Re: LOTRO Goes Free to Play : Sept 10 (Sept 8 for Cool Kids)

[Sjofn]

EQ2 is alive and well and probably the best game most people never gave a second chance.  It's really positioned somewhere halfway between WoW and LOTRO.  Its combat and adventuring leans a little more towards WoW, while its crafting and social options (housing, appearance, economy, etc) are better than LOTRO's and far better than WoW's.  I forget what Blood's excuse for dismissing it is, but it's laughably ignorant for someone who should know better.  If you're looking for a diku-style fantasy game where there are far more things to do than you have time for, solo, grouped, raid or PvP, then you should at least check it out.  It's not for everyone (nothing is) but it has a vast amount of very well-polished content that's actually fun to experience multiple times. 

Perhaps I'll give it another whirl during my inevitable pre-expansion lull in WoW, then. It may have reached that "overwhelming for someone who hasn't played it" point for me, but there ain't no harm in seeing if it's a decent vacation spot!

[Stabs]

A separate source has similar numbers, this one based on xfire statistics.

http://simple-n-complex.blogspot.com/2010/05/gaming-xfire-latest-update.html

While you may dislike Sir Bruce for pulling numbers out of his arse upthread you can read comments like Lotro is second after WoW.

[Sheepherder]

Is the data discredited? A citation would be preferable to a troll.

How about the thread where F13 debates whether they should lift the ban on him?

[Stabs]

Yup, thanks I spotted a similar thread.

I think it's at least to say that the comment above, similarly pulled out of someone's arse, that Lotro is second only to WoW in the west is almost certainly wrong.

Two games in the west are open about their numbers: Eve and WoW. That would seem to suggest there's a strong correlation between the willingness to admit your numbers with the fact of those numbers being large.

[Sheepherder]

Yup, thanks I spotted a similar thread.

This is not surprising.

More to the point: often his numbers take whatever shitty press releases that the usual suspects put out, then makes up the rest to get a statistic.

[HaemishM]

Anyway, I have my feelings on it, you guys have yours. Guess the only thing left to do is wait and see. But I will consider myself right if a subscriber ever needs or even really wants to spend money in the store.

I bolded the insane part. You are pretty much setting your expectations to be right as absolutely inevitable. Of course people will WANT to spend money on stuff, even if they are a subscriber. If there wasn't anything anybody wanted in the store, what would be the point of the store in the first place? It wouldn't make any money if everything in there was shit that no one wanted.

If you don't want to spend money, that's fine, no one is making you and you could still play the game without spending money. If the fact that someone somewhere pays a sub fee AND wants to spend extra money on MT store stuff, and that combination makes the game unplayable for you, I have to ask why you've played any MMOG's since UO? After all, someone has been ebaying shit of all kinds since UO - this just removes that market by giving the money to the developer. Yes, there are situations where that has been taken advantage of, a la Allods. But the mere presence of MT driving you to quit means you'll likely not be playing many future MMOG's.

[Mrbloodworth]

I forget what Blood's excuse for dismissing it is, but it's laughably ignorant for someone who should know better.

Everything else is miles behind in terms of development, implementation, content, and polish.

And I never said others games were simply bad, eq2 is a fine game, but really, its lagged so far behind with its engine capabilities (stencil shadows finally don't suck all but 5 FPS out) that I stand by my assessment.

Back on topic, If your a lifer, its good to be a lifer:

In addition to all the exciting VIP benefits you can receive 500 free Turbine Points to use in LOTRO Free-to-Play for each LOTRO anniversary (April 24) that has elapsed since you first joined LOTRO, up to a maximum of 1,500 Turbine Points.

Plus, as a LOTRO Lifetime Member, you are entitled to an exclusive offer of 1,000 additional Turbine Points as our way of saying thank you. These points will be credited to your account once LOTRO F2P is live.

[Azazel]

With the removal of rest XP, you can be sure XP potions are going to be in the store.

But I do like your list.

"Subscribers" etc still get rested xp, automatically. Bot, of course xp potions will be in the store.

[Nebu]

If this is anything like what happened to DDO, prepare for the general chat channels to be filled with more stupid than ever before. 

I think that lifetime subscribers should have their own server that is insulated from the brand of stupid you're about to witness when this goes live. 

