Too Late to Start Playing LOTRO?

Posted on 15. Dec, 2009 by Goldenstar in New Player Advice, Opinions

I came across this post on the official forums asking if it’s too late to start playing LOTRO. The poster was concerned that everyone was at end game and that the lower levels were basically a barren wasteland. I can understand the concern. I wouldn’t want to pay to play an MMO completely alone, either. However, I believe that this poster was pretty misinformed about the starting areas and about LOTRO in general.

In general, the only time it is “too late” to start playing an MMO, is if you decide to join a month before they shut the game down. That doesn’t happen very often. Heck, games like Ashren’s Call are busy celebrating their 10 year anniversaries!

There are of course other factors to consider that could effect the amount of traffic you run into while leveling your new character.

The time of day that you generally get to play will greatly effect the population of a server. If your playtime is off peak (typically 7-11 p.m. Monday – Friday) you will notice a lack of others around. It probably will not be a ghost town, but it may be a bit before you run into someone in the wilderness. Sometimes you can offset this by picking a server with a different time zone to put you more within prime playing hours.

The server itself could have just a lower population. Even at peak times these servers may not have a ton of people around. For the U.S. Servers, I believe it is Brandywine and Landroval that have some of the higher player counts. I haven’t heard any complaints from any of the servers saying their population is too low.

There are times for you to be proactive at finding others.

I’ve led kinships in the past and one of the people I find most annoying is the person who logs on, sits quietly or asks once if someone wants to do their quest and then complains loudly that no one helps. This person is the type I would /fishslap in real life if I could. Invites to a fellowship will not magically fall at your feet when you login. Sometimes it’s up to you to start the fellowship.

You’ll have to join the Looking for Fellowship (LFF) channels, answer those you’re interested in joining and ask for help yourself.
You will generally have to ask more than once to get a fellowship going. People login at different times and sometimes folks just aren’t really paying attention to /lff or whatever channel you’re using.
Understand that sometimes you will make more friends helping others than demanding to finish the quest you’re looking to complete.
Try to not take it personally. If no one answers your call for a fellowship, it doesn’t mean the entire server hates you. It probably just means everyone’s busy or not paying attention. It happens.

The LOTRO community is famous for its super friendly players. Don’t be afraid to speak up or ask a question! If you make a faux pas you’ll not be flamed into oblivion like in other MMOs. We’re nicer here.

There are still a ton of stuff to do in the old areas!

Turbine has been fantastic in renewing old areas and improving old content to cater for newer players going through the first time. The Lone Lands was just completely revamped not to mention the project of Orion’s to improve the epic quests to be done with less than a full fellowship if desired. They’ve allowed players to own a (slow) mount at level 20 to help you get around quicker!

This is not a gaming company that creates an area and leaves it to rot for eternity. It’s constantly being improved for the new player’s benefit. It’d be rather silly for them to make the climb to 65 impossible. I have a feeling they rather like having new subscribers.

There are always going to be people in all stages of the game. Not just new players but people like Merric with his eight alternate characters will be plodding along the same path as these new folks. Main hubs like Bree and Esteldin will not likely to slow down as they will still be the gathering place for characters of this level.

No. It is not too late to start playing LOTRO.

Tags: leveling, LOTRO, mmo, new player, solo

10 Responses to “Too Late to Start Playing LOTRO?”

Hatch

15. Dec, 2009

Completely agree Goldenstar. I’m relatively new to the game (3 months) & already a life ember & have a 64 main with some alts. Community is great, find yourself a friendly Kin which is easy enough & you’ll meet some great people.

You & Merric play alts on Brandywine still?

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- Goldenstar
  
  15. Dec, 2009
  
  We haven’t had much time to play on Brandywine. The expansion has really taken our attention and we’ve been mainly playing our mains on Landroval. I was around briefly on Brandywine last tuesday though.
  
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Longasc

15. Dec, 2009

I have played a lot of MMOs, and – even outside the frequent welcome back weekends – I found LOTRO has a surprising amount of active and really new players in the lower levels, not only alts of veterans and that.

In fact I met more players on the LOTRO EU servers during levelling than while levelling up several chars on three different WoW servers.

