The beards on female humans is a symbolic update that heralds huge changes

[Elmagor]

this whole argument is just silly.

what next? are you gonna ban a male character from wearing dresses now?

Women shouldn't wear pants?

dwarven men shouldn't have free nipples? ( i hear they chafe easy ) its a condition.

even today the shadow of Sauron's malice lingers, just waiting to return.

its a freaking fantasy game lol

We have a lot of dresses in the game. But SSG never advertise them as "look we done something to represent you better".

[Fadil]

Not if you understand how an RPG works conceptually. You are not your character. I said 'indirectly', not that that means no identification but allowing for the fact that your character is not directly 'you'. If you think it's meant to be a direct relationship then no.

Thanks, but it is absolutely not up to you to decide how players watch/ experience their character.

It's nonsense, identifying with your character does NOT mean they have to look like you or be like you.

Once again: that is not up to you to decide.
Many, many studies show that players enjoy having their characters look like themselves in rl.
Good for them.

You are not one of them, I take it, good. The intolerance with which you try to make your views, the only views acceptable, or your playstyle, the only playstyle acceptable is
not just weird, its entirely irrelevant as well.
Like literally, who cares.

As for that thing about the 'Other', in case you hadn't noticed in LOTR as written there's a big divide in Middle-earth between the Free Peoples and everybody else thanks to Sauron's efforts (you know, this big bad evil dude who's been spreading lies, distrust, fear and hate for thousands of years?). As a result the west is not full of people from Harad and Rhun, and this sort of 'instant' diversity where characters supposedly from Bree etc. now unaccountably show diversity like you might see in a modern city with no explanation possible or offered in-game shows that to be a complete red herring. Where you can really see Tolkien's views on that is where he implies that many of the Haradrim might have been dragged into the war against their will, i.e. they've victims of Sauron's warmongering and malice. But that doesn't make them any more likely to be hanging around Bree, because they have the misfortune to be on the wrong side of the conflict.

I stopped taking anything you write about Tolkien serious, when you posted this beauty in another thread:

"Not really. Men from "one side of the world to another" wouldn't all be found inhabiting the familiar part of Middle-earth and wouldn't be among the Free Peoples if they did.
The devs have to acknowledge the diversity of modern society to a degree because that's what players expect but it doesn't really make sense.
Just another of those 'game' things. It was nowhere to be seen in the LOTR movies."

If you dont even know that Tolkien did write that a huge part of men were indeed of darker skin/ black, and that Peter Jackson whitewashed Tolkien's work to a point where all good beings were white
and all evil beings were black, you should read up a bit.
But if you think anything a Hollywood producer shows you more represents Tolkien, than Tolkien's own words,
then you're not to be taken serious.

One of the three houses of men that crossed the Ered Luin into Beleriand, the house of Beor (also the First House of the Edain) was dark skinned, some even black:

"There were fair-haired men and women among the Folk of Bëor, but most of them had brown hair (going usually with brown eyes), and many were less fair in skin, some indeed being swarthy."".

FYI: Swarthy derives from the old English Sweart (as does the german schwarz or the dutch zwart), meaning black or dark.

Nice try though.

[Arnenna]

You must be reading them wrong then. The names of some of the threads are controversial (or OPs in particular have some challenging requests that aren't going to happen) but my impression is that most would be satisfied with some lore origins and more options that were missing added. Or something like a check box to disable beards, like we could disable newer avatar looks from before (I doubt SSG would do that, but still, that's not taking anything away, and even for such unharmful suggestion people were... being laughed off and attacked here, like they're not human beings worth of any consideration, that's not ok).

Nope, not reading wrong. There is a whole thread about reverting the changes, and this one starts off with a similar note.

[CloudCastle]

What bothers me in particular is the distinctiveness of each subset: Bree, Dale, Rohan and Gondor are now gone. Previously, there were limitations to what each one could look like as they had their own unique features (Rohan having blonde hair, for instance). Now the question can be asked, what's the point of choosing any of these subsets, aside from the origin title?

The removal of each region being unique saddens me too, and I don't understand why it couldn't have been preserved. It served an important purpose, which was to give players an idea of what each region's demographic was, and you could use that information to determine not only your character's look but also their background as well. For example, the people of Rohan were known for having light skin and mostly blonde hair - that was reflected in the color patch you had to work with. If you wanted something different you had to squish your cursor onto the edges of the swatch, and that to me represented that your character's look would not be a common one for that region. You could then use that info to create a more, interesting, realistic character - one who had Dunlending ancestry, for example, or some other background.

Likewise, Gondor was more diverse in its color choices, and that also made sense. The southern border of Gondor has been located in different places throughout Gondor's history, sometimes including Umbar, sometimes bordering closer to Harad and Kand, etc. It stands to reason that people would intermingle over the centuries, and that that would be reflected in darker skin colors and hair.

I don't see why SSG could not have included the new options in color swatches customized for each region. Give Gondor the color choices we have now, give Dale some of that too maybe (to reflect its closer proximity to the east perhaps), but leave Bree with a more tightly controlled palette and Rohan the most homogeneous of all. Then later maybe we could even get background choices for Umbar, Harad or Rhun, and for them someone with blonde hair and pale skin might be very rare indeed. They could have kept all the hair styles and head and facial sliders the way they are now, with the max choices for everyone.

I really dislike it when cool features that make the game unique are removed.

