So the plan was to have a dabble since I don't have to pay a subscription fee. That plan has sort of extended to increasing my credit card debt by £19.99 for a copy of the expansion.
So anyway ... heres my first thoughts...
New Class "Warden":
This is a new shield and spear specialist who wears medium armour and plays the role of the tank. Half an hour of game play shows just how much this is influenced by the fighting style of the Spartans in 300. I find myself shouting at my monitor ... THIS IS MIDDLE-EARTH! HWOAH! HWOAH! HWOAH! and then promptly making my new character charge into battle.
This class comes with a new Gambit system. Each melee special charges your gambit meter with one of three tokens ... a spear, a shield or a fist. once you have some items in your gabit meter, you can perform a Gambit. Depending on the chain of items, you can perform different gambits.
2 Shields grants a 20s block bonus
2 Spears is a heavier damage attack
Spear + Shield makes you kick your enemy with a chance to stun
You start off with 2 slots in your gambit meter and as you level you gain up to 5 slots and all different combinations of damage, heal over times, defence buffs and debuffs.
New Class "Rune Keeper": Not tried this yet ... but it seems to be a Nuker/Healer
Epic Weapons:
Awesome, you can get legendary weapons, these weapons have levels, every weapon level grants +10 points to upgrade your weapon. These points are then spent on one of 5 main stats the sword has. for example, my minstrel sword currently has:
DPS Rank 3: 26.1
Piercing Cry Rank 2: +2% Damage for Piercing Cry
Ballads Rank 2: +2% Damage for all Ballads
Call to War Rank 1: -207 to enemy resistance for Call to War
Call to Oreme Rank 1: +1% Damage for Call to Oreme
You can also add a "Setting", a "Gem" and a "Rune" to your weapon to improve it's statistics:
I have fitted:
Bronze Setting of Deftness: +10 Agility, +10 Might
Amethyst Gem of Determined Fate: +10 Fate, +60 In Combat Power Regen
You can also apply scrolls which give the sword a title and change it's damage type as well.
Book 1 grants you loads of things to start tailoring your new epic weapon
It's pretty good having the ability to tailor a weapon how you want it to be. Currently my sword is Level 7 of a possible 30 levels.
Social Stuff:
The game has introduced it's first hobby ... Fishing ... over time they plan to bring in more hobbys for you and friends to play with while hanging around socially. It's fairly evident now that LOTRO is also looking after the roleplayers just as much as the gamers. Which is a very positive thing.
Quest Log:
This has been completely revamped, it's now very easy to filter quests by multiple categories of Solo, Group, Raid ... whether it's instanced or epic. it also now shows very clearly if your group mates have the quest, or if they're on an earlier or later stage in the quest line. This is really useful for group organisation.
Story Lines:
I've completed the prologue and I'm on chapter 11 of Book 1 and i've done a session play of "The Fall of Moria". They are as good as ever, if not stronger with story writing. I won't say more because it's great and you don't want spoilers ... if you do ... ask me in msn.
Combat:
They've had a revamp here during our absence, including new combat states, new criticals etc. They make things a little more interesting and overall it flows well. As a Warden, I'm finding this exciting again.
More to come as I explore...