This seems to be true, and I am thankful for it. Soon you will see me loitering around with a lute in hand, and hoping not paying a dime to do so.
So will at least 30,000 other chucklefucks playing elves named "Rikky Martian" smashing the "1" button FURIOUSLY while teabagging a hobbit in just about every starter area. Hope you enjoyed the community while it lasted guys!
Of course.. because we all know it requires a $15 a month subscription to form the basis of any good community, because every P2P game has such amazing communities and no F2P does....
Yes that is the sad reality. I have tried many Free 2 Play titles and all had a horrible community.
The only exceptions are Second Life type of MMO's. But those are so expensive to really play, that it causes an even better idiot barrier than the average P2P MMO.
LOTRO had one of the best communities. And those days are now over for sure.
If you like it or not. A credit card functions as a decent idiot / age barrier.
Taking that away now. Opens up the game for litterly everyone. No age restrictions. Nothing. The game will be flooded by the worst of the internet.
That DDO went F2P. There was a very good reason for that. As it was a TOTAL FAILURE at launch already! The servers were complete ghosttowns after the first month already.
LOTRO however, was still doing reasonably well after 3 years. With a lot of very loyal subscribers and fans.
What you see happening now, is a lot of kinships falling apart with a ton of people quiting the game. Creating a complete shift in the community when the game re-launches as F2P.
So yeah. All the people that have been enjoying the game for 3 years with the current community. Those days are now officially over! Welcome the F2P crowd! /puke
Plus LotRO is a bit more complex than WoW (at least in my mind) so a lot of the childish players with ADD probably wont stick around that long.
No its not. Not even the slightest. If anything its combat system is less complex and more mundane. On top of that, childish players aren't weeded out unless you start reaching Eve complexity..
2 Million new players since launch. 20% reacquisition of cancelled players. Acquisition costs drastically reduced, with 3x click through on ads. 5x Peak concurrent. 10x Montly uniques. 5x revenue. Even better is still growing, last month was best yet.
Store was a big success. Was a web-based UI, and they put a lot of effort into it. Invested heavily in Customer Support to deal with shop issues. 70% of items in cart ended up going to checkout. > 20% of total players bought items. Even better, > 50% of subscribers ended up using store. Sales were effective. You have to promote and support your store throughout your entire system.
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.
This was how it went for DDO, so yeah it = profits or they wouldn't be switching up their model.
In America I have bad teeth. If I lived in England my teeth would be perfect.
3: hordes of people paying NOTHING join game, only to find out that the Free option is little more than a glorified demo. Some like the game and decide to stay, others leave.
I was told that when ddo added the free to play option they expected to lose some subscribers but were pleasantly surprised that they didnt' lose as many as they had expected. In addtion they got many old players back and of course had an influx of new players.
They are banking on the same thing happening here.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I was told that when ddo added the free to play option they expected to lose some subscribers but were pleasantly surprised that they didnt' lose as many as they had expected. In addtion they got many old players back and of course had an influx of new players.
They are banking on the same thing happening here.
Actually they didn't lose any. Revenue goes up 500%, subs doubled and player base increases a lot.
I've played F2P games before. I've also been on another MMO that was Sub-based but went F2P. From the experiences I had, I was not enthused about Turbine's change of direction with LOTRO.
So then the question here would be "what was your experience in those games that made you quit AND how does what LOTRO's (or ddo's store as lotro's will be similiar) store adds to the game replicate what you didn't like?
First thing's first: F2P gets you by "Nickel & Diming" you to improve your gameplay experience. By design for F2P to work, you are limited by what you can access by default. Exclusive items, regions, quests, etc... all will be gated from you unless you pay up. Game design is done to make you want to buy those benefits.
