Lord of the Rings Online is the best MMO out there, and it’s remarkably free. You can earn so much of the in-game currency just by playing, and there’s simply so much to do. Right now the latest expansion, which includes Mordor – Mordor! – is discounted for a week or so! And it’s a magnificent expansion, it’s so deep and comprehensive, and I wish I could tell you every single thing I love about LotRO.
But I will keep it brief: the developers really care about the players. For example, earlier this week, a bug made one of my characters crash. It turned out to be a bug that only affected High Elf Rune-Keepers with a specific Legendary Item, on the Mac client. They fixed it within two days. And that’s just one example of many where they really helped. They care, and that makes all the difference for me. They’re not a huge developer disregarding their players, they’re a smaller developer constantly rolling out more content, more fun, and fixing things promptly when they go wrong.
There are so many places to go, so many things to see, and so very much beauty. We now can go to Thranduil’s fabulous sylvan palace and the northern reaches of Mirkwood, as well as the picturesque Dale, and even the magnificent Erebor. But Rivendell remains one of my favorites, and that’s not all – the depths of Moria await, and the spectacular challenges are there for you to enjoy, such as fighting the Watcher in the Water and even Balrogs and Cargûl! The Watcher is absolutely perfect, terrifying and powerful and superbly-realized by the production. You will have a fantastic time facing all these legendary things!
But more than that, there’s such a feeling of welcome, of home and of warmth. Cosmetic pets like foxes, shrews, owls, and even more exotic ones like mole-rats and insects await. Various dances, crafts like fireworks and pipe-weed (yes, pipe-weed!), and a robust crafting where you can cook to your heart’s content and create beautiful and very useful items for your friends and family, all await in Middle-Earth. Getting there is at least half the fun, and LotRO embodies Tolkien’s romantic spirit of the travel being a large part of the thing. It’s one of the most beautiful aspects of it, and it’s one of the very few MMO worlds I’ve seen where this is so important as it is.
Roads go ever, ever on…and I hope they will continue to do so. Please, if you haven’t already, give LotRO a try. And I will tell you personally: if you need help, and I can help, please let me know. I will do my very best, because more people need to experience the joy that is Lord of the Rings Online. It has been a joy for over a decade to countless players, and it is the world I come home to, time and again.
I’ll see you in Middle-Earth. :) Message Earmiro, Ithilote, or Rosvald any time on the Landroval server!
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