I played this game so much when i was younger, and still revisit it occasionally for nostalgia nowadays - glad to seei t's still active edit: this video is really well done, laughed multiple times 🤣🤣🤣
For years my dad used to play this. Everytime I used to see him as a child he'd be on his computer playing this. Playing this game gives me a sense of comfort and after 13 years me and my dad are now questing with eachother and on our way to Moria
ah yes....all of the beornings running about, high elves, named dwarf clans....the game is still strong because of its diverse player base bound by the love of tolkien.
Objectively they weren't. The dwarves in the passed few expacs directly break the lore. Female dwarves are participating way too actively in warfare. Where as Tolkien very clearly stated that female dwarves where kept hidden and protected by dwarf men due to their low population. They also shouldn't have female voice actors. Since Tolkien stated female dwarves sound like male dwarves. This is more than a "very unlikely in the lore but technically not impossible, like hordes of hobbits and elves in bree". This is a "Tolkien wrote one thing and ssg did the opposite"
@@Spartan1312 How can you? Lotro is massively lore-breaking, and RoP hasn't dropped yet. To say one is more lore-breaking than the other at this point is insane.
This is still my main MMO today. Btw, the riding skill and mount are actually accessible to F2P. Pretty easy to earn "LOTRO Points" via completing deeds (kill x number of monster, or exploration achievements) so you can buy in the store, without the need to spend real money. Of course it's going to be insane grinding if you aim to get the juicy store items (they are mostly for convenience and cosmetics), but the basics (like ability to ride mount) are pretty cheap to acquire.
@@MitchManix yeah, I know and understand MMO players' immediate reaction when faced with cash shop - but in LOTRO, things can also be earned by playing, and not exclusive to money spenders, that's a good thing. I am sorry but I haven't reached the latest releases to give comment. I have 7 characters between levels 20 to 95 - there's so much content, I think it will take me 2 years to reach Mordor. The journey is indeed long in this game lol What I have observed though is that the world design, music, and quest details consistent;y get better as you move to newer released areas. So it's worth playing if you are a fan of Tolkien and wanted to have a visualization of middle-earth.
@@MitchManix gundalag i mean gundabad isnt to bad its a nice expansion instances are fairly fun apart from the 6man thats been overtuned to hell on t3+
@@bons244 @MitchManix to add to this comment, I think the only thing in the game you can't buy with the in-game currency you earn from playing the game, is fast travel between the different stable-masters. Otherwise every single unlock and bit of content is available for LOTRO points, which can be earned reasonably quickly and easily from just playing the game. It can be very grindy depending on how you go about earning the LOTRO points, but as F2P models go, it's a very open and accessible one that you really can fully enjoy without spending a single cent or penny or whatever.
Chance Thomas did a phenominal job on the music he wrote, I think for the Rohan expansion. I still like the janky midi-sounding old music too. And that players can play their own music. This game is literally a ren faire online at this point and I love it
I was there for beta and the launch, played it for years. One of my favorite gaming moments was the departure of the fellowship from Rivendell. Just before they left Gandalf told me that he was glad I was here to keep watch in the West while he was gone, I ran around the room like a puppy.
The game always felt like a labor of love. Every zone was amazingly detailed. Sure, much of the graphics and animations are dated, and the game engine is not as robust as current mmo engines. My favorite part of the game became the pvp zone. When you had big groups going on both sides, it was a blast. I loved playing the bad guys... orcs, spiders, wolves. Sure, we got killed a lot, but aren't the heroes supposed to win in the end?
The 'Moors will always be my most bittersweet memory of any MMO. I played in it when you still had to earn infamy on your own. When ranks meant something. Where everyone knew everybody and it was a really fun environment to play in. Elf Camp and TA shuffles everyone complained about but then missed when they were taken away. It was a unique, fun mode of PvP that will never be matched. I wish it had never been touched. I'd still be there.
I actually just started playing LOTRO right before you put this out, and came to a lot of the same conclusions. This game is definitely recommended for anyone who feels nostalgic of the MMOs of old. So for anybody who laments the current state of MMOs and really want an MMO with some population still who will scratch that old itch, this is the one for you. Bonus points if you're a fan of the books and lore because it's stuffed full of that too.
one of the most curious things i found in LOTRO (more often and intense than in other MMOs) is that this one is VERY role-play heavy. I've attended weddings where they brought in a band with original compositions, since the game contains instruments and through a mod it allows for music in sync. Things like that and the parties in the neighborhoods (the houses you can buy) add a curious extra level of immersion
It's not really a mod. The game is designed to play abc files. All you need to know is how to write music in that format. Chances are if you can read tablature you can make an abc file. There is a mod that makes accessing the files in your LOTRO "music" folder easier, though. It also has a function to help sync you with the other bandmates too. However, you don't need it, you just have to be able to time the chat command right. The music playing is all Vanilla.
This is not only a game, it's a journey. The best one to play solo and with friends one day of they week. You forgett the old looks while looking to the Moon passing through Orion in the night sky. It's a beautiful game Indeed.
One thing I would add. The graphics in starter areas are far from what comes ahead. With maximum settings, longest draw distance... it's rather pretty. Or horribly dreadful in dark evil places, the atmosphere is real. Lady Galadriel bit is new since few years back and pretty much explains your task. You will follow the Fellowship and other notable figures, helping in their task. It's not necessarily all lore friendly but it's the most honest game on Tolkien's material around. MMO with insane amount of quests to do, deeds to finish, gear to craft. Free to play isn't bad either, you could technically do everything without spending a dime. But few months of subscription helps massively. Since there's really no PvP you don't miss anything. And there's enough player base still in 2022 to get a guild (Kinship) who will help you craft gear and give guides and tips. Player hosted events are real too. Annual Weathertop music festival shows what people can do in game, with a plethora of instruments and notes you can write yourself if you have the know how, or download songs to /play in game to appear to be the first Vince Neal. The pace is nice, there's roleplay servers too. Best MMO fight me on Weathertop.
I've played LOTRO for over 13 years now, and I still love exploring it's fairly accurate rendition of Middle-Earth. I would point out at 6:22 that doing Deeds (achievements you earn whenever you do certain things such as kill a certain number of monsters or do a certain number of quests) can earn you lotro points, the currency of the lotro store. The F2P has gotten a lot better recently as well, with the number of free areas being greatly expanded.
Very sympathetic, thanks Mitch. I've played since beta 15 plus years ago and still love it. Newcomers just wait until you visit Imladris, Lothlorien, the amazing world of Moria, Orthanc, Helms deep and The Golden Hall of Rohan. Visit Minas Tirith and stand on its top tier. Venture into Mordor past Minas Morgul. Visit Shelobs lair. Stand atop Mount Doom. Walk into the tower of Barad Dur. Or go north to the Lonely Mountain, sneak into Dol Guldur or stand on the Carrock. Travel to the Ettemoors and become a Warg killing free people in PVP, actually called player versus monster player. Go west to the Grey Havens from whence our heroes left Middle Earth. Trust me, you will love this world and all it has to offer. Namárië
I've been playing since 2010, and one reason I'm still playing is that they continue to add new content and to fill in the spaces on the map so I can see more and more of Middle-Earth. The other main reason is how faithful to Tolkien's books they are, and when they "fill in the gaps" and extrapolate, they start with the books and go from there. The game may be dated, but they've improved the graphics over the years and added a lot of detail to the landscape. It's an evolving game, and it looks beautiful.
I've been a VIP with LOTRO since day one release in 2007 and it has never not been on my hard drive. It is a home away from home for me and I will never stop playing unless I'm forced. Just so many good times and good things I can say about the game. Always happy to see someone share equally positive opinions about LOTRO. Thanks for the review.
Never played it, just wondering - after such a long time in the game, what is it that you do mostly? Is there good and fun end game stuff or you are just making new characters and leveling?
@@rayhoodoo847 I mostly craft, gather, level up slowly. I'm also a big screenshot taker so I'm always climbing hills etc. LOTRO is just a quiet place to escape for me.
"snapping back into action just in time to deliver some mega pint size justice" had my crying bro good job on the video Ive been playing this game on and off for a bunch of years now and everything you said feels very accurate to me. Much love
I remember playing this the year of the release of mines of moria, adventuring with my friends from school and working together in the storyline was so much fun. Something I wish other mmos would look at in the future would be the fellowship manoeuvres (where everyone in the party would select a colour: green, red, yellow and blue and it would have an effect in the battle depending on the combination or all one colour such as all green being a massive party heal helping sway a battle) I love the idea of the group doing a move together adding more interaction than just how much damage can I do.
Yeah i always want to see more team moves in MMOs, You could have the warrior throwing the thief in the air for an aerial combo or all the mages casting a big fireball.
GW2 has something like that - spells can be starters and mark a region, and someone doing a finisher casts a combo spell between them, You can do those solo, but its best in a big group.
