Lord of the Rings Online MMO News, Guides, and Features at Ten Ton Hammer

Bree-town is more or less the central social hub of the Lord of the Rings Online. Sure, the Twenty-First Hall is better equipped for an endgame staging point, with its superior crafting facilities and legendary item services, but Bree-town is where it's at when you want to hang out, meet new people, go on recruiting sprees, et cetera. But at times, the surface streets can be crowded. Well, surface streets are for suckers. Real adventurers travel by rooftop.

Parkour is the art of moving form one space to another in the most creative way, usually by jumping and climbing and that sort of thing. You see it in Jackie Chan movies when he's running away from bad guys, or in the French action movie "Banilieue 13" (called "District 13" in North America). Bree-town Parkour is a bit different from these - it's more about exploration than fleeing from bad guys and getting into kung fu battles. Also you need a horse.

THE PRANCING PONY

We'll start with an easy roof: The Inn of the Prancing Pony. From here, you have a nice vantage point of the heart of Bree-town, and there are usually people mingling around in the open area below. Start at the northwest corner:

You can sort of see the route from here. Follow that low grassy slope to the patch of grass masked by the shrubs. It hits a peak and flattens out at the top:

That's your launch point, and you'll need to be on a horse (or goat) to make it. You have to angle the approach as though trying to hit right in that corner, and then jerk a few degrees to the right just as you hit the jump. This is a difficult angle to hit, and you will probably need to make several attempts. When you miss the mark, pull back to the bottom of the slopw and get a running start. Keep trying until you find the "sweet spot." When you get up on the roof, follow the peaks to the front of the inn, overlooking the street:

You can get up on the taller spires by running along the peak ridge. For the taller peak at the southwest corner, you will need to launch from the top of the chimney:

THREE-FARROW CRAFTING HALL

This one is a bit more advanced and requires picking a careful path around a closed-in, no-traffic area, which I call the no-man's-land. Start out at the roof behind the vendors to the west of the boar fountain. There is a low roof overhanging an elevated porch there:

Start at the north end of the porch for your run, and hit the low corner of the roof:

This is your starting point for other rooftop hijinks, so master this jump. It's an easy one.

The path to the crafting hall follows the line of the low roof's peak, with a hop up on the tiled roof just beside the window dormer:

The dormers are going to serve as launching pads for many of your jumps. Follow the tiled roofs in a gradual curve to the left to the bigger roofs. If you look down to the left, you'll see the "blank" area where players aren't supposed to go - try to avoid falling in there. 

Head east across the big roofs to the spot with the three window dormers. You'll want to get down onto the long, low roofs overlooking the street. This is a long jump, and you may suffer a falling injury if you miss your mark, but it's a pretty easy one to make. Get on the roof with the dormers on each side:

This jump takes a bit of finesse. The roof is too steep to simply run up the side, so you'll have to make a hook-jump from the tip of the innermost dormer and try to get around the other side of the chimney stack, which should bounce you over the peak and down the other side. I call this move the chimney-hook jump. Get to the cross-shaped roof and head carefully to the street-side edge and look down:

You're going to want to drop straight down on the peak of the Trader's Gate crossing over the street. Sidle up right next to the chimney stack and dash forward, which should land you squarely on top of the overpass:

From there, the path to the top of the crafting hall is fairly obvious. Follow the peaks and you'll be overlooking the boar fountain courtyard and the Trader's Gate.

If you want to get to the Town Hall roof, follow the roofs south instead of dropping down to the overpass. The path to the Town Hall is relatively uncomplicated.

Keep on reading and we'll take you deeper into the city...