Getting Started

Game Guides Topics: Getting Started, Game Terms, Commands, Character, Grouping, Music, Travelling

The User Interface

You should first become familiar with the User Interface. It controls how you interact with the game itself.

Character Creation

Choosing a Race

The first step in character creation is choosing what race your character will be.

The Free Peoples ("Freeps") races available include:

** Available from the Lotro store.

Choosing a Class

Once you have decided what race your character will be, you must choose their class.

The classes available include:

* These two classes are only available...

- with the Mines of Moria expansion, or

- from the Lotro store.

** Available from the Lotro store.

See Guide to Classes for an in depth look at each Class.

Race and Class Correlation

You may want to take a look at the table below to help figure out which race and class to choose as sometimes you cannot be the class and race you want. Example: You cannot play a Dwarven Burglar or a Hobbit Captain.

	Beorning	Dwarf	Elf	High Elf	Hobbit	Man	River Hobbit	Stout-axe
Beorning
Brawler
Burglar
Captain
Champion
Guardian
Hunter
Lore-master
Mariner
Minstrel
Rune-keeper
Warden

Choosing an Origin

Your character comes from one of a few regions which are determined by their race. Choose a region. Each origin (or region) affects your character with slight changes in their appearance, most notably the hair and skin tones.

Dwarf	Elf	Hobbit	Race of Man
Blue Mountains	Edhellond	Fallohide	Bree-land
Grey Mountains	Lindon	Harfoot	Dale-lands
Iron Hills	Lórien	Stoor	Gondor
The Lonely Mountain	Mirkwood		Rohan
White Mountains	Rivendell

See Guide to Origins for detailed information about each origin.

Choosing an Appearance

Another step in character creation is choosing what your character will look like. There are many different options and it is best to scroll through each one to become familiar with what each race has available. Keep in mind that later you can make changes to some appearance items at a barber shop (i.e. hair style, color, facial hair, etc). Take your time and prepare to dazzle others as you enter Middle-earth.

Choosing a Name

This can sometimes be the most difficult part of character creation for some people, a name and an appearance is what gives your character life. First, make sure that the appearance and other features are the way you desire. Then, take your character's name seriously and do your best to follow the examples given for the race. The only way to check whether a particular name is already claimed is to enter it and try.

Monster Play

While Monster Play is not part of character creation it is worth to be mentioned now. Once one of your characters reaches level 10 you are able to enter Monster Play where you may choose to play with the forces of Army of Angmar ("creeps"). The following races / classes are available:

See Monster Play Character for details about each race and class for monster play.

Entering Middle-earth

Introduction Sequence

Once you create your character and enter Middle-earth you are put into a prologue sequence, an instance, that teaches you the very basics of movement, attacking, looting, and so forth. Each race will face a different sequence and storyline according to how they relate to the epic tale in LOTRO.

Introduction Quests

After the prologue a new character must complete a series of Epic Introduction Quests. These quests are very simple and generally they do not require any assistance.

Introduction Areas

The introduction quests take place in one of three separate areas. Dwarves and Elves begin in Thorin's Gate while Hobbits and Men begin in Archet Dale. Beornings begin in the Vales of Anduin then move to Archet Dale. The Vales of Anduin is not used after this, while the other places are somewhat different than their counterparts once the introduction is completed.

The Aftermath

Upon completing the Epic Introduction Quests a new character enters the lands of Middle-earth where the world awaits. Now he or she starts the true adventures, now s/he may meet up with others who have left the introduction areas, and now s/he may be invited to a Kinship.

At this point, each race continues their epic quests in different regions, however a character is not stuck with that region if he or she decides to travel elsewhere. Eventually a new character is guided by quests to explore all of the other areas as well.

The beginning areas include:

Game Overview

So, your character made it through the introduction and now you're really excited about starting the real adventure. But, where to begin? Middle-earth is vast and there is so much that needs to be done! Well, do not worry about the big stuff yet, the character just started out and has to prove itself first.

Things a new character may want to check out and become familiar with:

Class Trainer - find one in the starter town
Stable-master - click on each and every stable-master you find
Mailbox - send friends and alts items/silver/etc (also connected to Auction House)
Bank Vault - store items for later use (not essential in the beginning)
Auction House - buy and sell items here (limitations apply)

Prologue Quests

To begin adventuring within any one of these areas your new character must start the Epic Prologue Quests by speaking with the person mentioned in the quest log from the Epic Introduction Quests that was just completed.