LotRO is one of my favorite games. I started in 2007, left for a long time, then returned in 2017 to play off and on. The game is exactly as you say, very relaxing. It is really nice to know you have a whole world to explore and no push to grind out gear or power. You can just go an explore. And the world is incredible. The team really does justice to Middle Earth. One of the things they did an amazing job with is atmosphere. If you get to the Lone Lands and then head into Agamaur, for example, is a taste of it for that feeling of danger, dread, evil, and corruption. But when you go to Angmar, it's even more powerful. Then you go into Rivendel and it's breathtaking. Or Forochel and the forest lands, or Evendim and seeing the ruins of Annuminas, and that's only west of the Misty Mountains. The world is massive and there are so many incredible things to discover. I once rode a horse from the Shire all the way to Lake Town and it took me three hours. Also, I have to say it's funny you say the map is terrible (it is) then showed the newly updated map of the Bree area. They are working to update things, and a new expansion just game out last year. I already saw people commented that you can earn the LotRO points through gameplay, too. But, I hope you play more even off and on because it is such a good game and it is a nice break from the high pressure grind other games expect.
Let it be known that this game has THOUSANDS of hours of content. To roll multiple characters is a sign of devotion. Just warning y'all. 15 years of playing and I still can't see level cap.
Been playing since 2008. I have 4 characters at level cap (140), another 4 around the 130s, and then a bunch of lower level ones who mostly sit around crafting or adding storage. That said I only do aim to do all the content on my main character. With the others it's a case of power levelling so that I have class options at end-game. But it is a very casual friendly game, and there are plenty of players who level at a slower pace than the content is released, which is great. There are even guilds (kinships) dedicated to slow levelling and loads of exploration, like Slowtro.
Let it be known that this game have very little actual content and 99% of your gameplay time will be pointless and boring grinding. I would rather play 10h good game than 10.000 hours of suffering. Because moronic logic like this one we have very few real MMOs. Majority of people are discouraged by your words, they dont want to waste 1 second on this garbage not to mention thousands of hours.
@@Alen725 Then...don't....play it? Only LOTR fans would play the game really and if you don't like it, why would you bother? If you don't like the game from when you start and grinding ain't your thing: don't play it. Almost every MMO -IS- grinding in some form as part of the gameplay loop so I fail to see your point.
@@evankimori I dont play it now (but I did test it), and I wont obviously, you dont need to say that genius. Its not your typical garbage enjoyer safe space, its public comment section so I will write anything I want. No, not all MMOs are grinding. Just because you dont value your time doesnt mean all people who look forward to play MMOs are same. For example FFXIV, GW2, ESO all have very time consuming activities but those are great and dont have p2w garbage. Coop there have sense, and those are true MMOs with large group activities, LotR is not massive multiplayer role playing game, its just grindfest with no story where online elements hinder you.
This is my favourite game. The sense of peaceful, satisfying, relaxing adventure honestly doesn't compete with any other game for me. Somehow the game is still so beautiful and charming even with and old graphics engine. The quest dialogue is literally worth reading because its all woven in to the middle earth story really nicely, the music is genuinely some of the best video game music of all time no joke and sets the mood perfectly in the environments. The instances and dungeons are unique and fun and there are sooo many of them, basically allowing you to experience any major battle from the books and beyond at any given time. The community- they are so active and lovely and sociable and helpful, more so than any other online game I have ever played. This is a game that truly feels like home to me . A cosy, safe, fun, tolkienesque home.
This is the MMO I play the most today. I used to play on a WoW-WotLK private server before LotRO, so yeah, your comparisons are very accurate. And their F2P model can be a bit archaic, but it's not the worst one out there, which I know isn't saying much. Still, you can earn a lot of premium currency by playing the game. Most of the things I unlocked I earned on a free account. I think the game is worth it to pay $15 to get one month of VIP to get rid of some of the annoying bits (like unlocking fast travel between certain stables) forever plus $5 worth of premium currency. Even if you sub for a month or not, there's a LOT of content here before you need to consider buying an expansion and all the basics you expect from an MMO work as expected; 1-hour Hearthstone, 1-hour other travel abilities, have to find a banker, auctioneer, or mailbox (and using them does NOT cost irl money). The quests are often very simple fetch/kill quests, but I'd also add that the game has a few gameplay advantages to make doing them easier than WoW: total kills are usually between 4 and 12, the right mobs not hard to find and respawn fast (sometimes too fast in crowded Orc camps lol), plus OP played a Hunter with tracking abilities. If a quest relies on drops, rates are 100% in most cases and are automatically collected. Quest items are rarely cluttering in your inventory unless there's a reason for it. You never have to stop to loot a body. Even if your inventory is full, items spill over into a cache that deletes itself after 50 minutes. If you click on a useable item and it's not within reach, your toon will path to it and use it. Out of combat health regen is fast for most of the game and most classes regen mana faster than the player can use it. All this adds up to a gameplay experience that make it easy to keep moving within the game while you notice all the jank lol. But seriously, between all the basic quest objectives there are a lot of really well-written questlines with likeable characters and dialog. There's a lot of book-accurate lore to be found that was well-researched and, where lore had to be invented, it's done in a respectful way. Oh, and since you mentioned dancing...There's also /dance1, dance2, dance3. They're all bad lol. They are all, however, lore-friendly. Unlike WoW, which wanted pop culture appeal.
I revisit this game every few years, last time just a few months ago. It still holds up as a genuinely entertaining MMO. The nostalgia hit doesn't hurt either!
exactly.those who whine about dated graphics are no fans of Middle earth.i don't care about graphics,i care about the atmosphere,the music,the lore which are all superb.
That's literally the only reason I just started downloading the game after 14 years. The world felt so fucking real and dense, no other MMO has ever achieved this. I didn't even give a shit about Lord of the Rings before playing the game, but learned to love Tolkien's stuff because of LotRO. You automatically become a roleplayer in that thing because the atmosphere is so inviting.
@@rippspeck So true! I am of course a huge LOTR fan but nothing I experienced until this MMO - not the books, not the films, nothing - has made me feel so much like I'm actually in Middle Earth. Everything else, I felt like I was on the outside looking in at a story. With this game, I'm like, "No, now I'm HERE, I'm actually PART of this". :D The game can lag all it wants, I don't care because I'm immersed in it.
I'm on a 50/30 connection and the game still feels like it's on 56k. I'll give it another go but it was terrible with the influx of new/returning players. Couldn't even take 'just one more step'.
@@sayokadi2370 i agree with the latter part.i hate how many new players there are.clogging up places and causing massive lag.i wish there were fewer of them
After years of putting it off, I just started this game and I've been really enjoying myself. Excellent video, fantastic edits. Had me chuckling. Subscribed.
As a huge Tolkien fan I've always been aware but kind of wary of this MMO without knowing very much about it. Lately I've been paying more attention and to my delight people are overwhelmingly positive towards it. Your funny little vid has just convinced me to step in. Got a feeling I'm going to need some healing & solace after watching what's coming with Amazon later this year.
You are right to be wary. The game has become more p2w. They recently redid the LI system but, to our dismay, it is now a battle pass system that you can pay absorbent amounts of money to progress through. This and the games engine being a trainwreck, especially in the later zones, makes the game not really worth playing anymore. You will be able to play up until Rohan before the cracks start to really show.
Don't listen to the other commenter, you'll absolutely love the game if your a fan of Tolkien. I've been playing since launch (sometimes sub and sometimes f2p) and I absolutely love it regardless of how I am playing.
The game is fun and you can play it pretty much F2P if you want. I played it for about 7 years and would do end game raid, but as a F2P player I spent a lot of time grinding Lotro points to buy expansions and other things, always spend your Lotro points when the items are on sale. I stopped playing about a year ago. The reason I stopped was because I had come to find the end game boring and repetitive, with lots and lots of grinding for stats and equipment only to have to do it all over again when there was an update and more power creep, after years of this I was done. They also changed the Legendary Item system and again undid tons of work I had put into my Legendries, and lastly I just found I wanted to try some other games I had wanted to play for a long time. Now that may sound bad but I will tell you the game is great and I didn't mind the grinding of Lotro points as a F2P player, I just could not stand the end game any longer. Its a beautiful game. Its a big game with lots of zones. It has lots of things in it from the books and really does right by the Lord of the Rings. And I have to tell you Moria is breathtaking, its so well done, its so huge, it full of cool and interesting things, and as a lover of the books I really enjoyed it. Minas Tirith looks incredible, its a living city, in the middle of another humongous area, that includes several zones of Gondor, other cities, other sights. And don't forget Mordor, Rohan, the Lonely Mountain, and so many places, including zones only quickly traveled through or mentioned in the books and lore, and they are all beautiful and so well done. If you don't want to play endgame content and just journey around the world as F2P, I think its a wonderful experience for anyone who loves LOTR. My advice is that you should chose an elven hunter as your first race class, the race gives bonuses for damage with bows and swords, and the class moves quickly on foot and has more travel options and advantages than most other classes so its better suited for exploring and site seeing. Also since its a mainly ranged unit its easier to do some deeds (which often including kill a # enemies). One more thing, remember to use World Chat for questions and remember the LOTRO Wiki is your friend, you will have to look things up once and a while. Try it, you have nothing to lose, I think you will enjoy it.
