That’s understandable yeah!
Are you on Laurelin? Maybe we could meet at an RP event someday! (I don’t RP there anymore, but I could.)
I wish I enjoyed it more as a game. The visuals are great and are pretty much how I’ve always imagined Middle-earth, unlike the Jackson movies. But the gameplay is so dated that I can’t even bring myself to finish the starting arc in Ered Luin.
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I am yeah! I got a Beorning at lvl 50 something, a human rohan hunter at around 20 and a hobbit minstrel at around lvl 8 or something.
Could be fun some day!
It’s a shame because the gameplay is its weakest point. I still enjoy it, but it can also be really clunky and old.
Thematically and visually it’s wonderful though. It really captures middle-earth in spirit.
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Same with me. I remember not being particularly enamoured with it even at launch.
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There are parts of Lotro’s design I would love to see in WoW though.
Obviously the housing system is nice, but you also have a built in TRP3 system in the game. A music system like bards in FFXIV but for all classes.
There is also a system to make a family and set up a in-game family tree with other players.
The crafting is nice too. Farming especially is kinda neat. You need to find fields at specific locations(often near farms or cities) and plant crops and then harvest the fields.
I watched the Josh Strife Hayes video on that game.
Honestly it looked pretty neat. I generally try to play the free games he tries if they don’t look horrendous and LOTRO actually looked pretty great.
I also tried EverQuest 2 after he released it. Odd game. Easy to see why it got crushed by WoW but it has a lot of really interesting ideas.
I played as an Arasai Dark Knight and without even touching the RP community made my own little redemption arc.
Arasai are corrupted fairies and belong solely to the evil faction. I stumbled on a quest where a slave in the capital desperate wanted to escape, since this wasn’t written by Rowling. I had dialogue options and figured telling him to suck it up and deal with it would just close the quest dialogue but the quest branched and he attacked me for thinking I’d sell him out. So I had to kill him and tell his owner “whoops, killed your slave!”
Following that I decided to do a faction betrayal questline which got me exiled. My home city was now a pirate cave in the middle of nowhere and I had to slowly make my way to the fairy capital, sneak past the guards and start doing quests to build reputation. Following all that? Audience with the queen so long as I renounce my evil class and change to the good equivalent.
NPCs everywhere in the city throw comments on how they can’t believe an evil one has returned to the light. It’s really cool.
Cool moments make it feel like a great RPG, but WoW’s combat was just way more interesting, the game is more accessible and WoW can run on a toaster. Among other things!
I also heard WoW had an active advertising campaign against the game but it wasn’t something I was old enough to see.
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FF7 Anniversary event next week on the 16th. They’ve told us to be excited.
Could we finally see a trailer for part 2? 
Or will they blue ball us with Ever Crisis.
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It sounds very cool as a game! I might need to look at it. I’ve not heard of it before though.
I do admit also that LOTRO RP feels weird to me. I admire Middle-earth as a beautiful literary creation, but I found I just don’t see it as a very compelling setting for RP, perhaps because of the inherent limitations on character concepts compared to more “pulpy” settings like Azeroth and Eorzea, and the relatively static and worn-down nature of LOTR-era Middle-earth specifically.
I don’t even have a coherent character concept, and the few times my character has been to the weekly gathering at Rivendell, she didn’t really do anything except stand and listen to the performers.
Maybe I’m also soured by my (non-first-hand) knowledge of my country’s long-standing Tolkien LARP scene and how many of its members take the hobby way too seriously to the point of treating Tolkien’s writings as a religion in all but name.
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I found LotRO RP really hard work. At the time my friends have migrated over from WoW and had made it their new home, but I could just never get into it.
I played a Hobbit minstrel because it seemed like I wouldn’t need a huge knowledge of the background lore like I would if I had played an Elf.
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Unless you are actively taking part of the war in like Gondor or something, most of the roleplay will not be about grand fantasy adventures, but just every day life. Because that is how it is for the average middle-earth person, yeah.
I love the setting, I adore it. But for fun fantasy adventure, it might not be the best for roleplay.
Also from what I’ve heard, 90% of the roleplay is in Bree out of all places. Especially around the prancing pony.
The only games I’ve played in the LOTR universe are the Shadow of Mordor games.
I feel like a sinner but they’re a lot of fun.
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BLASPHEMY!
Addendum
I fully realize the irony of making this post immediately after ranting about people treating Tolkien like a religion.
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Isnt that the ones where they turned Shelob the spider into a sexy Yennefer-looking woman?
Yeah, she shapeshifts from spider form into goth lady.
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“Oh, you like Lord of the rings? Name every major character from before the fall of Númenor, the geopolitical climate of past day Valinor, and all the different elven groups and their intricate backstories.”
“Also give me a 10 page essay about what Tom Bombadil actually means on a philosophical level. Then you can play with us.”
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Honestly, if that was the worst thing about these games, it wouldn’t be too bad.
There are deeper problems with them.
http://bit.do/shamus-young-on-shadow-of-mordor
(thanks, forum, for forcing me to use a URL shortener because the word p*rn isn’t allowed)
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Impeccable move honestly.
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The only thing I read from Shamus Young before was the deep-dive into Mass Effect. Reading him rip apart ME3 gave me peace to my soul.
I will check it out!
I do know about some of the…questionable decisions they had early on. Like the orc in the store looking like a very stereotypical depiction of jewish people(antisemitic stereotype) who greedily rubbed their hand together when you bought stuff.
They had to switch that out after backlash, they removed they elonged nose and the hand gesture and some other things.
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Mom says its my time to brood in the dark corner while I stare at the hobbits.
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