I'm glad it seems to be working out for them. LOTRO is a great game and it was a shame to see the number of players as low as it was. It's nice that, when I log in now, there's people around.
OF course the population is going to expand when the game has been made F2P.
As for the cash shop number of "53%", remember they're counting all people buying from the shop, including those only spending their "free" points via quests, deeds, loyalty program, etc.
When a game is F2P, anyone who makes an account and logs in, looks around, spend 10 TP in the cash shop ( see, NOW you know why that quest is there LOL ), then leaves is a "customer", so having "1 million new customers" is no different than having "1 million registered players" as other F2P games announce all the time.
This "announcement" is rubbish, nothing of worth outside of hyperbole and doublespeak.
-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.-
It's amazing that a game releases good news, but yet the naysayers are still predicting doom. I think it was the right choice, and after a few bugs were fixed after the launch of F2P, I'm really enjoying it. A lot of people seem to be enjoying it. Kudos to Turbine.
I see in my crystal ball ( very near future ) bankrupty
Curious how they always speak in terms of % ...Same propaganda was used when DDO went "free".
It's all % and nothing about exact figures. . 300% increase of 1 is 3.
And those % won't save Lotro, nor did it any good for DDO (game sank again in Xfire ranks after 6 months).
Curious how some think a game got better when a fixed subscription fee is replaced with micro tansactions.
The payment system doesn't change the game play. Never will.
"Oh, My bag shows I have 2 Gold ... I need to pay to have my new limit set to 5 Gold."
Money scams.
DDO has been doing very well since the change and continues to do so. Far too many people base things off of Xfire and there are lots of people that don't use xfire at all. I know I don't. Even if you go by Xfire number DDO sits 18-20th depending on when you check on a list that has hundreds of games listed. Ya that is just plain terrible!!
I could see how it would be considered a scam if it wasn't for the fact you could just pay a monthly sub like every other game and not deal with such things all while you gain turbine points which you could then unsub later and use your built up points from both subscribing and in game to unlock everything you want and play 100% free from then on. Man such a scam!!
OF course the population is going to expand when the game has been made F2P.
As for the cash shop number of "53%", remember they're counting all people buying from the shop, including those only spending their "free" points via quests, deeds, loyalty program, etc.
When a game is F2P, anyone who makes an account and logs in, looks around, spend 10 TP in the cash shop ( see, NOW you know why that quest is there LOL ), then leaves is a "customer", so having "1 million new customers" is no different than having "1 million registered players" as other F2P games announce all the time.
This "announcement" is rubbish, nothing of worth outside of hyperbole and doublespeak.
They also said they had an increase in subs and that revenues doubled. Everyone seems to be focusing on those other stats like they are smoke and mirrors. Will it last? . . who knows. . but it is not just lifers using their free points. . how could revenue double when no one has to pay a sub. . . if no one is paying/using the store?
Well Codemasters obviously dont want any part in free to play and all the money it can make them . If they dont want the game why dont they come to some deal with Turbine to take it over and stop maintaining such an obvious pretence .
Sooner the EU servers get merged with the NA ones the better under Turbines banner because theres going to be a steady decline of players on the Europen side now .
OF course the population is going to expand when the game has been made F2P.
As for the cash shop number of "53%", remember they're counting all people buying from the shop, including those only spending their "free" points via quests, deeds, loyalty program, etc.
When a game is F2P, anyone who makes an account and logs in, looks around, spend 10 TP in the cash shop ( see, NOW you know why that quest is there LOL ), then leaves is a "customer", so having "1 million new customers" is no different than having "1 million registered players" as other F2P games announce all the time.
This "announcement" is rubbish, nothing of worth outside of hyperbole and doublespeak.
They also said they had an increase in subs and that revenues doubled. Everyone seems to be focusing on those other stats like they are smoke and mirrors. Will it last? . . who knows. . but it is not just lifers using their free points. . how could revenue double when no one has to pay a sub. . . if no one is paying/using the store?
Easy: they don't give numbers.
"Increase in subs ..." and revenues "doubled".