Just as a clarification, you can get a permanent mount without spending real money. You just have to do a few deeds to be awarded enough LotRO Points for it. Since the riding trait is pretty cheap, that can usually be accomplished accidentally before leaving Bree-Land. :)
Used to play this game so much for years, I stopped playing it when I got a full time job. I loved this game so much, even met people who became friends. Which I even visited at their home country. Also it was a nice time doing end game content, I had so much time and fun. Sadly farming so much for gear is what got me off, since I could not combine it anymore with my work life :(
Interesting to hear your take on the game. And I must say I feel the same way. I have been “off and on”-playing LOTRO for many years and I do enjoy the slower pace the game have chosen to stick with. The questing is a bit grindy at times, but if one read the quests and try to “live a little in the game world” it makes it more agreeable. I have a love-hate relationship to the Deed-system in the game, but as a semi-completionist I just have to do them. But the music and aesthetics of the game makes it good anyway. It is a great game to relax with! And solo-able for the most part, but there are also a good community there! Met a lot of friendly people over the years, and got loads more positive and also helpful interactions with people than negative. I cannot remember even one negative interaction. Anyways… Nice video and I liked the humor you added in! And we all know there is a psycho in every hobbit!! But I must add that I think you have more than one dance per race. /dance1 (2, 3)
The entire Shire area in LOTRO is so beautiful and relaxing to just soak in the atmosphere of. It's one of my favorite 'zones'/regions in any MMORPG I've ever played. I absolutely love just wandering around, soaking up the ambience of the area.
Feels weird it now being an "older" mmo, i remember when it was brand new, playing the beta and then again at launch. The older mmos to me are still Ultima, EQ, and DAoC lol.
@@Spr1ggan87 It does definitely feel weird calling it an older mmo, and yet here I am years later still finding myself going back to it after years. There is just something charming about the game that keeps brining me back.🙂
I just started this back up. The new expansion is geared to level 1-32 and with the Tv show coming out very soon I feel this will bring more players. It is a really good mmorpg
Lotro is still my main and only mmo after 8 years of playing. I do take breaks when I get busy with work, but still revisit the game all the time. The Minas morgul story was amazing, and can’t get to other regions when I get more time. And I love the lore additions made by the team, all the stories and characters are amazing! And I really like how they gave out so much content for free!
I have played LOTRO for 12 years and have 22 alts. It is by far, the most fun, enormous, open world MMO I have ever played. This is a wonderful video. You can earn a horse in a quest btw and later on, get horses via reputation building or deed completions.
ive been playing on and off for 10 years, since i was 14, and its my absolute favourite mmorpg and just in general one of my favourite games. im not a person who is overly concerned with great graphics or anything, in fact i think the dated graphics of this game a quite charming, but i think thats just because the athmosphere is just so brilliant. if it felt...empty or like a cheap knockoff, it probably would bother me more, but you can really really tell that they tried to make a game that FELT like lord of the rings. ALSO, i like this game bc i have a pretty old computer and not a very strong laptop, and i can play this game absolutely no problem in at the least the "good" to "very good" settings on the graphics, which i gotta say does look better than the low quality settings obviously lol. a friend of mine plays this game on a tiny microsoft surface tablet pc and it runs on ultra, its just hard to see sometimes cause the screen is so small lol. but in my opinion it makes the game a lot more accessible if you dont need latest hardware to even run it, its what annoys me about a lot of modern games. like i get good graphics are cool, but it makes me literally not able to play the game haha. im just gonna say, trying it for free is incredibly worth it, especially now since theres like years of content for free now...when i started, the content up to level 35 was free, and i spent years on that, just trying out all the different races and classes, and now i think its free up to level 90 or something??? its crazy. im still only at level 65 lmao. its NOT a game designed to get to max level as fast as possible, imo, it just doesnt give you the great experience this game has to offer. if you like stuff like dragon age origins, you like lord of the rings and dont mind reading quite a bit of quest texts if you want the whole picture of why youre doing what, and think you have the time for it to put an hour or two into it here and there, my god why would you not try this game lmao.
LOTRO is not getting a complete overhaul, this has never even been discussed. LOTRO only has 1 Project for Older Assets which will be adjusted to be more like the Modern Visuals they are using but there is no ETA on this nor will it be a pass of the whole game. this was announced in August 2022 during an Executive Producer Interview. Otherwise LOTRO is getting what it usually does: Major Updates have New Content with the Modern Visual Style they been using for years, New Mechanics being added, some Older Mechanics being adjusted, etc but there is no Overhaul coming.
You have a gift for self-degradation, and the delivery of dry sarcasm, and the occasional display of an overt goofiness that keeps you relatable. Keep it up!
I really enjoyed it, but haven't played in a while. The thing that struck me was the attention to detail when it came to Tolkien lore - you could tell it was put together by people who loved the books :-)
Really enjoying all your videos exploring older MMOs! I'm amazed at how much time and effort you put into creating all these, at the same time as keeping them light, funny, and informative. You make it look easy to collect all the footage and edit it all together, when it's definitely not! Also I LOVE the windmill song at the end of your videos, when my brother and I played Zelda Windwaker as a child we'd hum along to that 😊 such nostalgia. That and the witches song are brilliant 👍
You probably didn’t plan this, but I noted the consistency between you playing a hobbit and describing yourself (in your channel plug midway through the video) as a small TH-camr. :)
There's a slew of MMO's coming out in the next few years that are using 'old school feel' as part of their pull. This game still has it. I came back to it after many years away, and at first, like most games, my attention span wanted me to fast travel everywhere and just hoover up quests. When I finally finished Ered Luin with my Dwarf I had the chance to fast travel to Bree and carry on a habit forged by WoW and Guild Wars, of zero-attention quest grinding. Instead, I binned the idea of fast travel off - I got a mount (paid for a month of VIP to get me going) and decided to run it. Through Ered Luin, the Wondershire, The Shire, until Bree-Land. All in all, took about 20 minutes. LOTRO players will know that this journey, by the game's standard, isn't that far. But, getting into Bree by evening game-time, stopping briefly to watch a band before going into the Prancing Pony, buying an ale and just letting my character stand in front of the fire with a beer and a smoke after a hard ride - that's what hooked me. Not the bad graphics (It's an old game, but still), or the lag, or the fetchy grindy quest system, but the journey through this world made is so much more interesting.
I remember playing LOTRO when it was released. I mostly remember that main characters I played and how some missions had overlap in an unusual and cool way. For example, as a dwarf, you fight this battle with some elf reinforcements helping. If you go there as an elf, you can get the quest to be one of those reinforcements. The attention to detail is mind blowing!
I’ve heard Tolkien’s inspiration for the Nazgûl was seeing people coerced by their “better halves” into 6 hour trips to IKEA. And thank goodness someone else finally noticed how creepy Elijah Wood can be.
@@nathanscarlett4772 I think all relationships involve sacrifice but at some point behaviour becomes abusive. That’s up to the individual to a degree but my personal boundary is 47 meatballs. If you can’t decide on a duvet in that amount of time call me on your communicator. I’ll be in the Home Depot looking at hammer drills and angle grinders.
Great coverage of the game. I was a beta tester and bought a lifetime subscription way back (Founder) and have been playing it off and on ever since. I just did a /played : "You have been playing for: 4 months 2 weeks 6 days 2 hours 12 minutes 3 seconds"
As someone that started playing LotRO on launch and having stopped quite a while ago i must admit, watching your vid and reading the comments made me want to give it another run. Slow pace and exploring the surroundings is my kinda stuff, so yeah, will download it again and see if i can find my old chars wherever they are nowadays. 😉😄
when he said "small youtubers like myself" I thought he was joking, sitting here with 1mil+ subs... damn I was fooled, he really is a small youtuber, what a nice quality content!
I was an original beta-tester and played often for the first few years of the game and then moved on to Star Trek Online when it came out. I still revisit LOTRO for a bit every year or so but I have to admit that as a solo player, the grind is more boring than that of most other MMOs.
I love how faithful it is to the lore and i really like how the game looks. I have a hard time getting into it unfortunately due to the very clunky combat
A nice review, mate. I also enjoyed WoW Vanilla back in the day. I tried wow classic again but after years of MMOs I simple was conditioned to play at maximum efficiency. Back in the day, nobody had a clue on how to go about things, where quests were located and what dungeons to do. You had to figure out things by yourself and explore. As sad as it is, no other MMO has given me that feeling again. I miss that feeling :(
Early Level LOTRO is still fairly the same as it's been for a good while. The Newest Leveling experience one would encounter would be the Yondershire between Ered Luin-the Shire-Evendim, a Level 20 to 23 Region. Middle and Latest LOTRO is different for Questing where it has less back and forth (Early LOTRO is still a "Go kill X, go back to NPC, then go back to the same spot you were at) and more Recent Regions have the Modern Visuals LOTRO has been using for a couple years now. Which that is a key issue with LOTRO still here in Mid-2022: The Early Game especially for Level 1 to 20 still looks & plays how they've been for years. The SSG LOTRO Team really should have gotten Ered Luin, the Shire and the Bree Lands (Levels 1 to 20+ with Bree Lands having the 20+) using the Modern Visuals, give the Quests the Modern Style where it Progress more naturally because Early LOTRO doesn't represent what LOTRO is beyond being a Game that has been around for a long time.
