Lottery

Description

LOTRO Lottery was exactly what it says, a lottery within the LOTRO community where characters could win prizes of varied value or usefulness, determined by the player's preferences.

The PC used to support the Lottery system was destroyed in a power surge during a major electrical storm in Boston in 2013. Turbine's entire data center was knocked off-line, UPS systems and all! It was all recovered except for the PC running the Lottery system. Subsequent discussions within Turbine have never allocated resources (Developer time) to re-codding the Lottery system, the original programmer having previously departed.

Prizes

Typical prizes were cash, healing potions, armaments, special pipe-weed and fireworks, new LOTRO store items, etc. The more valuable and rare wins included special mounts, rare armaments, relics, unique class quest items, etc. Some prizes were bound to character or account, but many prizes were unbound.

Currency Prizes

When a lottery awarded a currency prize, the size and type of the prize was level dependent. Not every lottery had a currency prize, and the types of currency prizes varied. The following table shows the typical sizes of the prizes awarded to characters in different level ranges.

Level Range	Cash Prize	Marks	Mediallions	Seals	Shards
12 - 20	75
21 - 26	100	125 Mark
27 - 29	200	125 Mark	45 Medallion
30 - 35	250	125 Mark	45 Medallion
42 - 47	300	125 Mark
48 - 50	350	125 Mark	45 Medallion		125 Shard
53 - 54	400		45 Medallion	3 Seal
58	500
63	600	125 Mark	45 Medallion
63	600		10 Medallion	2 Seal
75	1	125 Mark	45 Medallion	3 Seal	125 Shard

Playing the Lottery

Lotteries were free to enter for all players in good standing. Players could enter the drawing at this page, where you could select which characters should enter each lottery. (You needed to be logged in to the forums to participate.)

Some lotteries were restricted to characters of certain levels, classes or servers. You were not be able to enter a lottery for which your character was not eligible. Players who had not completed the introduction could enter lotteries.

Each lottery had a stated draw date and time and was usually open for a few days. "Flash lotteries" were announced on Twitter and had a short duration between announcement and the draw. Some unannounced special event lotteries also had a short duration.

The lotteries you had entered were listed on the lottery page.

If your characters gained levels after entering the lottery and as a result were eligible for a new lottery draw, you had to enter them again. They could not win a lottery for which they were no longer eligible. There was a short delay after levelling a character in-game, before the lottery site was notified of the level change.

Prizes

Winners were notified with an in-game mail containing the prizes. (As usual, this mail had to be collected within two weeks of the draw, or the prize was lost.) Your winning characters were listed at the lottery page itself. The lottery page listed winners soon after the drawing. The delivery of prizes by mail could be delayed by a few hours.

Prizes were generally useful for characters in the eligible level range or class, although a character could win unusable items. As most prizes were bind on equip, you could share them with other characters and players. Mount skills were bind on acquire, so duplicates had to be discarded.

Winning players who had not completed the introduction were not be able to collect their prizes until they had completed the introduction, and could visit a mailbox.

Prizes often had different stats than current in-game items, possibly due to item versioning. Sometimes the name of the prize listed for the lottery was incorrect, or out of date, or was a store name instead of the game name.

Scheduled lotteries

These lotteries occurred twice every week, with drawings on Wednesday and Sunday.

• Welcome Wagon Lottery (level 10-19)
• Lottery of the Free Peoples (level 20-29)
• Lottery of Arnor (level 30-39)
• Lottery of the Northlands (level 40-49)
• Lottery of the Depths (level 50-59)
• Lottery of Rhovanion (level 60-69)
• Lottery of Angrenost (level 70-79)
• Lottery of The Mark (level 80-85)

Other lotteries

Other lotteries often appeared during festivals and other special events, including both game and real life events. The prizes often related to the event in question. When a new LOTRO store steed was released, sometimes lotteries were released in which you could win the steed.