Increase: how much ? revenues doubled compared to what and how much?
Same tric they did with the DDO game : going "percentages" without any hard figures. Not a single hard number.
Their PR is apparently as cheap as their free to play model.
I'm not gonna rain on their parade much but a 20% increase of former players isn't exactly a alot considering the population was extremely low prior to f2p conversion. What, they had maybe 200k -250k people left playing before f2p ? Turbine has done better profit wise but lets not praise the f2p model as the savior to the game. It still is an average game at best. The game is nothing more than a walk-in shopping mall and nothing more.
Unlike SOE, Turbine used the right f2p design to enhance their game. About all you can do is laugh at SOE's version of f2p, it has Smedley's hand all over it with a big "fail" stamp on it.
Of course Turbine saw how successful this model made DDO and it was an easy decision to convert Lotro. My hat is off to Turbine.
Rofl, enhance the game???
What have the enhanced so far other than adding the store in. They just went free to play, were still waiting on the enhancements that are yet to come. I am still waiting to see new content thats worth anything.
enhancement isn't only content, bringing new subscribers is an enhancement too, some of them will leave after some months, but some may stay.
fan of SWG, XCOM, Defiance, Global Agenda, Need For Speed, all Star Wars single player games. And waiting the darn STAR CITIZEN
Why do you guys get so upset when a game does well? If you don't like lotro or it's payment model just play something else. The game you play can't be that Low In subs for you to rip into every game that does well.
(1) They missed the boat. LotRO beat 'em to it. I think people, like myself who would have tried either one, will probably stick with LotRO for a while, at least until Guild Wars 2 gets here.
(2) Vanguard still requires a gaming rig. LotRO plays better on my crappy laptop than Runescape. That's a pretty user-friendly game .
My post here got deleted? I played LOTRO since beta and had some good points. Now I feel I wasted my time even posting all of that. I didnt blast the game or dev's at all. Why then did it get deleted?
Great game i enjoyed the graphics using directx10, really amazing.
i am warden in game and sometimes make me confuse a quantity of skills i own.
Im grats for games like lotro comes to f2p no doubt the best mmorpg i ever played including wow offcourse. xd
this game is rich in contents and have a vast world to explore the environment is very realistic with directx10 i have so much to do in the game sometimes i find m confuse about what i will do next whatever its all so simple to do.
its free up to lvl 20. after that if you want the quests, deeds, etc outside the starter areas you have to open the wallet, or you have to roll an alt and do the starter area deeds again for more tp. the upper crafting tiers have to be unlocked also either through quests that attached to the zone or through the cash shop.
for a new player its not a big deal because they haven't invested any money yet. but for the returning older players its pretty insulting, since they paid turbine a fair chunk of money in the past and now are being treated not much differently than a brand new f2p player. there are alot of unhappy returning players on the lotro forums.
of course you can always sub for $15 a month but then its not really f2p (microtransaction) anymore. its p2p. and you probably decided a while back its not worth a monthly sub anymore, and if thats the case it still isn't worth a monthly sub because it hasn't really changed in the gameplay department. its still a mindless grindfest.
I'm not gonna rain on their parade much but a 20% increase of former players isn't exactly a alot considering the population was extremely low prior to f2p conversion. What, they had maybe 200k -250k people left playing before f2p ? Turbine has done better profit wise but lets not praise the f2p model as the savior to the game. It still is an average game at best. The game is nothing more than a walk-in shopping mall and nothing more.
I don't get it when people keep throwing random numbers and even still call them low numbers?
200k would be an excelent number for an idependent MMO. LOTRO was rummored to have around 500k paying subs around the world before being bought by WB.
World of Warcraft was phenomenon. No other MMO will, in their lifetime achieve 10 million + subscriptions.
Any MMO above 100k subs is a successful one. Thats enough money flow in to keep the servers up and stable, run Q&A, run Customer Service and have money to spare for a dev team and future develpment.
OF course the population is going to expand when the game has been made F2P.
As for the cash shop number of "53%", remember they're counting all people buying from the shop, including those only spending their "free" points via quests, deeds, loyalty program, etc.
