With the recent announcement that Turbine will be making its flagship MMO, Lord of the Rings Online into a F2P game, MMORPG.com list-smith Bill Murphy rattles off five reasons that players should be excited about the announcement. Next week, he gives five reasons that players should be cautious.
There are a lot of reasons to be excited about free things. I love buying one Coolatta and getting a second free, for instance. But when “free” is applied to MMOs some players tend to scoff and turn their noses up. Free MMO, as discussed numerous times on this site and across the internet, is almost synonymous with “bad MMO”. But Turbine, along with companies like Frogster and gPotato, has been giving players reasons to change their tune. The quality of the free MMO has only been going up in recent years, and is bound to make a sharp spike with ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2. And given the success and complete turnaround of DDO since going free to play, it seemed like only a matter of time before another AAA game tried a different sort of revenue model that doesn’t bank too much on subscriptions.
And so this fall we’ll be getting to traipse about Middle-earth for the low price of nothing. It’s a controversial subject no doubt, especially since Lord of the Rings Online isn’t exactly a game that needed the saving DDO once desperately required. LotRO may be one of the best performing MMOs in the western market, and yet Turbine is obviously confident that going F2P will make it even more successful. But the change is bound to have its share of ups and downs. In the spirit of remaining positive, here’s our list of five reasons to be excited about a F2P Middle-earth. Don’t worry naysayers, next week, we’ll have five reasons to be concerned.
Read 5 Reasons to be Excited About F2P LotRO.