"Yeah, expect Mines of Moria costs real money, honestly the amount of necessities that they removed from the game is absurd.  *Riding skill for level 20 is a cash shop item  *Selling items on the AH requires a cash shop item *Mines of Moria is around $30.00 USD; Isengard is $50.00 USD; Combining those two is $80 damned dollars for a game that wasn't good enough to maintain its original business model. $5.00 per bag slot, Vault upgrade, War drobe slot, and gold cap removal.*Trait slots, which are like talent points are also limited and require about $1.50 to unlock each trait slot.* Emotes, AH, bags, vault space, traits, buffs are per character.*shared storage, wardrobe is per server.*quest packs, skirmishes, gold cap and expansions are account.*Everything about this game is FUBAR, and with that I leave you with Jackie Chan.  (image)The game is not free to play, and now costs more than what you would previously pay for if the game was of the standard purchase and subscribe model, if you're speaking about short term game play.

What is percieved to be the free to play portion of this game is simply a larger than average free trial. Even people who play LOTRO ritualistically cannot argue with that."

Allow me to correct you on multiple points:

Mines of Moria does not have to cost real money.  You can purchase it from the Store using Turbine Points, which you can earn for free.  Of course, it isn't cheap.  But the patient can certainly pay as little real money as they want to.

The below applies to F2Pers - people who have not paid a single real cent.

The riding skill can be purchased at level 7 from the Store for only 95 TP.

AH selling slots are account-wide and also cost 95 TP - for five slots.

Your expansion prices are about correct, so I won't argue, and I'll let others argue the business model discussion. ;)

Vault slots can be purchased with in-game coin up to 80 slots.

The first several trait slots are free.  A huge variety of emotes are free and others are earnable in-game. Only a handful are for sale in the Store.

AH and bag space is in fact account-wide - all servers.

In conclusion, playing the game as an F2P or Premium is only more expensive than VIP for the chronically impatient or exceedingly stupid.  In fact, LOTRO is one of the least restrictive F2P MMOs in existence.  TP is surprisingly easy to earn through gameplay and is account-wide, so theoretically, F2Pers can really earn unlimited TP without paying a thing.

Lest you think I'm just nitpicking, I give you my own case as an example.  I happen to be very patient - but I'm a chronic penny-pincher.  So after playing LOTRO for a year and a half, I have a host of quest packs - North Downs, Angmar, Trollshaws, Enedwaith, Eregion, Lorien, Misty Mountains - have purchased the entire Moria expansion, have four character slots all with riding skill, have AH slots, have no gold cap, and have two characters very close to the level cap at present.  I've also had a heck of a lot of fun.

I'm never quite sure whether to be proud or ashamed of the fact, but I have not paid a single cent.



 

Some of the best expansions in the industry?  MoM was good, but nothing special.  SoM and ROI were half expansions at best.

I'm sick of this site shilling for the developers.  LOTRO keeps pushing advantage content into the store and cranking out half ass expansions.  The best fantasy IP is locked into a boring game for many years.

All I can say is this point is lets see what we get when it actual comes out....

Turbine talks a good game, but when it comes to actual delivery... I have to say that I've been pretty underwhelmed for the past couple of years.

I don't think I've logged into my account in a couple months now.

IMO, the game has failed to live upto the promise it showed in the early days of Shadows of Angmar.  I'm not neccesarly going to write this expansion off automaticaly.... but at this point all I have to say to Turbine is...Talk is cheap, show me the money.

lotro socials would have been sooo awesome..if there were 3 times more special events..and then really new ones..would be cool if that happened..for now its waiting for GW2

Originally posted by precious328

LoTRO could've been so much more. This game would've done much better had it been created as a faction game: Hobbits, Men, Elves, Dwarves  VS  Men, Orcs, and Goblins.

A deep world with realistic World PvP.

 

Oh man...

 

Well it actually kinda has faction pvp.  Monster Play is one of my favorite features.  I love my rank 9 spider.  My only wish is they'd let us Monster Players to run rampant across all of Middle Earth.  Like if we hold all the keeps...which we almost always do hehe.

Nice, looking forward to more frequent extra content, and mounted combat sounds interesting, I just hope it eventually reaches Mordor.  So far this game beats a lot of MMOs I've seen out there, although if PvP is your thing, it isn't as deep as other MMOs such as RvR games, but the PvE side of things and co-op modes is far superior to any MMORPG I've tried so far imo.  If you haven't played the game before and enjoy the LOTR story and RPGs, give it a try.

Originally posted by fenistil

Pffft - it will jsut be another ROI.

 

Best devs and most of resources come to new Turbine game in development and to pay off 200 mln $ that WB payed for Turbine.

