Obviously, the game doesn't resemble a lot to the world of Tolkien, maybe just the outlines. Still, I actually liked playing around in the first game, Shadow of Mordor.
If you're seeking a more lore-friendly game, I'd strongly recommend you to play the Lord of the Rings Online.
That's not true, once you reach a certain point you have to buy quest packs if you don't want to mob grind. Also, F2P players only get 1 character per server versus. You can compare each games F2P modes: SWTOR and LOTRO
I use to play LOTRO back when it was P2P and when it was F2P (as a preferred player). The F2P stuff was restrictive enough to get me to sub for a few months (which is obviously the whole point of the restrictions). I think if you were to compare the F2P of LOTRO and SWTOR, SWTOR would come out on top based solely on the quality of the story content. However, I still consider LOTRO to be the MMO with the best transition from P2P to F2P. Apparently it made them a buttload more money than P2P.
Check out the subreddit: [/r/lotro](/r/lotro)
It's essentially free to play. Everything you need to progress can be bought from within the in game store, and to earn "Turbine points" to buy such things you grind out deeds, essentially kill 100 of something and earn 5-10 points. The game is enjoyable as a F2P member, and a blast if you decide to pay.
You can make it to level 20 without having to buy anything from the in game store, so you should have timed to build up a few points by the time you have to unlock a new questing area. If you are interested in more, ask me here or send a PM. Or check out the subreddit and make a post. Also be sure to join the reddit kin on the Gladden server.
Vindictus - http://vindictus.nexon.net/ Champions Online - http://www.champions-online.com/splash?redir=frontpage Lord of the Rings Online - http://www.lotro.com/
That should give you a good start. ^^
> Imagine World of Warcraft, but with Lord of the Rings’ mythos, world, and characters!
Hey buddy that´s called LOTRO and it is free to play. I did for years and loved it.
Side note: Tauhid is up next week! Man I loved And It Don't Stop [](/weasel)
The best MMO out there, if you value a good community, excellent gameplay and its F2P (you can actually go from lvl 1 - endgame without spending a dime) is 'Lord of the Rings Online'. http://www.lotro.com
Make a char, join for ex 'Laurelin server' and have a blast :)
You can read about radiance gear and why it was removed here. Quoted from that web page, Radiance turned out to be "an arbitrary gating mechanic that forced players to get “keys” in order to enter raids". Besides the gating part of it, I believe the gear stats were crappy compared to similar level gear too.
Yeah, that's why I find myself drawn to Lord of the Rings Online, you actually do sort of get to live in Middle Earth! There is just so much attention to detail by Tolkien (he did spend his entire adult life on it, after all), that you can't help but get lost in the world. I also somewhat feel that way about Star Wars.
You have about 2 options for Free Fantasy MMORPG that are good compared to WoW.
Allods Online and Lord of the Rings Online
I played WoW for almost 6 years, and I've played dozens of free MMORPG in search of a WoW replacement. The two I mentioned are the closest I have found.
I'm kinda looking at it like what Lord of the Rings Online did with some of their region quest revamps. They didn't really change the maps, but they made better quest flow, more easily-used hubs, better swift travel, re-leveling the quests and other things to better suit how the modern game had changed from what it was at launch. Here's an example: http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/dev-diary-%E2%80%93-update-13-revamps-north-downs-trollshaws-and-misty-mountains
I just started aswell, and got the following. I belive its right?
If you have a VIP subscription, you only need:
Quad pack: http://store.steampowered.com/app/258800/ Helm's deep: http://store.steampowered.com/app/258803/
The safest way for vip/tp, I belive must be: http://www.lotro.com/en
That should give you content for levels: 1-50 (VIP) 50-60 (Mines of Moria, part of quad pack) 60-65 (Siege of Mirkwood, part of quad pack) 65-75 (Rise of Isengard, part of quad pack) 75-85 (Riders of Rohan, part of quad pack) 85-100 (Helm's deep?)
Welcome to LoTRO! :)
It is free to play, but you will run out of quests at around level 35. The game is built around quest and expansion packs, which unlock new region quests but not the region, you are completely free to go wherever you want in Middle Earth, but you won't be able to do the quests there unless you buy the region.
With that said, it is possible to not spend any real money and get to end game with the help of the deed system. There are certain deeds in every region that you can complete; for example: kill 60 bandits in Breelands. When you complete the deed, you are rewarded Turbine Points, which you can spend in the in-game store to buy any region or expansion you want!
So with a bit (alot) of grinding you can get everything you need. :) In my opinion the best option would be to pay for a month of VIP, that will unlock all the neccesary treats you need, like fast traveling, and you can keep them at the end of the month. You can check the VIP benefits here: http://www.lotro.com/en/game/vip
The best thing about MMOs is that you learn as you go, so don't worry about that! If you'll have any questions about the game there is an ingame World chat channel where you can get advice, or as the name suggest in the Advice channel!
