Got an email today informing me that my credit card expired and if I don’t update it my Lifetime VIP subscription will expire on Jan 1, 2038. Probably should hurry up and update that card.
By 2038 they might’ve updated to a 64-bit engine and gotten rid of that horrendeous “lag” when riding the war steeds.
You optimist!
I figure by 2038, they’ll have lessened the lag in Bree at least a TINY BIT.
Now another email has come out to say ignore the first, and the sub will last a “lifetime”.But does that mean I will die before 2038 or after it?
Edit: I thought it was all a scam phishing email.
I just thought that they might have got Gandalf or Elrond to look into the future and say that I was going to die on January 1, 2038.
LOTRO is adding “legendary” servers…basically starting over progression with the level cap reset to 50. Very similar to what Rift did with Prime servers. Subs only.
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?668013-An-Invitation-to-Relive-the-Legend
I was just reading that. I don’t get the point.
Subs like me can already play the original content at whatever difficulty and speed we want with the Stone of the Tortoise. I can choose to play without account-wide items I’ve accumulated through the years, and without twinking by high-level alts that can provide crafted items and gold.
The traits and skills on the “legendary” servers are identical to the current game. From what I can tell, it’s the same game as today but only up to level 50, with the original leveling rate and no twinking. I can do that already.
I’m probably missing something.
I mean, I guess? The only reason I could think to join in on a do-over progression server is having other people around. From what it says they’ll eventually drop Moria, Mirkwood, Isengard, etc on it, so I’m not really seeing how this is ‘wonderful’ for a new player. You still go through all of that anyway. Strange to me, I guess.
No, I don’t think you missed anything. They’re allowing high elves in it. It’s very odd.
I don’t really get it either, TBH. It’s just the original content up to level 50 and then progressing from there, but with all the new systems so it’s not really a “classic” server.
Maybe if I had a lifetime sub it’d be worth it to check out, but I’m not about to subscribe just for that.
I love all things Tolkien and have enjoyed LOTRO in the past. But now the questing in this game is just terrible and so is the performance.
I am in Rohan, home of the horse lords.
First, the mounted combat is excretable. Running around in a circle clicking the same 3 skills over and over is not good game play. I no longer even attempt to fight on horseback but dismount. At least I can use a few more skills. But I could excuse that.
Second, the performance is awful. There is so much pop-in, lag and other issues and I swear I can hear my hard drive churning. This game is a decade old. I played it on high resolution years ago. The performance is worse now than it was then. Not to mention crashes when fast traveling. But I could excuse that.
What I can no longer excuse is the just horrific questing. I was in Thornhope, a level 82 area that the orcs have entirely overtaken and burnt to the ground. I get there and of course the quests involve going in, looking for survivors, getting the Thane’s sword, killing orcs and the like. These quests take you all over this burnt village. That is visit #1. Then there is a quest to accompany the Thane in a futile attempt to retake the destroyed village. This quest takes you all over the place. That is visit #2. Then there is a quest to go in and look for personal effects - a girl’s doll, a coat, etc. Really, I am going to risk my hobbit butt on that kind of shite? But I am a good and noble hobbit so I do so. That is visit #3. I get back to camp and yet more idiots now want me to go back in to get yet more personal artifacts. I have spent an hour here, killing the same 3 orc types for an hour, piling up more corpses than Eomer on his best day and you want me to go in again on yet another shitty fetch quest in the same burned out town? Oh, fuck you LOTRO.
Almost every area in Rohan is like this. I must have had a dozen “kill 10 orc scouts” quests since landing in Rohan. So many quests that require so many return visits to some areas just kills any sense of progression. It should be blatantly obvious that any player who is playing Rohan wants to see the fords of the Isen, Mirkwood, Edoras, Dunnharrow and Helm’s Deep. That is where they should concentrate the questing and keep the progression moving towards these important areas. Yet in Rohan to progress I must visit Generic Village #422 and perform 15 more fetch quests to move on. It is terrible and while LOTRO has always had questing issues, I do not remember it ever being this bad. It is like the gave up and just cut-and-pasted the same quests in each shitty, ugly little town.
Does it get better? Or is this downturn in quality a permanent thing? Anyone who has been at this level, do you simply have to grind to get through this rubbish?
It’s not much better in Gondor, they built it all around mounted combat. I did fine without a horse, but it’s a slog. It changes in Mordor, but again, slog.
That is a shame. I understand Mordor being a slog, after all what else could it be? But to find out that the rest of Rohan and Gondor are all similar slogs through nothing quests does not inspire me to continue.
LOTRO has always struck me as greatly imbalanced in the quality of their zones more than perhaps any other MMO besides Warhammer Online (who only developed their early zones). The Shire is great and perhaps one of the best zones in any MMO ever. Forochel and Evendim were highlights to me. I thought the Gap of Rohan was pretty good and the Lone-Lands questing after revamp was really good. The questing in Moria was such a drag because there were no mounts but it remains a testament to some great world-building. But then contrast those with trash zones like Ered Luin, the never-ending North Downs, some of Mirkwood and Rohan and the quality discrepancy is amazing.
After Rohan Turbine seemed they acknowledged that mounted combat wasn’t the biggest hit and minimized it after that. Or maybe it was because Rohan = mounts in the lore and you moved on. Unlike Knightsaber, I found that once you’re in Gondor you can easily avoid most of it.
I thought that Rohan went on far too long with repetitive quest lines. This post on the topic still makes me laugh because it’s true:
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?517367-Rohan-–-Close-the-book-Turbine-I-don-t-want-to-read-anymore
Gondor is better, but…that’s where one just starts to see the new focus on grind and pushes toward the LOTRO store to do things that could be done by normal play in the past. That change is becoming obtrusive to me in North Ithilien and Mordor. For example…they basically just dumped crafting after Anorien level. Now it’s grind-time for stuff that you used to be able to make. And rep now has 2 new levels that (especially in Gondor) one has to buy rep acceleration tomes in order to get max rep and the capstone quests.
[Edit]: And imbued legendary items after lvl 100 “level with you”…as long as you continue to do a long-term grind for crystals and scrolls, and/or spend thousands of points in the store. And sadly, running alts is no longer a viable thing past level 100 or so, given the grind or points just to keep your weapons, armor and items up-to-date.
I didn’t say it wasn’t avoidable. When it came out it was still mostly mounted combat. They whittled that away.
I got to Mordor, reached 115, gave up shortly after that because I was still in the first Mordor zone and Mordor is…meh. Plus they really push the shop on you there, as you stated.
Hulgarblargfirth has got to be the name of my next CRPG toon after reading that rant.
DTG, thank you for the link. That is pretty much exactly the way I feel without the Nona hate (because I could not keep track of who is who, Nona is just another faceless NPC to me).
As for the store, I am not worried. I still have 6,000 Turbine Points and that is without a current subscription. I figure I can buy whatever I need.
You go much further than Gondor, that won’t be enough unless you like to grind away for weeks.
They really have taken it to a new level
Regarding mounted combat… it isn’t that good, yeah. But there’s only one zone in Helm’s Deep that focuses on it the way it is in Rohan. After that - including Gondor - it is very much de-emphasized. At least, that’s how I remember it.
I never bothered to grind out all the stuff in Gondor except at the very beginning when I got really into it for a few months. Since I basically just do PvE and don’t really group, I never saw a need grind out new gear. That said, I’m still half-way through Mordor… someday I’ll finish it. Someday.