Back to Middle Earth

Ahh, what changes about.

I remember when new servers got opened. Riddermark. Now they close. Down to 10 (5 EU, 5 NA).

The slow death of Lotro? After my transfer I'd give a definitive no. Not anytime soon. If there are 10 full servers, the game is far from 'dead'. Sure, not what it was in it's hey day, but that was 3 years ago at least, and in the world of tech, that is historically 2-300 years ago ;).

The genre is still strong, just look at other fantasy mmo's. Guild Wars, ESO, Archage et.al. And after being on Landroval for a few days, in a new kin, it's FAR from dead.

But I really think it's high time Turbine 'simplified' the game. So many items! So many instances, dungeons etc. And so much of it is not run! Give a a new paint job (graphic update..big job I know, but to keep it all running into the future...make the game run smoother, more responsive).

They would do well to take a page out of swtor's book. Make Bree a central 'hub'. Whenever a new expansion came out a new hub was created for the end game players. This means when a new player comes along, lvl 1-15, people. After Bree and heading to the next zone. Nobody. Ghost town. Been to the beautiful Trollshaws lately? Beginning game/End game = people. The 90ish levels in-between, nada. *sad*.

It's a big game and getting bigger. This is becoming a new player drawback in some ways. Revamp the quest lines. It's high time. Consolidate it so it's a nice progression.

Swtor did it. They got rid of all the different currencies needed for different gear. Now it's down to 3 types of tokens and coins. And the best thing they've done is have a weekly quest (and some dailies) that are only for using group finder or running a random instance in a group. Ta-da, everybody starts using group finder and it works all day. Brilliant for solo people who actually do want to group up but aren't the most sociable or in kinships.

Anyway, slow re-learning how to play...yeah, it's that much of a curve. Hey, ESO is proving you don't need 25 skills to play the game ;)