LOTRO housing updates: a review

Lord of the Rings Online received two updates to player housing in 2016. A few weeks ago, February 2017, it received a third. I didn't write about the changes to the housing system before, but they're quite good and much celebrated in the community. So it's about time for a full review.

Housing changes in 2016

The first change, in the summer of 2016, added tons of extra interior decoration hooks. This was a much needed change and turned around my stance towards LOTRO housing entirely. Before, there were so few hooks that I had to be very selective with what to put in my house. It also looked very empty, because there was lots of space but not much stuff. So what I did is I bought the smallest house (which looked less empty) and used the decorations I thought looked best - and never looked back. I always thought it was such a shame because there were so many cool decorations from quests, from instances and from festivals, but I never had space to use them, so I ignored them for years. And when I say years, I mean like eight years long. Nothing had been changed to the housing system since its initial implementation, so the majority of players had given up on it ever getting any attention (despite continuous hints from the player base). So while some extra hooks doesn't sound like much, the effect was actually huge. Housing in LOTRO was all of a sudden hot!

Inspired by this sudden resurgence of playing housing, the developers added a new housing neighbourhood in Gondor later in the year. Players loved it. The Gondorian player houses are reportedly huge and have tons of hooks, but they do cost real money to buy. This is one of the reasons I didn't buy one (and blog about it); the other being that I don't like the old stone texture they feature. If, however, a new housing area in Rohan would be added, I would probably cave and spend the money. Houses in Rohan would probably be made of wood, of which the texture looks better, and there are tons of pretty looking Rohirric housing decorations available, most of which I already use in my current house in Bree-land.

New changes to housing (2017)

But enough of that old news already. On to the current changes! The latest change to housing reportedly updated the whole hook system, so I eagerly logged in to give it a try. This is what I was met with when turning decoration mode on:

Whoa, Middle-earth disco mode engaged! The first thing that stood out to me were all the different colours. Before, all hooks were just white. The colours definitely make it easier to identify what type of decoration goes in what hook: green is for thin, white for small and red for large furniture; turquoise is for floor tiles and small wall hooks; dark blue for huge floor tiles and large wall hooks.

But there were more changes. In the decorations window, three more sliders have appeared (see the picture above). Before, there was just one slider that would rotate objects. You could not move decorations around; they were stationary. Now, however, you can move decorations around in the room and the maximum distance is insane. You can literally move furniture from one side of the house to the other.

But that's not the best part: it's not just moving things around in 2D, it's 3D. The bottom slider moves objects vertically, without any restrictions. This is a very brave decision of the developers. Since the slider works for all decorations, players can move all objects wherever they want: they can even let chairs float into the air (see the picture above). Even though this means lore inappropriate houses will exist, the developers decided they wanted to offer players complete, unrestricted freedom in how they decorate their house, and I think that's cool. For what it's worth: from what I've seen most people grow bored of floating furniture after a while; most houses I've visited look non gravity defying.

Position of paintings: before (left) and after (right)

The vertical slider allowed me to correct something that had been bothering me for a while: the position of paintings on the wall (I'm a perfectionist, can you tell?). Paintings always hung really low, the frame almost hitting the wood below. It didn't look good, but there was nothing you could do about it. So one of the first things I did was going through all my paintings and move them upwards a bit with the new vertical slider!

Here are some of the changes I made to my house.

Second sleeping room

This room belongs to my shieldmaiden from Rohan: captain Ravenwyn. It features many horse themed decorations and the fresh colour green refers to nature. She even collected some mistletoe and hung it on the ceiling.

Before

After

I only changed and added a couple of decorations (most of which are to the left and right back of the screenshot so you can't see them), so it's mostly changes to details. If you look closely, you'll notice that the tapestries hang a bit higher, the furniture stands closer to the wall and the mistletoe hangs above the bed.

Primary sleeping room

This is the room of lore-master Ravanel, Elf and historian. The sea theme and art in general caters to her Elven heritage, while she uses the books professionally. I went for a blue and purple colour scheme.

Before

After

Again, I've mostly changed the position of decorations. The room looks tidier and more logical this way. Although it also looks a bit more empty. I guess we could still do with some extra decoration hooks (for instance so I could add a chair to that table) - all in this room are filled.

Main room

This is the main room of my house. Each corner holds memories of places in Middle-earth my characters have visited.

Before

After

It's quite challenging to take a good overview picture of the main room, as it's so large. But this is the room I changed most in. In the middle is the huge fireplace, which now has seats on all four sides rather than on two. The rug underneath it (who has a rug under a fireplace?) has been moved to the Gondorian study area at the back of the room. 

The hearth has been transformed into a cosy hangout. This corner refers to my characters' time with the Rangers.

This is where Ravenwyn plans her travels through Rohan.

I finally was able to have all my kegs displayed together in one corner of the house! Drinking from the skull faced kegs (Inn League and Moria) will port you to hilarious places in Middle-earth. Now I just need to find the perfect table with food that fits on a large hook and the dinner corner would be done. For now, you can just get very, very drunk in Casa Ravanel.

Final thoughts

As you may have guessed from reading this article, I'm really, really happy with these changes! It's awesome that LOTRO's designers have decided to give players absolute freedom, and the range of sliders is huge: as large as the house itself. This allows you to arrange decorations exactly as they want, making your house feel logical and truly a home when moving through it.

Of course there's always room for improvement. We could still use some more hooks. Gardens still have very few hooks and the interior looks more empty than before now you can position furniture with its back to the walls (like you would in reality). And we could use more housing items for thin and small furniture hooks. Some decorations that require large hooks are very small - see the picture above: does that tiny table with artifacts really need a large furniture hook (right now, it does)? Finally, I would love a key system that allows friends to instantly travel to your house.

These are all minor things, though. Overall, I'm very happy with all the changes that have been made to LOTRO housing over the course of this and last year. After nine years of vanilla housing I honestly never expected anything to change, but I'm glad I was wrong!

What do you think of LOTRO's housing updates?