This is an old guide, but posting it since I couldn’t find it here, and with LOTRO going f2p, will be useful to a lot of new players…
Don’t just level your character; level your weapon! We tell you how to get that first Legendary Weapon and get cracking on entering Moria, which requires that you complete Volumes 2, Book 1.
The Best Way of Doing It
I am a little guilt ridden about telling you to sort of skip things then go back, particularly since one of the great parts of an expansion is all the new virgin territory to explore at your own pace. You will want to get into Moria eventually though, and there are a few things you may as well set in motion in the meantime. This coincides with getting your Legendary Weapon.
New Places to See
Eregion is south of Rivendell and the Trollshaws. You can reach the new area through Tal Bruinen or Giant Valley. Eregion has 4 settlements: Gwingris and Mirobel in the North and South West, respectively; Echad Eregion, just West of the map’s center; and East and slightly South of Echad Eregion is Echad Dunann. Just East of there is a gate where you can talk to a dwarf called Rathwald and start Volume 2 of the Epic Books (you did already do the Prologue in Rivendell right? It’s been out since Book 14).
As you work through these rather short and entirely soloable quests, you will be offered Expedition Quests. These will be booted from your quest log upon completion of Chapter 8 of the main path, so you have to do them first if you want to do them at all. The loot isn’t that great, but remember, you’re getting XP again now. More importantly, completing all of the Expedition Quests, and they aren’t hard or out of the way or requiring a Fellowship or such, unlocks a special session play instance: The Fall of Moria. I don’t want to ruin any surprises, but you meet some A-List Middle-Earth VIPs, and the graphics in there alone are worth seeing.
Why Can’t I Just Say Mellon?
If you will recall, the Fellowship entered Moria in a hurry, leaving a rather angry set of tentacles outside the door. When the Dwarves you are trying to help run into this thing with you in Chapter 8, none of your weapons do any good. Luckily they have a plan, which you will discover in Chapters 9 and 10.
The reward for Chapter 10 is a Legendary Weapon. Like any Legendary Item when you find it, it will be Unidentified. Your next step will be either to talk to Dithalion at the forge in Rivendell if you are a Hobbit or Elf; or Wafi at Thorin’s Hall if you are a Dwarf or Man. They are both standing next to a Forge-Master. These new NPCs perform two Legendary Item functions; Identification and Reforging. We explain both of those along with other features of the Legendary Item system, and get you the rest of the way to Moria, it the next article.
More Than Mellon: Getting Your First Legendary Weapon and Entering Moria
Moria is in the expansion’s title, and the Legendary Items are very hotly anticipated; I mean dwarf-forge hot. We’ll tell you how to get going on both. So you’ve got the thing, but what are you supposed to do with it? We will get you and your weapon ready for some serious Moria dungeon-delving.
We’re assuming this is the Legendary Weapon you got from the dwarves outside of Moria in Volume 2, Book I, and that you are now on Chapter 10. If you are working with another Legendary Item, just ignore references to Dithalion and Wafi and use any of the Forge-Masters found in through out the high-level areas.
Name that Weapon
Take that Unidentified Weapon to Dithalion in Rivendell or Wafi in Thorin’s Hall. They will tell you to get it identified by the adjacent Forge Master. You will be seeing a lot of these NPCs for the rest of your time in Middle Earth. Identifying your weapon does two things: You will be able to equip it and its Legacies will be revealed. Legacies are the buffs you can spend points on to increase their Rank as your item levels up.
Equip the Weapon and talk to Dithalion or Wafi again. Now they want you to slot a Relic in your weapon. You have already picked some of these up as quest rewards, but they aren’t kept in your inventory, thank Ea, so you may not have noticed. Click the little sword button (just to the left of the big sword button for auto attack) or press Shift + I.
This will bring up the Legendary Items window, pictured at right. The tabs along the top (in the yellow rectangle) take you to the different Legendary Items you have slotted. The left pane (in red) lists the Legacies. You can rank them up by clicking one to highlight it than clicking the Rank Up button below.