When a game is F2P, anyone who makes an account and logs in, looks around, spend 10 TP in the cash shop ( see, NOW you know why that quest is there LOL ), then leaves is a "customer", so having "1 million new customers" is no different than having "1 million registered players" as other F2P games announce all the time.
This "announcement" is rubbish, nothing of worth outside of hyperbole and doublespeak.
They also said they had an increase in subs and that revenues doubled. Everyone seems to be focusing on those other stats like they are smoke and mirrors. Will it last? . . who knows. . but it is not just lifers using their free points. . how could revenue double when no one has to pay a sub. . . if no one is paying/using the store?
Easy: they don't give numbers.
"Increase in subs ..." and revenues "doubled".
Increase: how much ? revenues doubled compared to what and how much?
Same tric they did with the DDO game : going "percentages" without any hard figures. Not a single hard number.
Their PR is apparently as cheap as their free to play model.
I completely agree, Turbine data is not clear at best. If they were having a big success they would have put solid figures to show it.
I was thinking, and I think in mmos there should be the figure of effective subscribers. That would be the equivalent number of constant $15 dollars/month that a mmo is getting. In that way, there would be a fari comparison. Anyway, I just dreaming since most mmos don't release their numbers.
The funny thing is that in a f2p success advertisement should be minimal since people can play it for free anyway.
Comments
I just play... If i come across a quest hub i want to do I purchase it.
If i find a class interesting I buy it. If I want to level higher i buy expansions.
If the gold cap and AH restrictions bother me ill lift them.
same goes for anything else.
I don't feel trapped in Paying for lotro over the years i've paid for games that I hardly invested in.
In this game i pay as i go, at my own speed.
I don't care that i can't get a 100% free experience because I expected to shell out cash sooner or later if i stuck it out.
Some say a subscription is the better deal. But is it? I play very little, so little infact that im still not up to the first quest pack i purchased.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
+1!
I see in my crystal ball ( very near future ) bankrupty
Curious how they always speak in terms of % ...Same propaganda was used when DDO went "free".
It's all % and nothing about exact figures. . 300% increase of 1 is 3.
And those % won't save Lotro, nor did it any good for DDO (game sank again in Xfire ranks after 6 months).
Curious how some think a game got better when a fixed subscription fee is replaced with micro tansactions.
The payment system doesn't change the game play. Never will.
"Oh, My bag shows I have 2 Gold ... I need to pay to have my new limit set to 5 Gold."
Money scams.
OF course the population is going to expand when the game has been made F2P.
As for the cash shop number of "53%", remember they're counting all people buying from the shop, including those only spending their "free" points via quests, deeds, loyalty program, etc.
When a game is F2P, anyone who makes an account and logs in, looks around, spend 10 TP in the cash shop ( see, NOW you know why that quest is there LOL ), then leaves is a "customer", so having "1 million new customers" is no different than having "1 million registered players" as other F2P games announce all the time.
This "announcement" is rubbish, nothing of worth outside of hyperbole and doublespeak.
-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.-
It's amazing that a game releases good news, but yet the naysayers are still predicting doom. I think it was the right choice, and after a few bugs were fixed after the launch of F2P, I'm really enjoying it. A lot of people seem to be enjoying it. Kudos to Turbine.
DDO has been doing very well since the change and continues to do so. Far too many people base things off of Xfire and there are lots of people that don't use xfire at all. I know I don't. Even if you go by Xfire number DDO sits 18-20th depending on when you check on a list that has hundreds of games listed. Ya that is just plain terrible!!
I could see how it would be considered a scam if it wasn't for the fact you could just pay a monthly sub like every other game and not deal with such things all while you gain turbine points which you could then unsub later and use your built up points from both subscribing and in game to unlock everything you want and play 100% free from then on. Man such a scam!!
It also helps that they have a good game to begin with.
They also said they had an increase in subs and that revenues doubled. Everyone seems to be focusing on those other stats like they are smoke and mirrors. Will it last? . . who knows. . but it is not just lifers using their free points. . how could revenue double when no one has to pay a sub. . . if no one is paying/using the store?
