Namárië Endórë!
The only real way we have to meaningfully communicate our feelings with game developers is generally with our wallets. After long deliberation, I used that simple economic vote to express my feelings about LotRO by canceling both accounts today.
I like a lot of the ideas presented for SoM, especially the skirmish system, which sounds like it could be a lot of fun. I just haven’t had an interest in playing for the last month and a half though, and I don’t see that changing. Fundamentally, I remain unhappy with the concept of gear gating (which remains part of the new plan from all I can see; no word to the contrary has been issued), with the disposable legendary items system (which is changing, but is not apparently going to result in less disposable and frankly non-legendary “legendary” items), and with the shoddy state of high level crafting (which used to be both fun and useful, but with the Moria expansion became neither to me; there are some nice recipes but less so than before and they take a LOT more work to get). The faction grinds are pretty interminable, and I don’t relish getting the Elves of Mirkwood to love even one of my characters, much less several or all. And finally, as I noted before, the people I played with have changed their approach to the game because of the way the game itself has changed, and now our playstyles don’t mesh very well.
It’s National Novel Writing Month, which I’m 3 days into now with a lot of work ahead of me still. Dragon Age: Origins is coming out (which I want to play through, and also build modules for), and I still have a lot of fun left to enjoy in Torchlight from the looks of it. I have a 6- month Champions Online sub and am watching to see how that game develops… I haven’t played it in a while either but might give it another try once they add some more content. Between all of that and my social life I have more than enough to keep me busy through the end of the year, and though LotRO still has some appeal, it just isn’t enough to motivate me to log in to LotRO anymore. Perhaps I’ll come back to Middle-earth yet again, perhaps not, but for now I’m wishing it a fond farewell.
Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen,
yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron!
Yéni ve lintë yuldar avánier
mi oromardi lissë-miruvóreva
Andúnë pella, Vardo tellumar
nu luini yassen tintilar i eleni
ómaryo airetári-lírinen.
Sí man i yulma nin enquantuva?
An sí Tintallë Varda Oiolossëo
ve fanyar máryat Elentári ortanë
ar ilyë tier undulávë lumbulë
ar sindanóriello caita mornië
i falmalinnar imbë met,
ar hísië untúpa Calaciryo míri oialë.
Sí vanwa ná, Rómello vanwa, Valimar!
Namárië! Nai hiruvalyë Valimar!
Nai elyë hiruva! Namárië!
Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind,
long years numberless as the wings of trees!
The long years have passed like swift draughts
of the sweet mead in lofty halls
beyond the West, beneath the blue vaults of Varda
wherein the stars tremble
in the song of her voice, holy and queenly.
Who now shall refill the cup for me?
For now the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of the stars,
from Mount Everwhite has uplifted her hands like clouds
and all paths are drowned deep in shadow;
and out of a grey country darkness lies
on the foaming waves between us,
and mist covers the jewels of Calacirya for ever.
Now lost, lost to those of the East is Valimar!
Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Valimar!
Maybe even thou shalt find it! Farewell!
Fool's Age 
Parting is such sweet sorrow. 😉
Sounds like you have a lot on your plate aside from LOTRO in any case, so I doubt you’ll pine too much. And if you do, that’s what resubbing is for. We’ve all done it once or twice!
If I felt it likely I’d end up pining, I’d stick it out now and get the “free” expansion in a month. 😀
There’s a lot on my plate though, yeah… and a lot more coming up (lots of travel for work, new beta tests) so I’m just not motivated to play LotRO for the foreseeable future.
The upcoming book nine changes do nothing against this radiance crap, but it seems to become much easier to get the gear. No more 1 out of 6 gets 1 piece of gear per run, they replace it with a more casual-friendly system – reminds me a bit of WoW badges:
http://my.lotro.com/amlug/2009/08/13/upcoming-radiance-barter-changes/
Still, you are right, Lothlórien is a whole area dedicated to rep grind… I do not think it is good to shove people “something to do” right in the face, even if this means less “content” (?), as rep grind is not content, but a soulcrushing content extender of the cheap kind.
Who wanted that rep and radiance and crafting reduction crap. Please, someone tell me it was not the majority of the players, as this would me make lose faith in mankind.
I cannot say it too often, my take on this:
Smell the roses, explore the world, think about what YOU want to do – this all gets LOST once achievement and rep grind systems establish themselves as “the game”.
Yet we have players cheering the not really innocent achievements systems, that make players do incredible shit to gain achievements for meta-achievements and all that.
In former times there was just grind, now we have it, just in disguise. 😛
Lórien is certainly a grind, and a pretty overt one at that. It’s a bit tedious on the first character to have to grind enough rep just to enter, then grind more rep. I don’t mind the killing of the orcs, or lighting fires, or gathering arrows, or cleaning the riverbanks, or picking flowers, or singing to trees… but it gets old to do so repeatedly for a couple of weeks. And that’s just the first character!
LotRO was originally all about smelling the roses, which was one of the things I liked most about it. There was no pressure to play in a certain way, to achieve – everything was fully optional. In a sense everything remains optional of course, but content isn’t available to everyone to explore openly anymore. Now players have to grind for radiance or rep in order to even see the new content.
Ah well.