Finally taken the plunge, a few questions

super_furry

After three months of becoming progressively more bored with World of Warcraft, I’ve cancelled my next payment and bought LoTRO this afternoon. I was actually in the Beta but my WoW habit and the fact that the PC I was running it on at the time was rubbish meant that I never bought the full game. Now I’ve a new PC and am eager to finally try something different after the Tabula Rasa trial left me cold. So I’m ready to get stuck into LoTRO tonight, but have a few questions.

Are there any over-powered/noob classed, like the Hunters in WoW, to avoid? I want a challenge in a game and enjoy learning exactly how to play a class well instead of pressing the same five buttons over and over again. What classes and races are most overused and what are really needed and in demand? And what server should I pick?

Also how does the housing system work? One of the things that really disappointed me in WoW was the fact that you could never own your own property, despite the fact that Ultima Online was letting us do this a decade ago. Finally how does the PvP work in practice? With there being now in world PvP does the Monster PvP make up for this and is it a viable alternative to raiding?

Cheers for any responses.

humanji

The best class for playing is probably the minstrel. They're the group healers and, though they're not the greatest offensive, they are widely sought after for all group quests. And they heal people by playing a banjo. How cool is that?

I don't think much of the player housing, since I find it fairly useless. The way I see it (though, I could be wrong) certain areas on the map allow you to buy a home. There's little areas that lead off of the main map and it has a load of houses. You choose one and buy it. And that's it. You slap a load of furniture in it, if you want. I don't really see the point, unless you've too much gold.

I quite liked the monster PvP. Basically, when your character gets to level 50, you can go one of the maps which is basically a no-mans land. If you don't have a level 50 character, you can create an evil character, who starts off at level 50 (you can choose between wargs, orks, uruks and spiders, I think). The map has several capture points and you generally have to wait for a large enough group to take on any enemy camps.

I haven't played the PvP area as a good guy, so I can only really tell you about playing as evil. There's a load of missions you can do that repeat themselves, but earn you xp, which you can use to upgrade your character. When you do get into a huge raid, it's fairly cool charging into castles and the like and whooping ass. There's also a fair strategic element to it, as you'll often getting small enemy groups attacking somewhere and drawing all your forces there, while the real enemy group attacks a different target completely. It's good fun

Rev Hellfire

The PvP stuff is a good laugh alright.

I've just started playing again now that I've some spare time and hopefully will see if we can get the old monster night going again if there's still anyone around from here still playing.

Lister1

The best class for playing is probably the minstrel. They're the group healers and, though they're not the greatest offensive, they are widely sought after for all group quests. And they heal people by playing a banjo. How cool is that?

The main benifit that you would see from playing a minstrel is that fact that they are always sought after for group quests so you shouldn't ever have problems in putting groups together.

As humanji says the housing is anything to get worked up over. The neighbourhoods are fairly empty and I dont think I have ever seen another player controlled character in my one(I think they plan to add a few wandering NPCs to them in a future update). It is handy to have the extra vault space and also a quick travel option to Thorins Hall to access the superior vault. I've enough gold on my character(about 11G) so can afford the luxury of owning a house.

I haven't played my Warg in a long time. I'd be interested in a monster play night alright if there are any others around that want to organise some sort of get together.

[DF]Lenny

As above ,the minstrel for solo'ing the 1st 20 lvls or so is a pain in the ass once you get to higher levels you get in demand and real tests can be had by doing instances with smaller or lowerlevel groups thans recommended.
The most underused class is prob the Burg who again only really comes into its own once it gets beyond level 35.
Player housing - join a guild and let them buy a big house otherwise a waste of gold.
PvP good fun with a decent sized group