I started when 64 bit servers were added so I cannot speak regarding lag, server-related issues, etc.

The game is F2P up to the level cap, but content will be barred beyond level 95, meaning all the content up to 2013 is free, including the epic quest lines, making your own legendary weapon, all books/episodes/locations all the way up to Gondor/Helm's Deep. That means you have nearly 30 locations to explore, the base classes to play, a lot of places to see, and a ton of things to do. All of this on a FREE account. Expansions and content ARE STILL BEING MADE!

Combat is traditional and seems to lean more towards if "the original WoW team kept the same system since BC, for 20 years", if that makes sense. It's almost a 20 year old game and follows a very familiar formula that if you played the original WoW/classic WoW.

Classes are -

-Beornings are Bear Druids that can tank/heal/DPS
-Guardians are Prot. Warriors with Gladiator Stance
-Brawlers are tanking WW Monks with no mobility
-Loremasters are a mix of BM Hunter, Ele Shaman, and Arcane Mage
-Runekeepers are a traditional Mage with a hint of Ele Shaman and Holy Priest
-Burglars are Rogues with loads of debuffs
-Champions are Fury Warriors with support options
-Captains are Paladins with a pet
-Hunters are MM Hunters without a pet
-Minstrels leans heavily towards Priest, with Boomkin burst damage
-Mariner is a Combat Rogue with support options and a pirate theme
-Warden is Survival Hunter with a spear/shield, but no pet. You have gambits, similar to Roll the Bones from Combat Rogue

Every other level you get a talent point and you can invest it into one of three categories - Red, Blue, or Yellow. Red is typically the DPS line, Yellow is more support/debuff, and Blue is more healing (or tanking) line. From there, it's a matter of preference.

In terms of graphics, it's 2007 but newer content has a slightly better coat of paint while it still keeps the old style feel. It really fits the style of the game in my opinion, seeing the vast fields of the Shire or seeing the beacon fires where Gondor called for aid, which made me go rewatch the movies for the fourth time this year.

You are NOT the hero, which is made crystal clear at the start. You are on the sidelines delivering mail, and baking pies while Frodo is off taking the ring to Mount Doom.

Speaking of Mordor, many locations in the series of books are in the game. These places look pretty damn good and you could tell, by 2007 standards, that a lot of passion and love was put into those locations. You will also see a fair number of familiar faces too. No spoilers. ;)

One of the appealing things in the game is deeds. By fulfilling deeds, you earn LOTRO points that are used in the store. LOTRO points are a premium currency. You can earn it in game freely by completing deeds, or spending real money. These are similar to achievements in WoW. Kill 60 orcs in a region to unlock the next tier, get some points, and continue on to the next tier. Complete another tier to get more points, and more rewards. Complete ALL the deeds in a zone to get the meta deed which can reward lots of points, extra items including mounts, discounts for the zone, etc. There's also deeds to unlock more racial perks/bonuses and some that offer you extra currency. While these increments are small, typically 5-20 points, those points add up and you can buy anything in the store with said points.

When you reach the Moria expansion, you will get access to legendary weapons and allow you to customize them to your playstyle a fair bit. You can also carry multiple for different specs. It's pretty involved but if you played WoW: Legion and the artifact weapon system, you'll feel at home. Still, legendary weapons are an important core part of your class identity. It pays to invest into them.

PvP is completely isolated, meaning world PvP does not exist outside the PvP zone. MPvP, or monster PvP, allows you to play as a level capped monster under Sauron's faction. Playing as a monster gives a unique twist. Monster Play gives rewards and world wide faction buffs for all players.

Crafting is very straight-forward. Crafting HQ versions of items for extra stats is nice. All professions provide value, no matter the level. The endgame especially! Potions, cooked meals, and various buffs are always in demand. Processed components to craft or upgrade gear is always in demand as well. Raw materials are always in demand so if you're a new player, that's a nice way to earn some money.

I'll get into some of the issues I have with the game -

-Game population is small but improving. 64bit servers were added recently and devs have nudged players towards them from the now defunct 32bit servers. I highly encourage you to bring some friends, form a kinship (AKA a guild) and just have at it.

-This game is NOT alt friendly. WoW has spoiled us all with its account-wide perks, but very little of that exists here. Rerolling starts you back at zero. You will have to level up again, level up crafting, etc. While I have no issue with some of the aspects of starting from zero, some of the more painful parts just discourage any point in leveling multiple characters at once. One of the perks of rerolling characters is you can redo deeds again, earning you some easy points. Premium things bought in the store are typically account wide such as bag space, bank space, cosmetics, and so on.

