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    Lord of the Rings Online | LOTRO Afoot: Running Across Middle-earth (Thorin's Hall to the Black Gate)

    April 23, 2021

    Lord of the Rings Online | LOTRO Afoot: Running Across Middle-earth (Thorin's Hall to the Black Gate)

    LOTRO Afoot: Running Across Middle-earth (Thorin's Hall to the Black Gate)

    Posted: 23 Apr 2021 01:57 AM PDT

    Hi, all!

    So, as the title indicates, I recently finished running my hunter across Middle-earth from Thorin's Hall all the way to the Black Gate of Mordor. Not in one session, of course, but on and off over the last week. Still, a lot of running!

    My goal was just to get a feel for the size of the overworld and the individual zones, something I've always wanted to do. My methodology for this was basic, but even then I went about this casually and so these should be taken as (super) rough estimates. So accounting for some instances of getting lost and backtracking, wandering off, misadventure--here were my rules:

    • Stick to standard running speed. No hunter buffs or temp buffs.

    • Stick to roads/paths only.

    • Try to take roads that run the full length of the zone. Some roads only pass through a portion of the zone before diverting away. Such as in the Trollshaws; I took the Giant Valley passage into Eregion instead of through Tal Bruinen.

      I wasn't trying to take the quickest route as this was kind of a scenic thing, too. Going through the Gap of Rohan or Far Anorien would've been much, quicker, I think. And some zones are oddly shaped, so trying to traverse most of it (like Moria) would've been difficult and messed with the times, so I didn't bother in those cases. Just tried to go from end-to-end where I could. Anyway, here are the numbers!

    Route Time to Traverse
    Ered Luin (Thorin's Hall) to The Shire 11 mins 25 secs
    The Shire (Needlehole) to Bree-land 10 mins 48 secs
    Bree-land (Buckland) to the Lone-lands 13 mins 23 secs
    Lone-lands to the Trollshaws 11 mins 2 secs
    The Trollshaws to Eregion (via Giant Valley) 12 mins 38 secs
    Eregion to Moria (Doors) 19 mins 46 secs
    Moria to Lothlorien 17 mins 5 secs
    Lothlorien (Dimrill Dale) to the Great River 11 mins 26 secs
    The Great River to East Rohan 8 mins 3 secs
    East Rohan (Limlight River) to West Rohan 25 mins 3 secs
    West Rohan (Entwade) to the Paths of the Dead 18 mins 42 secs
    Paths of the Dead to West Gondor 2 mins 33 secs
    West Gondor to Central Gondor (via Belfalas) 40 mins 9 secs
    Central Gondor (Belfalas) to East Gondor 15 mins 51 secs
    East Gondor (Pelargir) to North Ithilien 21 mins 45 secs
    North Ithilien to the Wastes 13 mins 49 secs
    The Wastes to the Black Gate 7 mins 36 secs

    Total-ish Travel Time: 4 hours 21 minutes 4 seconds

    Things I Learned:

    • Moria is still my favorite zone. The relatively brief traversal time is a bit deceptive, because it extends north and south (technically up and down) for quite a ways and has a fairly direct route straight through the middle with few turns. But the music, sense of scale, the silent post-apocalyptic atmosphere, and overall design really set it off as something special.

      • Also ran into the most players here, randomly! (Not including cities.)
      • After years of playing, I just realized the chorus that plays in the Second Hall is chanting "Sauron" very slowly. (Can't believe I never noticed...)

    • By contrast, I think the Great River is my least favorite zone of the bunch. I don't think I've ever enjoyed being there, for whatever reason.

    • The most surprising time for me was West Gondor. Even if you remove the time to traverse the Cape of Belfalas Homesteads (about 8 minutes), it's still one of the largest zones in the game from end-to-end!

    • Gondor, taken as a whole, is simply a massive area. It accounted for a quarter of my total travel time and is, in my opinion, one of the coolest-looking and most atmospheric areas in the game. Locations like Dol Amroth, the use of color, the devastation, and the beacons burning on the hillsides is just great. Not to mention Minas Tirith rising in the distance. (Honestly, Gondor should be its own expansion.)

