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Lord of the Rings Online: Free to Play Interview
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Now that it's free I might play it again. But will I be able to play with my original characters?
wonder what those 500 tokens (Tolkiens?) that i'll be getting each month for being a lifer/founder... (flounder?) buy me from their awesome new turbine store... oh, let it be a warner brothers' porky pig,"that's all folks!" cape.
Maybe I am misreading the article or maybe I'm just stupid, but if you are a subscriber (i.e., VIP), nothing changes, right? You still have access to everything you had before, plus you get the points to spend on fluff too, right?
So... if you are subscribing now, and you continue to subscribe, there's no change. If you stop subscribing, you have to pay for the content that subscribers get as part of their fee.
If that's correct, what's all the crying about in this thread? Just keep doing what you are doing now, and the only change is more people to group with and we get faster updates. Where exactly is the downside? I'm not seeing it.
You are correct.
And why are people crying?
Because that is what people do on the internet...
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
As a lifer it doesn't look like a bad change to me. I'm not upset by this news at all, hell it might even breath some new life into LOTRO. The only bad thing I see happening is all the assholes that play WoW will now come over. At least there's no PvP so maybe they wont all come.
Alot of these same complaints were expressed when DDO went free to play. Yes there are the occasional douche bags in gereral chat but guess what you find that in any game including pay to play games. DDO didnt have as many because there wasn't anyone playing. People complain "Well now I have to pay for such and such" Guess what if you were not paying a monthly fee you could not even log onto the damn game. If you pay your monthly fee absolutely NOTHING will change except more people to group with and the occasional jack ass in chat to squelch.Now if you want to not pay for 3 months you can still log on and chat with your friends and level a lowbie for FREE. This is not the end of the world believe me I felt the same way about DDO and immediately quit. This simply brings more exposure to the game and believe it or not more revenue for more and quicker content. Even if the new person only spends 10 bucks that is 10 bucks towards development and employees they did not have before. The Froobs will play for a week or two not like the game and move on no harm done. People will gripe, piss and moan, but believe me it's not as catastrophic as it seems. How many long time players PUG anyway, so that aspect won't really affect you. I thnk alot of you need to just step back realize nothing will change if you keep paying and you still can play certain areas even if you dont pay and see what happens.
That's kinda how I read it.. Best I can tell, the biggest difference that the life subs and such will see is.. more people on the servers, which means more money for Turbine, which means a longer service life and more updates for LotRO.. Considering the fairly small pop, kinda get the feel that this was more of a "we make the switch to f2p, or set a go dead date for the servers".
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." - Henry Ford
I don't really care, since even though I have a lifetime sub, I haven't played it since SoM came out. I might actually play it again, since with the new people coming in, not everyone will be so stuck up.
On the other hand, the whole basis of "free to play" games is to squeeze as much money as possible from players. I mean, that's how it works. It doesn't try to get $5 from people who only play a little (though they don't mind that), it works by getting tens, hundreds, even thousands of dollars from the hard core players who live for the game.
That's why it's so profitable.
So my concern is that all new content is going to be aimed for the heavy spending types. I already struggle with much of the content in LOTRO, I really hope it's not worse. Even though I have a lifetime sub and should get 500 free points a month, at the same time, in every F2P game, you generally have to spend $30 or so to stay even with the content (in terms of power up and xp potions/liceneses whatever)
Yeah, they might say they aren't Pay to Win. But does any game actually say that? They can't help but not be, as that's the very basis of the free to play model. Anyone who says otherwise is naive.
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
Everything existing players have they will keep. plus they'll get more fluff and points to buy it. For the f2p it will just be an extended trial to lvl50 without much of the quests.
Note that you wont be able to raid if you dont pay monthly. Premiums only get '1 or 2' traits in each category. No raid will let you join with 1 legendary kill slot. With 5g max gold you cant buy crafted jewelery (a must for endame these days) or good legendary weapons. So even if you buy the xpacs but not the VIP sub you dont raid. So endgame doesnt change at all.
Only VIPs can pvp so pvp doesnt change at all.
Added together all these things are very positive for the game whether you are an existing player or the f2p crowd. All these people rage quitting over this aren't thinking straight. The model seems to be very well thought out.
What happens to the ppl like myself who are canceled atm who have alot more than 5g? I mean does that gold get deleted or locked away or what exactly?
Come on Mike, you should know better by now. Can't expect people to actually read articles to get a clue what theyre talking about, its always just "OMG F2P! RAAAAAAAWR NERD RAGE" and assumptions that every F2P game is exactly the same and sells the exact same things in the cash shop, even though its proven time and time again how different some models are in various games. Ignorance at it's finest
I like Curt, and I think he might put out a good game, but until he shows how he's planning to gouge his customers, he should keep his mouth shut on this issue. It is unfair to criticize others when you're not really in the business yet.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Curt is a gamer and a huge mmorger well before his company.I think he will do what he says he will do because the fact is he loves this genre as much as us players do unlike alot of the execs who are nothing but suits and could care less about the actual game.
Everything about the game changes. All of a sudden there is an ingame store selling XP pots, Stat pots, Loot boosters, Res pots, Food buffs etc, etc, etc.
So imagine the scenario, you're invited to a raid and the leader asks 'Has everyone got the Ubber l33t healing pot ?'. 'No' you reply, 'you can only get them on the ingame store and I've used up my 500 points'. 'Oh well, maybe next time' you hear, as they kick you from the group.