The best experience by far(imo) is before moria after that the game really takes a swing for the worse. I got up to level 80-85 or something a few months ago but I was bored out of my mind. I was having a blast up until 50, had crafting and made my own gear etc. Of course the crafting is completely useless after 50 which I sadly realized. The zones are mostly okay but the quests are the same ones over and over again. It was just not fun at all after a while. The game desperately need a level squish.
@@huldu Well it is an MMORPG, the "Quests are the same ones over and over again" is pretty much any such Game just new Skins, NPC Names and Object Names. Level Squish has been a hotly debated topic and it's pretty much divisive. Most Feedback from the LOTRO Community has folks NOT wanting a Level Squish as they like gaining Levels, etc.
Maybe it's just my nostalgia but I remember the lower levels being much better in the early days. There was much more interaction with other players and it seemed like there was always a fellowship quest to do. They changed it all so it could be done solo because there was less players, but it just feels like playing a single player game now. They need to stop focussing on high level content and fix the early game.
I enjoy your understated humor, dropping a funny moment in here and there between the informative stuff. Many creators see the informative stuff as little more than a framing device for their lame jokes.
Fantastic review! I started playing this game since it came out but stopped when it was beginning to show its age too much. Tried it recently, and it ran poorly even on a high-end PC. Hoping they will update some of the technical stuff so it runs smoother. The rumored graphics update would also be great!
Sadly there is no "Singular" Graphics Update. Visual Updates have been happening for a while but usually only is for 1 Region (Latest Content) + Nearby Regions which this has been roughly happening every 3-ish Months for more Recents Updates and the Current Graphics Style has pretty much been the same + Improving since April 2020. A good example is the Latest Major Update, Update 33 on April 20th, 2022, added the Yondershire between Ered Luin, the Shire and Evendim in Eriador. Yondershire uses the Graphics Style LOTRO is currently using for it's Latest Content and all 3 nearby Regions received Changes along their borders. The Shire receiving the largest Changes with how the Landscape in it's North-West now looks.
@@kentonmichael7818 turning from direct x11 ro direct x9 makes it unlaggy in Minas Tirith, so it wont throw you out of game in every 5 minutes, after all, its a 7layered city, like a cake that has layers
It runs well if the server does not lag, and server lag is not an easy thing to ever fix, after all, the whole region or the whole middle earth is filled with lots of players all the time. Such amount will cause in lag sometimes, but usually the game plays well
I would give a small chunk of my soul for this game to be fully reworked, and released as a remastered title with upcoming expansions. I would absolutely pay a monthly sub for an updated version of this game, maybe similar to New World's graphics but even then, the old graphics aren't insanely far off !
@@HBosse90 still, a small chunk of your soul??!!! That's crazy. I have a friend who did that, after that he couldn't enjoy life as he did before. If you give a chunk of your soul for the game, you won't be able to enjoy it.... Don't do it!
EPIC video! Important to note that Lord of The Rings Online often offers free content to players. During COVID for example they gave away SO much content. Its worth even subbing a month to get a ton of DLC unlocked forever too! Great review of the starter experience though!
I played this game years ago. It was pretty charming. I'm happy it's still going, even if I'm on Final Fantasy XIV now. It really felt like a love letter to the books, not really a cheap knockoff of the movies.
Yesterday reinstaled the game for a nostalgia trip after 12 years... it's all just how I left it. Amazing how the community and dedicated developers can create a lasting game despite the old graphics
I played it a lot. Really a lot. I also have an LTA. (Remember the Old Forrest before it became easy going with an own map?) But the game somehow lost me at the time the war steeds were introduced. Fighting on the back of a horse was really messy. Just circling around and hit the enemy just every now and then. I refused to fight on horseback, but still there were enemies on horseback and so simple fights lasts forever. Meh. Also there was an inflation of ingame currencies. At some point I lost the thread. But still it is a very good mmorpg with a very good setting. Even F2P works quite good. I'm glad it's still around.
You should also look into DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) soon too. It was also made in 2007 by the same creators as LOTRO I do believe. The game is still going strong to this day and boy oh boy has it changed over the years!
Unfortunately it's true. Even Mines of Moria back in the day, one of the greatest expansions ever made in any game was eclipsed by the Wrath Of The Lich King. Blizzard back then was competitive, TOO competitive. No matter how small the opposition, the company wouldn't let any MMO catch a breath. WOTLK was scheduled to be released later, but Blizzard changed the schedule so it could beat MoM.
I have played many games over the years, but LOTRO is the one I always come back to. I love it even though it is laggy. I find the scenery breathtaking. I don't care if it has outdated graphics! This was a very fun and entertaining video!
Your voice sounds like Gordon Ramsay half whispering a bed time story to me. It's simultaneously soothing me and triggering my fight or flight. Love it
The Fellowship combat system remains a thing of pure genius and when you and your group pull off a coordinated attack it’s an exhilarating feeling. Never bettered by any other MMORPG
Not played this since launch but one aspect I always found funny was that instead of Health you had Morale (because dying and respawning would be lore breaking). Meaning getting repeatedly stabbed just made you more and more sad untill you went home :)
I played this game so much when i was younger, and still revisit it occasionally for nostalgia nowadays - glad to seei t's still active
edit: this video is really well done, laughed multiple times 🤣🤣🤣
did not expect the algorithm to bring Sir Gamer Welyn here
maybe an idea for a future video/stream 👀
IT STARTED OFF LIKE ANY OTHER DAY SPAWNING IN MORIA
oh shit welyn himself! hey do you like 40k ?
MEGA PINT
For years my dad used to play this. Everytime I used to see him as a child he'd be on his computer playing this. Playing this game gives me a sense of comfort and after 13 years me and my dad are now questing with eachother and on our way to Moria
Remember to push him into the lava at mount doom
@@Takeaff consider it done 😅
This is the best thing i read in a while in youtube comments.
Such a wholesome comment from someone named Crusty4skin rofl
Goals
The game is still strong in 2022 because the writers were faithful to the lore, plain and simple.
That explains all the Elves from Gondolin I met gathering in Bree! 😆
ah yes....all of the beornings running about, high elves, named dwarf clans....the game is still strong because of its diverse player base bound by the love of tolkien.
@@hobbithortie I agree but those are minor issues, compare it with Rings of Power lmao
Objectively they weren't. The dwarves in the passed few expacs directly break the lore. Female dwarves are participating way too actively in warfare. Where as Tolkien very clearly stated that female dwarves where kept hidden and protected by dwarf men due to their low population.
They also shouldn't have female voice actors. Since Tolkien stated female dwarves sound like male dwarves.
This is more than a "very unlikely in the lore but technically not impossible, like hordes of hobbits and elves in bree". This is a "Tolkien wrote one thing and ssg did the opposite"
@@Spartan1312 How can you? Lotro is massively lore-breaking, and RoP hasn't dropped yet. To say one is more lore-breaking than the other at this point is insane.
This is still my main MMO today.
Btw, the riding skill and mount are actually accessible to F2P. Pretty easy to earn "LOTRO Points" via completing deeds (kill x number of monster, or exploration achievements) so you can buy in the store, without the need to spend real money. Of course it's going to be insane grinding if you aim to get the juicy store items (they are mostly for convenience and cosmetics), but the basics (like ability to ride mount) are pretty cheap to acquire.
Oh nice, was really pleasantly surprised with this one. Would you rate the latest content?
@@MitchManix yeah, I know and understand MMO players' immediate reaction when faced with cash shop - but in LOTRO, things can also be earned by playing, and not exclusive to money spenders, that's a good thing.
I am sorry but I haven't reached the latest releases to give comment. I have 7 characters between levels 20 to 95 - there's so much content, I think it will take me 2 years to reach Mordor. The journey is indeed long in this game lol What I have observed though is that the world design, music, and quest details consistent;y get better as you move to newer released areas. So it's worth playing if you are a fan of Tolkien and wanted to have a visualization of middle-earth.
@@MitchManix gundalag i mean gundabad isnt to bad its a nice expansion instances are fairly fun apart from the 6man thats been overtuned to hell on t3+
@@bons244 @MitchManix to add to this comment, I think the only thing in the game you can't buy with the in-game currency you earn from playing the game, is fast travel between the different stable-masters. Otherwise every single unlock and bit of content is available for LOTRO points, which can be earned reasonably quickly and easily from just playing the game. It can be very grindy depending on how you go about earning the LOTRO points, but as F2P models go, it's a very open and accessible one that you really can fully enjoy without spending a single cent or penny or whatever.
Yeah LOTRO points super easy at low levels
The music in this game played a huge part in recreating the LoTR atmosphere, especially around The Shire.
absolutely, also in the new regions, the entire soundtrack is just beautiful
Chance Thomas did a phenominal job on the music he wrote, I think for the Rohan expansion. I still like the janky midi-sounding old music too. And that players can play their own music.
This game is literally a ren faire online at this point and I love it
Exactly, the music is epic but the rest is meh.
