NOTE: This guide is from mid-late 2017 back during the level 100/105 level cap and at least the latter half of the section is outdated. Section 2 is still relevant, while 3 and 4 are somewhat relevant - the level cap context no longer applies.
This is the first guide posted on the LOTRO: Basics website that is a text guide! I may look into integrating it into video parts later on, but for now it is text (and image) based. Anyway, this guide is on how to make gold in the Lord of the Rings Online. Here is the layout of this guide:
- Why Do You Need Gold?
- Terminology, Glossary, and Description of Gold Making
- Introductory Methods to Making Gold for All Players
- Quick Tips on Making Gold!
- How I Make Gold (and What I Spend It On)
- Closing
(please leave any feedback on this guide and format if you have any - I will try to make it as clean as I can with the tools Blogger provides as well as the little HTML I know)
Why Do You Need Gold?
- Buying resources - crafting mats, etc.
- Buying gear/essences/LI items - All those end-game things, and some even while leveling
- Buying tradeable store-bought items from other players - Valar, stat tomes, misc other stuff, etc.
- Buying mounts and other similar things
- Buying cosmetics
- Buying anything else... gold is good for lots of buying...
- Vendor/general expenses
Later, I will go over what I use gold on.
Terminology, Glossary, & Description of Gold Making
There are a few many gold-related terms that are good to know, and just other general information.
Info on Gold
1 gold = 1000 silver
1 silver = 100 copper
k = 1000 => 1k = 1000g = 1kg ("1 kilo-")
Gold Cap - 9999g 99s 99c in your inventory/wallet per character.
k = 1000 => 1k = 1000g = 1kg ("1 kilo-")
Gold Cap - 9999g 99s 99c in your inventory/wallet per character.
How much gold is a lot of gold? This really depends on many things including what you wish to use your gold on and what level you are. While leveling anything above 100 is a good amount, as you get higher levels, above 50-65, getting towards 1000 would be a lot. At the level cap where it is easiest to get gold, having over 10k is safely a lot, with some having and considering 50k+ a lot.
How much gold do I have? At the time of writing this guide, I have about 5k spread between my characters. Although, I have made much more throughout the level 105 cap and have just spent a lot over time. I have likely made 50-100k since Update 19.
General/Basic Terms
Goblin - One whose goal is to gain a lot of gold. Not to be confused with goblin, the mob type!
Profit - What the goblin wants. Profit can be considered a few ways, and we'll see uses of this later with other terms and stuff. But it is just how much gold you make - the more the better. If you spend something, profit is what you make minus what you spend.
Opportunity Cost - Out of everything you can do for gold, which is best? Maybe a better way to put it, if you decide to make gold "x" way, but not "y" way, opportunity cost is what you lose by not doing it the "y" way. Typically, you choose the one with most profit if you want to maximize your gold.
Auction Hall (AH) - The place to sell items for a price you set, or buy items for a price others set. An auctioneer is the specific NPC you talk to to access this. The easiest to get to is generally in South Bree. Unfortunately LOTRO's AH has a fairly small auction limit.
Trade Chat (trade) - A chat channel made specifically for buying, selling, and trading items. You can access is by /trade. This is similar to the AH, but overs a wider audience and some more potential deals. Using this as a means to continuously try and sell your items is called barking.
Vault (Bank) - A character-specific storage for any type of item.
Shared Storage - Server-wide storage among all characters on the server, similar to the vault.
Bank Alt - That character that sits at the AH and does all your auctioning, banking, barking, etc. Ideally, this guy is at the West or South Bree AH. You can use multiple bank alts for more auction slots and storage, as well. A mule is another type of bank alt that often barks in chat with a more anonymous name to get low prices and good deals. A mule combos well with the extra storage and AH slots!
Methods for Making Gold
Gold Making Method - The specific method you use to get your gold. There are a few methods and some may blend into each other. We will go over a few of these as the next terms. (usually just referred to as your method or whatever specific method you are using).
Gold Per Hour (GPH) - The most common way to measure the effectiveness of a gold making method. Which makes your the most gold in an hour? Alternatively, staggered gold per hour (SPGH) can be used if the method takes less than an hour (e.g. dailies). Dailies may get you a GPH of 200 gold, but also only take 20 minutes. The SGPH would be 600 gold, much more lucrative amount. Keep that in mind when taking into account opportunity costs.
