ZAM's Lord of the Rings ContestFollow

In my few short years on this planet (sixteen), I have played many MMOs, including Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, the infamous World of Warcraft, and, most recently, Lord of the Rings Online. Lord of the Rings takes the cake, and by no small margin. The questing is inventive and engaging, the crafting is superb, and the graphics are absolutely stunning. Housing is grand, combats run smoothly, and little tidbits are lying everywhere for you to discover (such as the unfortunate cart disaster in Bree or the Tynes' wedding ring woes.) As the game progressed and lived out its life, I expected it to get tiresome. I am a very high-strung individual, and I am easily bored. However, unlike the other MMOs I have played, Lord of the Rings Online has, through dilligence and a superior quality of work, kept me occupied since its release. It has even lent itsself to such things as giving tours (the Hunter ports allow higher level characters to give tours to the new folks to keep them interesting long enough to grow to love the game.) With frequent free content updates and the recent Mines of Moria expansion (which has proven interesting as I attempt to get my Hunter up to 60), I sincerely doubt that I could ever become bored with all the wonderful details and gameplay options the game world has to offer. The developers have put a large amount of time into making the game an enjoyable experience, and it pays off. A hearty thanks from all of us who play!

Aunger

I forgot to include my one gripe about the game... I do wish that weapons could be cosmetic as well as armour. Getting the special reputation items from the Mathom Society in the Shire (those being the shovel, pitchfork, etc.) would be far more enjoyable if one could use them without compromising battle efficiency. (Also, as another side note: Making the Loremaster pet-modification amulets cosmetic would be a great touch as well, since it becomes more and more difficult to maintain my lovely frost raven as I go up in levels and get better necklaces then the ones I have.)

Thanks again,

Aunger

I've only been playing for a few days now but I'm already hooked. My only regret is the fact that you have to pay to play. Lucky for me, LOTRO is worth it.

Other changes or improvements I think would be great include further bag space and more housing storage upgrades, like in the bank vault.

I've been playing LOTRO since the beginning and am completely thrilled with it. The other MMORPGs that I have played have been ok, but this is definately the place for me. I have not been dissappointed by any of the content, my only frustration has been with the limits of the computer that I play on. (and the occasional hungry/nosey hobbit coming out of nowhere)

I never played any MMORPG before but I am a Tolkien nerd/geek/scholar and a friend told me to check out the beta. I did, and they invited me to test. So from the last alpha/first beta of the game I have been playing, roleplaying, reporting bugs and meeting other Tolkien fans. When the game went live I got one of the Lifetime memberships as a Founder and I have never regretted it. When life gets hectic and stressful I find myself coming into the game to enjoy this "other life".

The visual world is spectacular. I find myself surprised by its beauty and realism, some places are like delicate water colors with natural light and color. The detail is wonderful, the night sky is made up of recognizable constellations travelling from east to west, the weather is realistic. Sounds, wonderful music, crafting, exploring amazing life-like scenery that holds true to the world of Middle-earth - it's been a great experience I have and will continue to enjoy.

The book quests are GREAT! They read like the books themselves - if you are not a fan of Tolkien's books you will not appreciate this. Most of the world is PvE but a section of it is set aside for PvP. It can be a lot of fun to play an orc, warg, spider and uruk, fighting against the Free People, if you don't take it too seriously.

Lastly, for me, the community is friendly, helpful and for the most part polite. I think this game appeals to many different demographic types and it has something for everyone.

I have been a LotRO player since open beta. I was fairly enthusiastic about the game, as my love for Tolkien was unrivaled as far as my favorite authors came and went in my book, and I immediately took upon the journey that Turbine was offering players. A month after the game launched I was sold; I subscribed and immediately began to immerse myself in the enjoyable world of LotRO. I had tried other MMOs in the past, but none of them had held my interest enough to subscribe to them, so when I say that I was enjoying the game, you'll understand that it comes from the word of someone that has very picky tastes. Needless to say, LotRO was my "first" true MMO experience.

A year later that experience was still proving to be amazing. Turbine was Johnny on the spot with the updates and the service was without complaints. These were the days when it was absolutely rare for the servers to come down for no reason at all--so much a rarity that in December 2007, when such an instance did happen, Turbine offered everyone in-game buff items to appease some rather unruly players who were none too happy about the unexpected downtime. This was the sort of quality you could have expected from Turbine staff, and it was what eventually sold me to become a Lifetime Subscriber. Dropping $200 large seemed like a small price for what I thought was the MMO of my dreams.

However, all that is gold does not glitter. When Turbine announced their Mines of Moria expansion pack, people were excited--it was the first true testament that Turbine was succeeding with their MMO. But that elation soon turned into worry when details began to emerge from the expansion pack. It would appear that many changes were coming as a result of being "necessary" in the operation of an MMO. Such "necessary" additions was the World of Warcraft Warlock class known as the Rune-Keeper, which is something that is not, in any way, supported in the lore, and is even stated as much by Jeffrey Steefel, producer of LotRO, who claims that the class "must exist."

