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Lord of the Rings Online: Free to Play Interview
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FTP scam format is something I will never play. As someone else well put, I will not play a "pay to win" game. Give me my monthly sub and let me know my cost upfront. FTP just attempts to scam people out of as much cash as possible. It's a commercial scam, nothing more.
I feel bad for all the lifetime subscribers. I was soured on LOTRO after I had canceled and Turbine decided a few months later to start charging my credit card for 3 month subscription (I didn't even have the game installed any longer). I then hear all the problems people have with DDO selling player information, and add scams.
First I could care less on the amount of updates. DDOs content in said updates is very little. Also I clearly said it was my OPINION, never said it was a FACT. To most of the vets I play with(we tend to play with people like ourselves) the game has gone downhill in terms of quality and difficulty. Two things that attracted us in the first place.
F2P absolutely brings in worse people. There are people who would never buy a game and pay a subscription that will not DL the game to cause problems and be the worst mankind has to offer. There is no debate about the simple fact that F2P always has the worse community.
There are technical gaming issues too.
Player populations tend to be huge in the beginning levels, but as you progress, the people will leave because of "paid content" and like you said "pay to win" item shops.
As the free to play model invite you just to hop from game to game without any serious investment in money/time, these games will stay on the HD's, but will rarely see longer periods of actual played time.
It will all come down to a very thinned out high end content population which will make the game unbalanced and even unplayable in its more interesting parts.
Without the planned return on investement from developpers expect a LOT of underdevelopped products too.
I hope Blizzard will combine play of all their products through BattleNet with one fixed sub fee (a kind of SC2-D3-WOW-newMMO) for 20+ dollars something.
As the so called FTP will be a very bad thing for the complete fiield (from investement to players).
Both Lotro/DDO as AAA titles would never have been developped with a FTP model industry.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
Yes, the Tolkien estate will say "just give us the check"
If you look on the LOTRO Website it gives a nice graph of all the benefits and FAQ's, I do have one question tho as I just bought my copy of LOTRO yesterday (before this was announced) Would it benefit me to use my seral code now or wait? Really quite annoyed that I spent £15 on this just to find out I didn't need too :P!
Anyway I think that this game will benefit from this change and I think this may start a trend with the less popular MMO's like Warhammer Online.
First, F2P with VIP parts and shop is the future. There can be little doubt about this, so if you really stick with classic monthly fee games, there will be few left soon. Maybe none at all. I admit I am not too thrilled about it, but I won't condemn a game because of it. I am going to see in the specific game how it works out and not make any prejudice before even seeing it in action.
Second: guys, you really should READ an interview. About half of the folks here say thing which are the exact opposite of what was said in the interview. I mean, you can always claim they are liars, but it doesn't help if you only project your ideas of how it will be over what they SAY it will be. I assume a lot of people here don't actually care about reality but only to go through their emotional tantrum.
I agree totally - I dont like the 'type' of player that wants something for nothing - they didn't have the balls in the first place to give the game a go when it cost them - now that they can play for free their attitude to the game and other paying players will be "who gives a crap if I behave like an a'hole I can always move on to the next f2p with no cost to me"
DEFINITION OF REALITY: Graphics ok, Sound ok, Gold drops need more work...
They have millions of dollars at stake. You do the math.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
They. But not you. =P
From the Turbine report:
If subscribers are a revenue baseline, the free to play customer averages to 70% the revenue/player of a subscription player. However, post launch the subscription + micro user averaged to 175% revenue/player under the old system.------
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There's my problem; subscribers (and lifetime I assume), are being leveraged by this system most. Based on their own data, they expect us to pay more. Tell me how this doesn't factor into design decisions being made at all levels. It isn't as simple as some make it out to be. The game will be designed to get you to spend extra money, as they've learned it works. So, yes, this appears to hurt subscribers.
Its not F2P. Its more like demo is free, pay to play the game. Where F2P content is the demo.
I will have to PAY to do quests (among other things), so I am also paying to get rewards from this quests so I am paying for game content anyway. Whats the point ...
I know, I don't have to do the quests or crafting, I can just farm and farm and farm... and we all know thats fun !
As if MMOs industry wasn't already a sham as it is, now this F2P (aka P2W) b*****t spreading everywhere like ebola.