A notorious example is increasing XP requirements to progress. Not at first when your character is new, but around "mid level" the levelling process becomes very, very long and difficult. Here you are busting your a** doing quests, grinding, killing stuff, looting, etc., but progress is slow and painful. But 'lo and behold, over in the item mall, there's a buff that you can buy. What it does is for a specified amount of time, it increases the XPs you gain. There's also regions that would have more rewarding NPCs to battle. If you pay for it. Oh, while you're over there, there's some nifty equipment / buffs / abilities / costumes / etc. over there. You can buy them each for a very marginal fee.
There's also being sold in the item mall very desirable objects for gameplay. Whether it's equipment, rare materials, or a costume EVERYONE likes... it's there being sold. Now, you CAN find it in normal F2P gaming, but it is so d**n rare. Or better yet, you can get it off of regular, very rare loot... if you purchased an item-mall region, because only the NPCs in there can drop it. It's also Bound when you pick it up.
Buffs... there will be very powerful buffs that do a variety of things. Buffs that turn the game much, much more easy mode for you. Now, you do not need to buy these buffs to play the game, but those buffs would allow your character to do or endure things that you could never possibly do with normal "free" gameplay.
My main beef with Turbine and LOTRO going F2P is this: With a Subscriber, Turbine was expected to provide new content, fix the game, etc. Basically make it worthy for a Subscriber to keep playing. With F2P, by design, basic game features are limited, removed, or stripped down. You can get them all back... IF you keep forking out that extra money.
To get that full game back and not feel "gated" you will be forking out more money than you did for a subscription. Instead of dishing out something like $15/mo, you're doing maybe 50% more or even double that per month. The individual purchases cost very little, but the company is deceitful by spreading all those "perks" out all over the place for you to buy... each at small fees but they WILL add up to a good amount.
As for Turbine saying that major gameplay items / benefits will not be in the item mall, I call BS on that. "Free" 2 Play by nature must survive by extremely enticing things in the item mall and people buying them for the game to survive. And that can be done by a wide array of things, and the examples I used above are just a few possible ones.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Thanks for those facts Seabass, its good to see how the DDO supermarket works. Make sure you get a really big trolley for FTP Lotro, you are going to need one for all those special offers, limited time reductions, those buy one get one free and the like promotions.
I wanted a virtual world and I ended up at Walmart, fabulous.
Relax, LoTRO wasn't a good Lord of the Rings MMORPG to begin with. Hopefully a more serious company will buy the rights and make a true Lord of the Rings MMORPG.
You know one with depth and complexity, like the books.
Relax, LoTRO wasn't a good Lord of the Rings MMORPG to begin with. Hopefully a more serious company will buy the rights and make a true Lord of the Rings MMORPG.
You know one with depth and complexity, like the books.
What made it not a good Lord of the Rings MMORPG? In your eyes.
Longing for Skyrim, The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3
I've never played LotR, but one of the reasons I would guess that they were changing the payment options was at least partly to do with the Lifetime Subscriptions which likely hurt them financially. So, even if there was a decent playerbase, if only half of those players were paying monthly subs, it might not have looked as good financially.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
That's because DDO was tanking anyway. It could ONLY go up.
LOTRO was doing fine as it was, with healthy subscription numbers.
That's the thing with greed, you always want more.
Exactly.
And once AGAIN I see a parallel to SWG's NGE......ruining a good game for the sake of supposedly making more money....while tossing the majority of their current playerbase into the trash can.
And once AGAIN I see a parallel to SWG's NGE......ruining a good game for the sake of supposedly making more money....while tossing the majority of their current playerbase into the trash can.
Oh please. There is no comparison to the NGE here at all. Stop with the drama already.
The NGE took SWG from 20+ classes down to 9. It altered the entire game structure, and it did so after a paid expansion. The only thing Turbine is doing here is applying the same pricing model they're using for DDO to LOTRO. That's it.
Relax, LoTRO wasn't a good Lord of the Rings MMORPG to begin with. Hopefully a more serious company will buy the rights and make a true Lord of the Rings MMORPG.
You know one with depth and complexity, like the books.
What made it not a good Lord of the Rings MMORPG? In your eyes.
As indicated by m first post: because it is an overly simplified, dumbified game which is contrary to the books which had huge depth.