The right pane (blue) shows your available Relics, divided between the Settings, Gems, and Runes tabs. You can have one of each slotted on each item, and the ones that are slotted in the item you are looking at appear above the pane (orange). Choose one and hit the Slot Relic button below the pane. Do this for each of the three Relics tabs, or as many as you have appropriate Relics for.
Now you can talk to Dithalion/Wafi again, and he will explain that you need to level the weapon up.
No Moria Yet
Before you can take another crack at getting past the Watcher in the Water and into Moria proper, the dwarves want you to get that Legendary Weapon to level 10. To be fair, they did give it to you, and it would be a shame if it ended up being used as a toothpick by the Watcher.
The weapon will get experience from combat, though not benefit from your Rested XP bonus. Quests will not give Item XP unless it is specified as a reward for the quest. You will also find rewards or drops that can be right clicked to convert them into Item XP. If you have a nice raid-loot or crafted weapon, the Legendary might not be quite as good right of the bat, but it levels quickly and you will soon forget all about your previous weapon.
So have fun, enjoy the new area of Eregion, tons of quests in there. Or start tracking down materials for all the new crafting content. You will get a graphic effect, a chat message, and an icon at the right edge of your screen whenever your Item levels. Clicking on the icon will take you to the tab of the item in the Legendary Items window that has leveled. You can spend the points you receive on ranking up your Legacies in the left pane immediately, or save them up to buy more costly improvements. Note that you can also increase base DPS the way you do the other Legacies.
This post sponsored by:
written by J. F. Amprimoz of brightbub
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quote with LOTRO going f2p, will be useful to a lot of new players…end of quote
actually f2p players only will have the soa world to explore, mom and som will require payment via store points or (oh noes) actual cash
so those trying to play lotro really for free will unlikely not be needing this…:(
with all the massively articles and “leaks” in the lotro forums f2p may not really be aimed at new players at all, it is to get $ from the lifetime subscribers who if in from April 2007 (launch date) ….
lets see from April 2007 to now call it 39 months live
full price subscriber for 39 months = $15 x 39 = $585
Founders monthly special for 39 months = $10 x 39 = $390
Lifetime = $199
but for more legendary stuff ->
you can get weapon at level 45
you can get class item at level 46
Mmorsel’s Guide to Choosing Your Legendary Items
http://lotro.mmorsel.com/2010/06/choosing-your-legendary-items.html
Legendary Item Point Spender [Beta v0.3]
http://lotrotools.mmorsel.com/lispender
http://lotro.mmorsel.com/2010/04/using-li-spender-tool.html
Are there that many lifetime subscribers, that you feel so cynical about the game developers?
Founders special priced or lifetime members are the only ones in the combined alliance (4 kins pooled together, while retaining their own names) to try and always have _6_ people on to do instances. that are still on constantly that I talk to, the people that pay full price come and go, land rushes during an expansion release then… back to the low population, with school out there are more on now but its just that time of year, school will be starting soon enough that many I’ve talked to have said they wont be on past august…
If lotro had been doing well, would it have gone to f2p?
Financial reality is financial reality those numbers in the above post show the major reason lotro is in some kind of $ trouble, all the abilities to do more solo:
skirmishes, the revamp of the entire first “epic” volume 1 to be done solo…. reflect the shrinking of the player pool (less revenue) combine that with a _large_ player pool -> lifetimers; who pay nothing = why they went to f2p
Turbine has advertised very aggressively on gaming/other sites with an almost non-stop 10 to 14 day free trial which has only a few limitations on chat/tells compared to what the f2p forums say is coming…
Turbine has probably been very successful in its appealing to those who loved the books, or the movies, if you ever wanted to walk where Bilbo, and Frodo and all the others did, you probably have heard about lotro and tried the free trial if you had ever wanted to
(if you haven’t but do want to try it free do it NOW before the f2p! Now you get the full package without many restrictions)*
so if most Lotro/Tolkien fans are aware of the game who is f2p targeting, wow kiddies??
