Thread: new here want advice

hey everyone im new here, dont know how the community is or where to say this. but i played a little today but going to push some hours in tomorrow to see if i really like the game. if so i won't be scared to spend some money and go all the way. if anyone out there that cares to give some type of advice at all please let me no, i dont know anything about anything with this game, never even watched gameplay of this game. i'd like to know how guilds (or is in kinship's in here?) work and just general information that i might not pick up right away.

anyway i hope i like this game, the hour a spent on it tonight looked like it has a lot of potential and i hope to get to meet everyone.

If no one is jumping to answer your question, it's probably because it's so broad and open ended. Stuff - lots of stuff. Things about stuff. And things.

It's late here, or I'd take a stab at it - but I will say just this much. Don't jump at the first kin that winks at you. Be cool, shop around, listen a lot, ask questions if you're curious. And change if you don't like what you see.

Same with Servers - several dozen to choose from, each with diff people/personalities/flows.

Have fun, yak atcha later.

Always speak to stable masters in new areas, even if you don't need a ride, it adds that stable to your list.

Rule of thumb: do not spend any money unless you are 100% sure you NEED that thing and cannot obtain it in-game by other methods. All other mistakes may be rectified, but spending real money on such very very very cheap and common things as Travel Rations, Low-level regen food or generic crafting recipes might leave a sour taste in your mouth

Originally Posted by Malachi108

Rule of thumb: do not spend any money unless you are 100% sure you NEED that thing and cannot obtain it in-game by other methods. All other mistakes may be rectified, but spending real money on such very very very cheap and common things as Travel Rations, Low-level regen food or generic crafting recipes might leave a sour taste in your mouth

Quest Packs and Expansions (which gives content in the form of quests and instances) is, for me, the most important thing to spend money (or in-game earned TP) on. You need quest packs unless you love grinding the same skirmishes over and over. Going VIP for a month also gives your toons some permanent benefits that helps you (read more about this here: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...Your-Questions).

Nothing else is really necessary, though extra Milestone Skills seems to be popular.

Good Morning (he said, after his coffee...)

Welcome to the game.

I only started playing a few months ago, FTP but I like the game so I'll be doing the VIP->Premium route. But my early mistakes and confusions are relatively fresh in my memory...

You can buy advanced content with cash or with Turbine Points. If you go VIP (monthly/yearly subscription), you get 500 TP/month. If you are F2P (Free to Play), it's not recommended that you spend your TP on anything except core content - not the pretty horse, not the nifty potion, not the armour or weapon that you will outgrow in 5 levels. VIP have the points to do this (500/mo), F2P do not.

Whether VIP or F2P, as you adventure, you will earn additional Turbine Points for completing Deeds. There are several categories of Deeds - Slayer Deeds (kill X # of Y creatures in z Zone), Explorer Deeds (find x # of landmarks), and Class Deeds (use X Class Skill Y times) - among others. Deeds are larger (and more free-form) than Quests, but many Quests will start a Deed. If you don't complete the Deeds, much fewer TP. Look up Deeds in the Wiki ( http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Deeds ), and check for them on your (current) character by hitting [shift + L}. (Lower case "l" is your Quest log, upper case "L" is your Deed Log.) Not all Quests give TP - some give Titles (purely cosmetic, but cool) and some Traits (bonus to stats).

Speaking of Traits, look up Traits in the wiki too - they are a nice boost to any Character, and should not be overlooked. You can certainly survive without them (early on), but having them optimized is a nice edge.

You Account is good across all Servers, and there are several dozen of them. If you want to experiment with a class, or just grind up a couple hundred additional TP for some purchase on Sale this week, you can create a diff alt on a diff server and the TP it earns will add to your account. Be sure to spend TP only on/from your "primary" account(s)/server(s)! (Don't be that guy who buys the wrong alt something expensive!)

Every alt goes thru an intro chain of quests (takes about 1 hr, can't stop half-way or you start again) that takes them to ~Lvl 5-8, depending if you milk it for xp or not. (Each Race starts differently, but more or less equally). After that, zones are roughly organized by Level - the Shire and Ered Luin are both starter areas, Level 5-16 or so*, then Bree -> 20+*, then the Lone Lands -> 30+*. Those are all "free" zones, open to any/everyone, but after that you either have to buy Quest Packs or be VIP.

