LOTRO: Free to play

[bovine]

Is this good? Should I play this now? Why can't warhammer online be 100% free to play?

[Shrinweck]

Yes. Yes. And probably because the people behind the scenes haven't found that it's a financially viable option at this moment for them.

[Julius Seeker]

Hmmmmmm....... Very interesting for a Tolkien junkie like myself =)

[Don]

I'm hearing it's practically impossible to play without paying after about level 25 because you don't get quests and you have to physically walk to the higher level quest areas which can take tens of minutes, but until then it looks like a pretty generic MMORPG.

[Shrinweck]

The first 25 levels is potentially weeks of gameplay, huh, about a month if you're really, really going at it... Hmmm, does this sound like basically a free month to anyone else? The cool thing is - this is a free month you get to play at your leisure. As for being generic, yes it does sound like other stuff out there... But it's Lord of the Rings Online - if the allure of Tolkien isn't enough to perk your interest then at this day and age it probably isn't quite for you.

[Julius Seeker]

What happens at level 25? I tried looking it up elsewhere, but all I could find were people talking cryptically with every third word being some sort of acronym.

PS. It is only the world I am really interested in. I want to travel around the Shire, the lands surrounding Bree, maybe over to the western coast, and eastward towards Imladris. I don't want to get involved in scheduled raids and all that sort of stuff.

[Shrinweck]

It just starts getting difficult to advance, I guess. I know there's a limit on how much gold you can carry at once on a free account which would also definitely be very limiting. Don's post makes it sound like you can't use the quick transit horses to get from place to place but I wouldn't even call them necessary for sanity until you hit levels in the 30s.

The Shire and Bree and available the second you get out of the tutorial. I don't think they really ever implemented anything with the west coast but the stuff towards Imladris is level 28-40 stuff if I recall correctly. You're certainly in the 30s by the time you're hitting Rinvendell for the first time

[SineSwiper]

Why not look up what they offer? I see nothing in there about not being able to use horses. Hell, you get two character slots, so you can at least try out a few classes, and can even buy a house.

You're limited on the areas for the quests, but you can still purchase them via Turbine points, and you can still earn Turbine points via gameplay (instead of having to buy them). The only thing you can't buy with the 2 Gold cap is a horse.

[Don]

I didn't get that far either but I assume the fast travel is equivalent of gryphon points and even in WoW it'd be pretty insane if you have to walk to say, Tanaris from Origrimmar every time you need to go there. You can always kill mobs for your level advancement after the quests run out but it's obviously pretty slow that way. The rate you earn turbine points via gameplay is nowhere near enough to cover whatever you need to buy. From what I gather it's more like an extended trial and while it is not impossible to get to the level cap without paying you either need a ton of patience or you need some outside help.

[Shrinweck]

Traveling is really easy in LOTRO and it says nothing about limiting the travel points between areas. When Sine says you can't get enough money to buy a horse he means that when you hit a certain level you buy a mount, not that you can't fast travel.

If you're putting enough time into the game to get that far in then ponying up $15 for a month really shouldn't be that big of a deal for anyone.

[Don]

It appears swift travel is the one you got to pay, but I'm told it can take a pretty long time to get anywhere even on travel routes.

[Shellie]

It can if you take certain routes and don't utilize the fast travel system. I remember a few long boring rides to Rivendell.

Travel takes nothing away from the game though. It's a great MMO, especially if youre a big LOTR fan.

[Shrinweck]

Depends what you mean by a pretty long time. The longest routes can take a long time (5-10 minutes) but as you level you unlock more and more ways to instantly travel to places. That's not inappropriate compared to other MMORPGs.

And, yeah, Rivendell is the only really long ride but by the time you're going there all the time you can get there instantly, especially if you're an Elf.

[Don]

I'm pretty sure you have to pay real money for swift travel on top of whatever game restrictions that may exist if you're not a subscriber.

[Shrinweck]

I can't find anything that echoes that concern and it's hardly something that should discourage someone from trying a free game.

[Don]

I can't find anything that echoes that concern and it's hardly something that should discourage someone from trying a free game.

That's what people said about the FF14 beta until they tried it!

[Tessian]

I was half tempted to get back into it, but I'm just not interested in an MMO right now. That being said LOTRO was huge amounts of fun back when we all played and I don't think they put too many restrictions on free play.

Hell it's free, you got nothing to lose except your worthless free time

We were all on Windfola server, btw, if that's still around

[SineSwiper]

I didn't get that far either but I assume the fast travel

Nope, nope. Stop right there. Stop talking. You officially have no more say in the matter.

If you didn't even get to the point of using fast travel, you might as well have not played the game for longer than a couple of hours. What right do you have to comment on whether or not you can go past level 25 if you haven't even played it to level 10? I don't care what you've gathered or what you've been "told", if that person existed at all.

[Don]

I didn't get that far either but I assume the fast travel

Nope, nope. Stop right there. Stop talking. You officially have no more say in the matter.

If you didn't even get to the point of using fast travel, you might as well have not played the game for longer than a couple of hours. What right do you have to comment on whether or not you can go past level 25 if you haven't even played it to level 10? I don't care what you've gathered or what you've been "told", if that person existed at all.