[Stabs]

The reaction in the DDO community last September was a mixed bag.

A lot of vets really enjoyed having all the new people. There was a real buzz around the low level areas and a great many vets got heavily involved in educating the new people. And inevitably some got frustrated trying to teach, they hadn't expected clueless people to assert wrong information aggressively.

The majority of new people that I've played with (and I've played on all 7 US servers) are sensible mature and friendly. Of course the bad ones stand out, particularly in a harsh game like DDO. What's more even with sensible new people the skill and gear level is a lot lower resulting in much less effective characters. Veterans have complained that instances they used to pug reliably on elite they now wipe in on normal difficulty.

That's partly because the community was tiny and very alt-prone. Before F2P a random level 8 you pug with is probably the twinked alt of a veteran raider. Quantum leaps ahead of genuinely new people because DDO offers so much scope to min/max.

Overall I think the number of DDO players genuinely unhappy at the way the game has changed is small. That's partly because elite cliques of veterans can still play together occasionally admiting the cream of the new crop to their number, partly because it's a pretty generous community that loves teaching and explaining what before F2P had been viewed as outsiders as a particularly wierd hobby.

I do think though that there were aspects of DDO that made it more painless than Lotro's transition will be.

[Modern Angel]

I don't get the freaking out over quality of player. The huge, vast majority are retards NOW. People will show up, cram the noob areas and peter out by level 30. I don't think anything is going to fundamentally change except in the super noob zones and they're mostly crammed with idiots already.

[Azazel]

Anyway, I have my feelings on it, you guys have yours. Guess the only thing left to do is wait and see. But I will consider myself right if a subscriber ever needs or even really wants to spend money in the store.

I'm a (recent) lifer. By the time MT opens, I'll have 3500 Turbine points to spend at minimum. If they offer any kind of additional bank/shared bank space, I'll really want to spend money in the store.

Well, if by "money", you mean TPs. I won't be opening the wallet for any extras, though.

[Azazel]

If this is anything like what happened to DDO, prepare for the general chat channels to be filled with more stupid than ever before. 

I think that lifetime subscribers should have their own server that is insulated from the brand of stupid you're about to witness when this goes live. 

I played EQ and then WoW for years. I'm pretty experienced in ignoring 95% of the people I meet, and creatively telling 4% of the others to fuck off.

[Mrbloodworth]

With the removal of rest XP, you can be sure XP potions are going to be in the store.

But I do like your list.

"Subscribers" etc still get rested xp, automatically. Bot, of course xp potions will be in the store.

Yeah, quite sure the individual parts of the destiny point system, and the adventure pack will be in.



Monster play is the line item that strikes me most odd.

[Stabs]

Monster play is the line item that strikes me most odd.

Possibly it's not in the basic package because they intend to put it in the shop.

This may be using compliance psychology techniques. If it were free people wouldn't value it. Offeriing it in the store for 250 TP makes it cheap enough to  be worth getting but people will value it more because they paid for it.

And of course if they want to boost PvM numbers they can offer 50% off for this weekend only which invokes yet more compliance techniques.

(As an aside on the recommendation of Raph Koster I read Cialdini on Influence, an undercover psychology professor investigating selling and other compliance professions. Very useful to help understand these methods and understanding is the best defence against them).

[tazelbain]

Hopefully because they are going to redo it.

[Azazel]

The only thing about EQ2 that I remember is that it looked like total shit and needed a computer that did not exist yet to run properly.

That. Plus I found it boring, and you could die from tradeskilling. (I'm pretty sure that they changed that last part)

[Nebu]

Wow wasn't a great game at release, but it got better quickly.  EQ2 also wasn't a great game at release, but it did get better (albeit slowly).   Both of those games are easily as good or better than lotro in many ways.  It's a matter of taste and which world you prefer to dabble in. 

[Azazel]

Actually, WoW was a great game at release. It had and still has lots of problems, sure. And while I'm not playing it currently, I'd still call it the best of the MMOs.

EQ2, OTOH, to me at least, was shit. I think I lasted for about 4-5 days of my 10-day trial. And like I said, I played EQ1 for years before those two came out.

YMMV, etc.

