review. I've had the privilege of being introduced to it through a friend who explained everything to me as we played our new two characters through the levels. I haven't played so many MMOs yet so I have no comparison, but the very reason why you found your experience in it pleasurable is the reason why I keep coming back to it - nothing beats roaming middle earth and doing fun quests to de-stress from uni. I love being a random person somewhere in this lively world who sometimes hears of the fellowship's quest and comes across traces of their journey, but otherwise just gets to help them or other people in this world all affected by the war in their own way. I also love the cosmetic outfits and how you are able to customize your character. My OG is a well-developed character outside of the game anyway, and I love that the game lets me play him exactly like he is. I can even dress him up in unassuming clothes and have him fight with his sword in his left hand. Roleplaying, or just playing in-character, is also immensely fun with all the emotes, a "say" channel that makes dialogue pop up over your head, and all the things you can do that are just fun extras (getting drunk and dancing on the tables of the Prancing Pony? setting up a campfire to take a short break and warm up after having fallen into the ice cold water of Forochel? Standing on a guard tower overlooking the plains of Rohan, smoking some self-grown pipeweed?check!) I love that LOTRO doesn't have the visual sparkle and pizzazz that other MMOs have. It's so chill, and plain, and immersive. 100% to all the criticism you've brought up, I feel like we all are like "yeah, I know" but still love the game anyway. If I want great graphics I pop into RDR2 xD Since I'm just a casual, occasional player, I have no problem with the repetitiveness or grindiness of the quests. I would've been interested in your opinion of the festivals, though :D EDIT: A year later I've somehow stumbled across this again and I feel the need to add something. I recently played through the end of Vol. 2 of the epic quest (Moria and the Malledhrim attack on Dol Guldur) and it made me fall in love with the game all over again. I truly wonder why and how I never paid much attention to the stories and questlines (even though I knew they were cool, at least since Wildermark) Anyway I'm shocked at how good the writing is! The beginning of Vol. 3 with the Grey Company in Enedwaith had me SHOOK and I recently played through the Before The Shadow expansion which is even better. How they manage to weave the history of Cardolan into such a captivating, well written story with great new characters is amazing. I learned so much about the lore haha! And it's all so accurate to Tolkien's writing! LOTRO is really the best extension to the legendarium and a must for any LotR fan :D And over the years it somehow only seems to get better?!

I really liked the small-town feeling of this game. You aren’t the ultimate hero of Middle-Earth. You are just an simple man making your way through the Galaxy. Additionally, it feels like the closest thing to a DAO sequel.

A thoughtful analysis 👍🏻👏🏻🙂🥳 thanks for taking the time to produce this.

Damn you Josh. You made me remember playing this game. So of course I had to download it and start again. Probably my favorite MMORPG for crafting. I remember spending hours literally farming to make dyes for clothes. Easy money on the player auction house.

I've had a lifetime subscription to this game since the Mines of Moria expansion, and I've always had a real soft spot for it. I've always adored the writing and exploration aspects of the game, and I've always found that despite the clunkiness of the combat it's always felt good to me.

I love the dark undertone to every storyline in this game. It reminds me of that dark foreboding from the books that shows up as soon as Gandalf comes back to tell Frodo what he learned about the ring, and it just never goes away. Somehow, even during lighthearted moments, Tolkien was about to make me feel the burden of the ring weighing me down.

I bought the game a couple of years after it released, thinking it would be a bit of fun. I was a dwarf champion, and armour was my jam. I met a group of people who became close friends. We'd log on most evenings, someone cooking food for everyone off on quests, someone in bree playing the lute, a friend private messaging me asking if I can make a new set of armour, to which I'd reply "of course! On its way shortly" and getting a message of awe when I sent them a critical success full set. It was home for a while, and makes me feel such a strong tug of nostalgia. Then one day one guy wasn't online, and never came back. Then another, until I followed suit.

I'd like to mention a technical aspect of this game that wasn't really shown until the end of the video. Although the engine is very old, the imposter/billboard system is quite impressive. There are crazy amounts of details like trees, bushes, rocks, terrain elements, building structures, that are jam packed on screen all the way into the distance (sometimes almost 1km + away) and they silhouette and parallax very beautifully. It's surprising how modern MMOs fall short on this due to technical limitations with higher fidelity, we often see distance fog much closer than in this game. This technical aspect is a core reason the game feels so immersive as you explore around.

