The Daily Grind: How's LotRO treatin' ya?
Filed under: Expansions, Opinion, The Daily Grind
Turbine has been shy about releasing subscription numbers, but an educated guess could place LotRO in the #2 spot as far as subscription-based, western MMOs go. So to give LotRO a little much-deserved attention, we decided to ask you: how's LotRO treating you these days? Turbine has had over a year to polish the game. How's it coming? And if you're a LotRO player now, will WAR or WotLK draw you away? Or do you expect Mines of Moria satisfy all your MMO cravings this year?
















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
8-30-2008 @ 10:03AM
SgtBaker said...
May I ask how you ended up with that educated guess?
Since my educated guess (http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html) puts LotRO somewhere around 200k subs at best, which isn't really enough to put in in nr 2 place.
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8-30-2008 @ 10:12AM
RogueJedi86 said...
You run MMOGChart.com? Because if you don't, that would be MMOGChart's educated guess, and not yours.
And #2 wouldn't be far off I'd guess, for Western subscription based MMOs. Runescape isn't entirely subscription based, so it doesn't count. FFXI doesn't either, since it's from the East.
Not that many western MMOs out there pulling in big numbers. LotRO has the hook of a stronger tie to its lore, and a more mature community than WoW. I'd be playing it now if it weren't for my long-term investment/addiction to WoW.
8-30-2008 @ 10:22AM
Brian said...
Because of the NPD report that put them number 3 behind runescape and WOW. And take that website with a grain of salt.
OT: LOTRO has been great to me, been playing for about 6Mo. and cannot not wait for Moria!
8-30-2008 @ 10:57AM
SgtBaker said...
Oh of course the chart I linked to should be taken with grain of salt (or rather big bucket of it).. however, at least it tries to show some numbers (and the FAQ on the site tells how they get their numbers) - which is much more than the author did.
For "western subscription" based MMO's - WoW is around 11M, Age of Conan is somewhere around 450k, EVE-Online around 300k, EQII and LotrO somewhere around 200k...
For the most part it's just guesses and speculation, but I'd be very surprised if LotrO was #2 on that list.
And to actually answer the authors question and the topic of this thread:
I really want to play LotrO. I was in the Beta and I've subscribed twice since then.. and it's always the same thing, I get bored to death before I hit lvl20 and either spend all my time standing around some city or marvelling the water effects by drowning my character in some lake continuously.
I can't put my finger on it, it's a good game, the implementation is solid, I love the IP and lore... it just doesn't capture me.
8-30-2008 @ 1:01PM
Tony said...
Semi-related: I would be interested in knowing how this changes when the game finally launches in Korea. It's happening soon and Turbine is being smart about tooling the game a bit for Korean gamers' expectations.
Apparently The Lord of the Rings is more popular out there than many people figured.
8-30-2008 @ 2:59PM
Samuel Axon said...
The most important evidence is the NPD report. The NPD has long tracked sales of home entertainment products, and in February it began tracking subscription numbers. In the subscription numbers covering October 2007 to March 2008, LotRO was placed in third place behind WoW and Runescape. (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/online-subscriptions-exceed-1-billion-a-year-says-npd)
An argument could be made that Runescape qualifies as a western, subscription-based MMO, but I think we can agree that that's semantics, and it's not really the kind of game we're talking about.
Turbine itself has long made the claim that it's in second place. That's not conclusive on its own, of course, as even (especially) Blizzard skews its own numbers. 11 million subscribers for WoW? That all depends on how you tally Asia. It's no coincidence that regional numbers have never been released. But the point is that the claim is likely not completely unfounded. When Turbine made the claims, I'm sure there was some way you could work the numbers to make it come out that way.
Beyond the NPD report, it really comes down to whether or not you believe Age of Conan has surpassed LotRO. There's no way to know. It might have. Then again, you don't want to underestimate the power of the Tolkien license. And the Korean LotRO launch is immediate. That's why I said an educated guess "might" place LotRO at #2.
