I just hate the Idea of the LVL cap to 50 unless you purchase the expansions. its like free until you hit 50 and totaly addicted to it you have no choice but to shell out cash if not other playes will kick your butt because they are levels ahead of you this makes an imbalance but i agree the devs do need to make money but i wish they would be more open about it istead of putting a really tiny fine print under the game features
I just hate the Idea of the LVL cap to 50 unless you purchase the expansions. its like free until you hit 50 and totaly addicted to it you have no choice but to shell out cash if not other playes will kick your butt because they are levels ahead of you this makes an imbalance but i agree the devs do need to make money but i wish they would be more open about it istead of putting a really tiny fine print under the game features
I think most of us pre-f2p paid month after month to get to 50, it took me 3 weeks to max my first toon. So paying $50 for box with a free month is what you could say it cost me, originally. It now costs around $18 to unlock all the questpacks to 50 forever with no box fee, I think that is a sweet deal for an older game.
After buying the SOA boxed set, all of the expansions (and extras) as they came along, and then paying a monthly subscription for over 2 years, I bought a lifetime subscription.
I am not upset that new folks can come along and unlock the game for life for only $70.00 (or $100.00 whatever it is). It is peanuts what they have to pay compared to what I paid. I'm just glad they have the opportunity to enjoy LOTRO.
I'm here and always will be (except for death or disaster) on the Meneldor server to help (in game) anyone who needs it . Enter Middle Earth and enjoy the experience, and if you are like me, stay.
Regardless of what blabber is spewed here in the whine section, the F2P is already a smash hit. The servers are packed. There are people questing together and soloing everywhere. New kinships (guilds) have sprouted up all over the place. OOC and RP chat is alive and kicking. Soon this game will be 2nd only to WOW in North America subscription and players wise.
I know that I logged into my account, saw my Captain standing there in the armor my buddy made me, and even though he's only level 25, kinda fell in love with the game again.
Regardless of what blabber is spewed here in the whine section, the F2P is already a smash hit. The servers are packed. There are people questing together and soloing everywhere. New kinships (guilds) have sprouted up all over the place. OOC and RP chat is alive and kicking. Soon this game will be 2nd only to WOW in North America subscription and players wise.
Even if it manages to attain that distinction, which I rather doubt it will, it will still only be a VERY short reign. Between GW2 and SWTOR, LotRO doesn't stand a chance in that regard.
Originally posted by thecrap
I just hate the Idea of the LVL cap to 50 unless you purchase the expansions. its like free until you hit 50 and totaly addicted to it you have no choice but to shell out cash if not other playes will kick your butt because they are levels ahead of you this makes an imbalance but i agree the devs do need to make money but i wish they would be more open about it istead of putting a really tiny fine print under the game features
Even if you were paying the $15 a month sub, you'd still be having to buy that expansion to get past level 50. That's how the majority of mmos work.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
If you're not talking about subscribing players, then there's nothing being butchered, as the game was only available to them before the change.
You don't go premium, premium is simply an account that has subscribed or spent money on the game at some point, as opposed to an account that has never spent anything. There comes certain small perks once that happens. Even those of us that bought the original box aren't re-buying anything, so much as paying a one time, subscription fee to permanently unlock that content. So, yes, the full experience of the flow is restricted to subscribers or those who drop a little more than a single month's price to unlock them. The epic quests are apparently available for everyone, just not all the stuff on the side.
The game still felt as immersive up to the point that I played during beta. What would you suggest to improve upon the model to prevent the de-immersion? ...why the hell is immersive show up as misspelled? That's annoying the hell out of me.
I don't really think it is a break of spirit to allow players to experience the first chunk of the game, the entire epic story quests and much of the gameplay, but not the mid-level side stuff.
To me if I had a subscription to the game at one time and came back as a Premium without access to stuff I did once before, it would be a non-immersive experience because there would exist a huge hole in the content that wasn't there before.
My way of improving the lack of immersion is to not limit the content itself in the way they have done. I would have a B2P model instead but with a small trial for people to see if they like the game enough to get it. I would keep restrictions in place that would induce people to pay money either through the cash shop or by getting a normal subscription. They have this already in place, but it could be added upon to increase revenue if they see fit and then they can always lock new content they add to the game (new books, adventure packs, etc.). And of course I'd keep in place the P2P payment scheme.
I find that the current model is better for a game like DDO that lends itself to have dungeon instances locked until you purchase them somehow.
I disagree with you about your last sentence. To me it is a break of spirit because the original world is no longer an open world.
