I hope someone finds this post informative and useful ....

Website: http://www.lotro.com/

Forums: http://forums.lotro.com/

10 Day Free Trail: https://trial.turbine.com/lotro.php?ftui=LOTROPandoPack

Free Trial FAQ's: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=248979

Getting Started: http://www.lotro.com/getting-started

Recent New player First impressions:

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=262777

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=262710

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=262455

Actual Screenshots on good PC system.... these dont even do it justice when on right machine















My Review:

On the MMO side .. I have played them All ... starting with Ultima online many years ago ... and text based muds before that

DDO ... I did not care for it much at all ...... with that said however LOTRO is another story .....

Lotro may be one of the most Unique MMO's I have ever played ... I signed up for a trail accoutn early on and was like meh its alright ... but I gave it another try about 6 months later and took a char up to level 20 ... I began to see how awesome the game really was ...

The Epic books story quest are an incredible adventure all by themselves !

everything else is gravy

it has a music system to play all sorts of instruments and add abc notations into your folder and play your fav songs in game on tons of different instruments! you can even sync up with other toons and play as a band ... pretty darn neat ... heh yestersay me and a guy played Dueling banjos and it was awesome ... even been rocking out on lutes and drums to def leapard tunes ... its unreal fun ...

the crafting is actually quite fun compared to a lot of games but still nto as detailed as I would prefer ...

If your into heavy raiding the game is nto for you though ... it des have hiugh end raids just not a lot becuase this game more about path to to the end not getting to the end which is a neat concept for a game for a change ... there is still plenty to do though after reaching max level ... the amount of quests and deeds and traits to acquire is mindboggling!

GRAPHICS on DX10 ultra high .. are insane good ... prolly best in industry HANDS DOWN no contest ...

hobiies could use a lot more work ... fishing is alright but not reeally satisying

I highly suggest anyone that has not tried it in awhile to give the free trial a go ... its really a lot of fun ... It also has one of the most helpful and friendly communities of any MMO ive played ....

PvP I cannot comment on ... i just dont do it very often at all ... a lot do though ... its based on players vs . monsters ... you can roll monsters to play in the game as well and switch to play those chars and fight the player chars in the game which is kinda cool and a lot of people do it ... just not my thing

just as any mmo ... it has its irritations sometimes but overall it really is a well designed game ... Ill prolly play it til 2010 when the new Star Wars MMO comes ... but even then Ill prolly split my time between the two ... I bought a Lifetime membership to LOTRO which means i can play until I die or the game dies and never pay another dime ... which is really cool for a MMO!

Anywoo I obviously am voting for turbine although I did enjoy Fallout 3 ... it is just not in the same league of fun factor as LOTRO ... IMHO of course

P.S. I noticed several people refernce DDO and LOTRO as WOW clones ... There could be nothign further from the truth ... they are totally and extremely different games than wow ... not even close .... and as someone that has been in the MMO community since Text based MUDS ( look up what they were heh ) WoW borrowed heavily from EQ that borrowed from Ultimate online that borrowed from Text based Muds ... Wow was nto really that original ... it just has bad graphics that lets it play on almost anymachine .. which lets them get the unreal subscription numbers out of asia ... and others with systems that could not handle modern MMOS

THE LOTRO community seems to be very populated with 25-60 year old gamers and the global chats and exchanges are for most part free of lewt spe4k ETC it will actually gte you on a lot of ignore list for talking like that

Videos of gameplay footage:
I love this video I just found wish it was in HQ but good none the less ... mostly gameplay footage on a dragon during a raid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygk1N...eature=related

THREADS on LOTRO:

LoTRO

Lordof the rings online multiboxing question

Anyone boxing LOTRO?

Going to try LOTRO for now

LOTRO Multiple Instances on 1 computer

I am looking for anyone that 6 boxes LOTRO ...

Keyclone Lord of the Rings Online support

Anyone multibox LOTRO 3 or more chars ?

Other Forums: (( il post interest threads I find from time to time on other forums here)))