Incline The Lord of the Rings Online - Corsairs of Umbar expansion out now

[fuzz]

Not really, besides the season festival quests, "epic quest" and some instanced dungeons, it's all the same - kill x mobs, kill mobs to get x drops, find and click on x things, pick up x things and bring them to x places.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I have finally gotten to LOTRO and have been playing it for a while. Got to level 22. The game is actually more fun then I was expecting it to be, even if the quest are often very repetitive. Do the quest in the later expansions get any better?

Are you mostly doing the Epic line, or are you doing the thousands of kill x boars/wargs/bears quests?

 

[flabbyjack]

No playable orcs = no purchase

 

[RapineDel]

I have finally gotten to LOTRO and have been playing it for a while. Got to level 22. The game is actually more fun then I was expecting it to be, even if the quest are often very repetitive. Do the quest in the later expansions get any better?

1 - 50 still has the best zones. The quests also used to be more immersive, most of them had a decent story attached to them but they "revamped" the areas so that every area will also throw in a bunch of pointless kill x mob / loot 10 x quests to speed up the levelling.

The gameplay arguably gets worse as around level 75 you're introduced to Mounted Combat which feels like sailing a ship, it's not completely mandatory but you'll realistically need to do some of it.

I spent around 300 hours levelling from 1 - 100 recently, I stopped at Gondor which is when they were put on a shoe string budget, maybe it's still fun enough but I felt like I'd seen it all. The story is interesting and probably peaked for me in The Great River which is a really nice zone around level 70 or so.

Echoes of Angmar is a private server coming soon, I've checked out the stress tests and it's pretty stable now, that's going to be the best video game Lord of the Rings experience you can have when it comes out, plus it's free.

 

[fuzz]

Oh, forgot to add to the list the instanced "big battles" or whatever those are called - at Helm's Deep, Black Gate of Mordor, Minas Tirith.

 

[Ba'al]

I, too, have recently started to play this (having played it years ago for a couple of hours). The human intro quest was cool but following that I got overwhelmed by all the smaller ones. Can I skip those and just follow the main story? I think the game is quite nice and I don't even mind the combat, but I don't want to play this like all the other MMOs where you just follow the quest markers and not read anything (being able to track only 5 quests at once is also infuriating).

 

[Great Deceiver]

I, too, have recently started to play this (having played it years ago for a couple of hours). The human intro quest was cool but following that I got overwhelmed by all the smaller ones. Can I skip those and just follow the main story? I think the game is quite nice and I don't even mind the combat, but I don't want to play this like all the other MMOs where you just follow the quest markers and not read anything (being able to track only 5 quests at once is also infuriating).

You can beeline to the Epic quests (the main storyline that takes you all over Middle Earth), but you'll inevitably come to a situation where you're underlevelled to get the next one in the chain (I think the threshold is 5 levels) so you'll have to do some lesser quests at some point. It's silly because the difficulty itself is irrelevant - I can easily kill reams of elite mobs 15 levels above my own on my Beorning.

It's unfortunate that the beautiful gameworld is held back by the terrible MMO gameplay, but them's the breaks.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I found the non-main quest content to improve in the expansions compared to the base content. Especially the Moria quests, excellent stuff.

 

[Mary Sue Leigh]

Right so I'm taking this slow, enjoying the sights, reading the dialogs, doing every single quest I can find to "immerse" in the world, as much as I normally hate the term..
It's very relaxing, I mean it's a lot of walking and I don't know the best order to do my quests in.. When/if I get a horse, maybe it'll be easier for me to get around but not sure yet how exactly that works. The game is old and therefore has many, many different things to pay attention to. Maybe I won't ever "finish" it but that's fine. Really love the Shire so far especially at night.
It's really from a different time. A player came up to me and offered making me armor free of charge. It was on my level, low, and probably (hopefully) didn't cost much, but still. Imagine player interaction in an MMO, and with a newbie no less! Takes me back to the days of Ultima Online or Dark Age of Camelot. WoW really really ruined this MMO social aspect which was my favorite.
Also I don't mind that combat is very forgiving. I accidentally pulled like three giant "orange" bears (above my level) and eventually managed to beat them with "bearly" a scratch. Perhaps the armor really is that good, but I'm still struggling with the combat skill usage. Using the warden "yellow" path for extra CC. Seems best for solo versatility.

Also concerning the post at page start: Orcs ARE playable, just select monster character from the menu. You can also be a spider or warg(?)

 

[Mangoose]

I'm going Crickhollow, the "unofficial" RP server.

Edit: Ah I forgot I had characters here. Hop back in at level 20 or start from 1?

Though I think I have a level 40-somethign Warden somewhere.

Not sure I want to do Archet again. Maybe Ered Luin?

 

[ADL]

Crickhollow had a roleplaying community ten years ago back when Landroval was exclusive to subscribers but I'd be surprised if they're still there. Landroval is the official US RolePlaying-encouraged server. Play Crickhollow or Brandywine if you're looking for the largest populations but it's not as if Landroval is dead (1500 players versus 2300 concurrent prime time)

Ered Luin is fun. Before the Shadow ($20) comes out in a week if you're interested in that as an alternative level 1-32 experience.