Return on Investment (ROI) - This requires you to spend gold to make gold. Whether the gold is used for any of the following methods, you want a large return on your gold cost. ROI is usually measured in percent to know its effectiveness. If I spend 50 gold on crafting mats (or my opportunity cost is 50 gold when I could have sold raw mats) and make items worth 100 gold, my ROI is 100%, and profit is 50 gold. If it takes me 10 minutes to make and post the items, my SGPH is 300 gold.
Farming - Actively doing something out in Middle Earth to try to acquire gold. Can be any activity. More well-known ones include: killing mobs, running instances, gathering crafting mats., etc. This is the most well known method and commonly done as it can keep you engaged more than other methods.
Farm Runs - A specific method of farming, worthy of its own note. Farm runs are when you spam an instance or set of instances at the level cap to earn rewards and often gold. But these rewards can also often be turned into gold via shuffling. Farm runs should net you raw gold, a lot of marks/medallions/seals, and other items to sell.
Farm Runs - A specific method of farming, worthy of its own note. Farm runs are when you spam an instance or set of instances at the level cap to earn rewards and often gold. But these rewards can also often be turned into gold via shuffling. Farm runs should net you raw gold, a lot of marks/medallions/seals, and other items to sell.
Flipping - "Buy low, sell high!" Buy cheap items via trade or the AH... Then 'simply' sell them for more, either via trade or the AH. Flipping itself usually refers to specifically the AH, but can be applied to both. It just means flipping the items price up. This is often measured in ROI and possibly SGPH due to difficulties to estimate gold per hour
Crafting - Using a profession from your vocation to craft stuff for profit. This can often be combined with other methods such as farming and shuffling.
Shuffling - Taking one item, usually a crafting material or other raw material and turning into another crafting item. There are many various ways of shuffling, but common ones in LOTRO revolve around crafting.
Carrying - Not as common in LOTRO as other games, but is still a fair means of making gold. A carry is running someone (or a group of people) through something, usually instances. You can use this to your advantage and sell carries. People look for carries for leveling, getting gear, experience on-level and on-difficulty raids, etc.
Passive Income - A sort-of method for making gold, passive incomes involves doing very little to make gold. If you are familiar with the World of Warcraft garrison "fiasco" of passive income, that is what it is like. Any gold earned this way requires minimal input. Eventually some forms of flipping, and other methods like crafting will turn into passive income if you have a well done set up and stick to a 'schedule' of sorts. Passive income also applies to any gold you get while doing something else you would do even if there were no gold involved. Commonly this turns out to be dailies, instance running, and similar things.
Markets & Economics
Market - The supply and demand of a specific item or group of similar items. This includes everything from how much somebody wants something to how much is available for them. Market can apply to single items like first age legendary items or groups of items like end game legendary item scrolls and crystals.
Competition - Other players you compete with in any market. If there are multiple people selling a specific item you sell, they are your competition. Some smaller and more niche markets, you may only have a single competitor.
Supply - How much of an item or group of similar items is available. If there is a lot, prices typically go down. If supply is low, you can often sell for higher amounts. Low supply markets are easy to dominate.
Demand - How much an item or group of similar items is wanted. If there is a lot, prices typically go up. If the demand is high, you can push higher prices on your items and often overcut your competition. High demand markets can potentially be easier to dominate if you consistently and constantly flip the item(s) in that market.
Market Value (MV) - The value of an item, approximated via auction prices and trade chat. Usually different on each server and definitely different for different items.
Saturated Market - A market that has a high volume (or supply) and you are likely to find a lot of competition. Not necessarily a bad market, but good to note.
Market Tank - When the market value of an item significantly drops. Usually happens with large decrease in demand or large increase in supply. If you expect a market to tank, it is best to unload your items.
Market Domination - When you dominate a market, you effectively have a monopoly on a market. This can come about in various ways. Common ones are you being the only crafting the item(s) for the market, you constantly flip items for profit such that your auctions are frequently the only ones available. If you dominate a market and price too high, you may start seeing competition and need to adjust.
