Is LOTR online for me??

[Jorune]

I'm not an MMO kinda guy. For as long as I've been playing PC Games (Warcraft2 being my first), I've never been an online player. Recently I've been playing Demigod and no longer fear the online community (great entrylevel game).

That said, I love the LOTR world. I'd be interested in joining even if its just to see and explore the sights and sounds of Middle Earth. Due to scheduling, to actually 'play' means I'd play solo (just couldn't commit to a group experience). Can you play it solo? Is the world that interesting to explore? Is there a cheap way to get into it?

jorune

ps. I apologise for the obvious self-centered post :-)

[Larinson]

LOTRO has been made a very solo-friendly game. I know for a fact that you can solo it up to 50, and I'm fairly sure that you could solo up to 60. It is a lovely world to explore, and whilst some people have been disappointed by Moria and beyond (myself included), the game up to there is fantastic. The community is very friendly and mature, and if you get yourself into a good kinship you'll find people to give you a hand. I think there is a free trial, and I'd recommend grabbing that and having a good crack at it over 7 or 10 days, whatever it is.

[scharmers]

LOTRO has been made a very solo-friendly game. I know for a fact that you can solo it up to 50, and I'm fairly sure that you could solo up to 60.

You're skipping a LOT of the Epic quests then, or coming back to them when you're 20 levels over the elite mobs that populate these quests.

Still, you're correct in that LOTRO is very solo-friendly, in that there is still a lot there that you can accomplish without help, if you're careful.

[awdougherty]

I would say yes because I was in almost your exact position when deciding to try LOTRO (I was still leery of playing online though). The game is extremely solo-able basically throughout but you miss out on the Book Quests which are the main story of the game. A lot of it requires you to either find a group or as just mentioned, wait until to drastically outlevel it to solo.

I think if you jump in now and do 3 month at a time subscriptions, you get it for $10 a month. So it's cheaper than most options that way, and if you jump in with the QT3 people on Nimrondel, get in the guild, you'll find that you may not need to solo as much as you thought. Even without the guild (although I recommend it because it helps you get into the social side of things easier with good people), you'll find the LOTRO community to be one of the most mature and helpful out there.

It's a great setting to explore and really enjoy. I feel like the game captures things really well, although I have been turned off by Moria myself. Waiting to see what lies ahead before deciding to plow through.

[Peter Frazier]

The game is very solo-able, also, it's fairly easy to pick up help. Often when questing if I notice someone hovering around a mob I'm after I'll ask if they want to join up and it's almost always a positive response. I agree that the player base is mature and helpful.

[Anaxagoras]

The game is very solo-able, also, it's fairly easy to pick up help. Often when questing if I notice someone hovering around a mob I'm after I'll ask if they want to join up and it's almost always a positive response. I agree that the player base is mature and helpful.

The WoW player base often fails this test; if they see someone camping a mob they'll often try to steal the kill just to be dicks.

[Gladguy]

Totally soloable. And frankly, once you get into it, you'll want to do some of the fellowship quests simply because they're fun, and the population of Middle-earth is bound to surprise you -- the people are generally nice, courteous, helpful and fun to play with.

Plus, on the Nimrodel server, you can join The Knights of Quarter to Three!

If you're interested, PM with your email address, and I can send you a Founders referral!

[ydejin]

If you're interested, PM with your email address, and I can send you a Founders referral!

Gladguy, I wish I had known that a month ago when I was starting out. However, it looks like the program may have ended as of five days ago. See the last posting in this thread (http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=119276&page=138&highlight=founder+referral).

[Tyjenks]

I have played WoW and Everquest 2, but WoW the most. I played LotRO in Beta and then re-subbed about a year after its release. I did not care for LotRO and did not get sucked in, but I think that is because I do not care and never have cared for backstory or Lore in my MMORPGs.

From discussing the game here and elsewhere with various folks who do dig the Middle Earth stuff, they seem to love the game. I would say if that is a selling point for you, you will be better able to immerse yourself in this game and enjoy it much more than I was able to.

At least try it.

