Lord of the Rings Online MMO News, Guides, and Features at Ten Ton Hammer

When it comes to dungeon crawling, I can't get enough and I was intrigued when I heard that Turbine was releasing a Mines of Moria expansion for Lord of the Rings Online. Unfortunately, I joined the party late in the game, but I finally grabbed the title this past weekend and have to admit I've been pleasantly surprised.

Look Ma, I'm smoking!

Since I couldn't play any type of evil character, I decided to play a grizzled, stocky dwarf. Looking through the classes, I realized I had to play a Rune-keeper. Sure some of the other races can play the class as well, but honestly, they're nothing but posers no matter how they try to argue it. Dwarves are the caretakers and shapers of the earth itself, so if I had to play a good guy, there was no way I could go with someone that was short-lived (weak humans), frilly (yeah, that's you elves), and weighs less than fifty pounds soaking wet (start bulking up hobbits!). The character customization process was reasonably fleshed out, enough so that I didn't feel gypped when I hit the Create Character button. Thus, Dalmarus, Rune-keeper of the Blue Mountains, was born.

From the moment I stepped into the game, it was obvious the development team wanted you to immediately feel as though you were an important and integral part of the land. Upon character creation, you're dropped into a small instance to learn some of the basic mechanics of the game. Within the first ten minutes of playing, I could easily see the team had taken great care to avoid a number of mistakes made by other companies in the past.

Normally, I absolutely hate escort quests. Why? Because invariably the NPC you're supposed to be following is a complete moron when it comes to keeping themselves alive. They'll rush ahead, lag behind, and never quit for breaks. This couldn't be further from the truth in the Dwarven initial instance. On top of being smart enough to keep up with you and go at a pace that wasn't too fast and wasn't too slow, this NPC could actually fight. He wasn't just an extra pet that was there with the sole intention of soaking up damage waiting for you to finish beating the mob down. On one occasion, he actually saved my hide while I was trying to figure out what one of my skills did. It was an amazing feeling.

My favorite parts of the instance though were the breaks my companion would take. Rather than just standing there for a minute, he'd tell me a very brief story, or say how he was out of practice and needed to sit down for a rest. I know it sounds like really small touches, but like they say, the devil is in the details. By combining so many small (but important) touches, the team succeeded in bringing you into the world (and thus the game) more quickly than virtually any other game I can think of right now.