You call Moria "token content?" Geez, you are hard to please...
LOL, I was thinking the same thing. People are way too up in arms about this. The Turbine Store was a great thing for DDO, and so far it looks like it will be great for LOTRO too.
And I've never liked any cash shop games, ever. Except DDO.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
First off, as soon as LOTRO goes F2p, the subsriber or VIP price will jump back up to $14.99 a month like it did for DDO. There won't be any 3, 6 or 12 month specials and there won't be anymore lifetime subscriptions available (the latter has already been stated by a Turbine employee).
This is incorrect. What has been stated by Turbine is that they are considering making lifetime memberships available again in the future, meaning that players are probably going to be able to pay a one-time fee for lifetime VIP status. I can see how the removal of multi-month payment plans can be a problem, though, but we have no word on if they are going to do that or not. DDO was in a much tighter spot than LotRO is, so perhaps DDO simply required the move at the time.
The pittance of allowance they're currently giving you wont buy you much in the store, and - technically - you are currently PAYING for that allowance, they're just storing it for you until F2P goes live. You will still have to purchase more bank slots beyond the ones you have now with either in-game gold or TP's, they won't automaically give them to you. Same goes for shared storage.
This is true. However, there are only so many account-wide upgrades a VIP has to buy. I have no doubt their cost will be very managable with 500 points a month, not to mention the additional points you get as soon as LotRO goes F2P.
The Wardrobe storage will only store COSMETIC items, so if you use gear as your wardrobe, you WILL NOT be able to store these items in there. Additionally, it only stores a COPY of said cosmetic item, thus you are still stuck with the actual cosmetic item in your inventory or vault.
The Wardrobe means you can delete those cosmetic items from your inventory.
More characters slots will be available, but from what I have been told they WILL have to be purchased by everyone (slots 10 and 11 will have to be purchased via the store by VIP's. From what I understand, they will not get them automatically.)
Slots 10 and 11 are not even available now, so nobody loses anything there. Moreover, a VIP should easily be able to purchase them with their allowance, judging from DDO character slot prices.
F2P players will have to do a LOT, and I mean A LOT of grinding to get anywhere in the game.
Which does not really affect current players in any way, nor will it affect F2P players other than that they at least get access to LotRO.
Hardly. A zone that's about the size of the Trollshaws, if not smaller.
That, and all the other additions I mentioned.
Scalable in level only, not size.
This is still huge, as all encounters, bosses, and dropped gear are scaled along with the instance. Do you realise how many players beg their MMO devs to implement a feature such as this? Have a look at World of Warcraft, for instance, where people cry outrage because they want their old instances to be meaningful again.
Small area.
I am interested to learn where you obtained this knowledge. Mirkwood was by no means small.
a new epic quest line That requires you to do 3.1.1 before you can start it.
Just as with a lot of the book upgrades Turbine has released. I don't see the problem here, particularly because Vol III Book 1 is completely and easily soloable.
They just moved everything to one screen and slapped a big LOTRO STORE button on it and a monstorous ENTER THE GAME button on it and called it a day.
In addition to all the other things I mentioned they did.
And Rep horses and craftable items and permanent stat tomes and Virtues and...I could go on
Where have you read that bit about permanent stat tomes? For all the other items, they are by no means the pay-to-win people seem to be afraid of.
You call Moria "token content?" Geez, you are hard to please...
LOL, I was thinking the same thing. People are way too up in arms about this. The Turbine Store was a great thing for DDO, and so far it looks like it will be great for LOTRO too.
And I've never liked any cash shop games, ever. Except DDO.
Are you delusional? Who said anything about Moria? It was fine...and Lothlorien was "okay"...
It's the absolute nada since that has pissed people off. Not one significant content addition since and nothing on the horizon for the next year (try reading what TURBINE themselves have said!). The stopped ALL content revamps and development ~Dec 2009 / Jan 2010 at the latest and pulled the token few they had left working on old content on to new projects like the F2P store and the F2P zone revamp. (Try reading Orion's old blog entries now...what they said and when they stop...)
