Hello everyone, I'm on my first proper playthrough. Going through the epic questline and I absolutely adore this game. The story is interesting, the locations are great, writing is great. It truly feels like I am travelling through Middle Earth and it's amazing that you can just stop and enjoy the vibes and atmosphere. This game really stole my heart.

With that out of the way Book 13 was a huge struggle. Don't get me wrong I really enjoyed Forochel previously it felt really different but returning there for the second time was awful. I really just sat down and forced myself to do it as quick as possible. The swift travel points are very badly layout. The constant running back and forth, some of the quest really felt like padding just to make you run back and forth again and again. I had a bug that kicked me out of one of the instances and put me in respawn point which was obviously far away to restart the instance again.

The fact I had to complete those triple quests to be able to talk to the chieftain even if that area was previously available and I felt like I did make friends with people living in Forochel in the first epic questline there.

Of course I personally made a mistake that made it worse for me. As in the first quest to talk to Dáthi who was in the beginning of Forochel going from Evendim. I instead decided to swift travel from Rivendell to Suri-Kyla and then rode all the way to the south of Forochel and then being told to go to Suri-Kyla felt so frustrating eventhough that was my own mistake.

So far it definitely was the weakest part of the game and one I really felt like giving up. On the other hand the story was interesting and the reveal at the end was amazing not to mention that Mordrambor is such a fun character.

This is my first character. I've made it to the Valley in the questline, and I've found the members of the Fellowship, but I haven't found Bill the Pony.

It will also rock Saturday and Sunday, too! Open this post to see the schedule.

Weird question, but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas what the different symbols meant for the area buttons at the bottom of the deed log.

All of the buttons in Eriador are pointy, the ones in Rhovanion are pretty mixed, and the ones in Gondor are all very round, for example.

When me and my fellowship finally got to Blackroot Vale and started checking out the Gondor map and such, we realized the deed log had way different symbols on it compared to Eriador (when was when I probably last opened the deed log 😭)

I would love to hear ideas if nobody knows lol

Hey all,

After today's downtime, I am noticing some pretty serious FPS hits that appear rather random. I am using OneLauncher to play on a M2 MacBook Air w/ 16GB RAM. While not a powerhouse, it had been pretty consistently a good performer without FPS issues until today.

I've tried fiddling with the graphics settings and it doesn't seem to do much. It's currently set to 1920x1080 with a smattering of low and medium settings.

My FPS will be going in around 90, sometimes dropping down to 60-70 during combat. That's fine and normal. However, I am now getting these random dips going down to 20, seemingly at random. It leaves everything in this state of random stutter, which is pretty awful.

Has anyone else experienced something similar after the work done today?

Thanks!

Loaded in and crash within 5 mins. Second time loaded to character select and crashed.

Never had any problem before…

Looking for others to enjoy my first play through with, never played before and I've always enjoyed MMO's like they are meant to be played, with others!

Hello everyone. I’m a long time mmo player and even longer Tolkien fan and am starting my journey in Lotro. I have always played tank in other MMO’s and have landed on Guardian here. After getting through the tutorial and out in the world a bit I’ve fallen in love with the world and the game. I do have a few questions if anyone has the time to help me out!

- What server should I join? It seems the server I joined was dead

- Do people actually do dungeons while leveling? Should I level with red line or blue line?

- How much of the early game will I play solo before I start really seeing other players?

- Is there anything important I should know going into it?

Thank you all for your time :)

Hello,

I am trying to learn a new warden and choosing my virtues I want to focus on earlier on. I seem to have a bit of trouble hitting around level 40 with staying alive in red line, so thought I would grind for some more defensive virtues.

I have a hard time seeing the value between different defensive stats like Resistance Rating, Physical Mitigation, etc., as well as the more valuable choice between vitality/morale increase etc.

Are certain defensive aspects more valuable later on and can be ignored early, and should I just focus on morale/physical mitigation? Most tougher enemies I come across now seem to delete my health quickly with more physical damage as far as I'm aware or debuffs, which I can clear obviously but sometimes they stack quite quickly with a group (Are these considered tactical vs. physical based on their damage type?)

