Soon-to-be-new player: Server recommendations, gotchas, other new-player tips

[JarenCorax]

Hello!

I am waiting (and waiting) for the game to install, so I figured I would ask some pre-beginner quesitons. I have a good idea what classes I'll want to play, but I have to pick a server first. I also like to take my time leveling, and do not like any kind of XP or level boost. I see that if I get a VIP membership, I will have an XP boost. Is there a way to disable that?

I understand there is a specific VIP server, Treebeard, that lets you dial back XP gain, but I hear it has a low population. Please let me know your thoughts on that. I would really like to be on a server with a good responsive community and people who do things together (however briefly).

Also from what I've seen, there's a lot of overwhelming info coming at new players, so if you have any tips on navigating that, I'd appreciate it. I'm not so concerned with playing the game, the whole point of that is to explore, but if I have to navigate a jungle of store purchases, optional add-ons, and such, I'd like help there.

Thanks in advance!

Nik

[Elmagor]

Legendary server have unique rewards (character frame avatars, titles, cloaks, housing items), some of them account-wide for all your characters. Right now we have only 2 legendary servers, one of them will be closed this summer

You can start on other server, because starting on low pop server like legendary server will be tough for newbie.

[JarenCorax]

Legendary server have unique rewards (character frame avatars, titles, cloaks, housing items), some of them account-wide for all your characters. Right now we have only 2 legendary servers, one of them will be closed this summer

You can start on other server, because starting on low pop server like legendary server will be tough for newbie.

Thank you. If the server's going to be closed, and it has a low population, then I probably don't want to play there.

[Nebless]

Are there any specific aspects of the game you like or need? Maybe a language other than English or you want to try or just be around RP'ers or maybe you want to be involved in PvMP?

To answer some of your questions:

- No there's no way to turn off the XP boost you get when you go VIP.
- Treebeard does indeed give less xp so it's the slow level server, but it does have a low pop and you have to have a sub to play on it.

I'd say your best bet would be to do down towards the bottom of these forums and check out the individual server sub-forums and look over what guilds (kinships) are listed and see if one of them chances your eye as a way to point you towards a server.

Or

You could create a character on each server and go to Bree to check out how livily it is. Between there and the social panel showing over all numbers during your normal play time will help point you to the one that's most active when you normally play. Don't forget to check out what levels the characters are since going to the one with the biggest pop isn't going to do you any good if everyone else is lvl 140.

[JarenCorax]

Are there any specific aspects of the game you like or need? Maybe a language other than English or you want to try or just be around RP'ers or maybe you want to be involved in PvMP?

To answer some of your questions:

- No there's no way to turn off the XP boost you get when you go VIP.
- Treebeard does indeed give less xp so it's the slow level server, but it does have a low pop and you have to have a sub to play on it.

I'd say your best bet would be to do down towards the bottom of these forums and check out the individual server sub-forums and look over what guilds (kinships) are listed and see if one of them chances your eye as a way to point you towards a server.

Or

You could create a character on each server and go to Bree to check out how livily it is. Between there and the social panel showing over all numbers during your normal play time will help point you to the one that's most active when you normally play. Don't forget to check out what levels the characters are since going to the one with the biggest pop isn't going to do you any good if everyone else is lvl 140.

Thank you, that's a good suggestion. And thanks for the answers to the other questions. No plans to do French or German or Spanish while gaming, not much interest in RPers. I'm not sure what PvMP is specifically, but I am not much interested in PvP in any form, just exploring a world and doing quests.

[Elmagor]

Thank you. If the server's going to be closed, and it has a low population, then I probably don't want to play there.

But after that players from this server get free transfer to any other server

[Gandolf_TheOld]

Welcome to LOTRO.

I would recommend one of the regular servers. LOTRO can be soloed by any of the classes. Some classes have benefits not available to other classes. What class are you thinking of playing? Recommend you try them all, playing each until about level 30.

To stop XP, you can purchase from the in game store the Stone of the Tortoise (100 LOTRO Points), equipping it in the pocket slot when you want all XP to stop.

Here is a list of links to sites, articles and guides about LOTRO.

In case you are wondering why you can not post in other forums, here is the reason:

The reason – several years ago there was a serious episode of spammers, gold sellers, and other forum lowlifes. The solution was restricting all new accounts and all in-active accounts to this forum – made clean up easy.

Keep posting your question(s) in this forum, until granted full forum access. Should happen in a couple of days.

Official explanation: “https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...y-Post-Here”

In case the forums break the link:
</Code>https://forums.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?645326-Why-Can-I-Only-Post-Here</code>

Again, welcome to LOTRO.

[Oghran]

Find a friendly kin.
They'll help you navigating the learning curve, which can be pretty steep for new players.

I like Gandolf's suggestion to create and try out various characters to find out what you like. Only at my 3rd character I understood enough of the game (thanks to kin mates) to play a class sensibly. Don't be afraid to scrap or park a character and start anew.

I agree with using the Stone of the Tortoise as well. In Lotro you quickly outlevel an area, with that xp-disabler you can avoid that. And there is no downside really, there are plenty of XP boosts coming your way to compensate if you change your mind.

[Strider5548]

Hello!

I am waiting (and waiting) for the game to install, so I figured I would ask some pre-beginner quesitons. I have a good idea what classes I'll want to play, but I have to pick a server first. I also like to take my time leveling, and do not like any kind of XP or level boost. I see that if I get a VIP membership, I will have an XP boost. Is there a way to disable that?

I understand there is a specific VIP server, Treebeard, that lets you dial back XP gain, but I hear it has a low population. Please let me know your thoughts on that. I would really like to be on a server with a good responsive community and people who do things together (however briefly).

Also from what I've seen, there's a lot of overwhelming info coming at new players, so if you have any tips on navigating that, I'd appreciate it. I'm not so concerned with playing the game, the whole point of that is to explore, but if I have to navigate a jungle of store purchases, optional add-ons, and such, I'd like help there.

Thanks in advance!

Nik

If you want to take your time leveling and you want other low level players to do content with, Treebeard is your best bet. The population is definitely low, but it's concentrated in the first 75 levels of content right now, and progresses through each level cap roughly every 6 months.

The live servers are mostly concentrated around end game. You can find people to do lower level content with but it's generally rare unless you are in groups that were created with the purpose of leveling slowly together.

If you decide on a live server, here's how I'd break it down:

Arkenstone - largest US server, lots of PvMP action, larger raiding community and one of the few servers where you can pug raid content, generally more toxic community but it's LOTRO so it's nothing compared to other games.
Evernight - largest EU server, same as above in most respects.
Landroval - medium population, RP encouraged, there is a raid community but smaller, PvMP is off and on alive/dead, really really nice people and one of the most active servers when it comes to things like festivals/music events

After that, you have some regional servers that are smaller in population but make sense if you speak the language.

Gwaihir - German server, small population, surprisingly strong raid community
Sirannon - French server, small population
Brandywine - Not official but lots of Russian/Chinese speakers relative to other servers

Crickhollow/Gladden are two smaller US servers, similar to Landy when it comes to raiding/PvP but less RP.

Laurelin (US) / Belegaer (EU) are the full RP servers, don't know much about these ones either other than RP seems to be taken pretty seriously here.