Lord of the Rings Online Free to play

[WhiteNoise]

Just wondering if anyone will be playing? I think it goes live on Friday but it is already open to past users as well as beta testers.

I logged in last night and all of my characters were still there and my money as well as gear + resources.

I subbed this game for 1.5 years and only stopped because I just didn't have the time but now that I can play for free I'll take advantage of that for sure.

I play on Landroval btw.

Main: Louchar

[1Kurgan1]

I might try it out again since its F2P.

[ShiBDiB]

any1 willing to write a mini review of if its worthwhile?

[1Kurgan1]

From what I have played, its a good game, one of the better MMO's on the market, and it has a unique casting system that works in tiers, it's at least worth a shot to see if you like it. And it's also nice that they keep supporting the games graphics unlike some other MMO's, they made the push to DX10, and now they are going to DX11, so they are backing their game with more than just content.

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

I feel bad to those who payed for it before though..

[INSTG8R]

I am just waiting for the servers to finish with maintenance then I am gonna give this one a try

[1Kurgan1]

Originally Posted by Bjorn_Of_Iceland

I feel bad to those who payed for it before though..

Why not explain rather than wait for someone to ask "what do you mean?"

I think you mean that they paid to play it, I don't feel bad for them, and I doubt most players care. The game is very polished, and the developers keep adding great things, if someone didn't feel it was worth it to pay to play before, they just simply didn't, but if you did pay then, you felt it was worth it.

[FreedomEclipse]

Originally Posted by 1Kurgan1

Why not explain rather than wait for someone to ask "what do you mean?"

I dont think he needs to - everyone knows LotrO was subscription based.

some people will be pissed off - I know of a fair few people that payed the one off £120 or £180 fee to have it 'free to play' for life.

a lot of people put a lot of money into the game. but now its free to play they might feel duped.

[Kreij]

Originally Posted by ShiBDiB

any1 willing to write a mini review of if its worthwhile?

If people want to write mini-reviews for games and put them in the gaming section, the mods have no problem with that.

However, I personally would like to see someone start a thread in comments and feedback (or even here in the gaming section) so we can discuss a few details about what that kind of review should include.

The reviews would not be moderated (eg. need to be approved before posting), and I would be happy to do some proofreading to help out once they are up.

Not expecting the level of review that W1zz demands for the hardware reviews, it would just be nive to have some kind of consistancy in the format and at least a reasonable attempt at grammar and spelling :P

Sorry for the hijack. Get back to the OP's topic.

[WhiteNoise]

The game still has a subscription service. $14.99 gets you the entire game as it was meant to be.

free to play is supported by a micro transaction system and you do not have access to everything in the game. You have to use points to purchase some things.

examples:

A full subbed account can fast travel via the stables anywhere the stable goes for the normal in game money amount.

The free acount can fast travel to most points but there is usually one point that requires a purchase of turbine points to unlock.

Example 2:
My L33 character is located in the North Downs right now. Because I'm using the free to play account I do not have access to quests in this area. (except for the ones I already had due to being a paid account prior) I can go to the turbine store and purchase points to buy and unlock the North Down quest package.

IMO its seems a bit much to charge for quests. Some quest areas you don't have to purchase but other areas you do.

I haven't played enough to decide if its worth playing on the free account or not. I need to find a break down from Turbine explaing in detail all the differences from a paid sub and the free to play option.

If I unlock two entire quest areas for 500+ turbine points each then I may as well pay the $14.99 and get everything for free for a month.

Then again maybe its not as bad as I think. I only ventured into North Downs last night and I have not checked out other areas yet.

[ShiBDiB]

Originally Posted by Kreij

If people want to write mini-reviews for games and put them in the gaming section, the mods have no problem with that.

However, I personally would like to see someone start a thread in comments and feedback (or even here in the gaming section) so we can discuss a few details about what that kind of review should include.

The reviews would not be moderated (eg. need to be approved before posting), and I would be happy to do some proofreading to help out once they are up.

Not expecting the level of review that W1zz demands for the hardware reviews, it would just be nive to have some kind of consistancy in the format and at least a reasonable attempt at grammar and spelling :P

Sorry for the hijack. Get back to the OP's topic.

huh

[WhiteNoise]

I think what he is saying is they would like any reviews posted here at this site to be consistant with their review standard.

Now I think the guy that asked for a mini review was more or less just looking for some opinions on the free to play game...not really a review per say.

[1Kurgan1]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

I dont think he needs to - everyone knows LotrO was subscription based.

some people will be pissed off - I know of a fair few people that payed the one off £120 or £180 fee to have it 'free to play' for life.

a lot of people put a lot of money into the game. but now its free to play they might feel duped.

