Lord of the Rings Online: PAX Chat With Aaron Campbell

SBFord

At last week's PAX convention, MMORPG.com's Angie Webb had the opportunity to check out the new F2P-P2P hybrid version of Lord of the Rings Online. Turbine's Aaron Campbell took Angie through the game and discussed some of the finer points like "Does free to play actually mean free to play?" Garrett also got a look at what he called "he most interesting online haunted house I’ve ever seen." Read on!

Turbine has been working hard converting LOTRO to free to play, and, if you’re like me, you probably either have some skepticism about the idea or simply don’t understand how it works. Aaron helped clear this up and even explained how a character doesn’t really have to pay a dime to enjoy time in Middle Earth.

Read more LOTRO: PAX Chat with Aaron Campbell.

Ozmodan

I think the change to the turbine model of f2p is a brilliant move.  Really good for a casual player to buy the content as they need it.

The turbine model of f2p does not have all the evils of the traditional f2p game as in many of the eastern games where deep pockets are usually a necessity to be competitive.

Cohas

Sooo glad i have a lifetime 

damacarthur

Even EQ2 is going F2P now on special servers.  We'll see how that works out.

Centhan

It sounds like the same setup as DDO, so I’ll try to summarize the article for those who haven’t played DDO and don’t know what to expect.

 

A small portion of the game area is “free to play”.  Most areas (or instances) are locked which you can unlock for “free” if you spend your Turbine Points.  This would require you to play for literally a few years in order to accumulate enough of those points for “free”.  Otherwise, you can pay your monthly fee as usual, and have all areas open to you…just like all of this “free” business never happened.

 

They give you enough of a carrot and tempt you at every opportunity to buy the whole horse. 

 

I’m NOT saying it’s a totally bad plan, just saying “free to play” is completely misleading.  It’s a super duper way to TRY the game before you decide to purchase the monthly fee if you like it enough.  I wish MMOs would have been doing this for years actually.  But call it what it is…a “free trial”, a “game sampling”, a “no cost limited play”, whatever you will, but certainly not free to play (not a vast majority of the game anyway).

rodingo

You have to remember that they didn't switch to F2P as a charity.  It's  a business move for them to turn a profit, so of course there will be a carrot on the stick for the average player to spend money.

reanor

My favorite change is DX11 graphics. While there is water and lighting changes there are also some improvements in all the GFX, spell effects etc. And graphics look even more pronounced now. LOTRO is still the best MMORPG out there. My 2 cents of course. I am not PvP fan, so some casual immersion into the world based on Tolkien lore - very fun time spent. Been playing this game since Closed Beta 2 and still playing and having fun.

wickymagee

I just have one thing to say; Daemon Goats?  Stretching the IP a little thin aren't you Turbine?  I played LOTRO for almost two years and I may come back and check out the new system.  If it's at all like DDO (which it likely is) then I have few concerns.

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xpiher

Pretty sure you can get up to level 40ish with hardly any trouble by F2P the entire game

Muridan

Downloading, logging on and creating a character and leveling that character to 20 without having paid one red cent is free to play, all you cry babies seem to miss that. OF COURSE! you are expected to pay for more content if you want it unlocked then and there, IT"S A BUISNESS MODEL MENSA'S!!! The fact that they give you an option to unlock content with TP that you ground out in-game, while playing for FREE is a freaking GIFT, and you should be thankful for it.

wmbyrne

I just checked it out and I feel like I'm being nickled and dimed to death, you see I played for a year or so, and I know what is new and what's not, and most of the content they want me to pay for is old stuff.  I'm not impressed....

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bansan

Originally posted by Radoo

 

Nobody wants or is expecting charity, i have an old Shadows of Angmar version of this game, and i couldn't play more than 1 week, after purchasing it,  for an overall of, i'd say, 28 hours. The game had only Tolkien's lore to offer and maybe the iconic characters created through the trilogy movies. I do remember the low population and how hard it was to find someone to quest with, the game for me, never had anything appealing enough or original to make me pay the subscription or at least play my already paid one, at that time.  I received numerous invitations for a free period along with surveys regarding my "absence from the game" things for which i couldn't care less as i never liked the game and regret ever buying it. 

I don't know why your dislike of the game has anything to do with "Nobody wants or is expecting charity."  Many posters have expressed dissatisfaction with merely being able to play...they want VIP status for nothing.  It has been noted many times that you can get to 50, even if you don't buy the quest packs, which you can with free turbine points earned in game.  Your second paragraph is making the case for charity.

Now, as for this "chat with Aaron Campbell"- adopting the F2P model in a sort of a hybrid existence with the old subscription situation, is, in my opinion, critical to the LOTRO game community and also Turbine,  reason for which to a direct and quite challenging question regarding details about theyr new F2P model, the answer leaves you to a typical "free"/trial content without any money required but to proceed further from a certain point ( lvl 20) you'll have to "make investments" . Lol, funny but sad, F2P models seem to  expand on the market like a plague, bringing with them marketing exploits and ways to involve players to spend more money possible. Let the naive pay through their nose, as the gaming companies are surely following the profit and are happy to hide behind  incorrect  and misleading expressions as "Free to Play"

This may be a worthwhile complaint for a pure f2p, but how many times do we have to say that you can get to 50 adequately without quest packs, or that you can get TP points while you play for free?  If people like the game so much that they start spending big bucks, they can *gasp* cap their spending by getting a VIP account.  The smart ones anyway.  What is it with people going crazy when you give them more choices?

itchmon

i think the game's worth the 15 darn bucks a month.