The music is the worst part cause they cant use any of the movie soundtrack
Shire and Rohan music is unreal like award worthy
I was there for beta and the launch, played it for years. One of my favorite gaming moments was the departure of the fellowship from Rivendell. Just before they left Gandalf told me that he was glad I was here to keep watch in the West while he was gone, I ran around the room like a puppy.
The game always felt like a labor of love. Every zone was amazingly detailed. Sure, much of the graphics and animations are dated, and the game engine is not as robust as current mmo engines. My favorite part of the game became the pvp zone. When you had big groups going on both sides, it was a blast. I loved playing the bad guys... orcs, spiders, wolves. Sure, we got killed a lot, but aren't the heroes supposed to win in the end?
PvMP is still going strong on the Arkenstone server, not so much on the other servers, but still present on most servers.
Well said ❤
You mean Wargs?
Modern MMOs? Like what?
The 'Moors will always be my most bittersweet memory of any MMO. I played in it when you still had to earn infamy on your own. When ranks meant something. Where everyone knew everybody and it was a really fun environment to play in. Elf Camp and TA shuffles everyone complained about but then missed when they were taken away. It was a unique, fun mode of PvP that will never be matched. I wish it had never been touched. I'd still be there.
I actually just started playing LOTRO right before you put this out, and came to a lot of the same conclusions. This game is definitely recommended for anyone who feels nostalgic of the MMOs of old. So for anybody who laments the current state of MMOs and really want an MMO with some population still who will scratch that old itch, this is the one for you. Bonus points if you're a fan of the books and lore because it's stuffed full of that too.
do you find people crossing the roads to join you with during gameplay?
@@tchevensky7802 yes
@@tchevensky7802 yeah. I play on brandywine and it's populated
@@mattzart me and my gf will be joining you guys soon. Epic game.
Old School RuneScape
one of the most curious things i found in LOTRO (more often and intense than in other MMOs) is that this one is VERY role-play heavy. I've attended weddings where they brought in a band with original compositions, since the game contains instruments and through a mod it allows for music in sync. Things like that and the parties in the neighborhoods (the houses you can buy) add a curious extra level of immersion
It's not really a mod. The game is designed to play abc files. All you need to know is how to write music in that format. Chances are if you can read tablature you can make an abc file.
There is a mod that makes accessing the files in your LOTRO "music" folder easier, though. It also has a function to help sync you with the other bandmates too. However, you don't need it, you just have to be able to time the chat command right. The music playing is all Vanilla.
@Mephilis 78 yeah the mod to sync with bandmates is what i was talking about.
This is not only a game, it's a journey. The best one to play solo and with friends one day of they week. You forgett the old looks while looking to the Moon passing through Orion in the night sky. It's a beautiful game Indeed.
Well said. I have had quiet the journey with my brawler thus far.
It’s a journey, idk about game though. Super shitty combat and interaction with pretty much everything. Bad voice acting selection
All around bad game other than it being lord of the rings
I'd disagree. I played it for 11 years and did enjoy the game. But I never forgot it looked old. It looked old at launch.
Its a journey of a boring grindfest and horrible gameplay. Correct word would be torture, not journey.
One thing I would add. The graphics in starter areas are far from what comes ahead. With maximum settings, longest draw distance... it's rather pretty. Or horribly dreadful in dark evil places, the atmosphere is real.
Lady Galadriel bit is new since few years back and pretty much explains your task. You will follow the Fellowship and other notable figures, helping in their task. It's not necessarily all lore friendly but it's the most honest game on Tolkien's material around. MMO with insane amount of quests to do, deeds to finish, gear to craft.
Free to play isn't bad either, you could technically do everything without spending a dime. But few months of subscription helps massively. Since there's really no PvP you don't miss anything. And there's enough player base still in 2022 to get a guild (Kinship) who will help you craft gear and give guides and tips.
Player hosted events are real too. Annual Weathertop music festival shows what people can do in game, with a plethora of instruments and notes you can write yourself if you have the know how, or download songs to /play in game to appear to be the first Vince Neal. The pace is nice, there's roleplay servers too.
Best MMO fight me on Weathertop.
I've played LOTRO for over 13 years now, and I still love exploring it's fairly accurate rendition of Middle-Earth. I would point out at 6:22 that doing Deeds (achievements you earn whenever you do certain things such as kill a certain number of monsters or do a certain number of quests) can earn you lotro points, the currency of the lotro store. The F2P has gotten a lot better recently as well, with the number of free areas being greatly expanded.
can u give me gold i used to play as a teenager still have the account i believe
Very sympathetic, thanks Mitch. I've played since beta 15 plus years ago and still love it. Newcomers just wait until you visit Imladris, Lothlorien, the amazing world of Moria, Orthanc, Helms deep and The Golden Hall of Rohan. Visit Minas Tirith and stand on its top tier. Venture into Mordor past Minas Morgul. Visit Shelobs lair. Stand atop Mount Doom. Walk into the tower of Barad Dur. Or go north to the Lonely Mountain, sneak into Dol Guldur or stand on the Carrock. Travel to the Ettemoors and become a Warg killing free people in PVP, actually called player versus monster player. Go west to the Grey Havens from whence our heroes left Middle Earth. Trust me, you will love this world and all it has to offer. Namárië
I've been playing since 2010, and one reason I'm still playing is that they continue to add new content and to fill in the spaces on the map so I can see more and more of Middle-Earth. The other main reason is how faithful to Tolkien's books they are, and when they "fill in the gaps" and extrapolate, they start with the books and go from there. The game may be dated, but they've improved the graphics over the years and added a lot of detail to the landscape. It's an evolving game, and it looks beautiful.
I've been a VIP with LOTRO since day one release in 2007 and it has never not been on my hard drive. It is a home away from home for me and I will never stop playing unless I'm forced. Just so many good times and good things I can say about the game. Always happy to see someone share equally positive opinions about LOTRO. Thanks for the review.
Totally agree, same here.
Yes me 2. Iam a Vip Beta 2007. Iam Ambio laurelin server.. VuS guild.. i still love the game! Gr from hollanda
Never played it, just wondering - after such a long time in the game, what is it that you do mostly? Is there good and fun end game stuff or you are just making new characters and leveling?
@@rayhoodoo847 I mostly craft, gather, level up slowly. I'm also a big screenshot taker so I'm always climbing hills etc. LOTRO is just a quiet place to escape for me.
@@JohnDL212 Alright, sounds nice. Might give it a try. Thanks.
"snapping back into action just in time to deliver some mega pint size justice" had my crying bro good job on the video Ive been playing this game on and off for a bunch of years now and everything you said feels very accurate to me. Much love
Glad you enjoyed 😂
Nice Rottenborn nod 😁
Awesome production quality.
"Oh well shit... I've lost connexion" made me spit my tea on the monitor. Worth it
Glad u enjoyed it
how are you not a bigger youtuber! this is incredible! well done!
I remember playing this the year of the release of mines of moria, adventuring with my friends from school and working together in the storyline was so much fun. Something I wish other mmos would look at in the future would be the fellowship manoeuvres (where everyone in the party would select a colour: green, red, yellow and blue and it would have an effect in the battle depending on the combination or all one colour such as all green being a massive party heal helping sway a battle) I love the idea of the group doing a move together adding more interaction than just how much damage can I do.
Yeah i always want to see more team moves in MMOs, You could have the warrior throwing the thief in the air for an aerial combo or all the mages casting a big fireball.
GW2 has something like that - spells can be starters and mark a region, and someone doing a finisher casts a combo spell between them, You can do those solo, but its best in a big group.
Man, your voice is ideal for audiobooks or lore in general. Loving all your vids!
LotRO is one of my favorite games. I started in 2007, left for a long time, then returned in 2017 to play off and on. The game is exactly as you say, very relaxing. It is really nice to know you have a whole world to explore and no push to grind out gear or power. You can just go an explore. And the world is incredible. The team really does justice to Middle Earth. One of the things they did an amazing job with is atmosphere. If you get to the Lone Lands and then head into Agamaur, for example, is a taste of it for that feeling of danger, dread, evil, and corruption. But when you go to Angmar, it's even more powerful. Then you go into Rivendel and it's breathtaking. Or Forochel and the forest lands, or Evendim and seeing the ruins of Annuminas, and that's only west of the Misty Mountains. The world is massive and there are so many incredible things to discover. I once rode a horse from the Shire all the way to Lake Town and it took me three hours.
Also, I have to say it's funny you say the map is terrible (it is) then showed the newly updated map of the Bree area. They are working to update things, and a new expansion just game out last year. I already saw people commented that you can earn the LotRO points through gameplay, too. But, I hope you play more even off and on because it is such a good game and it is a nice break from the high pressure grind other games expect.
bro, I haven't played since 2012, but your comment just pushed me over the edge! I'm reinstalling later today!!!!
Thank you : )
@@randalthor6872 careful Rand, Middle Earth doesn’t need any more Dragons being Reborn and causing havoc ;) lol
Let it be known that this game has THOUSANDS of hours of content. To roll multiple characters is a sign of devotion. Just warning y'all. 15 years of playing and I still can't see level cap.
