I made it to Rohan! One of my favorite areas in both the LOTR books and movies was Rohan. I like the mythological Norse quality to the place as well as the simple stoicism of the rohirrim. I was eager to get my wee hobbit out there to see Turbine’s take on Rohan.
While Rohan launched earlier last week, I was tied up with work so I was a bit late to the party. This seems to have worked in my favor as the intro areas were relatively unpopulated. Also, as I understand it, there was a lot of instability during the early hours of the launch. Other than the copious amounts of lag in the new areas, I didn’t crash and everything seemed to be OK with my inventory.
There were a fair number of kill-ten-x types of quests in the beginning. They also seem to have added some additional quest features. Much like WAR, you can end up getting some quests that will pop up just from being in a certain area. You’ll get a notice pop up in your sidebar which, when you click on it, will give you the new quest. I think there’s a way to turn off the notice so you automatically accept the quests and won’t get the notice. I heard about it in kinchat but haven’t looked into it too much.
After whomping some mobs and doing good deeds (including a pretty cool battle defending a town from the forces of evil) I ended up getting the much-talked-about mount for mounted combat. Overall, I like it. After running some of the tutorial stuff (run in circles, hit some targets, jump some stuff) I think I have a better handle on the horse system and am eager to try it out. The forward button, once pressed, will drive the horse forward until you hit back enough times to make it stop – it’s more of an accelerator than a simple forward command. You can hold forward until your horse is at max speed and then just let go. The horse will keep going. One caveat though: the faster it goes the harder it is to turn.
After the tutorial and some more goofing off I ended the quest line and got a bunch of class-specific mount abilities. I haven’t had the chance to go through them all yet but it looks pretty interesting. There’s a lot of jousting-type skills for a burglar, which makes sense as he’s not really a ranged character.
Overall, I’m liking the new areas and the new quest lines.
** Possible spoilers after the fold **
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