Yes, I know its technically Thursday. QQ

The Gamestop gift card I had burning a hole in my pocket finally got used when I picked up a copy of Dawn of War 2. I am a huge Warhammer 40k fan, and even with all the success Dawn of War 1 had, I only played a small bit of its campaign and never picked up the second and third expansions. This is simply because working with RTS all day, sort of burned me out on playing them at home.

Yet something about DoW2 grabbed me, when I heard about the inclusion of quasi RPG elements, and a non-linear campaign. I was intrigued enough to pick it up, and thus far I am happy I did. Of course I am only a few “days” into the campaign, but I already love the loot gathering, xp gaining, and skill assigning. Looks to me as if there is plenty for me to play in just the campaign.

Of course the main reason I have not played more of DoW2 is that I am I still finding Lotro compelling. I have two characters I have been leveling up; a hunter and a champion. Though lately I have been working more to level up their trade skills, rather than just class level.

I am really, really liking the crafting thus far. A few reasons why:

The tier + mastery system.

You craft X number of items in a tier and the next tier unlocks; standard system there. But once you have unlocked a new tier, if you craft Y more items in the previous teir you can “master” that tier. This allows you the chance to have a critical success when you craft, which will create a better version of the item, or more of the component you were making. Yes this does mean you will probably churn out a bunch of items just to skill up, but for I feel the reward for doing so is worth my time.

Auto gained vs acquired recipes.
Another thing they do is auto grant you some recipes when you unlock a new tier, but there are other recipes for each tier you can acquire from merchants and as loot. These items seem to always be better than the standard items, but cost more resources to make and provide more skill points. They function great as rewards but ,at least at my level, they are not required for leveling up a trade skill.

Slight dependencies
Characters alone generally can not not craft everything they have access to or can no use all the items they gather because of the dependencies built into the system. Though by leveling two characters they can supplement each other while also helping provide my friends with raw materials that I can not use. These sorts of systems encourage a player driven market, which seems to be thriving in Lotro.

I am not sure how long the game will keep me interested, but for now I am really interested in continuing my adventures.