[Major Malphunktion]

I'm not an MMO kinda guy. For as long as I've been playing PC Games (Warcraft2 being my first), I've never been an online player. Recently I've been playing Demigod and no longer fear the online community (great entrylevel game).

That said, I love the LOTR world. I'd be interested in joining even if its just to see and explore the sights and sounds of Middle Earth. Due to scheduling, to actually 'play' means I'd play solo (just couldn't commit to a group experience). Can you play it solo? Is the world that interesting to explore? Is there a cheap way to get into it?

jorune

ps. I apologise for the obvious self-centered post :-)

All content as of the next update will be solo-able up through 30.
You can just join a kinship and join pick up groups to get through the tougher 'fellowship' missions. the player base is older, PUGs are usually pretty good.
Be warned, there is a learning curve to LOTRO, lets just say it has layers of stuff going on. Just concentrate on the Book quests, and locality quests and you will pick up the nuances of the game as you go. There is an advice channel, don't be afraid to use it.

Cheap: sure here:http://www.lotro.com/trial/ you can get the trial for 10 days, or buy the whole game for 10 bucks. Yes, cheaper than Peggle. Monthly fees are also 10 bucks now-not to shabby.

[mkozlows]

All content as of the next update will be solo-able up through 30.

So if you are soloing, how much are you able to ignore the fact that other people exist? Can you turn off chat or make other people's characters invisible or whatever?

(Yes, I do want an offline regular LOTR RPG, why do you ask?)

[ceolstan]

When you say you're not an MMO kind of guy, do you mean that you don't really get into the whole online experience or that you're not a fan of diku-based games?

If it's the former, and if you like Tolkien, then you'll probably like LotRO. As others have said, it's very soloable. You need never join a kinship (what they call guilds) unless you want to do the high-end raiding content. For those quests where you really do need a group, the game's grouping component, called a "fellowship," works well. Not only is there a "looking for fellowship" chat channel, but you can also advertise yourself as looking for a fellowship and indicate the quests. The game supports voice chat of a passing quality, which is nice for those times you are in a group.

The community is definitely helpful.

If it's the latter, and you're not a fan of diku-based games, then you'll probably get frustrated with the game. You will get "kill ten rats" sorts of quests frequently. I got frustrated with this aspect of the game when I first bought it. I leveled to about 20, then stopped. I'm more of a Guild Wars/team shooter kind of gal when it comes to online games. I don't really get into gear. I just want the items now so I can play with the good stuff.

Still, I decided to give the game another shot, and have been enjoying it. I like Tolkien, and I like the way that the game inserts the player into the overall Middle Earth experience. It's still "kill ten rats," but now that I've gone and joined a kinship, it's easier to focus on the more epic storyline that doesn't require the same kind of repetition. Also, since the kinship I joined is fairly large and well-organized, I now have a place to send all the drops that I'd otherwise sell to the vendor. Yay for empty inventory space!

--ceolstan

[DTG]

... That said, I love the LOTR world....

Then LOTRO is the best thing in computer/video gaming there is. And better than anything before it. It's true to the books, fills in alot of obscure details in a good way, and has a generally mature player-base. I agree with the other comments on playing solo. Try it.

[ydejin]

On a semi-related note, I finally successfully soloed a large part of the Great Barrows at level 38 (it's meant for groups of around six in their low 20's). I had gotten my ass kicked twice before trying to go in on my own. I actually had a lot of fun, and still almost died twice. Once near the start when I got swarmed by Barrow Spiders and Spider Queens, and once when attacked by Barrow Wights. I was fully buffed up with Chicken Mushroom Soup (+700 poison protection), Roasted Chicken (+18 Vitality), and Superior Shire Rations (heals 128 Morale every 30 seconds for 600 seconds restores 98 Power every 30 seconds for 600 seconds), and there still were a few tough fights. I also learned to appreciate some of my Warden skills, which I hadn't used much before like Fierce Resolve, which takes a little bit of your enemies' morale and give it to you. It doesn't seem like a big deal when used against a single critter, but it turns out, it can be used against a whole group of critters. It drains a modest amount from each of them and gives it all to you -- awesome! I was probably pulling in 150-200 health per second, which was good, since in a few places I had 8-10 mobs on me. It was great watching the little yellow numbers streaming off of all the enemies around me and watching a huge string of +25 green numbers coming in boosting my health.

