Family Trees
Surnames
Titles
I mean shitloads of titles about places you discover,monsters you kill , place you borned in,your achievements from pvp, crafting,fishing,family titles,season festival achiements (Winter festivals "Keg Runner" title that gained by a minigame for example)
Fishing
Very detailed outfit system
Different kind of PvP system Free Peoples of Middle East vs Servants of Angmar(Orcs,wargs,uruks)
Super crafting system (You can name a legendary item that you craft, for example "Ratni Kurac of Koyama")
Legendary weapons that level up by using + they give bonuses to your skills all of those are custumizable !
Music ! Yes you could play instruments like lutes,flutes drums by using your keyboard !
Shitloads of emotes !
Very well designed outdoors.
Detailed housing system , you could loot the head of boss that you kill as a trophy and you could place it anywhere in your home or garden as you wish for example.You could buy a house on a district you choose for example you could buy a house from the same street that your friend's character lives in lol
I played LOTRO for 2 years after i seen all those little but really lovely details , i realized i miss them and look for them in games i play.
Yes those are not "core" elements of MMORPG games but with all those little details you build the "RPG" section of "MMORPG" .
I am not a hardcore rp'er but in LOTRO, fuck yes i played "Nothing else matters" with my music band in Prancing Pony/Bree !
Now when i look back first things i remember was my hunter "Dinendor" getting adopted by my guild member "Dervingdor" and i am getting "Son of Dervingdor"title , my music band , weird pvp moments with my warg like peeing on my dead enemies corpse or biting their corpse with Mustafa
Seasonal Festivals , horse races on bree horsefields .
I do not remember anything about grinding and dungeons lol