It's funny - I generalyl HATE PvP - I've never playing a game where PvP was fun or exciting to me, because quite frankly, I'm a casual player who doesn't have the time to get all the best gear and uuber skillz to realyl compete in 'real' PvP.  What Turbine did with monster play is actually brilliant IMHO, because I don't have to get the uuber gear or grind the same raid quest for 3 weeks to get the 'leet dagger of stabbyness' in order to compete with everyone else - I can level to 10, jump into a level 50 warg, and go and have fun and be effective in PvP right away.  It's the very best PvP system I've ever seen for more causal players who might not normally bother with the PvP aspect of the game. 

That being said, you can level up your PVP Freep, make sure you have the uuber gear and skills, and have a damn good time in PvP that way too, because you're always going to be outnumbered by the Creeps, so it really IS a challenge, it really IS about teamwork and skill at that point.  It really is a refreshing and fun system - unless all you want to do is gank noobs and grief players, and then, thankfully, LOTRO is not for you.

"From what I have seen so far, I am not at the moment going to Pre-Order - but I ahve a while to change my mind "

The only way you could be playing now is if you had pre-ordered already, and the comment about the graphics being like AC2 makes me wonder if you had ever played EITHER game, since there are no similarities whatsoever - not even CLOSE.  Really, that makes this whole post sound like just another Turbine hater spreading more BS.  Why do you people even bother, do you really have nothing better to do with your life then to come spam lame BS about games you aren't even playing?

I think you might have missed something - I had a blast, and it was amazing fighting dragons (sorry - 'drakes') and huge trolls all night.  TO me, it just showed how truly amazing this game can really be, and made me look forward to Friday even more!!!  It was the best 'end of world' event I've ever seen!

I can add my favorites:

Burglar Pros

• stealth at level 4
• Dual-wield at level 10 - decent damage output
• very fun/active to play, lots of great animations and very variable tactics
• Start group attacks ('conjunctions') to add damage, etc...
• 'tricks' are some of the most fun and creative buffs and debuffs I've ever seen

Burglar Cons

• Can't take too much damage
• seem to be pretty power-hungry with some tactics

Loremaster Pros

• 'Mage' styled class
• fun pet class - pet abilities can augment and enhance your normal abilities
• Lots of different 'spells' and debuffs to suit both solo and group play
• seem to have some of the best 'legendary' talents for end game
• best crowd control in game, multiple roots/stuns/dazes. 

Loremaster Cons

• Lowest armor in the game, makes aggro management very important
• Not 'really' a mage class - more like 'mage lite', not a nuker
• limited weapons options (you can only use staff - I was hoping for sword at some point, ala Gandalf with Glamdring)

Originally posted by Kyleran

Shame we can only work on one character though.....

I can see myself leveling up multiple alts simultaneously.... oh well, grateful we can keep at least one into opening day...

The graphics are breathtaking, especially if you're a big LOTR fan seeing Hobbiton up close was just surreal to me, it was like they plucked it right our of my head....)

Character creation is decent, but pretty standard, nothing really groundbreaking there (but do you really need ground breaking there?)

The main 'healer' is the Minstrel, who is a great class, but remember - in this game there is no 'healing', it's all based on Morale (a minor distinction, true, but anyway...) - Captain and Lore Master can also do some 'healing'/morale regen....

As for your friend - Hunter and Champion both do great DPS, hunter is more ranged (obviously) and could actually be compared to a mage/nuker type class, plus traps for crowd control.  Champion is just a dual-wield DPS machine, and with a minstrel or even captain backing him up, is a very formidable class.

Originally posted by DevotedBoy
The game play, user interface and quests all scream WoW to me.. the one thing they have that WoW doesn't is Gandolf stars in a few Quests.

It makes me sad to see a good storyline like this be sucked into the WoW persona like so many others games :(

And WoW's interface was basically a clone of AC2 back in the day, so it looks like it's finally come full circle...  LOTRO is nothing at all like WoW, though, it really isn't.

Originally posted by Molarean
Just to clarify you can only carry one character over from open beta to release.

Something similar happened to me with WoW because of a fonts pack I had installed - try deleting that font from your fonts folder then re-installing, that fixed it for me.