LOTRO goes free

P

pibbur

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Or another one bites the dust?

I know we don't cover MMO's anymore. Byt...

Got a mail today saying LOTRO will be free to play from this autumn. With things you can obtain from the LOTRO store using points bought with real money. There are Premium and VIP programs for the more dedicated players, the latter comes with a monthly fee. But apparently life-time subscribers (like me) become VIPS for free.

It's a bit complicated. And I'm not sure this is a good sign.Which is too bad, as I consideer LOTRO one of the better MMORPG's.

Hmm. Better get that hobbit to level 60 right away.
 
Greed or greed - my first interpretation is that the game is in trouble financially, and it's a question of survival. Which don't surprise me - there are a lot of games in the below wow 100.000 or so subscriber range, and I suspect many of them struggle.
 
That's because you have a brighter perception of reality than I, pib ;)
 
Given that I've been in and out of depressions for 25 years…. OK, I admit I have a tendency to take things at face value (if that's correct English). probably too much.

Or maybe it says something about me that my first reaction was an is: "Oh, no. the game is going to die", in stead of "Hmm. Screwing us for even more money?"
 
Or maybe it says something about me that my first reaction was an is: "Oh, no. the game is going to die", in stead of "Hmm. Screwing us for even more money?"
Sadly these possibilities are not mutually exclusive...
 
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It would be a bad sign for the MMO market if LOTRO went under. The game reeks of quality and has a pretty significant user base. Baffling...
 
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These are actually great news. DDO is a good game and if going F2P saved it (and looks like it does, reports say that it's doing better than ever now), it's for the best. LotRO is a great game, though I'm torn. What made it that much better than WoW or any other MMO was that the player base was much more mature, much friendlier than the other MMOs, but if they open the floodgate of free play, this one aspect is sure to suffer.
But I like MMOs and I like LotRO so I like the news.
 
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Free for Europe also ? ;)
 
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I'm not sure a decision to go with micro-transactions should ever be made out of a "we want more money!" mentality. It's risky and I don't know if it will generate more if there are enough subscribers. If the game is failing, however, as in a trend, then they can potentially only gain from more numbers. Why would they drastically change their financial model if everything's going fine? Greed is not that blind.
 
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I think the recent success of DDO using this model has been a strong influence on the decision!!
 
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Great game, if you haven't tried it, the RP community there is wonderful. The world actually makes you smile, and the musical score also hits all the right notes. I will be returning once it is FTP.
 
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Hmm. I am not that sure about this decision. I loved LOTRO but Mirkwood expansion somehow didn't cut it for me and skirmishes were fun at the beginning, but later on seemed too repetitive. I loved the community, but ftp can easily attract a lot of immature audience IMO. I am old enough to read all that l33t l00t pwn3d crap.

What I am looking for in terms of MMO is Funcom's Secret World. Hope it lives to its hype but as a lifetimer, I can anytime return to my minstrel. :)
 
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The free version is very limited, and clearly designed to entice players into buying a full version. It's fine for trying it out to see if you will like the game, but I can't imagine staying in such a limited world.
 
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