I would recommend the server Laurelin if you are into roleplaying, it has a really nice and mature community. If you still have any questions, don't hesitate to write! Best of luck! :)
The wallet is a damn good start.
Anything that affects all characters is another one. Inventory spots are good. Not only for the immediate benefit of being able to lug around more stuff but you can always roll mule toons to save on buying bank space.
Having a stash of mithril coins on hand (I don't usually keep more than 50-100) can help because they're big time-savers. You can use them to "force unlock" a travel point, resurrect, reset (and increase) task limits, and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff.
Also, check the store sales every week (http://www.lotro.com/en/lotrostoresale). There's always a freebie that changes I think on Thursdays. Buffs and potions are common but there's other stuff as well.
Hi /u/EZ8427, I'm sorry to hear that you're having trouble with the game.
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After doing some research on this, it looks like this is more than likely a network-related issue, and you were right to look at the firewalls/antivirus. However, I see that a lot of people on University WiFi have this issue. Are you on a non-residential WiFi? If you're using a network that is "not your own," it's possible that the administrator has set up certain blocks that you may be unaware of.
​
I've seen people say not to use the Steam launcher, that there have been major problems with that, so lets bypass that entirely.
​
Click on your Windows Key or open up your start menu, type in UAC, and bring up the User Account Control. Go ahead and bring that slider all the way down (you can put it back up if it's up there currently, after you install).
​
Uninstall LotRO again. Make sure you've fully restarted after you uninstall.
​
Open up your browser's settings and delete all Temporary Internet Files and Cookies. Redownload the client from http://www.lotro.com/
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Have you tried running the installer .exe file as Administrator? If not, please give that a go.
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Another thing to try if the above doesn't work is to delete the turbinelauncher.exe, and copy the version that's in the backup folder back to where you deleted the above, and run it again.
​
These are the only things that I could really put together for you to try, but I certainly hope something does the trick for you! Best wishes!
http://www.lotro.com/en/lotrostoresale hasn't refreshed its sales for the week yet, I wouldn't be so quick to say that the expansions aren't going on sale (unless there was a announcement on the forum about it I missed)
There are two things that made me a little sceptical;
>buying the Helm's Deep expansion for..Well, it was over $100
The most it has ever been was $39.99 - $59.99, depending on the edition.
>I was explaining the situation to others players and Turbine staff alike, only I was suspended on BOTH ACCOUNTS after being "Identified", so to speak.
> I literally had no animosity towards Turbine, and was only seeking their help.
>The phone support guy was a complete jerk and should have been fired or at least reprimanded.
>After punching a hole in my laptop
You admit being the type of person who destroys their own property when angry, but we are to believe that all of your interactions on the forum, e-mail and telephone were cordial, even though you claim the support representative should have been fired? (with no details on what it was that made him a complete jerk - it's amazing how refusing to do something against the rules can make you the bad guy).
Sure, Turbine might have been over-zealous in the initial banning, or any of the follow up, but the simple fact is that we have half a story with obvious factual errors.
Technically, Macros are a violation of the Code of Conduct. (Item 18) http://www.lotro.com/en/content/lord-rings-online-code-conduct
> You may not create, post, use or distribute any utilities, emulators or other third party software tools without the express written permission of Turbine (including, without limitation, macroing programs, botting programs, server emulators, client hacks, map hacks, and data gathering utilities).
That said, the restrictions are not heavily enforced unless they become obvious - mainly to other players who then complain to the Game Masters about their use.
There many players who use keyboards like the Logitech G105, but they tend to stick with using them to spam emotes rather than for combat actions, mainly for the timing reasons mentioned by Fredelas.
~~Today, that is the 16th, in fact. People have been talking about the 18th, not sure where that came from.~~
~~The update is scheduled to begin in half an hour or so, I guess it will be live after that.~~
Never mind, I'm wrong. Although I'm blaming Turbine, mostly.
Region Transfer
Existing characters on EU and US worlds will have a data conflict moving to a different region, so we are only able to support transfers of characters from an EU world to another EU world and US to US. You will note that we have now labeled all worlds on the launcher with their region. However, there is no restrictions on where you might start a NEW character and play based on your physical location, so feel free to try out new worlds in which ever region you feel most comfortable.
source: http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/world-transfers
I recommend folks try out Lord of the Rings Online for this reason. You can visit Bree, the Shire, even see Bilbo's trolls. I had a hard time grasping the geography until I put on audiobook versions of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit and just roaming around in the game.
I think you're mistaken. The vast majority of place-names in lotro match the lotr+hobbit books.
As I understand, Turbine (before they were acquired by Warner Brothers), had licensing for the lord of the rings and the hobbit books (specifically they did not initially have rights to use anything specific to the movies).