"Great" for LotRO? Seriously, what are you smoking? From what they themselves have said, Enedwaith (yep. one tiny zone and one book chapter) are it for this year aside from the F2P launch...and 2011 is scheduled for bug squashing and minor tweeks that should have been done ages ago....that's from them...directly....so enjoying paying that sub fee for the next 18mnths+ before anything new hits while they refine the F2P side...
Of course, given past history even that timeline could go away...they'd just have to move the person who said it to a new project and poof! It becomes meaningless...just like the promised content updates.
You call Moria "token content?" Geez, you are hard to please...
Are you delusional? Who said anything about Moria? It was fine...and Lothlorien was "okay"...
It's the absolute nada since that has pissed people off. Not one significant content addition since and nothing on the horizon for the next year (try reading what TURBINE themselves have said!). The stopped ALL content revamps and development ~Dec 2009 / Jan 2010 at the latest
Right. Someone said earlier that they hadn't added anything but token content for TWO YEARS. Must not have been you. Unless, this is a science fiction game and we've crammed two years in since Moria/Lothlorien/Mirkwood. There are days I'd totally believe that...:)
Re: Content. Look Turbine has said it's milked almost all of the pre-pipelined content that it had created. Moria was in development at release. Evendim was partially built for release but didn't make it. Lorien was in developement for quite a while as they knew it was an important area. The redoing of Lonelands, optimizing bree, heck even erud luin were all important things that helped the game, but had zero impact on max lvl characters. Instead of barreling full steam ahead and ignoring the original game, Turbine has taken an approach to ensure that the whole level spread of the game continues to improve.
That said, the content vacuum with switching to F2P is understandable. The sheer scale of the changes to the base engine, gameplay, balancing, etc, are huge. I know it stinks, I don't like waiting until probably Oct for an update, but trust me, you'd rather wait until the beta is done and things are tested and improved than get what was offered the first go round in beta.
So far the F2p beta hasnt been too bad. I was given 5000 points, and mostly spent them on decreasing annoyances, such as getting a horse at early levels instead of waiting till level 20, unlocking some additional perk slots (traits). Unlocking auction house. But otherwise Ive been able to play the game just fine. But I dont know what 5000 poitns will cost. If its $1 a point, hell no. If its 5 dollars for 5000 points, sure.
Just wait unti this goes live and a lot of folks who dont have vip status find out they got to unlock quests they done before.
Not to mention the lifers when they find out that the "free" tokens they think they can use for future expansions arent even enough to pay for the patched in content they used to get free.
So I suppose the $0 I had to pay to get the latest DDO content update was just imaginary? There's absolutely no way that Turbine could have done exactly what they said they would with VIP's not having to ever pay for content updates. Surely they must be all about making as much cash as possible all the time even from their monthly sub paying customers cause gouging your most loyal customers is obviously the best way to keep the sustained income that comes from them.
Just wait unti this goes live and a lot of folks who dont have vip status find out they got to unlock quests they done before.
Not to mention the lifers when they find out that the "free" tokens they think they can use for future expansions arent even enough to pay for the patched in content they used to get free.
I think there is a bit of misinformation here. Or perhaps I missed something? We'll see...
For Eric's statement, if one stops paying a subscription in the current system, then one loses all access to the game. In the "f2p" system if one stops paying a subscription you still have access to the game but can only unlock certain things by using Turbine points.
So there is no difference for the subscriber (VIP) and the non-subscriber gets access to the game where before he wouldn't have any access.
The Lifer thing is a bit unclear.
A lifer gets all the content that he/she used to get. They are considered VIP. However, Lifers always had to purchase expansions and this is no different than before.
Where the iffy part comes in is whether or not the regular updates that Turbines used to give will resume at their regular pace and will be part of the subscription/VIP status.
Or will all new content, quests, etc that are not part of an actual full blown expansion be a la carte?
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Just wait unti this goes live and a lot of folks who dont have vip status find out they got to unlock quests they done before.
Not to mention the lifers when they find out that the "free" tokens they think they can use for future expansions arent even enough to pay for the patched in content they used to get free.
I think there is a bit of misinformation here. Or perhaps I missed something? We'll see...
For Eric's statement, if one stops paying a subscription in the current system, then one loses all access to the game. In the "f2p" system if one stops paying a subscription you still have access to the game but can only unlock certain things by using Turbine points.
