Have you ever attempted the chicken session play, only to run afoul inches from the target? Wish to plot your revenge on that chicken you spent so much time trying to protect?
Well, now you can grab a stick (don’t worry, it’s padded) and spend time thwacking that doodle-doo around! Hobnanigans is currently active from now until May 11th. This sport, more colloquially known as “chickenball” or “chicken hockey,” tests two teams’ efforts to navigate a chicken toward the opposite team’s goal line. In some rounds, there are multiple chickens at play, but only one needs to get across a goal line for that team to score and proceed to the next round. The winner is the team with the most goals after the 10-minute game comes to a close. This event was previously in the game for a short time, during LOTRO’s infancy.
Although there is currently no automatically-bestowed quest to lead you to the Hobnanigans arenas, it is fairly accessible. Either take a stable route to Hengstacer Farm and travel a bit south until you reach the fields, or start traveling the path north from the town of Bree, and cut behind Saeradan’s cabin. Either way, it is a fairly sizable plot of land, with plenty of flags and likely other NPCs/players about (this is also the area with the festival grounds/horse track/hedge maze/tag fields).
You may choose to play on the red or blue team by talking to the respective NPC, which seem to have their own titles for completing a game (so make sure to change it up!). There are also several fields of different sizes to play upon.
This activity makes use of the Auto Skill Bar UI. It should be noted that auto skill bar skills can be dragged to your main hotbars, in case you aren’t a fan of mousing over the skills. You start off with a basic bash skill, and your repertoire will grow as the game advances.
That awkward moment when the chicken pretends it’s a goalie
You’ll be rewarded with tokens for completing a game (more if your team wins), which you can take to one of the several barter NPCs to trade for their respective barterable items. These tokens are not bound, so they may be traded or sold with others. Notably, you may be able to attain a chicken pet of your own (a follower for any class, just like the huorns from the new Fangorn area), should you have enough tokens to trade! It should be noted that Hobnanigans has its own reputation faction, the Chicken Chasing League of Eriador.
This event seems to be akin to the Treasure Hunt event, in that it will return from time to time, and not specifically tied to any seasonal festival.
From Sapience:
“Do please keep in mind that this isn’t meant to be “won” in a single weekend and that Hobnanigans will return from time to time to allow you to gather more tokens and earn your items.”
Also, from jwbarry:
“The intent is that this gets run once every month on so. Some of the prices are set to be earned in a single weekend, some are set to take a longer season to acquire. “
Choose a side, wield your Hobnanigans club tight, and clobber that clucker!
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I’ve never seen the original implementation of this game but it sounds fun.
Doubt i’ll be able to get on this weekend though sadly.
Whoa whoa whoa – let’s not go disrespecting hockey by calling this ‘chicken hockey’. This is the Thorin’s Hall Beer Bash festival game, just outside.
Perhaps you are right – the dwarves got tired of being called chickens, so they had to go with the next best thing.
Hitting things into goals with sticks… How is that different from Hockey?
Oh my, let’s see… to start with, Hobnanigans has no passing, no checking, no contact, no pads, no blocking shots, no dekes, no goalies, no referees, no penalties, no offsides, no power plays, no breakaways, no fighting, no blood, no icing, no ice, no rink, no skating, no penalty shots, no Zamboni, no overtime, no sudden death, no storied history, no Wayne Gretzky, no Hall of Fame, and no Stanley Cup.
… there are also no chickens in hockey – literally, and figuratively.
Pretty safe to say, it is different…
So, you’re saying it’s like the hockey of the good old days :P.
Just like soccer that is only played by pansies these days!
Your talking about ice hocky the american sport.
Hockey as I used to play in school was a bunch of girls in not enough clothes for the cold season running about trying to “shin” each other. I don’t remember too much team work.. So in a way this Hobnanigans game to me seems very similar.
This is so much fun! love it… Chickens seem unfazed by the “harsh” treatment so I can remain guilt free.
This is great! I did raid sized games with my kin for hours. It’s great because I have a character named Cluckitses who runs around in a chicken outfit, so I can get all new stuff for em!
Hurray! I want a chicken too!