You mean when you come back, without a subscription, you'd have a problem with not having all the perks of a subscription?
They have a B2P model, it's called a lifetime subscription. Turbine has had that, I believe, for the life of the game so far.
I wanted to double check your side of it, so I jumped onto my Captain, who had quests in the restricted areas. The quests are still active, didn't remove them from my log, but can't get any more. It IS annoying, I'll give you that, but the entire zone isn't locked out, just the free experience and gear for playing around in it. It's still not a big deal. I already think there's too damned many quests in the game anyways, so I could see having....20% of the quests there, so it doesn't feel like a straight grind, but nothing's stopping you from finding a group and helping people with their quests, which is still decent exp in those zones.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by open world, it's a basic theme park style game.
If you're not talking about subscribing players, then there's nothing being butchered, as the game was only available to them before the change.
You don't go premium, premium is simply an account that has subscribed or spent money on the game at some point, as opposed to an account that has never spent anything. There comes certain small perks once that happens. Even those of us that bought the original box aren't re-buying anything, so much as paying a one time, subscription fee to permanently unlock that content. So, yes, the full experience of the flow is restricted to subscribers or those who drop a little more than a single month's price to unlock them. The epic quests are apparently available for everyone, just not all the stuff on the side.
The game still felt as immersive up to the point that I played during beta. What would you suggest to improve upon the model to prevent the de-immersion? ...why the hell is immersive show up as misspelled? That's annoying the hell out of me.
I don't really think it is a break of spirit to allow players to experience the first chunk of the game, the entire epic story quests and much of the gameplay, but not the mid-level side stuff.
To me if I had a subscription to the game at one time and came back as a Premium without access to stuff I did once before, it would be a non-immersive experience because there would exist a huge hole in the content that wasn't there before.
My way of improving the lack of immersion is to not limit the content itself in the way they have done. I would have a B2P model instead but with a small trial for people to see if they like the game enough to get it. I would keep restrictions in place that would induce people to pay money either through the cash shop or by getting a normal subscription. They have this already in place, but it could be added upon to increase revenue if they see fit and then they can always lock new content they add to the game (new books, adventure packs, etc.). And of course I'd keep in place the P2P payment scheme.
I find that the current model is better for a game like DDO that lends itself to have dungeon instances locked until you purchase them somehow.
I disagree with you about your last sentence. To me it is a break of spirit because the original world is no longer an open world.
You mean when you come back, without a subscription, you'd have a problem with not having all the perks of a subscription?
They have a B2P model, it's called a lifetime subscription. Turbine has had that, I believe, for the life of the game so far.
I wanted to double check your side of it, so I jumped onto my Captain, who had quests in the restricted areas. The quests are still active, didn't remove them from my log, but can't get any more. It IS annoying, I'll give you that, but the entire zone isn't locked out, just the free experience and gear for playing around in it. It's still not a big deal. I already think there's too damned many quests in the game anyways, so I could see having....20% of the quests there, so it doesn't feel like a straight grind, but nothing's stopping you from finding a group and helping people with their quests, which is still decent exp in those zones.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by open world, it's a basic theme park style game.
Except the quests removed pretty much cover the early 20's to 50. Grinding mobs for almost 30 levels like some crappy asian mmo isn't very fun, especially given the extremely low XP rate of mob killing in LotRO to begin with as the majority of XP is designed to come from quests. And doing quests with other people serves no purpose at all if you're trying to grind through those levels as you don't get anything from completing other people's quests AND you get lower XP grouping than you do soloing ( a major flaw of Turbine's in my book, as it really gives no incentive to ever group with anyone outside of Fellowship quests, and even those are pretty much soloable if you just wait two levels past it).
Originally posted by Mahlo
I'm not the biggest fan of LotRO, but they've made a hell of a lot better job of this than the convoluted dog's dinner Soe have made of EQ2 FTP.
Every crappy asian F2P out there is designed better than EQ2EX. So that's not saying much really.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
If you're not talking about subscribing players, then there's nothing being butchered, as the game was only available to them before the change.
You don't go premium, premium is simply an account that has subscribed or spent money on the game at some point, as opposed to an account that has never spent anything. There comes certain small perks once that happens. Even those of us that bought the original box aren't re-buying anything, so much as paying a one time, subscription fee to permanently unlock that content. So, yes, the full experience of the flow is restricted to subscribers or those who drop a little more than a single month's price to unlock them. The epic quests are apparently available for everyone, just not all the stuff on the side.
