Lord of the Rings Online Going Free-to-Play

[Kuala BangoDango]

What happens if I already have an account though? Will I get some benefit for being a original customer?

Yes, lots of Loyalty bonuses. Also if you're a Lifetimer you get the perks mentioned above in my previous post. If you're a monthly subscriber then you get the same perks, you just have to keep your monthly subscription for them.

Being a free player will be VERY restricted (max level 50, no PvMP, limited to original SoA areas and classes, limited to only Shire/Bree/Ered Luin quests).

 

[ReverseEngineered]

I think more games should take this model. As much as I don't want to be nickel-and-dime'd as I play through a game, it's hard to justify paying $30 for a game and then $20/month without having had a chance to play it. I did that with Age of Conan (only it was $60) and was terribly disappointed.

I think the most important thing, though, is that free play is actually possible. I've played some games (like Puzzle Pirates) where you could barely get started without paying for something. You need to get me hooked enough to consider paying, and have enough value in that for-pay item for me to justify it. Though the developers may see the for-pay as also covering the entertainment of the for-free portion, the consumer doesn't see it that way. They are paying $1 for a shirt for their avatar and they will make their value judgement based on that (and if they're hooked, even $30 for a mini-pet will look like a good deal).

I also think it's important not to emphasize the pay content too much. FarmVille is TERRIBLE for this! Every few moments, it's popping up shit that you just have to have, trying to guilt you into it, then tells you that you have to pay for it. It completely breaks the immersion of playing a game and makes the entire experience feel like an excuse to throw ads in your face. It feels like a scam (and in the case of FarmVille, it is).

 

[Death916]

ya i gave it a try before on the trial, it was pretty fun. i'll probably start playing once its free. ill see you guys on there

 

[samsonguy920]

I think the truth of the matter is that World of Warcraft Cataclysm will kill LotR, so in an attempt to hold on to the few people it actually has it will go free.

Why would Cataclysm kill LotRO when none of the other expansions or new MMOs have? The current populace hasn't jumped ship yet, I don't see why you make the conclusion that they would now. This is more an issue of getting new people to join, not to keep their core base.

Considering Cataclysm isn't getting me all hot to trot to get back on the WoWagon, I agree. Yes WoW is shaking things up with new maps all over the board, as well as finally allowing freeflying over Azeroth, but that is more to keep WoW fresh to its current players. It ain't gonna affect the other games since WoW isn't getting into anything the others provide.
I plan to take advantage of this opportunity to explore Middle Earth as Turbine portrays it. From what I have seen in Shamus's adventures, it looks quite appealing.
And besides, no MMO sets itself out to kill another. That's really a stupid train of thought to have. The only thing that kills an MMO is the MMO itself.

 

[samsonguy920]

What happens if I already have an account though? Will I get some benefit for being a original customer?

Sounds like a question to ask Turbine. Check out the website.

 

[Daeran Angelfire]

I play lotro since the European launch and it's pretty awesome. I mean, everybody knows that WoW is the "perfect mmo" but LotRo is great for the locations, quests, amazing graphics, having fun with friends, the households and a lot of other things.
The free-to-play option is great, and you can still pay your monthly fee to have the full features and a lot of more new things. I can't wait to see what's going to happen this fall!

 

[steamweedlegoblin]

LOTRO is going free-to-play? Interesting. So in other words, I spent 300 dollars on a lifetime subscription...and Turbine rewards me with a large shaft up the ****. Does that sound about right?

That depends. How long have you had the Lifetime for? How often do you play and do you plan on playing even after F2P goes live? Would you rather have a gimped, heavily restricted, free access to the game or a well rewarded, full access to all content without paying a dime AND getting free store points each month that you can use to buy, for free, any new expansion that come out later thus eliminating the real-world money you'd have to pay for expansions anyway if the game didn't go F2P?

If you've had Lifetime access for 1.5-2 years then it's already paid for itself. If you reach the 1.5-2 year point in the next several months before F2P goes live then your Lifetime will have paid for itself before the change.

Lifetime accounts can get up to close to 5000 FREE store points (about a $50 value) just as a loyalty reward BEFORE the F2P even goes live while collecting another 500 free points each month after the F2P change. You can save those points and use them to pay for expansion content without having to pay the $20-30 you USED to have to pay for expansions. There are other benefits too that Lifetimer accounts get, but basically we're considered full VIP account status forever while everyone else has gimped free status or normal VIP status which they lose if they stop paying their monthly subscription.

I still think Lifetime is worth it, even for those who buy it now. The game has at least another 7 more years on it (2017 license expires). 500 Points/mo x 12 mo = 6000 points/year x 7 years = 42,000 free points. 1000 points = about $10, so we Lifetimers get about $420 (plus more for bonuses) worth of points all for free over the course of the remaining game which as has been said can be used to buy any new expansions, thus never pay a dime on anything for the rest of the game.