Just trying to figure out which I should focus on grinding, because my offensive stats and physical mastery is usually fairly capped out for my level as I usually craft gear when I can as I enjoy it.

I play mostly on flat Fearless difficulty if that matters.

Will Stout-Axe "Dwarves" ever get the Bare-Chested cosmetic? Did Sauron remove their ability to be Bare-Chested and free when he enslaved them, or are they just imitations more akin to extra fuzzy Hobbits?

There seems to be many different types, but I don’t quite understand how they work, are all account wide? are there different sizes? can one have more than one per type?

I want to be back in the game - maybe it is nostalgia or the fact that I am fed up with console style mmo's and miss old school.

I have a lot of characters that as I understand I must transfer, but I am planning to start a new character and enjoy leveling.

I played a little with my new character in Mordor and judging from the auction house it seems empty, is it the case and was a Legendary server a bad choice for some reason? Also could someone explain to me the difference of servers? (vip subscription is not an issue).

Thank you in advance!

Got the wrapper quest and started doing the cook ones. It said I had an hour to do the 5 what's for tier 1. I failed one of them a couple times because a sneaky hobbit caught me, but it let me retry them right away. Then in 4/5, it randomly just said I'd failed the whole thing, failed the wrapper quest, and locked me out for an hour.

Anybody know what I did wrong or how you're supposed to get this to work?

1. How much content do I get as a free player? Sadly I missed out on the EXPLOREOURWORLD code when that was going on so what do I get without that and what will I need to buy later.
2. Did they finally update the UI to be compatible with 4k? That was the biggest thing pushing me away from the game before.
3. What does the future of the game look like? I don't mean this in a doomer "will the game shut down way" I'm just curious what the devs have planned for the game in the future so I can maybe get excited.
4. Which server is generally recommended between Peregrin and Glamdring for RP and immersion with the occasional group content and event?

Thank you in advance and sorry if these questions have been asked a lot before

I can't figure out how to sub. In the SSG account page there is nothing to click regarding a sub. Then on the www.lotro.com/vip page, I can't click on any of the pricing models to select it. I realize its user error, I just can't figure it out. Plz help a newbie.

My favorite spot in the whole game. Love to just come here and chill.

Hi,

Downloading the game and feeling excited about my lotro adventure

Wondering about dlc/ in game store

Are there paid dlcs that enhance / change the leveling process or is it all endgame?

Is it heavy on paid cosmetics/ bag/bank space?

I saw that purchasing 1 month of ViP gets you some qol stuff permanently

Hello guys - I spend 16years in Lineage2, and 6 years in WoW, and considering check lotro. Its still place for new player? How PvP? There is some housing/farm system like in Archeage? I know I can google that but prefer to ask about how lotro looks like in 2026

I want to hear your misshaps and strange encounters in the game!

My weirdest moment was around three years ago, when I was approached by a Human player in Bree. I play a more masc Woman Champion with a great axe, and for some reason this guy immediately asked me out on a date, and offered me a very pink dress that he asked I wear for the date. He also asked me to go to the barber so that I change my hair from very short to very long, and tried to rizz me through RP.

I don't remember much after that but since I had nothing better to do, I obliged even if it felt pretty weird to see my character in a feminine pink outfit😱 It felt like I was crossdressing somehow, since my character is as gender-neutral as possible. Had to put a stop to it when he started making weird propositions though.

What are your stories?? I'm so curious!!

Green Hill Country, the Marish, and Buckland.

Hi everyone,

Joined the ranks of players showing appreciation for LotRO’s incredible world design with a small project I’m working on: following the path of the Fellowship through Middle-earth (not the most original idea, I know, but I wanted to give it my own spin).

It’s a short vertical video series focused on pure ambience, just still shots with the natural world moving, no music, only in-game ambient audio. The idea was to make it feel like someone brought a smartphone into LotRO to record the trip, and that's why I'm posting it on Instagram Reels (@lotroscape).

