Lotro: MoM

Ive been playing lotro on and off since pre release, it has a lot of strong points to it, Its graphically beautiful, with enough whistles and bells to tax high end rigs, but also looks good even on modest hardware, I have got over 100fps out of a 7600gt whilst still having a reasonable looking game!

One unique aspect of lotro is the life time membership option, one off fee and you can play for free for the lifetime of the game! Allowing you to sit back and enjoy the ride, take weeks or months off and come back when you feel like it.

I do like the fact that I can drop in and out of lotro as I please, no time pressures no "need" to do everything immedeatly, far more than most mmorpgs lotro is a game you can play through and enjoy the exploration and the storyline etc. The game isnt very PvP centric - although there is a dedicated PvP zone, If you are interested in the experience of the game then lotro has a lot to offer, sure you can race to level 60 but you will be missing out on a lot by doing so. If you like high end tweaking there is raiding and deeds grinding etc at the high end but lotro offers huge ammounts of good quality content at the lower levels, even for the solo player. I do think though that people who have enjoyed tolkiens works will find more in the game than non fans, the ammount theyve drawn from the books is fantastic.

Lotro is also quite unique for the number of free expansions they do, adding new land masses and quest hubs every few months, giving a constant dose of new content rather than just a yearly expansion (which they also now have)

As well as the endless slaughtering of orks theres a relaxing side to the game as well, farming, as in planting seeds and growing crops - not regular mmo farming fishing, smithing etc. The game also has player housing, which is a nice touch, its not a patch on the old star wars galaxies housing system but still its nice to have somewhere to hang your hat.

Crafting isnt particularly in depth (I was introduced to mmorpgs by star wars galaxies so Ive been spoilt on the crafting side) At least you do get your name attached to items you make and to give custom names to high end items you make.

I do enjoy the game but I do take extended breaks and then return to the game. I dont feel that I "have" to log in and play, I dont feel the need for massively late nights to progress, I play side by side with my wife and as a tank \ healer combo we have no problems finding groups for quests and can do a lot of content by ourselves.

I play on a UK RP server, and Ive only met one begger in my entire time playing, never had a single duel request, and not seen any leet speak, I couldnt say what non RP servers are like, but I do tend to find the Lotro RP servers a more pleasant place to be than the wow servers.

Of course if ownage and shiney trinkets are what your life is all about then I dont know how the game would work out for you, thats not to say they havent catered for that crowd, I just havent ran into many of them on the RP servers and Ive never played games in that way so I wouldnt know.

I would say lotro has a lot to offer to anyone who enjoyed oblivion or tolkiens works. Thats not to say it plays like oblivion, but it has the immersion factor and more sandboxy play style (and better than oblivion graphics)

OK first thing to understand about Lotro is that you cant play "bad" characters in regular play mode, there is no alliance and horde choice to make for your "normal" characters. You get to choose dwarf, elf, human or hobbit one of the "free peoples of middle earth" the devs decided that elves ganking hobbits in the shire would be a stretch too far from tolkiens works .

However Lotro has a large open PVP system in a place called the ettenmoors, you can either take a horse there with your regular character, or you can create a "monsterplay" toon, monsterplay toons or insta level 60, but you can upgrade their abilities and equipment over time, by - competeing in pvp. Monsterplay toons are unable to leave the ettenmoors, although the area is very large. In the ettenmoors PVP is very much good vs bad. There are non PvP quests to complete in the ettenmoors which give rewards towards earning various bonus's for your toons, these are there to fill up time when the ettenmoors arent busy, whilst running the missions you are still open to PVP at all times, so you could be jumped anywhere anytime.

I believe the ettenmoors have control zones, basically you are battling it out to "control" areas of the ettenmoors, (ive never taken part in the more orderly side of PvP) for various advantages. Even in the early days on the RP server I play on most there could be some massive pitched battles between players on both sides. If you prefer not to get involved in the big battles you can try rangering around the ettenmoors by yourself looking for more solo action (which is what I did) although as it is a pvp zone you can still run into a gank squad (I also did this, more than once ) I suspect there are players who do very little except PvP on monsterplay toons, for players who just want the rush of fighting other people and arent interested in quests and storylines they can dive straight in and stay there as long as they like. Not being one of those players I dont know how satisfying the game is for pure PvPing "monsterplayers".

Lotro has several different play modes which you get to see at different times, you get some "historic" play sessions where you get to play characters from long ages past in middleearth history, theres even a quest line where you get to play as a chicken and have to run around middle earth completing chicken quests, the reward for which is a very nice "chicken" cloak - probably one of the rarest items in the game There are all kinds of "session play" quests around the game, adds a nice bit of diversity to the game, but monster play is without a doubt the most popular form of "session play". I believe theres also troll and ranger session play which is limited in some way or another, but basically you get to play "elite" characters in the PVP zone, although Ive never done so and dont know how its unlocked but I do know its limited in some way to make the use of them less common.