Why did it Fail? This is just the name of the series, do NOT get too hung up on the title. Failure is obviously too vague to define but the idea is I look at older MMO's and see the good and the bad. Also this is the second type of video I made in this style and I can see lots of areas for improvement but things will get better but maybe slowly. Edit: I won't be comparing every MMO to wow, don't worry!
It didn't fail. This is when youtube becomes annoying, when content creators make false informational videos so they can keep the algorithm going with timely content. This game did not fail. And still has a very active player base even today.
I was going to ask if you watched the video. The reality is, the negativity sort of works on TH-cam and defining failure would be foolish and yeah this game has players and an audience for sure.... And I can see why
I played this for a few years. The main quest line was broken into books and a group was mandatory. It had great boss mechanics,raids that took weekends to do and solo trials
LOTRO has a very special place in my heart because it was my first real mmo experience. On top of that, Tolkien and Middle Earth are very dear to me so it transcended that experience more for me. Some very positive things I can say about LOTRO is the open world is massive and simply amazing and it's very easy to get lost in and be fully immersed in tolkien's world (obviously not so much on the graphical side at least by today's standards xD). I've played other mmos and they just don't feel as open worldly as lotro, take NW for example imo New World's world while it may be open, it just doesn't have the same scale or feeling as something like lotro. I can't exactly put my tongue on it but I just feel like most areas in NW feel too lived in or not open or wild enough that said obviously new world's world is very beautifully done regardless. The story as you pointed out is very much true to the actual story and there is so much hidden lore in the world that fans of tolkien's work can appreciate. The music that chance thomas worked on is also some of the best I've ever heard and fits the world of middle earth soooo well. I stopped playing lotro some years ago but I always make a habit to re visit at least a couple times a year just to step into the world again. I get hit with a lot of nostalgia and i appreciate the game is still live but it saddens me to know that it has declined so much and by a financial point yes a failure even if ppl don't want to see it that way (which is fine). They had a lot of ideas and work in progress to make the game better but they quickly realized that the cost would have been better making a new game and since amazon is making a new lotr game they just didn't see the point. The combat, the ui, everything was going to be reworked so again to your points there yes it's something that really hurts the game now. Also last time i played i noticed performance was not in a great spot I had MAJOR skill lag sometimes it took seconds for skills to fire off which was not always like that or at least to THIS extent. I will always come back to re visit the game here and there just for pure nostalgia and because it's the only real lotr mmo out there but I know even that won't last forever. I REALLY hope amazon can do LOTR justice because what they devs did with lotro was something very special and magical, might be hard to see by today's standards but they really did. I hope the same love and passion and world building goes into amazon's.
also I failed to mention this game at times has had some of the best end game I've ever experienced, the raids dungeons/instances everything. The raid "Rift of Nurzgashu", Tower of orthanc, and throne of the dread terror to name a few. As well as the osgiliath and pelennor instance clusters which were essentially 3-6 man dungeons. I would love to see amazon do some proper raids like this for their take on lotr and even new world.
It didn't fail though? It still gets regular updates and has a pretty decent playerbase size. It's a very comfy game with some issues but is overall very fun.
I've played this MMO since it was released and still do so every now & again. The F2P model it adopted was too greedy - gave the player no more than a free demo yet monetised nearly all aspects of the game in one way or another whilst making some pretty poor choices - systems introduced that were one-hit wonders, grindy mechanics that offered nothing but time sinks and an inability to keep the game reasonably free from lag that still affects it. The game now is just a vehicle to milk the devoted whales. For a new player, the older content is well worth playing through but steer well clear of the store and any end-game mechanics.
Lotro for me was my second main mmo I was playing Vanguard at the time. But the raids in lotro were excellent, the first was a Balrog, then Henchy the squid, and so many more having a full group of 20, or as you progressed getting down to just 5 guild mates was awesome.