[Simond]

When did you play it, out of interest?

[Lantyssa]

If you haven't played it since the revamp, EQ2 now isn't the same as what you played then.  Still not my bag, but it's not a bad game now.

[Mrbloodworth]

Wow wasn't a great game at release, but it got better quickly.  EQ2 also wasn't a great game at release, but it did get better (albeit slowly).   Both of those games are easily as good or better than lotro in many ways.  It's a matter of taste and which world you prefer to dabble in.  

My point deduction had little to do with opinion, its mostly about install issues, engine features, and polish of those features as far as eq2 goes. EQ2 is a fine game, but it looses many points due to mostly technical issues, I said if you want the best mmo experiences, this includes not having to dick around with graphic settings to get a decent frame rate for 30 min. A large chunk of development has had o go into the base rendering engine over the years.

But, not to be confused, I have the shiny EQ2 collectors edition tin, and i love the style, and techniques they used to make this title, its engine just has had issues for YEARS now. I'm sure that's better now. Does it use the GPU now?

[Falconeer]

EQ2 has such a neat install system now. You sign up and start playing in 20 minutes.

[Mrbloodworth]

LOTRO does the same thing.

Unrelated:

As I’m sure many of you read this morning, Turbine has announced that The Lord of the Rings Online will be going Free to Play. The F2P re-launch of LOTRO is set for this Fall in both North America and Europe (Codemasters will run the European version), and a beta test phase is set to begin in a little over a week on June 16th. Naturally, many of you have tons of questions about the dramatic shift, and we got a chance to catch up with Turbine’s Executive Director of Communications Adam Mersky as well as LOTRO Executive Producer (formerly Senior Producer on DDO) Kate Paiz to get you some answers.

I asked Kate about what went into making this decision for LOTRO, and she responded that one major factor was the runaway success of the re-launch of Dungeons & Dragons Online, which resulted in “a significant uplift In player participation, in interested in the title, and in activity community participation.” Turbine looked at that and basically decided that it was really a no brainer for LOTRO given all the aforementioned benefits, and of course, this change results in making the game much more accessible to many more players.
 advertisement

While there were a lot of obvious benefits in making the switch, the logistics of it didn’t involve a simple cut-and-paste job. The Lord of the Rings Online is an entirely different beast than Dungeons & Dragons Online, consisting of a more traditional MMO experience, and breaking that up into smaller pieces fitting a Free to Play model resulted in a few differences in execution. For example, LOTRO doesn’t make use of the same content model as DDO, instead it has a completely open world with your typical bread and butter quests, dungeons, and instances, and so in LOTRO players will have full unfettered access to the entire open world, but the limited access comes into play with certain quest givers. The entirety of Bree-land, Ered Luin, and the Shire will be fully accessible by F2P players, as will any of the main story content even beyond these regions, however,  quest givers featuring quests peripheral to the main storyline will require a purchasable unlock as players progress through the game’s later areas, starting around level 20-25, beginning with the Lone-lands. The locked quest givers will be denoted with a lock icon above their heads, and players can unlock them by simply talking to them and being given the option to purchase the content right then and there. It’s important to note that players won’t have to unlock an individual quest giver, though, as making a purchase unlocks all locked quest givers for that particular region. Free players won’t be hurting for things to do, however, as Kate estimates the entirely free content amounts to around 300 hours of gameplay.

Turbine learned a lot from DDO’s re-launch as well, and they’ll be carrying their experience over to LOTRO. Like DDO, the LOTRO Store will only offer items of convenience, no one will be “paying to win” when LOTRO re-launches as a F2P game.  Generally, the only time you will really see gear available in the LOTRO Store will be as “Starter Packs” which give new players a little bit of a leg up in the very early parts of the game.

Also like DDO, players who are current subscribers will not see much of a change in the way things are now, they’ll have access to all the content they have now, and enjoy some additional benefits such as shared storage, 20 cosmetic wardrobe slots, as well as a 500 Turbine Point stipend every month. Lifetime subscribers are just the same, they simply won’t have to pay for their continued VIP access.  Current subscribers have the added bonus of being able to earn their 500 Turbine points beginning now, giving them a little bit of stockpile when the game switches over in the Fall. Though, those of you who play both DDO and LOTRO might be disappointed to find out that Turbine Points purchased for the DDO Store will not be valid in the LOTRO Store and vice-versa, they are entirely separate.

