LotRO follow up and trade skill talk

Alright. So the below post was a quickie review about Lord of the Rings Online. I had been playing for a few days but had not gotten to far. Now, I have myself a couple of characters and have become deeply interested in keeping my guys up-to-level-equipped with the trade skills. I have 3 characters, all capable of making the tier 2 weapons/armor for each class. I only bring this up because of a single reason.

I never really got into trade skills before. I ignored them in EQ, MxO and there was no trade skills in CoH. I did, for one character, get into the trade skills in WoW but got burnt out before I maxed leather working on my rogue.

LotRO has a very simple, clean and effective trade skill system. While in WoW you can pick two trade skills, mostly a gathering and production skill, LotRO has a very different set of skills. You pick a profession and with in that profession, there are three trade skills. Generally, you get one "production" skill, a gathering skill and something else. But you are always lacking at least ONE major component to the crafting aspect. Only tailoring and weapon smithing does not require you to have a secondary character to provide, or produce, the needed items to craft. Armor crafting and wood working all require crafted materials from another trade skill that you are not capable of making. While its fairly simple to throw together an alt, and the classes and starting areas are different enough to make having 3 or 4 before getting bored, the economy is so limited, its hard to buy the items you need.

I have noticed, though, that on the unoffical RP server, where I play, that people are generally nice. There are your d00ds that ruin shit for everyone but they are limited.

Example. There other night I could not sleep so I jumped on my champion to get him up to 20 so he could use heavy armor, a bow and become a bad motherfucker. While I was running around farming copper and tin, some random dude in Bree offered a free purple weapon, which I could use, and I took him up on it. After a few minutes after being given the weapon, instead of buying it for 30 silver, the guy sends me a tell and offers to craft me up two fine steel long swords. Now, the "fine" series of crafting is a one shot only item. You can't learn it and keep making them and they normally require some rare item from an elite/rare mob. This guy, who was 50, made me two of them. Now, the "fine" series of stuff always sells for 100+ silver in the AH. He gave me two, saved me 300 silver and a pair of weapon that would last me 6 levels easy. That shit don't happen in WoW.

So, again. Get the trial. Enjoy the game. Its a vastly different gaming world than WoW or EQ. Its a strange mix of each with its own flavor. One that is starting to grow on me.