Just looking at the villages in the shire in LOTRO, all of them appear on the Shire (Middle-earth) wikipedia:
https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/The_Shire#Villages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shire_%28Middle-earth%29
Some discussion about the villages that are in the books that are missing in LOTRO:
http://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?494612-Revamping-of-the-Shire
The LOTRO store has sales and a free item every week. I'd recommend playing for a few weeks and seeing if you need anything that comes on sale instead of buying something now. Watching the store sales is also a nice introduction to the store and items you might not know you want.
In general, though, I think it's worth unlocking at least one more Virtue Trait Slot (they go on sale fairly often), extra storage space, and another Milestone skill.
As for quest packs, I don't know if you'll need any. Most people talk about leveling up to get to Moria, but the Mithril Edition has everything you need for that. You just go from Lone Lands to Trollshaws to Eregion to Moria, then you'll also get Lothlorien right after Moria.
Wrong.
Here are the restrictions for DCUO http://www.dcuniverseonline.com/free/
LOTRO http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/vipchart.html
And of course GW2 which is based on a micro transaction model for cosmetic goods.
SWTOR has the most restrictive f2p rules ive heard of. Its a poor way to attract new players. I want this game to succeed, but the way they are doing f2p is silly. Only 1 text messge per minute? Come on!
It is a bit confusing. This page details what is included in each quest pack including the expansion ones.
Notice that the Moria quest pack includes the Moria instances. The Moria expansion has quests, instances as well but also includes the Warden and Runekeeper classes, two extra characters slots per server and a trait cap unlock. You can purchase these items without buying the full Moria expansion. I found it cheaper to get the Warden and Runekeeper classes on sale.
The Isengard expansion quest pack does NOT include the Isengard instances. There is a separate pack for the instances. I believe this is how Riders of Rohan will be sold when it hits the in game store as well.
Turbine have now confirmed the breach and told everyone to change their password:
http://www.lotro.com/news/latestnews/1497
“Recently, we were made aware of an issue with the security of our LOTRO community web applications. Protecting player accounts is a top priority and we take any potential issues seriously. As a result, we closed all of our forums as we investigate the situation. We are continuing to investigate and the forums will not reopen until this work is complete.
As an additional precaution we recommend that all players change their passwords by visiting http://myaccount.turbine.com. Please remember to use unique, hard-to guess passwords that are not associated with other online services or sites, and always look for and report unusual activity in your account to Turbine customer support.”
You can use Turbine Points that you earn by finishing Deeds (achievements) to unlock additional quest packs and other features without spending real money to some extent. If you've subscribed for a month, you get to keep certain features like inventory bags, swift travel, gold cap removal, etc when you downgrade from VIP to Premium.
I understand what you're saying, even if I don't agree with all of it. The nice thing about LOTRO (and DDO too) is that they've kept their subscription option. If you have the money available, you can still subscribe to the game and get all the pre-expansion content as if it were a typical MMO. I think they even have sales going on right now, offering $10/month for 3 or 6 month periods or $99/year.
Yes, the presence of the LOTRO store button is annoying, but if you're VIP, the game is really like any other MMO, just with a completely optional micro-transaction system added on top that gives few if any in-game benefits. And if you ever can't afford to keep subscribing, you can drop down and play whatever content is either f2p or you've purchased (most likely the expansions).
Personally, I'm VIP and I like the way Turbine's done f2p. Its much more of a hybrid model than traditional f2p games, as you can still subscribe and get the content the way you used to. If it helps, think of f2p as an extended trial. Yes, it is completely possible to reach 65 without paying anything, but you'll be grinding skirmishes an insane amount to do so.
It is initially F2P, but if you have the extra money you can buy VIP (15$/month, or 30$/3months, etc up to 12 months). VIP alone will last you into level 50, from there you will have to buy an expansion to put you through to about level 60. You can try it out as a F2P and usually get to about level 20 without having to upgrade to some sort of quest pack.
If you are interested at all, send me a PM or reply here with any questions and I will gladly answer.
Also check out [/r/lotro](/r/lotro). If you do end up joining, look into starting on the Gladden server, we have a reddit kin (similar to a Guild in other games) and would be more than glad to get another member to help out.
I enjoy the Best PC Game Ever Made: the Player-vs-Monster-Player "subgame" of Lord of the Rings Online.
While always fun during the week, it becomes especially fun Friday nights once drinks settle and people get rowdy. We use TeamSpeak or Ventrilo to communicate, so it's essentially a party-line with drunken revelry, comedic hi-jinx, and coordinated slaughter.
I'm not aware of a more fun use of one's time. Unlike other PvP games, it's common in LOTRO to have 50+ people in the same vicinity fighting for their lives in a semi-coordinated effort.
It is currently "free-to-play" but requires ~$15/month if you want to play as a Monster, a restriction hopefully removed in an expansion later this Fall.
Just returned to Lotro after an 18 month break and saw this mount as screenshot of the week in Beacon Issue 59 (http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/lotro-beacon-issue-59) - anyone know what it is or how to get it?