 

Lotro is just milked cow atm and test bed for freemium business model.

 

Best Lotro times are already in past.

 

I tend to agree with you. Unless they prove otherwise, the best was SoA and it went downhill after. Looking forward to GW2.

WANT HELM'S DEEP.

That is all.

Originally posted by WhySoShort

Originally posted by precious328

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by precious328

LoTRO could've been so much more. This game would've done much better had it been created as a faction game: Hobbits, Men, Elves, Dwarves  VS  Men, Orcs, and Goblins.

A deep world with realistic World PvP.

Oh man...

Except it couldn't be a faction game as the dark forces, for the most part lack free will. It's very specific as to when they lose. But of course I'm sure we've discussed this before.

Hopefully the new expansion and these mini updates will revitalize the game for me.

 

Just because we know what will eventually happen doesn't mean it can't work as a faction-based game. We know the Sith will lose, yet we have SWTOR.

As for free will, even the good side doesn't have it. Free will would give me the option to kill a fellow Hobbit. I can't do that. I go where the quest tell me to go.

It's a game. It would've done better as a faction-based game.

If I'm not mistaken, Tolkien Enterprises actually told Turbine they couldn't make a two faction game. It wasn't the game developer's choice, it's just the price of using a famous and important IP.

The difficulty is that every fampus battle in the Middle Earth universe has a set outcome. For example, the forces of evil could not win at Helm's Deep. LOTRO is heavily story driven, and it would be hard to write a story for the evil side because they would just lose over and over again. Imagine the quests. "Hey, set this ladder up and kill 10 Helm's Deep defenders." "Good job, too bad we lost anyways."

You are mistaken. In fact you're totally wrong. Tolkien Enterprises did not give such a restriction, in reality, Tolkien Enterprises does not really care about what does the developer do with the license, which is underlined by the Director of the Tolkien Enterprises in one of the interviews I posted here several times.

Originally posted by Robsolf

Originally posted by WhySoShort

If I'm not mistaken, Tolkien Enterprises actually told Turbine they couldn't make a two faction game. It wasn't the game developer's choice, it's just the price of using a famous and important IP.

The difficulty is that every fampus battle in the Middle Earth universe has a set outcome. For example, the forces of evil could not win at Helm's Deep. LOTRO is heavily story driven, and it would be hard to write a story for the evil side because they would just lose over and over again. Imagine the quests. "Hey, set this ladder up and kill 10 Helm's Deep defenders." "Good job, too bad we lost anyways."

That they did, and with good reason, aside from yours, of course. 

There are few fantasy books that exist that focus LESS on the antagonist than the Middle Earth books do.

Hell, you never even SEE the main antagonist in the books.  And the only time you see the other villains, like Saruman and Gollum, is when they're with the heroes.  Movie scenes, like where Saruman addresses his army, or talks with the orc guard about tearing down the forest to build weapons and seige equipment, NEVER happened in the books.

The books were TOTALLY from the perspective of the good guys.  So it's not really in the spirit of the novels to create a factional game.

Not that I'd have refused the game had they used factions, but still, the way it is now is much more in line with the Middle Earth books and how the story is told.

You are wrong. Tolkien Enterprises did not give any restriction towards the lore. The lore is solely limited by the developer's idea of how much will the consumers tolerate it.

Tolkien Enterprises sold many licenses to various games (video games / board games), where players can play the evil side with its own story and objectives.

I'm with you on this. I totally enjoyed Moria. 

While mounted combat is something a lot of players would be looking forward to, all that I want is Turbine to add new pvmp content and not a couple of rehashed creep skills that are made to be avaliable in the cash shop. New map, new dynamics, selective open world creeping, whole new grassroot creep class revamp or whatever to change this mindnumbingly boring tug-o-war of keeps that keep changing hands that goes in the moors on a daily basis. This is fun to do for the first few months of pvmp-ing, but after a few years of doing the same old same old...cmon....

Even the pvp part of the moors has mostly just become an e-peen fest where freeps seem to have more than one ace up their sleeve post RoI. The Least Turbine can do is add crafting for the creeps side using existing game mechanics where creeps can craft useables like advanced potions, 'dread' tokens, black speech buff scrolls, superior food, etc from freep / freep npc / delving npc drops. But yea, creep players are there on Turbine's priority list just below the bullet point of adding different types of darjeeling and earl grey tea types to LotRO, so I dont see this happening anytime soon if at all...

Once The Hobbit hits theatre's this game is going to see a massive influx of players as well.   WB would be stupid not to have an ad for LoTRO in the previews before the film.  Who knows they may even throw in a DDO ad as well.

