I played some Lord of the Rings Online together with my husband for the first time in years on Sunday evening. It was quite a hiatus since we last played these two Hobbits together (my Warden and his Minstrel). Syp’s post yesterday on which LOTRO alts he’d play given enough time chimed nicely with my return to a beloved, if sorely neglected character.
Tanking time little Hobbit!
Technically this alt hasn’t been as ignored as many of my others since he’s currently my equal 1st most skilled crafter with Anórien tier weaponsmithing (tier 10 of 12), tied with my cook alt. He was stuck wearing the Stone of the Tortoise for years to keep his crafting activities from leveling him beyond his static partner.
Otherwise I’ve levelled a gaggle of other alts through the starter zones to try out other classes’ mechanics and to get started on other crafting professions. I started a Dwarven Runekeeper as a I wanted a healer for group fun with a guild. He did get some healer action but low level instances weren’t that popular and that idea withered at the time as I was focused on taking my main through Mordor.
I have a level dinged Captain that I’d love to catch-up to my main as a more solo-friendly character for more difficult content and as a more flexible guild character since Captains are full hybrids (i.e. can be tank, healer or dps). So far I’ve failed to connect with her though, as learning 95 levels worth of abilities isn’t easy in later content and I haven’t yet broken through my feelings of guilt over potentially replacing my faithful Champion as my main.
Otherwise I have an Elven Minstrel (the Anórien cook mentioned above) also in the 20s that I love the play stylings of but haven’t for whatever reason taken higher. There is also a Dwarven Hunter, Elven Guardian and Elven Lore-master in the teens level-wise that I would happily play if I could only conjure more free-time. That’s really the ultimate point of this post, the class variety and design of LOTRO has always impressed me. LOTRO is such a lore-constrained game with very mundane abilities: no conjured black holes here, even magic is more subtle. Despite this the character classes feel and look distinct to play, quite a feat in a relatively old game. It’s because of this strength that I always feel tempted to log back into one of these alts just to get a few levels more.
GamingSF 