I finally got my horse in Lord of the Rings Online.  Your eligible to purchase your horse at level 35, but I wasn’t able to afford the 4.2 gold until I’d reached 36, and that’s even after having all of my alt’s send whatever coin they had to my main.  The horse has made travel so much better, and I no longer find it a chore to play my main.  I had really been burning out on him and had created a bunch of alts that were more fun to play in the low-level areas of the game. 

I’m starting to believe that whoever designed the South-East North Downs MOB spawn rates (esp. the giants and the orc camp) was the same person that did Chetwood & Archet Spider Tunnels area – way too fast to respawn.  Damn I was getting PO’d trying to get through some of those areas the other night! Another area that needs some serious work is the Old Forest, South of Adso’s camp.  There’s a quest there to kill some wolves in the forest: A) They’re a bitch to find, and B) They don’t always drop the required item when you do finally find and dispatch one!  Grrrr!  There are a couple other really annoying quests in there, so generally I just avoid that place like the plague and don’t do ANY of the quests that would take me in there. 

So far, the Lone Lands really is shining out as the best designed area of the game.  With the Western North Downs a close second.  Evendim and Trollshaws I’m just starting to investigate so I don’t have a strong opinion there.  The worst areas for me have been The Old Forest, the SE part of the North Downs (Orc [Dol Dinen] and Giant [Kar Lak] encampments in particular), The spider tunnels and brigands near Archet & Chetwood, and by far the worst area was Agamaur/Garth Agarwen – all elite mobs like 5ft away from each other – ugh! That’s just stupid design.  Yeah, I know it’s suppose to be a “group only” area of the game, and that in itself is a design flaw – those areas should be instanced, not part of the generally available map.

 With my alts, I’m really starting to enjoy my Guardian. There’s something to be said for smashing an orc in the face with a bigass shield. I love it! The Hunter has also been a very fun class to play, so many toys they get, I feel like Batman with his utility belt, LOL!  I haven’t been playing my Burglar nor my Minstrel very much, but they have also been fun.  As for crafting, I’m liking the Armourer the best so far – pretty easy to start making things that are very useful early on.  My least favorite is probably Scholar, as it’s very difficult to get materials and the stuff you make really isn’t terribly useful, at least it seems that way to me.  The only really useful things they make are the potions and the only “cool” thing they make is dye….Boring! hehe.

Guess that’s about it for now.  Enjoy!