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
Well Codemasters obviously dont want any part in free to play and all the money it can make them . If they dont want the game why dont they come to some deal with Turbine to take it over and stop maintaining such an obvious pretence .
Sooner the EU servers get merged with the NA ones the better under Turbines banner because theres going to be a steady decline of players on the Europen side now .
Soon it ll only be the lifers left .
Easy: they don't give numbers.
"Increase in subs ..." and revenues "doubled".
Increase: how much ? revenues doubled compared to what and how much?
Same tric they did with the DDO game : going "percentages" without any hard figures. Not a single hard number.
Their PR is apparently as cheap as their free to play model.
I'm not gonna rain on their parade much but a 20% increase of former players isn't exactly a alot considering the population was extremely low prior to f2p conversion. What, they had maybe 200k -250k people left playing before f2p ? Turbine has done better profit wise but lets not praise the f2p model as the savior to the game. It still is an average game at best. The game is nothing more than a walk-in shopping mall and nothing more.
Maybe this is a good model for Vanguard.
enhancement isn't only content, bringing new subscribers is an enhancement too, some of them will leave after some months, but some may stay.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
(1) They missed the boat. LotRO beat 'em to it. I think people, like myself who would have tried either one, will probably stick with LotRO for a while, at least until Guild Wars 2 gets here.
(2) Vanguard still requires a gaming rig. LotRO plays better on my crappy laptop than Runescape. That's a pretty user-friendly game .
My post here got deleted? I played LOTRO since beta and had some good points. Now I feel I wasted my time even posting all of that. I didnt blast the game or dev's at all. Why then did it get deleted?
If Sony could figure out how to do it I think it would help Vanguard a lot.
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
Great game i enjoyed the graphics using directx10, really amazing.
i am warden in game and sometimes make me confuse a quantity of skills i own.
Im grats for games like lotro comes to f2p no doubt the best mmorpg i ever played including wow offcourse. xd
this game is rich in contents and have a vast world to explore the environment is very realistic with directx10 i have so much to do in the game sometimes i find m confuse about what i will do next whatever its all so simple to do.
how many people would WoW have if it went free to play?
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
SOE would screw it up just like they did EQ2.
its free up to lvl 20. after that if you want the quests, deeds, etc outside the starter areas you have to open the wallet, or you have to roll an alt and do the starter area deeds again for more tp. the upper crafting tiers have to be unlocked also either through quests that attached to the zone or through the cash shop.
for a new player its not a big deal because they haven't invested any money yet. but for the returning older players its pretty insulting, since they paid turbine a fair chunk of money in the past and now are being treated not much differently than a brand new f2p player. there are alot of unhappy returning players on the lotro forums.
of course you can always sub for $15 a month but then its not really f2p (microtransaction) anymore. its p2p. and you probably decided a while back its not worth a monthly sub anymore, and if thats the case it still isn't worth a monthly sub because it hasn't really changed in the gameplay department. its still a mindless grindfest.
http://hardballgaming.blogspot.com/
Whatever format this game goes, the combat still puts me to sleep. I didn't leave for cash issues.
I don't get it when people keep throwing random numbers and even still call them low numbers?
200k would be an excelent number for an idependent MMO. LOTRO was rummored to have around 500k paying subs around the world before being bought by WB.
World of Warcraft was phenomenon. No other MMO will, in their lifetime achieve 10 million + subscriptions.
Any MMO above 100k subs is a successful one. Thats enough money flow in to keep the servers up and stable, run Q&A, run Customer Service and have money to spare for a dev team and future develpment.
As for the quotee. Play the game, loose the hate.
I completely agree, Turbine data is not clear at best. If they were having a big success they would have put solid figures to show it.
I was thinking, and I think in mmos there should be the figure of effective subscribers. That would be the equivalent number of constant $15 dollars/month that a mmo is getting. In that way, there would be a fari comparison. Anyway, I just dreaming since most mmos don't release their numbers.
The funny thing is that in a f2p success advertisement should be minimal since people can play it for free anyway.