The Lord of the Rings Online Previews
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One neat innovation is the system of accomplishments. While all characters improve as they gain experience, also available are other ways of becoming smarter, stronger or faster that only emerge when you complete a task a certain number of times.
This can be killing lots of one sort of monster - such as spiders - or completing a number of quests in a particular area, or avoiding being beaten in combat.
It felt like a good way to relieve some of the "grind" in other games where the only reward seems to be loot or a tiny step towards the next level.
And the second is at The Houston Chronicle:
This Middle-Earth has been four years in the making and looks it. It's a beautiful world that treats Tolkien's vision with respect and is full of intelligently designed quests and activities.
It also has remarkably few bugs for a beta test. If the live game, scheduled for April 24, goes as well, it could be around for a long time.