[TesalionLortus]

Nope, not reading wrong. There is a whole thread about reverting the changes, and this one starts off with a similar note.

You need to judge by all said, not just mood of the first post or a few first ones.

Once again: that is not up to you to decide.
Many, many studies show that players enjoy having their characters look like themselves in rl.
Good for them.

You are not one of them, I take it, good. The intolerance with which you try to make your views, the only views acceptable, or your playstyle, the only playstyle acceptable is
not just weird, its entirely irrelevant as well.
Like literally, who cares.

The audacity to say you don't care about other views and preferences, and your insistence on these studies. From the quotes you posted the study might as well refer to any single aspect of connection with the character, not just things like skin or hairstyles alone. And that would be true, in an rpg players are likely to put certain characteristics onto their characters, to some degree. Fantasies of how they would like to look like, moral compass, personal interests, dream jobs, style they aren't brave enough to show or can't have in real life, and yes, perhaps how they actually look like in real life (or just some facets of it... but not entirely). That's also what these studies seem to talk about, from the looks of it, not skin tone alone... nor recreating yourself with 100% accuracy up to modern day hairstyle... because many players, despite the fact they enjoy recreating themselves in some manner, would still care about some lore appeal. And yet you seem obsessed with that single facet alone and trying to push the narrative it's some devine academic knowledge it should be done this specific way - all sense of unique world be damned, even if there are better ways. I wonder why. Also, I wonder why, as I already mentioned here, not a single game in existence I know of, and I played quite a few, handled it the way SSG just handled it. Are they all stupid? I doubt it. So perhaps you're viewing these studies of yours too selectively, there is more to consider than just one single aspect alone

One of the three houses of men that crossed the Ered Luin into Beleriand, the house of Beor (also the First House of the Edain) was dark skinned, some even black:

"There were fair-haired men and women among the Folk of Bëor, but most of them had brown hair (going usually with brown eyes), and many were less fair in skin, some indeed being swarthy."".

FYI: Swarthy derives from the old English Sweart (as does the german schwarz or the dutch zwart), meaning black or dark.

Nice try though.

In the First Age. A long long time ago. People don't just become more "colorful" from there, it's not how it works, in fact any such differences might become less and less, in some cases. You gotta look to Tolkien's descriptions of people of the Third Age to get the fuller picture of how things stand. Plus, black in terms of skin can mean many things here and sure as hell it didn't mean African black. But browner and darker, some of that we already had in the game, it's there even for NPCs. Also, this argument falls flat, given they allow Chinese men who originated in Breeland too now. So stop using lore as some shield, it does not exist, it's not on your side. I honestly don't care about it (not at this point anyway, though the idea of uniquness was certainly cool, like others had said), I just want them to give some tribute to the world they created/curate and provide some more adequate options/origins, so lore appropriate looks and origins are included too.

[Neinda]

Everyone here has their own vision of Middle Earth and their own opinions of the recent cosmetic changes. Take a step back and think about the changes. Do they affect gameplay? Do they affect how your character functions in the game? Do they affect your participation in group content, instances and raids? Do the cosmetic appearances of others affect your gameplay in any way, shape or form? If you do not like how a character looks do you have the option of not participating in group content with that person? Are you forced to group with people who have a cosmetic appearance you dislike? If you do group with a character that has an appearance you dislike, does that affect your character in any way?

These changes probably affect the role play community in a positive way because now there are more opportunities for stories and histories and the character can look the part developed by the role player.

These changes can affect how individuals view themselves in Middle Earth while we play the game and probably make a few people smile when they see their character creation.

The solution here is very simple. If one does not like specific cosmetics, one has the choice to not use them. Having straight or curly hair or a beard or not a beard or a different skin tone has no affect at all on players stats, gear, performance, etc. While I agree that some of the cosmetics lost should be returned, I have no issues with more options. SSG makes so many changes that affect game play and how one is allowed to function in game. Take this as a gift. We have been given choices. Are they perfect for everyone? Probably not but they are choices. This is more than we usually receive.

[CloudCastle]

I don't understand why we can't have lore-friendly options AND player representation at the same time. Why does it have to be one or the other? Arguing over the semantics of avatar vs. character and whether people should be allowed to play only one or the other, creates a black and white dichotomy that doesn't need to exist. SSG is guilty of this too. They did something different with this update, in my mind, that I've never seen before, and that was adding something to the game with no attempt to tie it to the lore at all (or so their statement of "representing our players" implies.) Why or why can't we have BOTH?

Representation IS important. We all want to see ourselves in the heroes of great stories, we all want to feel understood and like we are a part of things. But here's the thing, a person can feel represented in a fantasy world while still staying true to the rules of that world. There's even a great deal of leeway here to work with, since Tolkien's world was based on a mythological Earth, with all the diversity that implies. Plus we have extra fantasy aspects that our earth doesn't have. Why shouldn't dwarves look like the many colors of stone from which Aule created them? Why wouldn't there be people with dark skin who are 100% Gondorian citizens? Tolkien allowed for those things. Tolkien allowed for bearded women too, but they were dwarves and that's what made the dwarven people unusual. These things existed in Middle Earth, but they followed a different subset of rules than we have here on our Earth, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

I am excited to see the new facial sliders and the new hair styles with options that reflect how real people look. I'm enjoying seeing the new character looks people are creating in the "avatar" thread. I just wish it could have been implemented in a more lore-friendly way. Let Gondor have their dark hair and skin, let Rohan have their light skin and blonde hair. Let female dwarves keep their uniqueness by being the only race with feminine beards. Can't we have both Tolkien lore and representation?

