Review:
As explained in the explanation of MEO, things have taken a seemingly severe turn for the worse. There is no telling what will happen with MEO right now, and so describing my feelings on the game in its current state would be boring since little is known about what ideas will shape in the future.

Though to comment on the past ideas, such as permanent death, as well as limited magic and Elven population, I’m all for them. If done right permanent death could add not only a lot of realism, which doesn’t always equal a lot of fun, but it would also add importance in what decisions you make as a character. In other games were the penalty for dying is virtually nothing, you might see very young characters tempting their fate against horrible creatures that eat the great warriors of the land. However with the permanent death system you’d see a lot more role playing, and a lot less stupidity on the part over zealous adventurers.

Magic in Middle Earth was also very limited, even Gandalf didn’t show a full array of fire balls and lightening bolts spitting forth from every orifice in his body. To have players running about casting spells of mass destruction all over the place would completely destroy any semblence of a Middle Earth atmostphere. Powerful magic might be a fun, but if thats what your after you can find it in just about any other major Online RPG out there.

As far as limiting Elves, I’m all for it, though I believe it would have been hard to properly do so. Elves would probably be a very popular race. In fact in a poll done at the Mevault Elves were the number one race that players were going to play, or planned to play. Considering the Elven population in the third age was low, in the fourth age you would be hard put to find an Elf out and about adventuring.