east rohan – LOTRO Players

Having wrapped up questing in the East Wall, your next port of call is The Wold. While the previous East Rohan zone was quite similar to other areas we’ve seen in Middle-earth, The Wold features wide open plains and sweeping vistas, allowing you to see for miles. Such long lines of sight are new to LOTRO, and perfectly suit the new Mounted Combat game mechanic, the introduction of which is the focus of The Wold.

Quests here occupy the 76-77 level range, and if you want to get your War Steed prior to reaching the East Wall, you can reach The Wold directly from the Great River by crossing through the south of the region.

Langhorn
Your first foray into East Rohan comes in the form of Langhorn, a small Rohirrim village not far from the region’s border with the Great River. You are directed here either through the Epic Quests from the East Wall, or from a letter that arrives in your inbox when you hit level 74. Either way, you will leave this village the proud owner of a new War-steed. One things to keep in mind is the high spawn rate in this area. When Riders of Rohan launched, hundreds of characters flooded through this area on launch day, requiring Turbine to jack up the respawn rates so there was enough enemies for everyone. What this means nowadays is enemies that pop up only a few moments after you kill them. Be sure to keep moving forward to avoid be overran.

Harwick
One of the two major hubs in area and home to all the vendors and services you’ll need while questing the northern end of The Wold. While there are a few nearby quests, the two most important features of Harwick are the Mounted Combat tutorial – necessary to help you master this new combat mechanic – and Cinder, a Warband based in the swamps west of the city. When taking on Cinder, make sure you are on your War-steed (being on foot won’t cut it), pick a clear path of attack to avoid picking up additional enemies, and take your time. Warbands are designed to be worn down, not trampled in the first few seconds.

Feldburg
Once you’ve finished with Harwick, it’s off to Feldburg to win the trust of the locals through two quest lines, one involving a nearby marsh, and one involving a warg den. Both quests lines can be challenging, so this is a great opportunity to give your new War-steed its first true test. While riding around you’ll likely run into two more Warbands, and as before, take your time, wear them down, and be careful not to pull any nearby mobs.

Wakenflood
A small camp based at a Rohirrim tower which serves as the first – and only – line of defence against the Easterlings. You actually visit there during the Langhorn quests to get your War-steed, and your second visit sees you face very much the same threats. A lot of the enemies you are tasked with defeated here have ranged attacks, and due to the nature of Mounted Combat, I found it a lot easier to face off with your foes on foot.

Harwick Refugee Camp
Your triumphant return to Harwick may not be what you expect, and first you’ll need to help the refugees from Langhold who are camping outside the village. Quests here include a very interesting game mechanic that hasn’t been seen since Evendim or The Shire: having to avoid unfriendly NPCs while completing quests. The hub also features the start of the Riders Four quest line, which includes a very short but fun Mounted Combat instance.

Twickenburg
A tiny quest hub with two quest lines and not many services. While the craban quests are very much what you’d expect, the Draug cave quests are visually impressive, have a great atmosphere, and feature an exciting capstone quest with a unique boss fight. As with all other dungeons in East Rohan, be aware that the enemies will respawn very quickly.

Floodwend
The second major hub of the area, which like Harwick, features all the vendors and services needed to support your questing. Here you will finally rejoin Book 8 of the Epic Quest, though only briefly. Your main role here is to help a young Horse Lord prove himself as a suitable ruler of his village. To do this you’ll find yourself in the nearby Howling wood fighting Wargs, and in an Orc camp driving back the might of Mordor. The cosmetic appearances of the Orcs are particularly impressive, and help to clearly differentiate them from the Orcs of Isengard, who have been the most common Orc threat to this point in the history of LOTRO.

North-torr
Quests here revolve around an Easterling camp only a short distance from Floodwend. When starting the quests, make sure to grab the two scrolls in in the hut near the siege weapons where an Easterling boss is found. If you miss these, like me you’ll run out of quests and spend a lot of time backtracking to find the quest chain again. The Easterling camp is impressively large, one of the biggest enemy camps in recent memory. Be sure to fully explore the camp to trigger all the available quests, pick up the Mounted Combat quests outside the camp, and enjoy the capstone quest which continues the story we started in Twickenburg. After wrapping up your quests you’ll return briefly to Floodwend to wrap up this areas quests.

Conclusion
The Riders of Rohan expansion contains a similar amount of content to the Mines of Moria and Rise of Isengard expansions. Those regions however were split into 9 or 10 smaller areas, each with 30-40 quests. Because Riders of Rohan is only split into six areas, you find yourself doing 60 or so quests in each area before moving on. I appreciate that for Mounted Combat you need to provide larger landmasses for questions, but for me, it results in the feeling that you are questing in the same area for too long and overstaying your welcome.

The Wold features some great quests and interesting cosmetics, especially those for your War-steed. It serves as a solid introduction to Mounted Combat, breaking it up with the need to also fight battles on foot. Something to keep in mind is that Tasks in the area do not reward faction Reputation, only XP, so I found myself giving them a miss.