[Radhruin_EU]

Thanks, but it is absolutely not up to you to decide how players watch/ experience their character.

Who said it was? Oh, and player confusion about the difference between an avatar and a character has been around longer than the game has - how has it suddenly become crucial to forget what a character is (even though the game itself stuck with the traditional RPG definition for sixteen years) when it's always been a source of confusion to players? Like I said before, why are we only hearing about this from you now, after they've made the change? Why didn't it come up a lot sooner, if it's such an obvious thing? Answer: it isn't. And having taken a gander at what those papers have to say, they're way more nuanced than what you're saying here. People don't simply go for a character that looks like them, it's described as a complex relationship yet here you are, trying to draw a simplistic conclusion. Completely disingenuous.

As for 'swarthy', way to prove you can't do context. Dark is relative and like I said, in the past 'swarthy' was readily applied to Mediterranean European peoples who are neither all that dark-skinned nor black, just dark relative to people from further north in Europe. Nobody's whitewashed Tolkien, you've either just fallen victim to confirmation bias and leapt to a conclusion (again) or been reading articles written by people who have an axe to grind. Do some proper research, look how that word used to be used. Various other languages have a word that's used in a similar relative context.

[TesalionLortus]

I don't understand why we can't have lore-friendly options AND player representation at the same time. Why does it have to be one or the other? Arguing over the semantics of avatar vs. character and whether people should be allowed to play only one or the other, creates a black and white dichotomy that doesn't need to exist. SSG is guilty of this too. They did something different with this update, in my mind, that I've never seen before, and that was adding something to the game with no attempt to tie it to the lore at all (or so their statement of "representing our players" implies.) Why or why can't we have BOTH?

Representation IS important. We all want to see ourselves in the heroes of great stories, we all want to feel understood and like we are a part of things. But here's the thing, a person can feel represented in a fantasy world while still staying true to the rules of that world. There's even a great deal of leeway here to work with, since Tolkien's world was based on a mythological Earth, with all the diversity that implies. Plus we have extra fantasy aspects that our earth doesn't have. Why shouldn't dwarves look like the many colors of stone from which Aule created them? Why wouldn't there be people with dark skin who are 100% Gondorian citizens? Tolkien allowed for those things. Tolkien allowed for bearded women too, but they were dwarves and that's what made the dwarven people unusual. These things existed in Middle Earth, but they followed a different subset of rules than we have here on our Earth, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

I am excited to see the new facial sliders and the new hair styles with options that reflect how real people look. I'm enjoying seeing the new character looks people are creating in the "avatar" thread. I just wish it could have been implemented in a more lore-friendly way. Let Gondor have their dark hair and skin, let Rohan have their light skin and blonde hair. Let female dwarves keep their uniqueness by being the only race with feminine beards. Can't we have both Tolkien lore and representation?

Or, at the very least, they could have tried and easily added origins from the start, even if everything was allowed and specific-origin uniqueness gone. This wouldn't alleviate the problem of some of the options just straight up not being there for those who awaited them but at least we would know their intention/dedication to give it justice. Like, all of this could have been avoided.

[Elmagor]

I don't understand why we can't have lore-friendly options AND player representation at the same time. Why does it have to be one or the other? Arguing over the semantics of avatar vs. character and whether people should be allowed to play only one or the other, creates a black and white dichotomy that doesn't need to exist. SSG is guilty of this too. They did something different with this update, in my mind, that I've never seen before, and that was adding something to the game with no attempt to tie it to the lore at all (or so their statement of "representing our players" implies.) Why or why can't we have BOTH?

Representation IS important. We all want to see ourselves in the heroes of great stories, we all want to feel understood and like we are a part of things. But here's the thing, a person can feel represented in a fantasy world while still staying true to the rules of that world. There's even a great deal of leeway here to work with, since Tolkien's world was based on a mythological Earth, with all the diversity that implies. Plus we have extra fantasy aspects that our earth doesn't have. Why shouldn't dwarves look like the many colors of stone from which Aule created them? Why wouldn't there be people with dark skin who are 100% Gondorian citizens? Tolkien allowed for those things. Tolkien allowed for bearded women too, but they were dwarves and that's what made the dwarven people unusual. These things existed in Middle Earth, but they followed a different subset of rules than we have here on our Earth, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

I am excited to see the new facial sliders and the new hair styles with options that reflect how real people look. I'm enjoying seeing the new character looks people are creating in the "avatar" thread. I just wish it could have been implemented in a more lore-friendly way. Let Gondor have their dark hair and skin, let Rohan have their light skin and blonde hair. Let female dwarves keep their uniqueness by being the only race with feminine beards. Can't we have both Tolkien lore and representation?

For 15 years, Representation wasn't such important? What changes in this 15 years, related to bearded females or color of skin? Nothing

[Laithien]

I don't understand why we can't have lore-friendly options AND player representation at the same time. Why does it have to be one or the other? Arguing over the semantics of avatar vs. character and whether people should be allowed to play only one or the other, creates a black and white dichotomy that doesn't need to exist. SSG is guilty of this too. They did something different with this update, in my mind, that I've never seen before, and that was adding something to the game with no attempt to tie it to the lore at all (or so their statement of "representing our players" implies.) Why or why can't we have BOTH?

