Well, as I posted below, due to a superb price on the full package of Lord of the Rings Online with the new Mines of Moria expansion, I decided to give it a thirty-day workout. I rolled up an Elf Warden, since from everything I quickly perused, it looked like a good solo character. The game starts out in an introductory zone, which basically took me to about level 5 with no problems (in fact I earned a title for making it to level 5 with no deaths). Then to transition from the intro zone to the main world, you embark on one final quest that is pretty much scripted (I had to protect a dwarf friend as we made our way through a dungeon and then finall
y take down a couple of named mobs). It was a pretty neat experience – very eery and you were always wondering when the next encounter was going to be, so it kept me on the edge of my seat. After that quest was done, I went and did the final quest turn-in and the game warned me that if I accepted the “Finish Now” dialog box, I would not be able to return to complete other open “introductory” quests, so I quickly ran to a couple of NPCs and did my hand-ins and then traveled to my elven home city of Celondim. I have to say that I am very impressed with the graphics and how smooth everything seems to run. I had heard good and bad about LotRO in the past when it was released, and I even tried a trial but couldn’t get into it very much. This seems to be a bit different. The story is engaging to say the least. I don’t think I have ever played a game through (whoah) six levels and can honestly say I have actually read all the quest text! So here I am looking over what I assume is my “home city” of Celondim. Totally what I would picture an Elven city to look like!
I hope to play a bit more tonight and see how the character progresses…so far, I’m pretty impressed though…
(make sure to click the thumbnails to see the full 1900 x 1200 playing resolution)