Market Flood - When a market gets flooded with the item(s) in the market. This can lead to price drop and slower sales. Some markets with seemingly low supply that you keep a high stock of can get really bad for you if you unload your supply and flood the market. This is otherwise similar to a saturated market but with a much larger amount of supply in a short amount of time. Sometimes you can take advantage of flooded markets and buy the cheap "flood" and slowly relist your new stock.
Market Reset - Resetting the market involves buying out all AH stock of the market and relisting at your new market value price. This can be dangerous if the item(s) in the market are easy to get and will instantly be reposted at the original price, but can also net you a lot of gold if you effectively keep the price up long enough to see larger profit margins.
Auctioning, Your Character, & Items
For AH, auctioneer, market, bank alt, flipping see above.
Undercut - To post your auction below the price of another auction of the same item. This typically means to post below all other prices, but not always.
Overcut - The opposite of undercut, in that you post above the price of another auction of the same item. Usually overcutting involves pricing above the cheapest but sometimes still below the most expensive.
Stock - How much of an item you have. This can be any item for any reason, including a raw mat you use for crafting or shuffling, or just an item you keep on the AH, but don't want to flood the market.
Sniping - Relatively hard to do in LOTRO, but quickly buying items shortly after they are posted well under market value and relisting them for a high price. Similar to flipping, but more extreme and rare. LOTRO does not offer any sniping tools and there are no third party addons to help. So, you would have to sit at the AH constantly refreshing to get a snipe or get lucky. Eitherway, it is even more rare in LOTRO than other games to snipe and not a good consistent method of earning gold.
Unloading/Dumping - Getting rid of all your stock of any item. This can be good if you expect a market crash or general drop in price. Be careful, though, as unloading can cause a market to flood and decrease your profit!
Holding - Sort of the opposite of unloading, holding your stock of items. This can be good to not oversaturate or flood a market (or saturate it if you want to keep supply deceptively low to raise prices). It is also a good method to go by if you expect an increase in price due to decrease availability/scarcity or increase in demand, or something else.
Stacking (neat, nice, pretty, etc.) - A method of auctioning to post in certain stack amounts that are considered "optimal". This often involves flipping or holding items to make sure you post in the nice stack amount. This is less effective in LOTRO than other games, but definitely good to keep in mind. People buying in bulk would rather a stack of 10 vs a single item. But, people looking for small amount of an item are less likely to buy that stack of 10. This is where it is good to get to know the market and which is preferred overall. Sometimes you can do both and in between.
Walling - "Building a wall" of an item and making unsuspecting victims pay for it... Or just posting a somewhat a large amount of an item (typically mats) at a low price, below market value and below what you know you could buy it for. The goal of this to get people to undercut your auctions. Once your auctions are undercutted and you feel you can get enough profit, you cancel your auctions and flip those cheap auctions. This is often done with a small stack amount of the item, but still high amount of auctions. This is harder in LOTRO than other games due to the auction limit and time to post and cancel, but still possible. Note: you can only cancel auctions within their first hour so: BE CAREFUL.
Auction Hall Cut (AH Cut) - The fee that LOTRO takes from you for using the auctioneers. This is 5% of the sale amount.
Auction Hall Fee (AH Fee) - The immediate fee charged for posting an item. This depends on the vendor price of the item and duration of the auction, but is always a minimum of 1 copper. You get this fee back if your auction sells. Here are the values:
4 hours => 3.33%
8 hours => 6.67%
24 hours => 20%
48 hours => 40%
4 hours => 3.33%
8 hours => 6.67%
24 hours => 20%
48 hours => 40%
Auction Duration - The duration you post your auction. In LOTRO there are 3 available times: 8 hrs, 24 hrs, 48 hrs. Typically 48 hours is recommended.
Buyout - A price you set your auction to be. The buyout amount is the amount that a buyer can instantly buy the item and you will receive your money in the mail. This must be above the bid price. This is commonly set to the price you want your item to sell at (typically the highest you know it will sell at).
Bid - A price you set your auction to be. The bid amount can be matched by a buyer, and other buyers can keep bidding more if they wish. If the item is bought out (via buyout), whoever bids gets their money refunded and does not get the item. Similarly, whenever someone new bids on the item, anyone who previously bid will receive their money back (in full). This is commonly set to be very near the buyout amount.
