Chapter III Expansion

I was so super excited to update RoM today and enter Chapter III. I was wiggling with impatience as I waited for the upload to finish.
First image: an amazing new sign-in screen that made me smile hugely.
First message: "Congratulations! You can now use Item-Set skills!" Hmmmm...that's all well and good but wtf are they? No one seems to know although I did eventually find a submenu in the Functions menu. And later some higher levels were posting up their purple gear with Skill Set functions on the bottom of their descriptions. I guess it's something I'll have to discover later.

I just love seeing different stuff. Whenever I switched zones, I was excited to see the new loading screens coming up: steely-eyed rogues, lion-kings, rhino-warriors. Each one gave me a thrill! (I'm easy it seems.) Where would those guys be? Would I be fighting lions in armor? Or would they be my allies?

First stop: mailbox to collect some nice income from selling Tier 5 stones and other goodies. Noticed right away that the Music Festival is on, which I think I remember from last year. I don't remember a strange dude with a tuba instead of a head, but that's probably cuz it gave me nightmares! :)

Second stop: the new area, Southern Janost Forest.

I took two or three steps inside and...CRASH!! Critical error has ocurred. Whoops. Guess all is not well with Chapter III.
Logged back in and everything seemed to go smoothly from there. Galloped into SJF and saw some familiar beasties from Thunderhoof...Pangos, Boshis, Gulos and Centaurs.
Reached the first city, Shador, which is quite lovely. Big trees, potted plants, knights riding Hippogriffs, elegant statues and very intricate pale purple and yellow stone architecture. Did a few quests there and moved on.
Visited the next city over, Kandor, a neat little fishing village made of planks and straw. There were a few more quests there that I could complete, including dailies near there, but other than that, the rest of the zone seems too high for me right now. Or else I haven't completed the quest chains that unlock new quests yet.

My first thoughts on this expansion: pretty good. Interesting new zone, beautiful scenery, some new mobs (bird-lizards, armadillo-people) and intriguing possibilities with the new Item-Set skill.
Now if they've fixed the crashing of guild siege, I'll be a super-happy camper!