So dead around here!
 

It's always so empty and quiet here..shame that LotRO doesn't have as many followers and users as WoW (though I wouldn't trade the maturity levels of WoW over LotRO)

Anyways..just wondering where everyone is! Give a shout out..!

Check in every day but I know what you mean about it being empty.:(

It's sad..I'm new to the game but didn't know it would be this dead..then again I guess the official forums might be busier :)

Still I like this place and love skinning..though it would be more popular :(

Still around and waiting for new skin definition file and pack for missing art.

That's all I can say.

Has it been a long time since the latest pack?

Is there a lack of updates due to them working on this new Free to Play thing instead of putting things out for players? If so that is discouraging since I just got into the game :\

*Signing in*

I was as surprised as you about the lack of skinning but...

...to be honest there aren't that many skins for WoW either - a lot of custom UI's using other peoples addons;

• Dominos or somesuch to move the bars and hide art
• Buffalo or somesuch to move/change the buffs

The rest of wow ui's is things like clique and threat meters - things that cannot be done in lotro.

To move things in this game it is a keypress - no need for skinning - so there is only really the toolbar and unit frames that need massive attention. Given that what we can do with these things is *relatively* limited I think that is why there isn't as much around.

But what *is* around is of amazing quality!

Some good and valid points.. =) Plus most people don't waste there time messing with graphics when they could be playing..eh he..like me..havn't played in a week because I have been working on my UI...hehe :)

yeah Lotro isn't quite WoW, but I can't say my server is dead either, lots of stuff going on there - proof of that is like the event some of my kinnies did last week, around 200 people showed up in there. But at Lotrointerface .. there hasn't been a huge activity here for a long time, if ever. Most of the people visiting this site never have registered here (just click n grabbing ;), as you can see there's always around 50 unregistered people online here, but only a few registered ones.

Turbine/CM forums are a lot more active, but 80% of the discussion there is trolling (sometimes I wonder the maturity of the community, but then again I have no complaints of my beloved Laurelin EN-RP server) and flaming.

Lotrointerface could use some more advertising, at least it would deserve more attention than it currently has imo. It struck me when I saw this thread in the US forums about skins etc. 16% of the people who voted on the poll didn't even know you can change skins in Lotro. And I bet a huge amount of those people who answered they are using the default skin haven't ever even bothered trying out a custom skin, or know how to.

there was a lot of activity pre-MOM.

post MoM too for a bit until folks realized some of the popular ui skins were not gonna be updated for MoM.

and even less have been updated for SoM.

at one time i was using a different ui skin for each active toon(~12-14 depending on my mood) leaving the default one for mules...

now its down to 3 becuase most all my favs have not been updated for current ui.

so i would say that is also a reason for lack of traffic.

look at the top fav list....5 of them have not been updated in 2 or 3 years!!!!

:(

It is kinda sad, indeed. Hoping that maybe the F2P will liven the game up, in turn livening up the site. Time will tell.

I really think the livelihood of this website suffers because of the limits in the UI customization allowed. Skinning a UI is very nice, but it's purely cosmetic and I would guess isn't really worth the time of many users to bother with.

I also believe that the lack of skins is partly due to the lack of working tutorials on how to create the skins. While a certain degree of difficulty is there, it's not anywhere near the difficulty of creating an addon for WoW, as that requires knowledge of a programming language (I personally do not define XML as a programming language due to it's simplistic nature (obviously it can be extremely complex, but the basis is rather easy)). I did notice a tool on here to view and possibly edit (?) skins, but I couldn't get it to work and I believe there were comments saying it wasn't compatible with the latest version of LOTRO.

I purchased LOTRO when it first came out (I was even in the beta for the final few weeks) and I can say that, despite the semi-lack of a playerbase, it is still running just fine (imo). I see far more people in the beginning areas than I ever see in the beginning areas of WoW (save the capital cities). Coupled with the huge difference in maturity level (terrible reason to disown or favor an MMO, imo) it, regardless of size, is a far better experience.

As Cairenn hinted, and I'm going to stake money on (not really) I think the F2P change will ultimately increase the playerbase while not really effecting the overall maturity level. Sure there's going to be the few idiots that try and be witty and annoying, but they will pass when they realize how linear (not saying this in a bad way) the game really is and they'll either stick with it and realize their childish garbage that seems to be cool on their previous game, is completely ignored here and they'll shape up.

As said by others most "clients" come here, grab UI mods then go. Less than 0,5% dare posting...

There's quite no activity on the forums or in the mods either as the majority of the players are quite aware authors can't fulfill their requests.

Although the will of some talented and devoted authors to make the game more enjoyable by increasing some of the default windows, gave a spark of life to this web site.