Development of the game will continue generally as it has been now, with larger updates featuring a new region and perhaps a level cap bump, as well as smaller updates, however Kate emphasized that the change to the Free to Play model would enable Turbine to put out these smaller updates much faster than they used to. Looking ahead, Kate let us know that the team is interested in exploring Eisengard and continuing the Saruman storyline there.

Finally, we wanted to know what the recent acquisition of Turbine by Warner Bros. would mean for Turbine and their players, and Adam Mersky explained that they’ve been working with Warner Bros. on this deal for awhile now, and Warner Bros. has previously mentioned some of the strategic reasons they were interested in Turbine, such as leveraging tech made for Turbine’s  Free to Play business model. However, as Adam also points out, the decision made sense for Warner Bros. due to the success of Turbine’s games as well. More specifically, Adam explained that the “success of DDO is unquestioned, it’s changed everything as far as this business, the type of game, the way we do content now, it’s a total turn around success story that is continuing to grow.”  Turbine (and Warner Bros.) feel that what Turbine is doing is the future of online gaming, though Adam cautions this doesn’t necessarily mean Turbine’s specific model, but the idea of offering players additional options in how they access your game, and this puts Turbine (and now Warner) at the forefront.

Source

Also:

MT: That's right, Dungeons & Dragons Online right now is about eight percent of the market, LOTRO  is number eight in the marketplace with five percent. Combined, thirteen percent of MMO gamers are playing Turbine games. That positions Warner Bros. right away in MMOs, and that's clearly a direction we're headed in the future.

Interisting interview with Warner Interactive President Martin Tremblay, and Turbine CEO Jim Crowley

[Signe]

I did the EQ2 trial and looked at the new Halas stuff and it just sort of seems like not much is different.  I still play a little but mostly because I can't find much I want to play.  I might give LOTRO another go now that it's a freebie, but it's another one that sort of makes me sleepy.  Maybe it'll feel nicer if I'm not paying for it.

[Nebu]

Maybe it'll feel nicer if I'm not paying for it.

Sadly, it won't.  Lotro has become like CoH for me.  It's a lovely world and a fun departure, but every time I go back, I stay for a shorter length.  Lotro is a beautifully crafted world, but just lacks the gaming "POP" and excitement that WoW has.  It's just there... in front of you providing no real excitement or incentive to explore. 

[HaemishM]

LOTRO does the same thing.

Unrelated:

The entirety of Bree-land, Ered Luin, and the Shire will be fully accessible by F2P players, as will any of the main story content even beyond these regions, however,  quest givers featuring quests peripheral to the main storyline will require a purchasable unlock as players progress through the game’s later areas, starting around level 20-25, beginning with the Lone-lands. The locked quest givers will be denoted with a lock icon above their heads, and players can unlock them by simply talking to them and being given the option to purchase the content right then and there. It’s important to note that players won’t have to unlock an individual quest giver, though, as making a purchase unlocks all locked quest givers for that particular region.

That... concerns me a little bit. It's the kind of thing I'd probably have to see in action as to whether it will totally piss me off or not. It may not even affect my character.

[Mrbloodworth]

LOTRO does the same thing.

Unrelated:

The entirety of Bree-land, Ered Luin, and the Shire will be fully accessible by F2P players, as will any of the main story content even beyond these regions, however,  quest givers featuring quests peripheral to the main storyline will require a purchasable unlock as players progress through the game’s later areas, starting around level 20-25, beginning with the Lone-lands. The locked quest givers will be denoted with a lock icon above their heads, and players can unlock them by simply talking to them and being given the option to purchase the content right then and there. It’s important to note that players won’t have to unlock an individual quest giver, though, as making a purchase unlocks all locked quest givers for that particular region.

That... concerns me a little bit. It's the kind of thing I'd probably have to see in action as to whether it will totally piss me off or not. It may not even affect my character.

If you have a sub, no. If you are a free player, I take it to mean you can talk to the npc, and if you haven't unlocked it, pay turbine points right then (for the region), and carry on (Ala free realms?).