I would like to add about the quests that they're meant to be completed in those areas while you're doing the main story. If you do it like that you'll have way less backtracking and it feels more natural and satisfying, you'll even find some side quests that really fit well into the main story!
honestly i would play it if they made "remake" with better UI art and small improvements like that.. i cant stand looking that ugly skill bar drawn by toddler
I think out of the WoW clones this was my favourite MMO. Played for a few years and loved pretty much everything about the game. Would love if this game had a graphic/animation overhall
I played this a lot when it came out and it was awesome - the group raids and end game in shadows of Angmar and mines of moria where some of the best I've done. This game started to die when it introduced a cash shop and grind items such as legendary items. The pvp used to be great as well freeps vs creeps - when you got your toon to lvl 50/60 you could fight the monsters - who could also level them also introduced trolls and some of those battles where amazing - lastly the devs sometimes looked on as world bosses and attacked towns - I think in mirkwood they had massive trolls try and kill people was epic - but alas grindy content with monetisation I tapped out.
I always liked LOTRO, which is odd for me, cause the combat style isn’t my thing generally, the UI is kinda clunky, etc. But, it was a game I never cared about min-maxing or getting to end-game because to me, that only matters in a PvP-focused game. With plenty to do for free, in a world I have always loved. The atmosphere and getting to visit areas from the books and films was always fun for me to explore, and the map feels rather large overall. The music is pretty good for the setting, and the playerbase is generally friendly. I always enjoyed swinging by Bree at certain times to see bands playing and players gathered, I saw this 10yrs ago, and recently 2months ago when I redownloaded it to pass some time again. It can feel like a lonely game sometimes, but it has charms and is far from what I’d call a failure.
Your points are well presented. I think if you are a more gameplayfocused player you won't like the games that much. As you said, the combat is not good and the UI is bad. On the other hand, if you enjoy being immersed in a well put together world and don't mind a lot of reading questtexts you can have a lot of fun with the game. To me it is THE most atmospheric MMO out there. I come back to the game every now and again just to be in the world, quest a bit and soak up the atmosphere. The developers stayed true to the books, for the most part, which brought them a lot of credit with the overall lotr fanbase. Will AGS stay true to the books in their upcoming MMO? I doubt it but we will see. All in all, did lotro fail? If you look at player numbers, yes. If you look at the game as a middle-earth/lotr game to get lost in and really immerse yourself, no. It is still getting regular updates to this day so unless something unforseen happens I guess the game will be around for a few yours longer.
YES! SWG was my first MMO, I LOVED that game. In a lot of ways it really was the first sandbox MMO, great game that was killed way before it should have been. 🍻
Anyone who thinks WoW's success was anything other than an aberration and not an MMO that set some ridiculous, unreachable standard is laboring under misconceptions that have persisted for over two decades. On the other hand, it is always good to have alternatives as the New World well begins to run dry - the subject probably would have been more timely had it coincided with Amazon's RoP premiere. For your next "failure" of a "potential WoW-killer", you could cover City of Heroes - its original release was in 2004.
I won't compare every game to wow, I didn't go into it but the reason I did is because obviously they have some similarities, I think Lotr was first, then Warhammer, then WoW.....so not only was it a similar time in the grand scheme of things, they also have other similarities that I didn't go into.
I like this type of content from you, maybe stay away from the clickbait titles though - "Is LOTRO Worth Playing in 2024" is good enough for your audience to get us yo click + new users
So no. I'm going to do both styles but they will be different, should you play videos will look at how the end game is etc and the upcoming content. These videos will be trying to look at the start of an mmo and see what works and what doesn't. I'm going to do games that really failed and old mmos. I think it's a good strat but might be a bit click baity but sometimes that's needed on TH-cam
I remember trying to find new mmorpg to play after i got tired with WoW back in the day. I played LOTR but never got into it. Nice seeing you doing stories like these Jay. Hope to see you cover other old mmorpgs too. 😊
That is the plan, loads of mmo's to check out like this. For the bigger MMO's I will focus on the game's content and stuff like that (ESO probably next). I almost liked lotr just the combat felt off, like just the starting attack would some times just not work and it felt very strange.
@@jayoddity Can't wait for the ESO review. I played about a year plus back in 2014, I loved the story of ESO and there were some quests which I loved too. I think the action combat was fine for it's time but of course there were other games which did action combat better during 2014.
