Poll: What is your favorite volume of the Epic Story?

LOTRO has a focus on the story which is not common in MMOs.  For a lot of players this sets the game apart from other MMOs but what is your favorite part of the story?

What is your favorite volume of the Epic Story?

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10 comments

  1. Ethelros /

    Volume 3 by a wide margin. While Volume 1 has some well developed characters and cool quest instances, it is heavily let down by the obnoxious travel times, irritating quest mechanics and Lorniel.

    Volume 3 on the other hand is largely mechanically sound and has a story on par with 1, minus the big epic instances.

    Volume 2 is just kinda meh outside of Mazog.

  2. I can’t decide. They all have their pluses and minuses, and apart from that I’ve forgotten a lot about them!

  3. Teriadwyn /

    I agree with Ethelros on Volume 1 vs 3. The story of Volume 1 doesn’t really seem to get its legs until later chapters, and having to travel back and forth all over is very disjointed. I don’t even remember the actual story of Volume 2, I just remember how much time was spent going back into Moria after I’d finally gotten out.

    Incidentally, I’m fairly ‘meh’ on Volume 4 up until leaving Dol Amroth to recall the Swan Knights.

  4. Amenhir /

    Being a Rohan nut I was most pleased with vol. 3, even so much so that I felt the heartstrings tug a bit for Horn and Nona. Vol. 1 had some great moments but it seemed a bit all over the place. Really I have to go back to Rivendell? Elrond, just send an email. Vol. 2 was a necessary evil if you wanted to do all the epics but not fun in anyway for me. Book IX of that was especially brutal.

  5. davidt /

    Volume I, especially the later parts. Narmeleth is such a great character. I play hunters, so the traveling doesn’t bother me much, though I can see it would if I played other classes.

  6. Merlin /

    Having done the epics many times on all the classes I can say that I am not a fan of the epics! My main problem with them is as an epic they are suspose to be like the epic journey that frodo went on and I really don’t remember Frodo taking 1 step backwards for every 1-2 steps forward. Now if the would follow a strait line then I would be a bigger fan of them.

  7. Tinybel /

    Vol 2 for me just because I love Moria

  8. Goblinsbane /

    IMO epic is one of the worst parts of the game. Normal questlines are usually much better. I did all books only with one toon. On others I do only those parts which I like, which are really needed or can be done while playing other quest lines.

    Vol 1 has really nice start and to some point is very good (I liked search for Nazgul), later it becames terrible travel nightmare, even with hunter. Also story loses contact with Tolkien and war for the ring too much for my liking.

    Vol 2 Worst for sure, specially that part in Mirkwood which is very illogical (so they brought important hostage directly to the fortress of the enemy, without any negiotations first to make any deal. Bravo! Elves behaving like 4-year old child or worse…. Dismiss that who wrote that story at once!) Also those skirms instead instances…. Epic battles in which fight a few people and me… 4 or 6 dwarves defending 21st hall, solo attack on Dol Guldur, I was laughing seeing that… It was killing experience so much…

    Vol 3 Beginning with Rangers in Eregion, Ened and Dunland is really ok (do not count that travelling before going to Eregion) and I like that volume much till the end of Isengard. But later… Rona and all the others only talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. All the time asking all of them what we should do, what they think… Aaaaaa!!! Nightmare. Although story is rather good all the time. But much too much talking

    General remarks

    Biggest problem with epic are his conflicts with normal quest lines. Many times I came second or even third, fourth time to some NPC, and he was asking me, who I am… I was talking with thane in one quest line, and later in the other qyest line he has seen me first time and had no idea that I saved his town… Yeah, awsome. Many times stories lead you to different places. From the epic in West Rohan I remember mostly the fact that it was bringing chaos into very well made normal Rohan quest line, which was really good IMO after leaving Edoras. And I was pissed off on the epic that it spoils logic of these questline bringing some other storyline into it. Similarly is in Bree, where epic fast tracks through many levels from meeting Aragorn till Samborg (and you are chasing ravens with vital info so you need to be fast and make them one after another), while in normal questline you have some other things in other levels to do. For me conflict in storyline that spoils fun from really nice experience – instead feeling the story and playing that story, you have some conflict of a few different stories, similar fast track is in Shire…

    Epic is nicely joined with normal quests in Isengard, really well done, playing there was pleasure for me, but usually these storylines are very conflicted and epic only brings chaos.

    If I were now chief designer of the game I would delete epic as it is and remade its parts into normal quests and instances because having two sometimes conflicted quest lines spoils experience.

    To keep meaning of epic for f2p there could have been 10-15-30 free quests in every region (some hunting, some small story in one place, someone asking for help, questlines needed to open Moria, Mirkwood, Helms Deep battle).

  9. AnUnexpectedVidcast /

    I really love the epic stories. Currently Mrs Proudfeet and myself are working our way with a set of alts that ONLY play the epic story (other than the odd slayer deed to help fill the gap between levels), and it has felt much better story flow wise to play it this way. With my character being a hunter we have been largely spared the travel nightmares that I have previously experienced.

    There are bits of Volume 3 that are heart-breakingly good, but I had to choose the first one, just because of those final epic few chapters.

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