Incline The Lord of the Rings Online - Legacy of Morgoth

[ADL]

https://www.lotro.com/legacy-of-morgoth
*The Lord of the Rings Online: Legacy of Morgoth expansion is estimated to release on November 6th, 2024 with raid content no later than February 2025.

BUSINESS MODEL CHANGES FOR EVERYBODY (AS OF MARCH 2022)

We’re making some big changes to the LOTRO Store. You’ve seen some of the first changes we made a month ago with the release of Rangers and Ruins, which brought the Premium Wallet, Gold Currency Cap, and Virtue, Race, and Class trait slots for free to all players! Starting with Update 33, we’re making the High Elf race free for all players. Now everyone can play as those who beheld the beauty of Valinor, and play as a Captain, Champion, Guardian, Hunter, Lore-master, Minstrel, Rune-keeper, Warden, or Brawler through all of Middle-earth!

Rune-keepers, Wardens, and Beornings will now be available for all players to play! Craft powerful runes, create masterful gambits, or summon the secret of Beorn, as you grow your legacy as a hero in Middle-earth!

We’re making some updates to VIP. VIP will now include the standard versions of the Mordor, Minas Morgul, and War of Three Peaks expansions.

There’s another change that’s perhaps the biggest we’ve made since The Lord of the Rings: Online went free to play all those years ago... With this update, all quests, areas, instances, and expansions released between the original launch of LOTRO back in 2007 and up to – and including! - the release of Helm’s Deep will be available for free to everyone. Quest, explore, and craft your way to level 95 to your heart’s content!

This means hundreds if not thousands of hours of content for free up until Level 95. If you logged in during the 15th anniversary they gave out Mordor, Minas Morgul and War of Three Peaks for free. If you didn't, then you have five expansions left to buy so in the very distant future expect to spend about $100 on those expansions including the latest "Fate of Gundabad" and "Before the Shadow".

Some fairly recent footage.



It might look and play pretty dated in certain areas but if you can look past that, this is the best adaptation of Tolkien's work by far.
They plan on modernizing the UX and 'remastering' older areas of the game throughout the next year to bring it more in line with the quality of recent expansions.

Because the game keeps growing despite its age, they reallocated funds from the cancelled Marvel MMORPG towards LOTRO and they'll be porting it to consoles with various overhauls to combat, graphics and UX.

New player advice and optimal "Premium" account setup so you're not paying $15/mo forever

Will try this together with my woman. Is there anything I should absolutely know as in what to do and what not to do (to not waste money and or time)?

There's one really annoying thing left for new players and I hate having to do a whole write-up before you've even played the game but it is what it is. Mount riding is 95 points per character so at minimum you'll be spending $5. Grinding points to get it for free is possible but I'm going to assume you value your time more than a little money. Alternatively there's an account-wide method for ten bucks that I highly recommend because it'll give you the fourth inventory bag slot and a mount too. This is my most recommended purchase in the game because no matter how many characters you make, you'll always have mount riding from the start and a little extra bag space.

• Get the "Samwise Gamgee's Starter Pack" ($10) for account wide mount, currency cap unlock, and 4th inventory bag. This is no longer offered by the store, but you can find it on Amazon.
• Create all the characters you think you'll play (using your now "premium" account)
• Buy one month VIP ($15) for all one-time unlocks (swift travel, etc.) and log into all the characters you made (if you like the game)

The VIP recommendation is for a handful of one time unlocks that are nice to have if you end up liking the game. This will take you hundreds if not thousands of hours if you take your time as a completionist. Assuming they don't give away Mordor, Minas Morgul and War of the Three Peaks for free again in the time it takes you to hit level 95 as they have in the very recent past, expect to spend $100 for the expansions you don't have. That price goes down if you buy points during the "2X bonus point sales" that occur 3-4 times a year.

Example: 15,750 points for $99.99 (normally 10,000 points for the same $99.99)
I'm still loaded with points off a $199.99 purchase where I got 33,500 points (+22,000) a couple years back. Every bit of content in the game unlocked with 26,000 to spare.

