LOTRO: GundaBAD or GundaGOOD? - Fate of Gundabad Impressions & Review

Fate of Gundabad gameplay and impressions review on the new expansion in the Lord of the Rings Online! Gundabad offers a LOT of new content, impressive worldbuilding, and more - but how does the expansion launch hold up for LOTRO? I review my full experience starting out with Gundabad!

Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro & My Experience
00:37 - Starting Up Gundabad
01:31 - Gundabad vs Moria?
02:13 - Lag Issues
03:08 - Gundabad Wordbuilding
05:51 - Questing & Story Content
07:00 - Landscape Difficulty & Gear
09:16 - Geode Hunting
10:10 - Allegiance & Missions
12:57 - Biggest Disappointment
15:08 - PvMP Note
15:35 - New LI System & Gundabad
17:51 - Summary and Conclusions

End screen music is in-game music from the Fate of Gundabad expansion beta.
#LOTRO #Gundabad #FateofGundabad

[Shagrath]

World building and atmosphere were, and still are the most important reasons why I still love Lotro.

[bruhmcmoment]

Big thank you for your efforts for the lotro community! :)

[LoveDoveDarling]

So happy the lag improved. I was so excited for the release I could barely wait. Was difficult to stay excited due to the brutal lag at launch. Took 30 seconds or so to pick up items in some cases :( Thanks for the upload Louey!

[edsobk]

I have been watching your streams whenever I can. I am really enjoying the gameplay and I cant wait to get to Gundabad. Thanks Louey

[christographerx]

I just started LOTRO 5 days ago and Im impressed given its age. This game actually has the RPG piece of MMORPG. Coming from WoW this is refreshing. Especially the comment of "difficult" quest zones. That made me LOL as I haven't had hard questing in years. Both in WoW or ESO. So I might stick with this until the end. Only 19 atm :)

[gscgold]

That is probably the next biggest challenge for the game now that they have improved the legendary system is the gearing system I think probably out of any MMO that I play they have possibly the worst gearing system,
There is definitely a lack of rewards for quest, I really do feel like somebody who is free to play and doesn't have a lot of money to spend or any money to spend on a video game because it is quite expensive once you start using the store for keys to open lock boxes, they really must have a tough time at it and I really hope that they consider adding more quest rewards to the game to help those players out.

[Harry-hyl]

definitely OP ;) just look at the game footage pulling the whole camps, killing them with a few gambits strafing around lol

[estebk]

No instances? Man... That sucks. But maybe they will add some in the future?

[zai]

Thank you for the videos, Louey! You have a great voice for these kinds of videos, and I enjoy your views & opinions. I was curious how this game was for, let's say, new players. Do you know if they would get a decent experience when it comes to playing through older content? Would they have difficulties finding a party for older dungeons, or are there systems in place to make up for the lower low level population? Anyone feel free to answer. Thank you for your time!

[reranger]

I'm enjoying the expansion too, even if dwarf themed stuff isn't my go to usually! Definitely feel like it's less "trapped" than moria, which feels very cool and world appropriate :) also have noticed the major difference between different lv 130 experiences; it's also easy for .e being relatively well geared. I have more casual friends playing who are struggling to stay alive without a group, and I've been rezzing plenty of folks on the landscape 😉

[duvetlord]

I would enjoy it if it was not for the insane unplayable lag on the EU servers right now. It's was bad before Gundabad now it's 10x worse. I just find it unbelievable the EU servers are now based in the US.

[renuvatio]

Hey now I love moria my fav expansion I did by the uber Gundabad exp pack I always do love this game. Wish they had a portal like in mordor and in Gundabad for moria shaped like the hollin gate. dont play much at the moment I play on a 46in 4k tv cant read the tiny print and my bags are so small

[yonkobuster]

I love this game I just get lost in the world and don't know where to go for quests

[DragonSlayerCommentariesHQ]

I love this game, but that level cap feels insanely high. That's why I'm playing on Treebeard since it feels I can reach 60 levels, gaining less XP, than 140 levels. WoW did this and reduced the level cap to 60 once the cap reached 120. Even though WoW is in a bad state right now, Blizzard at least knew that people would lose the desire to level if they someone at level 130. That's why they reduced the cap and let people pick their favorite expansion to level from 1-50.

I'm not saying LOTRO should do what WoW did but the ridiculously high level cap will turn new players away, unless they level scale the XP you get from quests, no matter what zone you're in. I don't care about scaling the gear rewards from quests, but this can be solved by letting players increase the item levels of level-scaling gear with the upgrade essences that Traceries use (make an essence that's only for upgrading actual armor pieces and leave jewelry alone or make it to where you can upgrade an armor piece one ilvl every 2 levels until you get to the level cap before the previous expansion. After that, just reward gear is normal).

Is it impossible? No. Is it likely this may happen? Not sure honestly but the new F2P and VIP changes gives me renewed hope.

[gscgold]

I honestly haven't enjoyed Lotro this much since I first started playing originally in 2010, more in late 2011 is when I really got into playing a lot and I really enjoyed it.
I mainly played wow back then so I kept going back to world of Warcraft and then coming back to Lord of the rings online and it got to a point where I fell so far behind with my legendaries that every time I played all I was doing was trying to catch up the LIs. And I really wasn't enjoying the game because everything I did in the game was centered around trying get caught up.

[highlightning]

What are folks doing for 140 gear until SSG releases new instances? I've been told that PvP gear is suitable till then. Whadayall think?

[Harry-hyl]

I remember weeks of flower-picking. Never again for me...

[SlowMoCook]

is lotro new player friendly like are there players willing to help with certain group contents and stuff? i wanted to play coz im a big lotr fan and just worried the game is empty without anyone.

[BigAL]

Moiria destroyed LOTRO, strange decision to do Moria 2.0.

[CrazYxReApErx]

Couldnt help me to decide if i should buy it now or wait till May for coming to the Lotro Store :D
The down side currently is: There's no instances for embers, right?

So my question is, whats the new Gear and where you get it from?
Because if its not from Gundabad, why should we buy it then ?

i couldnt find any Barter for Gear or anything.

i've heared that next patch, there will be 3 man instances, but not sure if its true or not