Lord of the Rings Online - Intro Part 2

In the first post on LOTRO I gave some background on the game and some of the quests you will be called upon to complete. Deeds are separate from quests and don't have to be completed, although you probably should as they can give some nice benefits. Deeds come in several varieties, exploration and killing lots of something are two examples. They are sometimes triggered as you do things. For instance, I was walking around the Shire as my Hobbit burglar when I was attacked by a wolf. When the wolf was dispatched I saw that I had opened up a new deed, wolf slayer. In order to complete the deed I had to kill 30 more wolves. Upon completion I received a trait.

Traits provide improvements to your character, often in the form of adjusting stats on your character. Some traits provide new skills and improvements on skills. So while you are trying to get somewhere and aggro'ing everything along the way, deeds should provide at least some purpose for the trouble. Your character can only equip a limited amount of traits and it costs money to equip/change them. Some traits are very hard to come by, especially Legendary traits, which your character can only equip one. In the end it turns out to be just a different kind of grind. The traits do provide a good amount of variety between characters, which is a good thing.