I know the title might be pretty sounding but these facts prove it:

+ The community is great and mature.You will easily find companions for questing (Someone below said server was empty...I honestly suspect he/she didn't even log in the game. I find easily groupmates even when I decide to create new characters) and the overall attitude in the chats is way better than Wow. In Lotro if you ask for some information in the chat you won't take the risk to be called n00b or flamed for no reason.

+Graphics are excellent and up to date standards.Let's face it: Wow might have looked cool when it was released but now it looks old and no one can deny that, honestly

+Storyline is immersive, the quests are sometimes very original and you actually feel the need to read the stories behind them (Never done that in Wow). Even when quests involve more normal stuff (like kill a certain amount of creature X or deliver item Y to person Z) the stories Turbine came up with make it very… more »

I know the title might be pretty sounding but these facts prove it:

+ The community is great and mature.You will easily find companions for questing (Someone below said server was empty...I honestly suspect he/she didn't even log in the game. I find easily groupmates even when I decide to create new characters) and the overall attitude in the chats is way better than Wow. In Lotro if you ask for some information in the chat you won't take the risk to be called n00b or flamed for no reason.

+Graphics are excellent and up to date standards.Let's face it: Wow might have looked cool when it was released but now it looks old and no one can deny that, honestly

+Storyline is immersive, the quests are sometimes very original and you actually feel the need to read the stories behind them (Never done that in Wow). Even when quests involve more normal stuff (like kill a certain amount of creature X or deliver item Y to person Z) the stories Turbine came up with make it very enjoyable. The Book Quests side-track the story portraited in the books/movies and feel very rewarding as without your contribution the Fellwoship might have failed. Also, being based on the books you can rest assured the lore will always be true to the Lord of the Rings and there will be no risk of playable alien races (Ummm,Draenei?), or worse playing a "Good Nazgul" (Death Knights in WoW come to mind...come on, good Death-Knights....)

+Last but not least, great support. I sent many tickets in Wow about gold-farmers, exploits and cheating. Never got a reply in game but only automatic-mails right when I logged off saying they were investigating the matter (Nothing ever happened even when I provided evidences. I guess they prefer to keep those subscriptions over banning those who violate the rules). In Lotro I had to send a ticket only once and in less than 10 minutes a GM came to talk to me and fixed the issue right away.

Those listed above are facts and conclusion is: This game is a "must buy" for everyone who is into Mmorpgs and is not biased towards Wow.

@Someone below complaining the code for the horse didn't work: You get the receipt to get the horse at level 1 but you can claim it only at level 25

When I saw the previous review I had to comment. I've been playing LOTRO since the start and came from WoW. It was a good fresh change as LOTRO introduces a storybook element as well as excellently made areas to explore. Whilst LOTRO was easy to level it did immerse yourself into the story Turbine has created with the LOTRO theme and the amount of free end game content being added (every 2 months) is very good. Recently they added housing which is instanced neighbourhoods and can only be improved on and a new 12 man raid called 'The Rift' this raid is excellent and beats pretty much most of the previous raids I've seen. The Raid introduces you to a new faction who have been carefully imprisoning a Balrog but dont fear folks especially if you think this is Lore-Breaking. No mere 12 people can defeat this creature as you do gain aid from an elf who is its keeper. My Kin Element Zero has reached this boss and has found the story driven (with voice overs) throughout this instance is… more »

When I saw the previous review I had to comment. I've been playing LOTRO since the start and came from WoW. It was a good fresh change as LOTRO introduces a storybook element as well as excellently made areas to explore. Whilst LOTRO was easy to level it did immerse yourself into the story Turbine has created with the LOTRO theme and the amount of free end game content being added (every 2 months) is very good. Recently they added housing which is instanced neighbourhoods and can only be improved on and a new 12 man raid called 'The Rift' this raid is excellent and beats pretty much most of the previous raids I've seen. The Raid introduces you to a new faction who have been carefully imprisoning a Balrog but dont fear folks especially if you think this is Lore-Breaking. No mere 12 people can defeat this creature as you do gain aid from an elf who is its keeper. My Kin Element Zero has reached this boss and has found the story driven (with voice overs) throughout this instance is nothing but excellent. This game is truley good and worth giving it a go.

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I thought i'll add to the most recent review of the game and that is a lot of people are level 50 now that means they are up there high end area. The Bree Horse can only be used at level 24 and if you ask codemasters they will solve it. The community in LOTRO is one of the best there is perhaps you need to dive into the game for longer? Book 14 (another huge update) is about to hit the servers so its all looking good for LOTRO.

So, ordered this kinda excited to redirect my WoW time, came in a nice shiny metal case, lots of extras.
apart from the extra code not working (no horse :'( ) aswell as my free doormat ^^ everything else installed nicely after the lenghty patch

started the game up, made sure everything was set to full (why not) build character, done, this is when things went downhill, first i must say my 2* is not for the look of the game, it looks amazing graphically and there is little server lag which is maybe a bad things as i played for 3hours straight and saw no one, i feel this game maybe dead which is mainly the reason i havnt taken to it, the combat system is good aswell as quests giving far better rewards than WoW, instances are hard to work out (portals to non elite areas) and yield little in return, seemed easy to begin with but without the pve interaction between players it seems to be useless in terms of an mmorpg and would do much better offline or LAN based (if anyone would… more »

So, ordered this kinda excited to redirect my WoW time, came in a nice shiny metal case, lots of extras.
apart from the extra code not working (no horse :'( ) aswell as my free doormat ^^ everything else installed nicely after the lenghty patch

started the game up, made sure everything was set to full (why not) build character, done, this is when things went downhill, first i must say my 2* is not for the look of the game, it looks amazing graphically and there is little server lag which is maybe a bad things as i played for 3hours straight and saw no one, i feel this game maybe dead which is mainly the reason i havnt taken to it, the combat system is good aswell as quests giving far better rewards than WoW, instances are hard to work out (portals to non elite areas) and yield little in return, seemed easy to begin with but without the pve interaction between players it seems to be useless in terms of an mmorpg and would do much better offline or LAN based (if anyone would ever use that either) , IMO stick to WoW if you have it, graphics are nothing on this thing but when gameplay matters i feel it lacks a community feel.