I wouldn’t know since I haven’t played many MMOs extensively outside of UO and LOTRO. But I think the entire LOTRO map might be one of the biggest in all of gamedom. Each individual area/zone map is already quite large, but when you stitch them all together it is freakin’ massive taking several real-time hours to traverse.
Fuck, you guys, pulling me back in. Reinstalling.
By the time the janky launcher finishes, the urge may have passed :)
Yup, that has happened before. Only 10 more gig to go in the base install, then I get the launcher updates…
Getting closer!
Be sure to enable the 64-bit client. As always. :-)
I used the code (LOTROQUESTS2021) and unlocked the new content added since the 2020 giveaway. Then I was going to pull the trigger on the 99-point Mordor quests, but I thought I would check the store first to see if the entire Mordor expansion was on sale. Now I am thoroughly confused…see below.
In years past, each expansion was available separately. It looks like sometime recently they moved away from that, and now only Minas Morgul, War of the Three Peaks and the newest expansion, Fate of Gundabad, are available to purchase as separate entities (I’m talking for actual dollars, not LOTRO points). Everything else, from Mordor on back, is lumped into something called the “LOTRO Expansion Trove!” that costs $59.99. While that is awesome for new players, it kinda leaves me in a bad spot, as all I really need is Mordor, I own everything else from the pack already.
My question becomes, if I pick up the Mordor Quest Pack in game for 99 LOTRO Points instead of purchasing Mordor through the $60 expansion collection, what do I NOT receive? I know the quest pack contains all 300+ quests, but does it also have the 100+ deeds? I know it does NOT contain the instance/raid clusters, but I’m not sure I care about those and I can buy them for points later on if need be. What about the Allegiance System? Is that baked into the base game now or do you have to own the Mordor Expansion to activate it? I do not believer Morder came with any new races or classes, correct?
One other question. This Starter Pack Thingy for $9.99. It says it gives your account the Riding Skill. Does that mean the basic “everyone can ride the slow horse” skill (which I already have), or is it the faster riding trait (which I do not)? It also contains the High Elf Race among other things, which probably makes it worth the $10 to me anyway.
I don’t mind throwing real cash at Standing Stones since I have not done so in a couple of years, so I may just wait and see if they put the Expansion Collection and Starter Pack on sale for the holidays like they often do, and then purchase them both.
If you buy Mordor you not only get the quests, but the epic black book epic quest line which is exclusive only to Mordor and continuous beyond it, all deeds, and the nice fast travel hub zone that pairs with the faction alliance quest that you choose. (only 1 Alliance quest line per character. I have already done Hobbit, Men, and Elf – yeah this means I leveled three separate character all the way to Mordor and beyond)
The Elf hub is probably the most convenience because it’s the smallest and most condensed. Men is also fine. Just the Gondor throne room. Hobbit, not so much. Dwarf is useful only because of the latter quest content. It gives you an early and useful fast travel option to the Lonely Mountain, but the hub is fucking huge, spread out, and easily the worst.
Also I already bought the Mordor expansion via the points store and have all that stuff. There is zero reason why this stuff would be separated. Absolutely none. Because it isn’t.
Awesome summary, thanks man! Looks like I will buy the 99 point Mordor package then. Maybe I’ll buy the Minas Morgul expansion for $$ if/when it goes on sale around the holidays, and the Starter Pack thing too, and then I’d have access to the High Elf and Stout Axe races and extra character slots. Not that I’ll ever be making new characters again at this point…but it’s still a way to support SSG.
The fast travel hub you choose also only has a 15 min cooldown which makes it pretty useful for classes that don’t have a lot of fast travel skills (Anything not Hunter/Warden). It has all the amenities outside of crafting. Not sure why they excluded that to be honest.
I was able to clear the Minas Morgul expansion with two characters during the “everything is open now due to the pandemic” period. It is still full points to buy now but I don’t have any characters that need to progress there so I can wait.
