ByJustin Olivetti

There’s this ongoing common perception in MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online that player housing is good for one and only one purpose: to be a Barbie dollhouse where you stash nice-looking but otherwise pointless trophies. Maybe you become a decorating virtuoso of the game and astound others with your creation, but that’s about it.

This line of thinking can inadvertently push people away from the many practical benefits that housing supplies above and beyond “playing dollhouse.” While LOTRO is no WildStar in terms of the housing features it offers, it does have a surprising variety. Today, I want to list many of the benefits that you can tap into through your own house.

Let’s begin with the standard utilities that come with every homestead and neighborhood in Middle-earth:

• A free port to your house, which can help you with traveling woes as every neighborhood also contains a stable master.
• If you join a kinship, you also get a port to the kinship house and a port to any kinship member’s home, giving you even more travel options.
• A mailbox on demand, which is great for non-VIP players who have to otherwise hunt around for mail access.
• A storage chest, which is split between inventory for that character only and shared housing inventory across all your characters on that server.
• Access to a nearby vault-keeper for your other storage services.
• Access to nearby vendors (including housing furnishers) for convenient buying, selling, and repairing with a 10% discount.
• Access to nearby task bulletin boards and collection boxes for the full spectrum of zone content.

Now let’s talk about some home decoration you can slot that actually serve a purpose beyond looks:

• Crafting stations: You can set up a full array of crafting stations (including farmland) for your various professions as well as…
• Ingredient crates: These can be used once per day for a trio of universal ingredient packs, great for crafters.
• Visiting banker: This NPC allows access to your vault, wardrobe, and shared storage.
• Treats doormats: You can slot one of six of these to your doormat as a way to offer free trick-or-treats to your visitors (especially useful during the Harvest Festival).
• Training Dummy stand: Beat up on one of this to find out how well your DPS is doing these days.
• Gondor Supplier Horn: Use this to summoner an NPC for buying, selling, and repairing.
• Samwise Gamgee, Loyal Assistant: This NPC gives you a daily quest with food rewards, but you can’t get him any longer.

Finally, LOTRO’s housing has so many travel decorations that I wanted to create a whole section just for them:

• Stable-master’s Stand: This item summons a stable-master for even more convenient fast travel around the world to major hubs.
• Landlocked Dock-master’s Skiff: Like the stable-master above, this gives you a menu of a few travel options around the world (albeit ones on the waterfront).
• Moria keg: A random teleport to one of seven places around Middle-earth, including the otherwise inaccessible 21st Hall tavern.
• Sinister keg: Similar to the above, this randomly sends you to one of several spots across the world.
• Green Dragon Inn keg: Teleports you to the Green Dragon Inn in the Shire — sometimes without pants.
• Anniversary keg: Go on an instant adventure with this randomly teleporting keg!
• Mysterious Door: Teleports you to one of a few places in Mordor.
• War of the Three Peaks map table: VIP players can use this to teleport to the Elderslade mission command center.
• Treacherous Hole: Bingo Boffin fans can jump into this to be sent to various dank and dark underground places.
• Empty Apple Barrel: Want a quick way to get to a spot in Northern Mirkwood or Dale-lands? Here you go!
• The Allure of Umbar Baharbel: This swan statue ports you to the Waterway Market in Umbar.
• A Light from Gundabad: If you can put up with a big honking crystal in your yard, you’ll have this to bring you right to Gundabad on command.
• Caras Gelebren Mural Alcove: Head back to Swanfleet with this fancy port!

Hopefully that is both an eye-opener and a useful list to help you fashion your home into a place you’ll want to visit more often!