And regarding other things, they will throw him a Moria set right into the face and help him through the epic storyline, it is not too late to join LOTRO. I would even say it has, just like DDO, a renaissance at the moment. I think it especially can offer a lot for bored WoW veterans who can’t stand it anymore and still need their MMO fix.

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Sharon

15. Dec, 2009

I saw that forum post also, but as someone who just started playing a month ago on Landroval, I haven’t had any trouble finding fellowship groups.

I *have* noticed that it seems a little harder to find mature, active kinships that are recruiting now, but maybe that’s just my perception and I’m looking in the wrong place (the forums). But as far as finding groups for GB, GA and the book quests, I’ve had no trouble at all. The lower level areas are very active!

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LD

15. Dec, 2009

If there’s ever a good time to start playing an MMO, or switch to a new character in your current MMO, then it’s around the launch of a new expansion where the level cap is raised. The gear ‘reset’ at the endgame means that for the next few months all characters are on a roughly equal footing, rather than reaching the level cap wearing scraps of quest armour only to find the veterans are decked out in the über-powerful raid gear you need for the latest content and you have no way of catching up with them.

Right now in LotRO I think the first 30 or so levels are the busiest I’ve seen them since everyone started a Warden or Runekeeper alt at the Mines of Moria launch. It dies off pretty quickly after the Lone-Lands, probably through a mix of people only wanting to check out the new area and the rest running Skirmishes all the time.

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Too Late for New Players? | LotRO Focused Blog for the Casual Player | MMeOw

15. Dec, 2009

[...] has a really great post on the really, really great A Casual Stroll to Mordor. It discusses a recent forum topic that [...]

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Phebe

15. Dec, 2009

Great post, Goldenstar — I agree with all of your points. It can be tough finding people for group quests sometimes, but it just takes patience and persistance. Friending every helpful person you run into is a good idea, and joining a good, active kinship is a huge help. Also, I think that right now, with people who ordered the Adventurer’s Pack gaining 2 extra character slots, there are a LOT of people leveling new alts in the game. I ran my new RK around Ered-Luin last weekend, and it was far from dead. Then again, we’re on Landroval, so it might be a bit busier than other servers. Where it’s tougher is finding groups for things like Carn Dum or even Moria now — everyone is skirmishing or in Mirkwood. But it’ll all even out as the new alts and new players near 50. Hopefully.

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Dave (BoH) Hill

16. Dec, 2009

Too Late to Start Playing LOTRO? | A Casual Stroll to Mordor http://bit.ly/4W78xs #LotRO [No, it's not. Good article on why.

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Nnyan

16. Dec, 2009

I’m sorry but I just have to disagree in general. Your specific points are mostly valid (although there are plenty of examples of dev’s leaving old areas mostly untouched for years) but the basic dynamic in any game is that people generally tend to stay at the end game.

Of course there are plenty of people that have multiple alts. I know I had at least 4-5 in every game I played. Yes content is upgraded or added and people revisit the old stuff. But that is a diminishing return. As more and more time passes more and more people would rather play the end game.

I started playing LOTRO at launch and did so for almost 8 months. I found it to be a great game and I mostly enjoyed my time. I am a very proactive player and even though my play time is limited I do not mind spending my session helping people out. But the sense of community that I had learned during my days in Ultima, Everquest, DAoC and yes even WoW was just absent during my time in LOTRO. Don’t get me wrong I met some nice people and fellowships but even then the focus was just the end game. The casual players I ended up gaming with left one at a time, until I finally got tired and left.

So after about a year of not playing I went back again (and twice more between that time and a few months ago) and yes the number of people running around is noticeably fewer then before. And yes I play during prime time and tried multiple servers which supposedly had high pop.

I’m not saying it’s too late to start playing, and that you won’t ever find groups. But to say that the level of activity in the old content has not fallen off significantly is wrong IMHO.

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- Neil Johnson
  
  28. Mar, 2010
  
  Not entirely sure what you mean. I’ve been playing for 3 years and haven’t really seen any diminish in player base. I started out on vilya and i admit that server doesn’t have a bucketload of players. Brandywine and Landroval however, do. It’s like in most games, One server has practically all the players. Not to say that the other servers are dead, In fact, they are far from it! There are plenty of players in the beginning areas. You just have to play at the right times. And play in servers where the peak time, is your play time.
  
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