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Lord of the Rings online - The Game

Rumors say that Lord of the Rings online is a MMO-RPG, but for me it feels more like a singleplayer game with some MMO features. Some years ago, when Lord of the Rings online started it probably was a MMO with much group content, now with several updates it more and more turns into a singleplayer RPG (especially the epic story).

You can play this game from character level 1 to 65 without ever having seen a group or a raid for fulfilling your quests. But: So sad it is, it is up to you to play it as it was meant to be, as a MMO! Once you've reached a character level of 20 the first group instances become available. With your character advancing through the story and game more instances will fill this list. There is also a skirmish option where you can play several "areas" in skirmish mode, alone or with a group.
All in all the Lord of the Rings online is a pretty good game, the designers made a very good job, landscapes, cities, every detail is a beautiful peace of art somehow. If you are Tolkien fan you will be happy to see Tom Bombadil or even Aragorn who sometimes needs your help while the fellowship is on it's journey towards Mordor.

Important Places

Areas:
The game, or better said the world Middle Earth within the game, is devided into several areas like Ered Luin, the Shire, Bree and so on. New characters have one area as starting point, depending on their race. Each area should be played on a special level, for example the Shire is for Hobbits at starting level 1 (5/6, after the tutorial) up to level 10-12, after reaching level 12 the monsters are not longer dangerous and one can go on to the next area which can be played at higher levels then.
You can find a description of the most important areas and their level range here:     Important Areas

Cities:
There are some important cities in Middle Earth. Most areas have one main city and several smaller villages where the player finds everything he needs. All cities in Lord of the Rings online are created very detailed and looking beautiful, the player can breath the love the designers put into their work. While elven cities are more delicate and placed on top of trees, the dwarven cities are more a piece of art in stone. Hobbits are living in nice holes and humans, well... they live like humans in normal cities, but nevertheless even as detailed and filled with lovely things as all other cities in Lord of the Rings online.
You can find a description of the most important cities in Lord of the Rings online here:     Important Cities

Player Characters

In Lord of the Rings online you have the choice between 4 races and several classes. You can play a Hobbit burklar, a dwarfen Champion or Human Loremaster and more. With the addon Mines of Moria another 2 classes are available.
The possible player characters can be found here:     Player Characters

Miscellaneous

Screenshots:
As in any other game I have taken several screenshots of Lord of the Rings online during my whole playing time and you'll find the best of them here (loading this site may take a bit longer than normal):     Screenshots

Weatherstock 2011
Weatherstock is the equivalent to Woodstock, held on the Server Landroval once a year. Weatherstock is a player event, or better said: it's THE player event in Lord of the Rings online, the biggest event I've ever seen in an MMORPG.
As far as I know the kinship "The Lonely Mountain Band" is the initiator of this event which is running the third year yet. Several bands from kinships all over the world... ehem... all over Middle Earth are competing in a song contest with their best tunes. The audience then can lit Hope Tokens for their favorite band.
This was my first visit on Landroval just to be part of the 2011 Weatherstock concert and it was real fun (even all the system crashes couldn't stop me from logging in again and again :D). I made some (low quality) screenshots and here you can read the story of my experience on the Weathertop:     Weatherstock

Legendary Weapons and Relic System:
The new Legendary weapons and Relic system is a bit complicated somehow. You can do so many things here and to get the best legendary weapon for your character you have to manage your runes, scrolls and relics carefully. I have written a halfway good tutorial about the most important things (with some help of my kinship members).
Here you'll find that tutorial about Legendary Weapons and the Relic System:     Relic System Tutorial

The Turbine Site for Lotro:
You have to make an account at Turbine's Forum to post there. If you have a (NA-) game account you can use all the features coming with the Lord of the Rings online and are offered on this site.
Attention European players! If you want to transfer your existing european game account to Turbine's global service in June 2011, then don't make an account before, instead just migrate your existing EU-account.
The Turbine forums can be reached here:     Turbine - Lord of the Rings