Problem is: Greed and Incompetency. As more and more weekend-developers fail at delivering real AAA MMOs, suits get greedier and greedier and incense us with their lies. Same s***t as with the banks and their "innovative financial products" that should have benefited consumers. Go figure. Too bad Mmo sites and papers on their paycheck try to lure us with lies too.
Pity. Turbine was an exception and their products were always polished and fun. With Warner Bros in and stock-options managers at the lead, we're served the meal.
Thanks for the info on Monster play. Now I dont have to worry about finding time to check back in with lotro agian or the rest of the "Free2try" item mall, grind games.
THe discussion was fun to read though thanks for the entertainment and my heart goes out to you "lifetimers". ouch.
Funny all the threats to quit threads. Turbine knows that this will increase the paying playerbase, it has worked well with DDO. Personally I like the item shop in DDO, I don't play it much so I can pay for the content I want and I spend far less than a sub would cost. There is no I win button in the item shop in DDO and I don't expect one in Lotro.
Turbine does f2p far differently than we find in the eastern designed games, where the I win button is prevalent throughout the item shops.
Despite the many negative posts, this was a good business decision by Turbine whether you like it or not. There will actually be people to play with in the lower areas again.
So Us lifetime members get it good to start off with. We get 500 points a month just for logging in. That is ok, nothing is going to change for my account at re-launch or they are actuall calling it launch.
However what will be the real cost moving forward?? We know in DDO you got to play x number of hours to get points.
My real quesion is, when the next update comes around how many points will you need to unlock the new content??
Anybody got an idea of how many points you will need. So I see the item shop and points as this, a new revenue stream to keep the game going.
All I can say its a shame they had to save the game via this route, when they could have pulled radaince out and done something about LI's, in order to pull the folks back in who had left due to MOM and SOM being so unpopular.
Oh well it will be a win win for turbine, I am not so sure it will be a win win for us lifetimers as we move forward.
Oh Well. Having had a job since I was 14 years old I have seen what MBA's have done to corporate America. One company I worked for was a great place to be until the MBA's took over. Now that have taken over gaming. Well so long LOTRO and F you MBA's.
Being a non-subscriber this is great news for me, but like when DDO made the switch it ended up burning a lot of their previous paying customers, a few I know to the point of vowing to never play their game again.
Seems to me the same thing is about to happen here with LotR. They will lose most of the people who have been supporting them all this time, and slowly but surely regain new players over time.
No ammount of compensation is going to change a persons mind, since it's an unwelcomed change for most, but in LotR's defense it does sound like they are trying to adress those problems created when DDO made the switch, but still not the biggest one; Month2Month players who used to have it all are now forced to actually spend more in a shorter timespan for the same game. Those seemed to be the ones who got burned the most and it sounds like they will be again.
[quote] [i]Originally posted by MikeB[/i] [quote] [b][i]Originally posted by Regomar[/i] [/b] [b][b]They just lost this current subscriber. I dont play Pay to Win games.[/b][/b] [b] [/b] [/quote] [b]Did you read the interview? I asked them explicitly about the "Pay to Win" scenario, and it's part and parcel of their strategy to ensure that players are not able to "Pay to Win," this was made painfully clear by Turbine's Craig Alexander during our panel at PAX East as well.[/b] [/quote]
Mike? Did you even read your own article?
It's painfully clear to me that you've reported that the "I WIN" button is already available in the Starter Areas via "The Starter Pack", which you stated,
"Generally, the only time you will really see gear available in the LOTRO Store will be as “Starter Packs” which give new players a little bit of a leg up in the very early parts of the game."
Their toe is already across that line. Just a matter of applying the "Boiling Frog" technique to slowly get more and more over that line. Next we'll have new "$OE card Game PACs" available each month, just pony up those TurbineBucks folks!
Oh and "LOTRO Executive Producer (formerly Senior Producer on DDO) Kate Paiz", who we we're just introduced to YESTERDAY, who has been Exec Prod for over A YEAR NOW.....a year that's shown us miserably slow fixes as well as dismally minor expansions, where's she from? Oh, yeah, the "brains" behind intro'ing F2P/RMT to DOO, and before that she was with There(tm)", the now defunct and CLOSED/failed Social micro-transaction MMO...yep two whole jobs in the industry. Kate who?
