LOTRO welcome back week

Dcully

Any past subscribers check your mail for your welcome back week of free play.


Details here http://community.lotro-europe.com/welcomeback.php?territory=EnglishUK

zekiel

Yep spotted that today, might give it a bash once more.

Dcully

zekiel wrote: »

Yep spotted that today, might give it a bash once more.

Aye would do myself but AOC has me attention these days.

Venom

**** LOTRO

Ivan

Getting ready for this now, never really gave LOTRO a fair chance (or so I'm told) so will settle down for a fair bit with this offer and see how things turn out.

I really don't think there is enough in the game to keep me entertained without people to play with though, so I'm not sure I'll last too long...

Anyone else still playing this?

monkeyfudge

I have a life time membership.

So I might pop in if there are going to be other people around.

Lister1

State your character names and I will give you an invite to the bunch that myself and Hellfire belong to...

Ivan

9gig download and the speed doesn't go over 115kb/s with a 5mb line.

This might take some time.
I knew I should have started downloading on Friday.

Ivan

What servers are you guys on atm?

Rev Hellfire

Snowbourn, though like dcully I'm back in conan these days.
If you're into a PvE experience there's plenty to do in lotro.

Ivan

I'm playing Dagorth on Snowbourn at the moment, if anybody is around give me a whisper!

Lister1

How you getting on in lotro Ivan?

Ivan

Good, haven't played much for a few days now mostly because I don't have the client at home. Playing it in work during lunch almost every day and sometimes after work for a little bit.

Level 14 at the moment and I'm still really enjoying the Captain class. Has pretty much everything I could want.

About 5 of us playing from work now, between 8-15. Can't wait till mount at 20 and some proper instances.

Drakar

WTB your job.

pa4

how much is it monthly to play this?

humanji

pa4 wrote: »

how much is it monthly to play this?

From the website:

Euro:
12.99 – 1 month
35.97 – 3 month
65.94 – 6 month
119.88 – 12 month

And you can download the 2 week free trial now to see if you like it. It's well worth it, IMO. I need to get back to this, but had too much on at the moment. Think I might need to quit my job so I have more game time.

Gunmonkey

Seems LOTRO is going free-to-play in September so buying a long term sub now might not be a good idea until they release what folks with lifetime subs/ existing game-time will get in return.

Link to Eurogamer

wayne040576

Gunmonkey wrote: »

Seems LOTRO is going free-to-play in September so buying a long term sub now might not be a good idea until they release what folks with lifetime subs/ existing game-time will get in return.

Link to Eurogamer

I got an email from them yesterday. They are setting up an in game store for convenience items. You buy them with points that you either earn in game or you purchase with real money. All current lifetime subs with be able to get the items for free.

wayne040576

Here's the mail:

Coming this autumn, we are proud to announce a major update that will make The Lord of the Rings Online™ (LOTRO) Free-to-Play for everyone. LOTRO will be introducing a new pricing model which allows new players to download the game and play for free. Everyone will be able to purchase expansions, quest packs, items, and account services a la carte from the new LOTRO Store, or join our VIP program to get unlimited access to all of the game’s content for one low price.

In addition to the new pricing model, the award winning story will be extended, a new region unveiled and much more!

LOTRO will offer players unlimited choice! *


New players will be able to join with millions of other adventurers as they explore the most complete and authentic recreation of Middle-earth ever created and participate in LOTRO’s award-winning epic story up to level 50 completely free.

The LOTRO Store will be loaded with thousands of convenience items as well as expansion packs, premium content, additional character slots, potions, character customisation and more! The LOTRO Store will be seamlessly integrated into the game allowing you new and exciting ways to enhance and customise your experience using Points which can be purchased in the store or earned through gameplay.

Players who elect to become a LOTRO VIP will have unlimited access to all premium content, receive priority server access, 5 character slots, a shared bank slot, and a monthly allotment of Points to spend in the new LOTRO Store.

