This from wedge55 at The Dork Club touches on part of the long-term playability of Lord of the Rings Online:
From the robust musical instrument system to the dozens of types of tobacco to smoke and hundreds of titles to earn (my personal favorite: Pie-Eating Champion), should you choose to take a break from leveling up or ignore the main game entirely, Lord of the Rings Online plays like a virtual Renaissance faire of the nerdyest quality.
Hm… Virtual Renaissance faire of the nerdyest quality. Well, it’s definitely apt. I am a nerd.
Over and above those offerings, LOTRO’s quest system has been intricate enough to hold my interest, even past beta. This is a good thing, given my lifetime subscription. For example, lately, instead of running around mindlessly slaughtering the orc/goblin/bear/pig du jour, I’ve been playing with:
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Season Festivals
- Reputation
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Session Play
- PvMP Fun
Season Festivals have even more RenFaire flavor. Run around all the local taverns and drink yourself into a stupor, learn a frightfully stupid looking ethnic dance, or go bobbing for apples. Or all of the above. There are great opportunities for a roleplayer to make a complete, spectacular ass of herself at these festivals. I speak from personal experience, of course.
I don’t think the Reputation system is all that original, but it is still an engaging time sink. You can increase your reputation with the various factions in Middle Earth by either killing things or crafting things, then barter for rare social clothing, housing decorations, weapons, armor, crafting recipes, and … props. Yeah, I got my mailbag, but I really want to run around with one of The Mathom Society’s pitchforks.
Chicken play. . . er, Session Play, also known as critter play. Where else could you explore the world as a chicken? Unfortunately, other gamers can’t see your emotes when you’re playing a chicken — only your fowl friends can, which kind of limits the goofy roleplay opportunities.
The Ettenmoors are the PvP zone in Lord of the Rings Online. Well, not really PvP… PvMP – Player vs. Monster Player. I think the Ettenmoors provide the only opportunity you’ll have to kill hobbits in the PvE game, so if that’s your thing, have at it. Not that I advocate killing hobbits or anything.
The only complaint I have is that there’s not a lot of roleplayers on Roheryn, but that’s what I get for gaming on the preview server.
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