My Favourite Plugins for LOTRO

I'm so happy! I've been using the Steamplay version of LOTRO and I've been missing TitanBar, but I finally found out how to install my favourite mods/addons/plugins ... whatever you want to call them. It was easy using PlayOnLinux (Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/plugins), but for the Linux Steam version, there's a bit more navigating through the .steam subdirectories (I'll be making a symlink so I can find it more easily in future).

I found an article on Reddit which was very helpful: How to use Plugins/Skins in LOTRO on Linux using Steam Proton

Installing Plugins

 

LOTRO Interface - for all your LOTRO plugins and skins

So, you can download plugins for LOTRO from LOTRO Interface. They come as a zip file which needs to be extracted into the LOTRO "plugins" folder. If the folder doesn't exist, you can create it, but it must be in the right location for LOTRO to find it. The plugins folder location differs depending on what flavour of LOTRO you are using:

Windows: C:\Users\username\Documents\The Lord of the Rings Online\Plugins

Mac: ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/Plugins

Linux (PlayOnLinux/Wine): ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/plugins

Linux (Steamplay): ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/212500/pfx/dosdevices/c:/users/steamuser/My Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/plugins

(Note: the Steam AppID for LOTRO is 212500).

 

Graphical modifications or "skins" (such as new backgrounds for UI menus and windows or resizing the dressing room) can also be downloaded from the LOTRO Interface and installed in a folder called "ui". So instead of Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/plugins, skins go in Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/ui. Again, you can create this folder if it doesn't exist, just make sure you put it in the right place.

Once you have installed your plugins or skins, you can start LOTRO and open the Plugin Manager from the menu (the Chevron or up arrow next to the action bar at the bottom of the screen). There, you can choose to load plugins on demand or automatically (auto-load) for all characters on that server or just specific characters. Maybe you only need a DPS meter (Combat Analysis) on your raider, or only your minstrel needs to use Songbook, but everyone can use Titanbar. 

Trouble-shooting

If your plugins are not showing up in the available options in the Plugin Manager:

• Make sure you have installed them into the right place. 
• Make sure you install the whole plugin folder and not just the subfolders. For example, when you download Titanbar and extract it, you get a folder called "HabnaPlugins" and then there is a folder called "Titanbar" inside that, along with some other important files that LOTRO needs. If you only installed the "Titanbar" folder, the plugin wouldn't work. 
• Check if they have any file dependencies (most LOTRO plugins are stand-alone and don't), and if they do, check the instructions on how and where to install them.
  

 

Recommended Plugins

• LOTRO Plugin Compendium - I haven't used it, but a lot of people recommend it as an easy way to manage your plugins and keep them up to date. 
• TitanBar - a bar to display information at a glance like the in-game time of day, real-time clock, currencies (including LOTRO Points), reputation/renown, equipment damage, and also check what your character and alts have in their bank, inventory, wallet etc.
  
• MoorMap - originally just provided extra information on locations and NPCs in the Etenmoors, but now available for all zones and lets you make notes on the map and can even track resource nodes etc.
• Waypoint - provides an arrow above your character's head showing which direction and how far to go to reach a specific location. Can work with other plugins such as MoorMap or Reminders. 
  
• CombatAnalysis - a comprehensive DPS meter and combat log parser.
  
• Skill Timer - keep track of DoTs and other skill cooldowns.
  
• Songbook2 Legendary Edition - an updated version of the original Songbook, this helps you to load ABC music files for your character to play on their instruments in-game. Can also help with syncing music for a band.
• Reminders - a ToDo list for all your characters, reminding you about crafting cooldowns, raid locks, daily/weekly quests, ingredient crates, auctions and your own notes (like "Update the Kin message of the day").
• Item Treasury - an in-game database of items with lots of uses, including checking stats on gear, searching for items to use in a cosmetic outfit or finding the perfect housing decoration. 

Recommended Skins

There is only one skins compilation I would recommend: JRR Skins Collection. This is found in the LOTRO Compilations section (not the Stand-Alone Plugins section like the above plugins) of LOTRO Interface. It contains so many options that you probably won't need anything else to customise your UI to your heart's content. It provides instructions for installation and setup and screenshots of some of the different themes available.