Once you’ve completed all the quests the area has to offer you’ll be directed to the Norcrofts to continue your Rohirrim adventures.

See also
1. Rohirrim Rambler: The East Wall

Welcome to the Rohirrim Rambler, where I’ll be taking you on a guided tour of the East and West Rohan. Inspired by the LOTRO Epic a Day column on CSTM(1), this series will provide an overview of the region and its major quest hubs, giving you a clear guide to follow through the area without ruining the story with spoilers.

Our first stop is the East Wall, an area designed to be your first taste of East Rohan and featuring level 76-77 content. You’ll arrive here following the Epic Quest (Volume III, Book VII), being ported here straight from the Great River. If you already have your War-steed, you can use it to help you compete quests in this area, but if not don’t worry, the quests are designed to be completed on foot.

Note that you can also enter East Rohan through The Wold, which is connected via bridge to the south of the Great River. Choosing to go this way will allow you to acquire your War-steed early, though will disrupt the story of the Epic. Given that your War-steed is of limited use in the East Wall, I suggest holding off getting it just yet. It’s easy to get distracted learning the mechanics of Mounted Combat and miss out on the great moments the East Wall has to offer.

Another thing to be aware of in East and West Rohan is the style of questing. Rather than being able to jump between hubs and skip quests you aren’t interesting in, in Rohan you have to do each quest in turn in order to unlock the next. It allows Turbine to develop a strong story line at the expense of player flexibility.

The Argonath
The first quest hub of the East Wall takes place at one of the East Rohan’s most iconic locations – the Argonath. You arrive at the foot of these majestic monoliths following the Epic Quest line, though don’t spend much time here at all. There are only a couple of Epic Quests to complete, and before you know it, you’re vectored to the next quest hub. You won’t rejoin the Epic until the final quest hub of the area. In same ways this hub is a bit of a missed opportunity, as the Argonath would have made a great backdrop some questing. For most players though, finally seeing these monuments realised in game will suffice.

Mansig’s Encampment
Upon arriving at this small Rohirrim camp you are given a couple of quest lines relating to dealing with the surrounding Orc and Uruk forces. Quests are the usual ‘kill X number of Orcs’, ‘collect X number of Uruk bows’, and while they can be completed using your War-steed, the terrain is filled with rivers, rocks and trees which can make Mounted Combat a challenge. Note that there is no mailbox, crafting facilities, or legendary vendors here, so make sure you have a travel port to somewhere better equipped for these services.

Dead Orc Glade
The Dead Orc Glade, and the events that unfold here, provide one of the areas best fan moments from Fellowship of the Ring. While you return here during the Epic, the initial quests have you helping an injuried Orc in return for information. While that sounds fine enough, I couldn’t get past the fact that he rewards you with Rohirrim items. This would have been the perfect opportunity to give players some unique and creepy Orc items to assist in their travels. Make sure to grab one of the arrows stuck out of the surrounding trees to start another important quest line.

The Under-wall
While you are officially vectored to this hub from Mansig’s Encampment, more than likely you’ll stumble across the entrance to the cave while en route to the Dead Orc Glade. The visuals of the cave are outstanding, and it’s good to see Turbine creating a cave that actually looks like it was dug out of the ground, rather than a dimly lit hallway. The Under-wall features a handful of quests where you deal with two distinct threats to the expedition which is attempting to map out the tunnels. The absence of auto-bestow questing is a curious feature here. As I’ve discussed previously(2), recent content has moved away from the old quest model, that of going into an enemy camp two or three times for a single objective each time, to a quest structure where you’re given all the quests for the camp before entering or are given them when entering the camp. Unfortunately, you’ll find yourself running back and forth down here quite a bit between the quest givers and the objectives. Streamlining this questing would be a real benefit to an otherwise visually rewarding part of this East Rohan.

Parth Galen
Here you will finally link back up with the Epic Quest, and meet the East Wall’s most entertaining inhabitants: a group of explorers from Gondor known as the Bumbling Fellowship. While the quests are what you’d expect, the dialogue and stories between the members of the fellowship provides some much needed light hearted content. Be prepared, as part of the Epic you’ll experience some most iconic moments, including some very well thought out and executed session plays. Be sure to fully check out the descriptions of each session play characters skill for some great fandom moments.

I quite enjoyed my time in The East Wall. Unlike later parts of East Rohan, the quests go by quickely and aren’t overly numerous, which doesn’t result in the feeling of ‘overstaying your welcome’ that you get in other parts of Rohan. My one annoyance is the ‘Quest of The East Wall’ deed, which doesn’t give you an exact figure of how many quests you need to do, and forcing you to complete all quests in order to complete it. Be careful to not skip a hub of you could find yourself doing a lot of backtracking.

See also
1. Rohirrim Rambler: The Wold