I just started playing LotRO a few weeks ago. The legendary servers were what drew me in, because you could start as if the game was just launched, but with all the original bugs fixed, no lag, etc. I've been loving the game, and plan to stick with VIP for the foreseeable future.
You aren't playing the game as if it was just launched at all... That's not what the legendary servers are. It's all the modern updates, classes and builds with the new classes. It's just less content. You're literally paying money to have less overall content. Oh but you get to fight a wraith every 5 minutes, super exciting!
@@user-zg5ey5xo9i Only for the first month of a new expansion release, then the only people who stick around log in for the weekly highest tier raid and go back to regular servers. It's equally as easy to find people to do content on traditional servers, I imagine you've just never tried.
*It's $10 per month if you buy the three month package - and you get $5 per month back in lotro coins* . It's very reasonable for the MASSIVE amount of content in the game.
Veteran GW2 player here, and I must say I'm hooked in LOTRO, this game is so underrated. The VIP totally worth the cost, legendary servers are always busy with instanced content and people doing their quests on open world. I also regret neglecting this game for so long and I hope to amend this!
OG GW1 player here, and played GW2 when it first came out then took a 7 year hiatus. Jumped back onto GW2 about 2 months ago...lasted about a month....even though i bought all the major expansions and did half of HoT, and started PoF (for the Griffon Mount...i have my 250g after a month of grinding)...only to see through the abysmal game GW2. In modern MMORPG standards GW2 is considered the cream of the crop, but i come from the early 2000s as a rpg gamer and seeing how they destroyed my beloved Guild Wars franchise, and how they basically created a game worser than GW1 (GW1 was and still is a magnificent game, PVE, PVP and GVG). I'm glad games like LOTRO still exists to remind us how great MMOs once were.
The Legendary Servers brought me back to the game, Haven't played seriously since Mirkwood. Wish the game had "proper" Classic servers but thats probably a tall order given how intrenched the games cash shop is.
2004 was a good year for games. Bioware came out with my 2nd all time fav NeverWinter Nights in 2002. That game and that era of gaming was very special to me. I love the gfx from that era. Sure compared to now its not aged well at all, but i love it. Sure these old games seem to run on an ancient code of honour, refusing to change with the times, but i like that. That's where i come from as a gamer, my happiest moments as a gamer. LOTRO brings me back to those times where care, love and craftsmanship were poured into games. I like that the old skool games repel modern gamers who only know the triple A gaming industry's constant churning of flashy (but utterly souless) games. In our corner, we remember the times of slow paced plays. We remember when games required us to use our brains, rather than constantly flashing arrows and shiny markers, spoonfeeding us on HOW to play the game. We remember how game immersion wasn't influenced by shiny graphics. We spent time reading books in game, we spent time listening to music in game, and we loved it. LOTRO is absolutely wonderful. The devs have kept to Tolkien's vision and made it a reality in the gaming world. The Devs have stuck to the source material vigorously and that's where the charm comes from. Sure it's an old game with "archiac" mechanics and graphics, but don't let that deter you, as the magick lies within. This is the beauty of old school MMORPGs, or RPGS in general. As a WoW (hoping you have tried classic or even Turtle WoW) player you will appreciate the spell mechanics/queue system in combat, which follows the traditional tried and tested format. Each area in the game is expertly hand crafted with precision, tenderness and love. The writing, the voice acting, the narrative and pacing of the story are all very well done. The music is phenomenal! You may find yourself completely immersed in the beautiful music whilst wandering Middle Earth. I recently made my way to Bree (i'm a new player) and ended up spending about 40mins just chilling there, not doing anything, relaxing to the music in the Tavern, whilst i was smoking a bowl of pipe weed in real life at my computer desk (Peterson's Nightcap being my go to pipe tobacco, in my Savinelli Pipe). I can only ever remember my three all time fav games (Fallout New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights and Kingdom Come Deliverance) giving me this relaxation and vibe. LOTRO has quickly become my 5th all time fav game. In speaking about immersion, this game does it VERY WELL. You will feel it as you slowly pace through the game, doing each quest, getting to know the story and the world, which has very little inconsistencies. I find myself caring about the world, even the trivial things. Actually just yesterday I ended up in a small town called Staddle, and found a questgiver by a Hobbit called Himloc. Well...his whole quest line is about how his pipe-weed has been stolen by local brazen fools that must be dealt with. As a pipe tobacco smoker in real life, this quest was important to me as you do not mess with a man's pipe and his pipe weed. These are some of the small pleasures i find. The community, whether you decide to play on the free servers or legendary VIP servers (I wholesomely recommend you get on the VIP servers, you will NOT regret it), the community is just amazing. It's a mature community of old school adult non toxic players, who care about the world of Middle Earth, who care about Tolkien's legacy, and who want to be part of it. Also we want to find Frodo in game, to give him some lembas if we can. So that's it. Now stop reading and get on LOTRO!