I hope this helps. You can play LOTRO without any plugins or skins and it has some very good built-in customisation options for changing the UI layout, but sometimes extra tools or changing how something looks to suit you or your computer screen can make the difference between a good gaming experience or a great one.

Installing LOTRO in Linux with Steam (2020)

I've been having a few minor issues launching LOTRO in Linux with PlayOnLinux and instead of reinstalling through POL I thought I would try using Steam instead. Proton is really good and a lot of Windows games just work out of the box with it.

LOTRO was so easy to install, set-up and start playing via Steam.

1. Open Steam. In your Steam Settings, make sure that "Enable Steam Play for supported titles" is ticked.
   
2. Find The Lord of the Rings Online. Select "Play Game". It will be added to your library.
3. From your library page for LOTRO click the "Manage" button on the right hand side. Select "Properties".
4. Near the bottom of the Properties window is an option to "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool". Make sure this is ticked and from the drop-down box, select the most recent version of Proton (I'm using Proton 5.13-2 at the moment). Close the properties window.
   
5. Download and install the game. The launcher will open and there will be lots of updates to complete. It will also ask if you want to install the high resolution graphics (I said yes). Installing and updating the game took me between 15-30 minutes (I went AFK for a quick meal, came back and it was ready to go).
   
6. Finally the launcher will show the login window. Login. Accept the Terms of Service.
   
7. Play LOTRO.

Once in-game, you may want to go to Options and click the "Detect Optimal Settings" and Accept. My frame-rate went from 10 fps to 60 fps instantly.

Note that the LOTRO Store still opens in an external browser and not in-game unfortunately.

Enable Steam Play in Steam settings

The "Manage" button looks like a cog

Use latest Proton as Steam Play compatibility tool

Optional high resolution graphics download

LOTRO launcher login screen

Play!

LOTRO store opens in external browser

Update 20.1.2, the store and game launcher drama

The latest update on May 31 was intended to fix the in-game store, but had some serious side effects for a lot of players, with both Windows and Linux affected.

Basically, from what I understand, the in-game store uses some third-party software and the third-party changed their code to comply with some new legal requirements and Standing Stone Games had to change their code to maintain compatibility. While they worked on the changes, they implemented an external store for LOTRO in the web browser, but when they switched to the new in-game store using a Chromium Embedded Framework, older operating systems, such as 32-bit Windows XP and Vista as well as Linux systems using 32-bit Wine, did not support it, which caused critical errors and crashes upon launching LOTRO and clicking the Play button.

At the same time, there was also a problem with 64-bit Windows 7/8/10 systems that seemed to have the same outcome - the game crashed on launch - but a different cause. It was found to be due to a conflict with a third-party graphics utility called SweetFX, and removing SweetFX fixed the issue for many. Some people suggested ReShade (which works with LOTRO) as a replacement for SweetFX.

While ideally these issues would have been caught in QA testing before launching the Update, SSG started investigating the issues pretty quickly and kept providing feedback and suggestions in the forums, but the community was also great at trying to narrow down the root cause (although there were a few who decided to ridicule people using older operating systems which wasn't helpful).

Suggestions for fixing the issue included:

• renaming/relocating the UserPreferences.ini file (didn't work)
• restore default settings in the launcher options (didn't work)
• run game as admin (didn't work)
• reinstalling the game (didn't work)
• removing d3d9.dll from the LOTRO game directory (worked for some people with Windows 7+, probably as it was a dependency for SweetFX)
• changing Wine version to 2.7-staging or later and OS from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1, and using OpenGL (worked for some people using Linux - but not for me)

Within 48 hours of the Update, the developers had new launcher and client files for affected players to download and copy into the LOTRO game directory (also recommended to backup the original launcher configuration file first). Reports started coming in pretty quickly that it worked for most people with Windows and Linux (worked for me).

So LOTRO worked for a few days until June 6, then they did server maintenance to implement some bugfixes and the game launcher crashed again - this time with an error message saying "You don't have the current version of the client." The solution was to download and install a newer version of the launcher and client files from the same place as before (but clear your internet cache/use incognito or private mode/use different browser to make sure you don't re-download the old versions). This worked, but I hope we don't have to do this every time they update the game.