Thanks
There're rumours about next noticeable sale (~70% cutoff) of the expansions while upcoming summer (~july), as it was in previous one '16. But for now, it's only rumours.
And if you'll choose to sub temporarily, it may be good to spend your monthly bonus points (500 per month) on non-xpack questpacks. You may check the list.
Lord of the Rings Online is a great "old school" MMO. If you're not someone who needs the latest graphics and can get into the classic style of MMO combat, give it a shot. It's got a great, active community and is still getting regular updates.
Keep in mind that account selling is against the LOTRO terms of use.
After you buy the quad pack and helms deep you will have them forever.
Subbing will give you access to the other quests, if you look at this page you can see the difference between quest packs and expansions.
the quests packs either come with subbing, which you will lose if you run out of the month OR you can buy them using Tp and keep them forever.
Expansion packs stay with you until you lose your account I guess.
Newest Producer Letter: http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/2015-producers-letter
Population wise is 'ok' if you choose right server (do your research because many are just dead).
Content wise its sad because literally 3/4 of the game is locked behind paywalls also some features (like Crafting guilds) too. Also CashShop is literally everywhere. Compared to games like RIFT or SWTOR or TERA is just BAD (and this games have big cash shops too lol!). You can buy raw stats upgrdes and items and crafting recipes and... list go on.
Personally i played it for 1,5 year when Moria/Mirkwood was newest expansions (it was F2P then but not as bad liek today). Good game then. Unispired (content wise because lore and gameworld is still superb - its Tolkien afterall) and not really well developed (new features like mounted combat or SKirmishes or Heroc Battels are /meh) WoW-clone killed by F2P corporate greed first and 'WoWification' later.
Maybe this year will be better but i have no hope - Warner Bros is still in charge. :/
Also technically is very outadated, more than WoW tbh (because Blizzard knows that money spen on engne tweaking and upgrades will return - Turbine not).
Play only if you must (Tolkien lore).
I started playing 3 weeks ago. I've never been able to purchase points in the store. I always get this error message. The steps I take are: log in to game, open store, click add points, only option I'm given is purchase points using Steam, I click it, it gives me this screen. There's no other option.
Edit: Last time I contacted Turbine they manually added points on their end using my Visa. I contacted them again two days ago saying I still had the same problem. They actually just replied saying they can't help with Steam wallet. What the hell is Steam wallet and what does it have to do with this?
Edit 2: Turbine just emailed me back and said don't play through Steam, use this: http://www.lotro.com/en/game/download
Nope. You'll have the Turbine Points you'll need (3500TP total from all of this - a lot!) to buy the map pack(s) you'll need to get from level 30~ish (last free to play map zone, Lone Lands) to 45+ (minimum level to start Moria, the beginning of the Quad Pack). From there you'll already have all the necessary quest regions to get all the way to Helm's Deep at level 100, with some left over to buy additional Gondor map regions.
Save your TP and try to never buy anything unless it's on weekly sale at http://www.lotro.com/en/lotrostoresale (changes every week). Head over to /r/lotro and make a post (or ride on an existing post) to ask about what are the must-buys with TP in LOTRO.
don't buy anything. wait for a weekly sale here before you buy anything with TP: http://www.lotro.com/en/lotrostoresale -> it changes every week.
You'ld best ask over at /r/lotro as that's an entire long subject by itslef. Just say that you're new to the game and ask for advice on what to buy with TP. Submit a new text post.
Looking at the LOTR Online tiers it looks like free players have access to all the single player content. That's the exact opposite of what TOR is doing, unless I misunderstand.
I don't get overwrought about players wanting, ever how passionately, to know and understand how their game is being changed. Trust me, if players did not feel that way; this game's life would be over.
From the get-go ANet was seemingly forthright in expressing their design philosophies about various aspects of their game. That players cling to those words like scripture, isn't difficult to understand.
The fear is ANet may have painted themselves into a few corners on things; it simply isn't the players' fault.
ANet needs to read their community better and actually appear more sensitive to their game's environment. GW2 isn't happening in a vacuum. Gamers know about other games, they see what happened in the first Guild Wars, they see commonalities with other MMO's and with other game mechanics like radiance. It's not expecting too much for Devs to think about how their customers will frame their decisions. The state of mind of the player is what makes or breaks a game.
I thought it was spelled out fairly clearly, if not here goes.
Go to the start menu. Click control panel. Click programs and features. Scroll down to Lotro and click it, now hit uninstall. Tell it yes. When fully uninstalled.
Go to the start menu, click computer. Go to the C drive. Open users. Open your login name folder. Open documents. Right click the Lord of the rings folder and click delete.
Go to the start menu. click on computer. go to the C drive. Open program files (x86 if you have one). Scroll down to the turbine folder. Right click it and delete.
Go to this website http://www.lotro.com/support/download-lotro download the low or high resolution client. Install it. Patch it. Play it.