So yeah, this game will change fundamentally. Now it's one thing to have no problem with these changes, thats ok. But for anyone to suggest the game will be exactly the same as it is now is just plain silly imho. You cannot tell me that the games company will be able to resist tweaking standard XP gain down in order to sell a few more XP pots for example!
I already had Blizzard and Cryptic to point to when asked for an example of corporate greed in this industry. Now I have another option.
Devs won't re-discover integrity without the industry taking a serious downturn. I think a lot of players are getting very sick of the greed, dishonesty, and incompetence.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Not all of them. Some mock people who express legitimate concerns.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Puh leeze. People will always find a way to be elitist. "You got your Rad gear? No. Fuck off then." Windmills are that way Mr Quixote
Thank god! If only that were true. But don't kid yourself. Raiding at "end-game" (I hate that phrase) is what drives players to speed to max level. The content of the game is between level 1 and max-level, NOT raiding at max-level and earning trinkets to dress up your paper-doll.
But I agree with you that the quality of people playing as a whole will go down since any schmuck can play it.
I am absolutely digusted that they never warned us of this and that lifetime subs aren't granted something extra - especially the group of us that have paid for a lifetime sub within the last year. Honestly - had I gotten my lifetime sub 2 years ago, I wouldn't feel so cheated as I'll have 'made my money' in terms of not paying for a regular sub. I had paid the upfront money knowing I would continue playing the game for the next year and a half based on how the game has been being delveloped. Had I known that this was bound to happen there is absolutely NO CHANCE I would have gotten a life time sub.
I wish the interviewer would have had the foresight to ask about the more pressing question of how the game will change. Anyone that has played both F2P and P2P models know that their is a very large difference between the two communities. LOTRO chat moderation is already absolutely pathetic - and now we'll be filled with all kinds of spam. There are so many fundamental changes that happen when a game changes models.
In short: Absolutely ridiculous.
It's the internet. People love getting their panties in a twist over things that either (a) don't affect them personally, or (b) are not the OMGDOOOOOOOOOOOOOM tragedies they'd like to believe they are.
As someone who's had a Lifetime sub since launch, I think this is pretty sweet. Nothing changes for me, I get free Turbine points every month, plus a bunch more for being a Founder and a subscriber for over three years. Plus, my sub paid for itself after the first year and I've basically been playing for free for over two years now anyway. As far as I can tell, everything in this deal works out in my favor.
Given the number of past promises Turbine has now broken to their players, I don't really care what they say. Even if hooked up to a lie detector, they are full of it. They have gone from being one of the most open and communicative teams to being every bit as bad as most MMO companies.
PS The trolls need to get a grip; People are unhappy because the LotRO team has basically told their loyal customers to go pound sand. They promised 4 updates a year, with this announcement it will now be ~a full year from the last real update to this next one. The devs have left all the current players ignored and stagnated for months on end while they did prep work for this F2P end run, all the while deliberately witholding information and intentionally deceiving the playerbase.
They *know* this is going to piss off a lot of their current players and just don't care because they think will make more money in the long run from the sheeple who will fall for the F2P gimmick. Any lifers they can drive into emorage quitting at the same time is just bonus bandwidth for them.
If you think that is how a company should do business and treat its customers, then you are a doormat.
I beleive free players cna buy extra trait slots iin each category if they wish to raid after buying the expansion content.
Lotro is dead, sure it's going to be "Free to Pay" whoopie! I think what you soon to be "VIPs" are missing is you will no longer just be paying the monthly fee, you will be nickled and dimed to pay more. This is absolute bullshit, want to play the new class? Nope you gotta pay to unlock first. How about a new series of quests? Get out your credit card cause you have to pay to make those quest locks go away!
They always said they cared about immersion and the lore while how true is that going to be when you see NPCs with locks around their head what toppsie-turvy world do we live in where you actually have to pay to help the NPC out. Just wow, if you don't see it yet you never will but you will feel the burn quickly when you realize VIP isn't immune to the cash shop.
I don't think this model will be a huge success for lotro as DDO it is just completely different models. DDO is like a hub game you jump into areas and play, you can't do that in Lotro.
Well w/e I knew WB would screw up Lotro I was dreading the buyout and now I have the news to prove it. Terrible day indeed....
Sadly true but I think alot of us kinda knew when DDO had such success with there cash shop and how Turbine pretty much stopped doin any updates to LOTRO but continued to pump out the payable content for DDO we knew there buisness model was going to change combine that with being bought out by Time-Warner this isn't the same Turbine we dealt with back in AC1 and when lotro came out.I will check it out when it comes out but I will go play EQ2 in the meantime.
And until a good mmog comes out that says hell no to any form of cash shops I will just mooch off all the f2p games.
This is fine by me since I'm a lifer. At least some of the WoW kiddies who invaded DDO will now be split between DDO and LOTRO so we will only have 1/2 of the ridiculousness to deal with. Though Kate specifically said that they would NOT be doing this for LOTRO when they went f2p with DDO. I am also still waiting for Kate's other DDO promises...Druids, Gnomes, Half-Orcs (finally this fall!), housing (promised to be given after LOTRO got it but we still don't have it, though we're about to get guild airship housing), scroll cases, potion belts, throwing weapon sheathes, etc. I'm glad that I paid for LOTRO already, but I'm pissed that they never offered a lifetime sub. for DDO, so I recently had to drop to f2p and now buy all the content so I won't have to pay a sub. every month for the rest of my life.