Also a note.

We have a series of events friendly to those who play or want to try playing LOTRO, as well as visitors from other servers. Take a gander at: LINK

I figured that I would comment since nobody else has, but there is a new expansion coming in less than/about a month.

I like some of the changes I am reading about in it (and I'm liking how the story in it seems to finally be focused more on what Tolkien actually wrote).

Its just kind of a pity that the model of game LOTRO is based on is becoming obsolete, especially compared to Guild Wars 2.

Riders of Rohan, a personal review
 

The Riders of Rohan expansion brings LOTRO back to a level its not had since Shadows of Angmar as far as enjoyability. Overall its a lot of fun to play.

There are a couple of issues I have experienced myself. The biggest has been lag...I've had quite a lot of it, especially in mounted combat. Other people have not had as much lag but for me it has been a real problem.

Also, Turbine has tried to implement some dynamic questing like what is present in Guild Wars 2, which I commend them for trying. However, LOTRO is definitely beginning to show that its an aging game in the way it struggles to accommodate some of the newer features. I don't know if an MMO has ever made a transition from one engine to another to give itself a new lease on life, but I hope the big wigs at Turbine have something like that on their agenda if they want to make it to Gondor and beyond with LOTRO.

And now the funny screenshots...

FRODO LIVES AND HE IS ME!!! BWAH HAWH HAWH HAWH!!

One does not simply walk into being Boromir.

How Boromir views the rest of the Fellowship.

I am also Sam.

So, with a special thanks to Oddwen who helped me through the wastes of the Trollshaws, I have finally got the Cloak of the Cluck! Here is Gabiluzbad with those two noble chickens, George and Billina. I regret not taking pictures of the travels in some of the more inhospitable places, but I'll be sure to do so when I attempt Free Range.

I recently found that the rabbit had moved on...I was exploring in the newly opened area in north Rohan and what should I come across but...

The Killer Rabbit!!!

View 2

and

View 3

also, later on I got some pet goats.

I have enjoyed the recent update more than most people seem to have. There is a great deal of complaining about the current state of the game that seems to be growing in momentum. While there will inevitably be a chorus of grumbling at all times, there does seem to be something of a distinct exodus of players from LOTRO right now.

There are also concerns circulating around the LOTRO forums currently that the game may be genuinely in danger of shutting down in the next year or so. Apparently Turbine's contract to run the game is expiring and there are no announcements or any discussion at all regarding the future of the game. The fears are that this indicates that Warner Brothers and Turbine have decided to let the contract expire and close down LOTRO when it does.

I'm not sure I buy into these theories as there is still lots of time for some new deal to be announced, but it is food for thought.

As much as I complain about LOTRO and its various problems (and its got a lot and a number of them seem to be getting worse and I disagree with some of the directions Turbine seems to be going) I still have played as Kuru for a number of years now and will be sad whenever the time comes that the servers shut down for good and he goes to that great big server farm in the sky.

We had a populous weekend! We had as many as THREE kinship members on at once!!

I don't think there are any "official" festivals coming up soon, so maybe we should make our own. Is there any upcoming weekend when we would all like to try to get together and do something? Synchronized Weathertop jumping? Ganging up on the evil weather-master who is impersonating Tom Bombadil and slapping him sillier? A Barrow skirmish?

I'm unfortunately going to be out of town next weekend, so maybe the weekend after.

Chickens, Chickens, Chickens
 

So, for those of you following my chicken adventures, this is an update. This is my first attempt at Free Range. Luckily, I managed to find a level 85 to assist me for Evendim (supposedly the hardest part), but I still managed to get killed before the end, sadly.

Here are some pictures of the quest:

At the Ivy Bush

Swimming in the Brandywine

At Bag End

Back at Sunset

Alone in the Wilderness

At the High King's Crossing

Feeling cocky

Taking the leap

Into the town

Waiting for the sunrise

Just as a head's up for anyone who may be interested, but the release date for Helm's Deep has finally been announced. It is November 18.

I was having a chat with Eonwe ingame yesterday and we discussed the possibility of having a kinship run of the HD epic battle instances since the instance auto-levels the players to 95.

I told him I would post today to see if there was any interest.

