Have they said what happens to the people who purchased Lifetime Subs?
I have a lifetime subscription to LOTRO. What will Free-to-Play mean for me?
As a lifetime subscriber to LOTRO, you will keep all of your membership privileges and are automatically upgraded to VIP status. You will receive 500 Free Turbine Points every month like the other VIPs, but you do not have to pay a monthly fee since you are a lifetime member. All you have to do is keep playing the game and visit the LOTRO Store to spend your free Turbine Points. Lifetime members may also qualify for a special one-time Loyalty Reward of 1,000 Turbine Points. See the Loyalty Reward Special Offer Terms & Conditions for full details.
Have they said what happens to the people who purchased Lifetime Subs?
yes:
I have a lifetime subscription to LOTRO. What will Free-to-Play mean for me?
As a lifetime subscriber to LOTRO, you will keep all of your membership privileges and are automatically upgraded to VIP status. You will receive 500 Free Turbine Points every month like the other VIPs, but you do not have to pay a monthly fee since you are a lifetime member. All you have to do is keep playing the game and visit the LOTRO Store to spend your free points and enjoy the wealth of new a la carte items and options to enhance your game experience.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Converting an established game to F2P requires a lot of development work, and I have a feeling they aren't willing to invest much (if anything) into AC at this point.
Not sure this is going to work for them, may just siphon players from ddo. Also i assume if a go back i will have to pay to play with all my alts etc etc , think you end up paying at least twic as much for the same content as you would with a subscription. Guess its good to get new players in anyway.
They probably just saved this game by offering free play. It was dying a slow death
No, it wasn't.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
I would assume that they'll get permanent VIP access, but otherwise who knows.
2 X lifetime here and I don't care. Haven't played the game in way more than a year and looking at this move, plus the buyout by WB, plus the "monetize" rhetoric that every Turbine public face has chanted to any open microphone over the last few months, Turbine has went from my absolute favorite developer to off my radar completely.
Same here. I've felt for some time that my investment in LOTR was a poor one. I finally stopped logging in due to lack of interest. I think the thing that killed me the most was the inability to finish a quest chain solo. You would run through a string of quests that took you all over the map for paltry rewards, but when faced with the final leg, a group was required or else you would have to outlevel the content so far that any items were useless. Book Quests also ended in a brick wall. Eventually, Turbine realized this and have reportedly made the early Book Quests soloable, but I'm too disinterested to go back and check them out.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II "People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Sad and good. Good for people with no current MMO to play and looking for something free, but bad for the subscribers who actually have spent time on the game.
As free to play is nice, I think it is bullspit that so many games are going the way of "pay for premium content".
Xbox 360 games already do this with "DLC", so instead of sending us a complete game, they will cut a few things out to later sell to us for a price.
Now MMOs, I hope, don't all decide to follow the DDO model. I like a game with everything in it without me having to pay extra money every time I want some extra cool content.
I would rather pay 15$ a month and have access to everything than have free sub, but miss out on some really cool stuff.
How much fun can you have for 15$ a month other than an MMO, or some other paid sub?
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
I did not expect this to happen but since Turbine owns both LotRO and DDO it was only a matter of time until Turbine realised they could earn a lot more money by making LotRO free to play, instead you'll have cash shops or an optional VIP to get the most of the game, it didn't really needed the change like DDO but I suppose it is a great idea to bring more life to the game.
So does this mean that if I play as F2P I'll have to purchase the expantions that I've already bought again unless I become a VIP player? If that's the case they can keep it.
This was an obvious move more than a year ago. Just after the release of MoM, Turbine began its drive to accomodate the Asian market. It started dumbing-down the game, back-pedaled and dropped many of its earlier promises, quit listening to its loyal customers, and changed direction and quantity of its expansions.
I am a lifetime member and a founder, played in both the first beta and the MoM beta, was the founder and leader of a mid-sized Fellowship, and was quite active in the forum discussions and dialog with many of the devs, but I stopped playing over a year ago because of this direction change that Turbine took. IMO, Turbine went from one of the best developers of the genre to at or near the bottom of the barrel. It's a damned shame because LOTRO was one of the best, if not THE best, MMOs out there with a LOT of potential and a bright future. Now it's just another run-of-the-mill grindfest set up for those who play only to get to the endgame as fast as possible. This move to F2P will be the final ruination because the mature community will be inundated with all of those undesirables that you see in every other F2P game out there as well as a much younger, immature player base.
