Official: Things I Wish I Knew Earlier!

[Dugray]

This is one that really bugs me.

Horses:

The Horses you buy are in fact quite a bit slower than the horses you use to go from city to city, it's really no contest in speed. Therefore using the horse you bought to go city to city or zone to zone you've already been to is actually wasting valuable time. The only benefit to having a horse is to go off-road and find new places, beyond that, if you've been to a place before you're still better off paying the city-horse travel costs.

[d00dguy]

/follow works on just about anyone... so make those long runs from Bree -> Forsaken Inn or Shire -> Bree easier by /following someone who's already en route.

1) left-click their toon, then

2a) type /follow

or

2b) right-click on them or their portrait to bring up the contect menu and select follow.

Of course, you've got to keep an eye on them to make sure their not wandering off the path. Also, they might get suspicious as the go off path to mine nodes and you're right behind them, so use with caution. -

An odd bit of trivia: If you are /follow-ing someone, that character can interrupt your actions when they move. For example, a friend was /follow-ing me and I stopped near a copper outcrop. He began to mine the node without moving nearer. When I started moving again, his mining of the node was interrupted when he started following me.

[d00dguy]

Okay, I don't know if this is general knowledge, but I stumbled on it by accident. Apparently, you can drag stuff that you want to sell from your inventory to the /trade line when advertizing. I knew that. What I didn't realize until recently is that you can click on those tags in the /trade chat (e.g. [Dwarven Leather Vest of Might]) to see a complete description of the item! I thought that was pretty cool!

[Carfilhiot]

TIME STUFF

Time in Middle-Earth runs 8x faster than real life - a complete cycle of day and night takes 3 hours. Night is shorter than Day.

There is no command or panel that shows an in-game clock. But you can use the moon and sun to estimate. They actually move in the sky, rising in the East and setting in the West.

There are two time commands - /localtime shows the clock on your PC, /servertime shows the clock on the LOTRO realm host. Neither command pertains to in-game time.

[ScottAdams]

Unequip your harvesting tools and scholar glass before going into battle to prevent wear and tear on them. Leave crafting tools in the bank so you do not get damage on them when you retreat from battle.

[Carfilhiot]

LORE STUFF

The introduction sequence for a new Dwarf character takes place immediately before the events of THE HOBBIT. The dwarves you interact with (other than the miners you talk to) are all members of the Erebor Fellowship, and Gandalf is present as well, arguing with Thorin about dealing with the dragon Smaug and hiring a burglar, who will of course be Bilbo Baggins. This probably places your starting character in March or April of the year 2941 of the Third Age -- 77 years before the Council of Elrond.

[Carfilhiot]

NAME STUFF

When the game rejects your character name, watch the error message. "ALREADY IN USE" means an NPC or mob has that name. "TAKEN" means another player on this server has it. "INAPPROPRIATE" means it's a known trademark or proper name. Other errors are self explanatory (vowels, repetition etc).

[sindrael]

Voxin, NezRe, d00dguy, ScottAdams and Carfilhiot,


Thank you for your contributions! They have been added to the list above!

[Carfilhiot]

MONSTER STUFF

All of your characters on the same account and server share a single set of five Monster slots (one of each species). Any of your characters (level 10 or higher) on that account and server can play any of the Monsters.

Monsters don't have slots! No weapon or armor swapping, no crafting, no harvesting. Your Uruk's sword and shield are welded to his skeleton.

As of release, monsters don't have animations for emotes including /sit.

[Carfilhiot]

DESTINY STUFF

All of your characters on the same account and server share a single pool of Destiny Points (DP). Any of your characters (level 10 or higher) on that account and server can spend or add to this DP pool.

Free Peoples (non-monsters) spend DP on Perks, which are buffs or bonuses that take effect the moment you buy them.

Don't be confused by the in-game language on Uses. Each category (XP, speed, morale etc) of Perks has a use limit of 5. That means that your character can make up to 5 purchases from that category, if you have enough DP. When the uses for that category reach 0, you can't buy any more perks in that category until some uses are restored. One use is restored per day, per category. So if you splurge and use all your Swiftness perks on Monday, you have to wait until Tuesday to buy one more. Or you can wait until Saturday and you'll have all 5 uses back.

Although DP's are shared across characters on the same account and server, Uses are not. Each character runs its own separate Uses tab, so even though your Minstrel has used all her XP boost perks, your Captain is not affected.

The "Accelerated XP" perk adds 20% (four bubbles) of your current level XP to your Rest XP pool. This is not a temporary buff - it stays until you work it off with mob kills.

[Carfilhiot]

REST XP STUFF

Rest XP, a/k/a Enhanced XP a/k/a Rest Bonus, works somewhat like it did in that other popular fantasy game we'll call CowQuest (CQ). It's like 2-for-1 coupons on mob kill XP. In CQ, it accumulated in Inns and capital cities whether you were logged in or out, and much slower when you logged out in the countryside. In LOTRO, Rest XP accumulates no matter where you log out - but you must be logged out. The rate of accumulation is about one bubble (5% of level) per 8 hours, shown as blue on your XP bar. The cap is *approximately* a level and a half, but I am still working on the exact formula. Quest XP rewards do not affect the Rest pool. You can also buy four bubbles of Rest XP as a Destiny Points perk.