Mats - materials
Materials - items used in crafting and sometimes other things like bartering. These are gotten through gathering, passively through killing, and some other means. Materials can sell well on the AH.
Raw Materials - materials that have gone through no processing at all. These are straight from the source - gathered wood, ore, hides, etc. These can be lucrative items to flip in the AH.
Store Bought - Can be mailed (so, sold, traded, and bought) to another player, but costs the sender 2 Mithril Coins (MC). E.g. Gift/Blessing of the Valar.
WTS - Want to sell
WTB - Want to buy
WTT - Want to trade
LF - Looking for (to buy something, typically). Also commonly used outside of goblining. LFF - for looking for fellowship, LFR - looking for raid, etc.
The previous top 3 may rarely be substituted by some players as LTS, LTB, LTT, respectively for "Looking to...-".
Buyout - A price you set your auction to be. The buyout amount is the amount that a buyer can instantly buy the item and you will receive your money in the mail. This must be above the bid price. This is commonly set to the price you want your item to sell at (typically the highest you know it will sell at).
Bid - A price you set your auction to be. The bid amount can be matched by a buyer, and other buyers can keep bidding more if they wish. If the item is bought out (via buyout), whoever bids gets their money refunded and does not get the item. Similarly, whenever someone new bids on the item, anyone who previously bid will receive their money back (in full). This is commonly set to be very near the buyout amount.
Mats - materials
Materials - items used in crafting and sometimes other things like bartering. These are gotten through gathering, passively through killing, and some other means. Materials can sell well on the AH.
Raw Materials - materials that have gone through no processing at all. These are straight from the source - gathered wood, ore, hides, etc. These can be lucrative items to flip in the AH.
Acronyms & Other
Bound - The item is bound to your character (or account) such that it cannot be traded, sold, or bought. E.g. all (non-cosmetic, at least uncommon/yellow quality) gear pieces you equip become bound.
BoP - Bind on Pickup - cannot sell, trade, nor buy because it instantly becomes bound when you aquire it.
BoE - Bind on Equip - can sell, trade, and buy until you equip or use the item such that it becomes bound.
BoA - Bind on Account - deceptively in LOTRO, actually binds to the server. Anyway, typically cannot sell, trade, or buy unless store-bought.Store Bought - Can be mailed (so, sold, traded, and bought) to another player, but costs the sender 2 Mithril Coins (MC). E.g. Gift/Blessing of the Valar.
WTS - Want to sell
WTB - Want to buy
WTT - Want to trade
LF - Looking for (to buy something, typically). Also commonly used outside of goblining. LFF - for looking for fellowship, LFR - looking for raid, etc.
The previous top 3 may rarely be substituted by some players as LTS, LTB, LTT, respectively for "Looking to...-".
Introductory Methods to Making Gold for All Players
(this part will start assuming you are familiar with the terms from before)
There are many ways, as we've seen, for any type of player to start making gold. Here I will go over some effective ways for you. This will cover nearly all types of gold making for a starting goblin or just a typical player. Here is what I'll cover:
While not alone a method of making gold, I highly recommend you do dailies to get all the stuff from them. This can be very good for gold and have high SGPH. If you have many alts this can become a "farming" method of sorts where you farm dailies on alts. These dailies I recommend are:
My most recommended method is farming. The second method I cover is on the epitome method of gold making - farming. Farming can be done by players of any level, but is much more effective if you are at the level cap. So, I will cover some more leveling specific methods (which include farming) right after this! Note: I also highly recommend doing Featured Instance dailies, but those alone aren't a method!
The goal of farming is simple, you want to be doing something out in the world of Middle Earth to maximize your GPH. You can always choose a less effective method if you would have more fun farming something/somewhere else. I also most recommend farming instances at the level cap. Doing these farm runs is very effective at end game since you get a lot of useful items from them including:
There are many ways, as we've seen, for any type of player to start making gold. Here I will go over some effective ways for you. This will cover nearly all types of gold making for a starting goblin or just a typical player. Here is what I'll cover:
- Dailies
- Farming
- Leveling players
- Passive flipping
Dailies
While not alone a method of making gold, I highly recommend you do dailies to get all the stuff from them. This can be very good for gold and have high SGPH. If you have many alts this can become a "farming" method of sorts where you farm dailies on alts. These dailies I recommend are:
- Featured Instances - 2 dailies that can net you about 100 gold per character per day or more (as of Arkenstone server)
- Resource Instances - Again, 2 dailies that can net you a lot of gold per character per day.