The game still felt as immersive up to the point that I played during beta. What would you suggest to improve upon the model to prevent the de-immersion? ...why the hell is immersive show up as misspelled? That's annoying the hell out of me.
I don't really think it is a break of spirit to allow players to experience the first chunk of the game, the entire epic story quests and much of the gameplay, but not the mid-level side stuff.
To me if I had a subscription to the game at one time and came back as a Premium without access to stuff I did once before, it would be a non-immersive experience because there would exist a huge hole in the content that wasn't there before.
My way of improving the lack of immersion is to not limit the content itself in the way they have done. I would have a B2P model instead but with a small trial for people to see if they like the game enough to get it. I would keep restrictions in place that would induce people to pay money either through the cash shop or by getting a normal subscription. They have this already in place, but it could be added upon to increase revenue if they see fit and then they can always lock new content they add to the game (new books, adventure packs, etc.). And of course I'd keep in place the P2P payment scheme.
I find that the current model is better for a game like DDO that lends itself to have dungeon instances locked until you purchase them somehow.
I disagree with you about your last sentence. To me it is a break of spirit because the original world is no longer an open world.
You mean when you come back, without a subscription, you'd have a problem with not having all the perks of a subscription?
They have a B2P model, it's called a lifetime subscription. Turbine has had that, I believe, for the life of the game so far.
I wanted to double check your side of it, so I jumped onto my Captain, who had quests in the restricted areas. The quests are still active, didn't remove them from my log, but can't get any more. It IS annoying, I'll give you that, but the entire zone isn't locked out, just the free experience and gear for playing around in it. It's still not a big deal. I already think there's too damned many quests in the game anyways, so I could see having....20% of the quests there, so it doesn't feel like a straight grind, but nothing's stopping you from finding a group and helping people with their quests, which is still decent exp in those zones.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by open world, it's a basic theme park style game.
Except the quests removed pretty much cover the early 20's to 50. Grinding mobs for almost 30 levels like some crappy asian mmo isn't very fun, especially given the extremely low XP rate of mob killing in LotRO to begin with as the majority of XP is designed to come from quests. And doing quests with other people serves no purpose at all if you're trying to grind through those levels as you don't get anything from completing other people's quests AND you get lower XP grouping than you do soloing ( a major flaw of Turbine's in my book, as it really gives no incentive to ever group with anyone outside of Fellowship quests, and even those are pretty much soloable if you just wait two levels past it).
Less experience total or just meaning divided among the group members? I thought there was something similar to what everquest did with it, having it divided among the members, but slightly tweaked higher to encourage grouping? Is the sum less than it would've been soloing it?
Im still trying to DL this game its friking huge 10GB is there a better 3rd party site where I can download it using my accelerator rather than the pando media booster?
You mean when you come back, without a subscription, you'd have a problem with not having all the perks of a subscription?
They have a B2P model, it's called a lifetime subscription. Turbine has had that, I believe, for the life of the game so far.
I wanted to double check your side of it, so I jumped onto my Captain, who had quests in the restricted areas. The quests are still active, didn't remove them from my log, but can't get any more. It IS annoying, I'll give you that, but the entire zone isn't locked out, just the free experience and gear for playing around in it. It's still not a big deal. I already think there's too damned many quests in the game anyways, so I could see having....20% of the quests there, so it doesn't feel like a straight grind, but nothing's stopping you from finding a group and helping people with their quests, which is still decent exp in those zones.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by open world, it's a basic theme park style game.
You missed what I said about keeping restrictions in place: come back as someone who would have limits on their characters (things like character slots for example, or chat, or other things that actually affect server performance and database maintenance) but access to all the areas and quests they had when they were subbed.
So you'd be happy having to pay the price of a lifetime subscription for any game? That's not how GW did it and probably not how GW2 will do it. The reason in part why GW was so popular was because of its readily affordable B2P model with some things that can be added to one's account through their cash shop.
I am dismayed at your attempting to reason away the annoyance of those quests being removed in order to support Turbine's flawed payment schemes. I don't usually say this about someone, but that is blind fanboi-ism. Only a fanboi would support the removal of content that was in the original game. Less content is never good for the customer!
That sort of reasoning would give them the go ahead to whack out other pieces of content from the game. Let's not open that can of worms!
Open world in the sense of an immersive one, one you can get caught up in and not think about real life. LotRO had an immersive world, but with quests being locked and funny icons above NPCs' heads reminding you to visit the store, I'm not convinced that it still is if you're a F2A player.
