Lord Of The Rings Online: LOTRO Impressions from San Francisco

From the official site:

On Thursday, November 2nd, Midway held an exclusive LOTRO LAN-party for members of the press at the Metreon in San Francisco. Below are links to articles from the event:

MMORPG.com: Hands-On: First 10 Levels
"Turbine demonstrated complete confidence in the quality of their product when they hosted a press event in San Francisco, CA last week. Typically, companies invite the gaming press by for a speech, a disk full of assets, a round of interviews and a few brief minutes playing the game. Turbine cast off that trend when they simply opened a room full of terminals in the downtown Metreon and let us play as long as we wished..."

IGN: The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar Hands-on
"...After exploring the world and adventuring for a couple of hours we're satisfied with the pace of the action and how many quests were available right from the start. If Turbine can fill the rest of the world with as many things to do, players should be happy..."

GameSpot: Hands-On Impressions - Early Levels, High-Level Content, Story Elements
"The developer is hard at work creating a densely packed world full of quests (more than 1,300), characters to meet, and interesting, authentic locations to explore. The game will take place during the "Third Age," the same time frame in which the events of the Lord of the Rings novels unfold, so you can expect to meet with key characters like Gandalf and Aragorn and fight alongside them in the War of the Ring..."

GamersInfo.net: Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar
"The environment changes as the day goes on. The 24 hour cycle spans about 3 hours in real time, and there will be some enemies you'll find only at night. The enemies can also interact with each other and have some unique behaviors. NPCs will have their own schedule which gives the world a sense that it's alive instead of having NPCs stand there 24/7. The detail that went into the game is amazing..."

LotroSource: LOTRO Preview
"The fact that seven hours felt like one is a testament to how much fun this game is. Fans of Tolkien's works should find many aspects of the main story arc intriguing as they brush upon the edges of Frodo's quest. Main characters are where they should be at the times they should be there..."