So there is no difference for the subscriber (VIP) and the non-subscriber gets access to the game where before he wouldn't have any access.
The Lifer thing is a bit unclear.
A lifer gets all the content that he/she used to get. They are considered VIP. However, Lifers always had to purchase expansions and this is no different than before.
Where the iffy part comes in is whether or not the regular updates that Turbines used to give will resume at their regular pace and will be part of the subscription/VIP status.
Or will all new content, quests, etc that are not part of an actual full blown expansion be a la carte?
Turbine has stated that they will continue to release free updates for VIP's and using DDO as proof backs that up.
Just wait unti this goes live and a lot of folks who dont have vip status find out they got to unlock quests they done before.
Not to mention the lifers when they find out that the "free" tokens they think they can use for future expansions arent even enough to pay for the patched in content they used to get free.
I think there is a bit of misinformation here. Or perhaps I missed something? We'll see...
For Eric's statement, if one stops paying a subscription in the current system, then one loses all access to the game. In the "f2p" system if one stops paying a subscription you still have access to the game but can only unlock certain things by using Turbine points.
So there is no difference for the subscriber (VIP) and the non-subscriber gets access to the game where before he wouldn't have any access.
The Lifer thing is a bit unclear.
A lifer gets all the content that he/she used to get. They are considered VIP. However, Lifers always had to purchase expansions and this is no different than before.
Where the iffy part comes in is whether or not the regular updates that Turbines used to give will resume at their regular pace and will be part of the subscription/VIP status.
Or will all new content, quests, etc that are not part of an actual full blown expansion be a la carte?
Turbine has stated that they will continue to release free updates for VIP's and using DDO as proof backs that up.
Well there we are!
Thanks!
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Right. Someone said earlier that they hadn't added anything but token content for TWO YEARS. Must not have been you. Unless, this is a science fiction game and we've crammed two years in since Moria/Lothlorien/Mirkwood. There are days I'd totally believe that...:)
Shava
Since I evidently wasn't clear - I was talking about since Mirkwood. I'm being generous and giving them a pass up til Mirkwood...even though Lothlorien was pretty weak and Mirkwood was totally "phoned in"...(talk about cookie-cutter, same 4-5 3 step quest lines at each of 6 quest hubs...yippee) and the skirmish system was very weak.
It will be well over a year since any significant updates when "Enedwaith" is finally in and they have stated that there is nothing major at all in the pipeline for 2011, thus "2 years+"...that clear it up?
Now maybe I will be proven wrong and Enedwaith won't be (at best!) the same low grade junk that Mirkwood was but I am pretty sure it will be. However, even if it is they are still miles behind on promised content updates.
LOTRO was once a cool little game. Was there in '07 and now had to leave for the stupid, greedy, money grabbing BS these guys are pulling. I had a Lifetime sub with these twits for the game. With the move to F2P, I had them delete my credit card info. They said that the card is tied to my account and with the removal of my info, the account would be gone too. Well, I told those twits to delete the card and my account also and wasn't happy with the direction the game is taking.
"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)
I also have a lifetime account. I am keeping mine and I am very much looking forward to the F2P model for this game. It has worked wonders for Turbine in the past and I expect the same here. There is nothing worse than an empty MMO and while LOTRO is not empty it it by no means a smash success story.
Under this new model, I will be able to entice many of my friends to give the game a real go. With my lifetime VIP I will already have full access to all of the core features.
I would hope that all lifetimer holders would have seent his page by now.
Well... it's free to play. Play it or don't. Seem silly to whine about a free to play game.
Well, the people that are whining are mostly those that like the game and play it (and want to continue to play it), but don't like the direction that F2P involves (and aren't Turbine koolaid drinkers). And are upset with the direction that LOTRO was supposed to follow but didn't even come close to.
F2P is not about getting more people to play the game - it's about getting the people who pay, to pay more.
And you have people who paid $200-300 for a lifetime sub to a P2P game. I moved to LOTRO from F2P games because I was sick of the constant money grubbing (excuse me, "monetization") and bought a lifetime sub. So I am not thrilled to see LOTRO become what I hoped to escape from.