    • On this specific route I took from Thorin's Hall to the Black Gate, there are a total of 7 loading screens. Moria and the Paths of the Dead account for 5 of them.

    • Eregion and East Rohan probably have the least efficient roads of the bunch.

    • LOTRO's maps (mostly in Rhovanion) are really frustrating to navigate at times! Lots of areas overlap. Some areas zoom out to the wrong map. Some areas are only clicky on certain other maps. Sometimes the player marker on the map doesn't align with the roads correctly.

    • Seems like there's a way to get from Eregion to the Vales of Anduin? Couldn't figure it out.

    • This track includes 17 zones, but leaves out around 20+ others, to give some scale of the overworld in LOTRO.

    And here's a little travel album of screenshots I took along the way!

    submitted by /u/outbound_flight
    [link] [comments]

    Pre-release cinematic of the epic book quests! Upscaled & 60fps!

    Posted: 22 Apr 2021 11:49 PM PDT

    The darkest hour looks more peaceful from above of Weathertop

    Posted: 22 Apr 2021 01:41 PM PDT

    Night in its beautiful simplicity over Bree

    Posted: 22 Apr 2021 05:45 AM PDT

    Came back to the game just in time for some Anniversary goodies and fun!

    Posted: 22 Apr 2021 11:12 AM PDT

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    Posted: 22 Apr 2021 04:24 PM PDT

    New (retuning after 12 years) Player wondering what to buy first, etc, etc. WITH intentent to own EVERYTHING! ASAP

    Posted: 22 Apr 2021 02:22 PM PDT

    New (retuning after 12 years) Player wondering what to buy first, etc, etc.

    I wish to own it all, as soon as realistically possible, and need to use the communities smarts in order to know:

    1- what to buy

    2- when to buy

    3- starting afresh, what to avoid purchasing (if this is applicable in the least)4- personal anecdotes & preferences are happily welcomed alongside the "dollars & sense" of the Accounting-side of building & completing my own Gameworld's collection.

    I just hate incompleteness --especially in a game where it's nigh impossible that I'll ever see "everything" it contains!

    I'm old, retired, and keen to go on a adventure!

    Thank you in advance for your assistance, thoughts, ideas, and time!

    -J.Bee

    EDIT: I *KNOW* title has a typo!

    submitted by /u/G0-N0G0
    [link] [comments]

    new installation on Windows 10 ( on alienware laptop. verifying files at 77% and not proceeding. help please.

    Posted: 22 Apr 2021 09:33 PM PDT

    Hello, my friend I play lotro with, is expierincing this problem.
    she is on anew installation on Windows 10 ( on alienware laptop. ) She had a harddrive failure last week the tech replaced her hard drive and now her attempts at a fresh installation gets her;
    " verifying files at 77%" and not proceeding. help please.
    I have done a lot of searches, suggested a number of things, without any luck. (4 hours, and she went to to call it a night )
    I am hoping someone had this issue and has solved it with a solid solution.
    I am running out of ideas.
    Thank you for any help you can offer.

    submitted by /u/Hoppa_Joel
    [link] [comments]

    Question about the new Bilbo Adventure questline

    Posted: 22 Apr 2021 11:08 AM PDT

    Hello there

    So I just wanna preface this by saying I'm a new Lotro player. And since the recent news about the Amazon Lotr mmo being cancelled I decided to dive in this old but gold mmo.

    My question is I've seen that the Bilbo Adventure questline is free to redeem until May 9th. I have a character with who I want to play the game but I also might have a second character. Will I be able to redeem the free quest on both of them or is it tied to only one free unlock per account.

    Also can I redeem the quest if I'm not yet lvl 20. For example I just want to log in redeem it and let it sit there until I'm ready to start the quest. I don't really have the time to get to lvl 20 now but if I can only do it above lvl 20 I'll have to grind until May 9th.

    PS. Since I'm new I'll probably have a ton of questions. Is there an official or at least "official" Lotro discord server I could join?

    submitted by /u/Twiizzzy
    [link] [comments]

    There is still hope!

    Posted: 22 Apr 2021 03:53 AM PDT
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