I grew up watching the movies but have never read the books. I am reading the books for the first time currently and I plan to play LOTRO once I finish Return of the King. I played LOTRO at launch, but GW1 was my main mmo back then and I jump straight into GW2 in 2012 and never returned to Middle Earth….until now.
It's a shame that the game doesn't feature world PvP. The leveling feels boring without the risk of it, it just feels like a single player game. Wish I could get into it.
These new legendary servers provide a great experience for me, especially Mordor since I'm EU based. The game feels so much more alive than on regular servers and it's so easy to group up. The wraiths mechanic can feel annoying at first because you lack the ability to defend yourself properly if you're low level but that changes as you level up. To each his own, I know I do not regret paying for that experience. Some people will tell you that you pay for less content, that's a misunderstanding about what legendary servers offer. Also take into consideration the hate that these servers receive because players on regular servers are pissed to see less players on their own servers... Anyways, Lotro is a great game, try it for yourself.
@caffeinated dad. Post more Path of Exile 2 content. It’s really hot right now. I love your channel and I think it’ll get you a lot more subscribers and watch time if you post about PoE2.
The difference between 32 bit and 64 bit is astronomical. I switched to Angmar about a month ago and I can't go back. It's obvious right from the start in the loading screen time.
I wouldnt want ANY QoL changes they made in the past 17 years. I want the game exactly as it was back then. Everything after Shadows of Angmar made the game worse anyway
They just recently started testing the 64 bit architecture for servers. They may role it out to the F2P servers eventually but it is a significant cost to do so and more expensive to pay for 64 bit servers compared to 32. Keep in mind this isn't WOW. They don't have millions of subs, a lot of their player base is F2P. In December 2020 an investor meeting disclosed about 108k unique users every month (about 41k are VIP) on average for that year. Now its probably around the same amount but less than half their player base pays for the game. Hope that puts this in perspective.
Hell yeah, lifetime here as well, still pay for expansions every now and then to make sure that they get SOME money out of me (even though it is totally not necessary)
Lucky! I don't remember when they stopped offering the lifetime sub but I really wish I could have bought it. I have been on and off with Lotro since 2012/2013 and looking back I probably spent more than the cost of lifetime over the years.
@@JMKGalaxy2 I went to the Boston launch party, midnight going into the release date in 2007, and still have the (slightly ratty) t-shirt that lists each city with an official launch party -- and Angmar, lol.
never again will i pay a sub to an online game ..i did this on and off with wow and it sucks..every live game use the same strat! you want my money? put a price on your product !
I’m doing it because the game is so huge it’s over whelming and I want to explore all the zones and do all the quests. I feel like the vip “classic plus” servers give me a chance to experience all the zones easier and as they were at launch. I really like dwarfs so I’m excited to get to explore Moria as the end game content, where as if I’m playing on the other servers it’s mainly just a pass through cause you level so fast.
@@HawsDaBaws That's not what's going to happen though. If you're a hardcore gamer and you're playing 8-10 hours a day, you can finish every single zone up to Moria in maybe 2 weeks tops and unlock all the virtues completing all the deeds and Moria will take up to a week and you're out of content other than running the same 2 fights over and over. If you're not a hardcore gamer and you're playing 3-4 hours a day or so it'll take you a month+ to get to Moria and after the first month there isn't anyone on the legendary servers doing the lower level content or content that isn't end game. By the time you get to the end game content in Moria people will only be doing the highest tier raids and chances are already have their cliques and such to no need pugs. Its NOT the vanilla experience. The vanilla experience was extremely different.
