LotRO: Back in the Saddle

After waiting patiently for payday, only to find that I am supposed to be buying my family and loved ones Christmas gifts right now, I didn’t think I was going to get to partake in Lord of the Rings Online’s Siege of Mirkwood special offers.  Ever since I did a walk through for MMORPG.com with Turbine’s Aaron Campbell, I couldn’t stop thinking about going back to Middle-earth.  The changes coming to the game on December first are pretty damn amazing, and I was anxious to get re acclimated to life as a dwarf before the expansion launched.

Last night, thanks to a welcome back weekend promotion and my own lack of ability to keep money in my wallet, I resubscribed to LotRO.  The good news is that I was given the wrong options when I bought Mines of Moria recently, and was unable to take advantage of the $9.99 monthly pricing that the accounts page said I should have been able to.  I sent this complaint to Turbine’s account support, and this week I got a reply e-mail saying I’d been credited a 3-month subscription and will receive Siege of Mirkwood as a free bonus.  So while I might not have received my work bonus this year (long story…) I at least got some little gaming stimulus from the folks at Turbine.

I got to start my adventure last night, and while my own experience wasn’t as disorienting as Keen’s, I must admit… I feel a little lost.  So many changes have happened to the game in the time I’ve been away that it took me a while to figure out what all the new doo-dads were for.  You can now track quests with map-markers that pop up showing you the general direction of your objective, you have two different slots for appearance armor and clothing, you can buy a house, work on oodles reputation rewards, get a hobby like fishing, and several zones have been completely reworked to provide a better questing experience.

My level 37 Champion had been logged out for so long, and I’m not sure how the rest experience works, but when I killed just one bear I went from level 37 to 39 and I have no idea where a trainer is to get any new skills that might entitle me to.  Playing the Champion is a little easier than getting acquainted with all the new features I’d been missing though.  My hotbar setup came back to me in no time, and I was killing bears, bandits, orcs, and wargs like a pro soon enough.

I remember quitting LotRO because I felt the solo content stretching thin in my upper 30s, but when I logged in yesterday I found my quest log filled to the brim with solo quests appropriate for my level.  Maybe I was delusional back in the end of 2007?  All I know is now I’m having a blast.  Maybe I just needed an extended break.  I’m nearing the appropriate level to start Angmar and work my way to 50 and the Mines of Moria too.

But I’m finding myself very tempted to start a Warden now that I have the Mines of Moria expansion, and level him up.  Champions are a lot of fun, but quite squishy and not exactly easy to solo with in some cases.  The Warden’s mix of DPS and tanking might be more up my alley.  I think I’ll split my time between the two.  I hear the starter zones have been reworked completely, and so have places like the Lone-Lands, so I’m anxious to see how some of the old world has been changed.  Plus on top of all that, Skirmishes come to the game in just a couple weeks, which will add yet another way to play.

I guess what I’m saying with this long and meandering post is that it feels like the perfect time to resubscribe to LotRO if you’re at all curious as to what’s changed in the game since you last played like I was.  My article at MMORPG.com should be going up today, which talks about a great deal of the changes coming to the game in December.

One of the most important ones?  The combat system has been reworked so that the auto-attack no longer keeps your special skills from triggering.  It will run in the background as it does in WoW or WAR, making the action far more fluid and reliable.  That little facet alone would have been enough to get me playing again, but all the other new things like Skirmishes, mounts, and the like are just icing on the cake.

Look for me as Begud on Silverlode.  I’ll be around.

- JoBildo