Quote Originally Posted by Anavalar View Post
As a Landroval player don't you think your server is better insulated against this kind of RPG defection?

I'd say even with raiding and PvP oriented players the amount of Landroval citizens who are there because of Tolkien nerdism and a hoping open mic at the Pony is pretty high.
Most PvPers in Lotro don't RP with any seriousness but yeah, I don't see the RP population being affected on this server. There's a whole subculture here that is pretty intense from what I have seen, lol.

I also don't buy the "all the vets are leaving." A huge number of our highest ranked creeps left in December when TOR launched. Our population recovered just fine and new "Vets" were born as evidenced by how many creeps are now R9+ who were just baby ranks in January, if they existed at all - it just took some time.

No server will be insulated from new games taking players away. But IMO, it's not because GW2 is some ultra game; it's because Lotro is old (and is not WoW). TOR had a pretty significant, but really short impact on this game's PvP population. Not because people came back (although some did - most in fact did not) but because it filled back up with other players so quickly. When I got back from TOR I didn't recognize more than 1/2 the players in the whole zone on either side. But these are the so called vets now. Don't get me wrong, there are people who have played here for 5 years that are in fact going to GW2 - and they really are Lotro PvP veterans - but for the most part, this game's PvP populations have always turned over, leaving only a small group of us who have been consistently active over all the years.