Also, I'm still having to use the external browser to visit the store with no option to choose between the in-game store or the external store in the UI Settings or the UserPreferences.ini file. I'm using Linux Mint 18 and PlayOnLinux with Wine version 2.8, Windows 7 compatibility and DirectX 9. I've also tried Wine 2.7-staging, Wine 2.9-staging (with OpenGL, CSMT or default rendering settings) and Windows 8.1 compatibility but it made no difference to the store. DirectX 11 support in Wine is improving (I can play Elder Scrolls Online now, but with graphics glitches) but not complete yet, and I don't think changing to DirectX 11 will fix the store issue. I would like to have a working in-game store soon.

LOTRO is playable again, but they really need to get a permanent fix for these issues. It's putting me off playing LOTRO at the moment because I don't know if the game is going to work or if I'm going to have to go hunting for work-arounds, or if I'll have to wait for the next patch.

*Update 22/6/17: Tried to log into LOTRO and there has been a patch. First it told me that it could not save the data files, so I reset the launcher options to default. It patched ok and logged in, then crashed with the error message about "You don't have the current version of the client." I re-downloaded the launcher and client files (I've put shortcuts to the download links on my browser toolbar - looks like I might need them frequently), put them in the LOTRO folder, restarted the launcher and then the game worked.

*Update 29/6/17: Another patch, another crash and error message about not having the correct version. This time I only downloaded the lotroclient_awesomium.exe file and moved it to the LOTRO folder, then restarted the launcher and the game worked.

*Update 3/8/17: Update 21 and the Mordor expansion released and the game worked fine straight away, but the store still opens in the external browser. However, I ended up reinstalling LOTRO on my other computer and it crashed to desktop after clicking the Play button. I downloaded the launcher and client files from the website, then the game automatically patched them (apparently they weren't up to date), then the game worked on that computer too. So those files are still critical for linux players and we're still stuck with the external game store.

Linux Graphics Drivers and LOTRO Performance

While debugging why LOTRO crashed on me in Linux, I made an important discovery which has led to a huge improvement in performance.

So, LOTRO froze while my character was just running through the Southern Bree-fields in Bree-land. I could move the mouse but the computer wouldn't respond to keyboard or mouse activity and I couldn't open a terminal or anything - I had to hard reboot the computer. The next time I logged into LOTRO, a similar thing happened to a character in Ered Luin, just running along, then the game froze and wouldn't respond. This is no good, what's going on?

I checked the PlayOnLinux debug file and found a lot of messages about a problem with wined3d - so maybe it's a DirectX graphics issue. I also googled the situation of running a Wine program that freezes and makes the computer unresponsive. Somebody suggested checking the system logs as they claimed that the problem must be deeper than Wine to cause the computer to become unresponsive. I checked the system logs (Linux Mint conveniently has a Log File Viewer available from the menu) and found a message about a PGRAPH engine fault on channel 6, then on the next line it said that lotroclient.exe was using channel 6. Then there was a message about "reboot crash terminate-all-tasks memory-full-oom-kill". So there was a memory overload? I looked up PGRAPH and found out that related to nouveau, the open source graphics driver for NVIDIA graphics cards. Someone else had got a similar error message and they were advised to check the size of their swap partition to make sure they did have plenty of memory (at least 3GB was recommended). I checked mine - I've got 8GB which should be enough. I found some bug reports for nouveau causing this issue dating back to 2014 - apparently still not fixed. Finally I found someone who said that they changed to using the proprietary NVIDIA graphics driver instead of nouveau and the problem went away - their applications didn't freeze anymore. Hooray!

They said to change graphics drivers, select the recommended NVIDIA driver from the Driver Manager (also readily available from the Linux Mint menu) and reboot. I did that and the next time I logged into LOTRO I got a message that it had detected my computer hardware could support DirectX 11 and did I want to enable it? Wine doesn't support DirectX 11 yet, so I said no and the client crashed to a black screen. Fortunately, I could close the client and do some more research. I found a report that you could go into the LOTRO UserPreferences.ini file (in the [home]/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online folder) and change the settings about DirectX. There, I found out that my game had been running with the UseHighResolutionGameData=True. Well maybe that might account for some of my low frame rates! I set that to False. Down in the [Render] section, there were options for GraphicsCore=D3D9 (good: it's using DirectX 9, which is supported by Wine), and HavePromptedForD3D11AtStartup=False and HavePromptedForD3D10AtStartup=False. We don't want to use either DirectX10 or DirectX11, so don't prompt us - I changed them both to True to make it think it already had, saved the changes and went and launched LOTRO.