Someone was again bashing EQ2X but at least in that game you have the freedom to go where ever you want up until level 80, regardless of whether you are a brand new player, a returning player, someone with or without a membership or subscription. I prefer the EQ2X model in that sense, especially in light that I have actually spent more on LotRO than on EQ2. I don't lose out in EQ2X at all, whereas in LotRO F2A, I would.
I just hate the Idea of the LVL cap to 50 unless you purchase the expansions. its like free until you hit 50 and totaly addicted to it you have no choice but to shell out cash if not other playes will kick your butt because they are levels ahead of you this makes an imbalance but i agree the devs do need to make money but i wish they would be more open about it istead of putting a really tiny fine print under the game features
Since a lvl cap of 50 has been in place since DAY 1 of the game, just how more open could they be?
The original game; SoA, has always had a lvl 50 cap. IF you purchased MoM it went up to lvl 62 and IF you purchased SoM it went up to lvl 65. It's always been that way. As a SoA player / box owner your cap didn't go up to lvl 65 just because SoM came out, it stayed at lvl 50.
"if not other playes will kick your butt". ????? Any chance you actually play? Because this makes no sense at all. It's a PvE game so just how will other higher lvl players "kick your butt"?
You mean when you come back, without a subscription, you'd have a problem with not having all the perks of a subscription?
They have a B2P model, it's called a lifetime subscription. Turbine has had that, I believe, for the life of the game so far.
I wanted to double check your side of it, so I jumped onto my Captain, who had quests in the restricted areas. The quests are still active, didn't remove them from my log, but can't get any more. It IS annoying, I'll give you that, but the entire zone isn't locked out, just the free experience and gear for playing around in it. It's still not a big deal. I already think there's too damned many quests in the game anyways, so I could see having....20% of the quests there, so it doesn't feel like a straight grind, but nothing's stopping you from finding a group and helping people with their quests, which is still decent exp in those zones.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by open world, it's a basic theme park style game.
You missed what I said about keeping restrictions in place: come back as someone who would have limits on their characters (things like character slots for example, or chat, or other things that actually affect server performance and database maintenance) but access to all the areas and quests they had when they were subbed.
So you'd be happy having to pay the price of a lifetime subscription for any game? That's not how GW did it and probably not how GW2 will do it. The reason in part why GW was so popular was because of its readily affordable B2P model with some things that can be added to one's account through their cash shop.
I am dismayed at your attempting to reason away the annoyance of those quests being removed in order to support Turbine's flawed payment schemes. I don't usually say this about someone, but that is blind fanboi-ism. Only a fanboi would support the removal of content that was in the original game. Less content is never good for the customer!
That sort of reasoning would give them the go ahead to whack out other pieces of content from the game. Let's not open that can of worms!
Open world in the sense of an immersive one, one you can get caught up in and not think about real life. LotRO had an immersive world, but with quests being locked and funny icons above NPCs' heads reminding you to visit the store, I'm not convinced that it still is if you're a F2A player.
Someone was again bashing EQ2X but at least in that game you have the freedom to go where ever you want up until level 80, regardless of whether you are a brand new player, a returning player, someone with or without a membership or subscription. I prefer the EQ2X model in that sense, especially in light that I have actually spent more on LotRO than on EQ2. I don't lose out in EQ2X at all, whereas in LotRO F2A, I would.
Hmmmm....my last post was kinda crappy, apologies. About this time yesterday I was half asleep, and doing things to keep myself awake during the daylight hours to run errands. I did misunderstand the restrictions comment, I think. Restricting chat is annoying, but I suppose could be done decently, with a level req or purchase.
I was referring to the lifetime membership because it is still a sub to f2p conversion, and GW was developed around the b2p model from the beginning, I don't think the point quite applies here.
I wasn't attempting to reason away the annoyance, just trying, badly, at expressing that I feel this is, overall, less annoying than the heavy restrictions EQ2X did. The beginning and endgame are there, you get to choose which regions to unlock if you don't want to subscribe, and premium members don't have their bags restricted, although I didn't stop to check the vault keeper, or auction house.
I think that if they were going to lock content in such a way, I think they chose the right chunk of the game to do it, for the most part. I don't think it should've been so severe, though, nor am I specifically supporting the removal of the content. I'm simply recognizing that, while I think they should've left SOME of the region content, and maybe had the quest packs consisting of the mostly fluff content that feels shoved in there to give easy experience, this is the lesser annoyance.
I didn't see any funny icons above the NPCs' heads other than the regular ring icons in the Lone Lands. The region does feel like a tragic placeholder comedy, though. Makes the Forsaken Inn a little creepy having that many patrons that won't really talk to you.
