Out of every 100 men, 10 should not be there, 80 are nothing but targets, 9 are the real fighters. Ah, but one, ONE of them is a warrior, and he will bring the others home. -Heraclitus 500BC
From the little time I got to play this will be a very good game for casual players. I only got to lvl 15 but even the bigger storyline(instanced) quests that require a fellowship to complete didn't take much more than 30-45min to get a group together AND run them, and they were still pretty darn fun.
There were also some really cool open world quests that had some pretty heavy spawn rates, so that when you got to the quest location there would already be people fighting there, but still enough spawns for you, and it gave a wonderful feeling of being in some grand running battle.
Also as other people said you can grind mobs, but not just for xp and loot, you gain titles you can display to the world, as well as gain various traits that boost stats or grant special abilities. For instance I mainly played an Elven Guardian(the tank class) I spent a good amount of time killing goblins, first I got a title(Sorry I can't remember the names of any of these off hand), then I got normal trait, and then I got an Elven racial trait that allowed me to go stealthy as the burgalar class can, about once an hour. Stealthy tank ftw, thats what I always say :P
I didn't play with crafting very much, but it seems like that would be a good way to kill time here and there as well.
The existing world seems like there is more than enough for a casual player to explore for quite some time. During the stress test weekend I had the fortune of my wife working, Friday off, and my daughter being at Grandma and Grandpa's so I played probably a good 36+ hours that weekend probably a good 15-20 hours of that was on my guardian and had just left Ered Luin to explore elsewhere like the Shire and Bree. Normally due to my schedual 20 hours of play time would have taken about 2-4 weeks. It seemed like It would take me a good long time to run through all the content that is there especially since things tend slow down at higher levels.
Gamespy has an article on how the monster play actually plays. Rather than the usual "monster play is not pvp" or not real pvp argument you can check it out.
As far as Pvp goes in Lotr if you are the "i want to kill everyone whenever i want" type its probably not for you. If you prefer to have an actual reason for Pvp you may like it, If you don't want to pvp at all you'll be happy as well until you hit 50 and actually go to the pvp zones.
Comments
Out of every 100 men, 10 should not be there,
80 are nothing but targets, 9 are the real fighters.
Ah, but one, ONE of them is a warrior,
and he will bring the others home.
-Heraclitus 500BC
There were also some really cool open world quests that had some pretty heavy spawn rates, so that when you got to the quest location there would already be people fighting there, but still enough spawns for you, and it gave a wonderful feeling of being in some grand running battle.
Also as other people said you can grind mobs, but not just for xp and loot, you gain titles you can display to the world, as well as gain various traits that boost stats or grant special abilities. For instance I mainly played an Elven Guardian(the tank class) I spent a good amount of time killing goblins, first I got a title(Sorry I can't remember the names of any of these off hand), then I got normal trait, and then I got an Elven racial trait that allowed me to go stealthy as the burgalar class can, about once an hour. Stealthy tank ftw, thats what I always say :P
I didn't play with crafting very much, but it seems like that would be a good way to kill time here and there as well.
The existing world seems like there is more than enough for a casual player to explore for quite some time. During the stress test weekend I had the fortune of my wife working, Friday off, and my daughter being at Grandma and Grandpa's so I played probably a good 36+ hours that weekend probably a good 15-20 hours of that was on my guardian and had just left Ered Luin to explore elsewhere like the Shire and Bree. Normally due to my schedual 20 hours of play time would have taken about 2-4 weeks. It seemed like It would take me a good long time to run through all the content that is there especially since things tend slow down at higher levels.
Hope that helps some.
Gamespy has an article on how the monster play actually plays. Rather than the usual "monster play is not pvp" or not real pvp argument you can check it out.
As far as Pvp goes in Lotr if you are the "i want to kill everyone whenever i want" type its probably not for you. If you prefer to have an actual reason for Pvp you may like it, If you don't want to pvp at all you'll be happy as well until you hit 50 and actually go to the pvp zones.
Take a look:
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/lord-of-the-rings-online-shadows-of-angmar/769129p1.html