Representation IS important. We all want to see ourselves in the heroes of great stories, we all want to feel understood and like we are a part of things. But here's the thing, a person can feel represented in a fantasy world while still staying true to the rules of that world. There's even a great deal of leeway here to work with, since Tolkien's world was based on a mythological Earth, with all the diversity that implies. Plus we have extra fantasy aspects that our earth doesn't have. Why shouldn't dwarves look like the many colors of stone from which Aule created them? Why wouldn't there be people with dark skin who are 100% Gondorian citizens? Tolkien allowed for those things. Tolkien allowed for bearded women too, but they were dwarves and that's what made the dwarven people unusual. These things existed in Middle Earth, but they followed a different subset of rules than we have here on our Earth, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

I am excited to see the new facial sliders and the new hair styles with options that reflect how real people look. I'm enjoying seeing the new character looks people are creating in the "avatar" thread. I just wish it could have been implemented in a more lore-friendly way. Let Gondor have their dark hair and skin, let Rohan have their light skin and blonde hair. Let female dwarves keep their uniqueness by being the only race with feminine beards. Can't we have both Tolkien lore and representation?

Absolutely agreed. We can have both! But it's a mess right now because they pushed it out in a very rushed manner. There's still bugs, like broken animations for combat. I just wish they'd spend more time on it to iron out the bugs, and also keep the new options all region based. That way we could enjoy getting our characters new looks, while saying "Dude, I made this character from Rhun/Harad/etc. Isn't he/she awesome? I based him/her off of me/someone else irl." Sadly, in adding beards on human females, there's people on BOTH sides of the arguments who are making bearded women just to spite one another. That just defeats the purpose of it. If both sides are going to be immature about it, they should either make the option toggleable, a cosmetic, or remove it. You're right that we've already got lady bearded dwarves, and I've thankfully never seen this level of immaturity on the pro/anti beard sides, since it's lore friendly to have lady dwarves with beards.

[Neinda]

Absolutely agreed. We can have both! But it's a mess right now because they pushed it out in a very rushed manner. There's still bugs, like broken animations for combat. I just wish they'd spend more time on it to iron out the bugs, and also keep the new options all region based. That way we could enjoy getting our characters new looks, while saying "Dude, I made this character from Rhun/Harad/etc. Isn't he/she awesome? I based him/her off of me/someone else irl." Sadly, in adding beards on human females, there's people on BOTH sides of the arguments who are making bearded women just to spite one another. That just defeats the purpose of it. If both sides are going to be immature about it, they should either make the option toggleable, a cosmetic, or remove it. You're right that we've already got lady bearded dwarves, and I've thankfully never seen this level of immaturity on the pro/anti beard sides, since it's lore friendly to have lady dwarves with beards.

While the suggestion of adding cosmetic appearances in a region based manner is an idea, this would cause its own problems. The game is 16 years old. Some of us have had human characters for 16 years. The new regions and cosmetics would work for new characters, but 16 year old characters would be stuck in their original cosmetic options because there is no option in the barber shop that I know of to change your character's backstory and region of origin. I think SSG did the best they could for the most players. Let's appreciate the choices we have for our characters. As for fixing the bugs, I really wish the game had a test server and some of this was tested before going live.

[Lambtron]

While the suggestion of adding cosmetics in a region based manner is an idea, this would cause its own problems. The game is 16 years old. Some of us have had human characters for 16 years. The new regions and cosmetics would work for new characters, but 16 year old characters would be stuck in their original cosmetic options because there is no option in the barber shop that I know of to change your character's backstory and region of origin. I think SSG did the best they could for the most players. Let's appreciate the choices we have for our characters.

At the same time, some of us who made our characters years ago, spent time doing so, and were happy with the way they look now longer have them the same way. I appreciate the technical aspects, but I really do wish there was some way to retain the old models. I also miss what made each region (Bree, Dale, Rohan and Gondor) unique.

[TesalionLortus]

I also miss what made each region (Bree, Dale, Rohan and Gondor) unique.

I can see why they did away with that, to allow for said choices on all existing characters. I get it, unfortunate as it is. Adding more origins, for the coolness factor and some lore coherence, is a way to go, so there is still some semblance of lore to be experienced through the text and hopefully said origins are somewhat attractive/unique (so maybe they divide them more than just a mere simplistic - and kinda racist from Western PoV - Harad and Rhun).

Although, even then, the lack of unique choices through origins will be certainly felt - the creation would still be a little bit lackluster/same, with not a single choice (except racial one) having any real effect. Kinda poor compared with many other games where character creation is fun/more meaningful (and I don't even mention something like the two Pathfinder games... where the options are just overwhelming). Perhaps, to counter that, they could introduce some appearance options that are tied to origins - like some extras, like war paint, tattoos, etc. Or some other way. Maybe they could add some specific traits connected to origins, or something like that. Or appearance/voice "traits," so either your skill related voiceover is different or maybe you get access to special outfit associated with your culture at the start of the game. Like, anything. Could be something to consider going forward. There is appeal and fun in some meaningful customizations, and this also provides meaning behind different cultures, plus the excuse to type something in these different text boxes and make it all look more lore rich. The world should speak for itself through character creation panel and be rich, that's how you know it's well done. LOTRO was never very elaborate at this (through words) but it worked, because some of the choices/skin options spoke louder than words. Now it'll be gone but the sameness lackluster that doesn't tell you anything/doesn't paint the picture of a rich world is a terrible first impression from roleplay/rpg standpoint.