Been playing since 2008. I have 4 characters at level cap (140), another 4 around the 130s, and then a bunch of lower level ones who mostly sit around crafting or adding storage. That said I only do aim to do all the content on my main character. With the others it's a case of power levelling so that I have class options at end-game.
But it is a very casual friendly game, and there are plenty of players who level at a slower pace than the content is released, which is great. There are even guilds (kinships) dedicated to slow levelling and loads of exploration, like Slowtro.
Let it be known that this game have very little actual content and 99% of your gameplay time will be pointless and boring grinding. I would rather play 10h good game than 10.000 hours of suffering. Because moronic logic like this one we have very few real MMOs. Majority of people are discouraged by your words, they dont want to waste 1 second on this garbage not to mention thousands of hours.
@@Alen725 Then...don't....play it? Only LOTR fans would play the game really and if you don't like it, why would you bother?
If you don't like the game from when you start and grinding ain't your thing: don't play it. Almost every MMO -IS- grinding in some form as part of the gameplay loop so I fail to see your point.
@@evankimori I dont play it now (but I did test it), and I wont obviously, you dont need to say that genius. Its not your typical garbage enjoyer safe space, its public comment section so I will write anything I want.
No, not all MMOs are grinding. Just because you dont value your time doesnt mean all people who look forward to play MMOs are same. For example FFXIV, GW2, ESO all have very time consuming activities but those are great and dont have p2w garbage. Coop there have sense, and those are true MMOs with large group activities, LotR is not massive multiplayer role playing game, its just grindfest with no story where online elements hinder you.
@@Alen725 K. Cool.
This is my favourite game. The sense of peaceful, satisfying, relaxing adventure honestly doesn't compete with any other game for me. Somehow the game is still so beautiful and charming even with and old graphics engine. The quest dialogue is literally worth reading because its all woven in to the middle earth story really nicely, the music is genuinely some of the best video game music of all time no joke and sets the mood perfectly in the environments. The instances and dungeons are unique and fun and there are sooo many of them, basically allowing you to experience any major battle from the books and beyond at any given time. The community- they are so active and lovely and sociable and helpful, more so than any other online game I have ever played. This is a game that truly feels like home to me . A cosy, safe, fun, tolkienesque home.
Much better than the toxic Wow “community” of trash talkers.
@@matttondr9282Im guessing someone hurt you?
Found your channel recently! GOLD! Thank you so much for making these! So funny!
This is the MMO I play the most today. I used to play on a WoW-WotLK private server before LotRO, so yeah, your comparisons are very accurate. And their F2P model can be a bit archaic, but it's not the worst one out there, which I know isn't saying much. Still, you can earn a lot of premium currency by playing the game. Most of the things I unlocked I earned on a free account. I think the game is worth it to pay $15 to get one month of VIP to get rid of some of the annoying bits (like unlocking fast travel between certain stables) forever plus $5 worth of premium currency. Even if you sub for a month or not, there's a LOT of content here before you need to consider buying an expansion and all the basics you expect from an MMO work as expected; 1-hour Hearthstone, 1-hour other travel abilities, have to find a banker, auctioneer, or mailbox (and using them does NOT cost irl money).
The quests are often very simple fetch/kill quests, but I'd also add that the game has a few gameplay advantages to make doing them easier than WoW: total kills are usually between 4 and 12, the right mobs not hard to find and respawn fast (sometimes too fast in crowded Orc camps lol), plus OP played a Hunter with tracking abilities. If a quest relies on drops, rates are 100% in most cases and are automatically collected. Quest items are rarely cluttering in your inventory unless there's a reason for it. You never have to stop to loot a body. Even if your inventory is full, items spill over into a cache that deletes itself after 50 minutes. If you click on a useable item and it's not within reach, your toon will path to it and use it. Out of combat health regen is fast for most of the game and most classes regen mana faster than the player can use it. All this adds up to a gameplay experience that make it easy to keep moving within the game while you notice all the jank lol.
But seriously, between all the basic quest objectives there are a lot of really well-written questlines with likeable characters and dialog. There's a lot of book-accurate lore to be found that was well-researched and, where lore had to be invented, it's done in a respectful way.
Oh, and since you mentioned dancing...There's also /dance1, dance2, dance3. They're all bad lol. They are all, however, lore-friendly. Unlike WoW, which wanted pop culture appeal.
could of just said you played on warmane lol
@@foster5188 huh?
I revisit this game every few years, last time just a few months ago. It still holds up as a genuinely entertaining MMO. The nostalgia hit doesn't hurt either!
Tolkien fans will never care about technical issues, lags, etc. We are there for the lore and the immersive ambience.
exactly.those who whine about dated graphics are no fans of Middle earth.i don't care about graphics,i care about the atmosphere,the music,the lore which are all superb.
That's literally the only reason I just started downloading the game after 14 years. The world felt so fucking real and dense, no other MMO has ever achieved this. I didn't even give a shit about Lord of the Rings before playing the game, but learned to love Tolkien's stuff because of LotRO. You automatically become a roleplayer in that thing because the atmosphere is so inviting.
@@rippspeck So true! I am of course a huge LOTR fan but nothing I experienced until this MMO - not the books, not the films, nothing - has made me feel so much like I'm actually in Middle Earth. Everything else, I felt like I was on the outside looking in at a story. With this game, I'm like, "No, now I'm HERE, I'm actually PART of this". :D The game can lag all it wants, I don't care because I'm immersed in it.
I'm on a 50/30 connection and the game still feels like it's on 56k. I'll give it another go but it was terrible with the influx of new/returning players. Couldn't even take 'just one more step'.
@@sayokadi2370 i agree with the latter part.i hate how many new players there are.clogging up places and causing massive lag.i wish there were fewer of them
After years of putting it off, I just started this game and I've been really enjoying myself. Excellent video, fantastic edits. Had me chuckling. Subscribed.
It looks pretty old, but still has a lot of charm surprisingly!
It has charm because it always had charm, the way it looks has nothing to do with charm.
"There's always one Nob at a party"- 🤣Never was a truer statement made. Great Vid!
As a huge Tolkien fan I've always been aware but kind of wary of this MMO without knowing very much about it. Lately I've been paying more attention and to my delight people are overwhelmingly positive towards it. Your funny little vid has just convinced me to step in. Got a feeling I'm going to need some healing & solace after watching what's coming with Amazon later this year.
You are right to be wary. The game has become more p2w. They recently redid the LI system but, to our dismay, it is now a battle pass system that you can pay absorbent amounts of money to progress through. This and the games engine being a trainwreck, especially in the later zones, makes the game not really worth playing anymore. You will be able to play up until Rohan before the cracks start to really show.
Don't listen to the other commenter, you'll absolutely love the game if your a fan of Tolkien. I've been playing since launch (sometimes sub and sometimes f2p) and I absolutely love it regardless of how I am playing.
The game is fun and you can play it pretty much F2P if you want. I played it for about 7 years and would do end game raid, but as a F2P player I spent a lot of time grinding Lotro points to buy expansions and other things, always spend your Lotro points when the items are on sale. I stopped playing about a year ago. The reason I stopped was because I had come to find the end game boring and repetitive, with lots and lots of grinding for stats and equipment only to have to do it all over again when there was an update and more power creep, after years of this I was done. They also changed the Legendary Item system and again undid tons of work I had put into my Legendries, and lastly I just found I wanted to try some other games I had wanted to play for a long time.
Now that may sound bad but I will tell you the game is great and I didn't mind the grinding of Lotro points as a F2P player, I just could not stand the end game any longer. Its a beautiful game. Its a big game with lots of zones. It has lots of things in it from the books and really does right by the Lord of the Rings. And I have to tell you Moria is breathtaking, its so well done, its so huge, it full of cool and interesting things, and as a lover of the books I really enjoyed it. Minas Tirith looks incredible, its a living city, in the middle of another humongous area, that includes several zones of Gondor, other cities, other sights. And don't forget Mordor, Rohan, the Lonely Mountain, and so many places, including zones only quickly traveled through or mentioned in the books and lore, and they are all beautiful and so well done. If you don't want to play endgame content and just journey around the world as F2P, I think its a wonderful experience for anyone who loves LOTR. My advice is that you should chose an elven hunter as your first race class, the race gives bonuses for damage with bows and swords, and the class moves quickly on foot and has more travel options and advantages than most other classes so its better suited for exploring and site seeing. Also since its a mainly ranged unit its easier to do some deeds (which often including kill a # enemies). One more thing, remember to use World Chat for questions and remember the LOTRO Wiki is your friend, you will have to look things up once and a while.
Try it, you have nothing to lose, I think you will enjoy it.
@@willo1345 with latest updatest and free stuff this game is much more f2p friendly than ever lol
@@regulargamedev3295 Again, up to Rohan.
this is my first video ive watched and i subscribed, that goes to show the effort and care he puts into his videos also the comedy is brilliant XD
Just as a clarification, you can get a permanent mount without spending real money. You just have to do a few deeds to be awarded enough LotRO Points for it. Since the riding trait is pretty cheap, that can usually be accomplished accidentally before leaving Bree-Land. :)
I was actually surprised by how small your channel was, this is a very high quality video. Good stuff, and have a comment for the algorithm throne!
