This is only the second game in my life that I have played (the other was Forge of Empires). I am a sixty year old woman. What I like about the game is the nature graphics and the variety of activities, like the festivals. I like being able to have pets, different outfits, and decorations for housing. I love riding through the different settings of the environment landscapes on select mounts that I have acquired. I've only been playing for a couple of months. I like to have professions in which I can make things and I LOVE to gather everything in the lands that I explore. My husband is a long-time gamer and we met on the first game I mentioned and he introduced me into playing this one. I also love getting the surprise boxes and discovering things in the landscapes like cocoons, backpacks, etc. that have extra loot. During Covid 19, this has been a fun diversion.

Best of the MMOs ive played

Redeem the coupon: LOTROQUESTS2021 in-game before November 30, 2021 and get the complete base game for free.
This coupon will grant you quests and regions for almost 200€.

You tried to play Lord of the Rings Online and you just couldn't get into it.
But, you kept hearing it gets better if you give it time.
So you tried it again.
And, just as before, you couldn't get into it.
As the years passed, people continued to rave about it.
So you tried again.
And again...
And again.

And finally... you fell in love with that ONE class that you never thought to try... it's almost as if the class found you... and you made it to level 50 without uninstalling. And you realized that this is where the game truly began, with legendary gear unlocking along with the massive underground zone of Moria (known to the Dwarves as Khazad-dûm), and that everything prior was just a clunky introduction.

And you woke up the next day with a giddy feeling -- like that feeling you got as a kid upon waking to a winter wonderland, knowing that school would be cancelled without even needing to ask -- the feeling of knowing you've got the day off and... you get to spend it playing Lord of the Rings Online.

*UPDATE: There is a New Coupon Code: LOTROQUESTS2021 This Coupon Code is good until November 30th, 2021. And you redeem it by simply opening the LOTRO Store ingame, and click 'Redeem Code' button at the top of window. When prompted on the next screen, just enter the Coupon Code into the field, and click 'Apply'. Then the following will be granted to your game account:
Quest Pack: Central Gondor
Quest Pack: East Gondor
Quest Pack: West Gondor
Quest Pack: Wildermore
Quest Pack: Angmar
Quest Pack: Enedwaith
Quest Pack: Eregion
Quest Pack: Evendim
Quest Pack: Forochel
Quest Pack: Eriador Bundle
Quest Pack: Misty Mountains
Quest Pack: North Downs
Quest Pack: Trollshaws
Quest Pack: Lothlorien
Quest Pack: Great River
Quest Pack: Old Anórien
Region Pack: Far Anórien
Quest Pack: March of the King
Quest Pack: Battle of the Black Gate
Quest Pack: Legacy of the Necromancer
Quest Pack: Where Dragons Dwell
Quest Pack: The Vales of Anduin
Quest Pack: Mists of Wilderland
Quest Pack: The Wildwood
The Further Adventures of Bilbo Baggins
Quest Pack: The Blood of Azog
Enjoy!

I've done nothing but farm work, help hobbits set up a festival, chase animals and beat up brigands for two hours, and I loved every minute of it.

It's strange really, I've played practically every major MMO at this point, and the only one to grip me alongside WoW is LOTRO. Personally, I'm tired of being treated as the SAVIOUR OF THE UNIVERSE as soon as I hit level 2. Hell even by level 20 in LOTRO I still often help ordinary folk with ordinary things, and I enjoy that. If I want over the top epicness there's a million and one games that do that, but LOTRO keeps things level headed for the most part (Excluding a dream sequence that was hamfisted in at level 5 where YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE or some crap, but that's generally disregarded by the community and even the devs as it has yet to be brought up again). This is greatly aided by the fact the MMO is based on the -books- and not the films, which is a great relief as Radaghast for example isn't an insane lunatic and there's no mention of a rabbit sleigh just yet.

That said, when the drums of war sound, and orcs and goblins march, the game isn't afraid to take a turn into the dark and foreboding. The sky goes from a clear blue to a grim dark grey or even red as I approach Angmar, the woods and wildlife growing more desolate. I can't help but feel I've only made a small scratch in the surface of the adventures that await me yet. The mundane quests are gradually being set aside in favour of "Oh god, ♥♥♥♥'s going down, halp pls" from townsfolk, which suits me fine.