Farming
The goal of farming is simple, you want to be doing something out in the world of Middle Earth to maximize your GPH. You can always choose a less effective method if you would have more fun farming something/somewhere else. I also most recommend farming instances at the level cap. Doing these farm runs is very effective at end game since you get a lot of useful items from them including:
- Raw gold - Guaranteed gold.
- Marks/Medallions/Seals - Depending on the specific run, you may get more of one than others, but any farm should net you a lot of marks and medallions to shuffle/barter into items worth a lot of gold per mark/med.
- Vendor junk - Stuff you don't want or need that you can sell to the vendor. Typically this is task items, but you also often get unwanted gear (although those pieces don't sell to the vendor for much, and the AH even less).
- Rare items - Farm runs can get you a relatively large amount of rare items. These rare items include stuff like Sturdy Steel Keys, lootboxes, stat tomes, etc.
So, farm instances and get all that good stuff. What about specific instances I recommend? I recommend you farm these instances:
- "Helegrod - Dragon Wing" aka Thorog - A one boss (plus one optional) 24 man raid that gets a lot of marks, medallions, and seals. There are often farm groups, at least on Arkenstone, for this instance (as well as the ones listed below).
- Tham Mirdain Instance Cluster - School and Library - Alternating these two instances can get you a lot of stuff. This includes all the stuff listed before (minus the seals), but also includes a bunch of LI stuff. A bonus is these are often soloable depending on your class and gear, but also go really fast as a full 3-man fellowship.
- Great Barrow - Sambrog - Although all of GB can be good for farming, the Sambrog wing is the most effective and easily spammable. This one has been nerfed due to its effectiveness, but is still viable.
- Fornost - Any Fornost wing can be similarly good as any GB wing. It can come down to replayability and preference for you and/or your fellowship.
If you choose not do instances, your best bet is any landscape content with dense mobs (that you can solo). You can also try to search for a farm group of any camp with, again, a large number of mobs that are densely populated. That is my second most recommended method of farming. The Wastes has a few good camps for this.
For leveling players the best thing you can do is get to the level cap. But if you want to take leveling slowly, and still make some good gold, you do have options! Most involve questing, deeding, farming, and gathering. I recommend the explorer vocation for any leveling player who also wants to make gold and not craft.
Doing quests will naturally get you gold and help you level up towards the cap.
Deeding will actually come along with farming (or farming will come along with deeding!) so that you can get a decent amount of gold if your deed is to kill stuff in a large/densely populated landscape encampment.
Farming a densely populated camp with a large number of mobs help you start piling up the gold. While less effective than doing quests, this can help you complete deeds and is something you can do to not level quite as quickly if you want to pick something up in your off-quest time. This method can give similar items to the ones listed above for farm runs.
Gathering is perhaps the most effective of all of these. If you are an on-level explorer, you can gather wood and ore and sell these raw materials. You can also farm mobs that drop hides to get a potential 3 in 1 (4 in 1 if you have quests for them). Many of these raw mats have bloated prices as players with a lot of gold will spend a high amount to boost their or an alts crafting up without having to farm. You can capitalize on this laziness and make a good amount of gold while leveling! This also gives some XP to help you level up.
For Leveling Players
Doing quests will naturally get you gold and help you level up towards the cap.
Deeding will actually come along with farming (or farming will come along with deeding!) so that you can get a decent amount of gold if your deed is to kill stuff in a large/densely populated landscape encampment.
Farming a densely populated camp with a large number of mobs help you start piling up the gold. While less effective than doing quests, this can help you complete deeds and is something you can do to not level quite as quickly if you want to pick something up in your off-quest time. This method can give similar items to the ones listed above for farm runs.
Gathering is perhaps the most effective of all of these. If you are an on-level explorer, you can gather wood and ore and sell these raw materials. You can also farm mobs that drop hides to get a potential 3 in 1 (4 in 1 if you have quests for them). Many of these raw mats have bloated prices as players with a lot of gold will spend a high amount to boost their or an alts crafting up without having to farm. You can capitalize on this laziness and make a good amount of gold while leveling! This also gives some XP to help you level up.