This has got to make Lotr one major MMO contender, its lacking in PvP but now it has to be the number one choice for your casual gamer. Free to play and packed with story and easy to pick up game play. I'm seriously tempted to check it out come the fall. Cause even if I don't like it doesn't cost me anything.
I really didn't expect this move. I got a shock when I saw the email in my inbox. I thought it was a joke, lol. But D&D going free to play was clearly a very good move, so hopefully this will only help grow LOTRO.
They probably just saved this game by offering free play. It was dying a slow death
No, it wasn't.
It absolutly wasn't. It was widely believed that the game was doing quite well, and most of my guildies have been noticing a very healthy population. Very few people that actually PLAYED the game with any regularity thought the game was dying. Of course, with this horrid decision to kill the game, it will die. What a waste.
This was an obvious move more than a year ago. Just after the release of MoM, Turbine began its drive to accomodate the Asian market. It started dumbing-down the game, back-pedaled and dropped many of its earlier promises, quit listening to its loyal customers, and changed direction and quantity of its expansions.
I am a lifetime member and a founder, played in both the first beta and the MoM beta, was the founder and leader of a mid-sized Fellowship, and was quite active in the forum discussions and dialog with many of the devs, but I stopped playing over a year ago because of this direction change that Turbine took. IMO, Turbine went from one of the best developers of the genre to at or near the bottom of the barrel. It's a damned shame because LOTRO was one of the best, if not THE best, MMOs out there with a LOT of potential and a bright future. Now it's just another run-of-the-mill grindfest set up for those who play only to get to the endgame as fast as possible. This move to F2P will be the final ruination because the mature community will be inundated with all of those undesirables that you see in every other F2P game out there as well as a much younger, immature player base.
Huh, sadly for some reason I can't get access to my game account for LotRO so my plan of going back to LotRO has backfired (silly Codemasters for messing up my account for me since I'm from England). Guess I'll start playing Everquest 2 then, I hear there's a lot of content to do which is great and a lot more classes.
I think that this is a brilliant move by Turbine. More people in the game, even non-paying ones, encourages more people to try the game. And with more people playing the game it becomes more fun so they'll have more people paying for cash shop items and VIP accounts to show off to their new friends.
This is becoming a trend; DCUO will release with a similar payment model, and I think it's a great step forward in MMO evolution.
So does this mean that if I play as F2P I'll have to purchase the expantions that I've already bought again unless I become a VIP player? If that's the case they can keep it.
I'm missing your logic.
If the game WASN'T F2P and you stopped paying, you wouldn't be able to play the game AT ALL. How do you feel like you're being ripped off?
The asterisk explaining how the xpacs work is on the relevent content and key features, rather than the different types of accounts themselves. I take this to mean that all accounts are eligible, and if you already bought them, you don't have to buy them again.
They probably just saved this game by offering free play. It was dying a slow death
No, it wasn't.
It absolutly wasn't. It was widely believed that the game was doing quite well, and most of my guildies have been noticing a very healthy population. Very few people that actually PLAYED the game with any regularity thought the game was dying. Of course, with this horrid decision to kill the game, it will die. What a waste.
So, let me get this right, you object to having the option to play for free? Or do you object to having more people come into the game, because you feel it will ruin the community?
Well, I presently pay the $9/mo sub, as for f2p, I think it'll help me level up my alts better due to all the freeloaders coming on (j/k...lol). Just hope they'll continue my present sub and hook me up w/unlimited stuff...maybe even expansions. We'll see. Though I definitely do NOT think this will kill the game. The dynamics will change appreciably, but not kill it. LOTRO's still my main game and will be for some time.
All in all, with today's economic problems facing the US and the looming debt crisis in Europe's economies, I think this decision is smart and far-sighted on Turbine/WB's part.
They probably just saved this game by offering free play. It was dying a slow death
No, it wasn't.
It absolutly wasn't. It was widely believed that the game was doing quite well, and most of my guildies have been noticing a very healthy population. Very few people that actually PLAYED the game with any regularity thought the game was dying. Of course, with this horrid decision to kill the game, it will die. What a waste.
So, let me get this right, you object to having the option to play for free? Or do you object to having more people come into the game, because you feel it will ruin the community?
Ah, the sweet fallacious refrain of people who support the Pay to Win model. The game was doing very well. Instead of spending development time on adding more content, they wasted almost a year on gutting the basic gameplay mechanics (we now know why the last expac was so small and the updates have been coming much slower than usual over the last year) and making an item mall where, like every other Pay to Win mmo, the more you spend the better you are. I reject that model and refuse to support it. Period. Nothing you can say will change my mind.
