LOTRO: Knights of Quarter to Three

So I preordered, but didn’t receive instructions on how to take advantage of the beta for preorder people. I’m reluctant to go down the world tour path for fear of screwing up my preorder beta thingamajiggy. Advice?

Edit: Download is in progress now, and this post explains where Amazon customers can find the key.

Edit: Ended up dumping the torrent (~50k/s) for the LOTRO Downloader (~750k/s) also.

Man, you know, I have nothing to do tonight, so this would be perfect if the download wasn’t going to take another two and a half hours.

I notice from the official site that there’s no magic-using class, or at least no offensive one. Bit weird.

There’s the Loremaster, who plays pretty much like a weak version of the WoW Warlock. But you have to be VERY careful not to describe the class as a magic-user, or the Lore Police will flip out because THERE ARE ONLY FIVE (5) WIZARDS IN ALL OF MIDDLE-EARTH AND YOU CAN’T BE ONE OF THEM!

Lore master has a lot of offensive magic. I’ve gotten fire and wind attacks so far. Plus you get a pet. I love the class so far.

What’s the healer?

Oh I see. When I first looked at it, all I saw was:

A keeper of ancient lore and otherwise lost knowledge, the Lore-master uses his knowledge of the lesser and greater powers of the world around him to stave off the advances of the shadow for a time, and to treat the wounds and suffering of his companions.

And so I immediately thought “healer” and closed the tab.

Anyway, I’ll probably be going for Champion.

Minstrel. Captain and Loremaster can heal a little, but nothing like the Minstrel.

Whoa, I just jumped into the Monster World. Uhh, it looks like you could waste a lot of time in there. A whole other set of quests and character advancement as the bad guys in the Ettenmoors. And it’s all PvP.

-Tom

I’ll tell you what, it would be easier if every game just named the classes the same, since they design them the god damned same anyway.

Alright, it’s done installing, I’ll be a _______ minstrel named Peatickles.

I just created a female hobbit burglar called Aphrodite on Nimrodel. I’ll send a message ingame since you’re not online now. Check a mailbox.

On a related note, I have not preordered, but if I do end up doing so, can I transfer the character I make beforehand? Also, if I don’t preorder but do buy the game and can’t transfer my same character, can I start over with a new character with the same name at least?

Ceoleren, Man Captain. Whee?

Extar, I’m not sure what the limitations are. You’ll have to check that web page, where they probably break it down. But I can’t imagine there would be any obstacle to keep a beta player who wants to keep his character from giving them money.

-Tom

I just rolled a human captain there. Name is Ordaric.

You’d think that, but you’d be wrong:

Does everyone get to carry their characters into Live?

A: Only Founders who activate their Pre-order Product Key prior to launch and activate their Launch Product Key within 30 days after commercial launch can carry their characters over from Open Beta to the live game.

They do have a little two word summary of each class. For instance, for the hunter it says “nuker”, etc.

Actually, I guess that’s not too surprising. You have to pony up the money before the game actually launches. I wonder if they’ll do any sort of free trial thing later.

Is that rare among MMOs? A free trial?

-Tom

I think it’s pretty commonplace. WoW has one, I know.

Finishing up the download and patch process now, should be rolling a toon very soon…