OR just a way for a long time player with a ton of alts (the only real end game in lotro = alts, crafting) the store will allow you to tweak all your chars with less effort by buying your stats, virtues etc
======================
If you used the current free trial: http://www.lotro.com/trial/
and like the game, (I may seem to poo poo the game but am still getting on to talk to my friends after 3 1/2 years) you can buy the triple pack:
http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/464-answer-the-call-of-war
for 29.99 you should get 30 days free then after buying any subscription
hmm price not listed: http://www.lotro.com/component/content/article/352-lotro-subscription-cost full price in the past was 14.95
if you pay 29.99 + 14.95 = 44.94 that SHOULD qualify you to be a vip member when the game goes live**
**disclaimer: investigate!, make sure of the details yourself, my eyes don’t read fine print that well anymore…
The thing about mmorpg’s in general, is that if there isn’t the mmo in a game, then it’s just an rpg. RPGs, people can play on their home computer/console. In essence, it means people want to play an online game with other players. If there are no other players, then even the people who pay don’t want to play.
Sure, if it was wildly popular, they wouldn’t have gone f2p, but on the other hand, they could have just closed their doors too – which is what happens with most mmo’s, when the cost outweighs the profits. Instead, they chose to go a different route, to keep your beloved game open.
You might be thinking they are only targeting kiddies, but likely you will see an older crowd too. I say this because it’s people who have credit cards (18+ in most states), that can buy things. Sure, there will be the free players who wont pay a thing, but more likely, you will see more of an 18+ crowd playing.
Supposedly, and I have no real numbers to back this up, DDO is the 3rd most popular game right now. Assuming that’s correct, thats a huge boon, and worth a lot of money – which keeps the game going. If you also take into account Aeria games (all f2p games), makes $750k a month (verified), then LOTRO, will not just get profitable again, but also extremely busy – which is what people will pay for.
I bet you didn’t know this… but World of Warcraft was originally intended to be a f2p game as well.
wow that bogus ddo is third sure gets around:)
I’m so old 18 year olds _are_ kiddies to me
if you look back at what I’ve written, I haven’t said that the f2p plan will not make money but that its target is not new players, rather its target is the oldtime players who would gladly fork out $5 bucks to NOT kill 450 worms in angmar for the 9th time to raise valour one more notch or to get that last thirty points of might to the cap by spending $10 bucks (all prices mentioned, are just guesses)
Yah, I think we discussed that a while back… you are old, lol.
My point wasn’t who they are targeting, just that you always seem to complain that lotro is dead, except for the founders. They are trying to keep the game going, not just for the founders but for everyone. If they don’t go f2p, then you could expect lotro to be gone within 6-12 months.
quote then you could expect lotro to be gone within 6-12 months. end of quote
Which would be fine by me, the friends all use the best free voip so that’s the only important thing..to keep in touch
sometimes out of mercy you have to put down an ailing pet, so lotro being put to sleep would be more of a relief than anything
its been time to move on for 12-18 months but lotro is like that old smelly pair of hiking boots, they’re comfortable, known
there’s TONS of other boots out there all shiny, a bit too tight, and new ready to pinch your feet and make them hurt til you break them in….
but for now being lazy it’s just easier logging onto the same old same old
If you had an ailing pet, would you take it to the vet, and see if anything could be done for it, or would you simply relive it’s pain, without taking it to the vet? Could be something that can be fixed, could be something which can’t, but without taking it to the vet, you won’t know for sure.
While you might be comfortable with it, there will be all the other naysayers, who just recently paid for lifetime, which would be adding up their dollars and be complaining. I’ll tell you what… I am gonna post a new poll, to see how many others share your P.O.V. It might take a while to get the necessary votes (unless you link from the official forums), but we should be able to see how many people would rather let lotro die, and how many would rather see it go f2p. Of course this is only meant for current players, not future players, who obviously don’t get a vote.
Also want to point out that even if it goes f2p, that it could still die…