Bugreported through email:
I'm writing you to report a problem I have when playing LOTRO, and hoping you may have a solution for me.
Just yesterday, I downloaded LOTRO and started a trial with high hopes for the game.
Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that I'd disconnect frequently - usually multiple times per hour. Annoyingly, after being disconnected, I won't be able to log in for a long time - over an hour as far as I can tell.
I have browsed your support forums looking for a solution, but have so far not been able to find one.
Interestingly, the disconnecting always seems to happen while travelling, and seemingly just as I'm entering a new zone. My character will freeze, unable to move or jump, though I'm still able to rotate. It seems like I'm not disconnected though, as the connection indicator will still show me at a ping of 156, with 0% package loss.
A short time later (a little over a minute usually) it will disconnect, showing me a black screen, a message "connection to server lost" and just the option to quit the game entirely.
After this happens I will not be able to reconnect to this server, though I am able to connect to a different server. The above problems occurred to me on both the Snowbourn and Gilrain server, while playing a human guardian.
I've also tried an elf minstrel for a few levels, and disconnected once, though in this case it was while zoning (going through a door). I'm unsure if this is caused by the same problem.
So far I have updated my sound drivers and disabled the DirectX 10 graphics, and added Turbinelauncer, turbineinvoker and lotroclient to the permitted list of my (Vista)firewall. Unfortunately these steps haven't improved the situation.
I'll attach my Dxdiag file for information on my system. I'm using the dutch ISP Telfort, on a 4Mb adsl connection, which is usually rock solid. As far as I'm aware, they don't use packet shaping.
I've recently played 3 other MMOs without significant problems on this system and over this connection: WoW, WAR, and EVE.
Thanks for the suggestions, but I'm not going to remove a soundcard just because one game happens to have a problem with it - wow, eve, war all played brilliantly - WAR even in open beta! Fallout 3 ran without a hitch, too.
All other programs are doing good, and it's not like Creative is some weird, backwater brand. I really don't think it's my hardware that's to blame here, perhaps it's the hardware together with the lotro software, in which case I'll just ditch the lotro software and forget about the whole thing.
Tbh I'm getting quite annoyed by the way the LOTRO infrastructure seems to be set up. Apparently they have a different logon server for different game servers (?) as I'm not able to reconnect to the server I disconnected from, but can connect to other servers. Also, this seems to point at that their login server is unable to drop one connection to the game to allow another from the same account, which is just stupid.