The problem is usually either a bad patch, corrupt file in the lotro folder, or bad addons. This method will completely wipe out all 3 of those.
Since I was looking for this info as well, figured I'd post it here too.
http://www.lotro.com/news/latestnews/2082-riders-of-rohan-pre-order-faq
20. How much will Riders of Rohan be in the LOTRO Store? Can I buy parts of the expansion pack separately?
Yes, you can purchase portions of the expansion separately with your Turbine Points in the LOTRO Store. These items will be released in the LOTRO Store on the same day as the expansion, October 15th. The prices are as follows:
Buy one month of VIP and create all 3 characters before the VIP expires. When you drop down to premium, you will still get all the perks that you don't get when you are F2P (no gold cap, all trait slots unlocked, etc.). See here for further details:
"There's really no way to confirm which way or another which is the most populated server." -> Not true. Simply create a new toon, get out of the starter zone, then see for yourself by hopping over to west bree.
To be more precies, since you'll probably be most concerned with the population at your particular timezone, roll toons on the servers then switch between them to compare populations.
Will see later what Withywindle is like during US peak hours for comparison. So far it's the most people I've ever seen online.
Now if you're starting out, you should probably pick one of the servers where there are community-driven events officially supported by Turbine. These are the servers you'll probably want to be in to join those events:
I'm going to tell you the same thing I try and tell every new LotRO player... Spending $15 to get one month of VIP will be the best investment you ever make in this game.
While you are VIP, fill up all three character slots with characters you plan on playing. Why? Because, when your VIP expires, you drop down to a premium player, and then when you create new characters you don't get the benefits a VIP gets. These include:
The full list of differences is here: http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/vipchart.html
There is still a subscription based system - for your monthly fee you get VIP status and 500 Turbine Points per month. There are sales and multi-month discounts.
I dunno about the solely store-geared folks. I don't think they would be very successful at end-game content.
have you ever stropped to think about the reason they are not spilling all the beans about what is going on? is LAWYERS??? maybe they can't at this point... I just love the fact that everyone is jumping on the "Turbine sucks and should be ashamed" bandwagon.... Give them a break... Thank about all the people that are working hard to get this fixed and figure out what happened.... I for one SUPPORT turbine... GOOD ON YOU TURBINE.... Get it fixed, make sure it fixed, so no stupid script kiddie try's to do it again... and then you can tell us what happened.. and like AlucardZero Said, if you would have read the latest's news, they [SUGGEST CHANGE YOU PASSWORD... ]http://www.lotro.com/news/latestnews/1497
http://www.lotro.com/lotrostoresale
You can add turbine points to your account and unlock new zones if you want to, without having a sub. Someone mentioned it in another post, but you can play the free content up to the point where you want the extra zones, then just buy that. If you want more when you are done with that, you have the option to buy another zone.
Here's a link to the LotRO subreddit.
Here's where you download the client.
Now is the time to hunt those bargain bins for cheap MoM boxes, because they will render useless after the migration! see bullet point #16
On a side note, I find it a bit odd that EU players are responsible for their own migration and need to go through the migration process manually.
Check out lord of the rings online. You can get most content up to level 40 or so for free, and there's nothing to stop you going all the way to level 65 without the premium quests etc.
Check out this chart
A few things to note... after you lose VIP status (if you quit paying monthly), all characters that you played (even just logging in) while VIP retain all their VIP things excluding quest packs. So what a lot of players do is get VIP, create one of each class you will ever want to play on every server you want to play on, then let VIP lapse. All those characters will have all their bags, have no gold limit, etc. Unfortunately you will still have to buy (via turbine points) the riding skill and quest packs after your VIP lapses (unless you get the riding while still VIP).
Also, as VIP you get 500 turbine points a month. Since you got 3 months of it, you will be somewhat close to getting the Moria expansion... and chances are if you spend some time doing deeds and what-not you'll have enough to actually purchase it.
I, as a returning player, had a problem with the Steam download recently, so I had to repair the game install. (This causes the launcher to redownload the whole game again, so it will take some time.)
To do so, click the arrow in the upper-right corner and click Options. From there, click the Repair tab and, where it says "Repair Game Data", click the Repair button. I suggest doing this at night when no one else is using the internet. If you have internet with decent speeds, it'll probably be done in the morning. (The game is around 20 GBs total, plus about 6 GBs more if you download the optional high-res files.) Be sure to change your computer settings so it won't go to sleep.
Alternatively, you can go directly to LotRO's website and download the game from there. For this method, the initial download is done by using Akamai Netsession Interface, which you can uninstall after the initial download has finished. The developers of LotRO specifically decided against using the peer-to-peer version of Akamai Netsession Interface, so no need to worry there. The game will be downloaded from the Akamai server nearest to you.
I would suggest Lord of the Rings Online. They just celebrated their tenth anniversary and released the Mordor expansion this year.
