One Night Travelling to the Shire

Kintri in the Shire (Nice hat!)

I spent my first night getting to the Shire in Lord of the Rings Online.  With so little time, I made sure my game was up to date and I created my Hobbit Minstrel, Kintri, before I started playing.  I'm playing on Elendilmir since the only guild I've belonged to used to be on that server.  I had also read some of the documentation on the game site.


There was a nice introductory quest chain that got me to level 5 and the Shire.  It was fun, but I generally felt pulled along and there is nothing really compelling me to play right now.  That said, there are a lot of things that interest me about this game:


1.  I think the pay system is pretty well suited for infrequent playing.  Someone suggested paying for 1 month so I won't have the Free to Play limitations.  I see that the Mithril edition is available for $20 and if I decide to keep playing, that seems well worth it since it plays for all the areas I would need up to level 60, a mount, and 2000 points to use as I see fit.  Looking online, it's difficult to figure out the exact limitation of Free to Play.  Does anyone have recommendations?


2.  The one thing I'm most tempted to do, is figure out what crafts I want to learn.  I went to the lady in Michel Delving where you can pick your 'vocation' (a combination of three crafts).  That really made me tempted to want to look up what I'd want to do.  Crafting is a great side focus for me.


3.  I'm an explorer and it'd be fun to explore the Lord of the Rings world and participate in the Fellowship's story along the way.


4.  Quests, quests, and more quests!  If the introduction was totally on ropes, there is certainly a lot to do in The Shire judging from all those rings I saw in completing my first few quests.  I like that the quests aren't very combat focused, too.


Other observations:

• The graphics are fine, not outstanding.  This doesn't really push me one way or another, though if pushed I'd say I prefer the more comic-like graphics of World of Warcraft.
• I saw a few people playing, both during the intro and once I got to the Shire, but not many.  Although it would be nice to play with others every now and then, it's not a big deal for me.
• Humor is a good thing and the game already shows both that it respects the source material and doesn't take itself too seriously.
• Even the clothing I have from the first standard quests is fun to look at (particularly the hat in the picture above).

My plan, if it wasn't clear, is to play four different games on four different weeks and see what works, what doesn't, and then focus on one of those games after the four weeks are done.  One thing I'm interested to see, is how much I'm compelled to slip in time either doing research or playing these games that I've only played for one night during the week.


Next up is Fallen Earth!  I have a long weekend for Memorial Day so hopefully my next night will be fewer than 7 days away.