(Though to be fair, I quit playing LOTRO because IMHO, the game just isn't finished, it's like they kind of forgot to put interesting content from levels 25 to 45. They recently revamped the starting areas a lot, but cancelled the upgrade of the rest of the game in favor of a skirmish system, which means repeating the same thing every day to level up. Better than killing boars, but only just)
F2P is not about getting more people to play the game - it's about getting the people who pay, to pay more.
If you look at Turbine's past experience that is just not accurate.
"That's why it should come as no surprise to hear that since relaunching as a hybrid F2P in September, DDO has managed to amass more than 1 million new players who had never played the game before. According to Turbine, there are over twice as many paid subscribers as there were prior to the change. The revenue from DDO store transactions is now also over 500% -- three times the industry standard for similar titles."
Comments
NERDRAAAAAGE!!!!
...seriously. 8P
-------------------------
"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
Member Since March 2004
LOL, I was thinking the same thing. People are way too up in arms about this. The Turbine Store was a great thing for DDO, and so far it looks like it will be great for LOTRO too.
And I've never liked any cash shop games, ever. Except DDO.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
First off, as soon as LOTRO goes F2p, the subsriber or VIP price will jump back up to $14.99 a month like it did for DDO. There won't be any 3, 6 or 12 month specials and there won't be anymore lifetime subscriptions available (the latter has already been stated by a Turbine employee).
This is incorrect. What has been stated by Turbine is that they are considering making lifetime memberships available again in the future, meaning that players are probably going to be able to pay a one-time fee for lifetime VIP status. I can see how the removal of multi-month payment plans can be a problem, though, but we have no word on if they are going to do that or not. DDO was in a much tighter spot than LotRO is, so perhaps DDO simply required the move at the time.
The pittance of allowance they're currently giving you wont buy you much in the store, and - technically - you are currently PAYING for that allowance, they're just storing it for you until F2P goes live. You will still have to purchase more bank slots beyond the ones you have now with either in-game gold or TP's, they won't automaically give them to you. Same goes for shared storage.
This is true. However, there are only so many account-wide upgrades a VIP has to buy. I have no doubt their cost will be very managable with 500 points a month, not to mention the additional points you get as soon as LotRO goes F2P.
The Wardrobe storage will only store COSMETIC items, so if you use gear as your wardrobe, you WILL NOT be able to store these items in there. Additionally, it only stores a COPY of said cosmetic item, thus you are still stuck with the actual cosmetic item in your inventory or vault.
The Wardrobe means you can delete those cosmetic items from your inventory.
More characters slots will be available, but from what I have been told they WILL have to be purchased by everyone (slots 10 and 11 will have to be purchased via the store by VIP's. From what I understand, they will not get them automatically.)
Slots 10 and 11 are not even available now, so nobody loses anything there. Moreover, a VIP should easily be able to purchase them with their allowance, judging from DDO character slot prices.
F2P players will have to do a LOT, and I mean A LOT of grinding to get anywhere in the game.
Which does not really affect current players in any way, nor will it affect F2P players other than that they at least get access to LotRO.
Hardly. A zone that's about the size of the Trollshaws, if not smaller.
That, and all the other additions I mentioned.
Scalable in level only, not size.
This is still huge, as all encounters, bosses, and dropped gear are scaled along with the instance. Do you realise how many players beg their MMO devs to implement a feature such as this? Have a look at World of Warcraft, for instance, where people cry outrage because they want their old instances to be meaningful again.
Small area.
I am interested to learn where you obtained this knowledge. Mirkwood was by no means small.
a new epic quest line That requires you to do 3.1.1 before you can start it.
Just as with a lot of the book upgrades Turbine has released. I don't see the problem here, particularly because Vol III Book 1 is completely and easily soloable.
They just moved everything to one screen and slapped a big LOTRO STORE button on it and a monstorous ENTER THE GAME button on it and called it a day.
In addition to all the other things I mentioned they did.
And Rep horses and craftable items and permanent stat tomes and Virtues and...I could go on
Where have you read that bit about permanent stat tomes? For all the other items, they are by no means the pay-to-win people seem to be afraid of.
Are you delusional? Who said anything about Moria? It was fine...and Lothlorien was "okay"...