Every class is fun and viable. Play whatever sounds fun to you. My personal favorite is the Warden but it has a steep learning curve and the gambit system can be annoying because of server lag. Here's a good breakdown of the classes if you need help choosing.

If you're in the US you should play on Landroval.
If you're in EU you should play on Laurelin.
These are where the big community events like Weatherstock happen and Bilbo's birthday are celebrated because they're designated roleplay servers.

 

[fabrulana]

Thanks. Played this when it launched as I am a big Lord of the Rings fan. Even bought the lifetime subscription. At that stage I never found the the time to play it though and needing some money sold it unfortunately.
Started it up and I am surprised the graphics holds up well. Will be playing also on Landroval when I can later today. My one son said he will also try and join in to when he gets some time.

 

[Gerrard]

So the game will be shut down before the end of the year?

 

[ADL]

So the game will be shut down before the end of the year?

Probably when Amazon's MMO launches four or five years from now which will be a damn shame because this one's really good! Enjoy it while you can. well that Amazon/Tencent MMO got cancelled so it's pretty safe in that regard. Middle-earth Enterprises seems to really like Standing Stone Games. Only thing that might be a problem is Embracer buying the license but I don't see them rocking the boat. Maybe they'll buy SSG or something.

Truthfully I don't see it shutting down for another 10-15 years minimum. In 2022 LOTRO hit the highest concurrent player count since 2012 (when it originally released on Steam alongside the Riders of Rohan expansion).

 

[Frank Capicoli]

I really hated the garbage trait tree changes they made like pretty much everybody else did it fucked with the balance of the overall world experience far too hard. Still though prior to the trait changes this game really peaked at Mines of Moria we're never going to get another Lord of the Rings game let alone MMO that has both the build up to Moria and the scope of exploring Moria.

In the end its a shame this game is going to get the SWG treatment when the dumpster fire Amazon show tie in MMO launches, because despite all of the half baked features they added later on there was a lot of effort put into the atmosphere of the world.

 

[Optimist]

I remember playing the hell out of it some years ago. Probably two most vivid images of the game I have are beginners' quests around the Shire, and creating a character on every server to visit their hunting lodges and claim 15 (?) turbine points you got there as a part of a quest.

The music was fantastic, and graphics, while they didn't age all that well, had an evocative quality to them, different from games that were based on LotR movies. Guess I'll need to come back to it if my replacement-of-a-replacement machine won't have problems running it.

 

[curds]

Have played a hell of a lot of LotRO. Gameplay is absolutely atrocious, but Turbine (and later Standing Stone Games) nailed the atmosphere of Middle-earth like no other LotR videogame adaptation has before or since. Must play for Tolkien-fanboys.

 

[ADL]

Coupon is live. The one for Dungeons and Dragons Online is live too.

 

[Rahdulan]

That''s pretty damn awesome. So now you can play through the entire game as F2P without abusing deeds or grinding to get through previously locked content.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Went back a few weeks ago. Looks like they deleted my character, so fuck them.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Went back a few weeks ago. Looks like they deleted my character, so fuck them.

I still have my character from 13 years ago

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Went back a few weeks ago. Looks like they deleted my character, so fuck them.

I still have my character from 13 years ago

Are you a 'murican? I think I lost mine after Codemasters backed out and handed control over UK/European servers to someone else, who then handed them over to Standing Stone Games.

 

[Wilian]

Went back a few weeks ago. Looks like they deleted my character, so fuck them.

I still have my character from 13 years ago

Are you a 'murican? I think I lost mine after Codemasters backed out and handed control over UK/European servers to someone else, who then handed them over to Standing Stone Games.

I'm from EU and all my characters from launch day still exist.

 

[SerratedBiz]

I'm from US and all my characters are still there, even after being forcibly transferred from servers no longer there.