The enemies were too far below my level to get experience for, but I picked up a ridiculous amount of treasure. I made around 300sp in one trip into the Barrows. Would have gotten even more if I had emptied out my inventory completely prior to the trip. Plus a few of the quest rewards are still decent enough that I actually replaced some of my current equipment (which shows you exactly how good some of the rewards are for those full fellowship quests).

Anyway, Jorune LOTRO is definitely very soloable. I've probably done 95% or more of my time in LOTRO basically playing it as a single player game. Pick a less used server, so there's not a lot of contention for resources -- having to sit around for quest areas to reset is an annoyance -- and you should be fine. Nimrodel where Qt3 players mostly play seems like about the right mix -- not much resource contention, but still enough people that you can get a fellowship together when needed, particularly if you wait for the weekend to try fellowship quests.

Mostly for me it's like a very, very large single player RPG, that's very well done, that I occasionally end up playing multiplayer. This is my first MMORPG, and so far I've been very pleased with it. Give it a try!

[ydejin]

So if you are soloing, how much are you able to ignore the fact that other people exist? Can you turn off chat or make other people's characters invisible or whatever?

(Yes, I do want an offline regular LOTR RPG, why do you ask?)
Not sure if you're being facetious. But the straight answer is, no you can't make them invisible. On Nimrodel you'll see a moderate number of people running around in some of the more populated areas, particularly on the weekends. On the other hand, there are times and areas where it pretty much is deserted. I spent some time over the weekend playing on the far side of Lake Evendim and I only saw one player in probably about 3-4 hours of play. Although that's a rather out of the way area, which as far as I can tell only has a handful of quests out there. There's some pretty neat country out there though, including some nice views and some of the better waterfalls (at least by LOTRO standards (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=52838) ...). Same thing when I was out near Starmere Lake in the corner of Bree-land. Did a fair amount of sight seeing, lovely country, and not a soul out there. One quest takes you out there.

If you don't want to interact with people, I think the only interaction you may run into, is (1) people can interact with your targets, and (2) other groups can run a quest in front of you, forcing you to wait for the system to respawn everything. The system is setup to really reducing griefing. So other players can't block you physically (you can walk right through them), and they can't steal your kills. Once you hit something first it's yours, they can attack it, but you'll get the credit.

In some cases other players can roll past you and grab a quest objective and you'll have to wait for a reset -- I've never actually seen that happen, but I hear it can be a problem in MMORPGs. I have seen two groups both trying to complete quest objectives simultaneously and not have enough resources without a respawn. I was killing spiders under Minas Eriol (for you non-LOTRO players that's a ruin in the Lonely Lands on the way to Rivendell, near the Forsaken Inn which Strider mentions in Fellowship of the Ring). Another group was in there with me, we found there weren't enough spiders to fulfill both our quest quotas. They left to do something else. I waited for the respawn. Bad idea, I was sitting in the middle of the canyon when three spiders respawned around me.

The chat you can pretty much completely ignore. There's no voice chat unless you've chosen to join a Fellowship of up to six characters. And I'm pretty sure you could also turn off voice chat even within a Fellowship. Regular chat just shows up in a small scrolling window on the left. It's easy to ignore, and in fact sometimes you'll miss chat messages you actually want to see. Someone from the Qt3 Kinship said hello to me yesterday -- I think it was Datt -- and I didn't discover his message until much later. Might have been 5 minutes later, might have been 15 (sorry for the slow reply Datt!).

For the most part it really can be played like a single player game. The biggest issue for me though is there's no way to pause the game. I have people dropping by to visit pretty regularly, and there's no way for me to put the game on hold, while I go answer the door. You can log out, but there's a 20 second delay and if you're in combat, the bad guys are going to take a good 20 seconds of swinging on you before you're actually logged off. Then when you log back on, they'll be back at full health and you'll be in the middle of them. The good news is as far as I can tell, your buffs will still be in place and their timers don't run down while logged off -- I assume your health is back to full strength too. So I suppose it's not all that different from pausing the game.

