Thread: Dumb things you've done when first playing LOTRO?

This was my first MMO so I was totally lost when I first started this game. There were some real bad facepalm moments.


I was running through Chetwood forest early levels and came across that uber-warg. Needless to say I freaked but was lucky not to get his attention. For some strange reason I thought that this was another player. I wasn't aware that PvMP was in it's own zone. A friend of mine was like "what are you doing just sitting behind that tree?" My response, "there's a warg over there walking back and forth! It's another player stupid!, so his sight isn't just limited to what's in front of him, he's probably got the screen zoomed out and is just camping out waiting for noobs to come along who have the quest in the ruins"

My so called friend let me sit there for awhile without telling me the truth. I eventually felt like taunting the warg so I selected it and was baffled as to why I couldn't send him a tell daring him to try and catch me.


Another dumb thing I did: for about 20 levels I had no idea that you could have your cosmetic showing without taking an armor hit. I would constantly be switching in and out of armor every single time I went into combat. I even spent all this gold on dye to keep dying my armor to make it look better.


I have plenty more but will post later. Anyone else have these moments? I'm sure most people weren't as dumb as me lol, but there has to a few people with their own facepalm moments!

I know I have better ones, but a few that come to mind right off the bat....

The very first time I was in the Prancing Pony, I got physically lost, and probably spent about 2 or 3 minutes running around to get out.

Coming from "that other game", at the beginning I sacrificed a few teal items to get purples ones since, well, in that game purple comes after blue in quality.

I held a one-sided conversation for a few moments with a herald, asking where she got that flag from before I realized it was not a PC.

Originally Posted by Widmore

I held a one-sided conversation for a few moments with a herald, asking where she got that flag from before I realized it was not a PC.

Haha that just made me laugh so hard! So I'm not the only one trying to speak with robots!

Oh.. well. This was my first MMo ever, pretty much first pc game too. My very first character was an elf, and when I entered the intro there was this other elf talking to me, telling me to hurry up and all sorts of things. I thought that was another player so I kept saying in chat "Hey slow down, this is my first time playing this, I have no clue what I'm supposed to do!"
Also, later, I got so lost in the intro at Thorin's hall/gate I had to start over again with another character! Almost did it again when I managed to leave the intro and using map home. At that time, back at release, it was automaticly set to thorin's hall even for elves, had no idea how to get back to the elf place I was at.. well managed after a while but took some time

I ran around for almost a month unable to talk to anyone. The games I'd played previously had a different mechanic for initiating chat (I can't even remember what it was now) and I could not figure out how to even say anything. Getting a tell would make me scramble furiously punching and clicking everything I could think of. I'm sure I looked like an idiot standing there, occasionally twitching but never responding.

Originally Posted by PoeticNightmare

This was my first MMO so I was totally lost when I first started this game. There were some real bad facepalm moments.


I was running through Chetwood forest early levels and came across that uber-warg. Needless to say I freaked but was lucky not to get his attention. For some strange reason I thought that this was another player. I wasn't aware that PvMP was in it's own zone. A friend of mine was like "what are you doing just sitting behind that tree?" My response, "there's a warg over there walking back and forth! It's another player stupid!, so his sight isn't just limited to what's in front of him, he's probably got the screen zoomed out and is just camping out waiting for noobs to come along who have the quest in the ruins"

My so called friend let me sit there for awhile without telling me the truth. I eventually felt like taunting the warg so I selected it and was baffled as to why I couldn't send him a tell daring him to try and catch me.


Another dumb thing I did: for about 20 levels I had no idea that you could have your cosmetic showing without taking an armor hit. I would constantly be switching in and out of armor every single time I went into combat. I even spent all this gold on dye to keep dying my armor to make it look better.


I have plenty more but will post later. Anyone else have these moments? I'm sure most people weren't as dumb as me lol, but there has to a few people with their own facepalm moments!

Lol yeah we've all been scared by that warg And atleast you got the chance to hide.....my newbie loremaster was like steamrolling past all mobs that came across in the forest, so I was like walking pretty much in my own thoughts when the music changes, I see a horrifying big warg running towards me, before I could get a stun off with my trembling hands, bam.....Baugarch hits you for 500 damage to morale...defeated! and I was like whoa!....heh I couldnt build up the courage to go to that part of chetwood again for a good many hours.....