However as we had no UI updates since a loooong time, and Frosty is mostly absent from the front line, I'm not surprised it feels like death valley here.

I'd say most players are on the wait and see mode wondering how will Turbine/WarnerBross adress the UI requests.

Even for the good of the game, as both a player and an Author, I hope we won't be able to do things like DPS meter and so. This should stay in WoW playfied.

I tend to agree that the UI skinning in LotRo is very limited but I also believe that since this game is still a baby in terms of games like DDO, WoW and DAoC there is still quite a bit that hasn't been released or thought of yet. It takes websites such as this to give the developers ideas that they had not thought of. I think that when they game has a solid base of players (if it didn't already lol) the dev's will (I hope) focus on more cosmetic aspects of the game.

I love being able to skin the UIs and would love to be able to add various addons to the UI, but alas, we can't yet. Skinning is rather new to me but I have been unable to really grasp the XML editing however simplistic it may be, otherwise I would have been updating the older skins. I noticed that before Moria, there are a lot of various looking skins. But I guess those authors decided not to update :(.

Either way, my wife and I will continue to play LotRo until they shut down the servers! :)

You guys all hit it pretty good, it's just sad I guess, I'd like to see the place busier. But you're all right..there's only so much you can do with the skins visually.. :)

I will continue to try to come here daily and post and chat though..could help some !

hehe yea you sure have been quite active here lately "Newie78" ^^

Hehe yeah, I like it around here, plus I quite like messing with graphics and skins..even though Im not "great" at it..it's fun..last night and my day off I actually played the game for a change though..got 3 or 4 levels..back to skinning next day off probably :P

Actually my graphics skills are lame, still it seems some players enjoy my work ;)

Don't worry you are on the good path!

LoTRO UI Mods
 

There are several UI mods that are quite useful, although they aren't on the scale of WoW or EQ2. The larger auction, craft and seller windows are very useful. And the naked bags (I've arranged my bags to look like 1 5x15 slot) are handy as well.

Well, now that it is publicly announced - Lua coding is coming to LotRO, so hopefully that'll liven the site up a lot. Really looking forward to it. It's been hard sitting on the news. ;)

Does this mean that we will start seeing add-ons to the game like in world of warcraft?
I will be honest here in saying that a part of me hopes not. There are people in WoW that cannot play the game on a computer w/o the 25 addons they have downloaded that tell them everything from what to cast to when to cast to how much threat they have. It just gets really lame after awhile.

Yes, addons (although Turbine is using the term 'scripts') much like in WoW. Whether they will ever get as .... pervasive ... as they are in WoW will remain to be seen. :)

From what I can see from the beta, Turbine is being very smart and limiting what the addons can do right now, vs the wide open nature of WoW.

I also hear that they are documenting it much better, which in turn should allow for people to make them easier.

I'm sure as time goes on they'll open up more and more, but hopefully don't allow things like aggro meters, damage meters (for other than personal use for tweaking characters) etc.

This is the first of a few "maturity" slams.

Being an avid WoW(currently in Cata beta) & LotRO(since beta & a founder) player i am surprised & somewhat disappointed to see a post slamming WoW players, with responding posts from authors, a "Super Moderator" & an admin(who wrote the rules for this site). Formal complaint!

I currently use 114 mods, none of which i wrote(I'm not as talented as some), for WoW. Most are informational or graphical. No i don't use a Dps meter, as long as the job gets done i don't care who does the most dps or who gets the killing blow. I do use inventory, bank, guild bank, bag, mail, chat, item stat comparison, party & raid frame mods as well as a host of others. As 1 person said WoW doesn't have the capabilities for moving elements that LotRO does, its all done through mods.
I do use a threat meter. I don't see the problem when I'm tanking a boss to know that I have the aggro or if I'm losing it to my healer or 1 of the dps. If my healer starts to draw aggro from me i want to know about it. As well as if I'm the healer i want to know who has or is drawing or if I'm drawing aggro from the tank.
I also use Clique(specifically mentioned) with my Holy Priest. It makes healing easier to just put my mouse over a target hold a modifier(alt,ctrl,shift) & click cast the heals on that target, and with characters that can give group/raid buffs. The hardest part of Clique is remembering which modifier to hold & which mouse button to click. It DOES NOT tell me what to cast & when to cast it, you still have to pay attn. to who is taking damage & cast accordingly or do what is necessary to get & keep or bring back aggro.
I hope I have proven the "maturity" levels of some(granted not all) WoW players here. Maybe some of the more "mature" LotRO players should try WoW & find out what its like for themselves. If anyone is interested pm me & ill give you my main char names & server name just to help you out while your getting started. This IS NOT a shameless WoW plug, its to try to help other players expand their horizons(given my apparent maturity level) as a WoW player as well.
As far as I'm concerned both games could learn from each other!(hows that for "maturity")
I do expect this post to be heavily modified or completely removed by 1 of the moderators or admins, hopefully not, but it is expected.

