Leave it to Turbine to continue dumbing-down their game until it's more useless than before. Even if the mechanic turns out decent, the last-century characters models are still outdated and in dire need of better modelers. 

Originally posted by Czanrei

Leave it to Turbine to continue dumbing-down their game until it's more useless than before. Even if the mechanic turns out decent, the last-century characters models are still outdated and in dire need of better modelers. 

Can't argue with that. They're pretty good with the costumes (they make good money out of them so they have to be), but the characters all look like egghead or potatoe head people. You can't make a cute or fairly attractive woman in character creation, even if your life depended on it. They also walk/run kind of funny. The emotes though are pretty nice.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by Dredphyre

Ironically, I feel at a loss when I log in to LOTRO these days. I kinda sit there and stare at my character with his half-finished Legendary items, the Mirkwood faction that I wasn't able to max before the next area came out, the several dailies from Lorien that I haven't done in months...I'm like 5 levels below cap, skirmishes are sort of a mystery to me, as is all the math that goes into stats ( I still don't know what some of the damage types are, nor the mitigations)...

 

The same sort of thing happened to me in EQ...at some point, with all the xpacs and additions, the game started to feel as though it had gotten away from me.

What I did was starting over fairly recently. Thing is though, I never had a high level  character to begin with, so it was an easier choice from my part. LOTRO has by far the most atmospheric world than any MMORPG out there, hands down, even today.

Btw, I always subscribe to the games that give me an option, so I didn't bother delving into the cash shop that much.

Oddly enough, I do have a few lower level characters that are way more fun to play than my highest level character.  And it is because of the atmosphere that I continue to log in from time to time.  I just wish the high end game played as nicely as the low level game.

and what do monster players get. a big fat 0

lolz i told my ex lotro friends that lotro would make skirmish soldiers you could have outside of skirms to compete with swtor lmao. I knew they would do this but no one believed me hahaha

**Disclaimer** i am not trolling or baiting or bieng negative mmorpg staff this is my opinion

The Pros and Cons of the article are largely irrelevant, as this soldier on landscape feature will be used very sparringly. You see, to use this in the wild world, you will have to use a  special token, which will permit the use of the soldier for 1 hour.

Cost of token:

100 turbine points

 or

min 20/max 45 175 marks and 10 medallions

min 46/max 50 500 marks and 25 medallions

min 71/max 95! 1,500 marks and 75 medallions

If you want more info, you can check the LOTRO forums, look for the Bullroarer (public test server) section.

Originally posted by dopplemmo

The Pros and Cons of the article are largely irrelevant, as this soldier on landscape feature will be used very sparringly. You see, to use this in the wild world, you will have to use a  special token, which will permit the use of the soldier for 1 hour.

Cost of token:

100 turbine points

 or

min 20/max 45 175 marks and 10 medallions



min 46/max 50 500 marks and 25 medallions



min 71/max 95! 1,500 marks and 75 medallions

If you want more info, you can check the LOTRO forums, look for the Bullroarer (public test server) section.

 

That was something I had not known about, but you are correct.

That is an interesting choice on Turbine's part, but it does mean that half of my concerns are really not relevant. Still I do wonder about these tokens and the hour they provide. I wonder if you can space it out.

This was possibly going to be something that lured me back to playing LOTRO until I saw that they will cost 100 tp an hour to use.  Not even going to bother at this point.  Still waiting until EQ goes FTP in about a week and half, there it just costs gold for upkeep on a merc.

Yeah, I have a lifetime sub and I never play LOTRO anymore.

This might have brought me back. But not for $1 an hour of playtime, basically. Sure, I get free points, 500 a month, but that's only 5 hours worth.

If they are going to do this, why not 10 points an hour? Maybe just an unlock, say 500 points per character?

Originally posted by Torvaldr

 

I'll give you a hint.  There is no way to max out your soldier unless you pay TP or bought the unlock with an xpac.

 

I think the game is hugely expensive if you want to play the full meal deal and a total gouge.  We all have our opinions.

 

not sure exactly what you're trying to advocate. so you're not serious enough to want to actually reach endgame content in expansions, you feel like a fluff feature that's part of said expansions should be given to you for free? subscribers that don't own the expansions can't even level their skirm soldiers up past the default cap. quit acting as if it's some kind of abstract limitation. skirm cap increase is part of the expansions. you have to buy it like everyone else if you want it.

also, the devs have clearly stated that this feature is NOT limited to the cash shop store. landscape skirmish tokens can be bought in-game via skirmish camps, which is not associated with spending realworld currency in the cash shop.  at least do some damn fact checking before raging about b/s you don't even have a clear grasp of: http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1824-update-6-developer-diary-soldiers-on-landscape

the game is not expensive. i've played for more than two years, and own nearly all of the content without paying more than 80$ or so. they have big sales all the time on content. how much does it cost to play rift, WoW, or any other polished subscription MMO for two years? a hell of a lot mroe than 80$ i'd wager.