More LOTRO

     Playing a little more LOTRO this week. After my post last week I discovered that if I went into the graphics options and optimized the settings the game got much prettier. I feel very silly for not having considered this earlier. And though the character models still aren't as impressive as Aion or Rift's... well with views like the one above I can't say it's not a gorgeous game.
     I've had a busy week. Broke down and decided I wanted alts and wanted to use the Auction House so I dropped a bit of cash for the Samwise Gamgee Starter Pack that gives all the alts riding and a horse and upgrades the account to premium to get rid of currency limits and suchlike. It also gave me a third slot on each server which was promptly filled but there will be a post on that later. The first thing I did after that was level Mistelir (the original hunter. I've decided he's Sadrondir's little brother) the rest of the way through the tutorial and decide on a profession for him.

     And one of the people in my Kinship gave me some gold and a quick tour of housing and festival grounds. (How are people so wonderfully kind in this game? It's not that there aren't nice people in other games but I've never had quite so much welcome and affection in any other game.) The Spring festival hit the next day and my Rift plans went out the window as Sadrondir ran around hastily saving up holiday currency for horses. Because what else would one spend it on, really? Though now he's picked out an outfit he wants too. More leaf gathering tomorrow.
     He has been able to acquire the two holiday horses that take leaves to get and the one that requires flowers (and hasn't been screenshotted yet.) And then finally I gave in yesterday and let him buy a house! 6 Haven Way, Celeth Gelais.

     Here he is one of the new horses in front of the house. It's got a few decorations inside but I'll want to do more as I can. It's not quite as customizable as I'd hoped, not quite like Rift's Dimensions are, but I can put in music and that was the first thing I did. :D

     And on the second spring horse, galloping off to pick flowers to buy the third. And since he's decided on an outfit for sure it looks like I'll be playing the festival at least one more day before it's done. He wants to learn dances too after all.
     But horse and houses aside one of the most exciting things that happened was when today in the hedge maze I saw Danania ! I'd just added her blog to my blog roll and then I saw her. I waved in passing and she was nice enough to whisper and chat with me and then wave again as we passed each other in the process of getting lost. She was nice, of course. I haven't run into anybody in game yet who wasn't.