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http://www.lotro.com/news/709-announcing-the-lord-of-the-rings-onlines-move-to-free-to-play-

Looks like this fall we will be able to play LOTRO for free. I remember playing the beta back when it was first released and I enjoyed it so I am looking forward to this, although I'm not sure how much is being missed out on by only being a free player. http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/vipchart.html

Son of a biiitch.

There goes my EVE career. Time to reinstall windows I guess

Interesting. Looks like most of the things you're missing out by playing free are quality of life - should be able to do everything a pay-to-play person can, just more trouble with bag space, auctions, and the like.

Wonder if it's worth putting in a ticket about my old account being hacked a few months ago...guess we'll see if I feel like playing at any point.

The fact that it's going free-to-play means that no one is subscribing anymore, which is kinda sad, as it's a much better game than WoW in my opinion. It really stays true to the Tolkien lore, while still embellishing enough to make it fun to play.

I disagree about it being better than WoW. Class balance was (is?) terrible, a lot of the quests are too dependent on having a full-sized group, and while it has a lot of really interesting ideas, the execution on most of them felt pretty sub-par. I got one character to the level cap, another close, and realized I had no interest in continuing to play.

Likely a lot of my issues with it are due to the fact that I play MMOs for raid content and pvp more than anything, and WoW beats LotRO handily in both areas. Or at least it did when I tried it, and I haven't heard anything to suggest that either has changed drastically.

I feel bad for anyone who paid for those lifetime subscriptions.

I wonder how far behind WAR is.

escushion said:

I feel bad for anyone who paid for those lifetime subscriptions.

I wonder how far behind WAR is.

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Those lifetime subscriptions cost $199.99. The normal fee is $15 dollars a month. Game has been going on for 38 months. That's $570 if you've been playing since Day 1. Last time I checked, $199.99 < $570... and that's before you factor in some of the other bonuses life timers got, like early mounts and special stuff on the holidays. I'm also betting the Life Timers will be getting an allowance of extra features to make up for their lost subscriptions, sort of like the DDO players did.

From what I understand, actually, LotRO isn't doing all that bad. DDO's mini-purchase plans must do well enough that they want to try it on this game, too.

escushion said:

I feel bad for anyone who paid for those lifetime subscriptions.

I wonder how far behind WAR is.

Click to expand...

Actually lifetimers are getting a pretty sweet deal. VIP access to the game (the equivalent of a subscription) plus a nice monthly allotment of free points to buy stuff.

AshburnerX said:

The fact that it's going free-to-play means that no one is subscribing anymore, which is kinda sad, as it's a much better game than WoW in my opinion. It really stays true to the Tolkien lore, while still embellishing enough to make it fun to play.

Click to expand...

I can tell you from playing a month ago that the pop is FINE. Plenty of people on at all hours. Unlike WAR and AOC, LOTRO has never had to merge servers. The game is certainly not dying. Rather, turbine saw the huge success that was F2P DDO (a game that was indeed dying) and saw the buttloads of cash they could make with taking LOTRO down the same route. Just because it's not doing bad, doesn't mean it still can't do better. There will be a huge influx of new blood to a game that is three years old. This is a very good thing IMO.

Oddbot said:

I can tell you from playing a month ago that the pop is FINE. Plenty of people on at all hours. Unlike WAR and AOC, LOTRO has never had to merge servers. The game is certainly not dying. Rather, turbine saw the huge success that was F2P DDO (a game that was indeed dying) and saw the buttloads of cash they could make with taking LOTRO down the same route. Just because it's not doing bad, doesn't mean it still can't do better. There will be a huge influx of new blood to a game that is three years old. This is a very good thing IMO.

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I think you pretty much hit it on the head. Thanks to their prior experience with DDO, Turbine probably knew exactly when, according to their subscription rate and length of subscriptions, they would make more money going the freemium route. Good on them! I won't be playing LOTRO (WoW takes care of my fantasy MMO kick), but I really love watching people make new business models work in gaming.

I'd definitely play this if this goes FTP. I'm nothing nothing but HFs and playing with my D&D group of they love this type of game.

Mmm, hope I can get this to run on my Mac via Wine or something. This would be a nice alternative to WoW for me.