I used to play Lotro but I left after raiding a little in the Mirkwood expansion.

I've heard that you can buy all your deeds for cash, and unlimited stat upgrades.  Is this true?

If Lotro is pay-to-win, I don't want to return.  I don't want to come back if it means I have to pay more than my subscription to enjoy end-game raiding.  But if you can't buy stats, I'd be interested in returning and I am curious what might await me.

to be honest most people will say its not, but lets face it. Lotro isn't a F2P game its a freemium. I would say that its pay to win or atleast close to it. Do not expect a store with just cos. stuff in it. you can buy potions, brands, ... in it.

If you consider pvping it is pay to win  for sure. thats what i find. 

But i would say try it out for free and check the store out, yes you can buy deeds, and scrolls to increase your stats, ... but the game still offers something nice if you are planning  to lvl from 1-85. the End game atm is not that great i heard.

regards

me :P

Well my point of view comes from the ettens. 

Pve wise oh well i guess that is something everyone will have a different opinion about. PvP wise everyone will agree that the Store brands if still ingame are Pay To Win.

Turbine walks a fine line on p2w

you can buy most crafting resources with cash

http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/LOTRO_Store

I dunno.

You can buy stat tomes. But I think the most they boost you is +50? It's noticeable, but it's not that noticeable. Maybe P2W (in theory they drop in the wild, but in practice, hahahahahahahahahahaha)

You can buy virtues. But you can still do them via deeds

You can buy crafting mats, but the stuff you make with them is bound to your account.

You can buy accelerators for crafting xp and reputation. But I don't think you really need them.

You can buy scrolls for your legendary items that remove legacies from one item so you can apply them on a new item. But then they only are Tier 2, so you have to buy more scrolls to improve their tier.  Somewhat P2W-ish, but you can get them in game by deconstructing LIs into shards and buying 'em with that (though it's a painful grind)

And there are starlight crystals, you can add three to your legendary weapon to boost the DPS of it. These are pretty much pay to win, but they also (like stat tomes) supposedly drop in the game, and they have less effect on 1st (and 2nd) age items compared to 3rd age. So they are mostly to let non-raiders not suck as much in terms of weapons as raiders.

There are also store only healing potions that have a much shorter cooldown. These are also a pretty big p2w item, but are they needed? I dunno.

All in all, it's not great, but it's a far cry from most F2P games I've played where you really did need to buy cash shop items constantly to buff your gear, or worse, simply a chance of buffing your gear.

PvE games cannot be pay to win.