I played when it was still subscription model. It was very good. It felt like old school slow pace rpg. I didn't like the grind. The lvl system is not only very slow in later lvls. But there are so many things you need to grind for gears, crafting and rep. The worst of those are deeds where you have to kill tons of enemies to raise attributes by very small margin. This wasn't possible later on when more enemies are elite. And don't expect any help with grind or dungeons. People spend very significant of time grinding those would never want to do that again. Oh, deeds are tied to your character only. It made lvling alts very painful. I wanted to come back to this game. But the f2p model nowadays feel horrible. They'd nickel and dime on everything. It's not technically pay to win. It certainly feels like pay to win unless you're willing to spend hrs grinding everyday.
lotro failed for the same reason new world will win in the end; combat, people can hype or poopoo all they want but at the ened of the day when the combat isnt fun, it inevitably makes orr brreaks the game, sometimes it takes years, lotro went free quicvk
Erm I don't know what's wrong with it? I think it is grammatically correct - Why Did The Lord Of The Rings MMORPG Fail? Although, I think the word "The" might be confusing so I will reword it but it's got in fron of LotR doesn't it.
it is better but to be realistic, it's not a popular form of the game. the overwhelming majority of players don't ever pvp. if you want to pvp in LOTRO, you have to find the people who organize the events. guilds will sometimes have "pvp nights" where one plays monsters, the other players, and then next time they switch, etc.@@jayoddity
Why did it Fail? This is just the name of the series, do NOT get too hung up on the title. Failure is obviously too vague to define but the idea is I look at older MMO's and see the good and the bad.
Also this is the second type of video I made in this style and I can see lots of areas for improvement but things will get better but maybe slowly. Edit: I won't be comparing every MMO to wow, don't worry!
You might wanna check out RIFT in the future, for this series. It is probably a good fit.
@@Trigarta I might do :)
I’m not sure an MMO that’s lasted about 12 years has ‘failed’ tbh. It’s a lovely game as well. Very chilled.
You didn't watch the first 30cseconds I guess
@@Priestleyguy no, like a muppet I started replying without watching it haha. I’ve watched it now and it was a great video Jay!
I would not consider this game is a failure. Also the game is old..so older MMO's had UI's in that nature
well gw1 and wow are older and did much better UI so lotro just didn't pay much detail for it
Hands down this would be my main game if they just updated everything, we need a lore respected Lord Of The Rings mmo.
It didn't fail. This is when youtube becomes annoying, when content creators make false informational videos so they can keep the algorithm going with timely content. This game did not fail. And still has a very active player base even today.
Ohh, he got me like Josh Strife Hayes got me with Worst MMO ever. lol
I was going to ask if you watched the video. The reality is, the negativity sort of works on TH-cam and defining failure would be foolish and yeah this game has players and an audience for sure.... And I can see why
I played this for a few years. The main quest line was broken into books and a group was mandatory. It had great boss mechanics,raids that took weekends to do and solo trials
LOTRO has a very special place in my heart because it was my first real mmo experience. On top of that, Tolkien and Middle Earth are very dear to me so it transcended that experience more for me. Some very positive things I can say about LOTRO is the open world is massive and simply amazing and it's very easy to get lost in and be fully immersed in tolkien's world (obviously not so much on the graphical side at least by today's standards xD). I've played other mmos and they just don't feel as open worldly as lotro, take NW for example imo New World's world while it may be open, it just doesn't have the same scale or feeling as something like lotro. I can't exactly put my tongue on it but I just feel like most areas in NW feel too lived in or not open or wild enough that said obviously new world's world is very beautifully done regardless. The story as you pointed out is very much true to the actual story and there is so much hidden lore in the world that fans of tolkien's work can appreciate. The music that chance thomas worked on is also some of the best I've ever heard and fits the world of middle earth soooo well. I stopped playing lotro some years ago but I always make a habit to re visit at least a couple times a year just to step into the world again. I get hit with a lot of nostalgia and i appreciate the game is still live but it saddens me to know that it has declined so much and by a financial point yes a failure even if ppl don't want to see it that way (which is fine). They had a lot of ideas and work in progress to make the game better but they quickly realized that the cost would have been better making a new game and since amazon is making a new lotr game they just didn't see the point. The combat, the ui, everything was going to be reworked so again to your points there yes it's something that really hurts the game now. Also last time i played i noticed performance was not in a great spot I had MAJOR skill lag sometimes it took seconds for skills to fire off which was not always like that or at least to THIS extent. I will always come back to re visit the game here and there just for pure nostalgia and because it's the only real lotr mmo out there but I know even that won't last forever. I REALLY hope amazon can do LOTR justice because what they devs did with lotro was something very special and magical, might be hard to see by today's standards but they really did. I hope the same love and passion and world building goes into amazon's.
also I failed to mention this game at times has had some of the best end game I've ever experienced, the raids dungeons/instances everything. The raid "Rift of Nurzgashu", Tower of orthanc, and throne of the dread terror to name a few. As well as the osgiliath and pelennor instance clusters which were essentially 3-6 man dungeons. I would love to see amazon do some proper raids like this for their take on lotr and even new world.
