While here in Scotland we can still get snow and hail storms when the temperatures should be increasing, the LOTRO Spring Festival aims to welcome in brighters and warmer days in Middle Earth! As various regions have their own events and Spring customs, this festival sees you travelling around – enjoying the journey rather than simply the rewards! So here is my review of the Spring Festival 2017.
There are too many quests to provide tips on them all, so this is more your ‘tourists guide’ – enjoy!
Where Are Spring Festival Quests?
There are two ‘main’ hubs of fetival event: Bree-land near the Horsefields and Duillond in Ered Luin. There are a few quests in The Shire but, as far as I can see, very few are repeatable. There are also Springly goings-on at the Tavern in Thorin’s Hall!
Essences and Essence Fragments
As with the Yule Festival, you can earn Essence Fragments and actual Essence crafting materials.
- A Bustling Bloom: complete 10 Spring Festival Quests to earn an Essence Fragment.
- A Taste of Spring: complete “A Bustling Bloom” several times to earn an actual Essence Crafting Material.
Don’t make the mistake I did on day 1! The Map you’re given transports you to outside the Hedge Maze. You need to backtrack to the Spring Festival Rewards Vendor to pick up “A Bustling Bloom”. Pick this up before you turn in any actual festival quests so that they all count!
The Bree-land Hedge Maze
This little beauty is great for people like me who get lost in real life! There are a few quests that take place in the Hedge Maze. However not all can be picked up at the same time. Repeatable Quests here are:
- Terrible Tweens: catch 4 Tweens in the maze. They are running riot and must be caught! When another player catches one, you have to wait for the cheeky hobbit spawn to re-spawn.
- Misplaced Companions: Find some wandering Elves in the maze. These follow similar walking patterns so you can find them relatively easily.
- A Laugh at the Lost: place signposts in various locations to misdirect lose maze-wanderers.
- The Chicken Dash: Retrieve 2 stray chickens from the maze!
- A Fool’s Errand: once you unlock it, the 1 minute maze challenge is repeatable every 11 hours.
- Disorientation: find and drink Dire Brews in the Maze!
I love this maze, even though I got lost numerous times and even though other players found the tweens first! This festival feels more relaxed than most so I don’t mind taking my time around this maze!
Here’s a video of the route through the maze from start to finish:
Hedge Maze Map
I thought I was going to have to draw this map myself but as usual lotro-wiki comes into its own and saves the day. There are two maps below, but the most recent one can be found here. It contains the most recent quests and their locations within the maze. It is on the small size so I may make a higher resolution one in the near future.
Festival Gardens in Duillond
Enjoy a visit to the picturesque region of Ered Luin and enter the Festival Gardens (looks like a cave entrance). Here you can participate in Shrew Stomping (!) and also flower collecting for the festival gardens! This is a great piece of fun, although it is a popular event so you have some competition for your Shrew Stomping!
Other Spring Festival Activities Available
Other activities which I personally don’t do because some are timed (I’m not very good with timed quests!) are:
- Pie-Eating (Bree-land)
- Dancing: Bree-land and Duillond
- Large Shrew Stomping (Duillond): you have to use Huge Boots to stomp the Huge Shrew before other players!
- Drunken Fence Walking (The Shire): yeah, me an “sense of balance” don’t get along!
- Horse Races (Bree-land and the Shire): sense of balance thing again!
All-in-all there are a lot of Festival Activities to earn those much-needed Spring Leaves! Pick and choose what you want to do!
Flower Picking Like Crazy
In Bree-Town Central Square you can find Avery Crabapple. He starts a questline (which is rewarded with Spring Leaves). He sends you flower picking in Bree-land, Ered Luin and The Shire. These are special flowers for someone special. Once you get to the end of the questline, you can obtain a repeatable quest – A Festival of Flowers. In that quest you travel round picking flowers from Festival-activated flowerbeds. These flowers are barter items which you exchange with Gretlang Mugwart for items (and the Steed of the Jester) that can only be purchased using these barter flowers!
But you have to re-attempt this quest each hour!
How to Save Spring Leaves
During this event you can barter your leaves for a variety of items. Remember that cosmetic gear and items are Bound to Account and can be applied to multiple characters at once. So only purchase each item once per account. That frees up Leaves to spend on other things!
Also you may not have to barter Spring Leaves for a Shrew Cosmetic Pet. The Quest Terrible Tweens grants a Festival Box. Usually this one grants 2 Spring Leaves but I have had Dusty Shrew pet land from this box!
LOTRO Spring Festival 2017 New Mounts/Steeds
The steeds that are obtainable from the Barter Vendor during the 2017 Festival are: The Steed of the Moon Moth (40 Spring Leaves – 68% Mount Speed default) and The Steed of Ethuil (20 Spring Leave – 62% Mount Speed default). Note that the Moth Steed is called “Moon Moth” at the Barter Vendor, but is just called Steed of the Moth in your mounts list:
TL;DR The LOTRO Spring Festival Round-up
As always there are a variety of events for you to choose from. With the extra travel, the LOTRO Spring Festival feels more relaxing than some of the other events LOTRO put on. And as always I really enjoyed this event and was able to kit out my female characters from it. Dive in and enjoy!
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