Basically, you create a character that goes on an epic quest that runs parallel to and, a lot of the time, intersects with the Fellowship's quest. You also get to participate in many of the key events. I won't spoil the specifics here, though. The main wiki (community-run, of course) for the game can be found here if you want full spoilers.
http://www.lotro.com/en/game/vip Without VIP you basicly can't play the game while in eso you can get everything in the game with gold that you can get in the crown store store exapt mount skins and costumes.
IF you enjoy lots of alts, it's worth it.
If you only have one toon, you can buy riding for that character alone (capped at 68% which is pretty hard to tell from 78% honestly) for 95 tp. 2396 = that same riding skill for TWENTY FIVE toons.
Also, one thing not mentioned is that ALL this stuff comes up on sale eventually. Even though you have gobs of TP, no reason to waste them.
Check http://www.lotro.com/en/lotrostoresale
For example right now Beorning, Runekeeper, and Warden classes are 25% off!
No, skill trees did not go away. Yes, the old builds are still wrecked. No more minstrel heal while moving, at least not at the lower levels.
They did add an awful lot to the game since that Nov2013 patch. Inventory is now up to 135 slots, bought +5 at a time in the store. Man that is nice! Bags are resizable, you can have 10x20 instead of 3x5. SkillTree, for solo minstrels, gives extra damage and crit early on, which is nice. You can mine ore/wood while mounted on a horse, no dismounting required. (Though you do have to dismount to interact with other things.) Instant free ride between Bree and Festival grounds. Move to Use item in options, very helpful on some of these quests. Craft mats (wood,ore) now stack to 500. There are non-combat pets. (Current Yule festival has 3 grims.)
Just a lot of nice features. They seem to realize they've made a mistake, the triple bonus points showed that, they're trying to make amends, but they can't back out of the SkillTree without making a bigger mess.
Be advised that the skill tree has a lot of skills in it, not just the bonus every 5 points but every point is spent on something. I don't like it either, but you may want to try it. For minstrels, solo minstrels, it's not too painful. Also, no cost to reset and redo your trait tree. (Though keeping extra trait trees around is sold in store.)
But you probably do want to start over. I'd hate to try to figure this all out with a high-level character. (Be advised, if you are starting over, the Yule festival is in progress right now. Most quests are L10. It offers a 68% horse for 80 tickets. You can earn 60-70 a day, depending on how aggressive you are.)
LOTRO is kind of like Skyrim but less finnicky (just don't let her play a Burglar, that's all positioning and sneaking.) If she chooses a regular class like a Champion (typical warrior) or Hunter the extent of coordination required is click-press-a-few-buttons-for-skills. Combos and timing is a plus, but honestly I made a Champion and put all my skills on hotkeys and I only ever use like 3.
Bonus: native to Mac, has a Mac client. http://www.lotro.com/en/game/download
I'm working up to Skyrim at some point once I get the hang of wrappers on my Mac, but until then LOTRO is great. You get the fantasy RPG feel but, especially for the first half of the game, coordination is optional. At least in my experience.
The rewards for playing?
Everyone gets a special portrait frame showing how many years they have been playing, and all other previous year rewards. These are based on LOTRO's anniversary of April 30th.
In addition to that:
1 Year:
2 Years:
3 Years:
4 Years:
5 Years:
6 Years:
7 Years:
In addition to being a player for 7 years, your monster characters will also receive:
For more information, though I think I covered it all, go to: http://www.lotro.com/en/7anniversary-rewards
Lord of the Rings Online is pretty good. The community is (or was when i last played) still one of the most helpful and friendly communities in an MMO.
It's "free to play" up until around level 30. You can do the main story (minus expansions) for free though. But by level thirty, if you have been doing the deeds you get and/or played multiple characters, you should have racked up some points to buy a quest pack; unless it has changed since i last played.
Honestly it fits, I didn't think it did until I looked, and Beornings are mentioned in LOTR a few times, which matches the statement made in the last THtI.
At this point it will have to be a race of man only, as that is actually their ancestry.
If it isn't a Beorn inspired class, then I'm almost more interested in what it could be.
however, I'm feel pretty certain that it would be this. Its been requested an ungodly number of times, and some good write-ups have been done as well: http://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?371900-New-Class-Beorning
Not after October 15th. Most, if not all, of the taunt skills are becoming detaunts when in Overpower, and there is a 2s induction to switch stances. Plus they're cutting Guards' armor AND mitigation ratings (not percentages) by 30% in Overpower. Even with a shield on, that's going to hurt.
It makes me really sad for those talented people who have built LIs and gearsets specifically for this (admittedly niche) purpose, but I just don't see how an RoR Guardian will be sturdy enough to tank in Overpower, especially given the change to Pledge as well.
Here's the dev diary, if you want to read the sad news for yourself:
http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/2316-riders-of-rohan-developer-diary-guardian
> Rohan Expansion Content: 4295 TP
> Expansion Content includes the quests in the Rohan region.