Having sunk money into the expansions and quest bundles as they were on sale (Fairly frequently), I have all but negated any -need- to subscribe. A subscription at this point would only give me a few more character slots (Which I don't need, already have five), access to PvP (Which I have no interest in), a daily XP bonus (Which doesn't last very long) and an allotment of premium currency (Which I don't really need either).

I subscribed for a single month a while ago, and that has removed currency limits, given me more character slots, and even removed the lock on my class, race and virtue trait slots on all characters I played back then.

A lot of people are put off by the in-game store, yes it does pop up now and again, especially after level 30 or so if you haven't bought any zone quest packs, but really at the point I'm at I don't really see it all that much.

Additionally, you can grind out premium currency in a fairly adequate amount, hell last time the expansions were on sale I managed to get one -purely- by grinding. It was a bit boring, but it was helped by a lovely bunch of max level players offering to help newer players like myself farm out the currency. There's even guides on getting said currency in a quick, efficient manner, if a little repetitive as it involves making characters and doing specific tasks over and over.

Is the game perfect? No, it shows some signs of age, namely in the graphics (The Beoring race/class is a fair grade higher quality than the other race models), some could argue the combat was clunky. But it's otherwise well-preserved, namely with exquisite attention to detail. Weapons make different sounds on hitting enemies based on what the enemy is or what they wear, rather than the same generic SFX being heard for hours on end, to name just one example.

As a frequent role-player, LOTRO holds the crown as the most RP friendly MMO I can think of, cut down only by it's rather archaic housing system, which is very restrictive in terms of decor (Seriously, you have to place furniture in fixed locations, meaning my bed has to be in the middle of a room...). Which is a shame, as the RP community has shrunk significantly, to the point where the only prominent RP takes place in the prancing pony inn. And obviously the quality there can often be... lacking. A great shame, but the game is niche so a tiny RP community is expected.


tl;dr: The game is good, try it. Premium currency can gradually be gained for free. Wait for zone quests and expansions to go on sale before buying them. if you like the game, considor subbing just for one month to remove the worst of the limitations on your account and characters (Remember to login to each character to unlock their traits etc while you're a VIP).

From a player that's played this game since release back in 2007, playing across 3 servers, founder account, over 15,000 hours logged over the years. I can tell you that my feelings for this game are very genuine and it's taken me a good two months to write this review after leaving the game.

Now, on to the content. The developing team behind LOTRO has put out content consistently that appealed to the audiences up to Rise of Isengard, which in my opinion, was one of the best expansions I've ever played in any MMO. The content before and including Isengard (Angmar, Mines of Moria, Seige of Mirkwood) are incredible, everything from the instances, zones, questing, down to the ambient sounds, it was amazing. Now this basically talking about the expansions as a whole, (I consider Angmar an expansion in this list, but it was vanilla content more or less) but the zones in between the major content areas were amazing as well, North Downs, Lothlorien, Evendim, Enedwraith, If you have never experienced the night in Forochel, you are missing on one of the most amazing game sceneries ever. Great instance designs in all of this content, from forging into Carn Dum with your friends and overcoming the managerie of bosses and Mordirith, to conquering places like Barad Guldur and the Tower of Isen along with toppling Saruman in an incredible battle atop the tower itself. Many many memories will never be forgotten that pertain to such events that took place in the game.

Alas, many new players will never get to experience this content simply because the game has progressed far beyond all of this. Most of the players that I met during my final year and a half or so were players that were there to rush to level cap and do "end-game", that's the joke kids, there is no end-game. All it is at level cap is a daily grind for your daily reputation factions for that "highest tier raiding set" that you will never put to serious use because most of the players that play the game now will NOT run content that will challenge them. It's that simple, I led pug tier 2 challenge runs on my main server of Windfola for years for players not in raiding guilds, and people would rather run Sambrog 6 man spams for crap rewards than spending a little more time in a bigger, more challenging instance for big reward. It pained me to see that the game populace had declined to such a lazy group of "give it to me without the challenge" group of people, because let's be honest, anyone that played in vanilla LOTRO can tell you how bloody hard it was, JUST to get your resistances right to actually stand a chance in Carn Dum, let alone actually fighting the bosses. But don't be let down, there are groups of players on many servers on both EU and NA that play around the level of that old content when it was released so they can specifically run that content and have it challenge them, they are great people and they organize themselves in server world chats and forums still.


In the past 4 months or so, i reinstalled out of pure nostalgia and brought a Captain up too pre-Gundabad, raiding everything I had missed from the time I stopped primarily playing LOTRO, up too the Remm raid instance, and further into update 29 before stopping again.