And this was the first of many many stupid things :P Getting lost in the spider cave near Archet......With my clumsy butterfingers, I've more than once slipped my character into the insta-kill acid/poison pools......Hell, I still do .....The first time I entered Moria, I fell down thrice into the cracks and abysses before even reaching Dolven View :P Then there was the time I accidentally pressed F12 and everything on my screen disappeared.....yeah I had to log out and log in again heh

Oh biggest facepalm moment was when I was offered a bunch of choices for selection (servers :P) while logging in the very first time, and which one I wanted....so I happily chose Imladris, thinking....nice! I'll get to start in Imladris or something.....and was thoroughly confused when I was in Archet.....lol took me a good while to realize it was actually different servers.....well thankfully Imladris turned out nice and I loved ^_^

P.S. - Lol and good to know I am not the only one who has tried speaking with NPCs

A few things I learned that some told me later was a result of something some may call "dumb"...

• There is a difference between "Shire Seasonings" and "Fine Seasonings"... especially when buying in stacks of 100. I.E. Pay attention when you buy things.
• When you come across a Rich Silver Node and a patch of strawberries... mine the silver node first :/
• Don't level your fishing skill all the way up to 200 exclusively in the shire.
• Do quests FIRST or WHILE deeding. Don't go kill 400 wargs and THEN take the warg quests :/
• They built a dock with a boat in Evendim... you don't HAVE to swim all the way across anymore... when you remember this half way across the lake, just pretend you know what you are doing.
• Don't click "exit game" if you only want to switch toons.
• All those purple and yellow things that come from crafting nodes have great, GREAT value later in the game. DON'T VENDOR HUNDREDS of them!
• When you break down the wrong LI... it will remain broken down no matter how hard the realization that it was the wrong one becomes.
• When you want to gripe about someone in your fellowship to someone in your kin... make sure you are typing in KIN chat for this :/
• Similarly... if you want to gripe, especially very, VERY sarcastically, about someone in your fellow to someone in your vent channel... make sure you hold down the correct push to talk button.
• If you are a hunter, move desperate flight off your toolbar. People tend to be cranky when you disappear in the middle of a boss fight.
• If you are doing a grouped class quest in Moria, say something to the group before you click something in the instance. They get extra cranky when a 100k boss starts to kill the guy looting the chest.
• This game WILL let you go down and into places that you can't get out of. (especially in Moria).
• If someone you don't know says, "can you help me?" try a few follow up questions before saying "yes".
• If you are a woodworker... you can level up by tanning free hides... OR you can also level up by BUYING ingredients for the wood. Just know you have this option for when you decide to blow past a few levels of crafting.

Probably enough for now... need to save some for the book

I spent an embarrassing amount of time rejecting weapons that did "light" damage as it was obviously inferior to the as yet unfound "heavy" damage.

I came from another game where damage over time attacks were timed and needed to be spammed to keep them running (i.e. cast a DoT and it lasts for 30 seconds, cast it again for another 30 seconds, etc.). When I first started playing my ministrel, I thought that my DoTs kept getting resisted because I would be spamming the button on my hot bar, but they would never stick on the mob I was fighting. I don't want to think about how long it was before I understood the "toggle" aspect of these.

My first time playing, came from a game where the chat, emotes etc were completely different. It was a couple of weeks before I figured the channels meant. And emotes in this other game were setup so you could click on an icon. Took me forever to realize to use the chat box to use emotes, and then did a facepalm months later when I finally realized that you could pick emotes off a list.

Fellowships were a bit different too. Took me a while to figure out how to leave one. First time I remember just standing there while this other went to do crafting. I kept clicking on his icon, thinking that since he was the leader I needed to do something with that. Eventually he just disbanded, so I didn't figure it out that time around.

First time playing F2P, (and you are talking about a supposed veteran playing since Beta 2007), I burned the horse whistle (and started the 24-hour countdown), without knowing. Ok minor, but annoying as I could have saved it for better use hehe...

I too rejected every kind of staff that had "light" damage I wanted the "heavy damage" ones - I never found any.

I didnt even know there was a crafting area or crafting professions for the first 3 or 4 months I played.

I started in Celondim and didn't get to Thorins an learned about the AH for about 6 months.

I vendored everything I got: hides, junk and armour. I did not know that my armour needed to be changed or leveled up. I thought what I had was all I needed. Everything went to the vendor.

I bought a bow and could not wait until I could use it (Im a lore-master).

I cannon balled off the high waterfall in Celondim thinking it would be like a water slide and died (my first death).

I did not know that the Mob colors where not the same for everyone. I thought everyone saw what I did. So if I saw a orange mob I thought my friend who was 6 levels higher also saw an orange mob. (they saw it as grey)

I did not know that grey items didnt attack. I did not know that some mobs threaten and other attack right away. I didnt know that yellow bar mobs did not attack. I spent the first year maybe more terrified of everything.