Passive Flipping
This applies to any player that has enough gold to buy the items to shuffle.
Flipping is a very effective way of making some quick gold while at the AH. But many players do not wish to spend the time to learn the market and start "playing the AH" to get the larger gold returns of this method. Fortunately, there is a way of mini-flipping to earn some extra profit while at the AH.
Flipping is a very effective way of making some quick gold while at the AH. But many players do not wish to spend the time to learn the market and start "playing the AH" to get the larger gold returns of this method. Fortunately, there is a way of mini-flipping to earn some extra profit while at the AH.
If you are about to auction an item and check prices, but see there are auctions well below your normal price or below the price of many other listings, buy the cheap ones and relist them with your items. Here is the way this works step-by-step:
- Check prices of item you are about to auction
- See listings of the item for cheaper than your normal price or below market value
- Make sure they are less than 94% of the price you will post at
- Buy the cheap items, collect them in the mail
- List your items at your price, including the ones you just bought for cheap
- Extra gold!
This also can earn you additional gold if you would have undercut the cheapest auctions. Just extra profit!
Crafting
If you choose to craft with your vocation and not just gather, that is okay. You can still try to earn some gold doing this. In LOTRO, mats are often worth more than the crafted items. But, you can still get some sales and nice profits crafting if you do a little bit of math and maybe research. Here are specific things I recommend crafting:
- Level 7 Gear - Including weapons, jewellery, and armour
- Level 12 Gear
- Level 22 Gear
- Level 32 Gear
- Level 100 Anorien 3-slot gear
- Level 100 First Age Legendary Items
Less lucrative is level 42 gear. After that crafting will not do much for you gold-wise. But you can always be on the lookout for something to craft at another level and/or level range.
Always check if what your crafting is profitable and worth the time compared to selling the mats!
Quick Tips on Making Gold
If you are just looking for some quick tips, or want to combine these with everything else gone over, this section will cover that! Fortunately, most of these are straightforward and can be gone through quickly. Do not some require being at or near the level cap and may not work while leveling.
Tip #1 - Barter Marks/Medallions
You want to barter these for whatever gets you the most gold per mark/medallion. Common items to check for:
- Anfalas Scroll of Empowerement
- T9 Fused Relics
- Reputation Acceleration Tomes
- Zircon Shard
- Reputation Items
Tip #2 - Run FI Dailies
You have up to two Featured Instance dailies to do, one at level 100-104 and one at level 105. Doing each one can net you about 50 gold, so 100 gold per day per alt! These are quick, simple, and easy to coast along with the rest of your fellowship if you don't know the place.
- Sell everything you don't need that you get - Scrolls of Empowerement, Relics, and Essences.
- Barter Long-lost Coins for essence recipes and sell those.
Bonus: Run the Wastes crafting resource instances. I also recommend making a bank alt for this.
Tip #3 - Gather While Out (and Be Explorer)
If you have a gathering profession, definitely use it while out in the world of Middle Earth! This also largely applies to leveling players who can make a good chunk of gold selling raw mats as seen before. Being explorer helps because you can do both gathering professions at once! This does apply to level cap characters, too.
Tip #4 - Make Use of a Bank Alt!
This tip is a bit more involved than the others, but can greatly help you stay organized and on top of auctioning. I recommend starting with sending all unused materials to this alt. When you are done getting those materials, you can auction them. If you are not done (or at the cap and "never" done), stockpile them to sell in neat stacks. This also helps greatly if you are an altaholic like me. You can send all your Featured Instance rewards to your bank alt and then have everything ready on that one char to auction up!
Tip #5 (Bonus) - Follow the Methods From Before
At this point, the thing you can do to most help yourself make more gold is to get more advanced and skilled by following previous methods in this guide and maybe seeing how I make gold in the next section.
How I Make Gold
In the last part of this guide I will go over how I make gold and what I use my gold on. So, I make gold by following all the methods and tips gone over in this guide. But I will still go over specifics in this part!