The game loaded fine and I got back into the game world and everything ran so smooth and looked better than ever! I checked the frame rate and it was at least double what I was getting before! I went from around 25-30 fps just running around to over 60 fps. I know my computer isn't the best, but that's a huge improvement.

A few weeks ago I was trying to tweak performance in LOTRO and I downloaded the free Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 software for Linux. I tested my system (when it was using the nouveau driver) and was appalled - it really struggled with the animations and was very choppy. I tested it again after changing to the NVIDIA graphics driver, and the results were much better. Here's a Before and After report:

Jan 2017 - using the nouveau graphics driver

Feb 2017 - using the NVIDIA graphics driver

So, final conclusion: low frame rates and freezing in LOTRO may be a symptom that the graphics driver is not ideal. Nothing against the team behind nouveau - it's great they're developing an open-source alternative, but NVIDIA still knows how to get the best performance out of their hardware.

Installing LOTRO in Linux Mint

I've been having a break from LOTRO for the last few months because I've been addicted to World of Warcraft: Legion and Path of Exile: Atlas of Worlds. I know Update 19 came out with a new zone, North Ithilien, and Myndariel is looking forward to visiting there but she still needs to get to level 105.

However, I finally got fed up with Windows 10 on my laptop. So I copied all my important data to an external hard drive and completely replaced Windows 10 with Linux Mint 17.3.

After getting it set up so I could continue my work, I decided to have another try at getting my favourite games to work as well. I have previously tried to get LOTRO to work in Ubuntu on another computer by following several guides and forum posts, but with no success. Path of Exile (PoE) and World of Warcraft (WoW) installed easily in Linux Mint with PlayOnLinux, and finally I got LOTRO working too - just in time for server maintenance!

Finally got LOTRO working on a laptop in time for server maintenance

Installing LOTRO with PlayOnLinux

There are lots of guides out there on installing LOTRO in Linux - some say use PyLOTRO, or Windows Steam via Wine, or straight Wine, or Crossover or PlayOnLinux. There are also confusing lists of libraries that are recommended as necessary to make it work. Some of these guides may be out of date, but also different methods may work for different people or different computer set-ups.

Note: Wine is a program that lets you run Windows programs in Linux. There are lots of different versions, with some designed to work with specific programs, while others are called "staging" versions which include bug fixes or experimental features not available in the stable versions.

Here's what worked for me:

1. Download the game installer lotrolive.exe from the LOTRO website (select the PC Download).

Download installer from LOTRO website

2. [Install PlayOnLinux from the Software Manager if not already available.] Open PlayOnLinux.

3. To check what Wine versions you have available, select the Tools menu and click on Manage Wine versions. The left side of the pop-up window will show the available versions and the right side shows installed versions. I found version 1.9.18-staging worked for several games including LOTRO, so to install it, select it from the list on the left side and then click the little > button in the middle of the window.

*Update: Wine version 1.9.24 also works with LOTRO Update 19*

4. Select "Install a Program". From the PlayOnLinux install menu, select "Install a non-listed program". This will start a Manual Installation wizard.

PlayOnLinux Install Menu

5. PlayOnLinux informs you that they cannot guarantee the application you are installing will work. Click Next. Select "Install a program in a new virtual drive" and click Next.

6. Give your virtual drive a name - e.g. lotro.

7. It then asks what would you like to do before installation. This is where we get to configure Wine and install any extra libraries needed. Every time I tried installing LOTRO with extra libraries it didn't work, so I decided not to install any libraries at this stage. You can change Wine settings or add extra libraries later if necessary (select the game from the PlayOnLinux window and click Configure). Select the options relating to Wine then click Next.

Some pre-installation configuration options

8. It will ask you which version of Wine to use. Select the version that we installed earlier. Then it says it is creating the virtual drive and opens a Wine configuration panel.

