I stopped playing back in May of '13 for a number of reasons. First, I was getting laid off and it didn't seem like a good idea to be playing MMO while unemployed. Second, I realized that it was eating up all of my free time to the exclusion of my other hobbies. Finally, though, is that the game (the endgame, really) kept getting changed in annoying ways and the outlook for the future of the game, content-wise, wasn't looking too great. So I called it quits.

That said, it's a wonderful game.

Gameplay-wise it's really not too different from something like WoW - you've got different classes that specialize in different things, with skill bars you customize to use your array of skills. I will say that, unlike early WoW at least, they did a good job of giving each class fairly diverse build options and roles in group play. There's also an effort on some level to remain true to Tolkien lore; you can't play as a wizard and supposedly there isn't any real "magic" being performed by your characters (the one sort of cop-out/exception being the Runekeeper class). Instead you have things like hunters being the ranged mage-like class and minstrels healing with music. Group content is on a smaller scale than WoW, though - most quests on the landscape can be done solo and dungeons are for groups of 3, 6, 12 or in some rare cases, 24. They also added mounted combat recently that's sort of fun but apparently isn't going to be improved or added onto in future updates.

For Tolkien nerds, it's sort of a mixed bag but mostly pretty fucking excellent. The attention to detail in environments and art is astounding. I read this massive thread on the LotRO forums that some guy had started just after the Mines of Moria expansion came out that basically was a screenshot photo journey of the Fellowship's trek through Moria alongside the text from LotR; they even got details like stairway step counts exactly right. It's unbelievably immersive and the music is some of the best I've ever heard in videogame-dom. There are some concessions for gameplay reasons, of course, such as generally compressed distances (a walk from Bree to Rivendell might take a couple hours instead of weeks or whatever) and varying levels of liberties taken with the universe, most of which make a lot of sense and are sort of necessary evils but every once in a while there's something that's a bit harder to justify, but still I think it's the best videogame adaptation of Middle-Earth available.

A big draw is that there's a continuous series of "Epic" quests that serve as a main storyline that takes you all the way from your starting area to Bree and then all over the place, from Ered Luin to Angmar to Mirkwood to Moria and Rohan. These are really well-written and do a really cool job of making you feel like an important part of the Free Peoples' success against Sauron, yet without treading on the story as it was written by Tolkien. So, you're mostly doing stuff behind the scenes to ensure the Fellowship succeeds, rather than working directly with them, though of course they do get a fair bit of expository cameo appearances and stuff.

Last note: just recently a big expansion came out that supposedly did a major overhaul to some of the gameplay systems, and I can't really comment on those other than it seems like a pretty stupid move on Turbine's part as the game was far from broken before. I think it was simplified a bit, possibly in a bid to experiment with more console-friendly MMO controls. Could be a disaster, who knows. Anyway: if you just want to experience the story and all that, I can't recommend it enough, but at this point I wouldn't expect the endgame experience to be very satisfying.

If you're interested in playing let me know; I'm on the Silverlode server and can probably update the game and show you around a little bit if you want.