I didn't know you could run off aggro. I thought the mob would follow you forever. So I fought the trolls on the path to Rivendell because I didn't know I could run by them.

Oh.. the memories and I am still learning stuff all the time!

Whaddayamean I can eat 3 kinds of food? trail fortifying and short? LOL

Originally Posted by mjk47

I spent an embarrassing amount of time rejecting weapons that did "light" damage as it was obviously inferior to the as yet unfound "heavy" damage.

LOL this was epic!! seriously I remember getting the exact same thought when I first saw it epic lulz

I skipped the introduction questline on my first character without reading the shiny red warning text.

The "Map Home"... it had in grey letters "unique" on it, so I thought it will be gone if I use it (maybe the translation to the german client was bad, I really thought I can use it only a single time).

Oh yes, and the Ingame-Map... the first weeks I often closed the map with the X in the right upper corner of the screen (I'm playing in window-mode)

Coming from the Morrowind, Oblivion-kind of gameplay and never having played an MMO before, I spent my first few battles clicking away at the mob I was fighting, rather than paying attention to the skill-bar. Hey, the mobs died, I must be doing something right?

Also, I did the kind of trial where the game downloads the starter-areas first, and the rest of the game is downloaded afterwards. While waiting for the rest of the download to finish, I started checking lotro-wiki to learn more about the game, and started reading up on deeds. To pass the time, I decided to kill some goblins and work on the local goblin-slayer deed. As I was still in the tutorial instance, none of them counted, because the deed had yet to begin; I just thought it was hidden and would alert me when I was finished.

Said in the trade-channel "WTB coal"; At that point, coal occasionally dropped from ore nodes, and I had no idea you could buy them from a vendor.

This one is more of a veteran mistake; Having plenty of toons now, I try to arrange their skill-bars so that there is some shared structure to it, to help me quickly adapt from one toon to another; Emergency skills at the same keys, for example. As such, when I learned Blood Rage on my Champion (which drains morale, this is important), I placed it at the same position where I have To The King on my Guardian. The skill I replaced at that position? Dire Need.
As such, the next time I went in over my head and needed to use Dire Need to restore some morale, I instantly pressed the key-combination where Dire Need had been before, only this time, Blood Rage was there. Instead of restoring morale when needed, I drained myself of morale, making me die even quicker.

Heehee, great thread

*If you are a hunter, learn to distinguish between the campfire you make and the one you can port to.... Once when grouped with some kinnies I decided to make a fire after a nasty fight. Imagine their puzzlement when they were suddenly asked if they wanted to go to Nar's Peak.

* When harvesting mats.. remember that not every human form is competition... I was running around gathering ore once and from a distance spied somebody homing in on the node I was heading for. It was a tomb robber...


I'm sure I'll think of more, but these are two more recent examples.
Oh.. and even though I've played the game since 2007, on and off, I *still* get lost in the Prancing Pony.. and for that matter.. a lot of other places in the game. When I first joined my kin they were immensely amused that I was having trouble finding me way out of Duillond housing after using the kin house port.


EDIT
Just remembered something else.
I only found out quite recently that when you have your map up and hover your mouse over the quests listed on it.... the area you need to get to will flash in a certain colour... or better yet... sometimes actual quest locations/npcs will flash their little golden rings. When I learned this my time in Moria became a bit easier.

This wasn't lotro, this was Runes of Magic, which was also my first MMO. I just finished the starter quests and it told me to go to a place called Vanras. It was actualy on another map and I had no idea how to get there. It's only until I further explored that i found i entered a new zone with a new map

I haven't shared some of mine in a while, so here goes.

-- I spent a week in the starter area (Elf) before I figured out there was a much bigger world out there. Before I figured a way out, I had already died a few times and was very upset that this little area was all this game had to offer.

-- Someone came up to me when I was level 10 or so and opened a trade window with me. They put a few things in the window and I freaked. I thought I also had to put things in my window and then we would trade the items we wanted. I just closed the window and ran away...

-- I was duoing with a Guard in Goblin Town back in the day with someone I didn't know. This is before I joined a kin, so interacting with other people was still odd to me. Anyway, he would run up and aggro 3-4 mobs and I would starter to panic because I had no idea a Guard could handle that much damage. Then, to add to my n00bness, a set of Shadow-Stalker Shoulders dropped and I won them. He was so excited to see them congratulated me. All I said was that I thought they would a great upgrade to what I was wearing. On my Hunter. I'm glad he told me they were worth a lot on the AH or I would have sold them for 500s or something.

-- Speaking of the AH. I had no clue it existed until about lvl 25. I got all my weapons and armour from those NPCs that sell the grey stuff. To make matters worse, I upgraded every chance I could. I'm probably the reason those armour and weapon NPCs in the middle of the Bree Marketplace are still in business.