@@charlesstampley5821 free up to lvl 90, tons of expansions and quests to play through and eventually the most popular F2P servers will get 64 bit upgrades. Honestly this game is one of the best F2P models. I have played SWTOR and comparably Lotro is way better for F2P. And becoming VIP you get 3 months for essentially $10 per. There isn't any other MMO to my knowledge with this much existing content to experience with that low of an entry cost.
me and my wife where super excited about the legendary servers, but the wraiths where spawning what felt like every mob kill. It got to the point where it just felt like a cheap gimmick, and duoing these did not help. We stopped before they finally nerfed them and got them out of solo instances, but the damage was done for us. We just play off and on on the regular servers.
No. Not worth the money. Has all the "additions" with over-balancing; namely skill trees and nerfed Old Forest. No where near what the actual SoA game was. Fortunately there is a 3rd party project called Echoes of Angmar that does that.
They never claimed it was a "classic" version of the game. And, I'm pretty sure you're alone in wanting the vanilla game. No quest markers on map, no mount until lvl 35, and NO MAP in the Old Forrest... no thanks. Pretty much no-one liked that which is why most people left after the first month back in 2007 leading them to make drastic changes.
I just started playing LotRO a few weeks ago. The legendary servers were what drew me in, because you could start as if the game was just launched, but with all the original bugs fixed, no lag, etc. I've been loving the game, and plan to stick with VIP for the foreseeable future.
No lag? Oh sweet summer child.
@@navarone4031 64 bit servers are far less laggy - it's virtually non-existent on my end.
You aren't playing the game as if it was just launched at all... That's not what the legendary servers are. It's all the modern updates, classes and builds with the new classes. It's just less content. You're literally paying money to have less overall content. Oh but you get to fight a wraith every 5 minutes, super exciting!
@@theangler1922Yea but the content is actually filled with people to play together. And mordor is in europe.
@@user-zg5ey5xo9i Only for the first month of a new expansion release, then the only people who stick around log in for the weekly highest tier raid and go back to regular servers. It's equally as easy to find people to do content on traditional servers, I imagine you've just never tried.
*It's $10 per month if you buy the three month package - and you get $5 per month back in lotro coins* . It's very reasonable for the MASSIVE amount of content in the game.
Not to mention the kind community which makes this game such an enjoyable experience.
@@brave-smoke Yeah I've especially found that to be true on Angmar.
And the fact that it often more worthwhile, bc you probably pay more on a current release title with less possible playtime
Veteran GW2 player here, and I must say I'm hooked in LOTRO, this game is so underrated. The VIP totally worth the cost, legendary servers are always busy with instanced content and people doing their quests on open world. I also regret neglecting this game for so long and I hope to amend this!
OG GW1 player here, and played GW2 when it first came out then took a 7 year hiatus. Jumped back onto GW2 about 2 months ago...lasted about a month....even though i bought all the major expansions and did half of HoT, and started PoF (for the Griffon Mount...i have my 250g after a month of grinding)...only to see through the abysmal game GW2.
In modern MMORPG standards GW2 is considered the cream of the crop, but i come from the early 2000s as a rpg gamer and seeing how they destroyed my beloved Guild Wars franchise, and how they basically created a game worser than GW1 (GW1 was and still is a magnificent game, PVE, PVP and GVG).
I'm glad games like LOTRO still exists to remind us how great MMOs once were.
The Legendary Servers brought me back to the game, Haven't played seriously since Mirkwood. Wish the game had "proper" Classic servers but thats probably a tall order given how intrenched the games cash shop is.
Hey! Where do you get this cape you wear ?
2004 was a good year for games. Bioware came out with my 2nd all time fav NeverWinter Nights in 2002. That game and that era of gaming was very special to me.
I love the gfx from that era. Sure compared to now its not aged well at all, but i love it. Sure these old games seem to run on an ancient code of honour, refusing to change with the times, but i like that. That's where i come from as a gamer, my happiest moments as a gamer.
LOTRO brings me back to those times where care, love and craftsmanship were poured into games. I like that the old skool games repel modern gamers who only know the triple A gaming industry's constant churning of flashy (but utterly souless) games.