Used to play this game so much for years, I stopped playing it when I got a full time job. I loved this game so much, even met people who became friends. Which I even visited at their home country. Also it was a nice time doing end game content, I had so much time and fun. Sadly farming so much for gear is what got me off, since I could not combine it anymore with my work life :(
this is such a great video!! really enjoyed it
This was the only MMO I ever got into. Teenage me loved being able to wander around a Lore-accurate Middle Earth.
Great video, will be watching more from you!
Interesting to hear your take on the game. And I must say I feel the same way.
I have been “off and on”-playing LOTRO for many years and I do enjoy the slower pace the game have chosen to stick with.
The questing is a bit grindy at times, but if one read the quests and try to “live a little in the game world” it makes it more agreeable.
I have a love-hate relationship to the Deed-system in the game, but as a semi-completionist I just have to do them.
But the music and aesthetics of the game makes it good anyway.
It is a great game to relax with! And solo-able for the most part, but there are also a good community there!
Met a lot of friendly people over the years, and got loads more positive and also helpful interactions with people than negative. I cannot remember even one negative interaction.
Anyways… Nice video and I liked the humor you added in! And we all know there is a psycho in every hobbit!!
But I must add that I think you have more than one dance per race. /dance1 (2, 3)
The entire Shire area in LOTRO is so beautiful and relaxing to just soak in the atmosphere of. It's one of my favorite 'zones'/regions in any MMORPG I've ever played. I absolutely love just wandering around, soaking up the ambience of the area.
Great older MMO! It's the one game I can't quit! Good, entertaining review!
Feels weird it now being an "older" mmo, i remember when it was brand new, playing the beta and then again at launch. The older mmos to me are still Ultima, EQ, and DAoC lol.
@@Spr1ggan87 It does definitely feel weird calling it an older mmo, and yet here I am years later still finding myself going back to it after years. There is just something charming about the game that keeps brining me back.🙂
Is worth Playing for me a 1st time?
@@ufinessey2134 Yes
First vid of yours ive seen. Enjoyed it enough to like and comment for the algorith!
I just started this back up. The new expansion is geared to level 1-32 and with the Tv show coming out very soon I feel this will bring more players. It is a really good mmorpg
And that TV show junk is probably going to skew the lore horribly and change the game for money. $$$
@@NinjaSushi2 Cry more
1:10 "I'm telling you, his pancreas was sooo delicious"!
Lotro is still my main and only mmo after 8 years of playing. I do take breaks when I get busy with work, but still revisit the game all the time. The Minas morgul story was amazing, and can’t get to other regions when I get more time. And I love the lore additions made by the team, all the stories and characters are amazing! And I really like how they gave out so much content for free!
I have played LOTRO for 12 years and have 22 alts. It is by far, the most fun, enormous, open world MMO I have ever played. This is a wonderful video. You can earn a horse in a quest btw and later on, get horses via reputation building or deed completions.
ive been playing on and off for 10 years, since i was 14, and its my absolute favourite mmorpg and just in general one of my favourite games. im not a person who is overly concerned with great graphics or anything, in fact i think the dated graphics of this game a quite charming, but i think thats just because the athmosphere is just so brilliant. if it felt...empty or like a cheap knockoff, it probably would bother me more, but you can really really tell that they tried to make a game that FELT like lord of the rings. ALSO, i like this game bc i have a pretty old computer and not a very strong laptop, and i can play this game absolutely no problem in at the least the "good" to "very good" settings on the graphics, which i gotta say does look better than the low quality settings obviously lol. a friend of mine plays this game on a tiny microsoft surface tablet pc and it runs on ultra, its just hard to see sometimes cause the screen is so small lol. but in my opinion it makes the game a lot more accessible if you dont need latest hardware to even run it, its what annoys me about a lot of modern games. like i get good graphics are cool, but it makes me literally not able to play the game haha. im just gonna say, trying it for free is incredibly worth it, especially now since theres like years of content for free now...when i started, the content up to level 35 was free, and i spent years on that, just trying out all the different races and classes, and now i think its free up to level 90 or something??? its crazy. im still only at level 65 lmao. its NOT a game designed to get to max level as fast as possible, imo, it just doesnt give you the great experience this game has to offer. if you like stuff like dragon age origins, you like lord of the rings and dont mind reading quite a bit of quest texts if you want the whole picture of why youre doing what, and think you have the time for it to put an hour or two into it here and there, my god why would you not try this game lmao.
U still playing I’m starting from scratch
I just found out this game is getting a complete overhaul sometime this year. Pretty excited for that.
LOTRO is not getting a complete overhaul, this has never even been discussed.
LOTRO only has 1 Project for Older Assets which will be adjusted to be more like the Modern Visuals they are using but there is no ETA on this nor will it be a pass of the whole game. this was announced in August 2022 during an Executive Producer Interview.
Otherwise LOTRO is getting what it usually does: Major Updates have New Content with the Modern Visual Style they been using for years, New Mechanics being added, some Older Mechanics being adjusted, etc but there is no Overhaul coming.
You have a gift for self-degradation, and the delivery of dry sarcasm, and the occasional display of an overt goofiness that keeps you relatable. Keep it up!
Probably one of the best reviews I've ever seen.
I really enjoyed it, but haven't played in a while. The thing that struck me was the attention to detail when it came to Tolkien lore - you could tell it was put together by people who loved the books :-)
Really enjoying all your videos exploring older MMOs! I'm amazed at how much time and effort you put into creating all these, at the same time as keeping them light, funny, and informative. You make it look easy to collect all the footage and edit it all together, when it's definitely not! Also I LOVE the windmill song at the end of your videos, when my brother and I played Zelda Windwaker as a child we'd hum along to that 😊 such nostalgia. That and the witches song are brilliant 👍
You probably didn’t plan this, but I noted the consistency between you playing a hobbit and describing yourself (in your channel plug midway through the video) as a small TH-camr. :)
There's a slew of MMO's coming out in the next few years that are using 'old school feel' as part of their pull. This game still has it.
I came back to it after many years away, and at first, like most games, my attention span wanted me to fast travel everywhere and just hoover up quests. When I finally finished Ered Luin with my Dwarf I had the chance to fast travel to Bree and carry on a habit forged by WoW and Guild Wars, of zero-attention quest grinding.
Instead, I binned the idea of fast travel off - I got a mount (paid for a month of VIP to get me going) and decided to run it. Through Ered Luin, the Wondershire, The Shire, until Bree-Land. All in all, took about 20 minutes. LOTRO players will know that this journey, by the game's standard, isn't that far. But, getting into Bree by evening game-time, stopping briefly to watch a band before going into the Prancing Pony, buying an ale and just letting my character stand in front of the fire with a beer and a smoke after a hard ride - that's what hooked me.
Not the bad graphics (It's an old game, but still), or the lag, or the fetchy grindy quest system, but the journey through this world made is so much more interesting.
Hmm, I never came around to play this as I always preferred SWTOR. Didn't know it was story-centric too might give it a shot!
Great vid as always!
LotRO and SWtOR are two great ones for story, no doubt. Its awesome to be a fan of both universes and being able to play a great MMO set in each one.
I am so happy that recently players seems to discover this game and unexpectedly like it :D
I remember playing LOTRO when it was released. I mostly remember that main characters I played and how some missions had overlap in an unusual and cool way. For example, as a dwarf, you fight this battle with some elf reinforcements helping. If you go there as an elf, you can get the quest to be one of those reinforcements. The attention to detail is mind blowing!
This was so funny to watch, you're brilliant, thank you! 🤣❤👍
I’ve heard Tolkien’s inspiration for the Nazgûl was seeing people coerced by their “better halves” into 6 hour trips to IKEA.
And thank goodness someone else finally noticed how creepy Elijah Wood can be.
Indeed - after you've seen him in Sin City you never see him quite the same again! ;)
The question is, are they your "better halve" if they take you to a 6 hour trip to IKEA??? 🤣
@@nathanscarlett4772 I think all relationships involve sacrifice but at some point behaviour becomes abusive. That’s up to the individual to a degree but my personal boundary is 47 meatballs. If you can’t decide on a duvet in that amount of time call me on your communicator. I’ll be in the Home Depot looking at hammer drills and angle grinders.
Great coverage of the game. I was a beta tester and bought a lifetime subscription way back (Founder) and have been playing it off and on ever since. I just did a /played :
"You have been playing for: 4 months 2 weeks 6 days 2 hours 12 minutes 3 seconds"
This game is truly awesome
This man deserves more subscriptions. Loved the review! Witty and informational!
As someone that started playing LotRO on launch and having stopped quite a while ago i must admit, watching your vid and reading the comments made me want to give it another run. Slow pace and exploring the surroundings is my kinda stuff, so yeah, will download it again and see if i can find my old chars wherever they are nowadays. 😉😄
I'm glad I found this channel! I've been looking for a new channel rabbit hole.
such a gorgeous game🥰still in love with it so many years later
Which is your favourite character
when he said "small youtubers like myself" I thought he was joking, sitting here with 1mil+ subs... damn I was fooled, he really is a small youtuber, what a nice quality content!
