LOTRO is trying hard to NOT welcome me back…

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I’ve been trying to give Lord of the Rings Online a try during this “Welcome back” weekend that ends on the 18th, but thus far I have been hitting problem after problem with getting the darn thing up and running.  Things have changed slightly since I last downloaded the client.  For some reason it wants me to install this Pando Networks thing and download the full client right away.  Pando is some p2p thing that the game uses.  Whatever.  I downloaded the game TWICE, tried installing it four to five times and it just does not work.   The game installs but when the launcher comes up it acts like its hosed.  It’s lagged, it’s slow, it doesn’t do anything.

I finally figured out how to get the client a different way:  The Turbine Download Manager.   Hopefully this works.  I’ll give it this one last shot then I’m giving up and filing LOTRO under the “Oh well, I tried but can’t go back even if I want to” category.   I refuse to let more than a Saturday be lost to this effort.

If anyone has any advice on how I can get it to work I welcome it.  I’ve tried the usual like running as administrator and all that jazz.  If I do end up getting this to work then I’ll let you guys know.

  • Oh, so that’s what that Pando thing was! I was cleaning up my PC like 30 minutes ago and I saw that. I had no idea what that was and I guess it got installed when I tried LOTRO on one of the last welcome back weekends.

  • The turbine updater should work. I’ve had it forever with DDO and I just recently used it to get lotro all updated. I had Lotro since beta so I didn’t have to download the entire game, but there were about 8 gig of updates so I might as well have.
    Good luck with it 🙂

  • I hate P2P patching or downloading. Dunno about the US but a lot of ISPs here in the UK squash and throttle P2P traffic making it a completely useless means of data transport now.

  • I had the opposite problem when I bought the game back in July. The Turbine download manager would always lock up at 20%, so I tried the Pando Network thing and it worked fine for me. Recently I had a friend install the game and he could not install it with either downloader. Don’t know whats going on but Turbine needs to fix it.

  • It’s free and I want to see my old characters again. 🙂 I never took screenshots of them and stuff. And hey, I may feel that I want to play it again. Remember, I only quit LOTRO because I ran out of content. There is 2 years of content for me to explore now.

    Btw, I think it’s working now. The downloader is going real slow (fluctuating 100-500kb/s) but I was actually able to launch into the game and log in with my username/password.

  • Don’t know Keen I had no problem with the downloader at all managed to get the entire download in a couple of hours (which is great for me considering…).

    And while I don’t have the high level characters that you do I wanted to give it another go. The reason I quit was mainly to undertake in Darkfall.

    That being said I had forgotten my Username so now it’s a waiting game for customer support to get back to me.. 🙁

  • I opened some ports and after a while my download speed is 1mb/s now. Hopefully it keeps going this fast! It’s hosing my internet though.

  • I can remember that as I was about installing the free trial the game came in one huge zip file. When I tried to unpack it with Windows XP’s unzipper, it failed.
    I resorted to use some other unzipper and then it worked.
    Maybe you ran into the same problem?

  • I got it to finish with the Turbine DL manager. I can log in and play now. 🙂

    It’s confusing as heck though… I dont even remember what anything does.

  • Keen, start a Warden and relearn the game with a new class. At least till 10 or something.

    Since your last post about lotro, i bought it and got a Dwarf Guardian to 23 and expert metalsmith. Cant wait to put some time on my hunter alt also.

    Im loving this game.

    Got 2 friends to buy it,

    Thanks to you,
    Turbine should give you a lifetime sub 😛