(* VERY rough target numbers - your mileage WILL vary.)

You can travel to other zones, even way over your level - just run from the monsters. ("Purple" is the danger color, and red is not particularly user-friendly, followed by orange then yellow. Cooler colors are usually not a challenge except in larger numbers. Quests ("l" for quest log, remember?) are color-coded the same way, btw.) Bree town tends to be The social center of the game.

Crafting: you don't have to Craft, but it's a huge advantage to be able to make your alts custom gear. Craft-critted gear is the best in the game until ~Lvl 35-45, and even then it's close for a while. Unless it bores you to tears, Craft something (7 to choose from, articles are many and long on this topic.)

Role Playing - some do, some don't. As with Crafting and Kins, there is no "right" way to play the game except that is "fun" to you. There are 2 servers that "focus" on RP - these are labeled RP (Role Play) and RE (RolePlay Encouraged). Your call.

Lastly, for other info, I strong suggest you browse both the Wiki and these forums, esp this subforum, and read any threads that look interesting or that have Subjects that echo some of your own questions/thoughts. There is good advice/discussion on almost every possible subject, far far more than we could cover here.

Originally Posted by buged

hey everyone im new here, dont know how the community is or where to say this. but i played a little today but going to push some hours in tomorrow to see if i really like the game. if so i won't be scared to spend some money and go all the way. if anyone out there that cares to give some type of advice at all please let me no, i dont know anything about anything with this game, never even watched gameplay of this game. i'd like to know how guilds (or is in kinship's in here?) work and just general information that i might not pick up right away.

anyway i hope i like this game, the hour a spent on it tonight looked like it has a lot of potential and i hope to get to meet everyone.

Well, the best advice I have for this question is to NOT spend any money. The game is free up to a point, and you can see if you like it well enough to invest without spending a cent. Then you can either continue to play for free (becomes a grindfest to earn enough turbine points to unlock the content, and more of a job than a game after a while...) or spend whatever amount you feel comfortable with on the game depending on how much you like it and how much money you have to spend on games. So just get in here and play the game for now, see what you think about it!

Guild = Kin sort of. Actually we have NPC based crafting guilds, which are just part of gameplay. Kinships are groups of players who do things together and hang out etc. They work the same as in any other game: you meet people and form up into a kin by having 10 or whatever number people join the "unformed" kin. Once you get enough people, the kin is made, you get your own chat area and such. As the kin exists for longer periods of time, you unlock the ability to do more things.... after a while you get a kin house ( a place to meet, show off trophys from killing bosses, store items for the kin, and more). You have to buy the house, but the ability to have it takes time. There are many, many good kins already out there, and you can join them.... some have applications and requirements (must be 21 or older, must be max level, whatever) and others will let anyone join (come on in and have fun!). Any of many officers in a large kin can invite you to join them, while a small kin may only have 1 or 2 officers and you have to wait until you are both online at the same time to get your invite to those. Just ask around, you will find someone to play with and a kin to join. There is a whole subforum for each server which includes kinship info.

General info? Read the sticky guides in the class forums and other guides on various sites to get this. An hour reading a couple of guides is far superior than anything I could type here. Try the guides at mmorsel for example, they have a lot of getting started info and how to play for free (get the most from the least effort) data.

hey i been reading what everyone says and thanks for the help. i did indeed play yesterday and it is a fun game. im starting off slow to get a feel for the game, i might make another character with a different class to see what others are like.
i do have another question.

1) what are the classes like, and how hard they are
b) is there any differences in the servers?
4) does anyone want to paint this bathroom so i dont have to get up.

Originally Posted by buged

hey i been reading what everyone says and thanks for the help. i did indeed play yesterday and it is a fun game. im starting off slow to get a feel for the game, i might make another character with a different class to see what others are like.
i do have another question.

1) what are the classes like, and how hard they are
b) is there any differences in the servers?
4) does anyone want to paint this bathroom so i dont have to get up.

1. If you go to the character creation screen, there are little bios that tell you about the class and their level of difficulty. You have your various DPS classes (hunter, champ, RK), your healing classes (mini, RK, and captains can be considered healing), your tank classes (guard and warden) and your CC/crowd control classes (LM and Burg). Some classes could change over different roles, e.g. champs can tank. Just read the info on the classes, or try a class and if you decide you don't like it, start over on the next one.

