The newbie introductory instance in Lord of the Rings Online ended with me defending the town of Archet while it was under attack. The bad guys were driven off, but not before the town went up in flames. This is a good example of instancing done right. When you exit the instance and enter the game proper, Archet is a burned out town from that point on.

The first few quests are of your standard newbie type. I was sent out to kill diseased boars and a few spiders outside the Archet gates. I was whacking spiders around the Sprigley farm when I discovered their cellar. This is where my memory fails me because I can’t remember if this was in the game during the initial launch. I can only assume that it was.

When I entered the cellar I discovered underground caves full of spiders. I roamed around a bit and eventually came across an elite spider named Iornaith. The room this big spider called home was full of baby spiders but they did not attack me. I engaged Iornaith in battle and was easily victorious.

As it turns out, all of that was wasted time. I made it back to town only to be given a quest that would take me back to the caverns. I was tasked with finding a missing dwarf named Bali, and I found him near a cave entrance that turned out to be the rear entrance to the Sprigley cellar. Bali barely escaped the spiders with his life. His companions were not so lucky. He sent me into the cavern to find his dead companions and retrieve some journal entries from them. The bodies were wrapped in cocoons and were found in various sections of the cave. Once that was done, another quest sent me to kill Iornath, so I went back and slayed the big spider again.

Things have been easy so far. My character has not come close to dying, which is either good or bad, depending on how you look at it.   The Guardian class has been fun so far.

I started up a new character in Lord of the Rings Online just days before the new Leaves of Lorien content was added.  Since part of the expansion includes a “new player experience,” I thought I would go back and see what the differences are.  So, I rolled up another Guardian with the same race and starting area and logged in.  I didn’t see much of a difference.

The introductory instance is exactly the same as before. I did not notice any changes to it whatsoever.  It is still a good way to get started with the game, but where are the changes?

Once out of the starter instance, I arrived in the town of Arhet again. The first few quests are exactly the same as before.  The first difference I noted was when I went to train at the Guardian trainer. I was given a new combat skill and I was told to go over to a training dummy nearby and try it out. This short quest wanted me to take a swipe at the training dummy and then return to my trainer with news of my success.  It was easy enough to accomplish. The training dummies are lined up against a nearby wall, so I ran over, targeted one, and used my new skill on it.

Something else I noticed that I did not remember being there are the marsh flies located around the small lake near the hunter’s cabin. I also found a quest NPC behind the cabin that hired me to go out and slay a few of them.  The reward was some colored dye.  I also found an elite Marsh Fly Queen, and I was surprised that no quests had me run over and take her out. I took her down anyway but it dropped useless loot.

The experience points I gained were maybe a  little higher than before, but not by a huge margin. Everything else seemed to be unchanged.  We’ll see how it goes once I leave the starter instance.

As previously posted, I started up Lord of the Rings Online again.  I decided to start from scratch with a new character and class.  This has been put on a short hold since I learned that the upcoming free expansion called Leaves of Lorien will offer up what they call a “New Player Experience.”  I want to see what all of this is about, so I will hold off leveling up my new guy until this is implemented.  The new expansion is due to go live this Tuesday.

My 17″ Macbook Pro finally arrived and I now have it setup the way I like it.  It has been a long wait, but I can now get back to gaming.  I decided to start with Lord of the Rings Online.  Since LOTRO requires the Windows operating system, I had to setup a dual boot configuration on the Macbook Pro.  I decided to install Windows XP, even though it won’t use all 4GB of RAM that is available to the machine.  The game runs great on high settings at 1920×1200, even though the 9600GT 512MB video card isn’t all that great of a card these days.

I have a level 37 Champion on the Windfola server, but I decided to start fresh, so I rolled up a human Guardian that I named Strongg.  I wanted to try out a class in the game that I had not played yet and Guardian was one of them.  Humans start in the Archet area, so my game introduction had me escaping from a cell and then helping a Ranger named Amdir to rescue some kidnapped hobbits.

Once the introduction is complete, I found myself in the town of Archet, eager to find some quests and get to work.  I didn’t have far to go.  Amdir was wounded in the battle, so I had to help him with defense of the town.  The first few are you typical newbie quests that have you go out and kill wolves and boars so that the town’s sheep are kept safe.  Once those are done, I was sent to a hunter’s lodge where some things needed to be done.  Seeing this lodge brought pangs of nostalgia to my heart because the lodge reminded me of my beloved Everquest’s Surefall Glade and the lodge that can be found there.

One of the farmers outside of Archet had a boar problem that he wanted me to help him with.  A boar named Old Bloodtusk needed to be killed.  I remembered this boar from the time that LOTRO first went live.  There was a line of people waiting to kill this boar and each time he appeared it was a general free-for-all contest.  This time, however, there was not another player in sight and he was waiting for me when I arrived.

After running several other quests, none of which were very challenging, I came to the last quest in the “game introduction” line.  Brigands were attacking Archet and I had to help Amdir defend it.  The town was in flames when I arrived and it was filled with battle.  I worked my way through the town, finally arriving at the final showdown, which culminated in a fight with Eogan, a servant of Angmar who was responsible for all the problems in the area.  I dispatched him with ease and ended the quest line.