LOTRO Plugin Compendium is an external program (available in Mac, PC, and Linux versions) for Lord of the Rings Online that takes all of the manual work out of installing plugins. In fact, it not only allows you install plugins, but it also allows you to update and uninstall them as well. It can be used quite easily to also discover new plugins that you might have not known of before!
I have been waiting a long time for someone to develop a program like this, which lowers the barrier to introducing people to plugins. The only down side that I can see to the program is that the author needs to approve each plugin manually, but he also does this to make sure that the plugin actually works with the program. So really it is hard to fault it too much for this fact. Regardless, I love this program and am thankful that it exists. This program is suitable for anyone; from those who want to dabble with plugins to those who use them all the time. This program is a must have.
*Edit*
Per Jason’s suggestion below I’m adding a link on how to use the in-game Plugin manager for those who may try plugins for the first time.
February 23, 2012 at 8:22 am
In my wowdays I found curse client to be very handy come patchday when invariably addons stopped working. This does seem like a very similar thing to that apart from not having to sub to curse in order to get more than 2 updated at one time.
Only run 3-4 addons with lotro but even with that small number if this helps the updating process then it’s a good thing. I sometimes find the lotrointerface website tiring on the eyes with the white on grey colour scheme so the new addon list may well find more downloads coming.
February 23, 2012 at 9:25 am
I was thinking about developing something similar to this last week. Then went looking for some plugins and ran across this. Will have to give it a try.
February 23, 2012 at 9:48 am
I’ve been surprised that such an idea hasn’t been more readily picked up by the major addon sites. Even RIFT seems to have sections on them, while LOTRO doesn’t. Maybe the awareness and demand for them is low, I don’t know.
This is a good one though. I’ve used it before and it comes in handy.
February 23, 2012 at 11:22 am
LOTRO Interface said they would when plugins were first announced, but they never followed up on it for some reason.
February 23, 2012 at 9:55 am
How did you get your LUA to work again?
February 23, 2012 at 11:23 am
http://casualstrolltomordor.com/2010/09/how-to-manually-install-plugins/
February 23, 2012 at 10:20 am
Epic program and thanks for sharing!
February 23, 2012 at 11:22 am
You’re welcome
February 23, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Nice! Just when i reinstalled my OS and need my plugins back.
February 23, 2012 at 2:16 pm
I was just saying the other day I was being too lazy when it came to installing some plug ins. Looks like that’s been fixed for me.
February 23, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Fantastic!
February 23, 2012 at 3:11 pm
Merric, maybe add a link to your most excellent review of Update 5′s Plugin Manager? Seeing this Curse Client clone has prompted me to start using addons, and your guide on how to get started with the built-in plugin manager was exactly what I needed.
http://casualstrolltomordor.com/2011/11/lotro-plugins-update-5s-plugin-manager/
February 23, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Sounds like a good idea. Thanks Jason.
February 23, 2012 at 3:32 pm
I run so few addons for LoTRO and they’re so amazingly fiddly when compared to say ::cough::worldofwarcrafts::cough:: that I’m trying not to become dependent upon them.
That said, this looks slick – I think I’ll have to try it out.
February 24, 2012 at 12:56 am
OMG, there’s a Mac version! So. Epic-ly. Awesome.
I am one happy Crossover-Games-using runekeeper.
February 24, 2012 at 8:19 am
Since installing this my addon count has almost doubled, damn you easy to use interface thingy.
February 24, 2012 at 1:14 pm
I was really looking for something like this. Thanks for sharing this!
February 24, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention! I had abandoned all my addons with Rise of Isengard, not wanting to bother checking for updates. Now I’m up and running again!
For those of us who are not technically inclined, this executable is really wonderful.
I was a little unsure of what to do with the executiable file, whether to save it where the plugins are, or what. But I just used the defaults and, as an executable it saved the program where it wanted and found my plungin folders just fine! Thanks again, Merric!
February 24, 2012 at 4:14 pm
So cool. Just found out there’s now support for Mmoui Minion too, based on this plugin compendium. http://www.lotrointerface.com/downloads/info668
February 24, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Interesting, thanks for pointing this out.
February 25, 2012 at 5:20 pm
Nice to see Plugin reviews again. Lunarwater did a great job on the “Plugin Compendium” – I just wish she had picked a slightly different name since I always have to make sure people don’t confuse it with her equally excellent in-game Plugin called “Compendium”.
March 23, 2012 at 10:09 am
I know I know
I have a hard time with names. Was hard to change after cat was out of the bag.
February 27, 2012 at 11:23 am
Hello!
has anyone tried this with a German client?
So far I always had to use the “Vindar.exe” patch for each manually installed plugin to resolve some language incompatibilites.
Stephan
February 28, 2012 at 1:08 am
LoTRO Plugin Compendium does not alter the plugins that it installs or maintains so any plugins that do not natively support a solution to the DE and FR localization issue will still not work without a patch. Many authors have already accounted for the localization issues so not all plugins need the Vindar patch – all of my plugins except IRV already incorporate a solution based on the Vindar patch and do not require patching. Appying the patch won’t hurt other than adding an additional layer of encoding which just slows down saving and loading data slightly – typically only noticable in plugins like MoorMap that save and load data frequently.
March 23, 2012 at 10:29 am
Thank you for the kind review Merric! My biggest hope creating LoTRO Plugin Compendium was that it would draw more interest to LoTRO’s plugin system. There are so many talented author’s that have produced incredible plugins and interfaces all of which are free of charge. I hope Turbine continues to move forward with their plugin beta program, and tap into the small army of people basically willing to work for free making the game better. I see this as one way that can only be a win for the Free to Play game.
May 8, 2012 at 11:09 am
Simples!
After toiling with an attepmt to install sortpack and it showing but not working i had it all sorted (pardon the pun) in 5 minutes with this.
Excellent stuff.