"I asked Kate about what went into making this decision for LOTRO, and she responded that one major factor was the runaway success of the re-launch of Dungeons & Dragons Online, which resulted in “a significant uplift In player participation, in interested in the title, and in activity community participation.” Turbine looked at that and basically decided that it was really a no brainer for LOTRO given all the aforementioned benefits, and of course, this change results in making the game much more accessible to many more players."
Corporate-speak translation of "runaway success of the re-launch of Dungeons & Dragons Online, which resulted in “a significant uplift In player participation, in interested in the title, and in activity community participation.".....
Runaway success= "we just managed to just save our biscuits in saving this game as it was spirally towards it's death.
“a significant uplift In player participation, in interested in the title, and in activity community participation.”= We made more money from more people, by nickling and diming folks to death, but less folks stuck with the title...
What works for DDO may not work for LotRO...I think I see different demographics between a "never-ending story "IP and one with a finite ending, not to mention the differences in the engines/setups of the 2 games they've already admited.
What it boils down to me in a nutshell is, LotRO releases in China around the same time it goes F2P, and Asain MMO financial model that works well there....they consider us "collaterral damage" on the "chance" they will get flooded with new players there.
Can you say NGE.......oh, yeah significant overhaul to the engine/program that they've already admitted having been in the process. (past tense)
Turbine as already seen the last money they will ever get from me. If an expansion cannot be purchased with TurbineBucks that I've accrued as a LTS (don't get me started on that) in time for it's Release, then SoM is the last I'll ever see.
I will also point out that these are the same folks who told us and I quote. "F2P will not be comming to lotro" in the lotro forms several times.
So when I see them saying this will not happen, I have to question it. I am sorry but I don't trust turbine. Once again being caught in a lie, and here I thought it was just stefell, but it apears to be status quo for them.
We already know that new content is going to cost points, and we already see whats happening in DDO, so yes I question everthing at this point. Now it becomes a game of wait and see. At this point I don't trust anyting turbine has to say. I am now in the prove it to me camp.
For every 15 buck sub they lose they'll let 2-4 new players who will spend collectively 2-3x as much a month. Turbine have a great business model with their f2p, premium, and vip subscrition types.
Great for them! And I wouldn't be surprised to see more games employing a similar hybrid business model in the future.
Yey for innovation!
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Check out my side project http://lfger.com/ - a mobile lfg tool for any game, any time.
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I do not think you are understanding his complaint, which is justified. He paid a lot of money up front for an unlimited access account. The ONLY money he should have to pay is for paid expansions. A life time subscriber should get total store access with no point cost, ie for free, that is what they paid for after all.
From this perspective they are screwing the Life Time Subscribers.
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I have a soap box and I am not afraid to use it.
I agree this model is growing and in fairness if you START this way then I do not have an issue with it. However to have players literally pump hundred of dollars into the game and then tell them, hey we are gonna make the system for pay different now is lame.
As I said above life time subscribers should be given total access with the exception of paid expansions. They should get everything in the Turbine Store for free, they are have already paid for it. To do less is basically a bait and switch.
Players that have been paying for YEARS should get a nice turbine point bonus when the game goes F2P to say thank you for supporting the game.
Failure to do this shows Turbine is just like every other MMO company, all about the money.
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I have a soap box and I am not afraid to use it.
I love Turbine's decision to go F2P with LoTRO. I don't think LoTRO received the the amount of exposure it deserved before because of the more casual playing style. PvP was more dynamic than most MMOs and social aspects were more dominate in LoTRO. Music concerts and houses added things that were becoming a rarity in MMOs.
Now that it's F2P, more players will be able to enjoy these aspects that LoTRO has to offer and maybe realize how much of a powerful impact having these options can have in making a MMO more of a social experience. And as far as I can see with the pricing table, it seems to mimic DDO in some regards. This allows players on a tight budget to not only price their experience, but also allows them to enjoy both games without the pressure of traditional monthly cost.
I think it's a win/win for older paying LoTRO players as they wil get more players, while not losing out on current content options. Honestly I do not see why anyone has an issue with such a sound decision.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."