Wrong. An MMORPG provides an online persistent world(s) in which other player characters exist. What I do with my time is up to me. And no, I won't "get mad" (which is a thoroughly dumb statement) - if the game doesn't provide me, a predominately solo player, with a gearing path that is fun & interesting then I will unsub and play something else.

Lotro is very immersive from a world building perspective, so that's where I suspect they gave the graphics that score.

Hmm....this was my experience with the new content:

I'm getting radom item levels from boss drops that are blow my that of my character. Currently item level 277 and receiving 272s from fp bosses and, oddly, gear for other specialisations - playing a ruffian and got two sniper rifles today...

LOTRO? Are you serious? 1. End game based around lootbox gambling, with RMT sellers now plaguing /world selling black steel keys. 2. No viable catch up for new players. Want to get to end game? Then you need to grind through hours and hours & thousands of quests to get class trait points, or spend ££££s on a lvl 105 boost that costs about 4* the amount as the equivalent swtor one does. 3. Legendary item progression that uses the store as the primary catch up mechanism. 4. A subscription that doesn't give you access to all the content. Still be prepared to buy all 5 expacs. Indeed it's well known that the subscription is terrible value for money once the player is out of the first 50 levels of content. 5. Subscribers still need to buy beorning class & high elf race. Sure lotro is great for f2p but because most players don't sub, SSG has monetised each and every aspect of the game to the point where subscribers often end up paying twice - even more so if they are on catch up. I know this because I've played lotro since May 2007. SWTOR in comparison at least gives you everything as a subscriber.

Bioware should be able to deliver end-game raid content - Turbine put out a new raid in Lotro back in 2016 and that game's run on a shoestring. It's all a question of management priorities.

This was a problem with the server merges in LOTRO last year. In the end, Turbine responded by giving people a ton of extra free character slots.

WoW is my main MMO and I don't see even a fraction of the money seller spam as there is here in SWTOR. That being said, WoW token's popularity is significantly boosted by its ability to be used to buy in-game services and other Blizzard games. Not that we would ever see a SWTOR token being usable for the purchase of other EA/Bioware games but who knows.

That's the point - what Blizzard did with WoW allowed guilds to remain exactly as they were - but with the bonus of a much bigger community to recruit against. Well worth researching the facts next time before trying to be smart...

Just follow the approach that Blizzard took with world consolidation in WoW - bigger communities and none of the nonsense such as character & guild name contentions. Any other approach is just idiotic.

It's only when favouritism becomes so rampant, along with the associated sycophancy, that the time will come to stand up and demand it stop. Otherwise people will just carry on denying it and you'll be classified as a whiner. Better to wait until the evidence is undeniable and overwhelming - if that ever happens. Back in lotro, it got to the point where we had a shadow community established for all those who were banned from the official forum for criticising the game, the producers and the CM. For those of us who spoke out, we were on the end of a witch hunt and it was very unpleasant. There's nothing like that over here in this forum community from what I can see.

Having been a long-time LOTRO player, where we had a community manager who really did demonstrate overt favouritism to particular players & kinships (guilds) ever an extended period, this particular example doesn't look much like that.

Uprisings? HM Flashpoints? But you're right - I should have stayed in quest drops & been happy for it. Thanks for the troll. /overandout.

I appreciate that Bioware doesn't want to have "negative" feedback, but as a casual player who has played & subbed since launch & doesn't do operations or pvp, the current rng for reasonable gear progression is just too much. Bioware should have stayed with the old 4.x system - at least there was a defined path rather than crossing my fingers and hoping for the best each and every time I opened a crate. I'm not going to waste any more of my money on this.

Oh the humanity! A massive American multinational that only cares about the money. Who would have thought that....