LOTRO to relaunch as free to play?

So I returned to the Shire for the first time in a while, to check out the Summer festival. First off holy crap it runs so much better than the last time I visited, thanks to the 64-bit client, but I’d almost forgotten how fucking PRETTY the Shire is.

The worst thing is that I’m pretty sure they’ve lost players cause of how shitty the 32-bit client ran, and they could probably have released this client update far earlier, around the time the warsteeds got introduced would’ve been a perfect opportunity cause that was about the time you really noticed how shit the engine ran.

Oh well, glad its here finally.

And welcome back to Middle Earth! Got to get back into LOTRO again now that i’m 750 in Destiny2.

Hopefully folks will come back like I did. I took a break to avoid burnout, but I’m so glad I’m back.

If I re-download through Steam onto a 64-bit machine, will I automatically get the 64-bit client?

I honestly don’t know, I downloaded the standalone client.

The 64 bit client is just an option in the regular client you need to enable - it doesnt matter where you download the game from.

Oh wow, thanks for posting thisr! I wasn’t using the 64-bit client.

For others: In the Launcher, click the small down arrow (in the top right corner) and “Options” then “Game Client”. In game you need to re-set a few graphics options like v-sync.

It looks a lot cleaner, the draw distance is amazing (you can see more distant details like ruined towers on far off hills) and I almost get 60 FPS in Bree on a 1080. :-)

I have been back in for almost 20 hours, its a great game.

Hah - its not very obvious, that is true. And its really quite an amazing difference.

I am a bit wary that those who claim they see little to no difference, simply hasn’t enabled it.

Cool, makes sense. Thanks.

Hmm so I logged in for the first time in a year and everyone is gone! Where are my people! (my high-ish level characters). Is there a character recover somewhere I am missing?

Milspec did you follow through with this? and if so, what server?

Maybe a better question is where is QT3 now that the servers are all over the map. I see Brandywine is still there. I will look at the thread above.

I am playing on Landroval, where my character was made originally in 2007. I logged on and it was still there, right where I left it.

I was not part of the QT3 guild.

I play with about 3 others. Pretty casually, maybe 10 hours per week max. There are others floating around that are dabbling. I don’t think anyone is in a rush.

I still plan to try and push these dabblers into Moria!

At this point the best thing for LOTRO would probably to merge all the servers, or at least make it so that Matchmaking for instances was cross-server, perhaps then there would be more than 5 people looking for instances in the instance-finder tool (vs the 100+ using chat… for no good reason).

It is nice that they updated the UI of the instance finder, but I wish they went the extra mile and added some features from Rift or other games with better-working instance finders (that are actually used).

If I popped back into this, where would I find you fine folks?

Downloaded all the updates and enabled the 64-bit client. Popped into Bree where I had left off during the Anniversary Event back in March. Got a message that I needed to choose a specialization…FUUU…

I hate when they make a change that requires you to respec. I can’t remember what points I had put where on my character 2 years ago when I last respecced, and I just know I’m going to fuck up and hamstring my character trying to reassign things now.

I guess I’m off to find a recent guide to respeccing a Champion…I know I had the Yellow skill tree, the one that focuses on dual wielding and Blade Wall, etc…, I just can’t recall which skills I had maxxed vs which ones I took a single point in just to move the meter. I wish it at least gave you some idea of what you had done previously…

Good luck with finding that guide.

My experience is that this game is figure-it-out-on-your-own. Has been for years. Almost always by the time someone takes the time to post something, the rules have changed…old traits don’t matter anymore, new skills matter more than old ones, virtues aren’t what they once were. SSG does not post anything worthwhile regarding how to play…just cryptic patch notes…even their developer diaries are pretty much dead.

Maybe the streamers can give you some timely tips, but I can’t stand to watch most of those. A few are OK.

But if you spend the time just reading the tool-tips on the skills then you can piece together a decent rotation and a gear plan. Before Mordor, pretty much any reasonably-well-thought-out gear/skill combo will work if you’re not doing raids.

After a little research it seems like not a whole lot has changed with the Champion skill trees, and I was able to find a late 2018 build guide that showed the same skills in the same order, and what to take for best effect if building an AoE Solo Champ (which mine is). I just sank the majority of my points into the Yellow tree skills this time, skipping a couple of useless ones, whereas last time I think I may have taken a couple of additional Blue and Red skills on the path up, but can’t recall ever using any of them besides the Blue one that restores your power in exchange for fervor (Second Wind) and the Red one that gives you three attacks early on (Brutal Strikes).

Since I also somehow had the intro movie play when I first logged in, I suspect that activating the 64-bit client may have “reset” something, and that’s why I had to respec despite having only been away for a few months. I really wish the UI would leave all the skill icons in place from before, and just shadow them out or something, so that you could at least see the skill tree skills you had taken previously and try to recreate what was working for you.

Ah well, I will get into a few easy fights to relearn the rhythm of my skills, tweak whatever is needed, and then it’s back to Moria to finally finish the last couple of zones in there.

Respeccing is not related to your user-configuration.

I Believe you can respec as often as you like for no cost?

Thought it was annoying as well when my characters got ‘reset’, but luckily I had a screenshot of my button layout so I could put stuff back where my muscle memory tells me the button should be at.

I think if you also pick the same traits again, the skills you get access to will automatically end up in the actionbutton position they were last applied.

Yeah, that’s what happened with me when I respecced my Ranger, all the skills popped back on where they were.

Ranger? You wish…Hunter.