Those people who paid for the life time sub have it made, those people bought that sub over 3 years ago. Everyone else who didn't has paid $15 a month for like 40 months, 40 x $15 = $600, after about a year of playing the game the life time sub is paid off, and you are not playing the game for free, so they been playing for free for a long time.

This games quality is better than any of the F2P crap out there.

[jagd]

Why ?I t is a good MMO and payment model changed because Warner Bros bought Turbine and want to boost player numbers.They added F2P option but youll have limitations like very other F2P MMO .
They want to boost player numbers and with microtransaction model hope more revenue ,They are still keeping 15$ monthly subscription .

Originally Posted by Bjorn_Of_Iceland

I feel bad to those who payed for it before though..

[AlienIsGOD]

Im playing this and its a VIP sub for 9.99. It gets you some perks over F2P and Premium Players ( ppl who buy TP with real $$$). The best part about the vIP status is that you get 500TP every month as long as you are a n active player, i.e. log in at least 1 time every month. Even Premium isnt bad, for the money i spent i got 3 quest packs to get me to Lvl 50 and then Mines of Moria after that. After paying for WoW the last 2 years, a game like this where i can pick and choose waht to buy makes it a lil lighter on the wallet. And even if I spend $50 on this game, thats still like retail price for an average PC game anyways so its still good money spent.

[NinkobEi]

when I played in beta the classes seemed overly mundane to me. Nothing really unique popped out at me. How is character customization in this game? From what I remember its all pretty much cookie cutter, and that bores me.

[Shadowdust]

My wife and I have been totally addicted to this game since it went free to play. I much prefer this over a subscription since I can just buy a new quest pack when I am finished with my current quests. I haven't really needed all of the premium features. The only things I've taken advantage of are the extra bags, basic riding skill and the virtue slots. I've earned enough in my deeds to offset the cost of turbine points a little as well.

[gunsmoke]

thanks for the heads up info on this game i mite give it a shot my self WhiteNoise

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

Originally Posted by 1Kurgan1

Why not explain rather than wait for someone to ask "what do you mean?"

I think you mean that they paid to play it, I don't feel bad for them, and I doubt most players care. The game is very polished, and the developers keep adding great things, if someone didn't feel it was worth it to pay to play before, they just simply didn't, but if you did pay then, you felt it was worth it.

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

I dont think he needs to - everyone knows LotrO was subscription based.

some people will be pissed off - I know of a fair few people that payed the one off £120 or £180 fee to have it 'free to play' for life.

a lot of people put a lot of money into the game. but now its free to play they might feel duped.

yeah, that was what I meant.. if I was in their shoes, Id feel a bit strange.. sure I got first dibs, but still.. Its like watching a stage play.. you play premium for middle row seats, then youl see after the halftime break, they would let people from the side row who paid 1/4 the price get seated in the middle as well.. kind of breaks the reason why you paid premium in the first place.

did they leave an advantage for the previous subscribers? dunno.. something like an in game gift/item or an access to a place/quest?

EDIT: Oh yeah, nvm, micro transaction. Serves me right for not backreading XD. Makes sense..

[newconroer]

LOTRO has been/was a game that had a unique foundation. It's rooted in very popular mythological lore, it had a good financial backing and yet the management of it was not by a big faceless type corporation, but rather a medium sized work force of focused artists.

This holy trinity is what allowed it to become what it has, which is the most in-depth and potentially longest lasting MMO second only to the original EverQuest.

The change in management, and the move to F2P is a terrible and unnecessary choice on all accounts.

Interesting that with most premium service options, they are usually fluff and don't really influence the mechanics or the gameplay. But here, they're going to strip away things like PVP for free players.
I'm indifferent to that myself, but I'm not sure if this is clever or foolish on their part. What I do fear though is that it will increase the carebear versus warrior ratio even more - which is already pretty high in LOTRO.

I also feel for the paying customers who will now have their servers bombarded.


Any LOTRO founders who are unsubscribed, notice they haven't had any emails about this?

[Arciks]

just installed lotr.will try it in coming days.havnt played mmo for 6months or so.

[NinkobEi]

Originally Posted by newconroer

LOTRO has been/was a game that had a unique foundation. It's rooted in very popular mythological lore, it had a good financial backing and yet the management of it was not by a big faceless type corporation, but rather a medium sized work force of focused artists.

This holy trinity is what allowed it to become what it has, which is the most in-depth and potentially longest lasting MMO second only to the original EverQuest.

Better hop back down to earth.. WoW and even Everquest 2 will probably outlast LOTRO. Heck I'd even argue that LOTRO is a WoW clone. I also dont see how its even close to the most in depth MMO, either. It wasnt designed to be a deep mmo, but more of a mainstream game that people of all ages can enjoy. Not to say that LOTRO is a bad game, or even a mediocre game, but it seems like you're building it up to be something that its not.