[Gladguy]

Gladguy, I wish I had known that a month ago when I was starting out. However, it looks like the program may have ended as of five days ago. See the last posting in this thread (http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=119276&page=138&highlight=founder+referral).
Oh, that sucks. I always like to share the wealth when I can.

It looks like I can still submit emails through my account page.

[metta]

The WoW player base often fails this test; if they see someone camping a mob they'll often try to steal the kill just to be dicks.

Yeah, all 11 million of them. And let me tell you about those filthy Italians!

[John Reynolds]

It's true to the books,

Umm, no, not really.


fills in alot of obscure details in a good way,

I laughed when reading this.


and has a generally mature player-base.

This is a pretty accurate statement, though I still hate the ooc channel in major population hubs.

[Major Malphunktion]

Really not true to the books? Oh please give me examples.
With the exception of distance and some clothing choices, LOTRO is pretty dead nuts on the lore. There are little short English men that check everything in the game. I hear they actually channel the soul of Tolkien....

[Talorc]

Yeah, I would agree with it being very reliably faithful to the source material.

Also, I pretty much soloed 3 or 4 characters to around level 20. A credit card snafu cancelled my subscription a while back and I have not got around to resubbing, but it was good fun.

[Slainte Mhath]

That said, I love the LOTR world. I'd be interested in joining even if its just to see and explore the sights and sounds of Middle Earth.

Given the above statement, I believe you would very much enjoy LotRO. One of the best features of the game is it's level of immersion in Middle Earth and the care Turbine has taken to insure everything looks and feels as if you are "playing the books". It's difficult to relate this effect, as few other online games have tried to replicate such a rich and beloved setting, and none have done it nearly so well. Almost everyone I know who has played the game, even people who later quit over frustration with other aspects, have said that the atmosphere was a huge positive factor and that Turbine really nailed it.


Due to scheduling, to actually 'play' means I'd play solo (just couldn't commit to a group experience). Can you play it solo? Is the world that interesting to explore? Is there a cheap way to get into it?

You can play solo, though as others have mentioned you'll miss out on a great deal of the "Books", which are the epic plotlines that help draw you into the world by putting you into a story that runs parallel to that of the Fellowship. Honestly though, I don't think you'll stay solo for long. In addition to the generally higher maturity level of a lot of the playerbase another positive aspect is that most group quests come at the end of a chain of solo quests and can be knocked out in relatively short order. It's not uncommon for groups to form for specific fellowship quests and then dissolve again afterwards, lasting 30-60 minutes at most. Because you don't have to group just to level or survive as in many other games, groups become more of a an enjoyable alternative rather than a neccessary evil. This also helps make groups more relaxed, and they become a great way to learn how your class works with other classes effectively.

The game itself is selling for as little as $10 at some retailers. You can sign up now for a recurring 3-month membership for $29.99, so that's $40 to buy the game and 4 months of play (free month included in box). That's no more risk that you'd take buying any retail game these days, so I'd say it's worth looking into if you're at all curious. Join the Nimrodel server and look for the Knights of the Quarter To Three. We'll gladly add you to the roll and give you a hand starting out, even if you're not interested in grouping.

[AndrewM]

A little bit of starting advice if you decide to try it: the Shire is the best starting area by far, and the human area is decent. The dwarf/elf starting area, on the other hand, is awful. My advice would be to make your first character a hobbit. (You can do the Shire as another race, but if you are new to MMOs it might be best to avoid any complications that you can.)

[awdougherty]

I prefer the human area myself, but agree that the Elf/Dwarf area is the weakest of them.

[Wendelius]

I prefer the human area myself, but agree that the Elf/Dwarf area is the weakest of them.

Same here. Although the recent starting area revamps have streamlined the elf/dwarf starting experience quite a bit. But, for dwarves especially, it still feels a bit bare compared to what humans and hobbits go through.