It's the absolute nada since that has pissed people off. Not one significant content addition since and nothing on the horizon for the next year (try reading what TURBINE themselves have said!). The stopped ALL content revamps and development ~Dec 2009 / Jan 2010 at the latest and pulled the token few they had left working on old content on to new projects like the F2P store and the F2P zone revamp. (Try reading Orion's old blog entries now...what they said and when they stop...)
"Great" for LotRO? Seriously, what are you smoking? From what they themselves have said, Enedwaith (yep. one tiny zone and one book chapter) are it for this year aside from the F2P launch...and 2011 is scheduled for bug squashing and minor tweeks that should have been done ages ago....that's from them...directly....so enjoying paying that sub fee for the next 18mnths+ before anything new hits while they refine the F2P side...
Of course, given past history even that timeline could go away...they'd just have to move the person who said it to a new project and poof! It becomes meaningless...just like the promised content updates.
Right. Someone said earlier that they hadn't added anything but token content for TWO YEARS. Must not have been you. Unless, this is a science fiction game and we've crammed two years in since Moria/Lothlorien/Mirkwood. There are days I'd totally believe that...:)
Shava
lol, crap game becomes crappier.
Move along home.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising everytime we fall.
*ponders the significance of f2p screenies -v- the p2p screenies o_0*
I delcare this thread useless!
Re: Content. Look Turbine has said it's milked almost all of the pre-pipelined content that it had created. Moria was in development at release. Evendim was partially built for release but didn't make it. Lorien was in developement for quite a while as they knew it was an important area. The redoing of Lonelands, optimizing bree, heck even erud luin were all important things that helped the game, but had zero impact on max lvl characters. Instead of barreling full steam ahead and ignoring the original game, Turbine has taken an approach to ensure that the whole level spread of the game continues to improve.
That said, the content vacuum with switching to F2P is understandable. The sheer scale of the changes to the base engine, gameplay, balancing, etc, are huge. I know it stinks, I don't like waiting until probably Oct for an update, but trust me, you'd rather wait until the beta is done and things are tested and improved than get what was offered the first go round in beta.
So far the F2p beta hasnt been too bad. I was given 5000 points, and mostly spent them on decreasing annoyances, such as getting a horse at early levels instead of waiting till level 20, unlocking some additional perk slots (traits). Unlocking auction house. But otherwise Ive been able to play the game just fine. But I dont know what 5000 poitns will cost. If its $1 a point, hell no. If its 5 dollars for 5000 points, sure.
lol, 8k hours of WoW. Hypocrite much?
i want it now!
So I suppose the $0 I had to pay to get the latest DDO content update was just imaginary? There's absolutely no way that Turbine could have done exactly what they said they would with VIP's not having to ever pay for content updates. Surely they must be all about making as much cash as possible all the time even from their monthly sub paying customers cause gouging your most loyal customers is obviously the best way to keep the sustained income that comes from them.
I think there is a bit of misinformation here. Or perhaps I missed something? We'll see...
For Eric's statement, if one stops paying a subscription in the current system, then one loses all access to the game. In the "f2p" system if one stops paying a subscription you still have access to the game but can only unlock certain things by using Turbine points.
So there is no difference for the subscriber (VIP) and the non-subscriber gets access to the game where before he wouldn't have any access.
The Lifer thing is a bit unclear.
A lifer gets all the content that he/she used to get. They are considered VIP. However, Lifers always had to purchase expansions and this is no different than before.
Where the iffy part comes in is whether or not the regular updates that Turbines used to give will resume at their regular pace and will be part of the subscription/VIP status.
Or will all new content, quests, etc that are not part of an actual full blown expansion be a la carte?
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
Turbine has stated that they will continue to release free updates for VIP's and using DDO as proof backs that up.
Well there we are!
Thanks!
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
Since I evidently wasn't clear - I was talking about since Mirkwood. I'm being generous and giving them a pass up til Mirkwood...even though Lothlorien was pretty weak and Mirkwood was totally "phoned in"...(talk about cookie-cutter, same 4-5 3 step quest lines at each of 6 quest hubs...yippee) and the skirmish system was very weak.
It will be well over a year since any significant updates when "Enedwaith" is finally in and they have stated that there is nothing major at all in the pipeline for 2011, thus "2 years+"...that clear it up?
