The Lord of the Rings Online Guide

Explore the Middle Earth fantasy world of J.R.R. Tolkien through renowned locations including the Shire, the Mines of Moria, and Lothlórien. Customize your own character in this online MMORPG and fight alongside Dwarfs, Elves and Humans against the minions of Dark Lord Sauron. Leveling up, looting, cooperative skirmishes, exploration... its all there.

Follow my step-by-step guide on installing, configuring and optimizing Lord Of The Rings Online in Linux with PlayOnLinux.

Note: This guide applies to the Steam version of Lord Of The Rings Online. Other versions may require additional steps.

Tips & Specs:

Try SteamPlay before using this guide as Valve now uses a fork of Wine called Proton and should run most Windows games.

To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual: PlayOnLinux Explained

Mint 17 64-bit
PlayOnLinux: 4.2.6
Wine: 1.7.40

Wine Installation

Note: Versions of Wine older than 2.0.2 and Wine 2.12-staging no longer work with Steam

Click Tools
Select "Manage Wine Versions"

Look for the Wine Version: 1.7.40

Select it
Click the arrow pointing to the right

Click Next

Downloading Wine

Extracting

Downloading Gecko

Installed

Wine 1.7.40 is installed and you can close this window

Downloading Steam

Go To: http://www.steampowered.com
Click Install Steam

Do not click "Install Steam Now"
It will automatically install Linux Steam
Select Windows Steam instead
click "Windows" under the green button

Navigate to your desktop
Click Save

Setup PlayOnLinux

Launch PlayOnLinux
Click Install

Click "install a non-listed program"

Click Next

Select "Install a program in a new virtual drive"
Click Next

Name your virtual drive: lotro
No spaces
Click Next

Select all three options:

• Use another version of Wine
• Configure Wine
• Install some libraries

Click Next

Select Wine 1.7.40
Click Next

Select "32 bits windows installation"
Click Next

Configure Wine

Applications Tab
Windows Version: Windows 7
Click Apply

Graphics Tab
Check: Automatically capture the mouse in full-screen windows
Check: Emulate a virtual desktop
Desktop size: 1024x768
Click Ok

Install Libraries

Check the following libraries:

• POL_install_corefont
• POL_install_d3dx9
• POL_install_d3dx10
• POL_install_tahoma
• POL_install_vcrun2008
• POL_install_vcrun2010
• POL_install_xact

Click Next

Note: All packages will automatically download and install

Installing Steam

Click Browse

Navigate to your desktop
Select: SteamSetup.exe
Click Open

Click Next

Click Next

Check: I accept the license...
Click Next

Click Next

Click Next

Click Install

Click Finish

Updating Steam

More updating, extracting and installing

When Steam is done installing the login screen will pop up. You probably won't see any text because there is a font bug.
Click the "X" to close Steam login

PlayOnLinux Shortcut

Select Steam.exe
Click Next

Name your shortcut: Lord Of The Rings Online
Click Next

Click Next

PlayOnLinux Configure

Back to PlayOnLinux
Click Configure

General Tab
Arguments: -no-dwrite -no-cef-sandbox
This fixes the missing font and store problem

Note: Click the + to download other versions of Wine. Click the down-arrow to select other versions of wine

Display Tab
Video Memory Size: Select the size of Memory your video card/chip uses

Close Configure

Launching Steam

Select Lord Of The Rings Online
Click Run

Note: Click debug to see errors and bugs.

Click "Login to existing account"

Search Steam for "The Lord Of The Rings Online"

Click Play Game

Click Next

Uncheck both shortcut options
Click Next

Click Finish

Wait for Lord Of The Rings Online to download 20GB

Click Play

Click "Yes" for high resolution data files

Click "I Agree"

Check "I Agree"
Click Next

Click Close

Launcher Patching

Wait for the launcher to patch another 2GB

When its finally done
Click Play

Another license agreement
Click I Agree

Optimization

Press Esc
Click Options

Adjust Display:

• Resolution
• Windowed
• Fullscreen
• Aspect Ratio
• Antialiasing

ADV Graphics

Adjust Objects:

• Draw distance
• Model Detail
• Material Detail

Ajust Scenery:

• Landscape Draw Distance
• Frill Distance
• Atmospheric Detail

Texturing:

• Texture Detail
• Texture Filtering
• Anisotrophic filter quality

Conclusion:
Lord Of The Rings Online ran perfectly on my GeForce 550 Ti. I was able to crank all the settings to the max with a resolution of 1680x1050. The graphical quality isn't quite as high as other MMO's like Neverwinter or Age of Wushu, so it should be able to run on most laptops. To my surprise the Steam In-Game Community overlay didn't have to be disabled with Wine 1.7.40

Gameplay Video:

Screenshots:

 

Oh, I see now
Since PlayOnLinux creates a "wineprefix" or also known as a "Virtual Drive"
It is like a sandbox for your game. Basically it uses the bare-minimum of Windows dependencies to use your program. So they won't conflict with the Linux Steam.

Thanks for asking.

Ok Thank You for the help! I will be trying this soon.

 

Of course!
Please let us know if Lord Of The Rings Online still runs in PlayOnLinux.
I haven't tested in a while...

 

Of course!
Please let us know if Lord Of The Rings Online still runs in PlayOnLinux.
I haven't tested in a while...

I ended up trying to run LOTRO with solely using Wine, and it surprisingly ran very well. I didn't have any problems, I just downloaded the windows installer from the website and ran it with Wine.

 

Great! Good to know none of the updates broke anything in Wine. Thanks for the confirmation.

 

I recently installed LOTRO via POL (no-steam) and it works,but sometimes you have to launch it several times before it runs properly, but when it runs it runs properly. I am guessing a little dx 11 error or something. Whatever the error it seems to be a minor problem. Just restart until it decides to run.

 

Great! Thanks for confirming that Lord of the Rings online still runs in Wine. I haven't played it since I did the guide. What version of Wine did you use?

 

2.21-staging

 

Do they have a launcher/updater? Is that what crashes or the game it-self?

 

Do they have a launcher/updater? Is that what crashes or the game it-self?

yes the updater but only sometimes. Once the updater works then it runs the game just great. I don't see one problem not even a graphics glitch. The LOTRO store works great and this on a free account!

 

Ugh, I wonder if they upgraded the visual C to vcrun2015?
Are you running it as Windows XP or a newer Windows?

I also wonder if the Steam version also uses the the updater/launcher?
I've seen some MMO's in Steam where it basically gets downloaded through Steam, but still have to use an updater/launcher too.