House Progress

Timeline: A lot of people were speculating what the next housing would be for a long time. There was no doubt people already asking when they teased Erebor Housing back on November 17th, 2021. It wasn't until August 29th, 2022 that they released them. So what about Lyndelby housing? Well, let's go over some of the information we knew ahead of time:

 

Daily Schedule: While many were excited about the new housing area, there was more in the release notes. Furniture can be placed on yard. Yard can be placed on furniture. Rugs can be placed on Doormats. Doormats can be placed on furniture slots. As Birle mentioned, it sounded like a list of counters to a Pokemon game. This was as revolutionary as when they consolidated the hook sizes a couple years ago. Just like before when it was no longer necessary to carry books and vases for thin furniture slots, there was no longer a need to carry rugs for floor slots. This was going to be a huge project that would span over at least seven houses. Let's take a look at what happened during that week.

Before Patch Day:

  • Exchange small house on auxiliary account for classic deluxe house now that the gold cap has been removed from the game. All decorations will overflow into the house chest.
  • Sell classic deluxe house on primary account for another house right across the way of the other house for convenience. All decorations will be added to the overflow.
  • Pull all decorations from both premium houses in Erebor and Belfalas.

Release Day:

  • Explore Lyndelby Housing. Examine the prices. Wait for player in the kinship to buy the stately deluxe house in the neighborhood. In this case, Everen bought the one in Hirael neighborhood at the end of Glenmouth Path.
  • Originally, I was going to buy the one on 1 Floodside Road for a small smial beside the waterfall. However, I soon realized that buying two additional housing writs could supply me a deluxe home. I had two leftover from when Erebor houses were intentionally higher priced on Bullroarer, six from when the Middle-Earth Essentials Pack was on sale, and two from a whim when housing writs were 50% off.
  •  I wasn't initially thrilled about paying the full price of 500 lotro points for the needed writs, but I was glad in the end. Instead of pairing up over on Broadmead Lane, Elaelin and I bought houses over on Wellforth Way just north of the stable-master. Pollywise, aka Rowga, bought the stately small house at the end of Stonegate Path. Snookumes, aka Smelly, joined in at 2 Broadmead Lane. I'm not sure who else from the kinship might have joined in at this point but there are still four small smials available. 
  • Stripped clean of the kinship house of everything that didn't belong to other people. At this moment in time, there was an estimated total of 1,200 decorations in my possession across six characters and half still inside the housing chest.
  • Began distributing items according to theme across all the houses. First classic house will have all the food items from Midsummer Festival and wreaths. Second classic house will have every single spooky item that would come from Angmar or Mordor. Belfalas neighborhood will have all Arnorian decorations that can be placed inside. Erebor will have all ice and stone decorations. Flowers and trees will go towards the kinship house. 
  • Experiment with placing larger yard decorations inside the house. It might be possible to add things like the windmill, Durin's stone, and Moria's mirror but that doesn't mean that you should. A couple of huge yard decorations like the jeweled throne or the white stone dwarf heads have been offered a chance to be added inside as well.
  • The Lyndelby vendor has a slew of new decorations too. Most of these can be slotted in simple yard slots or on the wall in your house. The fountain, barn, and gazebo are all pretty neat. There's also plenty of funny signs and banners. Unfortunately, most of these did not make it into my house themes. For those that bought the stately house with the indoor pool, there are also things like fishing rods, nets, and traps. 
  • The forester event started the first day but was delayed when things like warden's march still increased speed and your daily quest was canceled when the event tried to extend the timer for only one or two people. I managed to do this a total of six times - won twice, lost twice, automatically lost once, and had a very close call the final time.
  • The total count on Landroval Neighborhoods after the first day were: 60 Neighborhoods; 48/240 Small & 28/60 Stately Small; 249/360 Deluxe & 60/60 Stately Deluxe; 34/60 Kinship.