Man, I was really expecting JSH to rip this game apart, but was pleasantly surprised by the actual outcome. It reminded me exactly why I decided to give this game a second shot last year and play it again for the first time since its initial release. As a visual learner, I've always wanted to get into Tolkien's work but found the books too wordy and the movies too lengthy. Lord of the Rings Online hit that perfect mix of storytelling and visual design for me, and really helped me get a better scope of where everything is in Middle-Earth. And besides, what other medium set in the Tolkienverse lets you punch an Oliphaunt in the face? And WIN?

They didn't fly on the eagles because it had to be secret. If they tried to fly the eagles, the army would've been sitting waiting. And frodo would've died. Brutally.

That must be the most well-written tutorial I have ever seen. More MMOs need to learn from that tutorial.

He liked it! He really liked it! All of Josh's criticisms are valid and have been knows for years, hopefully now that some real attention has been brought to them, changes will be made. Like he said though, there are reasons a lot of us have never completely stopped playing after 15 years. Was really hoping you played just a little longer so you could see some of the dwarven interiors, you thought the country side was cool? This game has some of the grandest interiors I've ever seen IMO. Also just checking, were you just playing in 1080p or 4K? Because I can't get 4K to work :P

This game truly shined back at launch in 2007. I also remember how beautiful the world looked on a high-end graphics card with max settings at the time. To this day the comfiest MMO I've ever played.

I've played this game since beta back in 2007. I bought 2 lifetime accounts and play both. I have tried many other MMO's, none ever stuck except this one. I used to call myself a ''gamer'' but I've learned I'm just a Lotro'r. The world building is astounding! So many times my breath has been taken away at actually standing in some special spot. Rohan, Gondor, battles on horseback, music system, Ithilian, Minas Tirith, Shire, Isengard, Grey Company, the list is never ending, even after that walk into Mordor! I've went thru so many different phases of gameplay, from heavy raiding, solo play, musical play, roleplay, house decorating play, streaming play, to logging in just to go wander around some place

I call LOTRO/Middle Earth my home away from home. I just love being in there. Great video Josh.

I love this game so much, having played casually for hundreds of hours for around a decade, on and off. I think this video sums it up nicely in the end, about how it is a calming, chill experience. I don't play it for raiding or anything (though obviously some do), but it's a great place to hang out in the vast world of Middle-Earth. It has a super nice community and plenty of fun events, such as concerts using the music system. In response to the "Fly the eagles to Mordor" comment, I suppose the in-game equivalent is that level boost. Just like suddenly transforming to a high level character might bewilder the player, maybe flying directly Mordor would have been too much for the fellowship after all.

I'm a huge Tolkien fan and what i most love about this game is the scenary. The citys feel so alive, the forests are so immersive, is so good to just walk around the map and see things. The quests have a great story and that's something is very hard to find in other MMOs. LOTRO is a classic. Great review Josh!

LOTRO is criminally underrated. It was one of the best MMOs ever but unfortunately it’s not as fun to play without a busy server and other players. It was super fun when it first started (I was a beta tester). The environment of Middle Earth is amazing and huge. Not sure how it is now.

Man, the nostalgia - I played quite a lot of this solo back before it went F2P. I really loved it, especially the Warden class (I think it was?) - I really enjoyed its hybrid capabilities. I'm glad it was given a positive review.

The game's pretty outdated, but it's probably the best video game recreation of Middle Earth that we'll ever see. It's fun to just explore the story. They've put so much care and effort into the world itself. Just wandering around as a little hobbit following in the footsteps of the fellowship is fun.

I was so hype for this game when it launched I even paid $200 for the lifetime subscription. While I played for a solid 2 years before stepping away, it’s one of those games I always come back to and have a great time when new content comes around and the community is top notch

That brought back good memories. I played almost for over 5 years, and never payed a cent (other than initial purchase). i unlocked expansions just by in game currency through grinding. The store wasn't so "evil" back then. What I loved the most is that the books/movies happen around you as you advance. Even the world changes.

I started playing this game in 2020, the world building and writing is what makes it unique. I'm attempting a completionist run, I'm 1200+ hours in and I got to level 127 (the cap is 150). It's absolutely gigantic, if you are a Tolkien fan this game is mandatory.

This is actually a really great game locked behind old technology, clunky combat and what used to be an annoying cash shop. Thankfully, they are addressing a lot of that stuff so I personally think that if you are a fan of Lord of The Rings it worth diving into as just a chill game with so much LOTR lore. The water effects are the best I have ever seen and if you like adventuring it is a really good time.