But the numbers were not the point. No matter how you work the numbers, it's an important game that has been a little bit overshadowed lately in the press hype machine, so I thought it would be nice to check in on it.
8-31-2008 @ 1:16AM
SgtBaker said...
Thanks for clearing that out.
I agree the numbers are not important (and definately not the point of your post), but they are interesting discussion/speculation point for MMO nerds like me :-)
Anyhow, when Blizzard hit 10M subs, they did release regional numbers (see, http://eu.blizzard.com/en/press/080122.html).
8-30-2008 @ 10:23AM
Brian said...
ecause of the NPD report that put them number 3 behind runescape and
WOW. And take that website with a grain of salt.
OT: LOTRO has been great to me, been playing for about 6Mo. and
cannot not wait for Moria!
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8-30-2008 @ 10:40AM
Val said...
#2? lol...
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8-30-2008 @ 10:50AM
george said...
Its pretty neat, I bought it for $10 from on of their promotions and only pay $10 a month for it. I honestly got really tired of it, just about to cancel my account. Its a neat game, great graphics. The fighting is pretty dull, the questing is terrible. The only way I can complete any quest is to look up the quest guide at lotro.mmodb.com.
That is the only reason I am cancelling it, it takes longer to look up how to do the quest than it is to complete it... I with LOTRO had the quests like AOC where it would show you on the map where to kill the mob or where to get the item, but it doesn't, it make you read the entire quest story OR it makes you look up the quest information from one of the databases...
Thats why I am getting rid of LOTRO soon, got it for a $10 and only pay $10 a month, but I just don't enjoy playing it... I wish funcom would fix their game, but they have already screwed it up... :(
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8-30-2008 @ 10:50AM
Glyneth said...
I'm still having a great time in LoTRO, just over a year since I started. The game could use more work in some areas (crafting...) but everything else is solid and enjoyable, I am more than happy with the game as-is and am looking forward to Moria.
I used to play WoW, but quit - nothing against that game, it is fine - partly because the time commitment of the end-game meant I was working towards a goal I couldn't even participate in. I will likely check out WAR out of curiosity.
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8-30-2008 @ 11:02AM
Will said...
I am looking forward to warhammer, but I'm pretty sure the mines of moria will be taking up most of my gaming time later this year. The amount of polish lotro has seems to be rare in mmo's these days and I can't understand why more people haven't jumped on the lotro bandwagon.
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8-30-2008 @ 12:08PM
Thannel said...
LOTRO has been treating me remarkably well. The three reasons that make it my #1 MMO: the story, the polish, and the players. Crossing off the days on my calendar until Moria...
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8-30-2008 @ 12:16PM
joebob said...
I started LoTRO at launch, took a few months off, but am back in-game now.
I'm having fun gearing up for MoM, although I may try a WAR demo just for fun.
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8-30-2008 @ 12:51PM
Ouzi said...
I love(d) lotro, i played for it just about a year, but found that really i'd done literally everything there was to do in it, i had one totally maxed out character (ok he was rank 8 not 15 but still) and just didn't see the point in doing it all over again, im waiting until moria, then ill deffo be back, although now darkfall has caught my eye again, and an earthrise beta looming, im not sure how much ill be playing it, but to anyone wandering, pick up the free trial, the gameplay, while slow is IMO very good and entertaining, and as said above you have to read the quests story to know where to go, its a slow paced but entertaining and deep MMO, with a great dev team who keep adding more and more interesing and original content.
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8-30-2008 @ 1:00PM
Tony said...
LotRO is an amazing game. I warmed up to it slowly and once I got into it, I never got out of it. I'm hardly a big Tolkien fan (most of the time I spell his name wrong), but this is the only MMORPG where I read the quest text and feel actually involved in the story,
As the two things mentioned in the comments:
1.) I like the fighting system, it rewards using the right skills at the right time and I love the skill queue system. The fact that I don't have to press a skill the second another one ends to keep up is nice.
