I'm not sure I completely agree Z, but I certainly agree that it is hard for a game to recover from initial failures.


One of the things I think LotRO has done fairly well is not over-expand in the lower levels. One of the mistakes I think DAoC (and EQ as well) made was creating lots of new noob content that turned the lower level areas into ghost towns of boring and turning off late arrivals. LotRO seems to have only added mid and high end content, and at the same time they seem to have revamped a lot of the quest setups so it is easier to find stuff to do.


The example I noticed recently was they seem to have added a central figure to the various areas who then tells you to go help all these other folks who have quest lines that you might not find easily. And doing those quests gets you added rewards from the new guy. Much friendlier than before for folks unfamiliar with the game / zones.


I have heard people complain about the 30-40 content and getting stuck, etc., but I haven't had that problem myself so I dunno. otoh, I haven't explored grouping too much, so it is possible those become harder to find osemthin.

 

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It's not so much you get stuck as the game takes a sharp turn away from the LOTRO story in those levels. You end up in a bunch of locations that are maybe only mentioned once in the books in passing if at all. They are good enough for what they are but they lack the excitement of playing in areas you recognize from the books and movies and the repetition of the underlying gameplay becomes more apparent. I have two or three characters in the 30s and I always seem to lose interest around there. I think my highest is about 40 but it really burnt me out just to get to 40.

They milked the crap out of the expansions and people lost interest. FFS, is the main storyline quest even into The Two Towers yet? I think I remembers seeing something about an Orthanc expansion awhile back.

 

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Moria was fantastic according to everyone I've heard talk about it. Mirkwood was bad apparently. Mainly because again it's an area that has little resonance with the main story.


I've heard the new one is not as big as it should have been but ties in interestingly with the two towers storyline.