Legendary Server Experience

Thanks to the gift of Bizinga's two-month VIP, I've spent a lot of time checking out all the perks that come with it. One of them is having access to the legendary servers Anor and Ithil. Now, SSG did their best explaining what is included on Legendary Servers. And thankfully it isn't like World of Warcraft's Classic servers where they left in all those "non-bugs". Although the wiki shows what you can obtain including frames on all characters on the account, it doesn't exactly explain how to get them. There are also a lot of things they don't explain until you make a character. So let me weave you a story of my time getting to the first frame and why I don't think I will be continuing.

Anor is the first server and has the bulk of players. This means that there are more serious and aggressive players like on Arkenstone while having a larger population. So I decided to go with Ithil. I named my character Bomani simply because someone already claimed that name on Landroval (Play on words - Mo' Money). I chose a hunter simply because it is the fastest with its range attacks and has the perks of +15% Find the Path and Wayfaring.

The rules before starting the experiment were the following:

Get to level 20 as quickly and carefully as possible without using any guides for the Undying title.
Skip all cutscenes and quest texts.
Make use of all enhancements: +10% run speed, +100% experience, +5% Attack, Enhanced XP, 24-hour Rental Horse
Skip all auxilary activities like crafting, fishing, outfits

The main idea was to see what differences there were and how difficult it is for a new player. My results didn't come out as I expected.

First Hour (0:00 - 1:00)

The first 60 minutes were spent going through the introduction. There is a very brief Skip Tutorial User Controls box at the bottom of the screen when creating the character. I chose to keep this marked as a first-time character. I don't own High Elves, Stout-Axe Dwarves, Beornings, Wardens, or Rune-keepers. Good old fashion F2P here. The prelude is probably 10 minutes at most.
You enter your introductory area. Still kind of odd being told to go to your trainer to learn an ability when you automatically learn it now. Things get pretty standard with your quests afterwards.
You do start out with a handful of VIP Enhanced XP.
In my case I had the Token of the Hornburg (+25% Experience Gain on Monster Kills and Crafting).
I noticed that the Marsh-fly Queen drops a item for a quest that stated Now restored on Legendary servers at the bottom which was weird to see since maybe they should include all quests on all servers. I'm not the only one to notice this.
They still have the quest that gives you 10 lotro points and tells you to use them for Battered Horn of Disruption that you get roughly at level 5 and is only good until level 8.
No time to rest on the bedroll and see that awesome new sequence added after Riders of Rohan Signs and Portents.

90 Minutes In (1:00 - 1:30)

I left the introductory area at around level 6 and leveled to 8.
Noticed the Story Pace (You are earning 60% of experience gains from Monster kills, crafting, quests) which is a fancy way of saying you get -40% experience of what you normally get on normal servers.
You don't get your gift box until completing the introductory area but you get a new box every level from 5 to 10.
And if you don't open that gift box immediately and use that Letter of Commendation, you won't get the quest A Message of Thanks to get 5 Tokens of Salutation to use on that barterer right in front of you and miss out on A Novice's Mark (which would have replaced my xp pocket item)
Of course the box also gives you a 24-hour Rental Horse that immediately makes you panic on doing the whole area immediately.
If you aren't reading the quest texts, you will miss out on how to craft or equip outfits.
I had access to 5 Tomes of Continuing Experience (+100% XP) from the Steely Dawn Starter Pack and promptly used one.
Bingo Boffin quests and the Epic provided me with a lot more initial experience than I anticipated.

2 Hours In (1:30 - 2:00)

Leveled from 8 to 10.
I had assumed task items would have awarded you Boaty McBoatface loads of experience. No! I got a total of like 30 experience by the time I had 10 to turn into the task board. There isn't even a task board in Michel Delving. You have to either visit a neighborhood or go to Hobbiton.
Don't ever visit the Michel Delving Vendor Hall. I'm telling you that place is cursed and will cause your client to hang. I think I waited a couple minutes before having to restart my client. I seem to remember a time with my previous character that it did the same thing.
I immediately noticed a problem with my bow. There aren't hardly any quests that reward a bow. You have to visit the Bowyer at nearly every town and buy a new one. The basic level 8 bow is better than your flimsy introductory bow. A level 11 bow can be obtained at Bywater. Bree's Bowyer starts at level 17. I can't buy one with 4 marks (which I will also have to obtain) from the Skirmish Camp until level 20.

Third Hour (2:00 - 3:00)

Had to refresh all my hourly buffs. Went from 10 to 14.
I did manage to obtain my hunter's Find the Path (+15% run speed) at level 12.
The Epic's Prologue might be a little tough since it sends you into a fellowship quest in the Spider Den at Scary.
Bingo Boffin had me traveling way across the Shire several times. This was pretty difficult since there are no swift stables in the Shire. I had hoped to use my port but...
The only way back to Michel Delving is to set your milestone there and wait an hour. Even if there was a Return to Michel Delving tome you could buy from the Shire, it would probably require you to be kindred with The Mathom Society. The hunter's Guide to Michel Delving is at level 22. I thought I would be clever and use the hobbit's first racial slot at level 13 but the Return to Michel Delving racial trait is obtainable at level 29, after doing the deeds. I could port home, no wait, you need to be at least level 15 and have one whole gold coin to buy one. You can forget trying to find a shortcut at this time.
The quests started to open up more into slaying monsters and doing fellowship quests.

210 Minutes In (3:00 - 3:30)

There seems to be only one place to get a level 14 bow and that is from Dora Brandybuck in Buckland.
Without using an experience tome, I leveled from 14 to 15.
Being VIP, you can now use some Destiny Points in spending 250 for Enhanced XP.
There were plenty of quests at Buckland that sends you into the Old Forest if you felt daring.
At level 15, I automatically received the deed There and Bree Again and obtained the Adventure-Seeker Frame.
Level 15 unlocks your class quests.

Logging in the Next Day

It is pretty funny that the game doesn't check a lot of things until you relog into your character: unique VIP cosmetic box, Silver & Gold Hobbit Presents, Flame of Ancalamir for some strange reason.
Since my 24-hour Rental Horse expired, I received a letter that sends me to Hengstacer Farm which explains about the process of getting the riding skill from the lotro store or the quest at level 20.
I never did see that Not Forgotten Handkerchief (not that it mattered)
I realized I had around 100s to my name.
Someone in world chat was so lazy that he asked someone to link all the items in the VIP cosmetic box since he didn't want to clear out his bags and open it if it ended up being ugly.