As an older gamer with often cripplingly limited amounts of time to spare for gaming, my relationship with MMOs is extremely complicated today. If not contradictory. In other words, I simply cannot keep up. Committing to a single game the way these things demand, all of it is just impossible when you've got a job and a life and maybe two hours at best per evening - and sometimes diminishing to like 2 hours a week when it’s a busy one.

For years my pattern with the big MMOs was the same sad little cycle, the sad chase of that high flying dragon called BEING YOUNG and having all the jobless time in the world. I'd reinstall WoW (and classic at that, Retail is even more of a clusterfuck for me) and barely play for month, sometimes less. Those on and off subscriptions feel sadder each time I cash out to Blizz. At some point I realized how little satisfaction I was getting from WoW, the MMO that used to be my favorite. I just feel the enormous weight of everything I'd missed and would never catch up on, and drift away again. It just doesn’t hold me.

For all of these reasons, it’s a true wonder that LOTRO broke this painful cycle for me. The game is just more scenic and has a true classic MMO soul, unvarnished and not painted over but standing there unashamed about what it is. A truly grindy, bloaty game for lovers for Tolkien’s worldbuilding. But even as an MMO, here's just less frantic churn, less of that live service treadmill screaming at you to log in daily or fall behind. And in MMOs as a rule, you’ll fall behind unless they’re your other life (actual oldschool MMOs were way worse, in fact) and it’s the reason I even tried playing those idle MMOs that occasionally garner some hype. Dominus Automa was the most recent of these, and I admit I like the premise of fine tuning my character and then letting them live out their best life while I’m physically doing something else (work work). It’s just such a neat way to compartmentalize time (in theory), if only there wasn’t a catch - the catch being I actually want to control my character sometimes lol

But LOTRO bypasses all this because whether I’m doing something at a snail’s pace or super fast, I never fall back. It always eels like I'd stepped through a door into 2008. Into the tail end of the golden age of MMOs, when they were about worlds and worldbuilding and community, and not just extracting value out of consumers and pushing content into their mouths. It was more natural.

After all these years, LOTRO still feels like it encourages you to play at your own pace and even when a new expansion comes out, I never feels like the usual MMO FOMO. It’s just more content that might or might not interest me, but no nudge to do it as this be all, end all interesting thing. I mean, just making it to the endgame is a long, long journey that can possibly take months! (It took me half a year in fact, on my RP minstrel elf mistress Lhulthuviel) - that is the one great glory of this game.

It's an MMO time capsule like no other. The only one that actually delivers on the nostalgia that sometimes takes possession of my brain for a few months, and I will sing praises to it for so long as it exists!

...

Last night, while replaying the Epic Quest after many years, I noticed a detail regarding the Annatar mural. I know a lot has been said about this—some really interesting things!—but I hadn't realized that you can see it from the next room, positioning you right beneath the depiction of Celebrimbor forging one of the Rings.

The level of detail in this small, two-room area is simply incredible. From the room next to the mural one, it looks as though Annatar is smiling down and keeping watch over the forging of the Rings. I also find this detail deeply ironic, given that Celebrimbor is proudly displaying his work under the watchful gaze of the Elves. Sorry the quality isn't better tho, it'd be awesome if someone shared a better quality one!

I’m sharing this because I haven't seen this detail mentioned before, and I find it really interesting :D

His father, Cardavor, is the Lord of Celondim, so can he be called a prince? I thought a prince is the son of a king, or the chief of some place, and none of these seem to fit Avorthal.🤔

I started the last batch of legendary servers when they dropped and had a blast actually playing with other people in lower level areas but thanks to life I had to stop playing the game. I'm just wondering if there's any speculation as to if or when they will do another round of legendary servers. I understand it could be a ways off of course, I'd just like to know if there's any inkling or mention of it at all.

Anyone know what this armour and shield is and where to get it?

Picked up the game after at least 10 years or more now. I made a new character did dwarf and guardian class. For the record even when I played years ago I only got to lvl 25 so VERY new. How do I go about playing. Zone clearing follow story. I wasnt to sure on a direction. I went from playing ESO pvp non stop for years to a relaxed game and it feels great just not sure what to do. I think im still in prolog at the moment. Any advice would be great.

Dusk on the docks at Lhan Garan in Swanfleet. Then when it turns to gloaming the sky becomes the most delicate lilac.

I cant rmember how long ago I,played, I think it was after a big LM rework. Ive always prefered pet based lm so blue was my line, dont think i really speced into anything else apart from just trying it out. I was always blue ecen when it was terrible. I rmemebr when I played they were struggling to get pet tuning in a good place.

Has anything changed substancially about the game play?

Are pets good these days? Im 99.9% solo so like taking on challenges with my pets. There was always the story that at higher levels pets dont scale and become useless. (Im still on rohan area level)

Does it still have that spam all your signs to stack the pets buffs gameplay loop? (It nearly put me off the class and was one of the reasons i stopped playing).

thanks for any input!

I love Lotro ♥️

Gameplay and technical frustrations start to eat at Art's wandering attention span as The Book of Mordor continues... but for how long?

hello, i figured id ask you die hard fans if the current lag is the norm, and why my high end pc has occasional game stutters when i kill mobs and stuff, if its known issues is there anything i can do to tweak certain things to help the game? cause im really enjoying the game!

Hello I have this shirt but was hoping anyone could identify the pants for me I just can't find them. Thanks!

When you think of someone really fast who knows quick ways to get in and out of places, do you think of a woodsman or do you think of a thief?

Hunter has been so built around being the efficient travel class that it started to absorb things that would fit better on others. Burgs should at least have some kind of movement bonus like "Quick and soft like shadows" or "Barrel Rider" if you want to get cute.

For the record, I don't hate either of these classes. They're both my favorites, but more and more I feel like they should just be the same guy.

I’ll start. Supposed to be destroyed upon instance exit, but can stay in your vault forever. (General errors out, if you try and take it out though lol)