Newb player - is it worth subbing to play on this server or?

As the title says, I am a newb to LOTRO (experienced in other MMOs). Is it worthwhile to sub to play on Treebeard, as it's a progression server, or would I be better off going on a Live server? The live servers feel.. inaccessible, I guess is the word, because it's so far progressed that starting from scratch seems like a Sisyphean endeavor. But Treebeard isn't still progressing through expansions, right? So would it be better to start here? I don't want to start and then find that I've wasted all that time for nothing...

Legendary Worlds release content in chunks. That's how they work: https://www.lotro.com/news/lotro-legendary-worlds-en. Once they reach the level cap and have all the content that the normal servers would have, they generally allow you to transfer your characters off for free, shut down, and a new legendary world comes out. You can check the Event Schedule to see when things get released for the servers: https://www.lotro.com/news/lotro-pub...nt-schedule-en. Some are anticipating to join a new legendary world that will have a level 50 cap to begin with after Shadowfax ends. We won't know for sure until they make an announcement. They just allowed paid transfers off those servers after a year of people begging to leave, so you might not find the population you are seeking.

For the past couple years, new content has been released for low levels. Combined with the recent mini-expansion, there are bound to be plenty of new players wanting to experience the new 1-50 experience. So do not doubt the number of players available in lower levels. Our kinship runs three separate "slotro" level groups where we run once a week for three years (and start a new one each year).

Hey there, I just returned to Lotro and I want to experience the game before many of the recent changes were made. So Treabeard seems to be the only server that is an option right now, but I really don’t know if it’s an option for me.

At least I like to experience to see and talk to other players - is the playerbase for that big enough?

What I love most about Lotro is the leveling process and in the retail version it’s just too fast, too easy and too boring overall. I want some challenge and I want this epic journey that leveling once was during SoA and MoM. Is that still a thing on Treabeard? And what’s the estimated amount of players right there? I‘m playing on one of the German EU servers (Gwaihir) and active population is usually around 100-150 people in the list (not counting anonymous), so can I expect something similar on Treabeard? Or should I just continue leveling on Gwaihir and call it a day?

@WeirdJedi

Legendary Servers are not a time machine. At the very bottom of the article, you will see that it isn't trying to be a "Classic" server in which you play before all the changes: https://www.lotro.com/news/lotro-legendary-worlds-en. There will be a few old quests that are brought back, but most of it will be identical to live servers. You can have a similar experience on a live server using an XP Disabler (Tortoise Stone). You can find groups of people who lock their level down per zone. The only difference with Treebeard is that you receive less experience, level cap is forced for periods of time, and there is a difficulty system. The difficulty system does not apply to instances. Those, for sure, will be the same. Although we aren't guaranteed a change, they said that the difficulty system may still come over to live servers this year. So the choice is yours.

Treebeard is the server with little lag, compared to the others that are downright aweful to play on these days.
But have no fear, SSG are working on the lag issues for years now... it will probably be solved within the next decade. *snorts

Legendary servers are literally the same servers as regular ones but with less content and less players. Much, much less content and players. I would not advise starting there. Choose the biggest server in your time region -Arkenstone for US, Evernight for EU-and play there. Buy Stone of Tortoise and lock your experience if you want to slow your progression. Lotro is a very easy game, you won't get any real challenge doing landscape, though I still like playing with the stone not to outlevel the content.

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Originally Posted by Arabani

Legendary servers are literally the same servers as regular ones but with less content and less players. Much, much less content and players. I would not advise starting there. Choose the biggest server in your time region -Arkenstone for US, Evernight for EU-and play there. Buy Stone of Tortoise and lock your experience if you want to slow your progression. Lotro is a very easy game, you won't get any real challenge doing landscape, though I still like playing with the stone not to outlevel the content.

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Actually legendary server have more content, because legendary server have content what other server don't have

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arabani

Legendary servers are literally the same servers as regular ones but with less content and less players. Much, much less content and players. I would not advise starting there. Choose the biggest server in your time region -Arkenstone for US, Evernight for EU-and play there. Buy Stone of Tortoise and lock your experience if you want to slow your progression. Lotro is a very easy game, you won't get any real challenge doing landscape, though I still like playing with the stone not to outlevel the content.

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Ah, thank you very much. I remember leveling being pretty challening in the early days, where you could hardly take care of two enemies at a time and really had to plan ahead. I thought Legendary would capture how it was during SoA / MoM. A pity to hear that it's not the case and leveling is trivial as well.

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Originally Posted by Renjy

Ah, thank you very much. I remember leveling being pretty challening in the early days, where you could hardly take care of two enemies at a time and really had to plan ahead. I thought Legendary would capture how it was during SoA / MoM. A pity to hear that it's not the case and leveling is trivial as well.

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Treebeard is a lot of fun with the difficulty system. Try setting your difficulty to Deadly (0) and you might find the challenge to be something like what you remember. You can further restrict yourself to gear from quest rewards only, avoiding crafted gear definitely increases the challenge considerably at Deadly.

Treebeard has some very nice kinships which are quite active. The starting zones are no more nor less empty on Treebeard than they are on any other server at this point and you can find people to play with at most level ranges if you join one of the kinships such as Dances with Ents. Even with the experience reduction inherent to Treebeard, you can reach the server's current level cap (75 at the moment, 85 soon) faster and more easily than you can the full level cap on the normal servers (140 at the moment, 150 this fall) so if level cap end-game activity is what you're looking for you can have that on Treebeard, too. And you can have it again and again, every 6 months, for quite a few years to come.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Renjy

Hey there, I just returned to Lotro and I want to experience the game before many of the recent changes were made. So Treabeard seems to be the only server that is an option right now, but I really don’t know if it’s an option for me.

At least I like to experience to see and talk to other players - is the playerbase for that big enough?

What I love most about Lotro is the leveling process and in the retail version it’s just too fast, too easy and too boring overall. I want some challenge and I want this epic journey that leveling once was during SoA and MoM. Is that still a thing on Treabeard? And what’s the estimated amount of players right there? I‘m playing on one of the German EU servers (Gwaihir) and active population is usually around 100-150 people in the list (not counting anonymous), so can I expect something similar on Treabeard? Or should I just continue leveling on Gwaihir and call it a day?

@WeirdJedi

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If you like slow leveling and want to enjoy the entire game then Treebeard would be a good destination. Population nowadays peaks around 100-130 non-anon per day. Here's what you will get with Treebeard:

-Less lag
-Friendly players
-People who are running old content regularly (Angmar through Isengard)
-A better leveling pace
-Lots of players interested in deeding, so if you want to finish obscure deeds there are usually players who will do it with you
-In two years, we will get some really fund end game from 105 and on.

There are some bad things too:

-The content balance is completely broken and there are no plans to make it better, this includes class balance and raid balance
-Legendary world are an after thought for SSG, there is a high risk of another one popping up and making the current one obsolete, or future screw ups like the several we have had in the past that could further hurt the population (i.e. Isengard randomly being released with no announcement)
-The population is very low, and it will get worse as we head into Rohan and the low point of LOTRO's gameplay
-Eventually the server will close, this was finally confirmed a couple months ago by Severlin on Cord of the Rings. This means you'll have to move your characters to a new server and find new people to play with, transition all of your houses (this will be a huge pain if you have multiple houses you spent time decorating), transition your Kinship, etc.


If money is not a big issue for you, I'd recommend starting on Treebeard, and if you decide it's not what you want you can always transfer off.