My opinion still stands in regards too the game losing the feeling of ambiance, however I will note that the developers do put in good work into the over-world in the past 10-ish updates or so that was seriously declining during the big battle meta content.

The game still releases buggy instances and content that simply does not work as intended on release, but from talking too some of my older friends that stayed consistent with the game, they say a lot of time instance breaking bugs are usually caught very early and either the content simply gets taken away/delayed too fix or sitting unfixed for some time but complete-able for the most part, but not too the extent of something like Smaug T2 when that was relevant. Also note that content release in terms of raids and instances is very slow, but that has always been the case, so if you are an endgame player, be aware that you will be repeating instances heavily.

Class balance has always been pretty wonky in regards to DPS classes, not every damage spec is equal, you will hear different takes from different players, up and down, left and right, but the class identity that a player may have had back in legacy content still is non existent for the most part as I have said back in update 14. I do not have a say in how the various damage specs for classes perform since I raided as a yellow captain, but wardens are generally pretty disgustingly busted in blue/red as they pretty much always have been in my opinion. On a side note in regards too classes, stat bloat is currently massive, and as far as I have looked and seen, there are no plans too address this, I don't necessarily think it's a huge issue, but numbers are getting very large and asinine.

As for some miscellaneous stuff, there are plans for a major graphical and mechanical revamp of the game within the next 2 years from what I've heard within the past month which the game sorely needs, but the game still looks nice, even more so with reshaders. Server population is stable and in some cases rising with some NA/EU server/s (Gladden & Brandywine for NA and Evernight EU) which is good, and I have heard current endgame zones in gundabad you will be competing for mobs, and in leveling zones you still encounter other players doing their own thing around you, which is simply nice too hear. PvMP hasn't been touched since update 13, you should do your own research into the respective server PvMP communities too see if you can stomach the toxicity that I remember.

I however cannot speak about a new player experience as I am a founding player and quit primarily at a point in the game that allowed me to catch up too endgame in update 29 in a reasonable time frame of about a month or so. The game has a LOT of content to get through with the legacy zones that are mostly optional, but a lot of the best qualities of the game are in the legacy content, so take that as you will, I feel there's a lot too keep a player of any caliber interested. Meta endgame with decent virtue levels, essences and LI's though, for lack of better words, will keep you busy as they are pretty mandatory for T2+ raiding.

My overall opinion is mixed, I personally think that both single and group content in terms of strict pve is in a better place because big battles is such a bad taste in my mouth, that they could only go up from there, and I honestly think they have with the quality of instances and the raiding scene still being challenging at T2+. RP is as strong as ever, it always had it's place and never really lost it which is good. Legendary item crafting used too be a lot simpler when I was much more active, but it got expanded on over the years which is a unique aspect of LOTRO and keeps it from being a cut and paste MMO among some other things.

I wrote this review and last updated it over 7 years ago, I've grown as a person, my life is completely different from the time this review was conceived, but I feel that it is a game I CAN recommend too others that have an interest in Lord of The Rings content, a good pve scene, and an even better endgame raiding scene. Hopefully if the graphic/engine update comes too fruition in the time frame that its projected, as well as the Amazon LoTR show next year, in late 2022, there's a strong horizon for the game and that makes me very happy.


Apa i morë, lenna-in ancalima Ae
(After the darkest night, comes the brightest day)

Since my gametime (off Steam hitting around 10k) is ridiculously high i figured i'd give an in-depth review of the game both on a leveling and end game basis for both new players and potential returning players as well.

This review will be done on a positive/indifferent/negative basis.

Positives:

+ Class variation and static roles: . You play as a Minstrel, you'll be healing. You play as a Guardian, you'll be tanking etc. Some classes such as Beornings and RKs can do multiple jobs, but the game follows the old school MMO system (as expected given its age). Over 9 classes to choose from all with unique roles both end game and unique abilities and playstyles while leveing and questing.

+ Graphics: The game graphically has aged like fine wine and is still appealing to the eye, especially in the more recently released zones. The revamped zones in low level areas and the new regions in Gondor are more up to date and places such as North Ithilien are breahtaking. The artstyle that LOTRO offers fits the game perfectly.

+ The Main Story: The overarching plot is fantastic at least in Volume 1 + 4, with Volume 2 being good and Volume 3 being 'okay'. There are currently 4 volumes (the latter still underway).

