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I've been killing time in LoTRO for a while. I decided that it was interesting enough to subscribe for a three month span and to even invest in the Mines of Moria expansion. The big thing I got from MoM was a couple extra character slots and two more character classes. So basically it's like I bought the slots and classes from the LoTRO store and got the content for free. So I've played a Runekeeper up to lvl 22, my Loremaster got stagnant around lvl 25 and I got my Guardian ( read tank ) to lvl 37. Unfortunately I'm at the point in this game where I have to force myself to log in and take care of a couple daily crafting items and try and advance my characters at least a little bit. My whole MMO enjoyment and got blown out of the water by my most recent MMO interest...

I have participated in the last two "closed" betas of Rift. My first experience, beta 4 I think, I thought it was very WoW like. Different environment, different classes but all-in-all meh. For that trial I played a Defiant cleric and probably didn't pick my starting souls very well and only leveled him to 11. I was very confused with the world and it felt chaotic and I didn't think it was a game for me, though I pledged to re-visit the game with the next beta.

The next beta I switched servers because my first server was filled and had a queue of about 100 people. I started up a warrior this time, again on the Defiant side and felt much less lost in the beginning. Apparently my first run with the cleric I had totally skipped past a quest hub somehow, this time I worked my way through the beginning areas and eventually found the Defiant city of Merdian. Meridian's layout was confusing at first (sense a trend?), but once I learned my way around I found quests to get MORE souls. I knew there were more souls, but I didn't realize you could quest for them. The quests for the souls all involved helping close the rifts that the game is named after. A rift is a tear in space between our world and an elemental plane allowing creatures from that plane to invade the lands of Telara. If the players fail to close rifts the creatures start establishing footholds away from the rift and attacking quest hubs. The rift mechanic was very enjoyable, I found it easy to lose myself in helping to shut down the rifts to save the land and get various planar rewards for doing so. I also discovered "roles", these are like the dual spec in WoW, only there are 4 slots availabe for purchase, though the slots got fairly expensive after the first two. Since I had started my warrior as a tank with Paladin, Warlord and Void Knight souls, I made my second role more DPS oriented with Beastlord, Paragon and Reaver souls. By the end of the week long beta I had leveled my warrior to 20 and was prepared to move out of the first large zone. After they shut down the servers I found myself wishing and hoping they would turn the servers back on so that I could continue my journey. I found the game so much more engaging than the first time and really enjoyed myself.

I did play in beta 6 as well and will post on that soon(ish)