LOTRO’s Middle-earth is big.  Really big.  Bigger is usually better (unless we’re talking about height, in which case 5′7.5 is ideal) but sometimes, bigger means a lot of running.  If you’re anything like me there are a million other things you should be doing instead of playing LOTRO, but they’re not nearly as fun or interesting.  Auto-run allows you to make the most of your time, and pretend to yourself and others that you can be productive.

By simpy pressing the ‘num lock’ key, your character will run forward in whatever direction they’re facing until they hit an obstacle or die, in which case they’ll start running again as soon as they revive.  When making long treks such as from Bree to the Lone Lands, or one side of Evendim to the other, auto-run is your friend.  Hit that key and take off, whether its to the bathroom, to fold some laundry, or to feed the cats/other crying hungry creature.

Although the quest tracker is useful for reminding you what objectives you have yet to complete, it can lack some of the more specific information such as where exactly you should be looking for those pottery shards or who wants you to find them in the first place.  The quest log on the other hand will tell you everything, and thankfully there is an easy way to access the log is from the quest tracker itself!

Each quest in your quest tracker will have a gold ring next to it, and by clicking on that ring you can bring up the quest log for that specific quest.  This way you can quickly and conveniently pull up those other pesky details you may have forgotten without having to search for the quest, or even just remove your finished task from the quest tracker to make room for others.

Boar intestines, while excellent decorative items, tend to go bad shortly after they are removed from the interior of the boar.  They’re also extremely difficult to pair with wine.  For these reasons amongst others, you’ll probably sell the piles of boar intestines you carry as soon as you have the opportunity to do so.  There are plenty of other types of “vendor trash” to be found in LOTRO, all of which are good for nothing more than a few pieces of silver.  You will also come across many items which for one reason or another you don’t want to sell, and sometimes the fear of losing that rare one-shot crafting recipe can be so great that you’ll want to idiot-proof it from yourself.  Enter the item lock!

You can lock any item from being sold to a vendor with a few simple steps.  Hover over the item with your mouse, and then press alt and left-click to select it.  You can then press Ctrl and t to lock the item from being sold.  A small ‘locked’ icon will appear in the bottom left corner to indicate youv’e done this correctly.  Then you will be unable to sell the item the next time you’re at a vendor unless you unlock it first, which will prevent you from accidentally selling by right-clicking it or pressing the ’sell all’ button.  Trust me, it’s worth it!

A horde of goblins, orcs, and wargs are rushing towards you.  Your mouse hand freezes up from the fear, and you’re unable to click on the closest of the beasts.  You sense impending doom, and then you remember reading a post on My LOTRO that prepares you for such a situation.  You smile, and unleash the fury.

By hitting the backspace key on your keyboard, you will automatically select the closest enemy.  This is convenient when you want to take out your closest attacker, if you have a broken wrist, or if your cat is confusing your computer mouse for a real one.  Like all keys, this can be reassigned by accessing the options menu.

There are places in Middle-earth even Balrogs fear to go, because there’s no escaping if they get stuck.  Thankfully the LOTRO developers are on the side of good, and they’ve given the players the /stuck command.

/stuck will teleport you to wherever your Map would normally, provided your Map is available for use and not on its cooldown timer.  There are some situations in which your character will be unable to move or access your Map due to a bug in the geography, and this is where /stuck shines.

Learn it, love it, and use it.  It’ll save you the embarassment of paging a GM for help, and then having them walk over to your desk and ask why you didn’t just use /stuck.  Not that I’d know.

Middle-earth has some strange naming conventions when compared to those of our world.  Many of LOTRO’s players choose to name their characters lore-appropriate names, which while great for immersion, can be tough to remember or type due to their lack of familiarity and general length.  This can be troublesome when conversing via the tell (private message) system, which is why LOTRO contains the quick reply feature!

In order to automatically reply to the last tell you’ve received, simply type /r (space) (your message) into the text bar and your message will go to the most recent sender!  How’s that for convenience?

You may also want to take advantage of the IM tab on the chat box, which will let you easily keep track of  individual conversations.

Happy Memorial Day, enjoy the long weekend!

Did you know that you can link any item in a chat window?  This allows other players to pull up a tooltip of that item and see its stats.  If the answer to that question is yes, be gone from my blog (until next week).  But if you said no, prepare to be educated!

In order to have an item appear in the text entry field of your chat window, press the control key (Ctrl) and right-click the item of your choice.  This can be useful when asking advice about which piece of gear you should equip, or when looking to sell something on the trade channel.  And of course, it comes in handy when bragging about that fancy first age you just found!

This command can also be re-mapped, and is labelled “Item Link to Chat” in the Key Mapping section of the Options Panel.

LOTRO has all sorts of simple features that can improve your quality of life, but they can be difficult for new players to discover.  This category will be updated weekly with tips that all players should know!

If there’s one thing that just about every man has in common, it’s our love for food.  I’m sure women love food too, but most men feel for sustenance something that borders on obsession.  Even thinking about my fervor for food has me salivating.  In fact, I’m going to go grab a snack.  And that snack is my modern day lembas.  It’s also known as beef jerky, and it’s outstanding.  Dating a vegetarian has made this snack near and dear to my heart.

Now I know that beef jerky isn’t exactly modern.  In fact, you’re probably aware that LOTRO features both lembas and various forms of jerky.  What I feel modern man has done though is perfect the art of salting, drying, and devouring beef.  We can marinate it, season it with spice-rubs and glazes, and can seek it near and far from towns delivering the highest quality of hitherto unknown jerky out there.

I’ve recently stumbled upon a small and somewhat unknown web supplier that meets my jerky needs.  They deliver directly to my home (or office), offer previously nonexistent customization, and quite frankly serve up some of the best jerky I’ve ever tasted.  I felt the need to share my discovery with you, my community.  Welcome to the SlantShack customizable homemade flavor zone experience!

Yesterday I was wearing a button-down shirt.  A friend of mine noticed that the bottom button hole is horizontal (instead of vertical, like the rest) and that the color of the hole is different from the others on the shirt.  I went home and looked at my other shirts; to my shock, I noticed that all the bottom button holes were abnormal.

“Why are shirts like that?”

“I don’t know.  But I’ll find out.”

I haven’t found out yet, but I’m hoping that with your help, I can.  Once you share your knowledge with me, I’ll share it with my friend, and give you none of the credit.

Love,
Tarrant