-- I also had no idea that there was a lilttle yellow arrow on the bottom of the Auction House screen. If the item I was looking for wasn't on the first page, then I was out of luck. I also probably overspent big time on items since I failed to search all the screens for better prices. I fihured this out at about lvl 45.

-- I used to farm Goblins and Blackwolds in Bree for mad cash. I'd be rich farming for hours and getting 200 silver (!) total to go buy another grey bow with 11.2 DPS

-- You can repair things that break? I just replaced them with new junk armour.

and much later on --

-- I DF'ed out of the Balrog fight in the Rift trying to click on my Rift Gloves for the Shadow Mitigation. I sat outside the door after the long walk back and the Mini kept telling me I was out of healing range for some reason. I finally had to admit what happened.


I got a million of them.

Lotro was my first MMO and I got the game on the week of release. I remember being about level 10 or so and walking through Bree (when bree used to be very busy) and seeing loads of people with "AFK" over their heads.

I thought to myself, "I must join that kin as there's loads of them".

Sent a couple of tells asking to join but didn't get a reply lol.

I didn't know you could do a fellowship and all get credit for a boss.

One night there was a line of us at some boss (I think it was near Archet). We'd all kill the regular mobs as they spawned, and the first guy would run in and kill the boss. Then we'd all kill mobs waiting for the respawn, and the second guy would run in. If they needed help, we'd run in to heal or fight the adds, but then we'd get back in line.

It was all very nice and polite as we each mowed down this one boss. I expected him to start calling out "Number eight! Now serving number eight!"

I didn't know what deeds were for the longest time. Just every once in a while, I'd magically get some Turbine points and a new title, or something called Valour or Innocence would be improved somehow. Hmm, I killed a monster, now I'm more, uh, innocent. Ooooookay.

I think it wasn't until I got some Light oil for my hunter and shot an arrow that LIT UP! that I finally clued in on Light damage.

When I first starting playing I was running around the Lone Lands (wasn't in a kin yet) and one of a group of people running by asked if I was a gold farmer...and I was like...you can farm gold? They were like yes, are you one? I then asked, where do you plant it?

That got a few laughs.

I have the reputation of being the most easily lost person in our kin - perhaps because on many an occasion I'd be saying on vent or in chat I'm lost. One of my more memorable moments was when it said You have entered Angmar, I was only L30, and got so flustered that I had to be rescued by some of my kin mates. Also coming out of Aughaire I took a wrong turn and ended up with lots of very red levelled spiders and caveclaws and need rescueing again - I get rescued a lot!

Cool! Just joined this kinship and am perusing the roster. Ok Im done, Just hit that convenient "Quit" button.

Originally Posted by morrowbreeze

Cool! Just joined this kinship and am perusing the roster. Ok Im done, Just hit that convenient "Quit" button.

I have seen this happen a lot with people. There is something about the placement of the button that just leads to the conclusion it means "Quit" panel not "Quit" kin. I almost did it myself the other day. Fortunately, I caught myself before I actually hit it.

Probably lots of stuff but the biggest one was last week ( been playing 6 moths now)

After an amazing run thru Carn Dum I got the Putrid Slime of Melchgam.
We finished at 4:30 in the morning, so very tired, I sold all the #### I picked up and went to sleep.

The next day I travel to the class quest guy in Archet ( long ride) to deliver the goods, only to find I SOLD the pricesless item.. Since that was last night, I couldn'tbuyback...

I felt so stupid and was very annoyed with myself.
Luckily a kinship member had 1 in storage which he gave to me

first time using the in game voice chat, I kept using the vent hot key for push to talk, half an hour I talked to my fellowhip before I figured out they couldn't hear me... I was like "man, these guys are real jerks!" for a bit because they were "ignoring" me.

45 minutes to get a spot 200m away in Moria, no matter what I'm trying to do.

Light damage, I was told by a kinnie that a certain mob type was weak to light damage. My mind was racing.. who in their right mind would buy a damage that does miniscule damage? Where do you get it? Why would this monster get hurt more by a weapon that doesn't hit as hard?


eesh.

My first character, back in 2007, was an elf hunter. I had never played an MMO before. I read the manual that came with my game, so I knew how to do the technical things, bBut here are two early blunders that come to mind.

One of the early quest rewards was a cloak. I thought it was just for looks and nothing more, so I sold it. I also didn't realize I need to upgrade my armour.

Finally, it was several levels before I realized a hunter could, and should, use his ranged skills in melee, rather than using ONLY his melee skills.

