I thought I'd be happier once I got the broadband connection. We've got Verizon FIOS, there's more cable channels to watch... but I hardly ever watch TV any more. When I turn on the TV, I see this little box pop up that says what is playing. I might get excited because it's an old Nicktoon on the Nicktoon channel that hasn't aired on Nickelodeon for years or its Justice League Unlimited on Boomerang. My eyeballs pop out of my skull then what actually starts isn't what the little box says it is. The box lies! It is telling me what had aired but lags so it doesn't accurately show the title of the current program just starting.

Anyway, apart from my TV woes, I wanted to play LOTRO or WOW. Niether one of these games was an option when I had a dialup connection. LOTRO would let me patch, let me make a new character, but upon the screen where the world loads: CRASH! WOW? No patching... So anyhow, I watched the "Leroy Jenkins" video on YouTube & that squashed my interest in WOW. The basic point of the video was to empower player guilds working as a cohesive team & lambasted one individualistic player.

I don't like watching team sports. I don't like being in a team. Much of my time spent playing UO I played as basically a single-player game with the occassional breaks to talk to other players. I heard a problem with EverQuest was that you had to be part of a large group who camped dungeons months on end & you couldn't really do anything as a single player.

I remember liking Final Fantasy XI. It was fun to run around with my catlady or whatever the heck it's called. I'd fight monsters. It was thrilling to learn which monsters I could eventually put a real hurting on after leveling up. I also had a fairly strong character that could go toe-to-toe with a goblin theif guy & mostly prevail. If I needed a heal, I'd kneel down my life guage would slowly regenerate. WOW! The best part is that the veterans weren't jerks. They'd sometimes heal me or even give me a temporary stat increase & go off running. I also loved the auction set up.

BUT since I didn't pay for a couple of months, Square-Enix sent me an email claiming they'd deleted my chars & suspended my registration code. If I wanted to play again, I had to buy a completely new copy of the game at the store to get a new registration code. WHAT!??!! I've been very lax at times with paying for my UO subscription fee, but I never had EA do this to me.

Anyhow, just today I popped in & remembered about LOTRO. If the game is faithful representation of the books (unlike the movies) I'll definitely play it.


So what have I go to expect?

sorry about your woes facattac ..personally i love LOTR ..haven't had any bad experiences to report and their support really seems to be on top of the game

Nothing is ever as good as the book! LOTR is fun as is WOW and so is Everquest for that matter. None of which are as single player minded as UO imo, however its what you do with your time in game that matters and if its fun for you. I have single playered every one of them and enjoyed myself. The biggest problem with everquest as you mentioned is the need for large guilds which only is needed to play the end game, same I think for WoW. Not so sure about LOTR. But the point Im making is you can have fun playing any of them solo its just certain end game mobs you wont be able to go after.

*agrees with Merth*

You can have as much fun with any of them as you allow yourself to.

But don't be disappointed if things lean towards group activities, as you are looking at MMOs.

LOTRO is very solo friendly if you dont want to hunt in groups or bigger teams.. and with next expansion and the "epic" weapons that you craft and kinda cosumize for just you.. then you dont need to do these big raid instances and just enjoy your solo game and once in a while join in to do the Epic quest line with a group.

LOTRO got a awsome client and stabil - what exactly made you crash?