Servers Closing
 

Hello, I thought I should pass this along.

LOTRO is suffering the inevitable fate of a MMO that is losing steam. Servers are going to be closed and the players on them will have to transfer to other servers to keep playing.

There is some info here and here.

On the plus side, there is a new PvP map opening up tomorrow.

Further Update
 

A post regarding the closure process has gone up. The announcements regarding which worlds will close will happen on Monday.

I know I'm the only one who logs into the game very often anymore, but if you have any place you would particularly like to go, now is the time to let me know.

Silverlode is closing
 

Per this post, Silverlode is one of the servers closing.

I find a couple of Turbine's selections of servers to stay open a little odd in two instances but there isn't anything we can do about it.

Everyone will have to move their characters individually, but as the leader, Oddwen will have to move the kinship if we want to keep our house and kinship ranking (which would be desirable to do).

Which server is the kinship moving to?

I have not moved us yet. It has been quite some time since I logged in actually. In researching I am leaning towards either Arkenstone or Landroval. Kuru or anyone have you played in any of the remaining servers?

The Time Has Come
 

I have, unfortunately, been out of commission for the past few weeks because of a computer problem.

While I was out, the transfer for Silverlode opened. It seems like there are only a few weeks left at most before the server goes dark.

My vote is for Arkenstone.

Arkenstone
 

Getting bored by myself on Silverlode (there was literally one other person on the server at the time) I went ahead and moved the kin to Arkenstone.

Your membership will transfer over if you make the move and you will get money for your house.

I haven't gotten around to getting a new kinship house. I will update on that when I do.

EDIT: So after moving, I made the hilarious discovery that kinship membership on transfer fouls up more than it works properly, so if you come over and it doesn't work let me know and I can fix it.

Hobbit kinship houses are freakishly popular. They are almost all taken up on the entire server. However, I managed to find one and it even had the same address, although not in the same neighborhood.

The new address is 4 Brookbank Street, Harville.

I was just talking to a few of my cohorts from back when LotRO was Middle-earth Online. Sadly, the alpha and beta of LotRO embittered so many people and broke up the gang. One of the best group of online gamers and posters I've ever been associated with. Excepting my friends here at BD, of course. :D

Coming very late...
 

Coming very late to this particular party, but I was rereading this thread on another forum today where one of the former Turbine employees raises the curtain a bit on LOTRO behind the scenes and the former employee posted the following and it was so hilarious given some of my early complaints about the look of the game that I thought I'd come post it...

Big Change out of nowhere
 

Lord of the Rings Online has been sold from Turbine to a new developer called Standing Stone Games.

See here.

This came out of nowhere and has taken the player base completely by surprise.

However, while there is a general sense of worry and hand-wringing since things like this rarely mean good things for the future of a game, there is also a seemingly widespread sense of optimism since Warner Brothers and Turbine were running the game into the ground.

I'm going to check with my moles to find out who exactly these staffers are. It would be nice (however unrealistic) if they moved back toward the old Middle-earth Online (MEO) model that Turbine abandoned so they could emulate WoW. Not sure how many of you were pre-Beta, but there was a whole different game being planned previously.

We shall see.

After the Standing Stones split off, Turbine/WB have announced the impending closure of Asheron's Call and Asheron's Call 2.

Given the demise of the Asheron's Calls, a potential plausible scenario to my mind is that, as many players had feared for quite some time, WB/Turbine had decided to pull the plug on all of their MMOs including LOTRO. The LOTRO devs didn't want to see the game shut down and found an investor (or perhaps pulled together the money) to save the game via setting up their own company. It would be interesting if this theory could be confirmed.

My sympathies are with the long time players of Asheron's Call. I never played the game myself, but it had been around since 1999 (one of the longest running MMOs in history) and I am sorry to see it go. :(

So I've finally logged back on after a long absence. Anyone up for an in-game meetup?

This weekend is looking awfully busy for me.

Maybe next weekend?

Yes, I remember those days. The group I was in pretty much abandoned-in-place the great little website they set up for their kinship when the found the released game was nothing like they had anticipated during development.

That is sad to see somethin that started last century meet its demise. How has the LOTRO change in ownership work out so far?

In many respects it is still too early to tell.

