***possible spoilers ahead***

I don't really play LOTRO for the story. I enjoy the immersive Middle Earth feel, but I primarily play for endgame raiding and PvP.

That said, I thought the RoI Epic 3.4 book was fantastic! I really enjoyed it. One thing I have been very satisfied with in the past expansions is solid Epic storywriting, and RoI definitely turned up the T-Factor. I mean, it covered it all, and hit points that I was really curious about. My favorite was meeting Saruman and the journey into the war pits of Isengard. I also enjoyed seeing the pre-war Isengard, and that Dungbog war camp raid was outstanding. Great stuff.

IMO, the Epic story was the one real bright spot of the expansion. It indeed felt like old school LOTRO, well planned out, engaging, well executed, epic in scale, bug-free and fun. The only thing it lacked was the group content of old, but it's a new solo-friendly LOTRO and things have changed. As long as you guys can keep doing solid storytelling like this, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to accept.