Originally Posted by Imsoclastic Originally Posted by

This is a LONG-time fan of LOTRO reaching out to the dev team, which i've noticed has been very active and visible in the forums today with the big news. I'd like to say congratulations for your massive accomplishment in shedding the chains of awful Warner Brothers.



So here's my plea, with that said:



Lord of the Rings Online used to be the best MMO the genre has ever seen. It used to have the best group content and end game I've ever seen. I used to sign on every day and find something to admire about this game. I could tell every one of you on the LOTRO staff put their whole hearts into this game. Sure, you sometimes faced the issues that come along with being a smaller MMO team, like longer development cycles and bugs, but I always forgave you for it.



Then something happened. I want to say it was around the release of Riders of Rohan. There were no raids. Not true raids. We got the epic battles, but there was hardly any reason to even get geared up and take the game seriously anymore. The content was terribly easy and boring. I would sign on for a few hours a week and get bored of the game. The passion was gone, and it was obvious. I went from playing this game every day since the days of Shadows of Angmar, to finally uninstalling the game for the first time in years. And I know that this is something that happened for many, many people. The thing that always broke my heart was that I could tell you didn't want the game to turn out this way. I remember constantly hearing promises of T2C, progressional raid content being worked on, but we never got it.



The point i'm getting to here is that, as the newly founded Standing Stone Games, you have an opportunity here. The news will get out to all of the players that you lost that there has been a shift in the life cycle of LOTRO. I urge you; nay, I BEG you, to take this chance to revitalize LOTRO to what it used to be. Give us new Tier 2 Challenge progressional raids that have exclusive gear. Give us Ost Dunhoth and Tower of Orthanc levels of progression. I'm talking gear that takes months of dedication and raiding to get. Give us challenging, fun 3-man and 6-man content. Give us some sort of end game that isn't grinding the same quests over and over each day. Nobody wants that and I think you know it. The problem with level 105 end-game is that sure, you may have released decent content with Gondor, but the gear you get from these instances isn't exclusive to the difficult content. Give us the raid token or currency system back. I promise you that if you return LOTRO to the way it was between level 50 and level 75, you will see a surge of players come back to the game. There are SO many players watching from the sidelines hoping and praying that LOTRO can be that game they used to love.



We don't want new festivals. We don't want constant level cap increases that force us to level through uninteresting, repetitive content. We don't want more crafting and daily quests that get you the best gear in the game where raids and challenging group content should. The kinds of players who enjoy this kind of content will be pleased by anything you give them without much effort on your part at all. Give us the old LOTRO and do somewhat of a reboot of this once-great game and you will be SO successful.