My impression (and this is just an impression) is that the player base has stabilized somewhat. However, I am on one of the more populated servers so that may distort my experience. I've heard that Brandywine has taken a big hit in population and it was the king of server pop by an exponential amount ever since the start of the game.

I'd describe there being a sense of resignation on the part of the player base regarding expectations of Standing Stones. There is a sense that Turbine broke the game so badly that Standing Stones, all being late-comers to LOTRO development, don't have the historical know-how of the code to perform substantial changes without breaking the functioning of the entire game.

What happened to the Guardian class is continually held up as an example of this. It is a particularly glaring example where Turbine almost right before the end completely broke the class and SSG hasn't really done anything to fix the situation except for a few faltering and poorly received steps.

People are on the whole excited for the coming Mordor expansion, if for no other reason than this will provide the climax of the story. SSG claims to have a couple of years more of development and content sketched out after this. It probably depends on how well Mordor sells if this comes to fruition.

I think we will probably end the sort of honeymoon phase with SSG with the deployment of Mordor.

For all its problems, LOTRO has one major thing going for it. It is the only Tolkien themed MMO out there. People who what to play an MMO in Middle earth have no other place to go. Most of the players who are left are there for that reason or keep coming back for that reason. If this game had not been set in Middle earth I believe it would have died some time ago. But us Tolkien folk are stubborn. ;)

So, I am going to bite the bullet and play this. I'll let you know how annoyed I am with it in like one day.

The opening stages of the game are pretty good.

Its later on that all the annoying problems become apparent...

I'll let you know what I think once I get the game running. I should be able to pay here in about twenty minutes or so. I've always liked MMORPGs, so I think I'll have a good time. At least it keeps me from playing the Sims, right?

So I've been playing today, but I talked to Eonwe and he said that everyone moved to the Arkenstone world and I'm in Crickhollow. Can I move my character to be with the Downer party world, or do I have to make a new character? I'm on level 10 and I don't really want to start over, but I will if it means that I get to play with friends.

You can transfer, but I think you have to pay for it.

Unfortunately, the Transfer wizard seems to be on the blink at the moment and I can't check it. :(

In other news, the pre-order for the Mordor expansion went live today.

Well, poo. I guess I'll set up a new character on Arkenstone if I can't transfer my existing character........ :o

I am a level 14 and I am currently staying at Tom Bombadil's house. This game was not made for the casual movie fan. The Shire is so pleasant, I don't want to leave, but I want a horse and I have to go to Bree to get one. One more level and I'll be able to get a house, which is exciting. The Old Forest is definitely spooky and scary. I really wanted to use my hunter power to transport me back to Hobbiton, but I persevered and now I have met old Tom Bombadillo! Oh joy. Where is everyone else in the game? Surely much further than I am? I started as a hobbit. Do you get a different beginning of the game if you start out as another race? So many questions.

Anyway, I'm on the Arkenstone server now, so I should be able to play with you guys.

What's your character's name?

In any case, I agree. I think the Shire and Breeland are really well done, especially when you're at the appropriate level - I won't spoil anything, but I was also really impressed with the Barrow-Downs.

As a F2P player (and also someone who hasn't sunk that much time into the game), I decided try not to level up too fast (and therefore make the free areas boring/unplayable), so I'm only level 33 on my main character (and I don't think I bothered transferring the others). And yes, your race does determine starting location.

Violaodorata. That's the Latin name for sweet violet.

I'm F2P too. If I get to liking the game enough, I might consider paying for it if there is anything tantalising behind a paywall. It would be interesting to start as another race, but I'm pretty happy with my current character. It seems that you could really play for quite a long time before you would have to pay for anything.

Ok, my main character's name is Gabiluzbad.

Ted Nasmith
 

I thought that some of the log in artwork had a particular look.

Now that I know this, I'm surprised I didn't think of him sooner.

I've been playing about once every two days and really enjoying the game. Just wanted to know when you guys usually played. I am a high enough level now that I can probably do fellowship quests with you and I wanted some help in the Great Barrow, even though I've been hanging out in the Lone Lands recently.

Since Dark and Light came out I've been playing that. Not sure I've logged into LOTRO at all. :o

I will try to log in sometime this coming Sunday.