Not going back unless the game starts taking itself more sseriously.  It was turning into a goofy, and really ugly ugly.  Ugly armor, ugly horses, ugly zones.  The game was getting more hideous with everything they released.

And the combat is a wretched snooze-fest.

LOTRO should be serene and exciting.  It had the Serenity, but none of the Excitement. 

Originally posted by DWLobsters

I wonder if they ever stop and think about how casual players feel about these constant level cap increases.  I mean, it's not like they even satisfy anyone.  They keep the hardcore grinders quiet... until they hit the new cap and immediately start screaming for a higher one.  Meanwhile everyone else just has a longer ladder to climb to reach the new content they've paid for.

Would it really be so bad if they included new content at the old level cap?  Or even mid-level content? 

 

New content they've paid for?  Why would you buy Isengard or even Moria if you're L23?  You would ONLY buy this new expansion if you were around L75 and so on. If one is the type of person that has to be at the top level of a game to feel worthy then you will feel poorly dealt with by any game that has has programmers that want to milk the maximum number of people in the shortest time for the lowest amount of effort. LOTRO is a free game IF you want it to be - you can buy expansions with points you can gain in-game on any player on your account.  If you're L23 and feel a need to buy the Rohan expansion comes out you're just dim. If you're L70 and wonder why you should have to stump up - collect lots more TP and get it for free a little later.  But please stop whining. If you don't want to pay for a game or play it enough to get upgrades for free then don't expect lots of extra work by a company for free - that's what an idiot would do.

Originally posted by AdrianBLB

I'm with you on this. I totally enjoyed Moria. 

 

I hated the darkness of Moria. It was perfect!   It was dark and confusing and was a gaming pleasure.  Angmar depressed me - so that worked. This is LOTRO and the sense of being where you don't want to be because YOU don't like being there is just as it should be.

The idea of loving the atmosphere of the darkest parts of the world should only be in a negative sense - I loved playing those bits that made me hate being where I was.

Originally posted by avalon1000

Originally posted by fenistil



Pffft - it will jsut be another ROI.



Best devs and most of resources come to new Turbine game in development and to pay off 200 mln $ that WB payed for Turbine.



Lotro is just milked cow atm and test bed for freemium business model.



Best Lotro times are already in past.

I tend to agree with you. Unless they prove otherwise, the best was SoA and it went downhill after. Looking forward to GW2.

Funny how so VERY many people have started to love LOTRO. And so those who may (or may not) have loved it before turn their hatred toward it.

For these people a popular game cannot be as cool as their minority game. And when their minority game increases in popularity it is always bad for tha game in their mind.

Sure, some new guys may be idiots (I've seen them) but there are less idiots talking crap in the game than there are idiots talking crap whining about the game here on this forum.

btw - the GW2 comment proved it for me....

Originally posted by Velera

Upping level cap within 1 year of Isengard is just plain stupid....

And allowing Skirmish pets in open world is gonna make leveling in this game even more faceroll.....

Actually these two things with mounted combat and the aoe fighting system they are trying to aim for might actually be what they needed. It's true that fighting in this game is 1v1 and if anyone else gets involved it's usually very close. So changing the classes so they do AOE and changing the mobs so they come in groups would be a good thing. That said, if they pull it off they will definitely need the soldier out in the field with the player because AOE fighting is intense in any game.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by precious328

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by precious328

LoTRO could've been so much more. This game would've done much better had it been created as a faction game: Hobbits, Men, Elves, Dwarves  VS  Men, Orcs, and Goblins.
 

A deep world with realistic World PvP.

Oh man...

 

Except it couldn't be a faction game as the dark forces, for the most part lack free will. It's very specific as to when they lose. But of course I'm sure we've discussed this before.

Hopefully the new expansion and these mini updates will revitalize the game for me.

 

Just because we know what will eventually happen doesn't mean it can't work as a faction-based game. We know the Sith will lose, yet we have SWTOR.

As for free will, even the good side doesn't have it. Free will would give me the option to kill a fellow Hobbit. I can't do that. I go where the quest tell me to go.

It's a game. It would've done better as a faction-based game.

 

First off, over use of CR's is out right rude.  Makes reading the forum hard for everyone.

Secondly, you don't need great pvp to have a great MMO.

I think horse based combat will be awesome.  Personally I love the freemium model.  It is not expensive to be a VIP, but when you don't have a lot of time to play, you can just do the f2p and use points earned to buy needed things.

Personally I find Lotro to still be one of the top MMO's and still fun to play after all these years.

The CR's get added when someone quotes or edits a post directly underneath the article (using those tiny buttons). It doesnt show up untill after you pressed Post Message. If you first click the forumlink and quote or edit a post in there, those CR's are not added.