Regomar

Look at their official forums.  Every post is about a new glitch, missing Turbine Points, being double billed, not getting what they got in the store, and the coup de grace, the fact that the best items in the store were raised 30% in price today with no warning (no, they were NEVER listed as being on sale) right after getting people to buy 50 dollars of Turbine points.  Classic bait and switch. 

Most people I know in-game and just on the forums are afraid to buy anything for fear that they'll not get what they pay for because of all the glitches. 

Hell, a guildie just lost tons of cosmetic gear because the new wardrobe slots DELETE THE ITEMS IN IT and the GMs told him that there was nothing they could do about it because it was an 'unknown bug' even though people on the forums are now reporting losing things they paid for. 

Justley3

I dont see it worth $14.99 but $9.99 easily for a 3+ month Sub package. Better off this way, saving 1/3 of your money every month.

tige1

I've tried F2P version for the first time few hours ago. I tell you, all these youtube videos doesn't do justice to this game. On my machine it looks and sounds so freaking amazing! I will stick with this one for a long time thats for sure!

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mokey91

"you can earn Turbine Points in game"

 

That's all I needed to hear!

orsin0

As was previously mentioned this is a business and they are tring to do what a business does, make money. I you want to play the game and you prefer the previous $14.xx/month pricing model, great, keep paying that on a monthly basis and you will have access to all of the same content and features that we all enjoyed before they changed the pricing model. This pricing is great for a caual player, instead of paying $14.xx for a month you can pay a caouple of bucks for a zone's worth of content and take your time getting through it without having to pay more, no matter how long it takes you to get through it. This is not so much of a change in pricing as it is an expansion or addition of an alternate pricing model.

Luczifer

That was forced move by turbine - LOTRO had turned crappish at end (after MoM) and many-many left the game. Those who stay were mostly lifers who don't pay any penny more, so there was only choiche to close the doors or... change into more crappy F2P.
As ya know Wallet Bros isn't charity organization but quiet big stock company who must show to their stockholders how they earn back spent money to buy Turbine. And (I don't remember link) one dood mentioned he had read some wall street info where WB showed that new F2P model will give them in average some 2-3 times more income per player = expect 30-45 USD/month. And this is AVERAGE, so when there is many casual hangers never reaching lvl 20 ya must think that so, who are hard-corer players will pay much more (like in "Free" DDO where hard-corers sometimes pay USD 50 per week.
So much about free. If they say honestly we have distributed payments - some pay less, some more, so I can accept this thing (tho not playing myself), but now that is BIG LIE!

Leettari

After playing this, I finally realized how magnificent WoW actually is, damn.

WSIMike

Free To Play my ass.

It's not "Free To Play" when I'm being double-dipped on content I already paid for.

Trollshaws was in-game when it launched. I bought the box, which included the content on the discs... which includes all the quests. I should not have to pay for that content twice. New quests? Sure. New areas that were patched in after the game's launched? Sure I can go for that even. Content for an expansion I didn't purchase previously? Absolutely.

But to have quests show up in my quest log - that I already started before it went F2P, in areas that were in the game from launch - as "locked" because I have to *purchase* them again? Bull. Shit.

I'd expect this double-dipping, "pay twice for the same content" from SOE. I would not have expected it from Turbine. I guess "Powered By Our Fans" has taken on new meaning.

ckoltai

WSIMike - You don't have to pay twice for the content.  You can access it by paying the subscription fee, which is the exact same thing you would have had to do prior to the F2P launch.  The other option is to pay once to permanently unlock it, and not pay the sub fee.  Either way, you're able to log in and create characters and play those characters for free.

"Free to play" does not necessarily equal "Free to access every piece of content ever".  How do you expect them to make money to pay their staff, keep the servers online, and, y'know, profit?  The game is free to play, you can't really debate that.  There is no point at which they will remove your ability to log in and play unless you give them money.  The main difference is now you can either buy quest packs as you need them, or pay the subscription fee and get unrestricted access.  

Really, it's win-win for everyone who isn't walking around with a massive sense of entitlement and a complete inability to comprehend the nature of business.

WSIMike

Originally posted by ckoltai

WSIMike - You don't have to pay twice for the content.  You can access it by paying the subscription fee, which is the exact same thing you would have had to do prior to the F2P launch.  The other option is to pay once to permanently unlock it, and not pay the sub fee.  Either way, you're able to log in and create characters and play those characters for free.

"Free to play" does not necessarily equal "Free to access every piece of content ever".  How do you expect them to make money to pay their staff, keep the servers online, and, y'know, profit?  The game is free to play, you can't really debate that.  There is no point at which they will remove your ability to log in and play unless you give them money.  The main difference is now you can either buy quest packs as you need them, or pay the subscription fee and get unrestricted access.  

Really, it's win-win for everyone who isn't walking around with a massive sense of entitlement and a complete inability to comprehend the nature of business.

I am being told to pay for it twice. I paid them already once... back when I bought the original game. That purchase bought  all the content on the disc. They are now telling me I have to pay for it a second time if I want to start or complete any of it.

That is not "F2P".  That is being double-dipped.

And if paying a sub fee is the alternate "cost of entry" to unlock the content I already paid for... well then that's not very much a "free to play" option either is it?

Either way I'm being told I have to pay twice to access content I already paid for.

Like I said... patched in content like Forochel or Evendim, that came with updates after the initial purchase, fine. Expansions I didn't already purchase... fine. But content they have already gotten my money for once? No way.

They can spin it any which way they want and insist it's F2P 'til the cows come home. At the end of the day, I'm being required to re-purchase content I already paid for. That is double-dipping, plain and simple.

I didn't ask them to go F2P. They made that choice for themselves. I'm being told that content I already paid for - and I'm actually part way through in some cases - now has to be unlocked by paying for it *again* before I can complete it.

BS.