I loved this game, still do. I love that they took the story approach of just occasionally bumping into what is happening with the fellowship and instead we are doing stuff in angmar, finding out what is going on near isengard, roaming around moria, finding out about the darkness lurking in Mirkwood, strolling through the misty mountain goblin caves, going through elven ruins in eregion (damn I loved looking at the night sky in eregion). This game had so many memorable moments. I especially remember being scared shitless with some stuff in Angmar, my first time arriving in rivendel after being chased by bears after my under leveled ass adn running into a freakking troll, and then actually getting lost in Moria because that place used to be dark as hell, the sense of wonder and relief upon finally exiting the darkness of Moria and walking into Lothlorien with its untrusting elves. And later there was the thrill of riding across the plains of Rohan. I played the game actively until Helm's deep expansion, haven't seen the content after that. SHould maybe get back to this someday soon.

26:12 that single sentence made me want to instantly download the game. A slow, chill MMO that I can just vibe and chill in while not being required to pay any money if I decide to just chill in the game long enough. As someone who grew to enjoy the boring grind of everything with modern day WoW, I will fit into this MMO like a glove I believe

Entertaining and spot on, especially for not going very far in to the game! My biggest gripe was that it was limited to 1080p

Wow, this was the most positive review I've seen in this series. LOTRO deserves it. Its a well made game with lots of quality of life stuff built into it over the years (like open tapping or auto loot) and very strong world building, atmosphere and music. Sadly, it suffers greatly on the technical side. I fear the engine is a true bottle neck for the game. The lags have only gotten worse over the years (probably due to its growing size). And with time it will probably only get worse. LOTRO will always have a place in my heart.

The best experience in this game is the community - spent multiple evenings just hanging out in front of the Inn in Bree, roleplaying in a crowd of players listening to a dwarven live-band on stage playing music...

Back when it was new, the "play as a monster" feature had you run as one of several monsters through maps rather densely populated with people. That you've been running a nigh-empty map is due to the lack of players online at the time. They don't use bots when there are no people around…

Great video! I've played LOTRO on and off since January 2008, on the old European servers Anyway, a few notes. - The Epic Quest line, that goes continuously from level 1 all the way to the maximum level, is my favourite in the game. So it made sense that for your video you were only doing those. But it did made me grumble that you ignored all the side quests in Archet 😂😂😂😂😂😂 - I'm sure someone has told you by now, in the comments, but you can set your Herald to assist in combat. Not very powerful, the Loremaster's pets are stronger, but it's help nonetheless. You had it on Neutral stance (also, you have to respawn the Herald every time you level, so that he levels too) - PvMP was made free last week, with all classes, to every player, payer or non-payer. I've heard the Ettenmoors have been quite full, these days - The level booster is meant to be used by experienced players that want to avoid leveling an alt to maximum level again. I understand your critique, but yeah, it should "stay" in the inventory until you wish to use it

21:30 There are of course plugins that are easy to install to fix the mini-map and the world map ("m"). I use a world map plugin that makes it basically half of your screen size. It makes the resolution more tolerable, while also opening up much of your screen to see your environment.

I'm glad to see you reviewing and enjoying a game I've spent countless hours on over the last decade. A couple professors I had in college actually worked on the music and writing of the game. My professor who did a lot of the music for the game actively chose to never check out the Lord of the Rings movies so that he wouldn't be influenced by their scores when trying to bring the world to life. The professor who worked on the writing for the game is a Lord of the Rings FANATIC and tried his best to make the world as immersive and representative of Tolkien's work as possible. I asked them about a few things in the game including what the deal with Monster Play was and it turns out that entire feature was added on at the last minute and has never been a priority for the development team, which is unfortunate because when it was active back in the day, I thoroughly enjoyed the constant PvP tug of war over the various strongholds and roving around as a massive pack of stealthed Wargs so it's a shame to see the state it's in now. P.S. With regards to your Herald companion and other pets in general, you can adjust their behavior with those buttons below your chat log. Yours was set to "Passive" which was why he didn't participate in combat.

This video got me to try out LOTRO, I am so glad I did! It's by far my most favourite MMO because of the relaxed pace and the exploration involved. It's a relatively slow game, but that's why I enjoy it.

I remember when I just sat at the bridge in Bree just fishing all day. And sometimes people would join me. It was nice

I wanted to mention that whoever was writing this must have been massive Tolkien expert as they did they utmost not to contradict his works (at least in the bits I played). I really appreciated that at the time

Really interesting look at the game from the eyes of a veteran MMO player. I've played this game since launch and am a current endgame raider and I really appreciate the focus you put into the story in general atmospheric elements of the review. Generally this game is carried by animators, writers, and visual effects artists, as well as the genius musicians Chance Thomas and Bill Champagne. The game gets more complex as you level up, so while it would be cool to see a look at endgame and raiding, the majority of the experience is as you described. Slow paces, well written quest lines for 140 levels. Also a few fetch quests along the way. Corey Olsen, who is a guy who has a PHD in Tolkien studies and is super knowledgeable about Tolkien lore, uses LotRO to tell stories about the game and as a backdrop since it is so faithful to the main story of the books and tries to visualize and immerse the player in the world of the lord of the rings. If you get some time, you should try out Dungeons and Dragons Online, which is also made by Standing Stone Games who develop the lord of the rings online. If you need any guidance, I'm the top content creator for that game on twitch and RU-vid and I would love to show you around.