FAQ button at the bottom of every rohan.lotro.com page
No information on instances for TP.
> the quest packs for the first two expansions
The only other expansion quests the Heroic edition includes is Moria
> none of the more desirable Eriador quest packs
umm xcuse me, Evendim is quite desirable
> most of which I do believe are copies of MoM/Mirkwood quest packs
I don't know what that means.
> is it worth buying the Rohan Base pack now
Do what you want. Keep in mind that buying Rohan before September 5th will get you 1500 "free" TP.
> How much TP do you think he instance cluster
Isengard instance cluster was 1,495, so, 1,995?
Playername: Skrelex
Toon: Persian
Used to play Level 65 Char Lynwod/Lynwood
Notorious griefer.
Was permabanned from the game a year ago with a level 65 toon after trolling his old kin, flooding the chat wall with profanity. Given chance, claims he's changed, but up to his old tricks as of 08/12/2012.
MO:
Enjoys pretending to be a newbie to eat up helpful players' time, also baiting random people and try to get them to break LOTRO COC (code of conduct) policies for tables to flip and the good guys to be reported instead. When people call them out, he baits them, tries to get them to break code of conduct, complains about being bullied and tries to get random bystanders to think he's get him picked on and have them report the good guys who call him out to Turbine for bullying/harassment. Doesn't care about being banned again, brags about affording new accounts.
Tried pretending to be a girl recently and tried to get Skype IDs of real-life women LOTRO Withy players in kin, including ours.
Lora has officially taken on SWTOR as a second job, lol. I am back playing LOTRO, and looking forward to getting my PvP fix in GW2. Though, I have to say, the upcoming changes LOTRO is pushing to the Ettenmoors really look promising. Have you seen the dev diary?
Mithril's 2000 Turbine Points bonus alone for $10 is a steal as none of Turbine's offerings come close. Typically it's something like $20 for 1600 TP.
Mithril also goes really really well and is complementary with the Steam Starter Pack too (comes with 1000 Turbine Points, 50% off at $15) as none of the Quest Packs overlap:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/213174/
This would be also be the best time to get both the Mithril Edition + Steam Starter especially since all Quest Packs are 50% off in Turbine Points right now, and you can put that 3000TP from both packs to really good use:
http://www.lotro.com/lotrostoresale
Also, the Warden premium character class is on sale today only, so grab these nao!
Mithril edition is around $55 of content (not counting day of VIP). Then if you add in the partial day of VIP that lets you unlock you characters bags and gold cap so you don't have to spend turbine points on them (unless you create a character later when you are not VIP) it makes it worth even more.
Another note if you buy mithril edition and get your VIP for a day create all your monster play classes because they will get all of their traits unlocked while you are VIP where it costs like $30+ in TP each character to unlock all the trait slots if you buy the TP with cash. When your VIP is over you will only have the reaver class but the others characters will still be there with all of their traits unlocked if you ever choose to unlock another monster play class.
EDIT: One more tip. Do not spend TP on anything that is not riding skill or an account wide item. Items like new areas or your bags and shared storage and stuff like that is the best value. Also Sales change every week and if you don't need something from the turbine store right then and there you should wait for it to go on sale. Here is the sale page http://www.lotro.com/lotrostoresale. Sales change every friday (they get posted on thursday)
This is for those who may not be paying much attention anymore and for those without RoI. For $25 I got the legendary edition today - a steal. With my Moria box and this I got all the expansions, the RoI legendary extra areas, the month of VIP with Moria, and all the 'free' TP, for $50.
have you ever stropped to think about the reason they are not spilling all the beans about what is going on? is LAWYERS??? maybe they can't at this point... I just love the fact that everyone is jumping on the "Turbine sucks and should be ashamed" bandwagon.... Give them a break... Thank about all the people that are working hard to get this fixed and figure out what happened.... I for one SUPPORT turbine... GOOD ON YOU TURBINE.... Get it fixed, make sure it fixed, so no stupid script kiddie try's to do it again... and then you can tell us what happened.. and like AlucardZero Said, if you would have read the latest's news, they [SUGGEST CHANGE YOU PASSWORD... ]http://www.lotro.com/news/latestnews/1497
The only ones I can think of right now are:
Shield brother has been changed. To Arms is no longer +25% damage, it is now -15% incoming damage. the +incoming Healing is unchanged, however.
The new Blade-Brother has +damage on To Arms and -attack speed from Strength of Will.
Only Lead the Charge capstone will let you get the full benefit of blade-brother, and we don't even get it until 74.
Source; the very last line mentions the Shield-Brother change.
tldr; Full b/p/e with +20%inc heals and -15% inc damage will make us even harder to kill, but a new bleed + a slow isn't going to change anything. We still can't solo in the Moors, but we'll be that much harder to take down while healing our fellowship.
