The Lord of the Rings Online: How to Build Neighbour Friendship with Journals and Gifts

Begin with a Neighbour visiting your home

The Neighbours feature uses NPC visitors connected to your housing. The official introduction describes special housing items placed on a hook in your home to invite a neighbour. Its pre-order introduction provides access to the feature; this guide starts after you have a neighbour available and focuses on the friendship loop rather than treating NPC friendship as adding a player to your social list. [1]

Update 49.6 confirms that Neighbours are available with pre-purchase of The Wolves of Mordor, establishing the released feature behind the earlier overview. [2]

Complete daily Neighbour quests and share the resulting journal

Check the neighbourhood bulletin boards for their daily Neighbour quests. Completing the quests rewards barter currency and produces experiences compiled into a journal. You can share that journal with any neighbour visiting your home. Choose a neighbour whose interests match the story: the publisher says a well-matched tale strengthens friendship, while an unsuitable one can slow progress or sour the neighbour’s mood. [3]

The journal can be shared with a visiting neighbour. [3]

Story selection affects the response. [3]

Steps

1. Take the daily Neighbour quests from the bulletin boards, then share the resulting journal with a suitable visiting neighbour. [3]

Use the Neighbour UI and reactions to learn what suits that NPC

Each neighbour has preferences, and the UI displays the qualities you have discovered. Unknown traits remain hidden. Pay attention to reactions to stories and gifts, then use that information for the next choice. The September overview includes a work-in-progress presentation, so this guide uses the basic preference-and-reaction loop without prescribing a numerical trait table or a fixed number of gifts to reveal every preference. [3]

Reactions are a stated clue for future choices. [3]

Steps

1. Review discovered qualities in the Neighbour UI and use the NPC’s reactions to guide the next story or gift. [3]

Read a gift’s qualities before spending the barter currency

Major-settlement merchants sell gifts for the barter currency earned from Neighbour quests, and gifts can also be found while adventuring. Inspect the qualities listed on an item’s description and compare them with what you know about the neighbour. The official guide warns that a rarer gift can include both loved and disliked qualities, so rarity alone does not establish that it is the best present for that NPC. [3]

The description exposes the gift’s important qualities. [3]

Rare gifts can have mixed appeal. [3]

Steps

1. Read the gift description and match its qualities to the neighbour’s known preferences before choosing it. [3]

Visit between gifts and use the current story-quest reward scope

A neighbour may not always have a gift waiting. Saying hello improves happiness and may lead to more frequent gifts, so visiting still serves the relationship when there is no reward to claim. Personal story adventures unlock at friendship milestones and reveal more of the neighbour’s personality. Do not judge the current pace by an older oversized story reward: Update 49.7 specifically reduces the friendship granted by those story quests. [3]

Friendship milestones lead into personal story quests. [3]

The current story reward is smaller than the erroneous launch amount. [4]