My favourite part of LoTRO was playing a hobbit in the Shire. You really feel as close to being there as we can get without being in VR. Pity you didn’t demo that.

I played as a hunter. Being able to fast travel your group around was a fun dynamic. Man such good times playing that game.

Good that he waited for the recent F2P update to do the video. I decided to go back to the game because they made all content up until level 90? free for everyone, and then an event going on where if you logged in you got the most recent expansions for free too. Very generous. The animations are a bit jarring, but the zones themselves still look quite good graphically. The lack of a real EU server can make it quite laggy, but the look and feel of the world is pretty top notch. It's one of the most faithful Middle Earth games out there. The music is a real standout, and the main story quests are quite immersive. Obviously it's still littered with old school MMO issues like fetch quests, and modern MMO issues like the cash shop (yuck). The game only running off one processor core is a real problem too, which they are working on fixing. I really hope they deliver on those graphical updates they have planned because the game needs that refresh to bring in more players. Btw, to address the Eagles joke. They simply would have said no if they were asked to deliver the ring to Mt. Doom. The eagles are extremely intelligent, some of them even capable of speech. They aren't that different from Gandalf in terms of what they really are. They too have a mission from the Valar which they won't jeopardize on such a foolhardy task, much like Gandalf and the other Wizards had their mission.

This has been my main MMO since I think 2014/5. I remember being a broke teen wanting to get the Moria expansion from the in-game shop, so I ended up making a bunch of new characters to repeatedly do every deed in Ered Luin until I had enough TP to get it. Good times

A long time ago, they asked Tolkein the same question many, many times. "Why didn't they just fly the eagels into Mordor?" So he told them the same thing what I tell you right now. "Shut up!"

I am looking forward to the UI revamp. At the moment its hard to play on a 4k setup but I have high hopes for the revamp. Also, talking to Atli Spiderbane, you find out that the spiders chased him over the mountains for something he did to them. I love his story.

I quit WoW: the burning crusade, to play this game on release. Never once did I regret it. The chance to walk around and play in middle-earth was a big plus. Ended up playing for 4 years. ELDAR-EN server !! Sadly saw it change slowly over time to Free-to-play, with the cash shop.

This is such a good mmo and now you can play almost all of it for free. Definitely worth a try.

holy i remember playing this game all the way back at release. I was so bad at questing being pretty much too young but finding a nice guild to join that helped me enjoy this game so much that I grinded it everyday

I started playing LotRO because of this video.... thank you so much!

Lord of the Rings Online will be forever one of my favourites MMOs ever. It was my first MMORPG, many years ago - I still have the original CD! I spent many hours playing it for many years during my high school years. I still remember how hard it was to level up, the infamous Moria or the disadvantages you received when you died. I spent hours making screenshots of Rivendell or Rohan on a very old PC that could barely run it in the minimum graphic quality. Even to this day I still come back to it from time to time and I'm extremely glad that it still has a loyal community. It was the choice of that time for those of us who did not play World of Warcraft and I will always remember it with the smile of someone who spent some of his best moments there, with his kinship of friends, talking on TeamSpeak, passing dungeons and even roleplaying (Laurelin for the win!)

I loved to play this MMO on launch. Speaking about details: the portrait of your target is animated. Even on things like small frogs in a swamp that play no part in the game-play! I could watch these mini sceneries for several minutes, seeing what neat animations they put in there.

The riding skill is now tied to the introduction area quest line for free which is awesome.

23:07 FYI LP (lotro points) can be farmed in game and you don't NEED to buy them with cash which you failed to mention. And btw they are very easy to farm at low levels as the requirements for the achievements that grant LP are much lower. The 95LP for the riding skill can be farmed in under an hour (or in about 15-20 minutes if you have a high lvl friend carry you around doing slayer deeds while you simultaneously complete exploration deeds). We used to do this when one of our friends made a new character to farm LP. And LP is account bound not character bound so one can create multiple low lvl toons to farm LP with ease. EDIT: 26:03 oh you did mention it.... good :)