I don't think this is going to work out like DDO. THey are gutting core game play elements (traits, etc) and making you pay for them. With DDO you get all the core mechanics and the option to buy some advanced classes and more content. With LotRO they are limiting the core mechanics and letting you buy them back. Content areas are huge so I'm having a hard time seeing how they plan on profiting by selling content. I guess that might be skirmishes.
I cancelled my sub last month so I'll be curious what is still available to use on the account and what I'll lose. I bought Moria, Mirkwood, and the AdPack so I'll be interested to see what is left over after that.
er, what?
link on that please! I don't see anytihng where it states they are gutting core game play elements and making players pay for them!
The only thing that might be construed as such is the limit on character slots. However, if one pays per month you get free points and can purchse additional character slots with those.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
So, I just bought the game a few months ago, but cancelled before my free month was up - does that mean that if I rejoin the game, my account will be gutted? I'll lose my warden character, unless I pay for it? I'll lose my wardrobe tab? Access to skirmishes? Etc? Or because I bought the game, I'd get to keep basics like that?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Comments
Is Asheron's Call next?
I have a lifetime subscription to LOTRO. What will Free-to-Play mean for me?
As a lifetime subscriber to LOTRO, you will keep all of your membership privileges and are automatically upgraded to VIP status. You will receive 500 Free Turbine Points every month like the other VIPs, but you do not have to pay a monthly fee since you are a lifetime member. All you have to do is keep playing the game and visit the LOTRO Store to spend your free Turbine Points. Lifetime members may also qualify for a special one-time Loyalty Reward of 1,000 Turbine Points. See the Loyalty Reward Special Offer Terms & Conditions for full details.
http://www.lotro.com/news/709-announcing-the-lord-of-the-rings-onlines-move-to-free-to-play-
yes:
I have a lifetime subscription to LOTRO. What will Free-to-Play mean for me?
As a lifetime subscriber to LOTRO, you will keep all of your membership privileges and are automatically upgraded to VIP status. You will receive 500 Free Turbine Points every month like the other VIPs, but you do not have to pay a monthly fee since you are a lifetime member. All you have to do is keep playing the game and visit the LOTRO Store to spend your free points and enjoy the wealth of new a la carte items and options to enhance your game experience.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I didn't expect this. Although I never played LOTRO (only did the trial) this will bring me back for sure
Eaglix
Converting an established game to F2P requires a lot of development work, and I have a feeling they aren't willing to invest much (if anything) into AC at this point.
Not sure this is going to work for them, may just siphon players from ddo. Also i assume if a go back i will have to pay to play with all my alts etc etc , think you end up paying at least twic as much for the same content as you would with a subscription. Guess its good to get new players in anyway.
No, it wasn't.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Same here. I've felt for some time that my investment in LOTR was a poor one. I finally stopped logging in due to lack of interest. I think the thing that killed me the most was the inability to finish a quest chain solo. You would run through a string of quests that took you all over the map for paltry rewards, but when faced with the final leg, a group was required or else you would have to outlevel the content so far that any items were useless. Book Quests also ended in a brick wall. Eventually, Turbine realized this and have reportedly made the early Book Quests soloable, but I'm too disinterested to go back and check them out.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Didn't the new owners of Turbine state they were buying them to develop their microtransaction ability?
F2P/P2P excellent thread.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/282517/F2P-An-Engineers-perspective.html
Sad and good. Good for people with no current MMO to play and looking for something free, but bad for the subscribers who actually have spent time on the game.
As free to play is nice, I think it is bullspit that so many games are going the way of "pay for premium content".
Xbox 360 games already do this with "DLC", so instead of sending us a complete game, they will cut a few things out to later sell to us for a price.
Now MMOs, I hope, don't all decide to follow the DDO model. I like a game with everything in it without me having to pay extra money every time I want some extra cool content.
I would rather pay 15$ a month and have access to everything than have free sub, but miss out on some really cool stuff.
How much fun can you have for 15$ a month other than an MMO, or some other paid sub?
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
I did not expect this to happen but since Turbine owns both LotRO and DDO it was only a matter of time until Turbine realised they could earn a lot more money by making LotRO free to play, instead you'll have cash shops or an optional VIP to get the most of the game, it didn't really needed the change like DDO but I suppose it is a great idea to bring more life to the game.