In our corner, we remember the times of slow paced plays. We remember when games required us to use our brains, rather than constantly flashing arrows and shiny markers, spoonfeeding us on HOW to play the game. We remember how game immersion wasn't influenced by shiny graphics. We spent time reading books in game, we spent time listening to music in game, and we loved it.
LOTRO is absolutely wonderful.
The devs have kept to Tolkien's vision and made it a reality in the gaming world. The Devs have stuck to the source material vigorously and that's where the charm comes from.
Sure it's an old game with "archiac" mechanics and graphics, but don't let that deter you, as the magick lies within. This is the beauty of old school MMORPGs, or RPGS in general. As a WoW (hoping you have tried classic or even Turtle WoW) player you will appreciate the spell mechanics/queue system in combat, which follows the traditional tried and tested format.
Each area in the game is expertly hand crafted with precision, tenderness and love. The writing, the voice acting, the narrative and pacing of the story are all very well done.
The music is phenomenal! You may find yourself completely immersed in the beautiful music whilst wandering Middle Earth. I recently made my way to Bree (i'm a new player) and ended up spending about 40mins just chilling there, not doing anything, relaxing to the music in the Tavern, whilst i was smoking a bowl of pipe weed in real life at my computer desk (Peterson's Nightcap being my go to pipe tobacco, in my Savinelli Pipe). I can only ever remember my three all time fav games (Fallout New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights and Kingdom Come Deliverance) giving me this relaxation and vibe. LOTRO has quickly become my 5th all time fav game.
In speaking about immersion, this game does it VERY WELL. You will feel it as you slowly pace through the game, doing each quest, getting to know the story and the world, which has very little inconsistencies. I find myself caring about the world, even the trivial things. Actually just yesterday I ended up in a small town called Staddle, and found a questgiver by a Hobbit called Himloc. Well...his whole quest line is about how his pipe-weed has been stolen by local brazen fools that must be dealt with. As a pipe tobacco smoker in real life, this quest was important to me as you do not mess with a man's pipe and his pipe weed. These are some of the small pleasures i find.
The community, whether you decide to play on the free servers or legendary VIP servers (I wholesomely recommend you get on the VIP servers, you will NOT regret it), the community is just amazing. It's a mature community of old school adult non toxic players, who care about the world of Middle Earth, who care about Tolkien's legacy, and who want to be part of it. Also we want to find Frodo in game, to give him some lembas if we can.
So that's it. Now stop reading and get on LOTRO!
Has RUclips change the ads? I have gotten an add at the start of every video I open today! They are all for shitty mobil games too
I payed to just run away from a wraith 10/10
Start as a hobbit and get stabbed by a wraith. 10/10 roleplay!
I grew up watching the movies but have never read the books. I am reading the books for the first time currently and I plan to play LOTRO once I finish Return of the King.
I played LOTRO at launch, but GW1 was my main mmo back then and I jump straight into GW2 in 2012 and never returned to Middle Earth….until now.
It's a shame that the game doesn't feature world PvP. The leveling feels boring without the risk of it, it just feels like a single player game. Wish I could get into it.
These new legendary servers provide a great experience for me, especially Mordor since I'm EU based. The game feels so much more alive than on regular servers and it's so easy to group up. The wraiths mechanic can feel annoying at first because you lack the ability to defend yourself properly if you're low level but that changes as you level up. To each his own, I know I do not regret paying for that experience. Some people will tell you that you pay for less content, that's a misunderstanding about what legendary servers offer. Also take into consideration the hate that these servers receive because players on regular servers are pissed to see less players on their own servers... Anyways, Lotro is a great game, try it for yourself.
Fellow Mordor player here! Lotro is a gem and as a new player coming from GW2, i can safely say i have found my MMORPG home!
@caffeinated dad. Post more Path of Exile 2 content. It’s really hot right now. I love your channel and I think it’ll get you a lot more subscribers and watch time if you post about PoE2.
Been playing since beta 17years ago. I have played other games but they are about the same so I keep playing LOTRO
An in-game friend on Gladden called the game Lord of the Lag. The new servers are becoming very tempting. I'm already VIP.
do it dude, not reason why u shouldnt check it out, its alot of fun seeing everyone extremely active,
The difference between 32 bit and 64 bit is astronomical. I switched to Angmar about a month ago and I can't go back. It's obvious right from the start in the loading screen time.