I guess, to me, it feels like it's mostly the choice between EQ2X style or DDO style. I definitely lean towards DDO style, but this game isn't suited to such an extreme version of it. I think, since they went with locking quest packs, they should split them up into smaller packs, so that Turbine Points accumulated from deeds would be more likely to purchase them, or have something similar to the favor grind in DDO.
I realize I'm once again sleepy posting, but I hope this one was less horrible. There's a difference in me supporting and endorsing a course of action and accepting it as a decent but not great way of handling the conversion.
Despite our opinions apparently being on the opposite sides of this and stubbornly there, PM me if you ever feel like jumping on Meneldor server.
just installed it some days ago but ill remove it again before i play it.
in no way i support these kind of f2p, were you have to buy every bit of stuff.
i'd rather pay a mutch higher prize for a game AND a monthly fee before i support these funfree f2p models, that companies like gamigo, turbine, gpotato, ... try to establish in the gamers community.
give it 4 weeks free gametime with ALL content to let people see if its a game, that the player likes.
then take a monthly fee, take even a distro purchase prize, but never, never sell items like backpacks, quests or dmg stuff in a cash shop.
i say no to these f2p ripoff models
Thisis so true when the item shops demands you to spend to play the games thats it for me
Hmmmm....my last post was kinda crappy, apologies. About this time yesterday I was half asleep, and doing things to keep myself awake during the daylight hours to run errands. I did misunderstand the restrictions comment, I think. Restricting chat is annoying, but I suppose could be done decently, with a level req or purchase.
I was referring to the lifetime membership because it is still a sub to f2p conversion, and GW was developed around the b2p model from the beginning, I don't think the point quite applies here.
I wasn't attempting to reason away the annoyance, just trying, badly, at expressing that I feel this is, overall, less annoying than the heavy restrictions EQ2X did. The beginning and endgame are there, you get to choose which regions to unlock if you don't want to subscribe, and premium members don't have their bags restricted, although I didn't stop to check the vault keeper, or auction house.
I think that if they were going to lock content in such a way, I think they chose the right chunk of the game to do it, for the most part. I don't think it should've been so severe, though, nor am I specifically supporting the removal of the content. I'm simply recognizing that, while I think they should've left SOME of the region content, and maybe had the quest packs consisting of the mostly fluff content that feels shoved in there to give easy experience, this is the lesser annoyance.
I didn't see any funny icons above the NPCs' heads other than the regular ring icons in the Lone Lands. The region does feel like a tragic placeholder comedy, though. Makes the Forsaken Inn a little creepy having that many patrons that won't really talk to you.
I guess, to me, it feels like it's mostly the choice between EQ2X style or DDO style. I definitely lean towards DDO style, but this game isn't suited to such an extreme version of it. I think, since they went with locking quest packs, they should split them up into smaller packs, so that Turbine Points accumulated from deeds would be more likely to purchase them, or have something similar to the favor grind in DDO.
I realize I'm once again sleepy posting, but I hope this one was less horrible. There's a difference in me supporting and endorsing a course of action and accepting it as a decent but not great way of handling the conversion.
Despite our opinions apparently being on the opposite sides of this and stubbornly there, PM me if you ever feel like jumping on Meneldor server.
I am not criticizing DDO's model at all. I think DDO is a perfect game for what Turbine did to make it a hybrid, because of the way it is set up with dungeon instances.
LotRO seems less ideal for this type of payment model for reasons I am not going to go over again. As annoying as EQ2X is, SoE at least have the ability to access all areas of the game except the newest xpac right. The thing SoE does wrong is by keeping in place so many limitations that can't be removed at all via an a la carte payment plan. In this last case, Turbine has done a better job of their payment model than SoE.
In that sense I wouldn't say I'm at the opposite side of the spectrum from you. Neither game does it completely right in my view except for subscribing to both games normally since that's no different from what they had before.
I don't see why though one couldn't have a B2P model in LotRO as long as the final price for upgrading everything comes out to be either about or slightly more than a lifetime offer.
Edit - Thanks for the offer of PMing you on the Meneldor server but I really don't want to leave behind my European characters completely when I do come back to the game. If I went on the F2A US version, I'd never play it that seriously. Even more than the money issue, I've invested too much time on my characters to do that.
I am not criticizing DDO's model at all. I think DDO is a perfect game for what Turbine did to make it a hybrid, because of the way it is set up with dungeon instances.
