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

[Paelos]

I would have probably stuck with WAR for another 3 months to see how things would go after launch if it was F2P. As it stood, when my month was up, I was out the door and never looked back. I heard they fixed a good amount of things, but by then the population wasn't willing to pay for waiting. They lost the community and thus lost any real chance at success.

I'm looking to jump immediately into LOTOR as soon as this goes into effect. In fact, I'm rather excited to give it a whirl and may drop a few bucks on things even if I don't bother playing more than a few months. That's money they would have never seen otherwise.

[Tarami]

F2P is the perpetual first fix for free.

[Paelos]

Exactly, then you offer something with an incredible benefit for a minimal price, like getting extra bag slots for a $1 for new players. That gets their CC on file, gets them over the mental hump of spending real money on the game, and the rest is just gravy.

[HaemishM]

F2P will be sticky in a whole different way. First off, the barrier to entry is close to nil - if your computer will run it and you have the patience to download it, you're in-game within a day or two. You don't feel a compulsion to play it every day to "get your money's worth." And when you run up against a barrier where a microtransaction might help you out, it's easier to get out the wallet than just quit. Even if you don't have the money to buy anything now, you may later and if your progress is still there six months down the line, that's one less barrier to entry. F2P may not have the same recurring revenue, but for a game that's already established and probably on the downswing population-wise, I bet it can squeeze at least another year or two's worth of profitability out of an otherwise dying game.

[Mrbloodworth]

A bunch of LOTRO F2P screen shots.

[Paelos]

So when this thing goes freebie in the fall, what's the order of least > most popular classes in the game right now? Also, which ones have the highest group utility vs. highest soloing utility?

I mean I'll probably end up picking a tank anyway, but it's always good to get a feel for the servers.

[Ingmar]

I'm not sure about the endgame populations but I see a LOT of hunters, champions and wardens at lower levels and very few burglars and loremasters.

[WayAbvPar]

I would definitely say that burglars are the most underrepresented class, at least that I have noticed. There are TONS of hunters.

[Sjofn]

Burglars have some of the most adorable ability names though!

[Tarami]

If you're looking for reasons to play a tank, do it. Guardians are awesome (and rare.) Eventhough there's a DPS trait line for every class, it's hard to "misspec" any class to the point where soloing becomes infeasible.

Burglars have some of the most adorable ability names though!

LotRO has a lot of cool ability names in general. I personally love the rune-keeper abilities, like "Epic Conclusion" (that can be improved with the trait "Closing Remarks") and "Vivid Imagery" (imp. "Perfect Imagery.")

[WayAbvPar]

I can never remember which ability does what, though. The names are cool, but something slightly more descriptive would be a lot more helpful. Especially when I have like 20 of them FFS. I can usually remember by the icon, but I get totally lost when someone is talking about them in a post.

[Soln]

Guardians are rare for a reason.  And it's not a good reason.

Edit:  so locked quests....  are these only for new content (new zones)?  What about if I paid for areas covered under earlier expansions + vanilla original.  Are they going to make me pay for certain ones in the old content?  (I don't mean new quests added to old zones.)

[Mrbloodworth]

Guardians are rare for a reason.  And it's not a good reason.

Edit:  so locked quests....  are these only for new content (new zones)?  What about if I paid for areas covered under earlier expansions + vanilla original.  Are they going to make me pay for certain ones in the old content?  (I don't mean new quests added to old zones.)

#  I purchased the Mines of Moria™ Expansion and/or the Siege of Mirkwood™ Expansion. Can I still access this content? Will I still be able to play my Rune-keeper or Warden characters? What if I unsubscribe?

When LOTRO Free-to-Play becomes available you will still be able to access the content and features of any expansions you have previously purchased. Whether you are a VIP or a Premium player, the content and features of these expansions will be available to you in their entirety.

If you decide not to join the VIP program or decide to downgrade to Premium player status, the content and features of these expansions will still be available to you. You will still be able to play your Rune-keeper and Warden characters as long as they are in character slots you have selected or have unlocked by visiting the LOTRO Store.

http://www.lotro.com/news/709


It seems almost a good idea to buy the adventure pack as well, they won't take those slots of bank away from you ever it seems.

[Sjofn]

Guardians are rare for a reason.  And it's not a good reason.

The reason is most of them don't play hobbit guardians and can't bask in the joy of hitting orcs in the junk over and over and over with their shield.

[Soln]

Wife's main is a Hobbit Guardian.  She adores it.  But it was a bad grind, low DKP etc.  Not an easy solo class.

[Paelos]

Wife's main is a Hobbit Guardian.  She adores it.  But it was a bad grind, low DKP etc.  Not an easy solo class.

I leveled a prot warrior in vanilla WoW, so I'm not entirely worried about "slow". The only thing worse in those days was a prot pally.

[Tarami]

Guardian was a bad grind? Wow, we have different standards for bad.

I remember levelling my Hobbit guardian as being an AoE death machine. Between the sweet animations, the heavy armour and a general feeling of being awesome, it's probably the best levelling experience I've had. It's far more interesting than levelling a WoW warrior (atleast a Fury one which is what I levelled) for sure. Just keep your guns updated and don't overpull.

Edit:

Oh, and tournaments are here:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?p=4814617

[Ollie]

It's fair to note that all the classes have gone through several tweaks during live and are currently much easier to level solo than they were back at launch, not to mention that the levelling process itself is quicker. Guardians didn’t have Overpower and Minnies lacked War-Speech in vanilla SoA, which made soloing an exercise in frustration. Nowadays you can just pop on DPS mode and go nuts.