And once AGAIN I see a parallel to SWG's NGE......ruining a good game for the sake of supposedly making more money....while tossing the majority of their current playerbase into the trash can.
Oh please. There is no comparison to the NGE here at all. Stop with the drama already.
The NGE took SWG from 20+ classes down to 9. It altered the entire game structure, and it did so after a paid expansion. The only thing Turbine is doing here is applying the same pricing model they're using for DDO to LOTRO. That's it.
Just because it isnt excactly the same does not invalidate the comparison. Both games were doing fine with healthy subscription numbers and both were significantly altered, in LoTRO arguably against the current playerbase. And the reason seem to be the same, to make more money from a product that was already making good money.
Isn't that pretty close to the definition of greed? I think it is.
Isn't that pretty close to the definition of greed? I think it is.
I think it's more the definition of a company that was purchased by a publcily traded company that has a responsibility to maximize profits no matter what.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Comments
1: Game announces it's going Free To Play
2: hordes of PAYING subscribers leave the game
3: hordes of people paying NOTHING join game
4: ???
5: Profit??
Yes that is the sad reality. I have tried many Free 2 Play titles and all had a horrible community.
The only exceptions are Second Life type of MMO's. But those are so expensive to really play, that it causes an even better idiot barrier than the average P2P MMO.
LOTRO had one of the best communities. And those days are now over for sure.
If you like it or not. A credit card functions as a decent idiot / age barrier.
Taking that away now. Opens up the game for litterly everyone. No age restrictions. Nothing. The game will be flooded by the worst of the internet.
That DDO went F2P. There was a very good reason for that. As it was a TOTAL FAILURE at launch already! The servers were complete ghosttowns after the first month already.
LOTRO however, was still doing reasonably well after 3 years. With a lot of very loyal subscribers and fans.
What you see happening now, is a lot of kinships falling apart with a ton of people quiting the game. Creating a complete shift in the community when the game re-launches as F2P.
So yeah. All the people that have been enjoying the game for 3 years with the current community. Those days are now officially over! Welcome the F2P crowd! /puke
*shrug* well I disagree and that's that.
Phase 1: Collect Underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
More like...
2 Million new players since launch. 20% reacquisition of cancelled players. Acquisition costs drastically reduced, with 3x click through on ads. 5x Peak concurrent. 10x Montly uniques. 5x revenue. Even better is still growing, last month was best yet.
Store was a big success. Was a web-based UI, and they put a lot of effort into it. Invested heavily in Customer Support to deal with shop issues. 70% of items in cart ended up going to checkout. > 20% of total players bought items. Even better, > 50% of subscribers ended up using store. Sales were effective. You have to promote and support your store throughout your entire system.
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.
This was how it went for DDO, so yeah it = profits or they wouldn't be switching up their model.
In America I have bad teeth. If I lived in England my teeth would be perfect.
There. Fixed that for you.
I was told that when ddo added the free to play option they expected to lose some subscribers but were pleasantly surprised that they didnt' lose as many as they had expected. In addtion they got many old players back and of course had an influx of new players.
They are banking on the same thing happening here.
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
Well, if DDO is any indication, revenue goes up 500%.
Actually they didn't lose any. Revenue goes up 500%, subs doubled and player base increases a lot.
That's because DDO was tanking anyway. It could ONLY go up.
LOTRO was doing fine as it was, with healthy subscription numbers.
First thing's first: F2P gets you by "Nickel & Diming" you to improve your gameplay experience. By design for F2P to work, you are limited by what you can access by default. Exclusive items, regions, quests, etc... all will be gated from you unless you pay up. Game design is done to make you want to buy those benefits.
A notorious example is increasing XP requirements to progress. Not at first when your character is new, but around "mid level" the levelling process becomes very, very long and difficult. Here you are busting your a** doing quests, grinding, killing stuff, looting, etc., but progress is slow and painful. But 'lo and behold, over in the item mall, there's a buff that you can buy. What it does is for a specified amount of time, it increases the XPs you gain. There's also regions that would have more rewarding NPCs to battle. If you pay for it. Oh, while you're over there, there's some nifty equipment / buffs / abilities / costumes / etc. over there. You can buy them each for a very marginal fee.