PS: And I also think, just like they provide some pointers for lore accurate names, they should also be providing some pointers for cultural appearances/ethnicities now. For dwarves alone, a lot of very distinct cool information would have to be conveyed under different origins and that's good, that's what makes it appealing. Also, from time to time, there are players on reddit asking about lotr because they never read it, maybe saw the movies once or twice. The devs would do wise NOT to assume everyone knows this world and should not rely on some pre-conceived notion that nothing matters because it's just lotr-versed people being picky about silly things. This sh*t matters a great deal, this is how they introduce their world to the players, even those unfamiliar with it. (Plus those unfamiliar with lotro-specific additions, and plenty of that by now, which can all be expressed through origins).

[Hoppendi]

The game is changing alot starting maybe like early 2020 and in the same breath most casual lore breakers were added.
Just think back to all the ups and downs that have happened, some of them in no order:

- Pandemic free "VIP"-like months
- super Coupon to get free Lotro
- War of Three Peaks worst pricing ever
- Free Premium Wallet, Trait Trees, most content <95 perma free
- mega 15th celebration with free valar + everyone gets a boar to ride around + cosmetics some people paid like 50$ themselves
- breaking down Bree homesteads
- releasing brawler as the weakest class
- discovering Lotro in fact had something like pvp and trying to modernize it
- (a random rock in bree or a random chicken escape from ettenmoors)
- the huge LI 3.0 revamp
- the huge LI 3.0 fiasco (literally letting people left behind without a clue how to start to new system and so much more)
- the carry-all madness with no intent to resolve its countless issues/flaws
- opening class race combos
- class overhauls over and over + trait point resetting
- removing reputation bonus for skirmish currency to make it fully obsolete or adjusting yule festival deed rewards so every character gets 250 coins less (that means doing 63 MORE of the same quests just to get what others gotten for free!)
- disabling pets in instance without any options to let them stay
- alot of plans promised...
- ...
- and now: giving more race of men options while force deleting established, well-known avatar looks from the playerbase while practicing more drastical lore breaking and making randomized characters a full grown freak show.


Facing this i think the thread title is right. Lotro is changing, probably a forced change of directions. What does it mean for long-term players? Well LTA does not matter much for the future because they already spent their biggest amount. Some 5+ years players will like some of the changes, maybe enough to stick around. Newer players wont be much found by this update - i even expect FEWER new players. The Intros are clunky and especially stout-axe intro is designed with veteran players in mind. A new player trying this could find multiple problems. But most important i would declare this game trash if I just started now, clicked randomize on humans and witness the first 10 results - this is what i would expect to find throughout the game and probably would leave Lotro before creating a character.

Personally i think this 35.1 "Update" Shift is due to internal and modernized beliefs within SSG and ruthless cutting the roots from the games origin itself favoring politics and multicultural represantation of the real world over Lotros own basis of existence as a themed MMORPG

One step to accelerate this is by killing the legacy and flushing in the new. That's precisely what happened to Avatar looks. And to all critiques and all kinds of uproar there is still the most proved way to deal with: typcial and way to common attitude of silence and waiting until other discussions rise. Personally i am also sad for Tolkien and his legacy - it saddens me if someones legacy gets distorted for commerce or because someone wants to print their own beliefs over the work they claimed to represent; disregarding the original work. Saddens me more when i am involved just like now with Lotro as an extension of Tolkiens Legacy.

The avatar update even got rushed - one trivial short round of beta testing and full release with all it's flaws so everyone can have something to be upset about - and THEN fix the things that should have been fixed in Beta so discussions will shift to other topics leaving the rest of legacy fans, nostalgia players and true lore admirers behind - as usual.

Everyone belonging to these groups has a reason the fear the Lotro future (and not even because of lagg or outdated engine), but everyone within these groups probably already knows that the majority wont care - neither does SSG. Maybe they still do care for the money of proven cash-cows - but there wont be much risk involved since they hardly leave as long as the displeasure towards an update is small enough.

In my 10+ years here an avatar update didn't even cross my mind to have fear about. Especially since they did one in 2017 and it was fine for all nostalgia players (and people that just like the legacy looks way better!). Now the game feels ruined for some - i heard in the SSG stream the officials said something like they are trying hard to bring everyone fun. I dont believe them that's a plain lie. You can update skills, rework trait trees, change events - whatever. But the character is literally the personal reflection for some players (who enjoy this part of RPG and do care alot). This alone makes this the worst update. They lorebreaking perspective is another hit towards immersive RPG players.

And NO! A player who thought he/she settled in Middle Earth (Online) aka Lotro can not just look away or ignore it when doing a humble farm work in the shire seeing a black woman, claiming being raised in Bree-Town and with a beard that puts Gandalfs to shame; being a fully blind champion fighting every evil of Middle Earth while wearing an elegant evening dress and hitting with a pretzel in the right hand and a mug in the left; riding on a boar towards the party tree slapping other hobbits with a giant fish while having a literal hobbit as a pet occasionally switching to a kite with a snowman on it she exchanged all her Mithril for!

