

It’s really sad. I truly believe that Yves (or rather the Guillemots in general) were passionate about game development once. Now it feels mostly corporate, even though they still claim to be pro-gamer and innovative and fun. It’s double sad because they acquired quite some good studios that have to be shaped into their corp structure and ultimately lose their innovation. It’s not as bad as old-school EA, but it’s still subjectively bad.
If you like Lord of the Rings: Lord of the Rings Online is extremely nice story wise. It’s an old school MMO, but that shouldn’t shock you when you only know old school ones anyway.
If a low initial fee is fine, wait for Elder Scrolls Online sale. You can regularly get the base game for $5 or so. It has no forced monthly cost so those $5 are worth hundreds of hours or quest content.