Quest Pack: Rangers and Ruins
Quest Pack: Yondershire
These are actually two new lower level zones for the game. So even if you have a high level toon you might not have these, which might be a good idea if you decide to level up a new toon.
I love the environment in that 2nd screenshot.
The game does such a great job with atmosphere.
Well, the fact that they’re still developing this game 16 years on is pretty impressive. I wonder at what point there just simply isn’t any more room to keep bolting on new zones and doubling all the stats.
In the meantime, I’ve been playing for the last couple of months pretty regularly. I’ve got my first warden almost up to 60, and about to head out into Lothlorien. Moria does get oppressive after awhile.
I love Moria but I’m taking it it small bits because damn I could see it wearing me down if I tried to binge it.
I will say, besides just more content, that crafting update is something to look forward to, so long as they actually do a good job. It’s about 10 years overdue, honestly.
Yeah I don’t think I’ve ever done any crafting at all.
I’ve started this game maybe a half-dozen times over the years, including the legendary servers. I love the world, the classes, the lore and the quests. But sometime shortly after level 50, I always give up. Between crafting, legendary items, currencies, ability bloat and the 10 billion odd unguents and consumables that pile up in my pack… it’s just too much to manage.
Someday I’ll manage to keep focus and level-cap. Maybe!
I log in a couple times a year to collect whatever freebies and take a stab at organizing my bags. Then I log off. My highest character is 59. I feel I’m getting my money’s worth out of my lifetime sub 😄
The change they made to trait points only being tied to your level and not as specific quest rewards, or deeds, really helped open up the game more. You no longer always have to do certain zones due to trait points being tied up there.
You can jump around more, do other questing zones, missions, skirmishes, or instances instead.
That’s an ambitious roadmap for a 16 year old MMORPG. I deeply regret not having bought in to the Lifetime thing all those years ago. LOTRO remains my all-time-favorite online game, and the only one I’ve played continuously since it’s release.
I keep thinking I will play some more, as I stopped last year halfway through Lothlorien / Mirkwood. I was having fun, but wanted to play something new I’d picked up, and then one new game led to another, with some return to No Man’s Sky in there as well, and now I’m deep into Valheim, King Arthur : Knight’s Tale and Fallout 4 playthroughs…so no time for MMORPGing in all of that!
More stuff for 2023, from a twitch Q&A:
4K UI scaling would be very welcome. Squinting gets old.
So, big update, especially to a couple of classes.
Return to Carn Dûm. The fortress of the Witchking in Angmar, and the end-game content of OG LOTRO to boot. That IS Interesting.
HOLY MOLY that is a lot of changes to Warden. (my main!)
Yeah, tons and tons of changes.
Not many changes to my hunter but still a trait reset. Weird.
I’m Warden main.
I logged in, looked at a whole new set of traits and gambit changes that took me hours to learn the first time, and logged right back out.
Oh no!
That’s totally Warden. Super difficult to learn well, and if you did, any changes will hurt. Seems like they tried to…simplify it though. I won’t know until later.
Yeah isn’t the warden the toughest, most advanced class to learn?