FundinStrongarm

Oh, sorry. It's been a while. You are probably right.

There is an area (in the water?) near the Old Willow or thereabouts where you need to swim out to retrieve items for a quest. Best if you go back and forth (forward and backward) instead of trying to collect all the items at once. You lose morale quickly in certain parts of the water. Might be that way on the backside too. Might be that area? (At least, I remember something like that from 6+ years ago... Not sure if it still exists.)

https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Erebrandir's_Horseshoe

You could be right. Let's see what kind of game comes out before we get ahead of ourselves though. nosam9 was an old poster who regularly predicted the closing of LotRO about 6-9 months in the future, at least as long as 4 years ago. He used to crop up fairly often to pronounce his doom. Similar to the claims that some legal entanglement will shutter the game but way more regularly.

I'm sure it will come sometime. Maybe after the Sea of Rhun update, or Far Harad - the Later Years update or maybe The 4th Age: Eldarion's Passing update. Who knows? People reading the tea leaves and predicting the end sometime soon never seem to reassess the situation when they're wrong, I've noticed.

nosam9, is that you? You usually give it 6 months.

The overall gearing system seems decent to me. Just ignore lootboxes if you find one and it's all good. If someone wants to take their chances on gearing up through lootboxes a couple weeks after instances drop, who cares?

So, nothing much different than the previous couple years before SSG came along...

Yup.

Any updates? Is my prediction holding true? Did something actually happen or was a mountain made out of a hill of beans?

Prediction: None of this will effect LotRO or any other game as far as being able to continue playing goes. (There might be some minor changes in ownership but development will be handled by the same people.)

When you have asinine laws on the books you have a much higher chance of omg-you're-fucked moments. Highlighting those moments shows why those laws need to be rescinded.

What perpetuates the sexual grooming of young women and girls in Telford or Rotherham is that people are afraid to speak up about it for fear of being labelled a racist, with jail time a possibility. Remember that the people who define hate crimes are the people in power. That can always flip and then those who want to defend minorities could be thrown in jail. Forcing people to be silent will not stop how they think. Letting it be talked about and denounced with full public debate is far better than shutting people up. I wholeheartedly disagree with your position. It will be a sad day when I cannot due to laws against freedom of speech.

Hate crime laws gotta go. Else it leads to crap like this. And I'm a guy who thinks anti-Jew stuff IS offensive. (It also leads to girls being groomed as sex slaves because you dare not mention it is Islamic men doing it for fear of being accused of a hate crime.)

I'm not sure about a licensing blitz since the LotR/Hobbit and the Silmarillion (and the rest of Tolkien's writings) are owned by two different entities. Unless I missed something. Really, it has already happened with regards to LotR material, considering all the games there has been over the last decade or so. I guess, in theory, it could happen with 1st Age or even 2nd Age stuff. If they ever are brought under one umbrella then all bets are off.