I love reading these things! Now mine don't sound so crazy after all the above.
The In-game Map "X" thing was discussed quite a bit in the forums at one point. People wold say it's easy, just don't click it, etc. but it was really the only single panel of the game that actually shut the entire game down. Seriously, you craft? X out the panel. Social panel? X when you are done. The Map? - Bang. Game did not prompt, nothing.

When I started I HAD to know if you can "leave the path" so to speak and die when jumping off cliffs. I was barely out of the Elven starting gates when I jumped and tumbled all the way to Thorin's Hall. Since I knew nothing about anything, I chatted tried typing in the chat window asking for help. I didn't know about chat filters or anything about chat so never saw a response.

And since I basically ignored the chat window after that, I some how joined a Kinship and never realized until about 6 months later! Some thought I didn't speak English, others thought I was a gold seller and didn't trust me but need the numbers for a Kin Hall. Lol.

I mostly explored at first and didn't kill many mobs. It was a while until I realized that the rewards just sat in my inventory, they didn't automatically equip. Doh! As in...why is this little Boar taking me down? Seriously!

Others have been covered above.

when i started playing loto i thought that "bound" items can not be unequipped, so there i was, running around with vendor armour and weapons until ~lvl 40! and every time i inspected someone, i thought, oh man what a looser, hell be running around with that armour for the rest of his life xD

Ha! That's funny

Was my first MMO too.

Until about L30, I kept selling all my pots. Once I was grouping with a kinnie and I kept dying so he came over and gave me 10 athelas essences. Next day, I died again and so he gave me another 10. This went on for a week. Then finally, he asked, "what the hell do you do that you need to use so many pots?" He laughed so hard when I told him I'd been vendoring every pot he'd given me .

Was with another hunter and warden, doing the quests at Imlad Balcorth in Angmar. We got to the circle which has a bunch of spirits there surrounded by death water. The warden accidentally goes into the water and dies. So he types "don't go into the water, guys!" But I was like 'oooh, green water! I wonder what that does...' I still never hear the end of that .

Originally Posted by Mandura

when i started playing loto i thought that "bound" items can not be unequipped

I thought the same thing when I watched my dad beta test lotro.

.- Didn't know you could actually use bow skills in melee range. Until lvl 46 I kept using melee skills to fight mobs.

.- When I was lvl 6 or 7 I attempted to go to Mirkwood. But hey, I nearly got to Thorenhad.

.- Getting lost on the small lake SW of Celondim, where wolves are.

.- Falling on Duillond stairs with my butterfingers. Well I hadn't got used to LOTRO controls by then.

.- Got lost on Orodost and got to Sarnur at lvl 10.

.- I didn't know how to fight trough areas. I just kept running and aggroing.

.- Selling every potion I got.

.- I thought hobbies were crafting.

.- I just started the tutorial and it was dark. I didn't see the edge of the cliff where Elladan adn Elrohir were and fell. I never got the Wary title on my hunter .

.- Thinking that the distance between Tham Gelair and Celondim was huge.

.- Attemped to get to Gondor, and looked Gondor Quest pack on LOTRO store.

.- Fearing the midgewater marshes at lvl 12.

.- Fearing area around Buckland.

I discovered the GLFF at 62.
Someone was asking for a tank to join.
So I was like "Hey I'm a Guardian I'm a tank."
I had no idea how agro worked or what i needed to do to get it.
After we hit the first boss, and lost, I was told if I didn't get my act together and keep the agro/threat they would be getting a new tank.
I quickly read all my skills and just mashed anything that generated threat. It worked.

My first character was an elf hunter.

I reached level 12 and couldn't find more quests (I never looked at the minimap)... so I was pretty sad that I was done after a long download time, so I left the game.

Two weeks later I was playing again (I uninstalled the game, so I had to download it again), and this time I found out that there were a lot of different quests xD

I just wanted to say that this thread is adorable, and I want to hug it.

I remember it took me forever to figure out to hold the alt and shift button when buying craft vending items. I'd buffer and get that "wait" message when trying to buy 50 spice pouch. I would grumble pretty loudly about it!

First time I found the vault, I thought the 'space upgrade' price at the bottom of the window was the cost to use the vault. I thought 'I'm not paying each time I store an Item' so I saved up and bought a house for storage.

Originally Posted by SPQR

When I first starting playing I was running around the Lone Lands (wasn't in a kin yet) and one of a group of people running by asked if I was a gold farmer...and I was like...you can farm gold? They were like yes, are you one? I then asked, where do you plant it?

That got a few laughs.

LOL I'm sorry, but that is completely awesome! I'm so using that line if someone ever asks me that!