Well when you put it like that it actually does sound like a really good deal. I didn't know lifetimers got those perks for their loyalty. I take back all the nasty things I said about Turbine.

 

[tim98042]

that's pretty cool, i may actually sign up for this, may be worth a few hours of my time. lol

 

[Perivayne]

Lifetime members and Founders will be getting beaucoup points monthly/how many anniversaries they've been at/etc, so the lifetime membership, which I more than recouped as I played since release will still give a great value.

 

[laserwulf]

Sweet. Before this, I wasn't planning on even trying LotRO. Now, I'll give it a look.

 

[superbatranger]

Hm. Well, I'm guessing it's much like WoW, so I'm not gonna waste my time on it. You enjoy yourselves tho =3.

Yea, we got our souls to worry about. I've seen what WoW does to people. Not a pretty sight, if I do say so myself.

 

[Spacewolf]

i suppose i could give it a go since there will hopefully be more people starting it might be quite fun with alot of other noobs running about.

 

[BelleintheShadows]

Shamus made me love this game even more! In LOTRO people are polite and friendly willing to give you tips, and have Lore-Acceptable term (Ex. Their names are like middle-earth names, I got an elf named Anielleth) not like other games where people welcome you with sparring invites when the guy is like, lvl 60, and you're only lvl 1.

No PvP, but there is something called "Sparring" where you get to show off your skills to impress a crowd. xD and theres PvMP "Player vs. Monster Player."

 

[Nouw]

I think I just had a Nerdgasm. I will definitely try this out. Free-To-Play for the win!

 

[imnot]

i may give it a try, because i'm not paying to play a game (except to buy it).

 

[Trivun]

i may give it a try, because i'm not paying to play a game (except to buy it).

Exactly my reasoning for not buying World of Warcraft (why should I have to keep paying to play a game when I've already bought the hard copy?). So yeah, I guess I might give this a try if it looks any good, I just won't bother with any of the microtransaction stuff like paying for extra quests or whatever (which are also the reason I stopped playing Runescape, back when it was half decent and I was young...).

 

[imnot]

i may give it a try, because i'm not paying to play a game (except to buy it).

Exactly my reasoning for not buying World of Warcraft (why should I have to keep paying to play a game when I've already bought the hard copy?). So yeah, I guess I might give this a try if it looks any good, I just won't bother with any of the microtransaction stuff like paying for extra quests or whatever (which are also the reason I stopped playing Runescape, back when it was half decent and I was young...).

same, played that game for years.

 

[viranimus]

(why should I have to keep paying to play a game when I've already bought the hard copy?).

Well I would say this is an ideology of the Non MMO player toward MMOs. I would think the best answer to that is what you get in return for subscription fees.

Look at stand alone games. Even in very long games your looking at a top end of content of about 100 hours. Working at that that might be a very long weekend for you to complete. Where as the level of content in MMOs typically is measured in days, not hours. While some of that is in timesinks like travel, you still are having an experience. Beyond that even some of the easiest MMOs it would take you a month or two if your really burning through levels to max out. Once you do max out youve got several months to work through the end game content. All of this... is for the core of an MMO, not including its expansions.

Beyond all this, there is a justifiable logic to monthly service fees which alot of people dont see. The constant work that goes into further development. Things change in MMOs, for better or worse, but there is constantly work being done to add more to them. Plus theres things like in game support for those nasty times like when youve glitched through the floor of a zone or something else.

I was an early adopter to the p2p model. Another thing I would say is you really need to compare the experience of a f2p MMO vs a p2p one. Ive found the level of enjoyment you can get out of F2P pales in comparison to p2p simply due to having no content restrictions.

Lastly. Part of the reason why I was an early adopter of p2p was because of economics. Yes it is true that your buying the game, then a monthly service charge, and perhaps an expansion once a year or so, however if you play an MMO p2p one year compare that to buying games. If you milk a month out of a stand alone game, your actually doing pretty good. Now with current prices of new games hovering about 30-60$ for argument sake we split the difference and say 45$. Now multiply that by 12 months your looking at 540$ per year with a newer game once a month. Now compare that to an MMO. Multiply 15$ by 12 to get 180 then add 35 for the core game and 30 for a yearly expansion and your still coming in at 255 which is less than half.

Thing is... if you get into an MMO its very VERY easy to loose a years worth of your life into it and you will find that you really wont even need to buy new games because of it.

To each their own.. but P2P on a monthly sub isnt quite as bad as it looks on paper.

 

[duchaked]

annnnd three years later I'm actually about to start playing LOTRO

hope I'm not joining the party too late