EDITOR’S NOTE: This excellent guide was originally published as a three-part guide by Rexthalion, an Elven Champion of the Landroval server, on his kinship’s website Defenders of the Fellowship. Many thanks are in order for his kind permission to include it in LOTRO Guides!
OK, it’s time for me to come clean on something: I find that making gold in LOTRO can be kinda tough. While just like any other MMORPG there are numerous different ways to make gold (like the auction house), so far I’ve found the easiest and most reliable way to make gold is simply by grinding.
One of the interesting ways to advance and customize your character in LOTRO is through the Trait system. By advancing your traits and choosing which of them to equip you not only help give your character some extra personality, but define his combat bonuses as well.
There are four types of traits in LOTRO: Race, Class, Legendary and Virtue. In this post I have compiled a complete list of the Trait category common to all classes and races in LOTRO – Virtues.
Apparently the goodly denizens of Middle Earth enjoy a good piece of tomfoolery now and then. The antics reach their apex during the Autumn Harvest Festival when adventurers and crafting folk are invited to play tricks on others in return for harvest tokens and four special masks.
The masks are divided racially:
The Harvest Festival is once more upon us, and the good Free Peoples of Middle Earth are once more celebrating the seasonal turn with games and merriment.
There are several different components of the Harvest Festival: horse and pony races, trick-playing, harvest party games and the carry over farming event from the Summer Festival. In this post I’ll go over the four repeatable party games.
This is an exploration quest which will take you on a tour of the North Downs around Esteldin. You will need to click five founding stones scattered around the map.
To start this quest, visit the tower located in the northeast corner of Esteldin. Inside the door (a small instance) you will see the a book Of Arthedain and its Settlements. Click the book to start the quest then speak to Istuienn who, as luck would have it, is standing right outside the door of the tower.
Advancing in cooking isn’t all just collecting ingredients and pushing buttons. In order to advance through the tiers of Cooking and emerge a Grand Master, you must complete the following five quests.
This post was originally a page on the site which I have moved. The URL is the same, but sadly I last the original commentary. Updated Jan. 10, 2009 to add Rune Keeper and Warden classes.
This is intended to be an exhaustive guide for those new to LOTRO who are looking for help choosing a class to play. This guide will not only tell you the specific roles that each classes fulfill, but also give you some information about the strengths and weaknesses of the four races and what I feel is the best race/class combinations.
Ered Luin, also known as Ered Lindon and the Blue Mountains, is the LotRO home to the Dwarf and Elf races. Like Bree-land and the Shire there are a good number of deeds to be completed here.
Like the Bree-land deed The History of the Dúnedain, Ered Luin has the deed Elf-Ruins Exploration which you can complete by visiting several areas representing ancient abodes of the Elves in the area. For completing this deed you will receive the Virtue Trait Wisdom+1.
What do Hobbits love more than full dinner plate and a smoking bowl of pipe-weed? A good-sized tankard of beer, that’s what!
One of the more sought-after titles in LOTRO, “Shire Brew-Master,” is a lot easier to get than most people think. Well, it’s not that easy … but at least you don’t have to dodge any Hungry Hobbits.
Fresh from the trials and tribulations of working your way up through the Shire Postal Service’s food chain and you still want more grab-and-dash quests? Well take a run over to Holly Hornblower in Hobbiton (31.2S, 71.1W).
She sets you off on a mad dash to distribute her pies across the Shire. In return you will receive the Virtue Trait Patience +1, along with Hornblower’s Pie Recipe, a sample Hornblower’s Pie and the title “Pie-runner” which will let everyone know that you are Holly’s b… est friend.
The Shire’s Postmen need your help! It seems that with all the gossip flying around the Shire about Lobelia Sackville-Baggins’ party the daily post has fallen behind.
There are 13(+1) Postal Quests that comprise Restoring the Quick Post. They are all essentially the same quest, but because of the Shire’s geography they all take different amounts of skill and luck. To complete them you must grab a satchel of mail from the table of the Postman you just accepted the quest from. Then RUN!
There are many references in LotRO to the vast lore that J.R.R. Tolkien left behind. Over the course of 50-some years he wrote notes and rough drafts of the history of Middle Earth that comprised many thousands of years of history.
When traveling in Bree-land you will sometimes come upon remnants of the ancient North-Kingdoms of the Dúnedain. By visiting (and in two instances activating) all six of these relics you will gain Idealism + 1.
Since I’ve begun playing LotRO, one of the more annoying things for me is constantly alt-tabbing out of the game to look for quest locations, learn more about dropped items and whatnot.
It’s an even bigger pain because anytime you alt-tab from a DirectX or OpenGL application it can cause memory leaks, which hinder performance. And for some reason I have to CTRL-ALT-DEL out of the game into the Task Manager – I’m not able to alt-tab with LotRO. I don’t even want to talk about trying to alt-tab into Firefox while I’m standing outside the Prancing Pony in Bree.
Well, I just came across this webpage that gives step-by-step instructions on enabling a Google-style map inside the game! That’s a HUGE advantage when looking for specific locations. This allows you to look at, for instance, the Arda-Online map within the game.
There’s no word yet on whether or not this is legal, but nobody has complained about being reprimanded for it. In fact, word is that Turbine plans to implement this feature for the in-game Lorebook browser when it finally hits.
“Old tales tell of eight Entwives who passed from the south into the Old Forest, never to be seen again. Could they be true?”
Flowers of the Old Forest is a Bree-land Deed that will give you the Virtue trait Idealism +1 when completed.
To complete this deed you must find and use (i.e. activate) eight flowers scattered throughout the Old Forest.
When you hit level 15 as a champion you receive the quest Blade of Renown from any of the Champion trainers in Middle Earth. This gives you a great trait, Vicious Strikes, and the Guardian’s Axe, a nice one-handed axe. Not coincidentally, Vicious Strikes comes just as your first Class Trait slot opens. So if you haven’t earned a class trait through any deeds, this trait will fit nicely there.