It is also wise to pick up interesting quest rings found in the current area. Happy adventuring!

Continued Character Overviews

We hope you have enjoyed our article to get you started. More about how your character works, including its stats, traits, weapons, and armor proficiencies is detailed in the Character article.

Continued Game Guides

For a new character the Character Stats article details statistics and proficiencies for weapons, armour, and of course the musical instruments. It is important to remember that the starting stats do greatly change between race and class.

Are you looking for ways to earn LOTRO Points (LP)? See the article: Acquiring Turbine Points from Deeds for some pointers.

Tired of walking? See the article Mounts for detailed information on acquiring a mount.

Technical Information

Window's Client System Requirements

Revised System recommendations as of 19 December 2013

Posted: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?535759-LOTRO-Hardware-Survey-and-Requirements-Update

Recently we asked players to complete a survey telling us what kind of hardware they were running. We also conducted a number of tests with our game client running against a wide variety of hardware configurations including those mentioned by players. We also ran these tests against our minimum and recommended hardware configurations.

As a result of this process we’ve created new guidelines for minimum and recommended hardware for playing The Lord of the Rings Online.

Minimum Recommended*

Processor: Intel Pentium® 4 3.0 GHz or AMD equivalent Dual Core 2.66 GHz

Video: 64 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 3 or ATI® Radeon® 8500 128 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® FX 6800 or ATI® Radeon® X850

DirectX: DirectX® 9.0c DirectX® 9.0c

OS: Windows® XP Windows® Vista 64-bit

RAM: 1GB (2GB for Windows Vista) 2 GB

Disk Space: 12 GB (+3 GB for international clients) 20 GB (+3 GB for international clients)

Internet: Broadband DSL/Cable Broadband DSL/Cable

Please keep in mind that these are requirements we feel should allow you to run the game reliably at low to moderate settings. If you wish to experience the game at the highest settings, additional system memory and higher end graphics cards should be considered.

Suggestions from our Technical support team

About Graphics cards

The recommendations in the post above mention memory suggestions for discrete graphics cards, but please be aware that we suggest you have a video card that at least falls into the Nvidia 7000 series or the ATI equivalent range. Card falling under those performance levels may not offer sufficient performace, despite meeting the stated onboard memory requirements.

Intel integrated chipsets are good basic graphics solutions, but not ideal for gaming. If you’re using an older Intel integrated video solution you may experience poor performance and low frame rates on even modest settings. If you are using a newer Intel chipset, and the game reports that you can use DirectX 10 or 11 modes, we recommend not enabling these. Doing so may cause some graphical elements to display oddly or not display at all.

Use a 64 bit OS

Although LOTRO is a 32bit application we strongly encourage players to use a 64 bit OS like Windows Vista or Windows 7 (Please note that Windows 8 and 8.1 are not officially supported). 32bit operating systems may encounter memory limitations when the game client is running and stability issues may result. This is especially true for those using the High definition installation which uses significantly larger amounts of graphics and system memory due to larger textures. Those who choose not to or cannot upgrade to a 64bit OS are encouraged to use the standard resolution client install to reduce memory usage and avoid the memory limits for applications on 32bit versions of Windows. (If you have already installed the High Resolution version, lowering “Texture Detail” in Options > ADV Graphics to medium or lower can also aid in avoiding this memory limitation and improving game stability and performance on 32bit systems.)

Mac Client System Requirements

Minimum Recommended*

Processor: Processor: 2.0 GHz Intel Core i5 Processor: 2.0 GHz Intel Core i7

Video: Intel HD Graphics 3000 or better NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M or better

OS: OSX 10.7.5 OSX 10.7.5

Memory: 2 GB 4 GB

Disk Space: 25 GB available 25 GB available

Internet: Broadband - DSL/Cable Broadband - DSL/Cable

Sound: Integrated Sound Integrated Sound

* Turbine has not posted any specs for the Mac Client on the LOTRO website. These specs are from the Steam information page on the Mac Client.

* Details on the Mac Client can be found here: Mac Client