Well being a HUGE fan of the books (Originals not the books written based on the movie, yuck. Movies rock, but left out A LOT of the lore as did their books.). I figured why the hell have I not given this game a shot? Always has awesome reviews, tons of content and great graphics and gameplay. Based on what I read I am making a character on Brandywine so if anyone is on there let me know so we can get together. Few questions though; First how is the PvPM in the game? I heard you can level up as the bad guys, how do they stack up to the heroes and do you use your hero when you are good guys or one of the games heroes? And my second question is if I go VIP for $10 a month does this give me access to any of the quest packs and add ons? And if so which ones? I just dont want to go VIP and then need a quest pack asap. Thanks and my name will be Ubiquitus.

If you go VIP you won't need to buy any areas up until around level 50-55, when you'll be ready to move into Moria. Moria was an expansion pack, so you'll need to purchase it if you want to keep questing at that point. Alternately, you could run skirmishes to progress past Moria but I think that would get boring pretty quickly. IMO, Moria is a lot of fun and was the best expansion Turbine released. Definitely worth buying.

Originally posted by Redline65

If you go VIP you won't need to buy any areas up until around level 50-55, when you'll be ready to move into Moria. Moria was an expansion pack, so you'll need to purchase it if you want to keep questing at that point. Alternately, you could run skirmishes to progress past Moria but I think that would get boring pretty quickly. IMO, Moria is a lot of fun and was the best expansion Turbine released. Definitely worth buying.

Right. Keep in mind that you cannot get legendary weapons without the Moria expansion. You can start questing for your legendary at 45, so you would want the Moria expansion at least at that level. 

Originally posted by Valmarill

Originally posted by Redline65

If you go VIP you won't need to buy any areas up until around level 50-55, when you'll be ready to move into Moria. Moria was an expansion pack, so you'll need to purchase it if you want to keep questing at that point. Alternately, you could run skirmishes to progress past Moria but I think that would get boring pretty quickly. IMO, Moria is a lot of fun and was the best expansion Turbine released. Definitely worth buying.

Right. Keep in mind that you cannot get legendary weapons without the Moria expansion. You can start questing for your legendary at 45, so you would want the Moria expansion at least at that level. 

Really? I thought legendary weapons were tied to the epic quest line. Which is free for everybody. I didn't know you needed the Moria expansion for legendary weapons.

Yes, it is tied to the Epic Quest line but you have to have Mines of Moria in order to unlock the weapons:

"How to get your first legendary

  You gain your first legendaries upon completion of the quest chain started in Volume 2, Book 1: The Walls of Moria. This level 50 quest chain can be completed at level 45, but you must have the Mines of Moria expansion to gain access to these powerful weapons and items of old. 

  Just about every quest from level 50 onward will reward you with two kinds of experience the first is the experience that your character uses to gain levels, the second is item experience , this type of experience goes to the legendary items that you have slotted in one of your six legendary slots. You can only have six items slotted at a time unless you purchase additional slots from the Turbine store (up to two additional), and only slotted items that have been identified will gain experience points. "

Fortunately, when I first did the quest chain I had a friend along who knew the in's and out's of this and I was warned way ahead of entering Eregion that I would need the expansion.

I took the text from this site: 

http://roboteyetheater.com/videogames/lotroguide02.html 

Check out this page:

http://lotro.mmorsel.com/2010/09/best-lotro-account-type.html

That site as a whole is really good, and has really good info on all the cash shop features.

EDIT

There is 1 outdate piece of info though.  You can now play as a creep (enemies) in PvMP with a free or premium account.