LOTRO Legendarium: Yondershire is one of the most fun zones in LOTRO

Thanks to the encouragement provided by Lord of the Rings Online’s new legendary servers, I’ve been enjoying a couple weeks of blissful low-level adventuring throughout Eriador. These progression servers always felt like a nostalgia tour that the community gets to do together, and so I’m determined not to rush my progress through them.

As part of these adventures, I found myself strolling into a zone I’ve been only once before: Yondershire. And while my approval of newer zones like Cardolan and Swanfleet has decreased with each visit, I’m finding that this second tour of “Shire Plus” is even better than my first. In fact, it may well be one of the most fun zones in all of LOTRO.

LOTRO is not, on the whole, a frivolous, light-hearted romp. It has humor and other positive attributes, but these are always weighed against the ominous pressure of Sauron and other dark forces seeking to crush this world. Most zones play into the tension of evil people doing evil things and our role in putting a stop to it.

Yet there’s something wonderfully freeing about areas and zones with Hobbits. These peace-loving pastoral being with all of their quirks and idiosyncrasies act as a sort of permission for the developers to shake off the gloom of the Enemy and engage in mischief, goofiness, and merrymaking.

I get that some players absolutely hate that. For them, the Shire (and any Hobbit-themed content) is getting in the way of Serious Business, choosing instead to focus on the extremely low-stakes nature of spoiled pies, nosy neighbors, bee keeping, courtship, and lots and lots of food. To some player personalities, Hobbit content is annoying and out of step with the more grand adventures they prefer to have.

If that’s you, it’s OK. This world is big enough to ignore Hobbits if you prefer. They pretty much keep to only a few quarters in the game anyway, and you almost always have other options for leveling content so that you’re not forced to hang out with the little folk.

For those of us who thrive on Hobbit culture, however, Yondershire is a wonderful gift. In one patch, the devs pretty much doubled the landmass of the Hobbit realm and gave us plenty of new stories to experience.

There’s a lot to appreciate about this zone. I like how it’s not more of the same; Yondershire looks different from the Shire (more wild and wooly) and has a different tone. There’s a power struggle in the works that needs ferreting out, and yet even that is about as tame of a grand zone-wide threat as we ever see in this game.

Instead of representing encroaching doom, Yondershire is a playground for all sorts of cheerful and bouncy storylines. You get to play hide-and-seek (again), help an aspiring author write his book, go on a literal wild goose chase, assist a daring Hobbit in trapping a lynx to tame, brew a most excellent beer, and throw stink-bombs at Lotho’s minions.

Easily the best part of the questing experience in this zone revolves around Bingo Boffin and his relatives. This is a sprawling and highly amusing quest series that highlights the Boffin clan’s odd tendencies and a housewarming party that can’t seem to get off the ground. The one instance where a “caper” to steal back a painting actually had me laughing at the antics of an NPC in the background running all over the house while I was keeping the homeowner occupied.

Outside of the stories, there’s plenty else to treasure about Yondershire. The new tavern interiors are so richly detailed that they put everything in the Shire to shame. And it’s great that you don’t really have to do much grinding to buy a ton of housing decorations from the quartermaster.

The design of Yondershire is more compact than the Shire, which helps with travel. In truth, there are four village hubs laid out in a rough square with easy travel between them (although, you’ll want to note that none of the stablemaster links work if you’re under level 20).

Getting an early reputation vendor port back to Nobottle was a huge help with quick travel. I’d say that only the western portion of the zone presents any annoyances with getting around, as there are quest objectives very far away from any stablemaster or defeat circle.

I don’t know if we’ll ever get another full Hobbit-themed zone — I mean, where would it go? What would it be? My mind’s a blank here. So it might be that this is it for the duration of LOTRO’s lifespan. If that’s the case, I’ll be content that we got a second helping of Shire before all was said and done.