It didn't fail though? It still gets regular updates and has a pretty decent playerbase size. It's a very comfy game with some issues but is overall very fun.
I've played this MMO since it was released and still do so every now & again. The F2P model it adopted was too greedy - gave the player no more than a free demo yet monetised nearly all aspects of the game in one way or another whilst making some pretty poor choices - systems introduced that were one-hit wonders, grindy mechanics that offered nothing but time sinks and an inability to keep the game reasonably free from lag that still affects it. The game now is just a vehicle to milk the devoted whales.
For a new player, the older content is well worth playing through but steer well clear of the store and any end-game mechanics.
Lotro for me was my second main mmo I was playing Vanguard at the time. But the raids in lotro were excellent, the first was a Balrog, then Henchy the squid, and so many more having a full group of 20, or as you progressed getting down to just 5 guild mates was awesome.
I would like to add about the quests that they're meant to be completed in those areas while you're doing the main story. If you do it like that you'll have way less backtracking and it feels more natural and satisfying, you'll even find some side quests that really fit well into the main story!
I did that with the human starting and it still sent me back, but maybe I am just wrong
honestly i would play it if they made "remake" with better UI art and small improvements like that.. i cant stand looking that ugly skill bar drawn by toddler
Do you have any expectation about amazon LotR MMO?
Great video jay Oddity! I could watch these series videos all day from different creators. well done!
I think out of the WoW clones this was my favourite MMO. Played for a few years and loved pretty much everything about the game. Would love if this game had a graphic/animation overhall
I played this a lot when it came out and it was awesome - the group raids and end game in shadows of Angmar and mines of moria where some of the best I've done. This game started to die when it introduced a cash shop and grind items such as legendary items. The pvp used to be great as well freeps vs creeps - when you got your toon to lvl 50/60 you could fight the monsters - who could also level them also introduced trolls and some of those battles where amazing - lastly the devs sometimes looked on as world bosses and attacked towns - I think in mirkwood they had massive trolls try and kill people was epic - but alas grindy content with monetisation I tapped out.
I always liked LOTRO, which is odd for me, cause the combat style isn’t my thing generally, the UI is kinda clunky, etc. But, it was a game I never cared about min-maxing or getting to end-game because to me, that only matters in a PvP-focused game. With plenty to do for free, in a world I have always loved. The atmosphere and getting to visit areas from the books and films was always fun for me to explore, and the map feels rather large overall. The music is pretty good for the setting, and the playerbase is generally friendly. I always enjoyed swinging by Bree at certain times to see bands playing and players gathered, I saw this 10yrs ago, and recently 2months ago when I redownloaded it to pass some time again.
It can feel like a lonely game sometimes, but it has charms and is far from what I’d call a failure.
Your points are well presented. I think if you are a more gameplayfocused player you won't like the games that much. As you said, the combat is not good and the UI is bad. On the other hand, if you enjoy being immersed in a well put together world and don't mind a lot of reading questtexts you can have a lot of fun with the game. To me it is THE most atmospheric MMO out there.
I come back to the game every now and again just to be in the world, quest a bit and soak up the atmosphere. The developers stayed true to the books, for the most part, which brought them a lot of credit with the overall lotr fanbase. Will AGS stay true to the books in their upcoming MMO? I doubt it but we will see.
All in all, did lotro fail? If you look at player numbers, yes. If you look at the game as a middle-earth/lotr game to get lost in and really immerse yourself, no. It is still getting regular updates to this day so unless something unforseen happens I guess the game will be around for a few yours longer.
Jay tell us about Star Wars galaxies.
YES! SWG was my first MMO, I LOVED that game. In a lot of ways it really was the first sandbox MMO, great game that was killed way before it should have been. 🍻
@@AzraelsTear you first sandbox not THE first sandbox ;)
Smedley...
@@cb2000a John is a GOAT!
Anyone who thinks WoW's success was anything other than an aberration and not an MMO that set some ridiculous, unreachable standard is laboring under misconceptions that have persisted for over two decades.
