Hey, what’s up?
I’ve been playing The Lord of the Rings Online for about a week and I wanted to share my first impressions about the game.
Here, I’m going to share the things that I like about it, what I dislike about it, is it pay-to-win and should you play it?
As I writing this, I currently have a human champion level 22, a beorning level 19. I did spend a few LOTRO points but I haven’t spent any real money yet. This review is obviously based on that experience alone. One thing to note is that I was streaming my game play and I got some help and advices from more experienced players that could possibly differ from the average player.
1- WHAT IS LOTRO?
The Lord of the Rings Online is an MMORPG developed by Standing Stone Games that was initially launched in 2007. As the name says, it’s taking place the Middle-Earth universe by the work of Tolkien during the time of The Lord of the Rings.
The released over many expansions and quest packs over these years. So there is a lot of content to experience.
2- WHAT BROUGHT ME TO THE GAME?
First of all, I love MMORPGs. Over the years, I played many video games like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, RuneScape, etc. I love these types of games because I find them immersive, addictive and full of interesting things to do.
And quite frankly, I never really knew about The Lord of the Rings Online.
But recently, there are a few elements that brought me to LOTRO.
- I wanted to try and play a new game. Preferably an MMO that I haven’t played before. I simply wanted to try something new.
- I watched lots of videos praising The Lord of the Rings Online. I was curious about it.
- I’m also currently reading the books.
- This is an opportunity get started in content creation and streaming with games that could use the attention.
3- PROS
3.1- LORE
I found the lore quite interesting. Now I need to be honest, I am not the kind of person to read all the quests, texts and descriptions. Usually, quests objectives and cinematic are good enough for me.
What I particularly like is that since the lore is about Lord of the Rings, I am able to make connections with the books and movies.
In fact, everything is about it. The entire map is entirely about Middle-Earth and the Lord of the Rings.
Overall, I think LOTRO made great efforts to be as close to the the books and movies. I find that really cool.
3.2- CRAFTING
There are tons of crafting professions to choose from and they feel good. At least, the ones the chose. Since I am a champion that use heavy armors and weapons, I learned prospector (to mine ores), weaponsmith (to create weapons) and armorsmith (to create heavy armors). So far, I think it’s quite easy to level these while questing and exploring.
When I craft weapons and armors, they are quite relevant and rewarding to my level. Meaning that I usually end up using the stuff that I am crafting.
When I finished crafting everything that I need to craft for myself, there are recipes that exist to solely train exp efficiently. I found that quite interesting.
3.3- COMMUNITY
I found that the community was very helpful and welcoming. While I was streaming my game play, I often had people joining in and giving me tips and tricks about the game.
I was quite surprised because I don’t think the game is that popular compared to World of Warcraft. But since the game is smaller, the community might be more committed and helpful.
I think the people playing this game either:
- Have been playing it for decades and invested so much.
- Are The Lord of the Rings fans.
It feels to me that the LOTRO community plays the game, not because it is popular or mainstream, but because they are simply passionate about it. They deeply care about the game.
3.4- COMBAT
I found the combat system to be really good. As you level up, you learn new skills and talents.
What I particularly like is that every button that I press feels quite impactful and meaningful.
For example, as a champion, I have this ability called “Devastating Strike” and every time that I press it, it feels powerful because it does a lot of damage and my screen even shakes a little bit.
That being said, I think the abilities quickly add up. I hope I won’t have too many ability to work with as I keep leveling up.
One good thing that I like about Guild Wars 2 is that we have many ability abilities to choose from, but we only select a very few ones depending on the situation we’re in and what we’re trying to do. So we always have around 10 abilities at any given time.
3.5- FREE TRIAL
Like I did so far, you can play the game for free and you’ll be able to do many things. For example, you’ll be able to play the core classes, you’ll have 2 characters slots, you can level up without much restrictions, etc.
In fact, I’ve even heard that some people are able to play the game entirely without spending any money. That being said, I don’t think I would recommend it because it seems that you have to do lots of workaround. If you’re seriously about the game, I think you’d need to at least pay the subscription to unlock most of the content and most of the features.
Later on, I’ll share my thoughts about the P2W aspects.
4- CONS
4.1- LAGS
The worst thing that I experienced is lag. The Lord of the Rings Online has a bunch of lags. For example, when you enter a a new zone, level up go, through a door or even out of nowhere you might experience lags.
The worst for me is that every time that I level up, I experience a huge freezes. For a few long seconds, I would not be able to do anything. In the beginning, I would literally freak out because sometimes, I’m in combat or something. I would not understand. Now, when I get a huge lag, my first thought is to look at my exp bar to see if I’m leveling up. Often, that’s exactly what it is.