[Tebonas]

Guardians were always quite solid. They were slow, but with the Block-triggered Shield skills they got to be quite devastating even before Overpower. Bear in mind thats  coming from somebody who soloed an EQ-Shaman on root-and-disease through some levels. Your mileage may vary!

[WayAbvPar]

not to mention that the levelling process itself is quicker.

1-25 is far faster now than what I remember from beta. I seem to have hit the grindiest bit now though- early to mid 30s I seem to hit a wall. I am trying to get through it so I can see Moria, dammit.

[Paelos]

Hobbit Guardian sounds hilariously right up my alley. Do burglars have much of a role in groups? Why are there so few of them?

[Jamiko]

Burglars have some decent crowd control and they get a lot of conjunction (fellowship combat maneuvers) starters which is always nice.

[Ingmar]

not to mention that the levelling process itself is quicker.

1-25 is far faster now than what I remember from beta. I seem to have hit the grindiest bit now though- early to mid 30s I seem to hit a wall. I am trying to get through it so I can see Moria, dammit.

Do at least the daily skirmishes on days when you play through the 30s, that should speed things right up (or at least it did for me - I kept having to abandon grey quests in the zones I was in because the skirmishes were moving me along so quickly.)

[Ollie]

Do burglars have much of a role in groups? Why are there so few of them?

A skilled burglar is a great asset in group play. Much like the captain, it's one of those classes that can save a group from the brink of a wipe with a few well-timed skills. A pretty fun class to play, too, from what little I've dabbled with it. Great utility in that "jack of all trades master of none" way that some people love and others loathe.

I think, and this is just me musing here, that the class' relative rarity at high levels is in part due to a problem of player expectation. I'd wager most people picking the burg go in expecting a WoW rogue, a burst DPS class, whereas LotRO's burglar is in fact a debuff / crowd control / support DPS class. Once people figure out the burg isn't exactly what they were expecting, they gravitate towards something else.

[Ingmar]

Yeah, burglars are a strange class all around - they occupy a role that really doesn't even exist in most MMOs.

[Mrbloodworth]

The ability to force start Heroic opportunities is also huge.

[Ollie]

Yeah, burglars are a strange class all around - they occupy a role that really doesn't even exist in most MMOs.

Yeah, it's a fun hybrid, and the same could be said of all the support classes in LotRO. I think Turbine did a pretty swell job on them. Sure, you could say the Lore-master is mostly about CC, the Burg mostly about debuffs, and the Captain mostly about heals, but doing so would be a massive disservice, since each of those classes brings so much more to the table.

Then again, I like hybrid support classes, so I'm more than a little biased when it comes to evaluating how fun they are.

[proudft]

LOTRO has some goofy classes.  For my month or so of LOTRO, I really liked the Captain, but I dunno what role to call it.  It was sort of dps but with heals and had a pet and group buffs and yelled a lot - just a weird combination.  But I liked it!

[Zetor]

Yeah, I keep saying this -- LOTRO's strongest point is probably its class setup (lotro has quite a few weaknesses sadly, but they're improving; see the UI / mod breakthrough for instance). They are much more flexible than I've seen in other dikus, and have a wide array of 'clutch' moves to save the day if used right. To me it felt like playing a character with the capabilities of two WOW characters. Of course you'd better have 40+ hotkeys if you want to make the best use of a class like LM...  

[Paelos]

See, this sucks because I'm bored with WoW, this sounds like a lot of fun, and I want to try it right now. It's a huge tease. I'm going to have to pout in a corner for two months, and then it's football season, so I won't get to play much then either.  

[Lucas]

So, I'm finally trying to stick with LOTRO a bit more (not because I don't find engaging, I think it's VERY well done, but during my previous attempts I always got back to single player games and other RL stuff :P).

I created a Human Champion, Elf Warden, Hobbit Hunter and Dwarf Runekeeper; by the way, I'm not interested in the best race/class relationship and that kind of hardcore attitude, I'll just try to give them a decent roleplay background and play the stories, that's it :).

But still, I would like to give to each of the above characters the appropriate vocation, so I can mantain a nice flow of resources between them. Which vocation would you suggest for each of them? Thanks (and by the way, I'll move this post to the graveyard section if requested, no problem).

[Cheddar]

Hobbit Guardian sounds hilariously right up my alley. Do burglars have much of a role in groups? Why are there so few of them?

Burgs are awesome and rare at high levels.  Not hard to solo with, either.  Stealth, utility abilities, ok DPS, some good ol' fashioned escape abilities. 

Guard is a good option also, and has some pretty kick ass DPS by 30 or so.

Only class I ever had issues with finding a group was Champ (and by proxy Hunter).  They are by far the most popular class - by a lot.  Minstrel generally took 0 seconds to find a group with Guard/Captain getting grouped pretty fast.  Have not been to end game with LM (working on it!)

If you want a quick breakdown of classes check out the sub forum or start a new post there.

[Ingmar]

Yeah I am leveling a champ with the full knowledge that it is the ret paladin of LotRO, but it is really quite powerful and fun solo. As I'm not really expecting to group a lot it is a fine choice I think.

[Malakili]

I played Burglar to around level 30 and was surprised at how few there were around.  When this game goes f2p maybe i'll load him up again.   Fun class.

[Cheddar]

Yeah I am leveling a champ with the full knowledge that it is the ret paladin of LotRO, but it is really quite powerful and fun solo. As I'm not really expecting to group a lot it is a fine choice I think.

Its not that you WON'T find a group, it just won't be uber instant.  One thing LoTRO did right is group dynamics; there is no "holy trinity."