I was an original beta-tester and played often for the first few years of the game and then moved on to Star Trek Online when it came out. I still revisit LOTRO for a bit every year or so but I have to admit that as a solo player, the grind is more boring than that of most other MMOs.
I just started playing this game last year, and it is officially my favorite game ever, it is so mesmerizing and fun to adventure
I love how faithful it is to the lore and i really like how the game looks. I have a hard time getting into it unfortunately due to the very clunky combat
thank you for making me laugh all the way trough your video ! this man deserves a sub
A nice review, mate. I also enjoyed WoW Vanilla back in the day. I tried wow classic again but after years of MMOs I simple was conditioned to play at maximum efficiency.
Back in the day, nobody had a clue on how to go about things, where quests were located and what dungeons to do. You had to figure out things by yourself and explore. As sad as it is, no other MMO has given me that feeling again.
I miss that feeling :(
Best commentary on this game i've heard so far! Thanks for the content and the laughs!! 🙏😄
Early Level LOTRO is still fairly the same as it's been for a good while. The Newest Leveling experience one would encounter would be the Yondershire between Ered Luin-the Shire-Evendim, a Level 20 to 23 Region.
Middle and Latest LOTRO is different for Questing where it has less back and forth (Early LOTRO is still a "Go kill X, go back to NPC, then go back to the same spot you were at) and more Recent Regions have the Modern Visuals LOTRO has been using for a couple years now.
Which that is a key issue with LOTRO still here in Mid-2022: The Early Game especially for Level 1 to 20 still looks & plays how they've been for years. The SSG LOTRO Team really should have gotten Ered Luin, the Shire and the Bree Lands (Levels 1 to 20+ with Bree Lands having the 20+) using the Modern Visuals, give the Quests the Modern Style where it Progress more naturally because Early LOTRO doesn't represent what LOTRO is beyond being a Game that has been around for a long time.
The best experience by far(imo) is before moria after that the game really takes a swing for the worse. I got up to level 80-85 or something a few months ago but I was bored out of my mind. I was having a blast up until 50, had crafting and made my own gear etc. Of course the crafting is completely useless after 50 which I sadly realized. The zones are mostly okay but the quests are the same ones over and over again. It was just not fun at all after a while. The game desperately need a level squish.
@@huldu Well it is an MMORPG, the "Quests are the same ones over and over again" is pretty much any such Game just new Skins, NPC Names and Object Names.
Level Squish has been a hotly debated topic and it's pretty much divisive. Most Feedback from the LOTRO Community has folks NOT wanting a Level Squish as they like gaining Levels, etc.
Maybe it's just my nostalgia but I remember the lower levels being much better in the early days. There was much more interaction with other players and it seemed like there was always a fellowship quest to do. They changed it all so it could be done solo because there was less players, but it just feels like playing a single player game now. They need to stop focussing on high level content and fix the early game.
I am subscribing just because this makes me smile! Love the humour
I've never played it or even considered it, but now ... I kinda want to 🙂
"YOU CALL YOURSELF A HOBBIT."
::cow-ing intensifies::
😀
Dooo iiiiiit
@@CountessOfOle JEEZ, if you INSIST!
::cow-ing SUPER intensifies::
I enjoy your understated humor, dropping a funny moment in here and there between the informative stuff. Many creators see the informative stuff as little more than a framing device for their lame jokes.
Fantastic review! I started playing this game since it came out but stopped when it was beginning to show its age too much. Tried it recently, and it ran poorly even on a high-end PC. Hoping they will update some of the technical stuff so it runs smoother. The rumored graphics update would also be great!
Sadly there is no "Singular" Graphics Update. Visual Updates have been happening for a while but usually only is for 1 Region (Latest Content) + Nearby Regions which this has been roughly happening every 3-ish Months for more Recents Updates and the Current Graphics Style has pretty much been the same + Improving since April 2020.
A good example is the Latest Major Update, Update 33 on April 20th, 2022, added the Yondershire between Ered Luin, the Shire and Evendim in Eriador. Yondershire uses the Graphics Style LOTRO is currently using for it's Latest Content and all 3 nearby Regions received Changes along their borders. The Shire receiving the largest Changes with how the Landscape in it's North-West now looks.
It runs pretty damn well on my high end pc. Maybe yours isn’t that high end
@@ringo3917 head to Minas Tirith and say that. Doesn’t matter what pc you run. It lags and is unplayable.
@@kentonmichael7818 turning from direct x11 ro direct x9 makes it unlaggy in Minas Tirith, so it wont throw you out of game in every 5 minutes, after all, its a 7layered city, like a cake that has layers
It runs well if the server does not lag, and server lag is not an easy thing to ever fix, after all, the whole region or the whole middle earth is filled with lots of players all the time. Such amount will cause in lag sometimes, but usually the game plays well
I loved your approach . Witty/informative/sarcastically hysterical/above all else entertaining! 2
thumbs up!
I would give a small chunk of my soul for this game to be fully reworked, and released as a remastered title with upcoming expansions. I would absolutely pay a monthly sub for an updated version of this game, maybe similar to New World's graphics but even then, the old graphics aren't insanely far off !
Wtf... Your soul...
@@gabrielkovalov8966 no… just a small chunk of it…. Silly
@@HBosse90 still, a small chunk of your soul??!!! That's crazy. I have a friend who did that, after that he couldn't enjoy life as he did before.
If you give a chunk of your soul for the game, you won't be able to enjoy it.... Don't do it!
@@gabrielkovalov8966 I´ll give you mine soul for 50euro mate
@@highstenley5096 What are you insane??!!! Don't even joke about these.
EPIC video! Important to note that Lord of The Rings Online often offers free content to players.
During COVID for example they gave away SO much content. Its worth even subbing a month to get a ton of DLC unlocked forever too! Great review of the starter experience though!
I played this game years ago. It was pretty charming. I'm happy it's still going, even if I'm on Final Fantasy XIV now. It really felt like a love letter to the books, not really a cheap knockoff of the movies.
Yesterday reinstaled the game for a nostalgia trip after 12 years... it's all just how I left it. Amazing how the community and dedicated developers can create a lasting game despite the old graphics
Whammy wozzle
Agreed
@@MitchManix lol I was like 'he asked me to leave a comment, I don't know what to say, ... what's the first thing that pops into your head"...
@@stephen6279 Well I loved it
@@MitchManix cheers. I love knowing you loved it ❤️
I accidentally stumbled upon your channel with the GW2 video and fell in love with your humor immediately! So I'm off to binge your videos now ^.^
I played it a lot. Really a lot. I also have an LTA. (Remember the Old Forrest before it became easy going with an own map?) But the game somehow lost me at the time the war steeds were introduced. Fighting on the back of a horse was really messy. Just circling around and hit the enemy just every now and then. I refused to fight on horseback, but still there were enemies on horseback and so simple fights lasts forever. Meh.
Also there was an inflation of ingame currencies. At some point I lost the thread.
But still it is a very good mmorpg with a very good setting. Even F2P works quite good. I'm glad it's still around.
The transition to help support the channel segment in this video may well be the best I have ever witnessed.
This game is still incredible, unlike Rings of Girl Power over here…
You should also look into DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) soon too. It was also made in 2007 by the same creators as LOTRO I do believe. The game is still going strong to this day and boy oh boy has it changed over the years!
Constant disconnects and frequent lag make this great game painful to play
loved this video! some of the soundbytes were hilarous haha "hello~!"
LOTRO is one of those MMOs I had to skip entirely due to the hegemony, authority, and totalitarianism of ... World of Warcraft.
Unfortunately it's true. Even Mines of Moria back in the day, one of the greatest expansions ever made in any game was eclipsed by the Wrath Of The Lich King.
Blizzard back then was competitive, TOO competitive. No matter how small the opposition, the company wouldn't let any MMO catch a breath. WOTLK was scheduled to be released later, but Blizzard changed the schedule so it could beat MoM.
Just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the video! Pretty funny and the effort put into it shows. I think I'll sub.
Thanks mate, glad u enjoyed it. More like this to come
I have played many games over the years, but LOTRO is the one I always come back to. I love it even though it is laggy. I find the scenery breathtaking. I don't care if it has outdated graphics! This was a very fun and entertaining video!
it is really cool
which server u on
@@thomaspeckett2550 I play on Gladden and Crick
@@Lyenye which class do u play would love to have a chat with u about the game.
U playing this week
Your voice sounds like Gordon Ramsay half whispering a bed time story to me.
It's simultaneously soothing me and triggering my fight or flight.
Love it
Dude! Criminally underrated channel Love your narration. Keep it up and you are gonna make it!!!
This was hella nostalgic, thank you for the throwback sir
The Fellowship combat system remains a thing of pure genius and when you and your group pull off a coordinated attack it’s an exhilarating feeling. Never bettered by any other MMORPG
I still remember exploring the world the first time in 2007 after all these years.
Not played this since launch but one aspect I always found funny was that instead of Health you had Morale (because dying and respawning would be lore breaking). Meaning getting repeatedly stabbed just made you more and more sad untill you went home :)
I only just found your channel today, feels like Christmas!