Continuing on in my adventures in LoTRO I've since started a Lore Master (Human), Burgler (Hobbit) and Champion (Dwarf) and have been enjoying the different start area quests. My first character (elf hunter) dinged 10 on Thursday, so I promptly logged into the as its known in LoTRO - the creeps and freeps pvp.

What a fun experience! I hadn't been in more than two minutes when I was invited to join a raid, so I did. Although my map was blank and I had no clue what a worg did or brought to the party, I was willing to give it a shot!   Playing a creep (monster side) you have a choice of orc, urak, worg or spider (one other I don't remember) and you are playing against the freeps (free people) in a huge valley with outposts, small settlements, huge keep type buildings and lots of hostile npcs! There are pve quests available as well as the endless battle to take or defend your turf!

Anyway, I took off on my warg - found out I could stealth too - w00t! and by constantly checking my map found the raid party. Most were seasoned and knew the opposition by name/sight. I killed one freep, but mostly died (alot)  or tried to help out/not get in the way! 

It was quite fun trying to take TA and to decypher the 'lingo' of the creeps!.  While we never achieved more than the bridges in this encounter, (a large freep party showed up) as  we were totally outnumbered it was still a good learning experience.

After the raid broke up I decided to go uncover my map. I found more quests and outposts. Lots of nasty NPCs, roaming bands of freeps and an awesome setting for this to take place! 

One quest bring back 10 hobbit legs made me giggle a bit (from the scene in the movie), but overall I found the pvp to be quite entertaining. 

Definitely different PvP than in other MMO's but quite fun. It definitely wouldn't feel like a grind as its a sizable area with plenty to do and with a healthy population of freeps and creeps in there!

I did go back again last night on my Warg to do a bit of pvp - apparently the hardcore freep pvp set was out as we were getting beaten up pretty badly for awhile! One small group of freeps tracked me across the map - three deaths to them the rats! All was fun though and definitely adds another enjoyable dimension to the game!

MMO Crafting

I have been dipping my toe into the crafting in LoTRO and so far I'm finding it interesting with a big BUT - as it hasn't captivated me yet! I'm less than a week into this game so we'll see. It's going to have to get better though to keep my interest!!! The three professions under a vocation and having to re-equip different tools is a bit of a pain, but once you get into a rthyme not to bad. 

I've tried tailor - nice to make an upgraded set of clothes for my character. Prospector, what is it with the nodes? They look like so out of place poking out of the beautiful landscape. I was expecting a bit more of a blended in node like the random cabbage, etc you stumble upon. Forester - well it took me awhile to find the right 'branch' on the ground - it helped adding the 'text over things' as I'm sure I ran past hundreds of rowan branches in my blissful ignorance. 

Cooking (if I have to buy all the ingredients I really don't see the point!) but it's nice to have the upgraded food. 

As for farming - I was unclear how you did this until I stumbled upon a farm of people growing onions. So, a few trips to the local merchant and farming onions like a maniac. The downside to the farming - having to buy some much of the materials. I would assume I could 'collect' fertilizer (as in Warhammer) or seeds from the wild and eggs? Well there are chickens running around and all the other birds we kill so . . .

Comparing LoTRO's crafting to other MMO's -

Warhammer - I quickly lost interest in all areas of crafting but do pick up the gathering (butcher, scavenger) professions to make extra coin for mounts. Apothocary has too many recipes that seem to repetative, Talisman making is slow to level even with an alt that purely salvages (Salvager) items and Cultivating - boring! I honestly expected the cultivating to be more like LoTRO's farming wher eyou have to go to a farm to grow things! Improvements really need to be made in that area of the game, IMHO, as I do love the PvP element, but downtime activities in Warhammer are a bit scarce. Must say the sound effects for the butchering profession really do sound like you're hacking up meat!

WoW - we all know it's easy mode as far as the crafting goes. The gathering professions in WoW are a must for anyone new to the game as you can quickly make money especially mining, but herbology and skinning bring in a decent income too. 

Farming the mats in WoW takes longer than making any recipe (unless you have a cooldown on some of the higher lvl stuff - refined deeprock salt every 2+ days - argh!), but I do like the 'added' crafting such as cooking, first aid and fishing that have their own reason for existing. I generally only level cooking/fishing on my highest level character (per server) but have all alts level first aid - bandages have saved me and others in a pinch! 

Cooking for the added stats is nice and some of the World Events you have to have a specific level of cooking or fishing so nice to have it! Fishing - it's a nice downtime activity and if you can find an area you won't get ganked (I play PvP) it can be a bit relaxing/change of pace. I've never made it to the Sunday Booty Bay fishing tournament as Sunday's are family day not game on time - lol!
The hunt for rare world drop recipes or finding the obscure goblin tradesmen hiding behind a hill in STV is a bit of fun to stumble upon though. At least in WoW if you pick the right recipes you can make $$ crafting or make items for your own use/alts that are worthwhile. So not horrible, but definitely not the best crafting out there.

AoC - tried the gathering portion only as I didn't last very long in this game. The nicest part of the gathering was as you harvested the tree/bush/rock actually diminished not just disappeared as you gathered/mined and they didn't glow/glitter but looked like part of the landscape until you mouse over them. I mean the mining nodes looked like rock formations, the 'cotton' trees looked like a bush with cotton on it. The trees you chopped down not found a branch on the ground and hacked it up. I liked the way they regenerated or if someone only took a bit there was a be bedraggled cotton bush with only 15% of its growth left. That was very well done IMHO.

EQII - far and away my favorite as far as crafting goes. Gathering materials is not strenous, special tools are only needed if you want to make gathering faster. These tools can be macro'd to equip/unequip at nodes too. The materials sell on the broker and can be stored in large quantities (200 a stack), the rare drop rate is decent and sells well. Crafted items while not as desirable as raid loot drops are not purely crap - okay well some are but much of what you craft does sell. The cooked foods, house items, customized 'fun clothing' sell well too. And crafting in EQII is not purely easy mode - you do have to pay attention or end up with a complete failure, a small amount of damage to yourself and no end product! I also like the holiday crafting times when you make specific holiday items. That was a hoot!

Those are all I've tried so far. I've heard Vanguard has excellent crafting, but I don't play so don't know!  Rumor the F2P Runes of Magic has fantastic crafting where you can learn all the skills (gathering/crafting) in the game should you choose!  It's in open beta right now, so may give it a try!