[tmp]

The locked quest givers will be denoted with a lock icon above their heads, and players can unlock them by simply talking to them and being given the option to purchase the content right then and there. It’s important to note that players won’t have to unlock an individual quest giver, though, as making a purchase unlocks all locked quest givers for that particular region.

That... concerns me a little bit. It's the kind of thing I'd probably have to see in action as to whether it will totally piss me off or not. It may not even affect my character.

It is pretty much what Dragon Age does with its DLC, just upgraded to MMO scale. For what it's worth, the DA implementation did piss people off somewhat fierce. Though it's not very hard to ignore if you have the quest giver icons turned off, the characters just blend in the game background then.

[Mrbloodworth]

With they way they have zones stitched together, its better than a big wall with a ticket taker :)

[Xanthippe]

Maybe it'll feel nicer if I'm not paying for it.

Sadly, it won't.  Lotro has become like CoH for me.  It's a lovely world and a fun departure, but every time I go back, I stay for a shorter length.  Lotro is a beautifully crafted world, but just lacks the gaming "POP" and excitement that WoW has.  It's just there... in front of you providing no real excitement or incentive to explore. 

Why does LOTRO feel so flat?  It's pretty but it's like being in a painting rather than being in a world.

[pxib]

I can think of a few things. First, the scale is of individual features is too realistic for the shrunken world they inhabit. WoW uses all sorts of perspective tricks to block views at regular intervals and maintain mystery with steep cliffs and giant trees. At several places in LotRO you can climb up high and pretty much see the entire world laid out around you. You can see Weathertop and the Shire from high points in Bree. That Bree is visibly, realistically town sized means that all the other distances look tiny in comparison.

Second, there's no unifying theme to most quest hubs. The tasks you're assigned are usually a chaotic mix of random, largely unrealted crap. Even when quests are strung together into storylines, those stories take bizzare turns for arbitrary reasons in order to get you to kill some other random sort of enemy or explore some other corner of the zone. It doesn't hang together and inspire a sense of purpose the way that most of WoW's zones and quest lines do. Who are you helping? Who are you fighting? Why should you care?

Third, combat speed never really accellerates to the point of easy one-hit kills. Fighting greens is less risky than fighting oranges, but not less annoying... so going back and exploring areas remains a tedious and frustrating aggro soup. Then the huge piles of crafting materials that enemies drop make inventory management a chore. It's easy to throw away vendor trash, but is that gizzard that's marked as a rare valuable on the auction house?

[Modern Angel]

See, I'm the opposite. I went back and checked out WoW after maybe four months away and it was awful. Not that any MMO's mechanics are setting the world on fire but coming back to two shot mobs, not read quest text, finding the quests completely nonsensical in a stupid world if I DID read them and having everything stripped away but the eyes on the prize grind to max level was mindnumbing. It was as brainless an experience as I've had in an MMO and that's saying something. For all that I like the physical architecture of the world and its accessibility I don't feel that a lot of stuff about WoW has aged well. I felt the exact same way I do when I log into Guild Wars.

Meantime, I almost universally love LOTRO's classes (except for the Runekeeper; fuck you Runekeeper) and mechanics. God help me, sometimes mob pulls are actually somewhat of a challenge with a chance of dying. None of which is to say that I'm passing on Cataclysm, since a world I spent far more time in for six years than is healthy is worth seeing with the revamp. I'm just not certain if it's a game for me long term anymore.

[Mrbloodworth]

Modern Angel said what I would have said.

I love, LOVE the fact that if I can see it, its really there and I can get to it. Even seeing weather top from breeland, how is that NOT awesome? As for the whole blocking views and mystery around the bend.... Uh, they have that in spades.

[Stormwaltz]

So after several days of reading and thinking, I'm thinking that:

• Lifers like me are going to walk in with a crapload of points.
• We're going to keep getting more each month.
• We won't have anything to spend them on, since we start with everything unlocked (including 20 cosmetic slots, a feature I would have cheerfully thrown $20-30 at).

So by the time Turbine puts out another expansion, we're going to have an obscene amount of unspent points, which we'll use to buy the expansion. Which means... Turbine will be making even less money off lifers than they were before.

Am I reading this wrong?