LEAD: Tutorial

Welcome to LOTRO Epic a Day, or LEAD, where I will guide you through the entire Epic storyline in one continuous journey. As your guide through Middle Earth I would like to provide my own perspective to playing the game. Players often ask where they should be and what they should be doing at a particular level, and I feel that the Epic quest serves as a good guideline for this. An average player can use where they are in the Epics to branch out and explore what the rest of the game has to offer, as well as to experience a fairly deep and immersive story. While there are guides out there giving detailed instructions for individual quests, I wanted to create one that you can follow from one to the next as well as giving an overview of what to do on in between levels.

Ever wonder just how to get through that annoyingly difficult Epic Quest? Maybe you’re stuck aligning mirrors in Moria or trying to hunt down an item that is taking forever to drop and the guides you’ve found tell you how to do it but just don’t seem to explain your problem. Maybe you just are wondering what you should be doing at your level to proceed in the game. LEAD is here to help take you through LOTRO’s main quests, on an epic journey through Middle-Earth. Written to help anyone get the most out of the amazing Epic storyline, LEAD is for new players as well as experts returning to the epic quest to finish it off or complete it again. LEAD will progress through the storyline each week, breaking the Epic quest into smaller portions that you can finish one book at a time or at your own pace. Feedback is encouraged – if you have any questions or would like to comment with your own advice or corrections, please speak up. The journey awaits!

Tutorial

After creating your character, you are dropped into the tutorial, specific to your race, but each individual one providing detailed instructions on basic gameplay. Movement, combat, and basic menu interaction is covered here, so I won’t go into full detail, but this section is aimed at players beginning LOTRO. Start with the Prologue or Book 1 LEAD articles (coming soon) if you feel comfortable getting through the Intro and doing the basics on your own.

Each Tutorial is different for the 4 races, and there are individual Intros as well – one for Elves and Dwarves, another for Hobbits and Men – but other than the specific areas and quests, the mechanics operate the same. To complete the tutorial, simply follow the on-screen instructions using the pop up tutorial tool-tips to help, such as the one on camera movement. If you don’t wish to see anymore Tutorial Tool-tips, search for “tutorial” in your UI settings in the options menu and un-check the box. You can also use the following general pointers to get around in the game:

• If you have already done the tutorial before, or don’t feel the need to do it at all, check the “skip Tutorial” box during character creation, towards the bottom of the screen.
• Editing hotkeys or navigating through the various Options menus is easier than it seems – merely type in the specific option into the search and it will filter to that option. If the setting is in a different tab of options, that specific tab will remain highlighted on the right.
• Use Ctrl+ to enable movement of your various ui menus and other info around. Once you have everything where you like it, use the command /ui layout save NAME so that you can easily load (“ui layout load NAME”) the same ui later, even on a different character. This does not save chat tab settings, however, which are tied to your character. Make sure to use Ctrl+ again to turn off ui interaction (though many menus will remain moveable as needed).
• Chat commands, such as the one above, are entered in your chat menu. Hit enter in game, or click on the space after “say” in the window. Whenever I describe a command I will write the actual command in bold, with NAME being a word you choose.
• The map is a useful tool to use before beginning work on multiple quests, to direct you to the proper areas faster. I color-code my quests using the in-map menu to make it easier to see which quest is in which area. De-select a quest to only view specific ones (or to find that specific quest easier, by clicking multiple times). You will first be able to see multiple quests in the map during the Intro, and can then select individual colors to mark up to 5 quests at a time.
• Interact-objects (such as bodies, plants, chests and any number of quest-related objects) can sometimes be hard to see, so press your “Select Nearest Item” key (default Delete). Making sure names are shown by pressing “n” will also help you locate them.
• “Instances” are short quests that take you to another area in the game. Sometimes this is a distinctly designed place, other times it looks the same but does not have other players running around in the area. While inside, you can not obtain help from other players except via chat (unless it’s a group instance). If you leave the instance by turning off LOTRO, logging out, or right-clicking your player icon and selecting “leave instance”, you will have to speak to him again to enter and then play through the whole thing from the start. You can also only enter 5 instances an hour, but that shouldn’t be an issue at all until you get skirmishes and even then rarely poses a problem. I’ll discuss it when we get to skirmishes in a future LEAD.
• Once you finish the Intro you will begin finding Stable-Masters at various locations throughout Middle Earth, with a horse icon above their heads and on the map. Talk to them immediately, as this will allow you to quickly travel between locations for a small amount of coin.

Next week LEAD will take you through the two Intros. Until then get a good night’s rest, a new Day awaits!