So does this mean that if I play as F2P I'll have to purchase the expantions that I've already bought again unless I become a VIP player? If that's the case they can keep it.
This was an obvious move more than a year ago. Just after the release of MoM, Turbine began its drive to accomodate the Asian market. It started dumbing-down the game, back-pedaled and dropped many of its earlier promises, quit listening to its loyal customers, and changed direction and quantity of its expansions.
I am a lifetime member and a founder, played in both the first beta and the MoM beta, was the founder and leader of a mid-sized Fellowship, and was quite active in the forum discussions and dialog with many of the devs, but I stopped playing over a year ago because of this direction change that Turbine took. IMO, Turbine went from one of the best developers of the genre to at or near the bottom of the barrel. It's a damned shame because LOTRO was one of the best, if not THE best, MMOs out there with a LOT of potential and a bright future. Now it's just another run-of-the-mill grindfest set up for those who play only to get to the endgame as fast as possible. This move to F2P will be the final ruination because the mature community will be inundated with all of those undesirables that you see in every other F2P game out there as well as a much younger, immature player base.
~ Adder ~
Quick, Silent, Deadly
This has got to make Lotr one major MMO contender, its lacking in PvP but now it has to be the number one choice for your casual gamer. Free to play and packed with story and easy to pick up game play. I'm seriously tempted to check it out come the fall. Cause even if I don't like it doesn't cost me anything.
I really didn't expect this move. I got a shock when I saw the email in my inbox. I thought it was a joke, lol. But D&D going free to play was clearly a very good move, so hopefully this will only help grow LOTRO.
It absolutly wasn't. It was widely believed that the game was doing quite well, and most of my guildies have been noticing a very healthy population. Very few people that actually PLAYED the game with any regularity thought the game was dying. Of course, with this horrid decision to kill the game, it will die. What a waste.
Huh, sadly for some reason I can't get access to my game account for LotRO so my plan of going back to LotRO has backfired (silly Codemasters for messing up my account for me since I'm from England). Guess I'll start playing Everquest 2 then, I hear there's a lot of content to do which is great and a lot more classes.
I think that this is a brilliant move by Turbine. More people in the game, even non-paying ones, encourages more people to try the game. And with more people playing the game it becomes more fun so they'll have more people paying for cash shop items and VIP accounts to show off to their new friends.
This is becoming a trend; DCUO will release with a similar payment model, and I think it's a great step forward in MMO evolution.
I'm missing your logic.
If the game WASN'T F2P and you stopped paying, you wouldn't be able to play the game AT ALL. How do you feel like you're being ripped off?
That said, I'm pretty sure you keep them:
http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/vipchart.html
The asterisk explaining how the xpacs work is on the relevent content and key features, rather than the different types of accounts themselves. I take this to mean that all accounts are eligible, and if you already bought them, you don't have to buy them again.
So, let me get this right, you object to having the option to play for free? Or do you object to having more people come into the game, because you feel it will ruin the community?
Well, I presently pay the $9/mo sub, as for f2p, I think it'll help me level up my alts better due to all the freeloaders coming on (j/k...lol). Just hope they'll continue my present sub and hook me up w/unlimited stuff...maybe even expansions. We'll see. Though I definitely do NOT think this will kill the game. The dynamics will change appreciably, but not kill it. LOTRO's still my main game and will be for some time.
All in all, with today's economic problems facing the US and the looming debt crisis in Europe's economies, I think this decision is smart and far-sighted on Turbine/WB's part.
Ah, the sweet fallacious refrain of people who support the Pay to Win model. The game was doing very well. Instead of spending development time on adding more content, they wasted almost a year on gutting the basic gameplay mechanics (we now know why the last expac was so small and the updates have been coming much slower than usual over the last year) and making an item mall where, like every other Pay to Win mmo, the more you spend the better you are. I reject that model and refuse to support it. Period. Nothing you can say will change my mind.
Oh, and this caught me COMPLETELY off guard! Now...WHERE'S THE ROHAN EXPANSION!!!!
er, what?
link on that please! I don't see anytihng where it states they are gutting core game play elements and making players pay for them!
The only thing that might be construed as such is the limit on character slots. However, if one pays per month you get free points and can purchse additional character slots with those.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
So, I just bought the game a few months ago, but cancelled before my free month was up - does that mean that if I rejoin the game, my account will be gutted? I'll lose my warden character, unless I pay for it? I'll lose my wardrobe tab? Access to skirmishes? Etc? Or because I bought the game, I'd get to keep basics like that?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.