Dailies - I keep stressing how worthy it is to do dailies for gold. If I am looking to make some gold, I get on all my level 100+ characters and do the Featured Instance dailies. I send everything I get on them to a bank alt to keep organized and auction all of my stuff. If I keep this up for a week, I can get a few thousand gold.
Farm Instances - If I am bored of dailies or have done them and wish to make some more gold, I will farm instances by doing farm runs as previously mentions. A lot of the loot coincides with the stuff you get from dailies, so I will send this to the same bank alt as before.
Advertise Anorien (Level 100 3-slot Essnece) Crafted Gear - Whenever I am on a character that can craft this gear and has the mats, I will advertise this in Trade chat to try to get some quick sales. A bonus is this doesn't require much work and I can get 20-50g a set. This gear is great for introductory level cap gear.
Flip on my Bank Alt - While I don't constantly flip and "buy low, sell high", I do buy cheaper auctions of stuff I am already going to sell and do at least a mini reset of the market when I post all the items.
Buy Cheap - Similar to the last one, but I do buy stuff for cheap when I see it advertised in trade (or world) chat. Whenever somebody posts something I know is underpriced, I can buy it, send to bank alt, and post on the AH. This also benefits this seller so they don't have to deal with the AH and can get a quick sale. If I passively do this when I do dailies (just whenever I see a deal), I can get an extra 100+ gold profit. The downside is this has low ROI and you need to be comfortable with and know the market.
Familiarize Myself With Markets I Will be Dealing With - Another one like the last two dealing with more of the AH end of things. I make sure I at least decently know any market where I plan to sell a lot of things. Usually these things are items I get from dailies, as well as end game LI items/boosts. This allows me to be confident when flipping and buying low, as well as getting a higher price when I sell my items. Getting to know a market just involves paying attention to pricing trends and where buyers and sellers will typically price the item(s) in the market.
Qualifications and What I Spend Gold On
That is about it for this gold making guide in the Lord of the Rings Online! For the rest of this, I will go over some qualifications which will nicely lead into more about my gold and what I spend it on.
Qualifications
I often err towards being at least goblin minded in many games, but especially World of Warcraft. In the Burning Crusade is when I started farming gold, which continued until Wrath of the Lich King until I temporarily quit during Cataclysm and most of Mists of Pandaria. Back then I was still a beginner, like a reader of this may be, and just knew how to farm gold. In MoP and especially Warlords of Draenor, I learned more about being a goblin and really making gold.
Since the WoW Token came out, I have paid for my WoW gametime exclusively with it. I even 'bought' Legion from a friend (he paid for it with money) for a large amount of gold. I have owned over 1 million gold in WoW and whenever I am in the mood for playing, still do make gold and use WoW Tokens (although the game has been quite boring to me lately). I even bought Overwatch with my gold!
So, on top of a lot of experience in WoW, I extend that to LOTRO. The games have different economics and some vastly different end game markets, items, and gold making methods. But all the same thoughts and ideas apply to LOTRO. You can still straight up farm gold. In both you can run instances for gold, but how you get the gold afterwards is different. WoW is more crafting, flipping, and shuffling friendly for large-scale gold making (mainly how I made gold in Legion). Overall in both you can get a considerable amount with smart decision making at the AH and playing regularly.
In LOTRO specifically, I have owned over 10k gold at a time, although that is not a whole lot. I find a lot more things to spend gold on, which I will go over in a moment. Anyway, I have at least some structure and decent estimate of what I have made overall in LOTRO at the level 105 cap.
Since the WoW Token came out, I have paid for my WoW gametime exclusively with it. I even 'bought' Legion from a friend (he paid for it with money) for a large amount of gold. I have owned over 1 million gold in WoW and whenever I am in the mood for playing, still do make gold and use WoW Tokens (although the game has been quite boring to me lately). I even bought Overwatch with my gold!
So, on top of a lot of experience in WoW, I extend that to LOTRO. The games have different economics and some vastly different end game markets, items, and gold making methods. But all the same thoughts and ideas apply to LOTRO. You can still straight up farm gold. In both you can run instances for gold, but how you get the gold afterwards is different. WoW is more crafting, flipping, and shuffling friendly for large-scale gold making (mainly how I made gold in Legion). Overall in both you can get a considerable amount with smart decision making at the AH and playing regularly.
