Thanks everybody for the well wishes, and Uthboth for the lyrics posting. That sums it up nicely I think. I'm certainly not saying I'm never coming back - never is such a final word, and time is never final. I just had to admit that instead of continuing to lead people on, it was just best to say that, for the foreseeable future, I was completely done with the game.
That being said, I do feel the need to clarify something, as I've gotten the feeling that some have mistaken my frustrations with Turbine's actions, and my loss of interest in the game, as criticisms against Turbine and LotRO as a whole. With that in mind I want to say that I have nothing but the utmost respect for Turbine, and the dedication they've given and still give to LotRO to bring Middle Earth to life, within the confines of an MMO. I did not lose interest in LotRO because of the store, or because I thought the game was inferior in quality to another. If anything, it simply boiled down to the fact that I was no longer the player they were developing for.
One of the main responses on the LotRO forums to someone suggesting more attention to PvP, better gear in raids, or such oddities as flying mounts (for lack of a better example), is that LotRO isn't that type of game - and I completely agree with that assessment. So instead of trying, or attempting to suggest that LotRO should change to fit my style of play, or what's important to me in an MMO, I simply found an MMO that was a better fit.
So really, there's no reason to play devil's advocate, because I realize my frustrations were of my own making. For example, if you want a cat to bark, and you get frustrated because it isn't, it's not the cat's fault; but yours for expecting it to be able to.
@Dwamur
To be honest, I really don't think this is a case of Turbine not caring about plugins; rather, it's a case of just way too few devs. Deep down, I think they want the same things we do - based off of some of the responses I've gotten from the devs and Sapience regarding Palantir (and other experiments). The trouble is, that when compared to the game itself- these are side projects, stuff created by the devs on their own free time, and not under the same structure (for better of for worse) as actual game content/stability/improvements.
The only real solution is for WB to hire more devs for LotRO, so that Turbine has the flexibility to devote resources to things like the data API and the plugin system. While that would net a vast improvement - maybe something fairly close to WoW's plugin functionality, and a data API closer to
this, that alone won't make things as great as they could be. Unfortunately that requires more than what Turbine could do - as it will need to come from the community itself.
It's one thing to look at Blizzard's data API, or addon API and point to how a developer that has the ability to devote the necessary resources, can improve the out of game experience for their players. However, it's quite another to see something like this site [url=http://www.pxr.dk/wowdev/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page] that pretty much gives detailed information about every single file type the game uses. Everything from terrain, world objects, meshes, animations, textures, etc. That didn't come from Blizzard, that's the result of people with the necessary skills being fans of the game. Unfortunately, I've yet to meet anybody like that who plays this game. I've certainly tried my best - with my limited knowledge/experience; but it would probably be years before I made any sort of serious headway.