Difficulty is based on basic, moderate/medium, and advanced (I think.) I find all classes fairly easy, but I have been playing for a while. I would recommend starting off with a basic class if you want to learn how the gameplay is. (Just my two cents, don't have to follow it, I won't come looking for you if you don't.)

b) (Why is it b and not 2? :/) Some servers are UK and some are US. If you live in the US, and pick a UK server, you may not see many people because of the time differences. Or vise versa. I'm not 100% which servers are which.

There are RP (roleplaying) servers.

4.) (No 2 or 3? No C? :/) Sorry can't help you there!

Originally Posted by buged

1) what are the classes like, and how hard they are

On the character creation screen, you can view descriptions and watch a little movie about each class. They are labeled as to their difficulty; typically they mean the complexity of the class' unique mechanics. When you are just starting out, choosing one of the simpler classes means that you have a little less to learn when you have to learn all kinds of stuff. But really, the first 20 levels are structured to teach you about basic game and class mechanics. Many classes don't get all of their class-defining skills until level 40.

Since you are just starting out, skip the Runekeeper and Warden classes. You'll need to purchase those in order to play them... and I'm sure you'll find one of the base classes interesting too.

Don't worry TOO hard about the difficulty ratings... if the class that appeals to you the most is Advanced, that's fine. You'll likely to be able to figure it out.

Originally Posted by buged

b) is there any differences in the servers?

Laurelin is RP-enforced, which means there are extra rules about how you can name your character. If you're not willing to at least put up with Roleplay, it's not a good server. Landroval is RP-encouraged, which is the same only less enforced. "DE" means the server is for German speakers. "FR" is for French-speakers.

The servers at the top of the list in the Launcher are recommended for new players, and will have the most folks just starting out like you are. Some servers used to be in the UK and have larger populations at their peak playtimes than at US playtimes, though over the past year-plus that has evened out a bit. Elendilmir and Riddermark have a lot of folks from Australia and New Zealand and are therefore busy at off-hours for US residents.

Originally Posted by buged

4) does anyone want to paint this bathroom so i dont have to get up.

If I'm not willing to get up and paint my OWN bathroom, why would I paint YOURS!!

just another update, i was playing for a while and i am going to play it for real. i havn't been able to play it for a couple of days (dealing with real life stuff) but im going to start brand new now that i have a feel for the game and know what im doing (kind of). Anyway i'm going to be joining a new server any good ones out there???

p.s. my bathroom still isn't finished :/

Originally Posted by buged

Anyway i'm going to be joining a new server any good ones out there???

They're all good. Picking the one at the top of the list will mean you're starting off with the most folks who are ALSO just starting off.

Originally Posted by buged

p.s. my bathroom still isn't finished :/

Lucky you, at least (maybe) it's started!

Don't be afraid to ask a lot of questions in the advice channel. You'll probably get some "answers" from jerks that like to show off in front of their online buddies, but there are also a lot of very friendly people out there that enjoy helping new players when they can.

If you want to go f2p for awhile it is absolutely fine.

My best advice if you do is do as many deeds as you can in all the content areas you have avaiable to you for free. THis will make you some Turbine Points(TP).

Then do not spend your TP unless you REALLY need something and even then preferably when it goes on sale.

I would say spend the 95 on Riding Skill then save up as much as you can for the Evendim quest pack which you will need after you finish all the free content.

The class descriptions on the website are a good start for info about those, but beware that some of it can be extremely misleading. For example, it lists the Guardian as a "basic" class. I guess technically the basics of the class are pretty easy to learn (click the buttons!) but at endgame, tanking is one of the more demanding roles to play and there's a ludicrously wide gulf between people who aren't very good at all and people who are really top-notch. So basically...take those difficulty ratings with a grain of salt. The landscape solo content is easy enough that you should be able to handle it on any class regardless of that class's supposed difficulty, but every class takes talent to really master and all classes have a lot of potential for doing awesome stuff.

As a new player, you're going to see tons of advertisements in chat channels for kinships. In my experience, you will probably want to avoid those kinships. Better ones are a little more selective in who they invite so don't usually advertise to everyone via regional chat channels. Instead, try grouping with people. Doing Great Barrows (a level 20-ish instance in Bree-land, which is a highly populated zone) is often a good place to get to know other players. I think a lot of people join their first kinships as a result of Great Barrows runs. I know I did.