Some lore-breakers could be seen as fine or part of a greater purpose for individualized fun (you can run around having 100 axes or draigoch statues in your inventory and so on)... while others are so drastic that they hurt the Lord of the Rings Identity.
Since the game wanted to be about Lord of the Rings I really do see the future problem of LOTRO not deserving its own name anymore.

It surely is no longer the game many immersive players praised as most outstanding point of Lotro, female beards alone are not the final nail in the coffin for the immense amount of Lore and Immersion given as of today. But it's a statement of direction - just as the deletion of legacy avatar composition - and that's what this thread wants to be about. As of now i start to regret comitting so much to Lotro because i stayed because of the fantastic atmosphere, but the game is taking away more and more of what i loved about it; it's adapting a mainstream style and murdering it's own uniqueness.

It's still Lotro - just everyday a bit less.

My post again for comparison.
Now the first quote is a direct answer to me it seems since it stands right under. And another provocative one i found.

There are women who have facial hair. There are cis women with facial hair. There are trans women with facial hair.

Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'm transgender. I exist. You can whine about it, but I'm still a real person out in the world who plays LOTRO. If this is really a deal-breaker for you, then you aren't a LOTRO fan and you need to just leave so the rest of us can go on having fun on this computer game.

You don't have to worry about more players joining. Reading this thread is enough to keep them from joining. The bigotry is clear in many of these posts. My biggest issue with this thread is that it exists. The bold-faced bigotry shouldn't be tolerated in an effort to give a "fair" voice. Mods should delete it. If you want to have discussion about how dark skin and bearded females don't belong in a game, there are other online venues that would welcome such discussions.

I'm not advocating censoring your opinion from the whole wide world - be racist and homophobic all you want. But it shouldn't be tolerated by a privately owned company on a public forum. You can try to be careful about how you phrase things all you want, but it is obvious to all of us what you really mean and what you really have a problem with, and it has nothing to do with "the lore" of the game.

These people are the problem here, also a big part of miscommunication of our current era. Literally i dont even know what to say towards this disrespectful and provocative defamation - it's incredible.
Actually just read what i wrote and compare precicely to what they make up. I claim every person with some sense of intelligence can understand that with no word i can be seen as transphobic, homophobic or racist out of what i wrote.
As a side note that should not matter i am infact not since i have alot of sympathy for people i know within these groups and count them towards my friends. But still getting confronted with defamation because someone decided to read my post as they wish since it fuels their perception of reality better.
Bringing politics in it when i was talking about Tolkiens fantasy idea and the connected legacy and still - attacking me (or people who would argue like me) directly where i was talking about the preservation of the legacy. Without Tolkien there is no Lord of the Rings, therefor no Lotro. Printing your beliefs into Lotro disconnects the game from the Lord of the Rings true origin. I already said this in the given quote of me - but of course this gets overseen disrespecting my post as a whole.
Even asking me to leave the game - all this aggression purely made up on the false judgement of a person based on personal perception of reality and communication. Wanting people to leave because you think you get finally represented within a world where you never existed?
What about representation of other things lookwise like glasses or sunglasses, glasses that would help with bad eye conditions or color problems. What about religions since alot people have firm beliefs. What about people who like tattoos or even see them as their most representativ part. What about people with physical handicaps - only one leg or only one arm - still could become a hero of middle earth. While phsical handicaps would at least fit into the LOTR world, especially different religions would not - still some people surely would like an added representation of those. And to be fair why should SSG refuse these suggestions after the step they just took? That's by the way the directions this thread was ment to be about. This is not a full equality update, though one could conclude political correctness and acceptence as its origin. Still: It disconnects LOTRO from LOTR more and more therefor i mentioned the rightful association of calling this game LOTRO is everyday a bit less given. It is not a free fantasy game and it is not good for THIS game to adapt political mainstream. People are not here for bearded woman - they are here for Gollum, for the story, for the recreation of LOTR.

The point is: I - in fact - am talking about the game itself since is based on someones ideas all written down. It's why i started this game - like many did. Telling me directly i should no longer belong into this game world because i dont like the new changes it feels it is harming its own roots makes things politic and is an unnecessarly aggressive tone.
Even missing my main point of complaint: They took away the facial look of my characters i had a 10+ years connection with - i do alot of screenshots with landscape background and face of my characters - they are different now - ugly and not themselves anymore.
The saddest part is that some argue the new update is for more equality, better player representation and even better chances for precise role play models... NO! This is not true for people that had a connection to their characters that got cut off in the name of giving everyone more freedom - this is cynical... or one could even call it standard political operations.

"LOTRO is celebrating the uniqueness of every player!" is the OFFICIAL quote. I dont see this after literally killing the uniqueness of ALL my human characters. If i decide leave after 10+years and 1000+ in $ ... it will be because of decicions like this, direction changes like this and not because of some defamation of myself through toxic/unreflected people within political and clearly non-LOTR context!

"It's still Lotro - just everyday a bit less."

[CloudCastle]

While the suggestion of adding cosmetic appearances in a region based manner is an idea, this would cause its own problems. The game is 16 years old. Some of us have had human characters for 16 years. The new regions and cosmetics would work for new characters, but 16 year old characters would be stuck in their original cosmetic options because there is no option in the barber shop that I know of to change your character's backstory and region of origin. I think SSG did the best they could for the most players. Let's appreciate the choices we have for our characters. As for fixing the bugs, I really wish the game had a test server and some of this was tested before going live.

