ATTENTION NEW PLAYERS: How to get the most out of your money on LOTRO and not spend a fortune :)

[TheArtilleryman]

I posted this information in another thread already, but it is a very long thread so I figured it might get missed there. I was also thinking that the title and content of lots of the thread might be off-putting for players, so I wanted to put this info here so it would be more likely to get seen.

Below is advice on how to get pretty much the whole game in one relatively affordable purchase. Remember that we are talking here about 13 YEARS of game content, and the opportunity to explore the whole of Middle Earth as we know it. I have put together 2 options, one if you want it all at once, and a second, cheaper one if you are playing at a slower pace and can leave some bits til later.

Caveat: yes, the game is F2P. Yes, you could get all this for free by grinding. It would however take a long long time, so if you can afford to pay something and are a bit overwhelmed about where to start, this may help you.

OPTION 1:

Right now (until August 31), you could just chuck £49 at LOTRO, and with all the offers on right now, that would get you EVERY expansion and quest pack, plus a month of VIP (which you’d never need again), plus extras like riding and the premium wallet. You’d have ALL content up to level cap and everything in between, and have all the F2P restrictions lifted on all the characters you made in the first month. I can’t think of any AAA game that gives you that much content for your £49.

Required purchases for this route:

£40 LP package
£9 VIP

Gives you total of 6800LP. With this, get:

693LP for all expansions currently on offer
2495 for Mordor
2495 for Minas Morgul
995 for the premium wallet (not essential but recommended)
Get every other quest pack free with code: LOTROFREEQUESTS
Get all your characters to level 20 in the first month and do the quest at Hengstacer Farms to get them all riding without paying extra.

Total 6678 points

I would however recommend holding off for a points sale though, as you’d get 9500LP instead if you did this, the extra from which you could use to get some of the missing classes maybe, like runekeeper, warden or Beorning. Anything else you buy after this is just fluff basically. DON’T get sucked into buying stat or XP boosts, you don’t need them.

(Edit: as someone pointed out later in the thread, Mordor and Minas Morgul are not currently available for LP because of the free questing offer, so you'd have to save your remaining points until they come back into the store after 31 August and buy them then.)

OPTION 2:

If you’re starting from scratch, and thinking “I’m not going to be at high levels for ages”, then forget Mordor and Minas Morgul for now - they aren’t on offer so won’t go anywhere. In this case I’d go for:

£15 LP package
£9 VIP month.

Gives you total of 1850LP

Then get:

693LP for all expansions currently on offer
995 for the premium wallet (not essential but recommended)
Get every other quest pack free with code: LOTROFREEQUESTS
Get all your characters to level 20 in the first month and do the quest at Hengstacer Farms to get them all riding without paying extra.

Change left over: 162LP

BE AWARE:

The sale on expansions and free quest pack code are only available until 31 August. Currently everything is free, but after 31 August it will all go back to normal, so now is the time to take advantage of the offers.

I hope this information is helpful to people.

[Danyel]

Quest Pack: Central Gondor
1 × Quest Pack: East Gondor
1 × Quest Pack: West Gondor
1 × Quest Pack: Wildermore
1 × Quest Pack: Eriador Bundle
1 × Quest Pack: Angmar
1 × Quest Pack: Enedwaith
1 × Quest Pack: Eregion
1 × Quest Pack: Evendim
1 × Quest Pack: Forochel
1 × Quest Pack: Misty Mountains
1 × Quest Pack: North Downs
1 × Quest Pack: Trollshaws
1 × Quest Pack: Lothlorien
1 × Quest Pack: Great River
1 × Quest Pack: Old Anórien
1 × Region Pack: Far Anórien
1 × Quest Pack: March of the King
1 × Quest Pack: Battle of the Black Gate
1 × Quest Pack: Legacy of the Necromancer
1 × Quest Pack: Where Dragons Dwell
1 × Quest Pack: The Vales of Anduin
1 × Quest Pack: Mists of Wilderland

Got all the above from the free code, now in the store I see:


In the expansion section for 99LP:

Expansion Quests: Moria
Expansion Quests: Isengard
Expansion Quests: Rohan
Expansion Quests: Helms Deep
Expansion Quests: Mirkwood

and

Expansion: Riders of Rohan
Expansion: Mines of Moria
Expansion: Helm's Deep


In the Raids and instances section we see for 99LP:

Instance Cluster: Isengard
Instance Cluster: Rohan


I assume this is what you mean in option 2? We get all the 99LP items, skipping the:

Expansion: Riders of Rohan 2495LP
Expansion: Mines of Moria 2495LP
Expansion: Helm's Deep 4295LP


What do we miss from the from the above 3?

Also what exactly does a premium wallet do? Does it remove the gold cap or only doing VIP for a month or buying the samwise gamgee starter pack do this?

EDIT:

Okay so you need to get:

Expansion Quests: Moria
Expansion Quests: Isengard
Expansion Quests: Rohan
Expansion Quests: Helms Deep
Expansion Quests: Mirkwood

Instance Cluster: Isengard
Instance Cluster: Rohan

Total: 693LP


Do not get:

Expansion: Riders of Rohan
Expansion: Mines of Moria
Expansion: Helm's Deep

[NavFamG]

Originally posted by Danyel:

Expansion: Riders of Rohan 2495LP
Expansion: Mines of Moria 2495LP
Expansion: Helm's Deep 4295LP

What do we miss from the from the above 3? vs the 99 point versions?

The full price versions give you all the quests, instances and extra goodies like Warden and RK with Moria and a horse and armor for Rohan.