2.) The questing, to me, is fine. All of them tell you where to go and, sure, sometimes you'll wander around a bit... but I don't want to be told EXACTLY where to go all of the time. AoC and Warhammer do that and basically all that does for me is highlight how much of a fetch and kill game these things are. There's no reason for me to pay attention to the quests or what's going on.
But that's me. I don't know how well LotRO is doing, but it's clearly doing well enough for Turbine to put out significant content updates out every few months and make a pretty cool looking expansion pack.
I'm really interested in seeing what else they do in terms of live events too. With Book 14, they had GMs actually playing a major, really powerful character... She ran around beating the shit out of people and getting monster players to work alongside her. It was a really cool thing and added a nice personal touch these games tend to lack.
I also think the game doesn't get enough credit for its graphics. Any time I would get to a new area in LotRO I'd be impressed. It's hardly perfect, but it comes together well. The DX10 support doesn't hurt either.
I'm sure, like with many MMORPGs, people made their minds up on this one a long time ago... And a lot of them seem feel they're not into Lord of the Rings enough and are going to feel dorky or out of place in this game as if everyone else in it is going to judge them over it or something.
But if it's other reasons, the game has really changed and been expanded since launch. And while that's true of any other MMORPG out there on some level, I feel like Turbine has REALLY gone the extra mile with this one.
I have more fun in it, play it more and play with more cool people in LotRO than any MMORPG I own... and at the end of the day that matters more to me than whether it has 200,000 players or 500,000 players.
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8-30-2008 @ 1:04PM
Skypp said...
Since I started in January they've added what would've been a whole expansion for some games. Putting in non-combat activities like costumes and fishing, adding a very large zone with tons of quests, adding in a new PVP zone opened by which side controls the most camps, redoing older zones making them much better. They even add smaller extensions to maps from time to time. Their festivals and the rewards at those festivals are extremely fun(Kegs that make you pass out and teleport to random areas for example).
To the guy that complains about the quests... try reading the quests haha. I love questing in LOTRO, the game tells you where to go, but you have to know how to use a map. Unlike Conan which puts a dot on the exact item you need. They let you play the game and use people's prior knowledge of the area. Putting on your map exactly where you need to go just seems like people are dumbing down MMO's even more than WoW did.
All in all, bottom line is, Turbine supports their game and cares alot about it, like no other team since the original WoW launch.
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8-30-2008 @ 1:11PM
usagizero said...
Out of Turbine games, i enjoy DDO vastly more than LotRO, i just wish DDO had more of that "world map" solo questing. LotRO is is pretty nice for that slow paced mmo fix though. Yes i do subscribe to both.
Off topic, can other companies ever introduce a thing like Station, where you pay a little more for access to all their games? I'd do that in a second with Turbine and NCSX.
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8-30-2008 @ 6:35PM
The Claw said...
LOTRO was the last game I had an active subscription to, but it was only active for a month.
The first impression LOTRO made on me was excellent - I would say it made the best initial impression of any game other than WoW. It was attractive, it led you into the game gracefully, and you were quickly introduced to the innovative idea of trying to combine the feel of a single-player CRPG with an MMORPG, via the chapter quests.
But.. after playing for a month or so, I just lost interest. The actual gameplay was just.. lacking. The combat system really wasn't fun. There seemed to be an inordinate amount of walking from place to place. I dunno, it just joined the long list of MMOs that couldn't hold me for more than a month.
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8-30-2008 @ 6:51PM
Tasogare said...
I tried to get into it a couple of times in the past, mostly to no avail, but I got into a LotR kick a few weeks ago and grabbed a copy of the special edition from an amazon.com seller for cheap. Since then I've been pretty happy with it, everything is extremely well written and detailed, and I LOVE the environments, they make the game feel bigger than other MMO's do. The gameplay is pretty standard, very WoW-ish, but that makes it a bit easier for someone who's played WoW for a long time to get into.
Overall it's a nice tide over until WAR comes out for me, and depending on how the weeks up until it's launch go, LotRO very well could become my PVE game of choice.
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