+ Music/OST: This has always been top notch and they've done a great job, especially in places such as Moria, Angmar, Rohan & Gondor to truly capture Tolkiens works in the flesh through the music that is played while venturing around.

+ The Lore: This is without doubt the closest to the literature source you can find in game or video form. Fantastic job in sticking and expanding upon Tolkiens works.

+ F2P: I could go on about this for hours but looking at it from the perspective of a new player, and the ability to buy the content with in-game currency and not pay a single penny (Unless you want to PvP) is pretty astounding. Naturally it's grindy as hell but it's free, so you can't really complain.

+ Raiding: At the time of this review there is plenty of end game content to keep you busy, some more difficult than others that require a kinship (Guild), voice communication as well as understanding the instance and your class respectively.

+ Landscapes/Open World: This speaks for itself. LOTRO is huge, and the atmosphere and immersion in some locations is phenomonal. Places such as Moria, Lothlorien, Minas Tirith, Mirkwood etc really stand out as the pinnacle of world building in this game.


Indifferent Points:

=Optimization: Game crashes are a thing as is lag, especially in highly populated zones. Can be game/immersion breaking.

= PvMP: PvMP (Player vs Monster Player) has so many positives but also a few negatives (as well as lack of any development pretty much since its release from the Developers in 10 years except for attempted balances between classes). The skill level for PvP is insane and that makes it both fun and enjoyable. If you enjoy a challenge PvP is definetly the hardest part of the game to play well. There are plenty of great and friendly players in PvP on both sides, but also a very negative and childish community that ruins it which can potentially make you lose interest if you don't learn to ignore the chat. That's PvP for you. There are, as in many MMOs 'flavour of the month classes' that are OP with updates, the only issue is that given how small Standing Stones team are and the lack of monthly updates (Updates are released less frequently than in bigger MMOs such as ESO, FFXIV, WoW etc) it's an on going dilemma.

= Developer Interaction: This isn't really a positive or negative but in comparison to how the game used to be (under Codemasters in Europe) when developers and GameMasters used to interact with the community very frequently, the lack of actual interaction between players and the Dev Team (outside of the Community Manager through Twitch & Forums) leaves room for improvement and more engagement. Despite this in recent months this has improved slightly, so hopefully we'll see more involvement from the team with in-game events in the future.

= Roleplaying: I'm not someone who roleplays in LOTRO so i can't offer much feedback on this. The community is, for the most part really friendly and welcoming and there are servers specifically for Roleplaying, so it must be good!.

=Crafting: Crafting is something, in most MMOs (with the exception of ESO) that i've never really enjoyed. I don't mind crafting in LOTRO when i need too but i don't take any particular pleasure in doing it.. If you enjoy crafting in other MMOs you'l likely enjoy it in this game as it has many viable purposes (from leveling gear, to consumables to end game relics). It's also part of questing as many of the crafing items you need can be found while playing and leveling through the game in each area. I'd stick this as a positive except it honestly isn't anything overly special that stands out. It's just 'there'.

Negatives:

- End Game Grind: While people seem to enjoy leveling alts (and while you can skip it with Valar upgrades to boost your character, bearing in mind you'll have to go back and do your deeds and learn your class anyway so it's pointless) you will pretty much have to go through the exact same content again from 1-105. While you can level in certain different areas for some levels you will have to venture through Moria, Rohan, Gondor on multiple toons. The issue isn't so much leveling (which is fun) but the grind you need to achieve a playable character for end game content. I could write an entire paragraph detailing how bad grinding to be 'raid ready' is (in an effort by Devs to keep people in game between major updates i assume) if people want an overview, but in a nutshell you have to; Obtain 83 Class Points, Get around 10+ Virtue Traits to level 20 Each. You'll have to level, upgrade, reequip and grind items for your legendary weapons. You'll have to grind essences and then craft them by obtaining crafting items from many different sources through grinding them to get the required essences you want, and even then you aren't guaranteed the best essences.

^ If Standing Stones made this less grindy (especially the essence and legendary item grind) for ALT characters, it would make the end game grind more approachable for people to do it more than once without making it feel like a chore.