I've considered this point, and while I think it has merit, I'm of the opinion that keeping the distinctions among regions would still have been better. In 2011 I created a dark skinned Woman from Gondor. When this new update came out I was able to give her new hair better suited to the back story i had for her. Up until now, if anyone wanted to create a dark-skinned human character, you could do it, you just had limited facial options and could only choose straight hair. People with these characters, created in the past, can still add on the new cosmetic options with no need to change their origin background, just like I did. Limiting dark skin to Gondor (and maybe Dale somewhat) would not have taken away from anyone who had already created a character and wanted the new options - because they would have already had to have chosen Gondor to begin with. No origin change required. (Not sure how dark you could get with Dale and unfortunately there's no way to check now.)

[CloudCastle]

For 15 years, Representation wasn't such important? What changes in this 15 years, related to bearded females or color of skin? Nothing

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in SSG office when these changes (and their marketing) were discussed because I'm curious what prompted some of it too. Creating new skin, hair, and facial slider options makes sense to me and is a great idea. I'll admit that I don't fully understand the bearded Women or what demographic SSG was trying to reach with that option though.

Absolutely agreed. We can have both! But it's a mess right now because they pushed it out in a very rushed manner. There's still bugs, like broken animations for combat. I just wish they'd spend more time on it to iron out the bugs, and also keep the new options all region based. That way we could enjoy getting our characters new looks, while saying "Dude, I made this character from Rhun/Harad/etc. Isn't he/she awesome? I based him/her off of me/someone else irl." Sadly, in adding beards on human females, there's people on BOTH sides of the arguments who are making bearded women just to spite one another. That just defeats the purpose of it. If both sides are going to be immature about it, they should either make the option toggleable, a cosmetic, or remove it. You're right that we've already got lady bearded dwarves, and I've thankfully never seen this level of immaturity on the pro/anti beard sides, since it's lore friendly to have lady dwarves with beards.

I'm kind of afraid that you're right about the bearded Women option. I suspect most people creating them are doing it to troll, and anyone creating one to legit play might be treated as if they were trolling or get trolled themselves. This a shame. I do suspect that the trolls will grow bored with their characters eventually though, so hopefully they'll be limited.

Perhaps, to counter that, they could introduce some appearance options that are tied to origins - like some extras, like war paint, tattoos, etc. Or some other way. Maybe they could add some specific traits connected to origins, or something like that. Or appearance/voice "traits," so either your skill related voiceover is different or maybe you get access to special outfit associated with your culture at the start of the game. Like, anything. Could be something to consider going forward. There is appeal and fun in some meaningful customizations, and this also provides meaning behind different cultures, plus the excuse to type something in these different text boxes and make it all look more lore rich. The world should speak for itself through character creation panel and be rich, that's how you know it's well done. LOTRO was never very elaborate at this (through words) but it worked, because some of the choices/skin options spoke louder than words. Now it'll be gone but the sameness lackluster that doesn't tell you anything/doesn't paint the picture of a rich world is a terrible first impression from roleplay/rpg standpoint.

Yeah, I would love to see differing starter outfits for each origin, tattoos and/or more name suggestions tailored to your origin. Unique voices for each origin would be amazing but probably too much to ask for. I'm sad that the origins are homogenized now. Least they could do is to find something to differentiate them again.

[Fadil]

You need to judge by all said, not just mood of the first post or a few first ones.





The audacity to say you don't care about other views and preferences,

Reading is hard I know.
I said i dont care about someone's opinion that HIS way of playing/ looking at his avatar is the only good one.

[Elmagor]

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in SSG office when these changes (and their marketing) were discussed because I'm curious what prompted some of it too. Creating new skin, hair, and facial slider options makes sense to me and is a great idea. I'll admit that I don't fully understand the bearded Women or what demographic SSG was trying to reach with that option though.

Again, it can be done in 2 steps. Step one: creating new slider options. Step two: discussion with players Harad/Umbar appearances in this options, as well as female beards. I don't understand why people consider that as one huge piece of work what can't be updates/expanded later without rushing right now. Beorning and Stout Axe, it was discussed and announced in months and month before release. Without "shut up and just take it" style.

[Mund]

Bringing politics in it

This kind of line is a problem with these types of discussion. When you say "keep politics out of it", it's akin to saying "keep yourself out of it", i.e. "you're not welcome". I know you don't think that's the case but it is. It's like when people in the past (or maybe still today) say something like "I'm not homophobic, it's totally fine to be gay...just as long as they don't look gay or talk gay or act gay around me." Stay in the closet and you can do whatever you want, don't shove your gay agenda in my face, etc. If you can't see that such a statement is a de-legitimation of a person as a person, then it's hard to reach any kind of consensus or understanding.

[Rinlul]

I don't see why SSG could not have included the new options in color swatches customized for each region. Give Gondor the color choices we have now, give Dale some of that too maybe (to reflect its closer proximity to the east perhaps), but leave Bree with a more tightly controlled palette and Rohan the most homogeneous of all. Then later maybe we could even get background choices for Umbar, Harad or Rhun, and for them someone with blonde hair and pale skin might be very rare indeed. They could have kept all the hair styles and head and facial sliders the way they are now, with the max choices for everyone.

