I really think the livelihood of this website suffers because of the limits in the UI customization allowed. Skinning a UI is very nice, but it's purely cosmetic and I would guess isn't really worth the time of many users to bother with.

I also believe that the lack of skins is partly due to the lack of working tutorials on how to create the skins. While a certain degree of difficulty is there, it's not anywhere near the difficulty of creating an addon for WoW, as that requires knowledge of a programming language (I personally do not define XML as a programming language due to it's simplistic nature (obviously it can be extremely complex, but the basis is rather easy)). I did notice a tool on here to view and possibly edit (?) skins, but I couldn't get it to work and I believe there were comments saying it wasn't compatible with the latest version of LOTRO.

I purchased LOTRO when it first came out (I was even in the beta for the final few weeks) and I can say that, despite the semi-lack of a playerbase, it is still running just fine (imo). I see far more people in the beginning areas than I ever see in the beginning areas of WoW (save the capital cities). Coupled with the huge difference in maturity level (terrible reason to disown or favor an MMO, imo) it, regardless of size, is a far better experience.

As Cairenn hinted, and I'm going to stake money on (not really) I think the F2P change will ultimately increase the playerbase while not really effecting the overall maturity level. Sure there's going to be the few idiots that try and be witty and annoying, but they will pass when they realize how linear (not saying this in a bad way) the game really is and they'll either stick with it and realize their childish garbage that seems to be cool on their previous game, is completely ignored here and they'll shape up.

As said by others most "clients" come here, grab UI mods then go. Less than 0,5% dare posting...

There's quite no activity on the forums or in the mods either as the majority of the players are quite aware authors can't fulfill their requests.

Although the will of some talented and devoted authors to make the game more enjoyable by increasing some of the default windows, gave a spark of life to this web site.

However as we had no UI updates since a loooong time, and Frosty is mostly absent from the front line, I'm not surprised it feels like death valley here.

I'd say most players are on the wait and see mode wondering how will Turbine/WarnerBross adress the UI requests.

Even for the good of the game, as both a player and an Author, I hope we won't be able to do things like DPS meter and so. This should stay in WoW playfied.

I tend to agree that the UI skinning in LotRo is very limited but I also believe that since this game is still a baby in terms of games like DDO, WoW and DAoC there is still quite a bit that hasn't been released or thought of yet. It takes websites such as this to give the developers ideas that they had not thought of. I think that when they game has a solid base of players (if it didn't already lol) the dev's will (I hope) focus on more cosmetic aspects of the game.

I love being able to skin the UIs and would love to be able to add various addons to the UI, but alas, we can't yet. Skinning is rather new to me but I have been unable to really grasp the XML editing however simplistic it may be, otherwise I would have been updating the older skins. I noticed that before Moria, there are a lot of various looking skins. But I guess those authors decided not to update :(.

Either way, my wife and I will continue to play LotRo until they shut down the servers! :)

You guys all hit it pretty good, it's just sad I guess, I'd like to see the place busier. But you're all right..there's only so much you can do with the skins visually.. :)

I will continue to try to come here daily and post and chat though..could help some !

hehe yea you sure have been quite active here lately "Newie78" ^^

Hehe yeah, I like it around here, plus I quite like messing with graphics and skins..even though Im not "great" at it..it's fun..last night and my day off I actually played the game for a change though..got 3 or 4 levels..back to skinning next day off probably :P

Actually my graphics skills are lame, still it seems some players enjoy my work ;)

Don't worry you are on the good path!

LoTRO UI Mods
 

There are several UI mods that are quite useful, although they aren't on the scale of WoW or EQ2. The larger auction, craft and seller windows are very useful. And the naked bags (I've arranged my bags to look like 1 5x15 slot) are handy as well.

Well, now that it is publicly announced - Lua coding is coming to LotRO, so hopefully that'll liven the site up a lot. Really looking forward to it. It's been hard sitting on the news. ;)

Does this mean that we will start seeing add-ons to the game like in world of warcraft?
I will be honest here in saying that a part of me hopes not. There are people in WoW that cannot play the game on a computer w/o the 25 addons they have downloaded that tell them everything from what to cast to when to cast to how much threat they have. It just gets really lame after awhile.