Just wanted to give some love to Lord of the Rings Online! I was extremely surprised picking up this game for the first time recently.
Unfortunately I started playing a couple of days before the WoW Forever beta, but I think LotRO will become a permanent addition to my MMO repertoire between WoW sessions.
That sounds like such a cool experience! I'm really not surprised you still remember that 20 years later!
I've always noticed this with MMOs in particular, that the most memorable moments are when we weren't following an objective, or just doing another raid, they tend to be us players just goofing off and having fun with the world the devs built.
My most memorable WoW memory was when I participated in my guilds "Naked Fun Run", which was a no gear, level 1 fun run from north Kalimdor all the way to the southern point. Seems like while we were off in Azeroth goofing around, plenty were doing the same in Middle Earth :)