NB: All current lifetime subscription holders will automatically become VIPs under the new pricing model.

pa4

humanji wrote: »

From the website:

Euro:
12.99 – 1 month
35.97 – 3 month
65.94 – 6 month
119.88 – 12 month

And you can download the 2 week free trial now to see if you like it. It's well worth it, IMO. I need to get back to this, but had too much on at the moment. Think I might need to quit my job so I have more game time.

sounds good i was planning on picking this up since i'll have time to play it over the summer, reviews look good to!

pa4

wayne040576 wrote: »

Here's the mail:

where can i download it?

wayne040576

pa4 wrote: »

sounds good i was planning on picking this up since i'll have time to play it over the summer, reviews look good to!

You might want to read my posts above before you subscribe.

wayne040576

pa4 wrote: »

where can i download it?

Here:http://www.lotro-europe.com/?territory=EnglishUK

Venom

While a free MMO is never something to shake a stick at and doubly so when its as polished as LOTRO, is anyone else a bit shocked this has happened?

Always though the game had a decent player base tbh.

Dcully

Im not shocked in the slightest,this was always on the cards.
A few months back the game had only 200,000 subscribers worldwide,thats very small compared to other MMOs.
But i reckon the biggest reason for this is when they took a look at DDO since it went free to play.
Revenue from DDO increased by 500%, thats something they simply cannot ignore.
While i always enjoyed LOTRO i personally always went on to something else , whether it be wow or Age of Conan which im now hooked on.
I really like LOTRO as i say but simply cannot justify subscribing to more than one MMO at a time
When it goes free to play i will play it for sure and possibly purchase some content down the road.
Im pretty sure theres many more like me and this is what turbine are banking on.

Afterall the free to play model has brought 1 million players to DDO.
LOTRO is vastly superior to DDO so it looks good for this being a success.

Further more as most players reported when they played the welcome back week etc , there simply was nobody around for the low lvl people to play with.
Im sure turbines plan is that these people will lvl their characters up over time [for free] and then wish to see more of the game and therefore purchase more content.

Ivan

I was shocked by DDO going F2P but LOTRO should have followed months ago.

The only problem with F2P games is they tend to get pushed out too early and in terrible shape. That is not something you can come back from too easily. LOTRO is well known for being a well polished game all it needs now is a playerbase which a F2P model will do rather promptly, I think.

This is fantastic news for LOTRO and anybody playing it, even if I do dislike the F2P model. :P

TheDoc

Its a model that every MMO has open to them, but its usually taken up by the games struggling to keep their head above water.

LOTRO has a very small player base. Hardware and server maintanance isnt probably that big. MMO players by nature tend to buy **** to make their character look cooler etc by nature

(Refer to the celestial steed which gained Blizzard 10 million dollars after 24 hours)

However there is a major downside to this move, it discredits the game, entirely. There is alot of advantagous material being placed on the store that really, you HAVE to buy, therefore not really making it free to play. This sort of model drives the ahrdcore player base out of games entirely, leaving the casuals and "ebayers"

Its something thats been tightly analysed with blizzard due to them realising mounts and pets and the overall analysis from other games and similar models is that changing the model to this, gives a short term surge, but mid to long term player base drops, player activity drops and the game pretty much winds itself up.

Could very well be an attempt to grab the last few bucks before closing shop.

Venom

TheDoc what advantagous material being placed in this store?

Drakar

Linky linky to the 10m in 24hrs stat too if you can, would be interesting to read more.

Lister1

Dcully wrote: »

Im not shocked in the slightest,this was always on the cards.
A few months back the game had only 200,000 subscribers worldwide,thats very small compared to other MMOs.
But i reckon the biggest reason for this is when they took a look at DDO since it went free to play.
Revenue from DDO increased by 500%, thats something they simply cannot ignore.

DDO going F2P was as a survival tactic to save the game. Lotro going free is as a result of a commercial sucess that the decision to make DDO F2P has proved to be. Interesting times ahead but if it results in more content being released it is a good thing...

Edit: Its hard to judge how many active subscriptions(no official nummbers available) there are but the game but it seems to come a healthy 26th on xfires games played list which would be as good a comparison to other MMOs. Behind Aion(at 9th) but ahead of both AOC and WH. I havent noticed a decrease in numbers on the server I am on but that is probably due to it being one of the more popular ones. I have noticed an increase of transfers to the server though so some of the other servers are losing suffering....