The 99 point versions just give you the quests (although instances are included with the Moria package and Epic Battles with the Helm's Deep one). If you want the instances for Isnengard & Rohan you'd need to kick in the additional 99 points each for those.

So NO extra 'cosmetic' type stuff with the 99 point versions.

Originally posted by Danyel:

Also what exactly does a premium wallet do? Does it remove the gold cap or only doing VIP for a month or buying the samwise gamgee starter pack do this?

Premium wallet holds almost all the different tokens you get questing through the world. So instead of those regional tokens or festival tokens taking up inventory slots, they'd go into the Premium wallet and you would have a cleaner inventory.

Gold Cap is totally separate and can go away via a separate purchase or if you sub.

It looks like the additional stuff you get in the Samwise Gamgee starter pack is a better deal than just buying the gold cap removal by itself.

[Danyel]

Originally posted by NavFamG:

Originally posted by Danyel:

Expansion: Riders of Rohan 2495LP
Expansion: Mines of Moria 2495LP
Expansion: Helm's Deep 4295LP

What do we miss from the from the above 3? vs the 99 point versions?

The full price versions give you all the quests, instances and extra goodies like Warden and RK with Moria and a horse and armor for Rohan.

The 99 point versions just give you the quests (although instances are included with the Moria package and Epic Battles with the Helm's Deep one). If you want the instances for Isnengard & Rohan you'd need to kick in the additional 99 points each for those.

So NO extra 'cosmetic' type stuff with the 99 point versions.

Originally posted by Danyel:

Also what exactly does a premium wallet do? Does it remove the gold cap or only doing VIP for a month or buying the samwise gamgee starter pack do this?

Premium wallet holds almost all the different tokens you get questing through the world. So instead of those regional tokens or festival tokens taking up inventory slots, they'd go into the Premium wallet and you would have a cleaner inventory.

Gold Cap is totally separate and can go away via a separate purchase or if you sub.

It looks like the additional stuff you get in the Samwise Gamgee starter pack is a better deal than just buying the gold cap removal by itself.

Cool thank you for the reply!

[Danyel]

Ha great now I am getting this error when trying to open the store:

Something went wrong
It's not you, it's us, but we can help.
Error code: 0004-0003
Contact Us

[ReZZiT]

mhm why should i get vip? why i need it only one time? i dont get it

[Danyel]

Originally posted by ReZZiT:

mhm why should i get vip? why i need it only one time? i dont get it

It gives you permanent unlocks account wide like no gold cap, traits unlocked, free horse skill if you level all your character to 20 to get the horse quest etc

[oreyos]

Originally posted by ReZZiT:

mhm why should i get vip? why i need it only one time? i dont get it

If you get VIP, you will unlock all trait/skill slots for your characters (for each character you play when you are VIP). When you're not VIP, these will cost 95LP per slot, which adds up.
You will also unlock the gold cap, and swift travel (teleport travel from stable to stable, which will save a lot of time, as the world is BIG, even on a fast horse).
You can also get the riding trait for free when you're VIP.
Oh, and you'll get 500LP every month that you're VIP too...

These unlocks will stay when you're no longer VIP, so if you spend 1 month VIP, you get a lot of permanent perks unlocked. You can of course keep paying for VIP, but the most important things will be unlocked with 1 month.

When you're no longer VIP, NEW characters will not get the trait/skill slots unlock, nor the swift travel BTW.

[Elitewrecker PT]

It permanently unlocks a lot of stuff, some of which is impossible to unlock another way and others could be unlocked with points.

[ReZZiT]

Sounds great!

[ReZZiT]

Where to buy Mordor and Minas Morgul with LP?
Cant find it in the store


i got alle the free dlcs and bought the 99lp addon versions. what do i miss?
I can see 3 addons, do i need them?

[Elitewrecker PT]

Everything is unlocked at the moment, they'll be shown again after the event does.

[NavFamG]

Originally posted by ReZZiT:

Where to buy Mordor and Minas Morgul with LP?
Cant find it in the store

The coding they used for the everythings free to play made the system see everyone as VIP's so normal stuff won't show in the store. In regular times it keeps you from making a purchase you already have access to.

Come Sept. 1st they'll show in the store again.

Originally posted by ReZZiT:

i got alle the free dlcs and bought the 99lp addon versions. what do i miss?
I can see 3 addons, do i need them?

3 add on's? Are you talking about the Instance packs? The 99 point versions of some of the expansions ONLY include the quests; Isengard & Rohan also have instance packs you can purchase if you plan on doing the group content or over level and go back and run them solo.

[ReZZiT]

No i mean moria, rohan, helms deep. They cost 2000+ LP each

[TheArtilleryman]

Originally posted by ReZZiT:

No i mean moria, rohan, helms deep. They cost 2000+ LP each

No you don’t need these. As Nav said above, Riders of Rohan and Helm’s Deep mainly just include some cosmetics, which aren’t essential unless you are a cosmetics nut.

the 2495 LP version of Moria is the only one that is still potentially better value, as it includes the warden and runekeeper classes, plus two character slots, which adds up to 2780LP separately. However, all these items frequently get discounted, so I’d just wait until then and pick them up individually, if you want them at all.

Everything else, in terms of quests, regions and instances, is the same with the 99LP versions.

[TheArtilleryman]

And yes, apologies for any confusion - Mordor and Minas Morgul are not currently on sale in the store because of the free offer.

So you could just do OPTION 2, the cheaper option, for now. However if you are certain you will want them later and can hold on to your points without them burning a hole in the game screen, OPTION 1 is much better value points-wise.