Lord of the Rings Online released a new starting zone (Swanfleet) with its “Before the Shadow” expansion back in 2022. And players were widely pleased, noting Swanfleet’s visuals, soundtrack, and immersion as highlights. But now that some time has passed, its reception has soured — and understandably so.
Swanfleet, with its marshland motif and pastel palette, is certainly a joy to behold. Nearly any screenshot of the zone will capture its objective beauty (I included one with this post!). But when you pivot from aesthetics and start digging into the zone’s design, that’s where things fall apart.
Put simply, Swanfleet isn’t dense enough. There’s lots of empty space between questgivers, packs of enemies, and quest items, which makes navigating the zone a tedious bore. Worse yet, the zone’s mountainous verticality — once championed as a unique strength — necessitates scaling awkward cliffs and crags. Even the dense, pictureque ground foliage becomes a literal snag when your character gets invariably stuck on some unseen rock or tree branch.
As a newer LOTRO player, I didn’t understand how underwhelming Swanfleet was until I replayed the vanilla starting content with a different character. Archet, which acts as your first quest hub as a Man or Hobbit, excels at onboarding players. It’s scenic, focused, and best of all, dense. By keeping its content structured and novel, it engages players and dulls the tedium of lower-level gameplay. You’re constantly being introduced to new enemies and environments. Here’s a breakdown:
- Go kill some wolves and get some herbs in the nearby meadow
- Oh no — you’ve uncovered a sinister bandit plot to overthrow the town!
- Go enlist the help of some nearby allies, and infiltrate a bandit encampment
- Spiders! Spiders are infesting this tunnel and town cellar!
- Final instance mission: Defend the town of Archet from a bandit attack
Compare that to Mossward (Swanfleet’s first quest hub):
- Go click on some villagers to heal them
- Investigate this recent Uruk attack by inspecting the bodies (more clicking)
- Go collect some wood and meat around the town outskirts (boring)
- Side quests: Deliver food to villagers, run to the river and back for a dare, and kill more wildlife (boring)
- The Uruk investigation now leads you to other towns whose people have more mundane tasks for you (really boring)
As you can see, Mossward’s opening quest structure is much less interesting than Archet’s. And there’s nowhere near the same amount of diversity in environments or foes. Worse yet, Mossward sends you running all across the map, whereas Archet keeps your questing contained and focused in a smaller area.
It’s sad that LOTRO’s first new starter zone in decades is somehow worse than its vanilla counterpart. But it’s likely a reflection of the game’s atrophying development team and resources.
Also, people praise Swanfleet’s music, but it has some of the most ear-grating town themes I’ve ever heard in a video game:
I don’t want to come across as a hater. Swanfleet has its strenghts. But given the amount of undue praise it seems to receive, I had to push back some.
Byte-Sized Worlds 