Lord Of The Rings Online: Beta Journal Wednesday: January 24, 2007

For today's Beta Journal, the question was asked our Beta Program participants to talk about their experience with the crafting systems in LOTRO.

At game's beginning I said to myself, "I'm going to just run quests and kill some baddies...level up as fast I can; forget about crafting".

Well, as luck would have it, an early quest led me to a crafting center. While at the crafting center, I couldn't help but be amazed by the number of people in the area doing crafting at the time and how neat it looked to see so many people pounding away at things with hammers, sewing things and cooking. So, having been sucked into the crafting center at that moment, I decided to talk to the master of apprentices to check out the different professions available. The Explorer profession caught my attention.

It was first the name "Explorer" that got me... who'd have thought that exploration was a crafting profession? Intrigued as I was, I decided to take up the profession, which included prospecting, forestry and tailoring. Before I knew it, I was out mining copper and tin that I happened across in my journeys, as well as cutting Rowan branches into nice even pieces. Also, the hides that I would collect so often from the various malicious creatures around the world as I went on quests and killing sprees would prove to come in handy as well.

Whenever I'd make a routine stop at a major town to unload certain things and pick up certain others, I'd make a stop at the different crafting stations to tan my hides, smelt my freshly mined ores and even use my newly tanned hides to craft some fairly useful light and medium armor. I was fully immersed in the crafting system after my first stop at the crafting utilities, and I hadn't even planned on doing any crafting!

The thing that I enjoyed most about the Explorer profession was that it lived up to its name... as an Explorer, you really do need to explore... And in all likelihood, you are going to be exploring anyways as you play the game. You don't have to go far out of your way to craft with this profession, which, for someone used to completing tasks and slaying the foes of good, ends up being a good thing since you can still go out and slay your foes and complete your quests, and if you just happen to trip over an ash branch and fall face-first into some silver ore, it's a good thing!