On the other hand, it is always good to have alternatives as the New World well begins to run dry - the subject probably would have been more timely had it coincided with Amazon's RoP premiere.
For your next "failure" of a "potential WoW-killer", you could cover City of Heroes - its original release was in 2004.
I won't compare every game to wow, I didn't go into it but the reason I did is because obviously they have some similarities, I think Lotr was first, then Warhammer, then WoW.....so not only was it a similar time in the grand scheme of things, they also have other similarities that I didn't go into.
I like this type of content from you, maybe stay away from the clickbait titles though - "Is LOTRO Worth Playing in 2024" is good enough for your audience to get us yo click + new users
So no. I'm going to do both styles but they will be different, should you play videos will look at how the end game is etc and the upcoming content. These videos will be trying to look at the start of an mmo and see what works and what doesn't. I'm going to do games that really failed and old mmos. I think it's a good strat but might be a bit click baity but sometimes that's needed on TH-cam
Sounds like a great plan! I look forward to variety of content!
@@jayoddity
I remember trying to find new mmorpg to play after i got tired with WoW back in the day. I played LOTR but never got into it.
Nice seeing you doing stories like these Jay. Hope to see you cover other old mmorpgs too. 😊
That is the plan, loads of mmo's to check out like this. For the bigger MMO's I will focus on the game's content and stuff like that (ESO probably next).
I almost liked lotr just the combat felt off, like just the starting attack would some times just not work and it felt very strange.
@@jayoddity Can't wait for the ESO review. I played about a year plus back in 2014, I loved the story of ESO and there were some quests which I loved too. I think the action combat was fine for it's time but of course there were other games which did action combat better during 2014.
The UI also doesn't scale very well.
I’m not so sure it failed because of the combat alone. I think this video needs more work. Focus on your script writing skills.
Watched LOTR trilogy. Kept saying "i've been there in the game" to my wife.
I enjoyed the game back in the day, but later the game become very bleak and dark which I did not like.
just ralk about dark age of camelot.. best MMO ever
I played that game for 11 years .good times..omg The rift raid i still have videos of the balrog fight ehehe
I played when it was still subscription model. It was very good. It felt like old school slow pace rpg. I didn't like the grind. The lvl system is not only very slow in later lvls. But there are so many things you need to grind for gears, crafting and rep. The worst of those are deeds where you have to kill tons of enemies to raise attributes by very small margin. This wasn't possible later on when more enemies are elite. And don't expect any help with grind or dungeons. People spend very significant of time grinding those would never want to do that again. Oh, deeds are tied to your character only. It made lvling alts very painful.
I wanted to come back to this game. But the f2p model nowadays feel horrible. They'd nickel and dime on everything. It's not technically pay to win. It certainly feels like pay to win unless you're willing to spend hrs grinding everyday.
lotro failed for the same reason new world will win in the end; combat, people can hype or poopoo all they want but at the ened of the day when the combat isnt fun, it inevitably makes orr brreaks the game, sometimes it takes years, lotro went free quicvk
No pun intented, but this is a little bit out of context. 20 yo game, different mindset, idk...
Yeah but, was it any good?
Erm some parts yes some parts no
@@jayoddity just playin JO, love the new series dude keep up the content!
I used to play this a lot of kid, good times
they needed to rework on pvmp system better would of kept me playing pve gets boring after awhile
Solid serie, love it!
cant wait for LOTR done by amazon
You forgot the /s
Will New World last 12 years? Ha Ha Ha And A true expansion lasts for 2 years New World expansion lasted 4 months lolz And you call that an expansion
Leaving a comment for the algorithm
Or you can learn English and write a proper video title lol
Erm I don't know what's wrong with it? I think it is grammatically correct - Why Did The Lord Of The Rings MMORPG Fail?
Although, I think the word "The" might be confusing so I will reword it but it's got in fron of LotR doesn't it.
also btw you can play pvp with your own character, against the monsters. you just have to bring it to ettenmoore, the pvp area.
Ooo that's better than I thought
it is better but to be realistic, it's not a popular form of the game. the overwhelming majority of players don't ever pvp. if you want to pvp in LOTRO, you have to find the people who organize the events. guilds will sometimes have "pvp nights" where one plays monsters, the other players, and then next time they switch, etc.@@jayoddity
there's a new starting experience, might be worth checking out