Exploring Esteldin
stargrace 
This weekend was another welcome back weekend for the Lord of the Rings Online, and while I don’t write about the game all that much – I do still have an active subscription, and every so often manage to find the time to log into game and play. I teamed up with a friend who plays a Champion (in both class and personality of course!) and we were off. My minstrel managed to nudge into level 29 and I started getting all excited about the fact that I may actually reach level 30 some day. Leveling has been slow for me, understandable since I play so rarely.
We both also headed back to Bree to pick up our level 20 mounts that we had never purchased. These cost 200 silver, which is not an issue any more. The mounts may be termed “slow” but anything that is faster then walking is pretty fast in my books. We had a blast running around chasing random mobs while mounted, and of course the ability to name them is neat. One more little thing to make the game feel more personal, which is something I always really enjoy.
We have been neglecting our chapter quests lately in order to quest down the smaller chains which is great for gear and money. I am sure we’ll get back to it before too long but it’s really nice to have an option of what to do.
Crafting. There were so many ore nodes to mine around Esteldin it was fantastic. Of course now my bags are full of the stuff and I need to actually work on the next step which is using all of it. Not to mention the spring festival is going on right now and I haven’t even looked into it yet. There’s just so much to do, it’s great.