One of the first things you may notice about The Lord of the Rings Online is that it’s not exactly easy to make money early on. A lot of what you manage to put together will likely go to travel costs, crafting items and training.
Aside from being smart about repairs and doing quests, there are a few other surefire ways to save money.
I should preface this with the recommendation that you don’t burn youself out. Spending hours gathering items for some extra money is going to do little more than make you think LotRO (or any MMORPG, for that matter) is a hassle.
I personally have made a point to not spend much time doing any of the things in this list, but rather keeping them in mind when I need a bit more or are waiting for a group of friends to reach me. Moderation is key with anything.
So here we go.
1.) Fight Humanoids
Humanoid enemies are the only ones in the game likely to be carrying coins. This is pretty much the most important point.
An adjustment in Book 14 has decreased the amount of non-stackable items humanoids drop as well. In place of this are new stackables that can be sold to a vendor for some additional money. So instead of filling your bag up with underpowered weapons and armor, you can gather up 20 pairs of chainmail gloves and sell them for another 40 or so silver. It’s a small adjustment, but a smart one.
Simply find a place suitable for your level and keep taking them out, gathering items and silver along the way. Every several levels you’ll want to find a new place to make it worth your time. I spent a good amount of time in the wight infested areas of the northeastern Trollshaws. Not only does each enemy drop around 4 silver apiece, they also regularly drop reputation items for the Elves of Rivendell.
Sure, you can run around and kill beasts and sell their various drops for a small profit too. However, this typically doesn’t add up as quickly .… However, If you’re willing to stack items and hit the Auction House, good money can be made over time as explained farther below.
2.) Sell Optional Crafting Items
One previously unmentioned benefit to beast hunting is that certain types will drop optional crafting items. While these are by no means a super common drop, when grinding for deeds or what-have-you they will drop often enough to be of use. Stacks of these, particularly those used higher crafting tiers, will sell for a decent amount of silver on the Auction House.
3.) Sell Reputation Items
Stacks of reputation items typically sell very well on the Auction House. While some aren’t considered as useful and are thus not that valuable (such as mathoms for the Shire’s Mathom House), others can be quite lucrative. Items for Rivendell and Forochel can fetch some pretty decent silver on my server, for example.
While I certainly don’t recommend doing this constantly, it’s not a bad way to make some extra money if you’re running on empty or if you’re trying to fill up a deed. You can actually do quite a lot of this while running to your next quest.
Keep in mind that if people are paying good money for these something in this game it’s because it’s useful. Selling these if they will benefit you might not be the smartest path to take. You likely won’t want to sell every reptuation item you pick up as being friends with certain faction is certainly helpful; it opens up new areas to you and expands the travel network, amongst other things.
4.) Become an Explorer
Most crafting professions are money sinks in a lot of ways. Sure you can wind up with some awesome stuff that can be incredibly helpful, but it’s probably not going to be cheap. Being an Armsman has required more Dwarf Iron Ore than I would have thought possible, for example.
Explorers are almost an exception to this concept. They can gather the two materials shared by the most professions: wood and ore. And because their output isn’t quite as important, they can sell stacks of 50 of these regularly.
Some players start out as Explorers to fund their needs down the road. You can always change professions later when you know for sure what you’d like to do.
5.) Skin Some Hides
Hides are useful to few professions and, as with many things, not everyone wants to gather them themselves. Hides are an incredibly common drop from beasts of all types. The stronger the beast, the better the hide. Stacks of 50 of these can be quite lucrative and, more than likely, you’ll wind up with hundreds of them just by completing quests and deeds. Selling a bunch of Light Hides at a lower level can be a huge help, just like selling a bunch of Exceptional Hides at level 50 can be a huge help.
And that’s that. Obviously a lot of these recommendations are pretty general. Still, even keeping these things in mind as you run around enjoying yourself and questing can help. The most simple recommendation is simply not to vendor every last thing in your bag because chances are someone will pay more for your trouble.
We wanted to realize just what other readers think regarding this matter. Anybody possess any specific opinions?