As a gamer, you obviously never want to experience lag, it’s simply not fun. I value a good internet connection and I pay good money to my internet provider.
Especially when you’re playing an online game, it is completely unacceptable to have have bad servers and experience lags on a regular basis. I simply can’t take seriously an online game with lags.
That being said, LOTRO recently released new legendary servers that are supposed to be better, but I can’t speak for them since they are reserved for paid VIP subscribers. Which I am not. Hopefully, they bring this new technology to all the older servers to remove all teh lags.
4.2- GRAPHICS
Another obvious con is the graphics. The game obviously looks and feels outdated. There isn’t much to say about it. In 2024, video games are popular and new ones are being released every day with amazing graphics.
Even the modern version of World of Warcraft, which is technically an old game, updated their graphics many times. World of Warcraft also used to look like shit.
But I don’t think graphics are everything either. Today, even Old School Runescape is more popular than the more modern version of Runescape. OSRS looks like old and pixelated, but it’s on purpose and people love it.
And a lot of people still prefer to play World of Warcraft Classic, meaning with older graphics, than playing the modern retail version.
So I do think that graphics make a game attractive, but there is more to it. Ultimately, graphics are superficial and they’re only appearances. The core fundamentals still have to be on point. The game itself has to be good.
4.3- CLUNKY
A bit related to graphics, playing my character does feel square and clunky. Here, I’m mostly talking about the movement and fluidity of my character. It doesn’t feel fluid.
For example, when I jump. It sometimes feels like I’m a robot instead of a human.
MMOs are supposed to be immersive but i think it breaks the immersion a little bit.
4.4- MAP & QUEST HELPER
Another frustration that I experienced, mostly in the beginning because over time, I got used to it, is related to the map and quest helper. I think the map and quests independently are perfectly fine. It is the relationship between the map and the quests that I find terrible. It’s confusing, lacks information and the quest panel is always in the way.
First, the quest panel. Yes, you can move it around, but it’s ultimately always hiding stuff. I never know where to place it once and for all. Where I place the quest window, it always ends up hiding a quest or an important piece of the map.
Another thing is the lack of information on the map, I believe we should see the quest objective directly on the map. In fact, the quest objective is probably more important than the name of the quest. I don’t care of the quest, I care about what I need to do. Right now, to understand what I need to do, I have to figure out the current quest that I’m doing on the map, take its name and then go into the quest log to figure out the quest objective. It’s not good. Just show the quest objective on the map.
Finally, the map quest helper is confusing. I don’t care about the colors. I don’t care about the rings or whatever. The more quest I have the more confusing this is. I just care about the quest objectives. Ultimately, that’s the only thing that I care about: what is it that I need to do and the location?
If you compare this to World of Warcraft, you have a dedicated quest log along side the map, it’s clean, there are no fancy color, no fancy icons, it’s not hiding anything and I don’t have to move it around. The map might be a little smaller, but that’s fine because you make room for the quest log. In the end, I just need to know what to do and the location. That’s it.
4- IS IT P2W?
So far, I haven’t felt like it’s pay-to-win, but like many MMOs, LOTRO has a special currency called LOTRO points, that are used to purchase items and upgrades from the LOTRO store. While it is possible to obtain a small amount of these points playing the game, even with a free-to-play account, if you’re relatively serious about the game, you will quickly find some limitations.
For example, if you want to use the fast travel system, use the auction house, have more character slots, etc you will either need the VIP membership or some LOTRO points to unlock them. The VIP is a monthly subscription that unlocks membership features. It also give you 500 LOTRO points per month for you to spend on the LOTRO store.
I don’t think it’s pay-to-win because most of these stores items around about cosmetics and convenience.
I believe the most pay-to-win item that you can find on the store are the stat tomes. The stat tomes are basically books that give you more stats for your character quite literally making it more powerful. So that can disturbing. But you can also purchase these same tomes using gold on the auction house and there is a cap on the number of tomes that you can use. So maybe it’s not that bad.
CONCLUSION
Overall, I do believe that the Lord of the Rings Online is a good MMO and a good game. It feels a bit outdated, but I believe the fundamental core of the game to be good, while still not being too pay-to-win.
I think the people playing this game are either:
- Deeply invested and have been playing this game for decades at this points.
- Big fans of the Lord of the Rings lore and stories.
My breaking point here is mostly related to the lags. I think it is completely unacceptable to have an online game with lags.
So we’ll see if I decide to play it for longer with a paid membership.
So that’s pretty much it, I hope this was helpful to you. If this blog was valuable to you, you could consider following me on social media and if you have any thoughts or comments, you can leave them below.
I hope this helps, peace!
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