 

[Mary Sue Leigh]

The only thing that really bothered me in the olden WoW like MMOs is if you end up having like 4 bars full of skills to use and I could not possibly remember which is what from the tiny symbols, worse yet if they synergize and I have to use them all in order amd situational.
I'm hoping it won't be quite as bad here.
GW1 was really good there with 6 skills only from both class pools, making the preparation more important than frantic button mashing.

 

[Mangoose]

Crickhollow had a roleplaying community ten years ago back when Landroval was exclusive to subscribers but I'd be surprised if they're still there. Landroval is the official US RolePlaying-encouraged server. Play Crickhollow or Brandywine if you're looking for the largest populations but it's not as if Landroval is dead (1500 players versus 2300 concurrent prime time)

Ered Luin is fun. Before the Shadow ($20) comes out in a week if you're interested in that as an alternative level 1-32 experience.

I've heard that the those F2P RPers are still there in Crickhollow.

Also I'm gonna start over at 1 so I'd like some population density at the lower levels lol.

Edit: Oh wow thanks for the heads up on Before the Shadow. I've definitely played the early game enough lol

 

[ironmask]

I think I'm almost finished with the lone lands region. Overrall I like it more then bree which had too much back and forth quest.

 

[ADL]

Didn't know this but I'm very happy about it. One of my biggest pet peeves is being addressed in Before the Shadow.

Free Riding Skill (And Mount)​

How many LOTRO Points have you spent on riding skills over the years? Now you don’t have to spend any, because SSG is adding a new quest to the tutorial that will train your riding skill and even grant you a beginner mount. Again, this update is really pushing alts, and taking the cost of riding skills off the table gives players more incentive to try out as many characters as they like.

https://massivelyop.com/2022/10/22/...t-before-the-shadow-that-arent-the-new-zones/

 

[Mary Sue Leigh]

Well, just about reached level 10 and looks like time to start over already. I desperately need horsey.

 

[ironmask]

Yeah, having no horse in this game is awful. Especially in areas like the shire. Not only is the game huge and spacious but your character runs slow as fuck. Wish they had did this sooner.

 

[Mary Sue Leigh]

If I'm not starting over, could I possibly scrounge up enough ringbux to get the riding skill and a mount somewhere else?

 

[Frank Capicoli]

If I'm not starting over, could I possibly scrounge up enough ringbux to get the riding skill and a mount somewhere else?

It's been awhile since I've played so I don't know the exact status of whether this is subscriber only but... When you hit level 20 You can do a quest at Hengstacer farm in Breeland to get a horse for in game currency instead of Lotro points or whatever they are called now a days.

Grinding out the Lotro points is likely going to take longer than reaching level 20, or utilizing the tutorial riding quest even if it needs a fresh character. If the patch for it is even live right now, I don't know either (guessing it's currently on the Public Test Realm and isn't live yet). It should be soon though as the expansion launches on the 8th of November if I remember correctly.

(being able to track only 5 quests at once is also infuriating).

With the upcoming expansion the quest tracker is being doubled from 5 to 10. Also a tip is that when finishing objectives for quests in an area you can right click the tracker and press 'track nearest objectives' to make it more manageable.

 

[ADL]

Final three days to get your free shit and get the expansions real cheap. If you did previous coupons, do it again because the new coupon includes stuff the others didn't.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

is there a way to gift this to someone?

appears I can't even gift people stuff from the store itself, that's... really terrible design.

 

[ADL]

No gifting of any sort unfortunately. They do this because lifetime subs have been getting 500 monthly VIP points for the past 12-13 years but it sucks for anyone that bought them and just wants to gift their friend something off the store. If lifetime subs are the reason there's no gifting, why not just flag their account for their points to be untradeable?

 

[Mary Sue Leigh]

I seem to have mounts, just no riding skill. But I have this Hengstacer farms quest so I'll see if that does it, still no rush to get out of the Shire.
Might even buy a little hobby hole and just stay. Not liking the weekly upkeep cost though.

 

[deama]

I have finally gotten to LOTRO and have been playing it for a while. Got to level 22. The game is actually more fun then I was expecting it to be, even if the quest are often very repetitive. Do the quest in the later expansions get any better?

1 - 50 still has the best zones. The quests also used to be more immersive, most of them had a decent story attached to them but they "revamped" the areas so that every area will also throw in a bunch of pointless kill x mob / loot 10 x quests to speed up the levelling.

The gameplay arguably gets worse as around level 75 you're introduced to Mounted Combat which feels like sailing a ship, it's not completely mandatory but you'll realistically need to do some of it.

I spent around 300 hours levelling from 1 - 100 recently, I stopped at Gondor which is when they were put on a shoe string budget, maybe it's still fun enough but I felt like I'd seen it all. The story is interesting and probably peaked for me in The Great River which is a really nice zone around level 70 or so.

Echoes of Angmar is a private server coming soon, I've checked out the stress tests and it's pretty stable now, that's going to be the best video game Lord of the Rings experience you can have when it comes out, plus it's free.

What's the difference between official and Echoes of Angmar?

 

[Hellion]

Might even buy a little hobby hole and just stay. Not liking the weekly upkeep cost though.

After a certain point in the game (not too late, as well - mid-game or so) you will earn enough gold doing quests and deeds that upkeep becomes just something that you put some spare change into. Despite not being super-active in the game anymore, I still login every 5-6 months just to pre-pay upkeep for my personal and kinship houses, and my main character's finances have barely taken a dent due to it.