I guess you're one of those guys who has to do something painful because someone who told you it'd be painful to do that wasn't enough and you must have first hand experience. Funny how you were on the bashing FF14 thread and it didn't look like you played the game. If you have to play every stupid game to verify they are stupid there wouldn't be time left to do anything else.

It's not hard to put 2 and 2 together if you played like... any F2Ps. If it's actually easy to get anywhere that kind of defeats the purpose of the game. They're not running a charity here for people to play for the betterment of humanity. It's supposed to be painful to play in a F2P game without paying. If it's not like that why would anyone ever pay for this stuff? I mean seriously, every time I hit the LOTRO store the first thing they advertise is 50% off the right to use fast travel for 1 hour for $1 (50% off its price of $2). In fact since Turbine actually has experience running F2Ps you can rule out that this is just an inexperienced company charging crazy prices and assume that your gameplay could be heavily impacted by this thing they're trying to sell you. If this isn't the case then they've done a poor job at making a F2P, and while that's actually good news for the players, it's not going to work out in the long run for the company in question.

The fact that you can already get to level 25 (out of 50) without too much problem is quite on the generous side for a F2P. If it was any easier to get further than that they're running a charity service, not a game.

[Don]

At any rate, for those who want to play, in these games where they converted to a F2P halfway, it's usually best to look for boxed copies that stores will now be selling for $10 after the game went to F2P. You'll have to check LOTRO's official site to see how it converts but it's almost certainly that you'll end up with some essential functionality for $10 that'd cost way more than $10 to buy if you started with the F2P version. Also F2P games can't take away stuff you already have so let's say you bought some all in 1 pack that lets you create the premium classes for $20, you should create a warden/runekeeper (maybe more than one) on your empty character slots on every server you can since it'd cost $8 to buy the classes (each) later. You still keep your level 1 whatever characters after you sub run out and if you decided you didn't want the class you can always delete the characters. As far as I can tell they can't retroactively make you weaker after you stopped subbing so whatever progress you can make while your subscription was up (free month from buying boxed version) you get to keep. Of course those boxed version won't be around for much longer so the window can be rather short, but if you're actually interested in playing and spending some money this is usually the best way to go.

Of course if you plan on never paying and just have something to do you don't have to do that, but don't think you can outsmart a good F2P game. If it was that easy they wouldn't still be in business.

[Shrinweck]

I can't find anything that echoes that concern and it's hardly something that should discourage someone from trying a free game.

That's what people said about the FF14 beta until they tried it!

Yeah, just totally ignore the four people in the thread who maxed out their character levels in the original game and first expansion. How could we possibly know what we're talking about and where to go for information on the game?

[SineSwiper]

Yeah, just totally ignore the four people in the thread who maxed out their character levels in the original game and first expansion. How could we possibly know what we're talking about and where to go for information on the game?

Four? Well, in this thread, but there are plenty of other people lurking who went pretty far in it, too. That's why I'm so daunted by his original assessment that "if it's F2P, it must not be that good".

[Julius Seeker]

I doubt I'll mind taking my time traveling through Middle Earth =)

[bovine]

You have all failed to convince me to or discourage me from playing. As such, I will download it and never play it to punish you all.

[kali o.]

I gave it a fair shot on a premium account (I play/pay for DDO). Crappy WoW clone...the only thing going for it is the Lore...but I've never been a huge fan of Tolkien.

And swift travel isn't an issue, if you play something like a hunter or grind rep.

The fact that you can already get to level 25 (out of 50) without too much problem is quite on the generous side for a F2P. If it was any easier to get further than that they're running a charity service, not a game.

Actually, you can get to 50 relatively easily just on deed rewards and normal gameplay. The TP keeps pace with the quest pack unlocks. It's the character-specific unlocks and ~4000 tp expansions that need focused grinding (or busting out the wallet). So your opinion is flawed. But that's ok, so is Sine's. As usual, only Kali is right.

Yay me!

[Oracle]

I gave it a fair shot on a premium account (I play/pay for DDO).

How do you like DDO? Been playing it long? Comparable to anything else out there?

[kali o.]

I gave it a fair shot on a premium account (I play/pay for DDO).

How do you like DDO? Been playing it long? Comparable to anything else out there?

It's got its share of warts, but there are certain things I really like about it. Namely the combat (2nd to none, imo. Not really comparible to any MMO I've tried) and the build freedom. People from games like WoW or LotRO or whatever can claim builds differ through their trait/tree systems, but they really don't...at least in comparison to DDO. You can effectively make a total useless gimp that no amount of gear or experience will save. Likewise, you can make some real unique and fun combos that suit your playstyle (or just for flavor).

What it really lacks is a wide array of stuff to do. No real crafting, no real housing, no real pvp. It's just instanced PvE, for the most part. But what it offers there is pretty good (and varied within itself).

[Shrinweck]

The first fifty levels are easier to get through because they're focusing on end game content. This makes it far more easy to catch up to friends at said end game content.

[SineSwiper]

It used to not be this way, but I do remember when Mines of Moria came out, they reduced the XP needed for all of the levels. I guess they have been doing that a few times now. Not to say that it's a bad thing, but the mid-level instances and raids would be more frequent if there was more incentive to do those. (I guess you get even more XP from those, anyway, and there's still some nice armor/weapons from stuff that used to be the best in the game.)