Wendelius

[Anaxagoras]

The WoW player base often fails this test; if they see someone camping a mob they'll often try to steal the kill just to be dicks.


Yeah, all 11 million of them. And let me tell you about those filthy Italians!

I bolded the part you missed. No, not all 11 million of them.

Here, let me help you out. My post was another way of saying "The WoW player base is often the opposite of helpful."

[ydejin]

A little bit of starting advice if you decide to try it: the Shire is the best starting area by far, and the human area is decent. The dwarf/elf starting area, on the other hand, is awful. My advice would be to make your first character a hobbit. (You can do the Shire as another race, but if you are new to MMOs it might be best to avoid any complications that you can.)
I actually kind of liked the Dwarf area. I thought the whole valley running from Thorin's Gate down to the River Lune had some interesting quests and was pretty fun. Maybe that's just in contrast with the Elf area along the River Lune which I did with my first character and which seems quite sparse.

I did spend some time in the Shire, which is a lot of fun -- if you are willing to ignore the postal and pie quests. I haven't tried the Bree start yet.

Andrew and Wendelius are you both evaluating post MoM Book 7 when they redid the area?

[Wendelius]

Andrew and Wendelius are you both evaluating post MoM Book 7 when they redid the area?

I've recently restarted a dwarf and elf character. I've played the dwarf all the way to the end of Gondamon then moved to Bree and am currently at Gondamon with the elf. I haven't been lacking for quests to complete. In both cases, the newbie area itself seems to have been streamlined. I like the quests in the dwarf area too (going down to the river and then onto gondamon), but they don't seem as dense or varied as what I remember from the Shire.

I've also restarted a human and played in Archet and then skipped to Bree as soon as my level allowed. And that seems to have conserved its charm and variety too.

The Shire might be a bit too twee for some. I think the human area is a good compromise. Thorin's Hall and co are slightly weaker in my opinion.

But I'm now up to 8 chars at levels 10 to 56. So I've been through my share of pre and post MoM update newbies and have enjoyed them all. :)

Wendelius

[AndrewM]

Andrew and Wendelius are you both evaluating post MoM Book 7 when they redid the area?

No, I haven't been there in about a year. Good to hear that it is improved. I can't imagine how much better the elf area is with its "Woe is me!" voiced dialogue from every NPC. :)

[Major Malphunktion]

Thats funny for me it is Amdir in Archet telling me my 'skills are lacking'...happy to kick his ass later in the game.

[metta]

I bolded the part you missed. No, not all 11 million of them.

Here, let me help you out. My post was another way of saying "The WoW player base is often the opposite of helpful."

I understand what you wrote, I just think it's bollocks. You can no more speak to the WoW playerbase - to the 11+ million people across fuck knows how many servers - than I can.

In my 4+ years playing WoW, across 3-4 servers, I found many people who were generous with their time and their knowledge of the game. But I wouldn't try to claim the WoW playerbase is any one thing.

[AndrewM]

In my 4+ years playing WoW, across 3-4 servers, I found many people who were generous with their time and their knowledge of the game. But I wouldn't try to claim the WoW playerbase is any one thing.

In my experience playing a lot of WoW and a lot of LotRO, the player base of LotRO is generally more mature and less skilled than that of WoW. Are there plenty of kind and generous WoW players? Of course. I'm just talking about the overall experience.

As to the original point, I haven't had too much of a problem in either game with people stealing kills. The exception is people in the opposite faction in WoW (the level of dickishness towards people on the other side seems to be much higher), but that isn't a situation that arises in LotRO so it is unfair to compare.

[Telefrog]

I'm playing both LotRO and WoW. I find the biggest difference between them in regards to the playerbase is that there are simply more people playing WoW. The higher number of players tends to magnify the instances when a dick move occurs, and it raises the chance that a dick move will happen. I've seen dick moves in LotRO as well, but because the servers are less crowded, they don't carry the same emotional weight. You tend to disregard them since the limited population makes things seem more sedate.