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Thinking of Trying but....
lolzor112
Member UncommonPosts: 6
Was wondering how bad the Cash shop is and whether its p2w or cosmetic(buying content isnt that bad)
was also curious about which is the most populated or for lack of better term "newbie friendly" server
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Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
and it's not p2w at all. getting to the end of free content will take you 2-3 weeks at least
the game also allows you to make turbine points as you go with various achievements and events, so if you're thorough enough, you could make enough points to unlock content for the entire game within a few months. it has been done and there are guides on how to do this
it does take helluva patience and a lot of grinding (some achievements require you to kill mobs and the highest I've had to kill was 300 so far)
nevertheless, it's THE best f2p game out there and worth trying for sure
I review lots of indie games and MMORPGs
You can grind 300 tp a day.
Follow this and enjoy.
http://www.squidoo.com/lotro-grind-400-tp
Korrigan's right, it's free up to 30-32, and until then the restrictions won't disturb you much. So it's definitely worth a try.
Cash shop: you can ignore it, beside buying content ofc, but you sad buying content isn't that bad. Store has a lot of fluff (cosmetics, emotes, housing items, etc.), and have some speeding items (buffs for xp, deed accelerators, potions, etc.) Lately Turbine starts to slide into p2w a bit, but you can ignore those as well.
Server: there are former Eu and former US servers, (at the same location, so ping is the same), only difference is the peak hours. Community is great, so newbie-friendliness is not an issue, there are helpful people on every server.
Most populated server is a harder question, most of them has a steady average player count, I don't think you'll have any problems if you pick one fitting for your timezone (former Eu servers has a 6-7 hours gap from US in peak hours). Both side started a new server when f2p launched, and recommended that for the newcomers, and a lot of veterans started alts there too. It was fun to play on a new server, forming kins, etc. Those servers have maybe a bit larger playerbase. (former Eu f2p is Withywhindle, I don't know the US one)
Lotro cash shop is very big. Hundreads of items if not more. See by yourself: (take note: it is not complete, in example this link miss whole Creep/ Ettenmoors part of store which is for PVP in Lotro)
http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/LOTRO_Store
You follow that and you won't enjoy. You should get enough TP from playing normally to buy a quest pack or two without having to grind TP.
Strictly speaking, the game isn't "pay to win", it's more "grind to win". Once you get your legacy items (LIs) you need to level them up, deconstruct, get more, level up, deconstruct, get more, over and over and over again.
With that said, there are things like stat tomes which give your charater stat boosts, and now starlight crystals which add dps to your LIs. In theory they drop in the game, but you likely won't ever see them.
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
Not necessarily, depends on OP's attitude
I heard of guys who are farming diablo3 every weekend for the rmah, and stil not completely crazy (yet 
)
Jokes aside, you're right, very much. If OP follows that, he'll probably hate the whole game in a few days. Not to mention, grinding for a day to earn what, ~3$ ? He can just drop that 3$ in, and actually playing and having fun for that same day...
But since he stated "buying content isnt that bad" I guess he won't need day-long grinding for some TP