LotRO seems less ideal for this type of payment model for reasons I am not going to go over again. As annoying as EQ2X is, SoE at least have the ability to access all areas of the game except the newest xpac right. The thing SoE does wrong is by keeping in place so many limitations that can't be removed at all via an a la carte payment plan. In this last case, Turbine has done a better job of their payment model than SoE.
In that sense I wouldn't say I'm at the opposite side of the spectrum from you. Neither game does it completely right in my view except for subscribing to both games normally since that's no different from what they had before.
I don't see why though one couldn't have a B2P model in LotRO as long as the final price for upgrading everything comes out to be either about or slightly more than a lifetime offer.
Edit - Thanks for the offer of PMing you on the Meneldor server but I really don't want to leave behind my European characters completely when I do come back to the game. If I went on the F2A US version, I'd never play it that seriously. Even more than the money issue, I've invested too much time on my characters to do that.
Yeah, DDO was an unusual IP that lent itself perfectly to that hybrid model, so it worked out great. The part that it particularly did well was let you have something to do at all points of character progression.
LotRO does seem less suited for it, but I think it could work almost as well if they'd change it up a bit. I think you nailed in on the head by pointing out a la carte for options. That, and the fact that the restrictions, while annoying, are relatively cheap to lift.
Yeah, looks like we are closer to the middle of the two extremes.
With that idea, I could see a B2P that cost somewhere between 50-75% of the lifetime sub, offered all quests, lifted all the restrictions such as bags, shared storage, gold cap, auctions, crafting, but didn't include any cosmetic items or monthly points, like the lifetime. Something of a full core feature unlock.
Comment on Edit - I meant an PM on here, or on xfire, if you use it. I'm very casual, just started a hobbit guardian and restarted my elf hunter. I figure I'll play through those and get some TP, then if I don't care to keep the race class combo, I'll try something else, getting a few more TP. I think it's kinda interesting that this might actually inadvertantly(?) encourage free players to try new classes and races.
Yeah, DDO was an unusual IP that lent itself perfectly to that hybrid model, so it worked out great. The part that it particularly did well was let you have something to do at all points of character progression.
LotRO does seem less suited for it, but I think it could work almost as well if they'd change it up a bit. I think you nailed in on the head by pointing out a la carte for options. That, and the fact that the restrictions, while annoying, are relatively cheap to lift.
Yeah, looks like we are closer to the middle of the two extremes.
With that idea, I could see a B2P that cost somewhere between 50-75% of the lifetime sub, offered all quests, lifted all the restrictions such as bags, shared storage, gold cap, auctions, crafting, but didn't include any cosmetic items or monthly points, like the lifetime. Something of a full core feature unlock.
Comment on Edit - I meant an PM on here, or on xfire, if you use it. I'm very casual, just started a hobbit guardian and restarted my elf hunter. I figure I'll play through those and get some TP, then if I don't care to keep the race class combo, I'll try something else, getting a few more TP. I think it's kinda interesting that this might actually inadvertantly(?) encourage free players to try new classes and races.
I hope that Turbine do tweek the LotRO F2A model.
It also sounds like you're playing the game perfectly for F2A to work out well for you in the long-term. LotRO does encourage people to play it more slowly in my opinion since it's nice to go through each starter zone and get all of the deeds and having a full set of crafters that you can use to make stuff you otherwise have to rely on other people for.
Unfortunately, in my EQ2X experience, I've realised that I am not a purely casual player. So LotRO F2A would be a possibility for me as long as I am mainly playing something else, otherwise it's better for my playstyle to get a subscription.
After buying the SOA boxed set, all of the expansions (and extras) as they came along, and then paying a monthly subscription for over 2 years, I bought a lifetime subscription.
I am not upset that new folks can come along and unlock the game for life for only $70.00 (or $100.00 whatever it is). It is peanuts what they have to pay compared to what I paid. I'm just glad they have the opportunity to enjoy LOTRO.
I'm here and always will be (except for death or disaster) on the Meneldor server to help (in game) anyone who needs it . Enter Middle Earth and enjoy the experience, and if you are like me, stay.
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I just hate the Idea of the LVL cap to 50 unless you purchase the expansions. its like free until you hit 50 and totaly addicted to it you have no choice but to shell out cash if not other playes will kick your butt because they are levels ahead of you this makes an imbalance but i agree the devs do need to make money but i wish they would be more open about it istead of putting a really tiny fine print under the game features
I think most of us pre-f2p paid month after month to get to 50, it took me 3 weeks to max my first toon. So paying $50 for box with a free month is what you could say it cost me, originally. It now costs around $18 to unlock all the questpacks to 50 forever with no box fee, I think that is a sweet deal for an older game.
