So, you’ve somehow managed to miss every mainstream MMO to come down the pike in the last ten years. You waved to Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, and Everquest as they sailed past. You let the answering machine pickup when Asheron called and somehow, someway, you managed to pretend that $15 a month was too much to ask for World of Warcraft. On the other hand, you’re an unabashed Lord of the Rings freak, and Turbine’s upcoming Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (LotRO) has tugged at your wee hobbit heart. But in a world filled with MMO vets who know the lingo, the mechanics, and which guilds (called kinships in LotRO) have all the cool kids, what’s a freewheeling would-be Hobbit to do? Where do you begin?

First of all, if you’re like me and relatively new to the MMO scene, expect to find everything, and I mean everything, at least a little confusing. This is a big game and not just a little bit convoluted. So when starting out, just about everything from choosing between the game’s distinct character classes to deciphering the core gameplay are going to present a challenge. Don't expect reading this article to change that. You'd need one of those 400 page strategy guides that cost roughly the equivalent of dinner at Shula’s Steakhouse.

The good news is that whether you have any idea of what an “instance” is or not, ultimately, none of that matters. For the uninitiated, LotRO holds your hand through what you absolutely have to know to get by and leaves the rest up to you. And for those whose main goal is just to wander around the green hills of Middle-earth, that’s really just as it should be. There’s plenty of time to figure out the rest.

In Lord of the Rings Online, Turbine has created only a portion of Middle-earth (expect the rest to come in the form of expansions). But before you feel let down that locations like Mordor and Gondor aren’t there, consider that there’s still more than enough here to keep you occupied. What is included is most of the prime locations from Fellowship of the Ring (the book), including the Shire, Bree-land, Rivendell, even the Old Forest. Each location is faithfully rendered, so if you’ve seen the movies, you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect. Only there’s far more of it.

Unfortunately, as compelling as this recreation of Middle-earth can be there are problems. While, personally, I think it fits the setting quite well, some gamers are sure to be turned off by the rather muted color palette. This iteration of Tolkien’s world isn't a bright and shiny one. It’s not ugly – it's just not going to leap off your screen. More problematic is the perceived lack of liveliness. The towns, the forests, the marshes – they all have a look that befits the overall setting, but there's something missing that makes Turbine's creation not feel nearly as "alive" as it could. Non player characters have their assigned places and most of them don't dally much from whatever spot they're rooted to, day or night. That's probably a-okay (maybe even a good thing) in other MMOs, but for the realm of Middle-earth it just doesn't seem right.

In terms of story, the game takes place during the events of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first book of the trilogy. Depending on where you choose to start your journey you will, from time to time, run across characters from the story or at least see references made to them. However, since – for your character - time progresses it can lead to the effect of a major Rings character existing in more than one place at the same time. For example, depending on your progress Aragorn can be found both in Bree-land and in Rivendell. Technically, your character won’t know that, of course, but just knowing that such an anomaly exists may bother some players. Personally, my only concern is that if one Aragorn meets the other, the presence of the two in the same place at the same time may rip apart the very fabric of Middle-earth. That would be bad.

Your place in the world is really what most differentiates this game from World of Warcraft, since it’s obvious that the game mechanics are largely the same. Sure there are quests of the "go kill some wolves for me" and "go find my handkerchief" variety (sadly, I’m not kidding), but, based on my experience, most quests are also all tied into each other, the events you personally witness in the world, and the larger storyline involving Sauron amassing an army to conquer Middle-earth. For example, for players starting out in Bree-land, you first land in the town of Archet and must help deal with its problems with a band of raiders called the Blackwolds. Through the next dozen hours of play, if you follow the logical progression of quests (you don’t have to) nearly every quest you take on has some relation to the problems in Archet, the nearby cities of Combe and Staddle, and beyond.