Like the topic says. I a huge LOTR fan . Just wondering if this is worth investing my time . Thanks in advance for any info. Fig best place to ask is actual players.

Hmmmm...where to begin.

In this day and age, you play LOTRO for the story and journey. If you're looking for stellar graphics and new-age gameplay, LOTRO will not provide that.
The game is nearly 15 years old and its age really shows; however, at ultra high/max settings, the landscape can look decent.

If you're picking up the game in order to experience the full LOTR story and to have the ability to explore every inch of of Middle Earth, than LOTRO is perfect. Because this game has been around for 15 years and layered with expansions over time, it has no equal in terms of world content and exploration of Middle Earth.

I can rant on forever, but here's the nitty gritty:

LOTRO is free-to-play up until level 25-30. After that, you must buy quest packs/expansions in order to progress in any significant way. To begin, you start the game in a starter area that is relevant on the race you chose for your character (elf/hobbit/man/dwarf). You play/quest until you're roughly level 12-15. Once you hit ~12-15, the quest line directs you towards Bree. This is where your character's story converges with the LOTR story (you meet strider/gandalf @ prancing pony). Bree is basically when the game really begins in terms of story that most of us are familiar with and the rest of the quest line from here on will coincide with the quest of the one ring. Bree will get you to level 20ish. You start moving to lone lands to get to level 25. The free-to-play experience ends right around the Weathertop part of the story. To give you some sense of scaling, the max level at the moment is 140. Everything is free-to-play up to around level 25. I believe the destruction of the ring happens around level 100-110. All content after that is basically 'cleaning up middle Earth' after the destruction of the one ring.

End-game raiding: LOTRO offers nothing special here. Big boss, add some mechanics, hope for BiS gear to drop. There are many newer MMOs that offer better and more satisfactory end-game raiding experiences. But again, raiding for the story is cool, raiding for the sake of hardcore raiding? You're better off with a different/newer MMO.

End-game PvP: Traditional PvP doesn't really exist. You can request to "spar" other people, but no one cares for it. LOTRO offers what's called PvMP (Player vs Monster Player) where players can play as their main character (free peoples) or as monster characters (orcs/uruks/wargs). There is one designated map for all of this action, however the current balance between free peoples vs monster players is bad right now and has really killed off the action. <-- This is all I do in the game now, so PM me if you're curious about this.

Community: I think the last community poll put the average age of players around 35+. Basically most of the folks still playing LOTRO are older LOTR fans, so the community is probably one of the nicest gaming communities you'll ever be a part of. Also, it's insane how much knowledge on LOTR some the people have. (I've seen debates on proper elvish translations for quest dialogues in world chat before)

Feel free to PM me if you have any more specific questions.

This post was edited by Boozie on Feb 14 2022 05:10am

Bro thank you. Will be playing this for the story. Thank u again

huge explanation ty dude

You thinking of getting into the game?

always looking for mmorpgs, but its lost ark now:) later maybe yea

I can help u out lvl u starting a new char soon