Beginner's guide to LotRO housing

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The housing system in Lord of the Rings Online offers more than just a place to store items or sleep off the effects from the Inn League initiation; these houses offer a highly-customizable place to call your own with a unique trophy and decoration system, land price based on scenery and much more. First introduced with Book 11, the LotRO housing system has proven to be quite popular among players.

Since the entire system can get a bit on the overwhelming side for new players, we figured we'd write up this beginner's guide to show people how to choose, buy, decorate and maintain the place they'll be hanging their hat throughout the game. Then, if you choose to go further with the housing knowledge, we'll give you some links to a few excellent guides out there that we've personally hand-picked for accuracy and current information.


Gallery: Lord of the Rings Online Player Housing (http://www.massively.com/photos/lotro-player-housing/)



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There are 4 types of neighborhoods and housing styles to choose from: Elven (http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Race:Elf) in Falathlorn, Dwarven (http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Race:Dwarf) in Thorin's Gate, Hobbit (http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Race:Hobbit) in The Shire and Man (http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Race:Race_of_Man) in Bree-lands. These houses are not restricted by race though, as you can have your Hobbit live with the Elves, or whatever you'd like. Each homestead area has up to 250 instanced neighborhoods, each with 4 kinship houses, 10 deluxe houses and 16 standard houses.

The type of house you buy is completely up to you, as each standard, deluxe and kinship house is basically the same size in each homestead, with different layouts and scenery. That's where your personal preference comes in. If you're big on fishing (http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/The_Angler's_Guide_to_Fishing_in_LOTRO), you can buy near a lake or stream. If you need to be on higher ground to overlook the rest of the neighborhood, you can buy on a hilltop. You may also want something that is close to the neighborhood's bank and other NPCs, for the sake of convenience. Be aware though that those houses in scenic areas go for a bit more than the exact same house on a flat lot with minimal scenery.

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There are two ways to buy a house. You can go to the housing broker just outside of each homestead, shown in the maps after the jump, or you can click on the For Sale signs outside of the home of your choice. We would highly recommend using the For Sale signs, as then you can see what you're buying. The housing broker is used more for choosing an instanced neighborhood to visit. As a general rule, the houses are similarly priced in each homestead. Standard houses go for around 1 gold, Deluxe go for around 7 gold and Kinship houses go for around 15 gold. Of course, as mentioned earlier, the price varies depending on a few factors, but these will get you in the ballpark.

Standard - A small 2-room home with 22 interior hooks, 5 exterior hooks and one storage chest with 30 slots.

Deluxe - A medium personal house with 3-4 rooms, 47 interior hooks, 7 exterior hooks and two storage chests with 30 slots each.

Kinship - This enormous house is only available to the leader of the kinship and offers 80 interior hooks, 12 exterior and 3 storage chests with 30 slots each.

Before you make that final purchase though, there are a few things you need to remember. First off, you can't resell your home. If you want to ever upgrade or move, you will need to abandon the house, gaining back everything inside, yet losing the money you initially paid for the house. Secondly, you will need to keep up with the maintenance on your home. On a standard house, this is around 50 silver a week. You simply enter your housing window tab and select Maintenance to see when your payment is due. It's usually safest to pay several weeks in advance if you have the funds available.

Housing Broker NP locations:

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.massively.com/media/2008/08/elven-housing-location-0808-sm.jpg (http://www.massively.com/photos/lotro-player-housing/968086/)

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.massively.com/media/2008/08/thorins-housing-location-0808-sm.jpg (http://www.massively.com/photos/lotro-player-housing/968092/)

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You may have also noticed a new skill in your skill list called Travel to Personal House. With this skill, and 1 Travelling Ration (2 silver at any Provisions NPC), you can travel to your personal house at any time from anywhere, with a 1 hour cooldown period between uses.

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When you leave your real home, you ordinarily lock up, right? Maybe you've given a copy of your key to certain family members or really close friends, as well. The same general concept can be applied to LotRO's personal houses as you can set a wide range of permissions for your home and its contents.

Setting permissions can be done from the housing panel shown in the lower left corner of your radar map. You can set permissions for owner (including all characters on that account), everyone, your kinship or certain specific people.
Visit - This is the key to your home. If you turn it off for everyone, then no one can enter the door. Sometimes it's nice to allow anyone entrance, yet not allow them to access anything inside. This way, you get to truly show off your beautiful house!

Housing Chests - This gives permission to access the storage chests in your home.

Maintenance - Let's say you have yourself a sugardaddy or sugarmomma and they are paying your rent for you. This is where that would come in handy.

Decorate - This allows others to decorate your house. This is especially handy when a friend or kin-mate wants to give you a special present, and they want it to be a surprise. Be aware though, they can also remove decorations!

Use Decorations - This allows the interaction of other players with certain decorations. The best example of this is the Keg. Many good times have come from that keg. Oh yes.

Manage Permissions - This allows other players to set permissions for other players. Dangerous ground unless you really trust that other player.

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Decorating your house can be achieved several different ways. You can purchase furniture, wall coverings, paint and ambient music from a furnishing NPC, usually found in your homestead's town square. You can also craft many of these items or have them crafted for you by other players. Woodworkers and Foresters can make furniture, Scholars can make wall paint, Jewellers can make chandeliers and so on. You can also decorate with trophies that you win throughout your time playing. We'll explain those more in the next section, but for now, let's concentrate on normal decorations.

To enter Decoration Mode (http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Housing#Decorating), simply enter your house or yard and click on the small icon attached to the lower left corner of your radar map, just next to the housing panel icon. You will see small areas surrounded by a faint blue glow. These are the only places where decorations can be added, and each one is restricted by type. For example, an item labeled as Large Wall can only fit into a Large Wall spot. Once you decide what you want to place in the appropriate spot, simply right-click on the blue glowy area, drag the icon from your inventory (you'll see usable items outlined in yellow) over to the empty icon slot in the decoration window, and from there you can rotate to your heart's content.

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Inside your home near the front door you'll notice small icons for wall colour, wall surface, floor surface and ambient music. These are all for use with the corresponding items that you've already purchased, and works the same say as everything else in Decoration Mode. After you've set everything up just as you like it, you can leave Decoration Mode and admire your handiwork.

Keep in mind as well that any purchases made with the homestead NPCs gives you an automatic 10% discount for "buying local". If you have a kinship house in the neighborhood, the discount is 15%, which will not stack if you own both in the same neighborhood.

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Trophies are probably the number one reason for keeping your door open to strangers. You want to show off your accomplishments, and this is a wonderful way to do it.

Trophies are gained in a few different ways. First, there are the trophies you barter with the Taxidermist NPC in Bree. If you ever find an item in your travels called something like "Undamaged Barghest Corpse", that can be taken to the taxidermist and turned into a stuffed Barghest for your house. Another bartered item for the taxidermist is fishing trophies, introduced with Book 13 and fish group trophies introduced with Book 14. These are special fish that can be mounted and displayed in your home.

The last type of displayable trophy is the type dropped from bosses or obtained in particularly difficult instances. These trophies are usually named, bind on acquire and highly sought-after.

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We hope this guide has helped you on your new house purchase. Remember, once you've finally saved that first gold piece for a home, you'll still need to pay for weekly maintenance, so only shell it out if you have the extra money or income. Despite the fact that you can't resell homes and the money spent is essentially lost if you later upgrade or move, buying a standard home as your first is a great learning experience for when you have enough to get that Deluxe house.