-Bag space is a premium. Literally. Free players get very little bagspace and it costs points to purchase upgrades. Premium players get extra bagspace, while VIP gets even MORE unlocked as long as you maintain your VIP status. You can purchase bag expansions in the store, including bank space, shared bank account space, even cosmetic space. You can offset some of the penalties by purchasing, again with points, carry-alls, which can hold several hundreds of a specific type of item. Want to carry all of your crafting mats everywhere? Get the crafting carry-all. You can also transfer the carry-all to your alts, if you have a crafting alt or two. If you want to get serious in this game, or at least not visit a bank every time you sneeze, you are almost outright required to purchase a carry-all and/or be a VIP.

-The UI. It's kinda ass and clunky. Playing on a screen larger than 1080p does more harm than good. Devs have stated they intend to address the issue but that supposedly isn't coming any time soon, focusing moreso on class things and content rather than UI updates. You can customize your UI, make adjustments, but ultimately, it doesn't fix some of the issues that addons can or should fix. Consider Lossless Gaming, on Steam.

-Speaking of addons, they're...lacking. While WoW allows full customization of your UI, LOTRO doesn't have that. Everyone has different needs and I can only encourage you to research the various addons that are available.

-Traveling sucks. One of the biggest issues is not all the stable masters are not globally connected. One example is if you wanted to travel, by flight point, from Booty Bay to Ironforge, you could do that with a click of a button and just go AFK for a few. In LOTRO, you have to manually travel between certain stable masters, and not all of them are equal. Some will only have access to certain areas, meaning you have to travel, sometimes between 2-4 different stable masters just to get to certain areas. There are ways to fast travel, but are usually class restricted.

Overall, I believe this is a good MMORPG worthy of the LOTR name. While it is bogged down with some age and dated issues, the devs do actually care.

Warcraft has spoiled us all and it really shows.

tl;dr - Save your money and get it on sale. The price tag is not worth it. While the game is pretty fun, I simply cannot condone the pricetag. Remember to vote with your wallet!

I got all achievements, beat the game in 23 hours, managed to get all collectibles and finished all side stuff. The game was completed from start to finish on Ultra-Violence with no modified sliders, on Ultra graphics preset + everything turned onto max. My PC build is an RTX 4090 + 14900k + 96GB of RAM with a custom/modified Win11 ISO install. This game was played on a gen4 NVME.

I found the game to be enjoyable with a fun gameplay loop. Feedback from the weapons felt off without some upgrades but after getting a few, and learning how to use them well, things fall into place. Movement was slow but that was to be expected since the Slayer is supposed to be a walking tank, as was described in devblogs. The movement didn't come off as stiff, but if you play Dark Ages, then go back to Eternal, then back to this, you will see what I mean.

Blocking, one of the major parts of the gameplay and combat, felt VERY good. The sound design, the feedback, the...everything felt really good, especially when you can get the timing down to just negate so much damage. Clang! Charging into an enemy from afar and just blowing everything up around you? Feels good man.

The mechsuit was very cool too. The sound design where you punch a demon in the jaw, and the slowdown? Gorgeous. The mech itself is slow, bulky, but it feels like an extension of yourself. While I am not a fan of the dodge/counter mechanic, it was still fun to turn a giant demon into a fine red mist with my fist through their skull.

The lack of Mick Gordan's music really, really hurts this game as a whole. I ended up muting the music completely after the third level because without his music, what's the point?

My only two major gripes were -

1) Flying sections felt pointless and added nothing to the gameplay whatsoever. The gameplay regarding flying is boiled down to basic dodge/counter mechanics. If I wanted dodge/counter gameplay, I'd just go play Punch-Out.

2) The complete reinventing of the wheel, so to speak. I'm unsure of the direction Bethesda wanted to take Doom because it just seems unnecessary. If it was more like Doom 2016 or Eternal, it would've been more of the same but it would've also been what folks expected (and probably wanted more of). Folks would also, probably, complain that devs were "playing it too safe". The numbers those games brought speak for themselves however, so I won't comment any further.

All in all, it's a pretty fun game with a decent gameplay loop, a customizable difficulty slider, and a lot of bullets. Is it better than 2016 or Eternal? I will let you decide that.

This game was received for free with a GPU promotion.

hat simulator