Loging Server Issues

10:00AM PST

Looks like the login servers are down at the moment. People are reporting several problems, but it looks like they all come down to not being able to connect to the login/patch servers. I'll update here if things change.

Check out the thread on the official forums here for more info.

10:36AM PST

Server are back up for me. Let me know if you're still having problems.

Moria - Too Hard, Too Easy, or Just Right?

Hi everyone, Almazar here. Again. As always.

I was looking at the LOTRO official blogs and came across this epic thread .

It's a pretty neat thread that starts off as a complaint about the difficulty of MoM, but then proceeds into a pretty civil (mostly) discussion on the difficulty level, as well as plenty of advice for players as the enter Moria. I think it's a great read for players who are about to enter Moria, players who are struggling through Moria, or pretty much anyone interested in reading about some different approaches to the game.

Enjoy!

Why LOTRO?

Hey Everyone, Almazar here.

Today I wanted to talk to you about why I play Lord of the Rings Online. I think that this is important, as I've only recently gotten back into LOTRO, after having played it in Beta and also for a while at launch. No, I don't have any characters at max level, but I'll talk about that later.

I've been an avid MMO player for many, many year. In fact, I was even one of those people that bought Ultima Online at launch, even though I didn't have a computer at the time. I lived in a condo above an Internet Cafe and Bookstore, and managed to convince them to let me install UO on their computers for me to play. I loved the concept, and have been hooked ever since. All in all, I've played UO, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest, City of Heroes, Star Wars Galaxies, Anarchy Online, Eve Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Warhammer Online, and World of Warcraft.

With all of these games, I almost exclusively played alone, questing. Even then, I didn't always get the whole questing thing. I would often just explore the world (Star Wars Galaxies was probably the best for that). That being said, I never progressed very far into the game, and pretty much never did "instances". Sometime I would play with a friend of mine who also like MMOs, but mostly I was on my own.

Then a few years ago, I managed to convince my wife to try Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO). My friends wife (the same friend I mentioned before) was trying it, so we though that we could play all four of us. We had been friends since high school, and now lived in different towns, and it was a great opportunity for us to connect on a regular basis. This changed my whole outlook on MMOs and how I play them. You see, DDO was all about instanced content. What does that mean? In DDO, you would get a group of people together, and go into a dungeon to complete a quest in it. This would be a hand built (not randomly generated) dungeon, and you would have to work as a team to get through it. We loved it, and leveled about 80% of the way to the level cap at the time, then got tired of repeating content.

So we moved on, as a group, to WoW.

WoW is a completely different experience. You quest most of the time, but the quests are not in hand crafted dungeons, but out in the world where all the other players are. There are also many "Go here and kill 10 X" or "Collect 10 X" quests. There are much fewer instances, but the instances that they do have are mostly great. There are a few that are a pain (Wailing Cavers or Sunken Temple anyone?) but most are a blast. While there, our group leveled, and I also managed to get a new character to level 80, the level cap, and partake in end game raiding. I loved it, and still do.

However, WoW was not my wife's favorite, so we tried LOTRO.

And my wife LOOOOOVES LOTRO. We have both always been fans on Tolkien, as well as the movies, and think that the games has done a great job of pulling you into the world of Middle Earth. The character classes are well balanced, the quests, although open world like the quests in WoW, then to convince me to read the descriptions much more than WoW's quests every did. In fact, in WoW, I used Jame's Leveling Guide, so I never even read the quests, I just went where the arrow led me, killed what the addon told me to, and the handed the quests in.

The instances also feel more "real" in that they feel like am actual dungeon, rather than just a bunch of rooms for bosses to spawn in. They seem to have a flow and a reason for being.

So anyways, I'm still playing WoW, but not as much as I used to. Most of my time is spent in LOTRO.

So what should you expect from this blog? Well, for starters, I'll be writing my thoughts and opinions as I level through the game. I will be putting together some beginners guides for the different classes. I'll be writing about the instances as we go through them, and giving some pointers for others as they go through them. I'll also be writing about LOTRO news and announcements, and giving my opinion on those. So, you can look forward to information and opinion about LOTRO. I'll be looking for the community to correct me if I make any mistakes, as I'm sure there are many of you that are able to put way more hours into this game than I possibly could, and if anyone is interested in writing for the blog, please send me a message at lotr.online.blog@gmail.com

I enjoy the community, I enjoy the game and I enjoy the atmosphere.

I look forward to seeing you in game!

Almazar

Your Home for Lord of the Rings Online news, tips and tricks!

Hello Everyone. Almazar here. I want to take this oppertunity to welcome you to the Lord of the Rings Online Blog. I hope that this becomes your portal for news about the game, tips for your class or proffesion and tricks to help you enjoy the game.

Welcome, and I hope that you enjoy the site!