One Game to Rule them All - Lord of the Rings Online (Review)

If you like Tolkien's works, you'll surely love Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO): come and live your own adventure in the Middle Earth!

Source: StandingStoneGames

Welcome to Tolkien's Middle Earth

The main strenght of LOTRO is, obviously, allowing you, the player, to visit and adventure in the wonderful world of Middle Earth. You'll be able to see all the places and interact with all the characters that you've saw in the movies or read in the books.

The world is cohesive and wonderful. The stories being told are interesting. The places are beautiful. The enemies are vile.

I don't know how to better but this in words than to say that LOTRO setting feels "alive".

Source: LOTRO Beacon

Want to explore the Mines of Moria? What about listening to tavern songs while drinking in The Prancing Pony? Have you dreamed about building your own house in The Shire? Or maybe fight against the dark forces of Sauron?

This all can be done in the Lord of the Rings Online!

Why play LOTRO?

Let's be honest: LOTRO is a game launched almost 15 years ago, in the afar year of 2007. There are MANY newer MMORPGs, with larger populations, better gameplay mechanics and shinier graphics.

So... why would you play LOTRO nowadays?

I will summarize, below, the main points that attract me to the game, even after so much time:

• As I said before, the world is wonderful, and it is a very pleasant feeling to venture to all the places we see in the books and movies; not only the famous places that were shown in the movie (like The Prancing Pony iavern or Minas Tirith), but also all the hundreds of places that are only mentioned or referenced, and that we never had a chance to really get to know them in depth. Creepy places actually feel creepy; joyful places actually feel joyful; pompous places actually feel pompous.

Source: LOTRO Beacon

• The quest lines are actually interesting. We, players, are so used to that boring and repetitive "kill 20 boars and bring me their fur" quests that are meaningless; in LOTRO, of course, there are quests like these, but they are all part of longer, interesting quests that allow you to know more about the locations, the NPCs and the lore of the world. Just by reading the quests, you can find so many thing about the Middle Earth and its lore!

• The community is extremely friendly, pleasant and well-mannered. In most MMORPGs, the community is very toxic and it is difficult to find someone nice and understanding to teach you something or have fun together; in LOTRO, it is the opposite: although there are always the rotten apples, the overwhelming majority of players are nice and willing to help a stranger or just joke around in World Chat.

• Roleplaying. While many players don't care about the roleplay aspect, there is a significant portion of LOTRO players who try, in one way or another, to act "in character." One thing I love is the in-game music mechanics: players can play musical instruments and make melodies; some players take this very seriously and make great music, culminating in the Annual Weatherstock Festival, which brings hundreds of players together every year to play music and have fun with the community.

Source: LOTRO Forums

• The gameplay is pretty straight-foward and simple. The classes have unique and complementary abilities, and almost all are very accessible even for novice players (Wardens are a more complex class with very different mechanics, and are recommended only for more experienced players). Even if you have never played a class before, you can learn its tricks in a few days.

Why NOT play LOTRO?

Not a single game is perfect, after all. So, having spent more than my fair share of time inside LOTRO, I have to say that there are 3 kind of players that deeply dislike the game and that won't enjoy it.

And that's OK! There are other games that are better for these players!

• PvP Players: if you're looking for a MMO with good PvP, LOTRO is definitely not for you. There is a PvP system in the game (called Player vs Monster Player) in which players can play as Monsters against other characters; but the truth is that the system is wonky, boring, and no one actually uses it besides some very specific occasions (like to get achievements or complete seasonal event quests).

Source: Andang

• Raiders / End-Gamers: the end-game of LOTRO is, definitely, worse than the end-game of other games like World of Warcraft; there are just a few Raids, and they aren't really as good or challenging. The old saying "The Journey Matters More Than the Destination" is true in LOTRO: the good part of the game is the landscape gameplay, and not doing dungeons/raids to grind better equipments.

• Players that doesn't want to read: if you just want to smash buttons to kill enemies (and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that!), LOTRO will become boring fast. There are newer games with more engaging battle mechanics. If you're not reading the dialogues and actually paying attention to the world around you, the game won't be fun to you either.

LOTROQUESTS2021

I decided to write about Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) because of this great promo that's going on until November, 30th!

By using the Coupon Code "LOTROQUESTS2021", you'll unlock ALL available Quest Packs on the game, 100% free.

You can see the list of all 26 Quest Packs that'll be unlocked here, on LOTRO official website.

I, personally, already had a few of those unlocked as I've purchased them through the years; but I just unlocked more than a dozen of them with this code. As someone that paid for those, I can guarantee to you that they're well worth the money; now that they're free? 10/10 would play again.

There's also a great sale on Expansion Quests; if you're serious about LOTRO, you can buy all of them for a REALLY low price right now. I already have all of those, so there's that.

Quest Packs, Expansion Packs, and Expansions

Finally, I have to explain a very important point: LOTRO has a very weird Subscription/Purchase system.

• All players, including Free Players, can earn Turbine Points (TP) by doing Deeds.

Deeds are like Achievements in LOTRO: they're special tasks that can reward you lots of stuff (like Titles and Trait Points), including TPs.

There are very different Deeds to be completed, ranging from common "Kill 200 Spiders in The Shire" and "Complete XYZ Questline" to weird, fun stuff like "Fall to Death on 6 different Pits in Moria"!

• Quest Packs: quests from a specific area, like "Misty Mountains", "Angmar" or "Lothlorien". They usually cost 1000 TP and, now, can all be bought for free.

• Expansions: large content packs that include new mechanics that can only be played with it, like Mounted Combat, or new Classes/Races. They are NOT included in VIP Subscriptions.

• Expansion Quests: they're like "cheap/light" Expansions, including just the quests of an Expansion and the minimum of those new mechanics that are needed to complete the quests. They're usually very expensive but are currently able to be bought for 99 TP each (a very neglible amount, you can earn this really fast doing Deeds)

• VIP Subscription: if you pay a monthly subscription, you unlock all Quest Packs and Expansion Quests, but still need to buy the Expansion Packs.

Source: LOTRO Beacon

Yes, it's weird, it's convoluted, it's stupid. The good part is that the current system will be reworked soon and, according to the devs, almost everything will change. The unofficial consensus is that they'll incorporate many of the older expansions (like Moria) into the base, free game, and will reduce the number of Quest Packs/Expansion Packs by a huge number, organizing the whole thing.

Join me at Treebeard server!

In the middle of 2021, the Treebeard server launched. It is a Legendary Server, which means that it was launched just with the basic game, without any expansions.

Every 6 months, the next expansion will be released. Moria, the first expansion, will launch early January 2022.

The idea is allowing people to enjoy the game "as it was meant to be played", one expansion at a time, without rushing to the end game.

I'm currently at the level cap (level 50) and took a time from the game to avoid being burned. In January, I'll surely come back to adventure through Moria!

If you're interested in playing the game and want to join me in Treebeard, you're more than welcome :D Just let me know your character name and we can explore together, do some deeds, etc.

Thanks for reading this post, and until next time!

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