In LOTRO specifically, I have owned over 10k gold at a time, although that is not a whole lot. I find a lot more things to spend gold on, which I will go over in a moment. Anyway, I have at least some structure and decent estimate of what I have made overall in LOTRO at the level 105 cap.
- 40k - Alts
- 20k - Alt LIs
- 30k - Alt gear
- 2k+ - Cosmetics
Those estimates also include another estimate - the currency lost spent on gearing/LI related items which could have been bartered for stuff worth gold (1k each alt is a safe estimate, and up to 5k on more played and geared alts). So, I have made about 100k total gold.
Well, now it is time for a more detailed look at what I have spent and what I do spend gold on!
How I Spend My Gold
Gold is no good if there is nothing to spend it on - at least that is what some think. Some players just like to collect a large amount of gold and not spend it. Anyway, I do spend most of my gold (except in WoW, I tend to save it more... until the tokens) in LOTRO.
Big Spends
Or... What I spend most of my gold on.
Valar (Blessing of and Gift of the Valar) - I spent this on a few remade alts or level 50 alts to boost them up to the cap without having to level through my least favorite parts of leveling and the game in general. Plus getting the alts to the cap just increased my gold income! More alts = more dailies = more golds. I would pay 1g per LP spent, but often found sellers going lower. This has been about 40k. I expect to use this more in Mordor as I "level" new High Elf characters (which would increase further spending we will see in later parts).
Introductory Gear, Essences, and Legendary Items - Quite a bit of my gold is spent on gear for my alts so I can have more fun and be better on them. Two First Age LIs on 10 alts is about 3-5k alone. Gear can be 50g a full set of 3-slot level 100 crafted gear (about 500g for all alts before upgrades). While essence prices have gone down lately, it is usually 100-500g for essences for the crafted gear (for the cheap stuff!) leading to another 1-3k. None of this includes gold loss on getting upgraded gear and other general boosts for LIs or gear. I estimate that to be about 1-2k per alt leading to 10-20k total. I typically have spent about 1k per alt on LIs, some much much more (closer to 10-20k), maybe 20-40k on this. So about 50-75k total spent in this section. I expect this to gradually increase as I better equip my alt LIs and then later on gear in Mordor (if applicable).
Cosmetics - I don't usually spend much on cosmetics... But I do like to have a nice variety of outfits in LOTRO. This feeling of needing good cosmetics has definitely increased lately, so I am spending more in this area than ever. I have spent at least 2k on cosmetic sets and misc pieces. I have also lost out about 1-5k gold on bartering for cosmetics vs profitable items. So, only about 5k in this area. Seemingly little, but a good chunk to a new goblin.
Minor Spends
Or... What I spend a little bit on (that may add up to a lot total). I actually don't think I spend much here, but it is something to consider. For me, I just don't think there is much available in LOTRO that I want to spend here. But if you are trying to save gold, this is stuff to definitely look out for. I'll go over these quicker.
Repairs - While minor, they can add up.
Premium Buffs - Stat tomes, XP boosts, speed boosts, damage/defence boosts, all that stuff.
Food/Potions - Food is the main one here for me... Likely 1k total at the level cap on Anorien food. I rarely buy pots since I have too many.
Skirmish Camp Stuff - Anything you can spend marks, medallions, and seals on when you aren't using them for stuff that sells for gold. For me, this is cosmetics, and some LI stuff I do save to use instead of sell.
Misc Other Stuff - Whatever else makers your gold get to a smaller amount.
Closing
That is it for this LOTRO gold guide and the first text guide on LOTRO: Basics (not my first written, though). After reviewing this some more and writing it, I have some ideas for video versions, but to cover the whole guide it would be multi-part.
I will keep this guide up to date as best as possible. If methods significantly change in Mordor, I will republish with a Mordor update. All the technical stuff and terms will always stay relevant, though! The keeping up-to-date includes putting any of the videos guides that are possible in here.
I will keep this guide up to date as best as possible. If methods significantly change in Mordor, I will republish with a Mordor update. All the technical stuff and terms will always stay relevant, though! The keeping up-to-date includes putting any of the videos guides that are possible in here.
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Thanks for reading and I hope this guide was useful to you!
Thanks for reading and I hope this guide was useful to you!
