I'm a Pony-Owner!

That sounds odd, I realize this after the fact. But I'm too lazy to go erase the title, so deal with it for me.

The night before last I hit 35 thanks to my grand friend Talnithor. And last night, I did what is perhaps the most boring series of quests in LotRO. It's capped off with a fun one, but in my book they could have just used the last quest and skipped the previous three in the series.

You see, in LotRO leveling to 35 is not the only requirement to need to fulfill to attain your mount. You need 4 gold and 220 silver, and you also need to run a few errands for a horse-breeder north of Bree. By errands, I mean that in order to get your mount you need to first take a mount and run it south a few minutes to Bree's stables. Then you head back to the horse-breeder and run another out to Michel Delving. Then you head BACK to the horse-breeder and run one final one to Othrikar in the North Downs. It's not difficult, it's just boring. It's meant to "teach" you how to use your mount, as if running the same way you have been for 35 levels but from a higher vantage point needed 15-20 minutes of running on roads to sink in.

In all honesty the final quest in the chain is all I think is needed in order to "show your quality" and be allowed to purchase a mount. After ferrying all 3 horsies out to their respective stables, you then have to run the course around the horse-fields north of Bree in about 2 minutes. To make things more interesting, you have to go through each of the twelve checkpoints, not go through the water placed along the paths, and jump over obstacles while you're at it.

I was not familiar with the course, nor did I know that jumping from a high point would knock me off the horse, so I had to try the course 3 times. After those 3 long ass taxi runs, I just wanted my mount. I learned nothing about "riding a mount" from the 1st three delivery quests, but I learned plenty about what a mount can and cannot do from the race around the fields.

Oh well, I got my Bay pony and that's all that matters. It makes travelling a hell of a lot less tedious, though I still take the stables from zone to zone, as it's still more efficient and faster. The mount is simply very helpful in the fact that it makes heading from place to place within a zone much easier on the player. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that they should enable them for level 30 players or even level 20 players, maybe scaled down a bit in speed. One of the worst parts of LotRO for me is all the running, this mount makes it much easier to bear, and I wish I would have been privy to it sooner.

Now? It's time to head to Evendim and start doing some quests. That level 40-ish wall is still a ways off. :)