You do NOT have to purchase anything to enjoy Lord of the Rings Online! It truly is free-to-play, and its monetisation is less aggressive than many other games.
The beautiful looking expansions on the LOTRO.com expansion page contain high level content along with various cosmetics and things useful for high level characters.
Since the base game gives you free content up until at least level 95, it will be a while before you need to buy one (and in that time they’re likely to be on sale at least once.)
If you’d like to spend a bit of money to support the game, here’s what is commonly recommended that will greatly improve quality of life:
- Subscribe for at least one month - it will permanently unlock larger bags and fast-travel from stables. As long as you remain subscribed, you’ll have access to your vault and a shop from anywhere, fast crafting, no item wear and 500 LP per month.
- Journeyman Riding Trait (Account) (2995 LP) - faster horse riding for all your characters! Pricy, but more cost effective than individually buying the slower Apprentice Riding Trait for 3+ characters.
- Universal Toolkit (150 LP) or better yet Enduring Universal Toolkit (450 LP) - crafting tools for all professions. Can be swapped among characters.
- 5 Mithril Coins (50 LP) to purchase the Return to Lalia’s Market skill (3 Mithril Coins). All characters can get a Return to Bree skill later on, but you can get this early, and it doesn’t share a cooldown with your other travel skills.
- Travel Skill Cooldown Reductions (495 LP each) - there are three available. Huge QoL improvement, but they are per character instead account-wide. I recommend getting them in this order 1. Expedient Traveller (affects most travel skills) 2. Returning Traveller (most non-milestone skills) 3. Hurried Traveller (milestone only)
- Shared Storage (20 Slots) (995 LP) if you have more than one character, especially if you are a subscriber.
- Stone of the Tortoise (100LP) This is an XP disabler that prevents you from levelling up. It’s good for completionists and others who find themselves outlevelling content before they can finish it.
Some of the packages include a consumable that lets you skip to a high level.
Every new player that I’ve seen use a Level Skip/Valar ended up abandoning their character.
LOTRO isn’t like other MMOs where most players congregate in a handful of endgame areas. Instead, it’s known for its epic questline which takes you from Bree and The Shire all the way through to Mordor and beyond. With a vast game world and many game mechanics, skipping all those levels means you’ll have no idea why you’re there, where you need to go or what you need to do.