Who's got some love for this old game? Maybe I just liked it because I was a 12 year old Tolkien freak and it was one of my first RPG's but I think they did a great job with the lore and atmosphere. I even used to sit on the shitter and read the paragraphs in the back of the manual.

I wish GOG would release it, along with Two Towers. I'm too lazy to get it running on my PC, although I suppose it could be done with DOSbox.

Anybody still playing this one?

Don't hold your breath; Interplay lost the LOTR game licence a long time ago. So Gog would have to deal not only with Interplay, but with Tolkien Enterprises as well.
And the Sierra Tolkien games and the EA LOTR games have he same problem:Licencing expired, they no longer have the right to sell the game without Tolkien Enteprises permission. And that would cost some major money.
And, frankly, you can't want to play it that bad if you won't take the maybe five or ten minutes it would take to insall it with DOSBOX...

Interplay seems pretty happy to re-release their games, the most recent additions being the licensed Star Trek games. But yeah, from what I've heard Tolkien Enterprises (or perhaps I'm thinking of Tolkien's children/relatives) are not necessarily happy campers when it comes to licensing.

I've love to see the 2003 Sierra Hobbit game here (the incredible OST included as a bonus), but we also know how Activision has been treating their backlog lately.

OST is free here: https://thehobbit.bandcamp.com/album/the-hobbit-the-complete-original-soundtrack

To add to that, another factor is whether the current licensee (Warner Bros) holds an exclusivity deal with the Tolkien Estate regarding video games. If they do, then we can forget about rereleases until their license expires. If they don't, then it all depends on whether Interplay thinks there's any profit to be found with the two games.

The point is for games based on a outside licence, you need, if the licence has not been renewed, the permission not omly of the game companybut the people who own the licence.
For the Star Wars games, it's one shop stopping since Disney owns both Lucararts and the Star Wars licence, but with others it's more tricky. Paramount is apparently willing to sign off on rerelease of the Star Wars games, but Tolkien Enteprises is notoriously sticky.
It gets really confusing because you have two different game licences..one for the books and another for the movie.
Tolkien Enteprises owns the book licence, Warners/New Line the movie licence. The Interplay games and the Sierra games use the Book Licence;The EA games the movie licence. I think that EA licence with Warners has expired. In any case, don't hold your breath waiting for a Middle Earth game to show up on GOG. I am not saying it is impossible..anything can happen...but not likely in the near future.

The game was (for me, at least) ruined by the same thing that ruined so many other CRPGs in '90-91: overly simplistic combat.

Unfortunately, the same atitude can be found at the Herbert estate...:(

Were you able to get a recent response on the matter (Dune games)?

No. But seeing that none of the Dune games (Cryo, Virgin or Westwood) are still unavailable...My guess is that they don't want them re-released.