 

[RK47]

Is it really that fun? I felt the gameplay is just too sluggish when I tried it many many years ago.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Gameplay is nothing extraordinaire but worldbuilding and quests are top notch and really set it apart from the crowd.

I played it quite a bit later after release in a time I was burnt out with mmorpgs and still got hooked. And I'm not even that big of a LOTR fan.

 

[curds]

Is it really that fun?

It's fun if you're a Tolkien enthusiast, and are playing it just to soak up the atmosphere (which is incredible, BTW).

Gameplay-wise, it's a way-too-easy (yet very grindy) WoW-clone that's mostly balanced for solo play.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Is it really that fun? I felt the gameplay is just too sluggish when I tried it many many years ago.

It's pretty fun. Its been years since I last played and I don't remember anything from then.
The game's atmosphere is top notch, and the environments look really good for a game from 2007. Most impressive zone so far was by far The Shire, it was clearly a labor of love. I'd recommend making a hobbit if your a Tolkien fan.
Performance-wise, game runs great. Loading screens are near instant, zero FPS dips.
One minor UX thing they did completely right was giving nearly every UI element a mouseover tooltip. Can't count the number of times I had no idea what some icon meant or just wanted something explained more in depth and it had a tooltip attached to it.
The UI in general is very user friendly, only gripe is that it was designed for much smaller screens and not everything scales.

I'll probably comment more when I get to play more of the game. Things like skirmishes and epic battles seem really cool.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i remember trying this years ago for a couple hours and feeling like i wasted a whole day on it, it was so damn dull, samey, been there done that, the copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of warcraft which was a copy of a copy itself.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Story is based on the books, not the movies. If you haven't read the books(why are you on this site?) you'll probably be confused due to all the stuff left out of the movies that wasn't part of the 'central' plot.
Bind 'select next item' to something easily reachable other than the default, you'll be using it a lot, especially if you have two gathering professions as part of your vocation.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

There's a quest where you have 30 minutes to find boar meat in a zone, and it just tells you to look all over.

Spoiler

The zone has no boars, it's not possible to find any

 

[overture2112]

Is it really that fun? I felt the gameplay is just too sluggish when I tried it many many years ago.

It depends what you want from it. I play it extremely casually for a few hours every weekend with some friends as mostly an opportunity to hang out, talk about random crap, and fail to remember lore from The Silmarillion. I wouldn't play it solo (but I wouldn't do that for any mmo) or for difficult endgame raiding content. The UI isn't great but it's passable with mods and it's the only game I know of where you can actually go and setup filters for individual sound effects (really important if you party with a bard...).

The combat feels janky as shit though. Something about how it handles ability queuing, the timing of animations, and doesn't auto-face targets on ability use just makes it feel awful. That said, the Warden is still fun to play because it's pretty unique as far as mmo classes go (you have a few primitive abilities that you cast to create combos up to 5 abilities in length that all have different effects).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Combat is much less clunky once you understand how the ability queue works and why it feels "unresponsive". It's not a copy of WoW's combat(which is easy to mistake at the superficial level,) there is no GCD, and when your next action fires is decided entirely by when your current action's animation finishes. Actually pretty enjoyable now.

Only complaint is intermittent lag during peak hours.

Moria is really great, btw. The people behind the level design of it deserve recognition.

[edit]
this wasn't a response to the post above me btw, just realized it was about the same topic.

 

[overture2112]

Combat is much less clunky once you understand how the ability queue works and why it feels "unresponsive". It's...

Oh, interesting. Hopefully know that will make it more enjoyable.

And yes, despite being an old game with not particularly amazing graphics tech, some of the zones look great.

 

[ADL]

Combat is much less clunky once you understand how the ability queue works and why it feels "unresponsive". It's...

Oh, interesting. Hopefully know that will make it more enjoyable.

And yes, despite being an old game with not particularly amazing graphics tech, some of the zones look great.

It gets better and better looking as you progress in the expansions. Mordor and Minas Morgul look fantastic.