Now maybe I will be proven wrong and Enedwaith won't be (at best!) the same low grade junk that Mirkwood was but I am pretty sure it will be. However, even if it is they are still miles behind on promised content updates.
Humans are about to evolve into Ferengi.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
The locks are there if you want to lock something when you randomize the character, not because you have to pay for it. Most MMOs have this feature.
LOTRO was once a cool little game. Was there in '07 and now had to leave for the stupid, greedy, money grabbing BS these guys are pulling. I had a Lifetime sub with these twits for the game. With the move to F2P, I had them delete my credit card info. They said that the card is tied to my account and with the removal of my info, the account would be gone too. Well, I told those twits to delete the card and my account also and wasn't happy with the direction the game is taking.
"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)
I also have a lifetime account. I am keeping mine and I am very much looking forward to the F2P model for this game. It has worked wonders for Turbine in the past and I expect the same here. There is nothing worse than an empty MMO and while LOTRO is not empty it it by no means a smash success story.
Under this new model, I will be able to entice many of my friends to give the game a real go. With my lifetime VIP I will already have full access to all of the core features.
I would hope that all lifetimer holders would have seent his page by now.
http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/vipchart.html
I also know that people will ignore my link so here it is spelled out for you.
Lifetime account holders gets you..
Turbine points 500/month Free
(can purchase more) or earn thru gameplay <<<
(you also started earning these points in advance to F2P release, you will have thousands of points by the time it goes live)
World Access - Free (Unlimited)
Epic Story - Unlimited
Classes - 7 (9 If you already have the expansion)
Level Cap - 50 (65 if you already have the expansion)
Character Slots - 5 Per Server (more if you already have the expansion)
Quest Packs - Eriador (once again they will not take away any existing content you have purchased already)
Invenotry - 5 Bags (Max)
Gold Limit - Unlimited
Priority Login - Highest
Chat - Unlimited
Auction - Unlimited
Mail - Unlimited
Rested Exp - Yes (auto)
Shared Bank - Purchasable (most people playing the game already bought this)
Skirmishes - 9 (more if you already bought expansions)
Legendary Items - Yes (requires an expansion that most lifetime holders already have)
Traits - Yes (all)
Crafting - Yes (all)
Crafting Guilds - Yes (unlimited)
Housing - Yes (available)
Music - Yes (hobby music system)
Cosmetic System - Yes (unlimited)
Wardrobe - 20 Slots
Destiny Points - Yes (can earn and spend)
Monster Play - Yes (unlmited)
Community Features - Yes (unlimited)
Customer Service - Full Access
(you do not have to repurchase expansion classes, quests or areas if you already have them)
Well... it's free to play. Play it or don't. Seem silly to whine about a free to play game.
If it ain't dead you're not pressing 2 hard enough.
Well, the people that are whining are mostly those that like the game and play it (and want to continue to play it), but don't like the direction that F2P involves (and aren't Turbine koolaid drinkers). And are upset with the direction that LOTRO was supposed to follow but didn't even come close to.
F2P is not about getting more people to play the game - it's about getting the people who pay, to pay more.
And you have people who paid $200-300 for a lifetime sub to a P2P game. I moved to LOTRO from F2P games because I was sick of the constant money grubbing (excuse me, "monetization") and bought a lifetime sub. So I am not thrilled to see LOTRO become what I hoped to escape from.
(Though to be fair, I quit playing LOTRO because IMHO, the game just isn't finished, it's like they kind of forgot to put interesting content from levels 25 to 45. They recently revamped the starting areas a lot, but cancelled the upgrade of the rest of the game in favor of a skirmish system, which means repeating the same thing every day to level up. Better than killing boars, but only just)
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
These screens look really nice. I hope one day I will be able to join beta and see it on my own eyes!
If you look at Turbine's past experience that is just not accurate.
"That's why it should come as no surprise to hear that since relaunching as a hybrid F2P in September, DDO has managed to amass more than 1 million new players who had never played the game before. According to Turbine, there are over twice as many paid subscribers as there were prior to the change. The revenue from DDO store transactions is now also over 500% -- three times the industry standard for similar titles."
http://www.massively.com/2010/02/26/one-million-new-adventurers-in-dungeons-and-dragons-online/
Hates this update.
You shall be dead.