I'm not an MMO fan... although I've tried a few (Neverwinter being the last); the cluttered UI and generally unresponsive combat tends to leave me underwhelmed...

... but...

... I'm a pretty big fan of The Lord of the Rings (yes, I've watched Signum University streams for years) and -- since it went free-to-play -- have toyed with playing The Lord of the Rings Online.

Has anyone here played it?

If so, what did you think?

F2P is extremley limited. You have to sub to enjoy the full experience. Its full of microtransactions. Dated graphics. Too expensive for my blood.

I agree with SnowSlinger, its F2P model is very limited. Not the worst I've seen but it's definitely not the best. That said, its gameplay is passable but its real draw is the world and story, both of which are great for fans of Tolkien's work.

I played it extensively a couple of years ago, just solo - too many events (yep, it's an MMO), the quest design is very dated (though they spent quite some time a couple of years ago to at least streamline the experience, rather than continuously sending you back and forth), you level up too fast for the amount of content to experience (and that's worse when you pay money, as they really try to rush you toward the end game), travelling takes a long time (which is also a positive: the world feels properly huge), and craftng is completely useless (except maybe in the endgame), but despite all of that, a lot of it oozes atmosphere, and I had a very enjoyable time with it. Moria in particular was a highlight, which has really shaped how I visualize that particular bit of Middle Earth, and the Old Forest was also just lovely. Some regions are utterly crap (Lothlorien in particular was a disappointment), but those are rare.

You get the first couple of regions for free, filled with quests - after that (I think after Weathertop?) there's a rather abrupt switch to regions where all the quests are locked and you have to pay to access them - except for the "main storyline", which still sends you back-and-forth throughout the world for a while before finally going into Moria.

There's various "deeds" (kill 30/60 wolves and so on), which will award you points, which you can use in the store to buy quest packs for specific regions (with each region being designed for a specific range of levels). You'll earn enough playing regularly for one or two quest packs on sale (at least back when I did it), and maybe some more if you grind them all with multiple characters, but at some point you'll probably want to spend real money just for content - except that last year they had a special event where players got all minor quest packs for free, and major expansion quest content (like Moria) for very cheap, which might mean that they'll do more sales like that, or at least bigger sales for that content? I don't know - haven't kept up.
I think I spent €30-ish to experience everything I wanted to experience up until Rohan (the end game area back then), with only minor grinding to acquire carefully selected quest packs in between to always have someplace suitable for my level where I could do quests.

Actually, I did play it, but it was literally once for a couple of hours something like 12 years ago. Me and my friend just called it quits on WoW, and wanted to try something else, we booted up the LOTRO free trial... and found it to be pretty much the exact same game as WoW just with LotR names in it and with less cartoonish art style. So we were bored of it already before we really started playing. But of course I didn't even get to know the game as it was back then, and I have no idea what it's like now.

I pretty much always find MMOs boring, shallow and unimmersive, but the prospect of exploring MIddle-Earth keeps bringing me back to thinking of giving LOTRO another shot. And then I decide not to, because I know I'll just be bored again, and besides it's hard for me to believe an MMO could actually capture much of the books magic.

It's basically impossible to make a fun MMO. And F2P makes it even harder. And in a property with very rigid existing lore, even harder yet.

Wow, thanks for the extensive reply.

Yeah, everytime I get excited about an MMO, I hear paywalls and fetch-quests and excessive grinding...

... and I lose all enthusiasm.

LOTRO, Black Desert Online, and that Warhammer MMO that fans resurrected have all got me interested... but then not enough to actually play. Seems even my Tolkien fandom can't quite get me to run around the Shire... and certainly never to Rohan!

Still, I'll probably try to play LOTRO a bit when I have some time. I like wandering around in open-world games and just taking in the sights. Yeah, that was my fear. Yeah, kno what you mean. Would probably be playing for the atmosphere alone. That is the problem in a nutshell. Dunno... but I haven't found one yet that engages me on more than a base level. Well, this one's (LOTRO) been around a looooooong time.

It's not an MMO [which is a pro], but it's open world. Sadly not on GOG, but the Lego Lord of the Rings game was pretty fun. Should be very cheap to get a used physical copy if you have a console.