Hey, I'm on Meneldor. I might say hi sometime.
I know that I logged into my account, saw my Captain standing there in the armor my buddy made me, and even though he's only level 25, kinda fell in love with the game again.
Even if it manages to attain that distinction, which I rather doubt it will, it will still only be a VERY short reign. Between GW2 and SWTOR, LotRO doesn't stand a chance in that regard.
Even if you were paying the $15 a month sub, you'd still be having to buy that expansion to get past level 50. That's how the majority of mmos work.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
You mean when you come back, without a subscription, you'd have a problem with not having all the perks of a subscription?
They have a B2P model, it's called a lifetime subscription. Turbine has had that, I believe, for the life of the game so far.
I wanted to double check your side of it, so I jumped onto my Captain, who had quests in the restricted areas. The quests are still active, didn't remove them from my log, but can't get any more. It IS annoying, I'll give you that, but the entire zone isn't locked out, just the free experience and gear for playing around in it. It's still not a big deal. I already think there's too damned many quests in the game anyways, so I could see having....20% of the quests there, so it doesn't feel like a straight grind, but nothing's stopping you from finding a group and helping people with their quests, which is still decent exp in those zones.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by open world, it's a basic theme park style game.
I'm not the biggest fan of LotRO, but they've made a hell of a lot better job of this than the convoluted dog's dinner Soe have made of EQ2 FTP.
Except the quests removed pretty much cover the early 20's to 50. Grinding mobs for almost 30 levels like some crappy asian mmo isn't very fun, especially given the extremely low XP rate of mob killing in LotRO to begin with as the majority of XP is designed to come from quests. And doing quests with other people serves no purpose at all if you're trying to grind through those levels as you don't get anything from completing other people's quests AND you get lower XP grouping than you do soloing ( a major flaw of Turbine's in my book, as it really gives no incentive to ever group with anyone outside of Fellowship quests, and even those are pretty much soloable if you just wait two levels past it).
Every crappy asian F2P out there is designed better than EQ2EX. So that's not saying much really.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Less experience total or just meaning divided among the group members? I thought there was something similar to what everquest did with it, having it divided among the members, but slightly tweaked higher to encourage grouping? Is the sum less than it would've been soloing it?
Im still trying to DL this game its friking huge 10GB is there a better 3rd party site where I can download it using my accelerator rather than the pando media booster?
You missed what I said about keeping restrictions in place: come back as someone who would have limits on their characters (things like character slots for example, or chat, or other things that actually affect server performance and database maintenance) but access to all the areas and quests they had when they were subbed.
So you'd be happy having to pay the price of a lifetime subscription for any game? That's not how GW did it and probably not how GW2 will do it. The reason in part why GW was so popular was because of its readily affordable B2P model with some things that can be added to one's account through their cash shop.
I am dismayed at your attempting to reason away the annoyance of those quests being removed in order to support Turbine's flawed payment schemes. I don't usually say this about someone, but that is blind fanboi-ism. Only a fanboi would support the removal of content that was in the original game. Less content is never good for the customer!
That sort of reasoning would give them the go ahead to whack out other pieces of content from the game. Let's not open that can of worms!
Open world in the sense of an immersive one, one you can get caught up in and not think about real life. LotRO had an immersive world, but with quests being locked and funny icons above NPCs' heads reminding you to visit the store, I'm not convinced that it still is if you're a F2A player.
Someone was again bashing EQ2X but at least in that game you have the freedom to go where ever you want up until level 80, regardless of whether you are a brand new player, a returning player, someone with or without a membership or subscription. I prefer the EQ2X model in that sense, especially in light that I have actually spent more on LotRO than on EQ2. I don't lose out in EQ2X at all, whereas in LotRO F2A, I would.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
Since a lvl cap of 50 has been in place since DAY 1 of the game, just how more open could they be?
The original game; SoA, has always had a lvl 50 cap. IF you purchased MoM it went up to lvl 62 and IF you purchased SoM it went up to lvl 65. It's always been that way. As a SoA player / box owner your cap didn't go up to lvl 65 just because SoM came out, it stayed at lvl 50.
"if not other playes will kick your butt". ????? Any chance you actually play? Because this makes no sense at all. It's a PvE game so just how will other higher lvl players "kick your butt"?
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
Hmmmm....my last post was kinda crappy, apologies. About this time yesterday I was half asleep, and doing things to keep myself awake during the daylight hours to run errands. I did misunderstand the restrictions comment, I think. Restricting chat is annoying, but I suppose could be done decently, with a level req or purchase.
