Lord of the Rings Online brings a new experience to the plate while not being totally new at the same time.
Questing in this game is more or less like World of Warcraft, run here, kill this, or run here and grab this, even down to the explore this point quests. But the Epic Storyline allows for the fans of the book series or even just the movies to get to know the story a little more including different bits that are almost unheard of in the story.
On the same topic as questing comes in a new thing called Tasks which was implemented earlier this week. Opening up at L8 it allows players to run smaller style quests for a smaller bonus to your XP. However, these tend to disappear at the time of writing once you hit about level 50 and head into the Mines of Moria since the task boards are only in Eriador on the west side of Moria.
But with all good content comes a bit of annoyance. At low levels you are generally good for XP until you hit around level 20 which can get to running out of quests for half a level that are exactly on your level. So you can do one of three things here. Either you can grind those last bits of XP away (no thanks), do quests a level or so above yours (what quests are there going to be for me at a later level) or join a skirmish at level 20+.
Skirmishes are a fun way of breaking up combat by going to well known locations and fighting for them. Either you can defend the location from waves of onslaught like Siege of Gondamon or Defence of the Prancing Pony, or you can take the offensive and take your time with skirmishes like Trouble in Tuckborough and Thievery and Mischief. Now skirmishes don't all unlock at level 20 and come as you level which means there is always new content for you to explore.
While levelling it is also recommended you take up a craft or profession so that you can craft yourself gear as an armourer or armsman, make money as an explorer, cook some food as a yeoman, make potions or even colour your armour as a historian.
Yes you heard me, you can colour your own armour for your own personal look, even look like your wearing 1 set of gear and have the stats of other gear. It works well to give you your own feel to the game.
Another level of customisation player housing. Yes, you can buy your own house in-game. However, prepare to pay for that weekly as you buy it once for a large sum but have to pay a smaller sum weekly to keep the house. Now while the house will never be sold to another player just get locked so that you can't use it. Instead it opens up new districts for others to use while leaving your house nice and clean for you to use.
However, with the good comes some bad. The store for one allows you to earn some points for it through deeds which means you can buy more zones to level higher, which is extremely recommended otherwise you WILL get bored very quickly after about level 30 as you finish in Lone Lands.
Some of the trolling and griefing has worked its way into the game from some users on some of the busier servers. But the quieter servers are generally pretty safe. Just don't go to the Bree-lands on Dwarrowdelf and ask a question, you WILL be trolled.
However, all in all, its a very fun game but can get boring from time to time, however that boredom is quite short-lived as you will find something more to do next level every time.