Really enjoying this, so far. Got my Elf Hunter to level 22. The scenery so far is just amazing. The elf lands are very beautiful, and I was also really impressed with the landscape around Bree and The Shire. I also really love the wardrobe and outfit system. You have your equipment which is like any other MMO, but you can choose to slot other items in your outfit slots, and have those items "show" instead. For instance, instead of just turning a really ugly helmet off, you can equip a really cool looking hat or hood in your "Outfit 1" head slot, and show that item on your character instead. It's kinda like switching gear out in WoW for cosmetic reasons, but you actually keep the stats of whatever's in your equipment tab. Pretty cool for those of us that are a bit more fashion conscious, heh.
The quests are pretty fun, especially the "Epic" quest-line, which basically has you helping out the Ring-bearer or the Fellowship, in a behind the scenes sorta way. You may not actually interact with them, but you stopped a nearby patrol of orcs that was very close to discovering their position, or something like that. It's pretty cool, and sometimes, you do get to actually met people like Aragorn and Gandalf.
The best part, for me, though, has been the music. Not the in-game music, but playing our own instruments. All classes can play at least one of the basic instruments, such as a lute, or a flute. And only the minstrel can play them all. Once you equip your instrument, you type /music, and you can use your hotkeys to play notes. Or you can go somewhere like
www.thefatlute.com, and download songs that have been composed/converted to ABC format. Once you save these files in your music folder, you can play them in-game by typing
/play <songtitle>. The best part is, that some songs have multiple parts for different instruments, so you can literally play them together as a band, with the
/play <songtitle> sync command. I heard a trio of musicians playing the Star Wars cantina music the other day. Heh, Very cool stuff.
As far as the F2P stuff, you should have enough Turbine Points saved up by your early 20's to purchase the Lone Lands quest pack, which should easily get you into your 30's. Also, don't forget that Turbine Points are account wide, so you can grind them with multiple characters. However, I ended up liking the game so much that I subscribed anyway. I'm just really having a blast with it so far.
Here's a few screenshots (spoilered for size):
My lowbie hunter in the elf starting area
Some of the lands surrounding Bree
A nice night-time shot of some hobbit holes
A familiar face
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