I was referring to the lifetime membership because it is still a sub to f2p conversion, and GW was developed around the b2p model from the beginning, I don't think the point quite applies here.
I wasn't attempting to reason away the annoyance, just trying, badly, at expressing that I feel this is, overall, less annoying than the heavy restrictions EQ2X did. The beginning and endgame are there, you get to choose which regions to unlock if you don't want to subscribe, and premium members don't have their bags restricted, although I didn't stop to check the vault keeper, or auction house.
I think that if they were going to lock content in such a way, I think they chose the right chunk of the game to do it, for the most part. I don't think it should've been so severe, though, nor am I specifically supporting the removal of the content. I'm simply recognizing that, while I think they should've left SOME of the region content, and maybe had the quest packs consisting of the mostly fluff content that feels shoved in there to give easy experience, this is the lesser annoyance.
I didn't see any funny icons above the NPCs' heads other than the regular ring icons in the Lone Lands. The region does feel like a tragic placeholder comedy, though. Makes the Forsaken Inn a little creepy having that many patrons that won't really talk to you.
I guess, to me, it feels like it's mostly the choice between EQ2X style or DDO style. I definitely lean towards DDO style, but this game isn't suited to such an extreme version of it. I think, since they went with locking quest packs, they should split them up into smaller packs, so that Turbine Points accumulated from deeds would be more likely to purchase them, or have something similar to the favor grind in DDO.
I realize I'm once again sleepy posting, but I hope this one was less horrible. There's a difference in me supporting and endorsing a course of action and accepting it as a decent but not great way of handling the conversion.
Despite our opinions apparently being on the opposite sides of this and stubbornly there, PM me if you ever feel like jumping on Meneldor server.
Thisis so true when the item shops demands you to spend to play the games thats it for me
I am not criticizing DDO's model at all. I think DDO is a perfect game for what Turbine did to make it a hybrid, because of the way it is set up with dungeon instances.
LotRO seems less ideal for this type of payment model for reasons I am not going to go over again. As annoying as EQ2X is, SoE at least have the ability to access all areas of the game except the newest xpac right. The thing SoE does wrong is by keeping in place so many limitations that can't be removed at all via an a la carte payment plan. In this last case, Turbine has done a better job of their payment model than SoE.
In that sense I wouldn't say I'm at the opposite side of the spectrum from you. Neither game does it completely right in my view except for subscribing to both games normally since that's no different from what they had before.
I don't see why though one couldn't have a B2P model in LotRO as long as the final price for upgrading everything comes out to be either about or slightly more than a lifetime offer.
Edit - Thanks for the offer of PMing you on the Meneldor server but I really don't want to leave behind my European characters completely when I do come back to the game. If I went on the F2A US version, I'd never play it that seriously. Even more than the money issue, I've invested too much time on my characters to do that.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
Yeah, DDO was an unusual IP that lent itself perfectly to that hybrid model, so it worked out great. The part that it particularly did well was let you have something to do at all points of character progression.
LotRO does seem less suited for it, but I think it could work almost as well if they'd change it up a bit. I think you nailed in on the head by pointing out a la carte for options. That, and the fact that the restrictions, while annoying, are relatively cheap to lift.
Yeah, looks like we are closer to the middle of the two extremes.
With that idea, I could see a B2P that cost somewhere between 50-75% of the lifetime sub, offered all quests, lifted all the restrictions such as bags, shared storage, gold cap, auctions, crafting, but didn't include any cosmetic items or monthly points, like the lifetime. Something of a full core feature unlock.
Comment on Edit - I meant an PM on here, or on xfire, if you use it. I'm very casual, just started a hobbit guardian and restarted my elf hunter. I figure I'll play through those and get some TP, then if I don't care to keep the race class combo, I'll try something else, getting a few more TP. I think it's kinda interesting that this might actually inadvertantly(?) encourage free players to try new classes and races.
I hope that Turbine do tweek the LotRO F2A model.
It also sounds like you're playing the game perfectly for F2A to work out well for you in the long-term. LotRO does encourage people to play it more slowly in my opinion since it's nice to go through each starter zone and get all of the deeds and having a full set of crafters that you can use to make stuff you otherwise have to rely on other people for.
Unfortunately, in my EQ2X experience, I've realised that I am not a purely casual player. So LotRO F2A would be a possibility for me as long as I am mainly playing something else, otherwise it's better for my playstyle to get a subscription.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
Cool, I'll look forward to that!