Rise of Isengard has been out for a few weeks now so I thought I'd share my thoughts on it so far.
First, a bit of background. I've been playing Lord of the Rings Online since launch and I played regularly for the first couple of years. I moved to Sydney around the time I hit the original level cap of 50, and since most of my kinmates were also on the east coast it was easy for me to group up for end-game content. Around the time Siege of Mirkwood came out I moved back to Perth, which made the timezones more difficult. And a large chunk of the kin moved to a more raid-oriented kin, which didn't really interest me. So while I still played regularly, it was mostly solo.
Last year I was in the beta for Free to Play, and I tested a lot. I ran a few characters through the new introduction. I did every new solo quest in Enedwaith, as well as grinding out rep and deeds. It was a lot of fun, but by the time the content launched on live I didn't feel like doing it all again, so I pretty much just ran through the epic on my main. Since then, I've played intermittently, mainly on my alts. But I've decided to return to regular play with Rise of Isengard.
I'm not rushing things; I think one of the reasons I stopped playing regularly is that I like levelling, and my main had been stuck at the level cap. I'm still not playing as much as I did at my peak, since I'm still playing Lord of Ultima and Glitch and if I played all three I would have no time for anything else. I'm still dipping into my alts every so often, but I'm mainly concentrating on Snowdrop.
So far I've covered Northern Dunland, that is, Trum Dreng, Bonevales, Pren Gwydh/Galtrev and Tal Methedras, and that's taken me from the start of level 65 to the start of level 69 (I had rest XP the whole time).
The epic quest so far pretty much feels like a series of vector quests through Dunland. So Chapter 2 takes you to either Trum Dreng or Bonevales (depending on the choice you make in Chapter 1), Chapter 3 takes you to Pren Gwydh/Galtrev, and Chapter 6 takes you to Tal Methedras. For the most part you have a choice in each area of how many side quests you do before you move on, although Chapter 7 required doing 10 side quests. I don't think it was made clear enough, though, that in places like Trum Dreng you can move on with the epic quest and then come back to the side quests later.
Trum Dreng had a nice series of quests (mostly level 66) that really took advantage of the new phasing technology (so the appearance of the village and the villagers changed significantly based on where in the story I was up to), and introduced two of the Dunland clans.
I didn't enjoy Bonevales (also level 66) quite as much. Part of that's because I'm not that fond of wights, but I also found the large number of low impassables in this area a pain, and the story line didn't seem related to the rest of Dunland as far as I can tell (although I suppose it's more connected to the Lich Bluffs in Enedwaith).
Galtrev and Pren Gwydh (mostly level 67) had a couple of nice quest lines - I particularly enjoyed the story of Rook, who attempts to be like Saruman and fails miserably - and introduced another two clans. Overall it wasn't as cohesive as the other areas though, making me much more aware that the actual quests were the same old kill x of these, collect y of those.
Tal Methedras was unlike the other areas in that the 'side quests' (level 68) were required in order to progress in the epic storyline. There was a decent variety of quests here, including the amusing plight of the rangers who have been recruited for the same kind of tasks as the players, and an intriguing set of footprints that make me think Gollum has been this way...
Overall it's been a solid set of quests so far. I'm a little worried about how few quests there are for the number of levels they need to span. I've been doing every quest available and by the time I hit level 69, the only level 68 quest I had left was the epic, even with rest XP giving me a bit of a boost. If I'd known it was going to be this tight I might have spent a level doing quests I'd skipped in Enedwaith and Mirkwood. I think the intent is that you don't go to Dunland until level 66, since there are only a couple of level 65 quests in the mix, and I'm sure for new characters coming up it will work out that way. But since it's been almost 2 years since a boost in the level cap, there were a lot of people who were at level cap and up to date with their epics. Though, when I think back, at launch there weren't enough quests to get from 1 to 50 solo, so I guess it's just something we're expected to deal with.
As far as class changes go, burg seems much the same for soloing as it did a couple of years ago. As I approach max level I'll probably need to do some research into the best gear balance and brush up on some of the skills, but I don't think there's anything either particularly exciting or concerning.
Minis, on the other hand, have had some major changes. It will take me a bit to get my head around the new system of ballads and anthems, but I never really invested a lot of time in learning to play a mini in the past, and never did any end-game content as a mini, so I'm happy to do a bit of learning.
The new crafting tier is going along nicely so far. I've reached proficiency in Tier 7 Prospector but not yet Tier 7 Jeweller, so I don't know yet what the critted gear will look like, but the level 70 Dunland rep recipes and the level 75 guild recipes look nice even without crits.
I'm looking forward to seeing how the next 6 levels pan out.
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