2 footnotes:
1-thanks daimon for a great ui. I use it exclusively.
2-I got the link for this site from wowinterface, which is where i get about 90% of the WoW mods that i use.

Hmmm...

Please Note: These are my perceptions, they are not intended to offend, but simply respond to your post.

I was an avid WoW player until about a year ago when I switched to Lotro.

I loved the gameplay, the immediate - almost arcade - feel of the game. The rush of pet-tanking instances, the companionship of the guilds, the skill of playing a character well and seeing your name come near the top of the DPS charts even though I had worse gear than many of the players, the well designed instances, the stories that came from the RP there (I will never live a character as well as I did Jarek). I would like to play the game again at some point but...

I switched because of ;

• a lack of interesting, accessible content that did not require me to raid, (I already had three alts...)
• seeing many, many stupid names "DeathKillerz" and such, "FanOfPies" being the worst I saw. This was an RP realm...
• being told "I suck" by irritating players who were playing their characters so badly, why do they always ignore the evidence? If I'm dead how can I heal?
• watching RP events fail because of invasions by immature players,
• it had begun to feel that RP'ers were being pushed out to the margins and many roleplayers were giving up entirely and just joining the crowd,
• a horrible argument in the guild I was in,
• Deathknights - please don't ask unless you want a rant! I hate deathknights...

Now, I have to say that if you avoided goldshire, and were careful about who you grouped with a lot of these problems went away. I still have an inkling to play WoW again at some future point, but I am so rusty now I wouldn't know where to begin.

What I find wonderful about Lotro is that on Rp-Laurelin these problems do/did not exist! The content is still fresh to me, and you can solo or small group it. People still walk and roleplay openly. The graphics are amazing and the gameplay has a less arcade more relaxed feel to it. I love the graphics more in Lotro and haven't run enough instances to comment. The Warden and Runekeeper are such clever classes requiring real skill to play.

Recently I have started to see some of the bad points of WoW slowly creeping into Lotro - some awful names have started appearing, and there are a few people who seem to bounce everywhere. I fear that the maturity level is dipping here too.

I do not think that the original comment was intended to express that *all* wow players are immature, just that the *mean* maturity level seems very low.

I think one of the arguments is that WoW is now designed with addons in mind - they expect you to use them and design the encounters accordingly. Although I know players who still play wow, and very effectively, with no mods at all (Even though guild policy is that you MUST have a boss mod...), however if you are not superhuman you need these addons to play it well.

Click-casting and such *does* take some of the skill out of the game, in my opinion of course, I say that as one who used clique with all of my characters.

I think, for me, WoW was a techincal challenge - how can I use these addons to make myself more effective? - and that engaged me for three years.

Lotro is a different challenge all together - and I like it that way! Turbine have been very sensible with the restrictions they have placed on plugins.


WoW is a great game, but not for me any more sadly - and I mean that, genuinely, that I am sad about it.

Long sprawling rant over. God, I'm depressed now *sigh*

Heh just wanted to snipe a comment about this. Personally I wouldn't want a threat meter as a tank. Sure, it would be nice to know your exact threat because then you can supposedly perform more effectively. However, that's one of the things that turns a game into a game of numbers and meters. What is threat anyway? It doesn't sound like it's an exact number, but a state of mind of the thing you are fighting. Are you supposed to know exactly what it's thinking? Ok, maybe I took it too far :). But anyway, in my opinion a good tank should be able to estimate his threat versus the threat of his group. A lot of this comes from experience and knowing your skills. And that separates a good tank from a bad tank. So I'd like to keep threat management as an unsure art.

(Of course, I do understand that even with a threat meter there's some still things left for a good tank to shine in.)

-Chiran

Until they start making computers with internet connections a fixture at most retirement homes, or they start making LotRO as accessible as Farmville, most of any population influx are going to be younger players. Why? Because we were that age when we started playing.

So we can either scream at those damn kids with their OMGWTFBBQ and their 'doing it for teh lulz' to get off our lawn, or we can try not stereotyping someone, "Get with the times" and treat them like another human being that has a lot to learn - but thinks they know everything. Y'know, like we were at that age.

As far as addons go, it's important to remember one thing.

If adding (insert addon type here) to LotRO would turn LotRO into WoW, then it already is WoW. It's not the addons that lead to the situation you escaped from in WoW, but the community as a whole. So if the current community is made up mostly of people who would use addons in such a way, then it already is WoW. If,on the other hand, most of the community is against addons like Meters or GearScore, then adding those addons won't change that.