I 100% guarantee you that they did this because it is logistically/technologically easier to give everyone access to all the new options at the barber, rather than having to go through the whole race change process to allow people to re-pick their region of origin. Easier on the code and the servers and gives them more time to make avatar updates to other races (and fix bugs that may arise from implementation!). Hope that answers your question!

But I also 100% guarantee you there would still be the same exact people complaining now who are saying "Why would someone from Harad or Rhun be in Bree?!?" so ultimately the lore can take a backseat on this one. In future updates they are absolutely going to allow people to make dark-skinned elves and everyone will complain about lore again and berate workers who are providing a service for them like they probably do at restaurants when their order gets messed up. And eventually they will go on and keep playing the game like they always do and just find something else to complain about and threaten to quit over.

[Conanov]

Not here for discussion, just a thank you note. I just wanted to personally thank the SSG team for making this update and hope to see more in this direction. It's sad that some folks want to control everyone's avatars (and their freedom & enjoyment to do so). So it appeals to me and I am not "Today's Youth" as I am in my 60s, been a consistent subscriber since 2008 and if I see a toon that offends me, I can just put them on ignore and go on about my business. Again, Kudos to the SSG team!!!

[Rosealba]

Not here for discussion, just a thank you note. I just wanted to personally thank the SSG team for making this update and hope to see more in this direction. It's sad that some folks want to control everyone's avatars (and their freedom & enjoyment to do so). So it appeals to me and I am not "Today's Youth" as I am in my 60s, been a consistent subscriber since 2008 and if I see a toon that offends me, I can just put them on ignore and go on about my business. Again, Kudos to the SSG team!!!

Absolutely agree 100%! I play since 16 years, am in my 70s, and love the game! My love of the game means:

• adore the fantastic story writing of the devs,
• love the whole of the game's Middle Earth landscapes,
• just enjoy playing it my style (in the 16 years it changed from raiding every night to casual daytime playing )
• and enjoy making my chars look as I want them - the more options the better (please - more hairstyles )

What I hate in the game (and the forum):

• trolls
• too stupid or insulting char names
• fanatics

I just ignore them and move on!

So each of you do your own thing, look as you want, surround yourselves with the people you like, and let all of us play and enjoy the game as we like!

[TesalionLortus]

But I also 100% guarantee you there would still be the same exact people complaining now who are saying "Why would someone from Harad or Rhun be in Bree?!?" so ultimately the lore can take a backseat on this one. In future updates they are absolutely going to allow people to make dark-skinned elves and everyone will complain about lore again and berate workers who are providing a service for them like they probably do at restaurants when their order gets messed up. And eventually they will go on and keep playing the game like they always do and just find something else to complain about and threaten to quit over.

Sure, there are always the same people to complain, but sure as hell the overall dissatisfaction number isn't just some static number as you're trying to paint it as, in order to frame every, even the most obvious failure of SSG, as "irrelevant". I did not really feel bad about any lore break over the years because it was always handled well and I wouldn't complain now if they've done it better. But of course, you and others like yourself (all hooked players, and not as interested in rpg aspects of gaming) couldn't give a sweat. Well, here is news to you though, SSG should take care to make their game somewhat presentable overall (for new players and casuals) and deliver some good flavor, because they're better than that, they're better than this lackluster thing. But now they not only fail at promotion of their game, they've turned their character creation into a lackluster lore.

Now, if they added black elves and it's the same like now, absolutely zero effort to make it work, they would officially become an utter anti-thesis of themselves and the quality they usually deliver on landscape, right there at the intro to the game, congrats. (I bet everyone who even slightly disliked RoP would immediately turn the game off at this point, seeing such a massive red flag, saying to themselves "oh, so this one is no different after all, just mumbo jumbo and no lore to be found here, black elves from Lindon, Frodo's neighbors black and other such forced nonsense in every hub"). And it's telling that a lot of people have absolutely no problem with different ethnicities and skin tones because it's all part of Arda - they just expect some premise and good flavor.

I mean, it takes a giant copium to ignore something like that... even WOW, the game you don't usually play for lore, has always had richer text descriptions with the aim to immerse one in the setting, in a way, than the short ones of LOTRO. I think they've got shortened to 2 sentences now (because lore does not matter in wow...) but look to plenty of other games where lore actually plays the part and some better summaries are there. LOTRO is one of the games where it matters and I doubt MoL and others are just going to throw all lore (and Tolkien styled text dialogue) out the window now, so... maybe they should actually show the same level of quality at the beginning of the game? When creating a character? Because it's just silly when they don't. The UI is a bit clunky but ideally they should have a way of showing off even more text flavor/paragraphs, so the fact they didn't add a single word with this update to tie things to the lore more, or even revamp what was written there in a nicer way, is just mind-blowing to me, as someone who played a lot of games where such things are like a no-brainer

[Elmagor]

I 100% guarantee you that they did this because it is logistically/technologically easier to give everyone access to all the new options at the barber, rather than having to go through the whole race change process to allow people to re-pick their region of origin. Easier on the code and the servers and gives them more time to make avatar updates to other races (and fix bugs that may arise from implementation!). Hope that answers your question!

Same team who create Stout-Axe dwarf race just to have female dwarf with beard? And dwarf-burglar? Why they don't allow regular dwarf race having female burglar with beard? It will be logistically/technologically easier