- Class Development: In a nutshell; Beornings were released and are a broken mess and have been with only one patch since they were released. An introduction to a new race/class and little changes shows a lack of care, at least in my eyes for the finished product or player feedback. I haven't seen a new skill (or ability) on my main class in years. What happened?! Further more there are now MANY useless skills on multiple classes that haven't been made viable or addressed in years. This also goes for legendary legacies on legendary weapons. An example on Loremaster (My Main) is; Gust of Wind on Loremaster. Completely pointless. Ents go to War is no longer as viable as it used to be and Natures Fury is pretty much pointless as well in class rotations except for its pretty animations.

- Side Quests/Missions: This is more nitpicking but the sidequests in LOTRO (There are exceptions) are.....typical MMO fetch or kill quests. While some of the side quests have interesting stories and background with the lore, nothing has ever really stood out when questing in LOTRO outside of the Main Quest and stories. The actual stories that go along with the quests have improved considerablly since release, so perhaps i'm being abit harsh here. Despite this if you've played through Minas Tirth and done the questchain there, you'll know where i'm coming from when i say it's far from enjoyable at times. It has its ups and downs..

- Mounted Combat: Speaks for itself. It wasn't asked for and hasn't been used since Rohan effectively or at all outside of a couple of scenarios.

End:
Recommended :)! Thanks for reading

I only get 3 hours a day on technology in my psychiatric hospital and i use it to play LOTRO.

Highly recommend.

Summary:

This is a great game that is supported by a horribly unethical company. Thumbs up ONLY if you NEVER spend a dime. Enjoy the game in its free-to-play limited version and you will be fine.


Details:

Take the time to research Standing Stone Games (SSG). While you are it, research Daybreak Games (DBG). This is an important first step. If you do spend money, the credit card transactions will be with DBG. Look up the Better Business Bureau reports on SSG. Then, head over to the SSG forums for LOTRO and focus on the ACCOUNT SUPPORT forum.

Why am I pointing you to all these sources? So you won't think, like many do, that a thumbs down review is just from a disgruntled player. Make no mistake, I am disgruntled but only because this great game has been ruined for me by abysmal support and financial transaction fraud.

All the expansions to LOTRO cost something. They either cost LOTRO coins from the in-game store or cash. You will either play a LONG time grinding out free coins or you will pony up some cash and just pay for the expansions. I did the latter.

Where does the fraud come in you ask? I bought the first Expansion Trove which is a bundle of all old content for $60. What did I get for my $60? Nothing.

Mistakes happen right? No one is perfect. Lets give the company a chance to correct the error...

That is why I started this off with checking the history of complaints. So you, the reader, wouldn't make the same mistake I did. SSG has a history, especially with this specific Expansion Trove pack, for taking money and not delivering. I sent in two in-game help tickets which were answered fairly quickly with "we can't help here, go to this link...". Fine, perhaps I picked the wrong place to start my complaint. So, I went to their link and filled out everything.

Radio Silence. The tickets just say "Open". The only activity is me adding a daily follow up consisting mostly of a "Hello, is there anybody in there?". While a dose of Pink Floyd lyrics can help reduce stress, it doesn't help with the fraud.

It has been 5 days. The in-game help says tickets will be answered within a day. Unfortunately, there is no indication for how long it takes for out-of-game help. Or is there? Ahh, yes, all the BBB reviews and forum complaints. You see, SSG doesn't get back to you. Others have been waiting weeks for a response; therefore, my 5 days seems paltry compared to some complaints.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. You have been warned.

In all fairness, if SSG makes this right, I will amend this review with additional information. Good luck.


**UPDATE: SSG finally responded and did so as expected... "you got what you paid for"

After a bit more investigating, I see how this scam has been orchestrated. The Expansion Trove, as the name suggests, is advertised as a collection of previous expansions. SSG even goes so far to add that it contains "previous years content".

The month prior to the Expansion Trove being created, you could get each of these FULL expansions for $9.99. On December 2, 2020, they were marked down from $19.99 (verified through web archiving sites). These FULL expansions contained everything you would expect, the quests, characters slots, new classes, mounts, cosmetics, etc.

This NEW expansion pack is NOT a collection of expansions according to SSG. It is a collection of quest packs, despite the name, the advertised contents, and claims that it contains previous years content.

Therefore, you will NOT get the character slots, premium classes, mounts, or anything else previously associated with the EXPANSIONS. SSG expects you to pay the same amount and get fewer benefits. This is blatant false advertisement and more of the same cash grab and unethical business practices that are already well documented on the Internet.

I was cautiously optimistic that the company would make good on their advertised product. However, as stated before, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Spend your money elsewhere.