Questions from AC fan about LOTRO

Flipsyde10

I've been a fan of AC, one of the greatest MMO games made IMO.  I have a few questions about the game, if you beta folks could help me out.

1. How is the looting system?  Is there a loot-o-matic random generator, like in AC? 

2. I see that 20% of the game is instances.  How long do these things take?  Are they several hours long, like in WoW?  Do you need huge groups (40 man raids) to do these, or can you go in with 2 or 3 friends?

3. Is the upperworld as explorable as AC?  Meaning, are there meaningful things (new portals, buildings, ruins, quests, etc.) to be found randomly by people wanderering the land?  Or is everything pretty much centered in the cities and visible on the maps, and the only thing in the open space is monsters?

I guess some of these questions, only people that have played AC1 will really be able to answer.  I know there are alot of you, so any imput will be appreciated.

amcyr

Sorry, I never played AC but I'll try to answer your questions.

1. When you create a fellowship (group), the looting is set to round-robin by default, but you can change it to free-for-all or set the looter.

2. I don't think 20% is instanced; I'd say more like 10%. Most instanced quests are short (10-20 minutes) but some (particularly the ones with mazes) can be long (about 2 hours). How many people it takes really depends on your levels versus the level of the quest. I usually duo the instanced quests but some require a larger (5-6) fellowship. Later on ( > level 40) there are raid quests which require a raid group.

3. The world is totally explorable. They have scattered stuff all over the lands, and you get "titles" and "traits" (enhanced abilities) for finding stuff. IMHO, this is one of the most fun parts of LOTRO.