[Syko2517]

- Always repair before leaving for an instance, you won't know how many deaths it will bring.
- Think smart, it maybe be better to pay for two trips instead of one swift travel. Example : Esteldin to Bree (swift) is 35s, but Esteldin to Trestlebridge is 14s, and then to Bree from Trestle is 12s (or around there)

[Carfilhiot]

UI STUFF

You can switch back and forth between Full-Screen and Windowed mode by hitting Alt+Enter.

You can configure separate audio devices for regular game sounds and voice chat - useful if you use a Bluetooth earpiece for chat.

Rather than remembering every possible quickbar slot number for the /shortcut command, just use the same slot number every time (like 48) and then drag the resulting shortcut to where you really want it.

Don't rely on in-game help for aliases and shortcuts, read Malavhe's Tutorial and bookmark it.

You can repeat a chat line or /command using the Up arrow. First get into Chat focus by hitting slash or clicking in the Say box, then hit Up to get back to your previous command. Useful for spamming LFF's

Change your default speaking channel by clicking on the little chat-bubble symbol at the lower left of the Chat window.

Although it's hard to find a specific loc (34.6 S, 37.6 W) on the M map, you can hover your mouse over known landmarks, stables etc, and estimate the S and W values to get a general area. You can also use ;loc to show your current position.

Curious about the difficulty of the quests an NPC offers? You don't have to accept them to find out. Just read the quest description panel - the title at the top is color coded with the difficulty.

[houndogg]

- Always repair before leaving for an instance, you won't know how many deaths it will bring.
- Think smart, it maybe be better to pay for two trips instead of one swift travel. Example : Esteldin to Bree (swift) is 35s, but Esteldin to Trestlebridge is 14s, and then to Bree from Trestle is 12s (or around there)

But there are some that are the other way around. Trestlebridge to Esteldin is 12, but Trestlebridge to Amon Raith is 10 and Amon Raith to Esteldin is 10 (I think, might be slightly off on these) even though you ride right past Amon Raith

[Knightmayre]

NPC Interactions -
Pressing Shift while in a Buy window will show you the cost for an entire stack of that item. Shift-Right-Click buys a whole stack.

Clarification to Combat tip 4 - If you attack a mob, or heal the player during combat

[BregoBlackmoor]

I just wanted to say thank you for the tips and recommendations posted, as I have incorporated quite a few into practice now.

Brego

[Adder]

#5 under General Gameplay...

5. If you get with a meter or so of a chair in your local inn and type /sit you will sit down into the adjacent seat! ~From Soluna

This also applies to many other chairs as well as stools and benches throughout the game. For instance, the stool just inside the Archet Gate, the chairs beside the fireplace inside the Guard House in Thorin's Gate, and the chairs beside the Bard in Thorin's Hall are all 'sittable' objects. Just experiment! These usable take-a-load-off pieces of the scenery are scattered everywhere!!

[Xeysz]

Seems to help me quite a lot thank you very much man as I am still in the beginning areas.

[Suarrez]

2. You don't need to be at a vendor to lock items. Remap your keys to assign a short cut to the function. Select an item and then use the shortcut to toggle the lock. ~From Makkilmakkil

Has anyone had any experience with this?

I, first, remapped that function to NUMLOCK, but it doesn't change the locked/unlocked status of any items in my inventory when i highlight that item and press the button.

Currently the function is mapped to alt+H, cause i thought it may have just been something specific to the NUMLOCK button... same result...

Help pls? Going to a merchant and pressing one button to clear my inventory would be nice.

[Temp3r]

I don't know if anyone's already mentioned this but:
If you see someone shouting for a fellowship in the LFF Channel (or anywhere else for that matter), instead of asking them what their race/level/class is, if you open up your Social Panel ('O' and '/who' as well, I think) and type their name in the location area, you get instant player stats (somewhat -_-").
I find this especially useful, as I hate asking people what their level is because I think it makes me sound like a p_rick. >_<

Edit: Found another word for fellowship finding window

[Carfilhiot]

If you see someone shouting for a fellowship in the LFF Channel (or anywhere else for that matter), instead of asking them what their race/level/class is, if you open up your fellowship finding window ('O' and '/who' as well, I think) and type their name in the location area, you get instant player stats (somewhat -_-").

You can also type

/who Playername

and see the same information.

[atteSmythe]

Has anyone had any experience with this?

I, first, remapped that function to NUMLOCK, but it doesn't change the locked/unlocked status of any items in my inventory when i highlight that item and press the button.

Currently the function is mapped to alt+H, cause i thought it may have just been something specific to the NUMLOCK button... same result...

Help pls? Going to a merchant and pressing one button to clear my inventory would be nice.

You 'select' an item in your inventory by pressing ALT while leftclicking it. You'll know you have it when there's a bold yellow outline around the object, and the item's name is in the 'selected' area of your UI, to the right of your statbars (where an NPC or baddie would be, normally).

[Teaster]

Very nice list dude. If I could suggest something though...

Could you put spaces between each answer because it gets hard to read when it's a big block of text.

-Teaster

[Suarrez]

You 'select' an item in your inventory by pressing ALT while leftclicking it. You'll know you have it when there's a bold yellow outline around the object, and the item's name is in the 'selected' area of your UI, to the right of your statbars (where an NPC or baddie would be, normally).

ahhhh. thanks a bunch!

[crazyred]

Is this a good place for posting a question?

I was wondering if there are slash (/) shortcuts to jump into the various chat channels; y'know, Advice, Local, or just good ol' Say.

thanks in advance!