Legendary LotRO

8 November 2018: Standing Stone Games (SSG) opened a new "legendary" server, Anor, to their Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO) game. The influx of logins was so high that many players had a long wait in a queue before getting into the game world. SSG resolved that issue by adding another one, called Ithil.

These new servers were a level fresh start for anyone with a VIP subscription. Base experience gain is cut to a "Story mode" pace of 60% that of the regular servers, maximum level is currently capped at 50, and the quests are all pre-Moria. SSG has said they will extend content and max level with an update about every four months.

There has been a fair amount of feedback for good and ill. Some are disappointed that SSG didn't just roll back to the original Shadows of Angmar (SoA) release, while most are embracing the opportunity to roll through content without out-leveling it. Grouping is more common, and the chance of losing the Undying title by being defeated before level 20 is real. 

Three weeks later, and I can find over 700 people logged in at any given time. This does not include those who are flagged as anonymous. There was/is competition for resource nodes that hasn't been seen on regular servers in years. There are also crowds. It is nice to see crowds in an MMO.