There's also being sold in the item mall very desirable objects for gameplay. Whether it's equipment, rare materials, or a costume EVERYONE likes... it's there being sold. Now, you CAN find it in normal F2P gaming, but it is so d**n rare. Or better yet, you can get it off of regular, very rare loot... if you purchased an item-mall region, because only the NPCs in there can drop it. It's also Bound when you pick it up.
Buffs... there will be very powerful buffs that do a variety of things. Buffs that turn the game much, much more easy mode for you. Now, you do not need to buy these buffs to play the game, but those buffs would allow your character to do or endure things that you could never possibly do with normal "free" gameplay.
My main beef with Turbine and LOTRO going F2P is this: With a Subscriber, Turbine was expected to provide new content, fix the game, etc. Basically make it worthy for a Subscriber to keep playing. With F2P, by design, basic game features are limited, removed, or stripped down. You can get them all back... IF you keep forking out that extra money.
To get that full game back and not feel "gated" you will be forking out more money than you did for a subscription. Instead of dishing out something like $15/mo, you're doing maybe 50% more or even double that per month. The individual purchases cost very little, but the company is deceitful by spreading all those "perks" out all over the place for you to buy... each at small fees but they WILL add up to a good amount.
As for Turbine saying that major gameplay items / benefits will not be in the item mall, I call BS on that. "Free" 2 Play by nature must survive by extremely enticing things in the item mall and people buying them for the game to survive. And that can be done by a wide array of things, and the examples I used above are just a few possible ones.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Thanks for those facts Seabass, its good to see how the DDO supermarket works. Make sure you get a really big trolley for FTP Lotro, you are going to need one for all those special offers, limited time reductions, those buy one get one free and the like promotions.
I wanted a virtual world and I ended up at Walmart, fabulous.
Relax, LoTRO wasn't a good Lord of the Rings MMORPG to begin with. Hopefully a more serious company will buy the rights and make a true Lord of the Rings MMORPG.
You know one with depth and complexity, like the books.
My gaming blog
That's the thing with greed, you always want more.
My gaming blog
you can hold the lute. . .just not play it. Disabled for free accounts.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
What made it not a good Lord of the Rings MMORPG? In your eyes.
Longing for Skyrim, The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3
I've never played LotR, but one of the reasons I would guess that they were changing the payment options was at least partly to do with the Lifetime Subscriptions which likely hurt them financially. So, even if there was a decent playerbase, if only half of those players were paying monthly subs, it might not have looked as good financially.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Yes there is a 21 day trial for Eve Online. But you need to know someone already in game to get it via the buddy program.
I have a lifetime account for LOTRO but spend all my time in Eve as its a far better game.
Exactly.
And once AGAIN I see a parallel to SWG's NGE......ruining a good game for the sake of supposedly making more money....while tossing the majority of their current playerbase into the trash can.
Oh please. There is no comparison to the NGE here at all. Stop with the drama already.
The NGE took SWG from 20+ classes down to 9. It altered the entire game structure, and it did so after a paid expansion. The only thing Turbine is doing here is applying the same pricing model they're using for DDO to LOTRO. That's it.
As indicated by m first post: because it is an overly simplified, dumbified game which is contrary to the books which had huge depth.
My gaming blog
When compared to... calculus?
Astrophysics?
Just because it isnt excactly the same does not invalidate the comparison. Both games were doing fine with healthy subscription numbers and both were significantly altered, in LoTRO arguably against the current playerbase. And the reason seem to be the same, to make more money from a product that was already making good money.
Isn't that pretty close to the definition of greed? I think it is.
My gaming blog
I think it's more the definition of a company that was purchased by a publcily traded company that has a responsibility to maximize profits no matter what.
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