2nd Day:
  • The Lyndelby neighborhood comes with a housing quest that provides you with a list of four different visitors and a massive deep-claw to choose from. It appears that characters level 10 or up are able to accept the quest. Doing this for six characters took quite a bit of effort out of me.
  • Took the time to test the limits of each slot since they extended the range. There were quite a bit of yard slots at the kinhouse that could now touch the main pathway. This meant that the crafting center could come closer to the road as well as the ingredient crates.
  • Spent some time adding more game reviews to my other blog. The layout could use some work.
3rd Day:
  • The main focus for this day was examining which huge or enormous yard decorations needed to be placed in each location. There were approximately 80 decorations in storage and about a quarter needed to be sold to the vendor.
  • There were several other items that clearly were not going to fit in any house theme. These included rugs, the Gammer set, and certain items from Yondershire.This brought me down from a total of 600 decorations to 400 decorations.
  • Now that most of the decorations were dispersed, the ones that were hanging around my two storage kinhouses could finally start coming out.
  • There were a few platform and wall decorations that didn't quite belong in any of my houses. I experimented with adding a secondary floor in my Belfalas home but the open space proved to be more valuable in the long run. 
  • None of the doormats were able to best the summer or autumn ones. Those that offered treats didn't work too well inside the house either. 
  • There were also a bunch of additional decorations that needed to be purchased from reputational barterers. These included things like bushes from Minas Tirith and elvish supplies from Further Adventures.
  • Thursday also began +10% Virtue Bonus Weekend. There were a few bonus virtue tomes and the box of spare virtue experience from the purchased bundle that needed to be used up. Resolina also held back from killing one more bird in Gondor Renewed to get the meta experience.

4th Day:
  • Most of the day was dedicated to attending Cordovan's house party event. There was a lot happening. He dropped around 20 promotional spirit bear and little tundra pets. He spawned a lot of single consumables, including purple fireworks because he wanted to see "purple rain." There were several permanent items you obtained from anniversary gifts such as the Summerdays, Dragon, and White Tree Fireworks. There were plenty of the level 65 bound version of the Cloak of the Misty Night. Rare drops included a handful of pirate-type hats and best neighborhood trophies. I did manage to snag one of the 40 permanent snowball skills on the ground. He spawned so many monsters!
  • The main goal of this day was to assemble the decorations now that each house had their load. This included pulling out ones that were too overwhelming or adjusting them into position.
  • There were select decorations that needed to be added from both storage and characters alike.





5th Day:

  • After completing the brunt of both of my houses, it was time to arrange the rooms in the kinhouse. The entrance was perfect from the start, but the other rooms were a mess. The shrugs were out of order. The willows were way too tight inside the little rooms. The ladder on the tree didn't shine through the light. There were too many elements all over the place. 
  • The main focus of this day was to completely clear away all wall decorations. There were only about 40 wall decorations left in my inventory and there were still around 30 wall slots available across all the houses. This brought my leftovers down to 10.
  • My wallet had a total of nine pet harnesses. Three pets were moved to other houses: well-traveled turtle, Smaug kite, and Swan-Knight. The Majestic White Stag and Pond Frog were added in the kinhouse. Originally, the side door was to pay homage to Narnia by adding a light pole, flowers, and reindeer (as Elaelin put it). This was broken up to better represent a dwarf section when the chests were properly placed inside. 
  • A few yard slots at my Lyndelby house allows you to drag decorations up the hill. This inspired some nice ideas involving huorns and a long wall. 
  • Because some items were barterable with tokens in the wallet, redundant decorations that didn't make the cut were tossed aside.

6th Day:

  • The deluxe premium house included one mobile enormous yard slot that allowed you to stretch any item you want to anywhere you wanted on your property. While it might have been cool to have Smaug bones poking out above your house or Orthanc Tower on the ledge, there was one decoration in particular that sparked some inspiration. Regrettably, too much time was spent on this one thing.
  • The maps that were originally hanging up on the wall of my personal kinhouse were taken down and passed around my characters to complete the Cartographile deeds. They were then stowed away along with each and every individual book onto one of my mule characters.
  • Functional decorations such as the banker and supply horn were appropriately placed in each of the houses. 
  • The remaining 120 decorations left in storage were transferred onto two characters to sort through.
  • All characters were given an inventory check to upgrade any equipment with the help of essence reclaimation scrolls, opened any spare selection boxes, and dealt with any spare cosmetics accordingly. 
  • Assigned steed halters to both the Erebor and Lyndelby homes. There is definitely a need to buy more when the Curator comes around again. 



7th Day:
  • The main focus of this day was to focus on anything that has nothing to do with housing decorations. This includes changing music, ambient environments, light slots, wallpaper, floor surfaces, and colors. The Lyndelby house needed some more items from Yondershire reputational barterer.
  • Fences was briefly reviewed but the tall hedge proved superior over them all. The Swan fence from Falathorn didn't reach high enough and the Palisade (Edoras) didn't fit in with the overall marble and stone theme of the house.

8th Day:

  • Final touches made for each house by checking position, atmosphere, and any overlooked slots.
  • A few decorations were changed out such as an elvish bench out of place in Gondor, a painting too small in Erebor, and a tree in the wrong area at the kinhouse.