Monday, August 17, 2020

Learning LOTRO: Lesson Twenty-Six - Kinships


In this series, I talk about various aspects of The Lord of the Rings Online. This series is meant for newcomers, but may also help veteran players find more to love about the game.


If you're a new player or someone who hasn't played an MMORPG before, then I will do my best to introduce to you a very important aspect of them: Kinships. In most other MMORPGs, they are called "guilds," and allow players to form large groups within the community. Sometimes they are started by a group of pre-existing friends who want to play the game together long-term, and sometimes they're started by one or two people who then shape the group after a particular purpose and invite anyone who shares their interests.

Whatever the reason behind their creation, Kinships serve a critical role in Lord of the Rings Online. Not only do they act as the glue that holds players together within the community, they help organize like-minded players together so they can better achieve their goals within the game. Let's discuss!


Types

There are a variety of types of kinships in LOTRO, but here are just a few:

  • Raiding: Players who focus on completing the endgame content and optimizing the gear to do it by running raids in a precise and often demanding way. Unless you were a fan of raiding in another MMORPG and want to pursue the same thing in LOTRO, this probably won't be your type of kin.
  • Leveling: Players who like to either run content on-level together, or focus on helping each other level up.
  • Roleplaying: Players who create personas for their characters and interact with others with the same interest.
  • Musical: Players often create bands with interchanging members for performances in-game, and there are often whole kinships devoted to it.
  • Casual: Players who are just playing the game to have fun and smell the roses. These types of kinships can have a more specific focus on festivals, cosmetics, housing, mounts, and other aspects of the game that aren't "necessary" to leveling or reaching the endgame.
  • Lore: Players who shape their kinships after existing groups in Middle-earth, or who create a new group that follows the lore. I have seen sub-genres of Rangers, and special detachments of elven scouts. Oh, and I once saw a kin that required all members to be dwarf characters who wore dresses. (I couldn't make this up if I tried.)

Creation & Roles

If you want to start a kinship of your own, you can do it very easily as soon as you're out of the Introduction of the game and at least level 5. In each of the starting areas you can find a Clerk of Kinships who will sell you a consumable item called a Charter for a little more than 5 silver. There are multiple types of Charters, and the only difference between them is what the Roles are (which give members of those roles the corresponding titles to display if they choose).


The Roles in a kinship determine what a player can or cannot do if they have those roles. The Founder will always have the Founder title and can't pass it on to anyone. They can, however, pass Leadership to someone else, and choose a Successor. A Successor can become the Leader if the current Leader doesn't log in for 35 days. It moves on down the pecking order over time, but it gets complicated. If that sort of information is of interest to you, you can check out the Official Kinship FAQ.


Social Panel

The roles are denoted in the Kinship window of the Social Panel by a full crown or a circlet for Leader and Successor, Officers have a red banner, Kinspeople have blue banners, and Recruits have nothing. Leaders and Officers can control the Message of the Day, Add to kinship, Remove from kinship, and Promote/Demote. Other information available through the Social Panel: primary housing (which you can visit if the person has set it), Player note, Join date, Online status (or how long ago they last logged on), class, level, location, and whether or not they are in a fellowship.





Levels & Features

Kinships can rank up! The longer a Kinship has existed, the more stuff they have and can do -- and the more room for members. The highest rank is 10, and it takes 1 full year to reach it. No short-cuts!




As you can see, some nifty stuff becomes available as a Kin ranks up:

  • Kinship Chat: Available immediately as a kin-only channel the members can talk on.
  • Message of the Day: Can be set by the Leader or Officers and is the first thing members will see when they log in.
  • Kinship Titles: Members can choose to display their role for everyone to see.
  • Officer Chat: Extra-exclusive sub-channel of chat just for officers and the leader.
  • Kinship Mail: Spamming -- er, sending! -- a message via in-game mail to everyone in the kin. It's not free, so be sure you don't forget anything.
  • Kinship Auctions: In the Auction House, you can set an auction to only be available to members of your kinship. This is a great way to offer lower prices to newbies in your kin.
  • Kinship House: This is the one most people want -- a house just for the Kinship is larger than other available housing, and its storage is accessible to its members. The introduction of Premium housing in Gondor, for example, boasts 2 Kin houses on their own islands (per neighborhood)! Bonus: If you put your personal house in the same neighborhood as your kin's house, your discount with the local vendors in the neighborhood increases!

Should You Join a Kinship?

That's entirely up to you! You can, in fact, play the entire game without being in a Kinship. It isn't a requirement, but it certainly makes many things much easier. As part of an active Kinship, you'll have fellow (and familiar) players to run group content with, people who can answer questions if you're new, crafters who are happy to make gear or weapons for you, and even just people who want to chat about Tolkien and lore. But if you're not interested in being social and you just want to play the game on your own, you can do that, too!


Resources For Finding a Kinship

The LOTRO Beacon: A weekly round-up of community and in-game information that the LOTRO team posts on the website. There is usually (but not always) a section titled "Kin Hall" which offers a blurb about a kinship and what they do or focus on. These are submitted by players themselves, so if you see a kin mentioned in the Beacon then you know they are most likely active!


World Chat: As tedious and awful as it can sometimes be, World Chat is often a good way to find a kinship. Sometimes officers/leaders will post an ad about their kin to promote that they are recruiting. Sometimes people will say what kind of kin they're looking for and ask for suggestions. Either way has helped me find kins several times!

LOTRO Forums: There are designated forums for Kinships to post in, separated by server for ease of browsing. They may not always be the most up-to-date, but it will give you an idea of what the kinship has done in the past if they are still active.

Google: Yep, you may have to flex your Google-fu to find the right kinship for your interests. My advice if you're reading this at the time of posting: If they haven't said anything in the public section of their website about the Minas Morgul expansion, then they probably aren't very active and you can move on to the next option. Now, some kins' sites aren't used as much since the coming of other avenues (like Discord), so if one really does interest you feel free to see if they've just been lax with their site!

Community Favorites

I tweeted a couple days ago on Twitter, asking players to brag about their favorite kinships in LOTRO. Feel free to add yours to the list and check out some of the responses!




Was this entry helpful? Let me know! The series continues next Monday!
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