Wine configuration panel

9. In the Applications tab, set the Windows Version to Windows XP or Windows 7. *Update: I initially set up LOTRO using Windows XP, but have changed Wine to use Windows 7 and it works fine too.*

I left the Libraries alone so there were no existing overrides listed.

In the Graphics tab, make sure "Allow the window manager to control the window" is ticked. This lets LOTRO change the window according to your in-game settings. I've seen some people recommend choosing the "emulate a virtual desktop" and matching it to your screen resolution, but this didn't work for me - I ended up with the LOTRO client running in a window even though I had set it to run as fullscreen and the bottom of the client was getting cut off so I couldn't click on some buttons (like the Continue or Exit buttons during the character creation process). Associated with this, ticking "Automatically capture the mouse in full-screen windows" caused my mouse to get stuck within the boundaries of the client screen so I couldn't click to close the program. I used another computer and found out that Alt+F2 opens a terminal and typing "xkill" then clicking the window to be closed will terminate the (misbehaving) program. So I don't recommend capturing the mouse. As for "Allow the window manager to decorate the windows" - this seemed to put a plain blue background behind the client when it was in windowed mode. Optional.

Wine configuration - graphics settings

None of the other tabs should need modifications, but maybe check the Audio tab and confirm the sound is working. If it's not working, maybe try installing or adjusting Pavucontrol (PulseAudio Volume Control) and/or Gnome-alsamixer (ALSA sound mixer for Gnome).

When you're finished with the Wine configuration, click Apply then OK.

10.  Next it asks you for the installer. Click the Browse button and locate the lotrolive.exe file downloaded earlier then click Next. This will start the installer. Note that the installer installs necessary libraries such as DirectX 9 as part of this process. Let it install files according to the default installation so they go into your Wine virtual drive. Agree to the terms and conditions.

At the end of the setup it offers you the chance to "Launch The Lord of the Rings Online". Deselect this, then press Finish.

Don't launch LOTRO from here

11. Return to the PlayOnLinux manual installation wizard and it asks you to create a shortcut. Select TurbineLauncher.exe then click Next. It then asks you for a name for the shortcut - I chose "LOTRO" rather than the default "TurbineLauncher" that appeared. Click Next. It asks if you want to make another shortcut - select "I don't want to make another shortcut" then click Next.

12. The PlayOnLinux manual installation wizard should have closed and you should now have a shortcut to LOTRO on the desktop.

Now you can either (I tested both these methods and now have LOTRO working on a laptop and a desktop PC both running Linux Mint 17.3):

- click the shortcut on the desktop to launch the client (or Run from the PlayOnLinux window), install the Akamai service then download the ~ 16GB game,

- or if you have a working version of the game, you can merge the full The Lord of the Rings Online folder (shown below as having 85 items) with The Lord of the Rings Online folder created by the lotrolive.exe installer (shown below as having 30 items) in the virtual drive to save some time and internet bandwidth. If it brings up a pop-up window regarding individual files with the same name, mark the box "Apply this action to all files" and click Skip to keep the existing files from the installer. Once the folder merge is complete, click the shortcut on the desktop or the Run button in the PlayOnLinux window. There may be some additional files to download to get the game up-to-date.

Here's the path to the folder if you called your virtual drive "lotro": [home]/PlayOnLinux's virtual drives/lotro/drive_c/Program Files/Turbine/The Lord of the Rings Online.

Merging the full game folder with the original game folder from the installer

A few last-minute files to download

Myndariel in Minas Tirith (via Linux Mint on the PC)

Performance-wise, the frame rate is lower than in Windows but from what I understand, that is to be expected with games running through Wine. I noticed a similar decrease in FPS with WoW and PoE. I could probably decrease the graphics quality a bit and perhaps tweak some other settings to try and optimise performance a bit better, but at least it is playable.

By the way, screenshots, user preferences (e.g. keymapping) and plugins are stored in [home]/Documents/The Lord of The Rings Online.

I hope this helps some people who want to play LOTRO in Linux. I'm very much a noob - I've tried Linux many times but had problems and couldn't find a solution so gave up and went back to Windows. Linux Mint does seem to be more user-friendly though so here's hoping I can stick with it this time.

And maybe I'll even play Myndariel some more. She really should catch up with the Epic Quests and fully explore Gondor before Mordor is fully released.