I wouldnt want ANY QoL changes they made in the past 17 years. I want the game exactly as it was back then. Everything after Shadows of Angmar made the game worse anyway
I think mines of moria was peak content ...
So pay or have lag? That sounds.... stupid
They just recently started testing the 64 bit architecture for servers. They may role it out to the F2P servers eventually but it is a significant cost to do so and more expensive to pay for 64 bit servers compared to 32. Keep in mind this isn't WOW. They don't have millions of subs, a lot of their player base is F2P. In December 2020 an investor meeting disclosed about 108k unique users every month (about 41k are VIP) on average for that year. Now its probably around the same amount but less than half their player base pays for the game. Hope that puts this in perspective.
@@JMKGalaxy2why do you think more people are willing to pay for wow but not for lotro?
I have a lifetime sub from before launch, so I never have to worry about this, lol...
Hell yeah, lifetime here as well, still pay for expansions every now and then to make sure that they get SOME money out of me (even though it is totally not necessary)
Lucky! I don't remember when they stopped offering the lifetime sub but I really wish I could have bought it. I have been on and off with Lotro since 2012/2013 and looking back I probably spent more than the cost of lifetime over the years.
@@JMKGalaxy2 I went to the Boston launch party, midnight going into the release date in 2007, and still have the (slightly ratty) t-shirt that lists each city with an official launch party -- and Angmar, lol.
never again will i pay a sub to an online game ..i did this on and off with wow and it sucks..every live game use the same strat! you want my money? put a price on your product !
I totally disagree .. free to play is how this shitty pay to win ruined every MMO
@@Bogues_88 buddy you did not read my comment how can you disagree with something you didnt understand... read the comment again!
You have to be pretty dumb to play on Legendary servers, paying money for less content.
I’m doing it because the game is so huge it’s over whelming and I want to explore all the zones and do all the quests. I feel like the vip “classic plus” servers give me a chance to experience all the zones easier and as they were at launch. I really like dwarfs so I’m excited to get to explore Moria as the end game content, where as if I’m playing on the other servers it’s mainly just a pass through cause you level so fast.
@@HawsDaBaws That's not what's going to happen though. If you're a hardcore gamer and you're playing 8-10 hours a day, you can finish every single zone up to Moria in maybe 2 weeks tops and unlock all the virtues completing all the deeds and Moria will take up to a week and you're out of content other than running the same 2 fights over and over.
If you're not a hardcore gamer and you're playing 3-4 hours a day or so it'll take you a month+ to get to Moria and after the first month there isn't anyone on the legendary servers doing the lower level content or content that isn't end game. By the time you get to the end game content in Moria people will only be doing the highest tier raids and chances are already have their cliques and such to no need pugs.
Its NOT the vanilla experience. The vanilla experience was extremely different.
Been eyeballing this game for YEARS. The monetization is insane so I'll continue to pass.
You can play for free up to level 75 on a non legendary server. How is this extreme monetization?
@@charlesstampley5821 free up to lvl 90, tons of expansions and quests to play through and eventually the most popular F2P servers will get 64 bit upgrades. Honestly this game is one of the best F2P models. I have played SWTOR and comparably Lotro is way better for F2P. And becoming VIP you get 3 months for essentially $10 per. There isn't any other MMO to my knowledge with this much existing content to experience with that low of an entry cost.
me and my wife where super excited about the legendary servers, but the wraiths where spawning what felt like every mob kill. It got to the point where it just felt like a cheap gimmick, and duoing these did not help. We stopped before they finally nerfed them and got them out of solo instances, but the damage was done for us. We just play off and on on the regular servers.
No. Not worth the money. Has all the "additions" with over-balancing; namely skill trees and nerfed Old Forest. No where near what the actual SoA game was. Fortunately there is a 3rd party project called Echoes of Angmar that does that.
Echoes of Angmar isn't even live. How do you know it does that? Because they said it on a website?
They never claimed it was a "classic" version of the game. And, I'm pretty sure you're alone in wanting the vanilla game. No quest markers on map, no mount until lvl 35, and NO MAP in the Old Forrest... no thanks. Pretty much no-one liked that which is why most people left after the first month back in 2007 leading them to make drastic changes.