When I look back on that, however, those sort of announcements pale in comparison to the biggest offenses perpetrated by Turbine. When Mines of Moria came out, I still bought it, hopeful that my fears were just the product of the forum hate machine, but they unfortunately proved true. Areas that were promised to come with the expansion pack were left out, and much of the content was still rather sloppy. And so I wrote a critique about my experience on the forums about it. It was completely civil, it was completely legitimate, and it was my honest opinion. It was also immediately censored and deleted.

Much of what happens next is detailed on a blog entry I wrote about the ordeal and how I lost much of my faith in Turbine. You can read that here if you wish: Link. However, it was not the final nail in the coffin for me. The final nail in the coffin for me, even after being permanently banned off their forums simply because I didn't agree with a Turbine developer, was my hope that the Book 7 update would be the redeemer of quality in what was shaping up to be a three-ring circus show of sideshows and shams.

Unfortunately no such redeeming feat happened with that update. Instead, as a player who only plays a Hunter, I was subjected to some of the worst updates I had ever experienced in my playing time of LotRO. Now the servers were always stressed, or they were coming down unexpectedly, and Turbine was performing rollbacks without any sort of compensation--people were losing rare items and money and all submitted tickets to GMs resulted in, "Sorry, we can't do that," and any further pursuing of the issue resulted in an insult to injury, or suggesting to seek another game if they were unhappy with this one. And so, updates later, nothing has still changed, and the game is still in a terrible state--nothing like it was in the golden days of when it first started out.

And now Turbine even plans to push out ANOTHER expansion pack by the end of this year before all of the content already within the game, most of which isn't refined or fine-tuned, is fixed, leaving many of their overhaul changes with bandaids over them in hope that players will be patient enough to wait for the next shiny object to distract their attention from the rust that is gathering on what was once a polished and beautiful game. Now I regret that I ever spent $200 on a lifetime membership on a game whose developers don't seem interested in wanting to fix or admit to their mistakes, but rather are on the unfortunate path that many MMOs face when trying to establish their longevity--unfortunately they are taking the wrong path into believing if they can turn most aspects into the game to draw in the WoW subscribers, then that would then establish MMO longevity for LotRO. Unfortunately if WoW players want WoW in their game, they'll just stick to WoW. All us LotROers ever wanted was for LotRO to stay as LotRO. But it seems our wishes fall on deaf ears.

I felt it was necessary to share my story with others, considering that Turbine has been gearing up a lot of media buzz about how "well" they are doing. I really wish they were, but that is simply not the truth at all, and hopefully my story has at least enlightened you with what goes on with what they would call "a few minor instances with players." Unfortunately I just happen to fall under that category, and so have a lot of other players in recent times too.

I've been playing LOTRO for about a month now, and I have to say it is probably one of the best online games I have played. Alot about this games is just awesome. The overall gameplay AND just the people in it are a whole lot better than some games. So I think it's safe to say that Lotro is my favorite online game ever.

I been playing Lotrol for over 2 years. I have a Level 60 guard, l60 bard, l60 lormaster, l60 hunter, l51 hunter, l46 ward,and l32 runekeeper. Love the game! Wish I hade 2 acc. so I could make more toons.

I love LOTRO it's the best MMO game I've played. I started Playing LOTRO when it was Beta form and loved it. The lord of the Rings universe is awesome and makes the game quests very fun. I have read the books and watched the movies and this game dose a great job of telling the story while letting you do much more. The events are great with tons of things to do. I only played in the Beta form and the first weeks of the full trial until February of this year when I bought the game and played it until the free days expired. When ever i get the chance to play it more i do but havn't paid to pay yet. I still would play if i had the money.

I have been playing for about two years now and have enjoyed it all. I have tried other MMOs but this is the first one I have really been hooked on and been willing to pay the monthly fee. After a year of fees I ponied up for the lifetime membership. It like the way they have mostly maintined congruence with the source material. The only thing I have a minor problem with is the warden class. At the low levels they seem almost too strong.

I'm looking forward to the next expansion.

I have been playing Lord of the Rings Online since August 2007. It is my first MMORPG, and I love it. The graphics are just amazing, really immersive.

Except for a few weeks off each spring, I play every week and sometimes every day. I have one level 60 that I play the most; I really enjoy playing a minstrel and try to be a good team player. I have alts but they are primarily for crafting; I really enjoy crafting and find it useful, especially food, potions, jewelry and tools.

I am in a great kin, and enjoy most of the people I meet in PUGs and in the various chat channels. I think Turbine is working really hard to give us a lot of great content, and I am fine with the occasional bug that occurs as the world grows ever more complex with each new addition.

Teneriel, Landroval server