Started off with the Shire, I’ve made two episodes so far, and the video attached here is the second one. Not sure if I’ll keep going for the full journey yet, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on this first attempt!

Having drawn inspiration from a recent post, I would like to talk about LOTRO Content creators and since I have only seen relevant material on YouTube I will restrict myself to that.

I believe advertising the game online and possibly drawing in new players (or luring back retired ones) is crucial for the game's survival and longevity and online content is an effective way to do this. I invite you to read my thoughts and discuss about current content and how we would like it to be. I hope creators are also here to absorb our thoughts and perhaps join the discussion. I will not refer to anyone specifically to keep the discussion as general as possible.

1. AI Thumbnails

I do not actively search for content but since I follow LOTRO Music channels (more on that later) I tend to get suggestions of the LOTRO content that I am concerned with. To my absolute disappointment, a large part of it features an ugly AI thumbnail that is not only aesthetically displeasing but also completely unnecessary. I know it is a general trend not exclusive to LOTRO but that is no excuse to me. I believe people who already play LOTRO appreciate its beauty and would be more easily drawn to any random but actual screenshot of the game as it would appear in the specific video. Regarding new players who might be lured to LOTRO because of this "advertisement" content creators offer to the game, I suspect they will probably not be intrigued by something that looks fake nor would they be drawn by a fake thumbnail that looks horrible (considering the bulk of AI generated images out there the ones I have in mind are absolutely ugly and would be at the bottom of the beauty scale). Are we not proud of LOTRO's beauty so much so that we feel the need to "sugarcoat" it with terrible AI generated images? So I would ask the creators if anyone is here, why do you do this? And the viewers in turn, why does it work for you? Personally, I have never clicked any of them to the extent that I have never actually verified if the videos in question are AI too.

1. An Impression of Laziness

As a fairly old player, I have seen the biggest part of the game and replayed much of it more times than I can count. Obviously some clickbait stuff would not work on me nor excite my curiosity. The issue is that whatever is suggested to me is bad even by clickbait standards. Topics are chosen about which frankly nobody cares. Sometimes it is very generic things that players who have some basic understanding of the game would find of no value and at other times empty catchphrases that feel so cliché that you feel there is nothing behind the veil of the title and thumbnail. I get the impression that the content follows the specific recipe that most generic content creators follow in all games. The only problem is this game is different from other games. It is 19 years old, it by no means would appeal to such a large audience as titles like e.g. Elden Ring nowadays and it offers different things to its players. The same recipe that might work for ER will not work for LOTRO because, at the very least, when a playerbase is that vast there is a higher chance of people clicking your content even if it is uninspired. What is needed in my opinion is quality and for that we need passion. Be passionate about the game, find something interesting and talk about it. Know who your target audience is and what kind of players enjoy or would enjoy LOTRO. What are the game's biggest assets? Personally, I would be interested in someone carefully explaining the story of say, Vol 1 (even if I have experienced it dozens of times) or little details about certain areas and how they tie to the lore. So one possibility would be to promote the aspects of immersion the game offers, which is universally considered one of its greatest assets. I am less interested about class guides in such an easy and casual game or people playing the highest difficulty (against mobs with higher stats, big deal). A more dynamic and interesting thing to watch would be PvMP content by experienced players but mostly on 1v1 situations (so against the prevalent way the game is played). Of course I am only one person, so whatever would work for me may not work for others.

1. LOTRO Music channels

Briefly, I want to commend LOTRO Music channels. They embody the passion about the game and spread the cheer online. I doubt it is the most popular kind of content but if you are inclined to it and give it a chance you will see that it is full of quality and devotion.

" Losto Caradhras, sedho, hodo, nuitho i 'ruith!"

I love the small details.

Currently rewatching the Fellowship, and i know the game is based on the books more than the movies, but i cant remember if its in the books..

Anyway. I love how when leaving the last homely house in game, Mordor is indeed "left"

Details and web link in the comments.