Obviously until I get a feel of it this is entirely provisional but I think I like the changes they're making to the champ, in principle. In fervour we won't generate as much threat, and in glory we can now just about be a shieldless tank.
Some may say they've reduced the difficulty of the class, and they're probably right, but they've addressed some of the things that have annoyed me for years.
They have nerfed the fuck out of controlled burn
Anyway I think this may be the non-class related significant stuff, there's a lot to consider.
The game is a MMORPG, meaning that there are lots of people to interact with. The game is set in Middle Earth around the time of the events in the Lord of the Rings (closer to the novels than the movies, if that helps). You can play one of four different races and nine different classes, and you level up your character by doing quests within the game world.
As far as limitations go, there are really only a few, and they are more a matter of convenience than anything else (restrictions on the number of items you can carry at once, the amount of gold you can accumulate, etc.). None of these things will really affect you until you get pretty far into the game. The first four areas of the game are completely unlocked, and you can follow the epic quest line until the level cap if you want. If you want to have more quests in other parts of the game world, you can buy quest packs, which will unlock more areas. The cool thing is, you pay for everything with points, and the game actually gives you points as you play, so ostensibly you could unlock most things in the game just with the points you accumulate from playing. In fact, I played for free for like the first six months, just by what I had earned in game.
If you decide you want to have everything unlocked, you can pay a subscription like any other online game. If you pay for three months, it's about 30 dollars, but here's the cool thing: they give you back about 5 bucks worth of points every month, so it works out to be about five dollars a month; the best deal in gaming, in my opinion.
In any case, you can try it for as long as you want without spending a dime, and see if you like it. If you like Tolkien, it's a no-brainer: you need to play it. If you aren't familiar with the milieu, you still might enjoy the ambiance and game mechanics. Plus, it isn't filled with prepubescent douchetards like World of Warcraft, so it has that going for it as well.
Here's a good guide to what you get with each type of account. Its slightly out of date, since they haven't updated it since Lone Lands was made f2p and the level cap raised to 65 for everyone. But its sufficient to give you a good idea.
TL;DR You lose access to any quest packs you don't own, lose some character slots, and any character you create after dropping down only has bag/trait slot restrictions. Characters you played as a VIP keep 5 bags and any unlocked trait slots.
A F2P player will start off just like a VIP player in terms of virtues, however, once they unlock their second slot, they have too both purchase the slot with TP and meet the level requirement for those slots as well.
You can purchase I believe +1 rank in all of the virtues with TP, but nothing beyond that without finishing in game deeds.
completing deeds gives you * TP * (possibly) A title * (possibly) +1 or +2 to a virtue * (possibly) barter items * (possibly) heritage runes(Experience for Legendary weapons see here for info about those. They were added during the MOM expansion and are a big part of +50 gameplay * (possibly) reputation with factions
As for the getting TP, you will get some for various reputation deeds which were added, but you will not receive any for the old deeds completed, because so many people would have gazillions TP (for instance I have 3 65s, so I would have started out w/ quite a bit when it was introduced.)
Hopefully that cleared it up a little.
Moria is still an expansion, It is free to explore, and you can complete the epic quests that run through it, however you won't have access to any other quests without purchasing it. The older runs (such as Rift with the Balrog and other runs such as CD) don't get run as much with the increased level cap, however you will see groups run them every now and again. The current raids do get run quite often however (I can't speak for the reddit kin, as I am on a different server, but you should be able to find a raiding kin on most any server if that is what you enjoy). TP (aka Turbine Points) are purchasable points which can then be used to either micro purchase your way to having everything a VIP account has (unlocked character slots, removal of gold cap, quests packs, etc) as well as purchase other temporary buffs, cosmetic items, and a few other odds and ends. As for benefits for the VIP see VIP Chart.
Btw, the caster class you would have played would have been Lore Master (as long as he wasn't a healer that is then you would have been a mini). they have added another caster since SOA, as well as the Warden class, both of which are part of the Moria expansion or purchasable separately with TP. Also as a quick note, if you intend to join a serious raiding kin, I suspect that they will want you to be VIP (or at least premium) so that you have all of your virtues unlocked. Also, sorry about the abbreviations, I'm too lazy to look up how all the names are spelled
There's quite a few mmos out there as well, if that's what you're into. Personally, they aren't my style, but I have friends who enjoy them. Take a look into Lord of the Rings Online or Runes of Magic. Both of these are set up nowadays where money is optional, and the gameplay itself is free without any fee.
My brother plays it, and it's a pretty awesome game - I'd just get addicted. As robeph said, you can buy more subscription time using the in-game currency (ISK), but they obviously would not make it easy for beginners to make enough to buy it. If you get into the game and enjoy it, and find a way to make a decent bit of money in-game, then good for you.
Players would probably say it's still more than worth the cost, though.
Oh, and if you have Windows: LOTRO is now free.