Eatin’ Pie in the Shire
I’ve been enjoying my most recent attempt at playing The Lord of the Rings Online. Before now my World of Warcraft binging kind of distracted me from getting invested in any other MMOs, but my desire to play WoW has tapered off significantly in the past year and I am finally at a point where even expansion information doesn’t get me excited anymore. Whereas the trickle of information concerning LOTRO’s coming expansion actually has perked my ears, even though I didn’t play the game. I decided to give it a go.
I’m having a lot of fun with LOTRO so far. I should have given it more of a chance sooner. The game is also helping me experience a kind of Tolkien revival. I read the original LOTR trilogy back right before the movies were coming out, so much of the detail is lost. I plan to give them a re-read once I finish up The Hobbit, which I sadly never read as a kid. The Hobbit definitely has a different feel to it compared to my memories of LOTR. It’s cute. I’m enjoying it. Bilbo is a pretty great character in the book so far. After some reading of it I even tried creating a Male Hobbit Burglar in LOTRO because of his influence, but The Shire quests sort of drove me batty- the Hobbits just want you to gossip, deliver mail, and eat pies! I guess that’s to be expected from Hobbits.
What I am digging the most about the game is Deeds. Oh my, am I OCD in regards to this aspect of the game. Basically they are themed achievements which bestow titles, virtues, and even skills onto your character. Kill 30 wolves, you can now be known as Wolf-Tamer! Get to level 20 without dying? You are now known as Undying! (I didn’t get this one…) The Virtues earned are stat enhancements which stack if you obtain multiples, where you then allocate them to your character into their gradually available Trait slots for a small fee. I even ended up getting a Racial skill trait from killing so many damn goblins. I basically can stealth once every 30 minutes! Yeah, it’s a long cool-down, but I’m a warrior-type (Champion) who can stealth! That’s so awesome!
The exploration Deeds are fun to get as well, though the beautiful in-game environments need no deeds to entice would-be explorers. I’m figuring I should wait for a mount till I go for any of those I missed, though. Walking across LOTRO’s huge zones can take some time. In addition, the music in the game is breathtaking. This is the only MMO I’ve played where I actively turn off my Winamp/Podcasts and prefer the in-game music instead.
Originally published at glitzy bad. You can comment here or there.