Thank you, I would have indeed forgotten. Strangely, they still have that client labeled as ‘beta.’
Looks like Fate of Gundabad is open for pre-orders now. Release date is Nov 10th.
Still entirely theoretical for me, since I’m still back in Mordor.
I have reinstalled and the game keeps crashing, perhaps I shouldn’t have installed through Steam.
I did the coupon and still have 50,000 points; no idea what to spend them on.
Such problems.
Steam is actually the preferred way to play (since it keeps track of hours played and adds it to your library, and you can use Steam Wallet to buy LOTRO points I believe), HOWEVER, the client that Steam installs is bugged. I’ve posted the workaround for this in this thread previously, but here is a quick summary:
- Download the client from LOTRO.com
- Use that client to login and update your game files, don’t forget to turn on High Res Package install.
- When that is finished, start the Steam LOTRO client install (it will install to a different place, in the Steam folders)
- Now copy all of the files/folders from the LOTRO.com client into the folder for the Steam client, overwriting everything in the Steam version.
- Launch the game from your Steam library, it should work fine. You can delete the LOTRO website client directory and files once you are sure the Steam client is working.
Basically the Steam version of the installer is old and broken. It doesn’t handle the High Res Client and several other files needed for the complete install. The LOTRO website download is always the most up-to-date version, so when you install using that, then simply overwrite the busted Steam install with those files, everything works as it should.
How exactly do you have 50,000 points? That is hundreds of dollars worth of buying points from the LOTRO store.
Probably a lifetime VIP member. I think the original deal was 500TP per month, so after 13 years that would be 78,000 points. Easy to see how an player who isn’t active all of the time could still have 50K lying around.
I used to kick myself every time I played for not spending the $300 or whatever it was to get the Lifetime VIP when it was offered. Now, thanks to the 2020 and 2021 free quest pack bonanza, it doesn’t sting quite so much.
Yes, as Slainte said, I have a lifetime sub. I paid $160 at launch thanks to a referral from @Gladguy. To be clear — the lifetime sub was meant to spare you what was then a ($15?) monthly subscription. Years later, when LOTRO went free to play, that benefit was gone, so to make up for it all Lifetimers get (I think) 500 points per month for free. That shit adds up when you’re not playing much.
Either way, I’ve certainly gotten my $160 worth out of this.
@SlainteMhath thanks for the tips on the install. I have now a working install independent of Steam. I don’t care about checking time played (and LOTRO tracks that in game anyway) so I will just leave it separate. I did find that the crashes were also possibly due to the 64 bit client not automatically using my laptop’s separate graphics card — I had to instruct it in WIndows settings to do so. I also set it to full screen windowed. With all of those changes, it is very stable now, even when I alt-tab out
Now that I’m back, I can’t decide whether to start a new character on a new server or use one of my toons on Landroval. The highest is lvl 51. Some of the characters date back more than ten years, and there are in game titles for them!
$160!!! Great, now I have to start kicking myself again. ;-)
Glad the install worked out. It does sound like the 64-bit client was causing your problems, but having the newer cleaner version of the client and game files from the start should help too (and cuts down on the initial update time).
If you decide to use an existing character the game will make you re-allocate all of your skill points, re-slot your traits, etc… My advice would be to start a new character with the same race and class and play them for about 10+ levels. That should be enough to unlock a lot of skills and get you back into the groove of how everything works in terms of combat, skills, traits, etc… Then you can tuck the newbie away in an auction house to use as an auction mule or just come back to later. and switch to the old character with a much better feel for how his/her skills, traits, etc. should be allocated.
That’s a good idea.
The other thing is my exisitng characters have packed inventories. I know I can buy more slots (I certainly have enough points to) but I wonder if there’s any easy way to dump the junk.
You can pretty safely vendor all the crafting stuff. Crafting in Lotro is mostly a huge waste of time in desperate need of an overhaul which will never happen.