Always hated Moria, so I have to agree that no matter what you do, it's not going to make the people who dislike it - like it.

I quit for two years when it was endgame because it just wasn't a fun place to spend time, and I like games to be entertaining - challenge can be entertaining, but for me, Moria was always the epitome of tedium, not challenge. Outside of an instance, I don't think I've ever had a toon die to a mob in Moria save for intentional suicide to get from somewhere some quest sent me way far away back to the rally circle at 21st Hall or the like.

In other words, it is not, nor was it ever, particularly dangerous. Just really annoying to have to kill nine thousand trivial mobs on your way to and from every single quest. Only to have to go back to the same place four times, and chances are - you'll spend frustrating hours trying to find it if nobody's put something on the Net with directions. You can do that once in a while, and I know Turbine loves mazes, but in Moria it is overdone, especially with the maps so utterly lacking.

I'm severely visually impaired, which doesn't help. Pretty expert with computers, and LoTRO graphic settings - the only areas of LoTRO that have never worked for me no matter what I do were Moria (especially when the personal lighting and ambient light slider were both broken) and the Tuck skirmish - nothing made those visible enough to not be a major aggravation, though I realise I'm in the minority here, but one thing I do like about LoTRO is that it's pretty friendly to disabled folks.

Even I am shaking my head over the neon orange in the Silvertine Lodes, but I can live with it.

I like the little settlements of quest givers. One of my big dislikes about Moria is that there's no way a bunch of dwarfs would have settled it to the degree they have a week after the fellowship went through but ah well. The little camps are kind of neat, feel more organic, and I for one appreciate that I no longer have to trudge miles to get from point A to point B four times straight.

Since it was never dangerous to quest in Moria, I can't see how this took any 'danger' away from it.

There's definitely some good in the update.

The bad: What did you do to my quest log and the as far as I know not revamped Waterworks? All that was left in it were two quests to turn in there, but the quest givers are MIA to the toon that needs to do it. They are not MIA to a level capped toon I took over to the Rotting Cellar - they're right there. I'm not sure what's going on with that.

People who have six to ten hours per session to play and who love the old school type of gaming love Moria. I'm sorry it's getting ruined for them. Those of us who don't have that kind of time and don't care for old school grind and tedium are never going to like the place. I can't see that ever changing, and I know that there's not going to be another level 50 area, so it's always going to be a compromise.

I think the thing that really needs the most work is the epic. We are all forced to do that, it's long, extremely boring and a huge timesink - please reserve those for endgame, not mid-game.

At the very least, make the swift travel between Chamber of Crossroads and the 21st Hall permanent.

I'll still do the into Moria at 54, out to Nandurion at 55 or 56, epic as I can stomach it. I suspect most other folks who do it that way will continue to do it that way. But there was some good in the update, and for that, I thank you.