Online gaming ;]

Lowkey (high key) response to Lestat's post on GW2.



This is my choice of 'poison', peoples xD It's Lord of the Rings Online, and yes - that is Bag End in the Shire. It's huge, and very messy on the inside.

ANYWAY -- I started playing LOTRO about 5 months ago and well - my soul is in Arda, now. LOL

This game offers the Race of Man, Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit (the first four are F2P), High Elf, and Beorning. (The last two each cost 1000LP I think)
The core/free classes offered are Hunter, Burglar, Loremaster, Champion, Guardian, and Captain. Regular elves can't be a Captain for some reason but High Elves can.
The 'premium'/purchasable classes are Warden, Runekeeper, and Beorning (the latter being specifically for the Beorning race).

I play mostly my Woman from Gondor - and she is a blue-line Hunter. She's level 106 (almost to the level cap of 115). I don't have any idea how to even begin streaming a video for LOTRO on my computer so you won't get any of those, but I do have a few funny screencaps, including this:



You should know there's a three-member family of bears right outside this little cottage. Gotta love Easter Eggs.

LOTRO is 100% "Free To Play" if you have the patience to do that (I do not), it's just a LOT of questing and grinding for turbine/LOTRO points - which you get through accomplishing what are called "Deeds" in the game (I have so many deeds I've not finished lololol). Once you get enough points, you can purchase something nice/fun/useful for yourself, but if you're a hardcore F2P, you're PROBABLY spending those hard-earned points on quest packs (and there's a lot of them.) -- Though I will say it's worth getting at least 1 month of VIP because even after it expires you get to keep some nice benefits. There's a nice comparison of F2P/Premium/VIP here.

In game you also have the ability to acquire Legendary Items once you hit the minimum of level 45. From then until you reach around level 100, it's a very long and repetitive process of taking LIs to a forgemaster, identifying them, using them to their max level, and then eventually deconstructing it for relics once you outgrow it in level and acquire a new one. But once level 100 comes, its best to get a friend to craft you a level 100 LI from the First Age - and for that one, you keep it for the rest of your days.

Once your level 100 LI reaches max level, you:
- Use an Anfalas Scroll of Delving to unlock 10 additional item levels, bringing the item's max level from 60 to 70.
- Use three Anfalas Star-Lit Crystals to upgrade the power of your LI
- Use however many Anfalas Scrolls of Empowerment you feel is necessary on your item legacies, to make it absolutely "PERFECT" to you before you then take it to a forge-master to imbue the weapon, which ends the endless cycle of identify-use-deconstruct for your weapon/class item (though you still have the forgemaster and relic masters there for when you loot another round of lower-level LIs to deconstruct for their relics/legendary fragments/what-have-you).

There is a region of the game (not server, mind you) that is dedicated to PvP, and it's called the Ettenmoors. Though in game we often call it "Creeps vs Freeps", Freeps being the Free Peoples of Middle Earth. Creeps is for people playing one of the "Monster Play" races. I don't really go to the Ettenmoors much, though.

If any of y'all are interested in joining this game, I play on the Brandywine server COME JOIN ME, I'LL MAKE YOU THINGS.