Hi all just thought I'd advertise a great game, and maybe entice a few of the aus et community to get involved. Started playing this myself early May and I haven't felt compelled to play anything else since - it's great. Craps all over WoW/GW/Rift/FFXI/Runescape etc

www.lotro.com

alot of people don't know about this game, due to more popular games like WoW and Rift and stuff, but having played alot of MMORPGs myself, I can quite honestly say this is the best I've ever played, after 2 weeks of f2p I couldn't help but subscribe as a VIP. You can download the full game off the site, play for free as long as you like (which is limiting feature-wise, but you can play to at least level 30+ quite easily, and get a good feel for the game mechanics)

Great class system, really good visuals, especially if you're on Win7 and have a good DX11 video card. Most importantly, the community is actually intelligent, and there is an unofficial Oceanic server (Elendilmir) so you can always chill with other Aussies/NZers. About 10gigs to download but it goes quick, I was able to leave it overnight np, and as I say, it's so good that I think after a few weeks, if not sooner, you'll be keen to go VIP anyway. It's not a grind-fest, levelling is fairly simple as there's alot of non-grind ways to go about it, mainly through questing (there are THOUSANDS of really interesting lore filled quests). And you don't have to play it 24/7 to be good either, I settle for 2-3 hours a night if I have the time, sometimes less, sometimes more on weekends, and I've made significant progress.

Obviously the game will have THAT much more appeal to you if you've read the books/are interested in "Middle-Earth" lore, but the game provides you with enough information so that even if you're not really up with LOTR lore, you'll still understand pretty much everything that's going on anyway. And who hasn't seen the movies anyway? The game's really easy to pick up, and unlike alot of MMOs actually gets alot easier as you get higher up, and work out how stuff works. The community is super helpful, everyone's dead keen on helping newbies and giving out freebies, and gameplay wise it is just bloody fantastic. No classes are overpowered, everything is really well balanced, and it caters for everyone - regardless of whether you're more into flying solo or doing more group based stuff. You're not forced to group, which I found particularly cool as I started out knowing nobody, and pretty much nothing about the game.

So anyways, youtube some stuff, download it, whatever, if you get it and want help starting out or anything, send me a message on here or in-game (I play on Elendilmir server, nick is Vaapad) and we'll have some fun together

Cheers

really good game, do suggest.

yeah, i have heaps of fun and the community is much friendlier than wow.

Yeh it is a great game.
I've been playing since F2P was launched (September) on Brandywine and I already have 2 65s (Guardian and Captain) and multiple other toons between level 20-40. It's a great game, levelling from 0 to 65 can be done reasonably quick, the game isn't too confusing and all the classes have different roles, and are all valuable (except Wardens, they suck).
It went through a bit of a content drought last year but Turbine are picking, they've already released 2 updates this year and Rise of Isengard, the third major expansion, is due to come out between September-December this year.

I wish you luck in your battle of middle earth supremacy.

sharrrre the load frodo

Was good game, definitly not as good as rift tho