Played Lately: Lord of the Rings Online

• Once upon a time, I got bored with World of Warcraft and looked for a new game to occupy my time. This happens a lot since I can only start so many alts before the novelty of playing a new class through the old content wears off. This is not a story about me moving to Warhammer Online, though. Instead, this once upon a time is about me joining Lord of the Rings Online. It's also about me canceling LotRO.
• In one of my gaming lulls about five months ago, I decided to give Middle Earth a second try. I had played a little on a free trial account, but didn't connect with the game well enough to subscribe at that time. This time, though, Turbine was offering a 6 month subscription price for $10 a month, so I jumped back into the game to see if I enjoyed it any more.
• I decided to try a Human Champion because I usually play caster classes in games and I wanted to see how a melee heavy class would play. It turned out I had a lot of fun in those opening levels. There were a lot of quests to follow and leveling did not feel like a massive chore. I liked the opening solo instance that introduces you to the world without resorting to teaching you how to play by killing the local wildlife. I ended up spending a fair amount of time working through the opening zone (Bree-land) and had a good time doing it.
• I also enjoyed the crafting system. The recipe rarities and critical successes was a system that I would love to see used in other games. I would have liked to have move flexibility in choosing professions instead of getting two I liked and one I ignored.
• Eventually though, as fun and friendly as that first zone was, it was time to move into the Lone-lands. It was here that my interest in the game died. A combination of unfocused quests along with group quests in a nearly empty zone frustrated me enough to keep me from playing. I eventually completed all the quests at the Forsaken Inn (an awesomely dense quest hub, I will admit) and moved on to the next hub. But as I ran around collecting quests, I found that I wasn't even reading them. I just stacked them up to go over later. I knew then my heart wasn't in it.
• So I've canceled my subscription, even though there's another month left on it. I might poke my head in again to say goodbye to my character, but I doubt I'll stay much longer. There are better games to hold my attention. Turbine, your stupid exit survey was no help in detailing why I was leaving your game so I'm going to spell in out here. I was bored. I'm glad other people are having fun with the game, though. You just didn't fit my needs very well.