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Can you get all content by just playing?
BrokenSilence
Member UncommonPosts: 321
Hello everyone,
First I wanted to say that I've heard good things about the community for a long time now. I've played lots of MMOs but there are a few major ones I've never tried, STO, SWOTR and LOTRO. I wanted to know if it was possible to unlock all areas/quests without using real money?
Comments
Thanks for the reply. It is good know that it is possible. I don't mind spending cash if I'm enjoying myself and the game is good. Any tips for a new player? Any mistakes you might of made starting out that you wish you didn't do?
Don't buy anything off the AH until you get max level as you will quickly outlevel yor equipment UNLESS you turn off your EXP gain (which a lot of people have done)
Crafting skills are mostly a gold sink, raw materials will always sell better than the finished product, unless you are making the really rare stuff and that takes a lot of time/effort.
Don't bother grouping until you hit max level, and disregard any group quests you get until you get to max level. There are a few, and they look mighty tempting sitting there in your ques book....don't bother, no one groups in this game until the very end.
Do your character deeds and class skills deeds, which can be pretty time consuming. They will help out a lot.
The main quest from 1-50 (the one that ends up in Angmar) is excellent and well written. The stuff that comes after is hit or miss.
Remember, this was a subscription game and then a F2P game, so some things were designed before the switch. Once you get to Mirkwood, you can clearly tell the difference in the design and it then becomes a major quest hub type of MMO.
Don't skip Moria, that is the best part of the game and one of the best MMO expansions ever.
Pretty much was said in the posts above. You definitely can unlock everything for free (few people does that route actually) but it's a long and grindy road.
Don't mind spending a bit, then I'd repeat Torval: if you have fun and like the game, go for the sub at around lvl20 or 30 - even if it's only for 1 month, it will make your life so much easier, that nowadays only the hardcore f2p folks playing the "fully free" way. There are even guides around the 1month Vip
If you don't mind spending, with that $15 you unlock most of the restrictions, and then you only need to focus on the content. Still grindy to getting them for free, but at least you can grind conveniently, without restrictions 
(since while the question was "unlock all areas/quests without using real money" but as a free player you have restrictions on the character as well, and those are making the "free area unlocking" process much slower. But if you were a subscriber to the game in the past, even for a month, most of those restrictions will disappear.)
New player advice: kobold's list is good, though I'd argue with the no group part. Group quests and instances are fun, and you can find helpful folks for those easily, on most servers. Also the group play is fun, classes are working well together.
At the server selection, pick a US server if you're in the States (server names have a -US or -EU at the end), since sometime this year the Eu ones will travel back here, and you'll have a bit higher ping if you're on those. (but if you like roleplay and player events, roll an additional character on Laurelin Eu, it's a great place
).
When you reach lvl15, housing becomes available. If you'll have the money (1 gold is not a big sum nowadays as it was years ago) I'd suggest to buy one, and preferably not on your "home location" (i.e if you're a Man, don't buy a Bree house). House gives an extra travel skill, and to your home zone you can travel back through your racial travel skill, so it's a waste to have 2 for the same place
also house gives extra storage, it's good until you unlock all of your inventory and bank slots - if you subscribe, those are unlocking for example, so don't spend on inventory bags separately if you plan to subscribe later for a month.
Riding, making the life easier if you don't walk everywhere. Though the early game was designed that way (in the beginning you couldn't get a steed until lvl35), nowadays everyone hops onto a horse right after leaving the tutorial... I guess as we're older, we become lazier
Riding skill costs 95TP ($1), but subscribers can get it for free, so if you plan to subscribe, don't spend the TPs on the skill, just wait for the time you'll be a Vip. Starter zones are easy on foot anyways - and you get a free horse for 24 hours as a gift. Gaming sites used to give out keys occasionally with account-wide riding skill and horse and cosmetics, if you can grab one, then it's maybe the best.
(Zam started it http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/420570/Riding-skill.html but later the keys with the same content appeared on other sites too, I think even mmorpg.com had one giveaway once)
There's 3 kinds of content: the free starting zones (which will get you to around level 32ish), the quest packs which people use to fill the leveling gaps and the expansions. The starting zones are free. The quest packs are free for VIP. Everyone needs to buy the expansions.
The most important thing that you "lose" after VIP expires is access to quest packs. During VIP, it is VERY important to create all the characters that you plan to play and to log them all in at least once, otherwise the perks (riding, traits, virtues, bags) do not unlock. Also, people buy content on sales, which are frequent enough.
Was about to say the same as ChaoticWake. In my fellowship I've had a guy who made toons on each & every server and leveled them till around 30 for the cash shop coins, only to spend them on the toon in our fellowship. It sounds boring like hell to me but he enjoyed it (a real alt-o-holic I guess ;-)
If you don't mind spending money, I'd suggest to keep an eye out on adventure pack deals. From time to time they go on sale. One I surely would recommend to buy is Evendim - It's probably the best part of the original content. Mines of Moria is still so-so and everything after that is not really worth playing (for me).
I've done the 1-character-of-the-basic-class-type-on-different-servers thing, too. I focused on purchasing more content (and some bank slots for my primary character). But even so, the coin-to-time-spent ratio is horrible after the first 10 levels. I would resort to making a character, earning about 150 TPs with them, then deleting them. Let me tell you, that's a boring way to get TPs (and buy content). My usual 150 TP run would take about 3-4 hours of play time. I could probably have done it considerably faster, but I was doing a lot of exploring and experimenting with the game mechanics for each class.
After a couple of months, I had several of the quest packs and almost everything I needed on my primary character. Then I broke down and found Mines of Moria on sale for $5. Purchase. Register. Lots of TPs (1500 or 2000, I think) and marked my account as 'Premium'. Shortly after that, I wore out on that game. My primary character is only around 45th level, and I never ventured into Moria. I think I own 5 of the quest expansions, mostly those for level 40 and under.
I'd say it is entirely possible to play all of the content in LOTRO without paying Turbine a single cent, but be prepared to devote your life to the game. Look for a clearance sale at any local stores that sell software, it will speed that grind immensely.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Yep, I think I wrote in a previous thread about a similar fella, with one main character and one disposable character which he always deleted - that poor, ill-fated character funded the main one. In an f2p kinship, they had 1 day on weekends dedicated for TP run, they made 4-500 TPs on those occasions, plus the looted gold and mats and other valuable drops which he sent over to the main character before the delete. On the other time he played regularily, with his main.
In a year (after the f2p launch) they've unlocked everything for totally free... and he said 1 day in a week, with company (and conversations on teamspeak, etc) even the grind wasn't so bad. But when the expansions started to arrive, they rather purchased those for money instead of grinding further
I think it was listed before, everyone who was a subscriber before (no matter when, and for how long) keeps the inventory bags, the removed gold limit, 5 AH slots, every trait and virtue slot (and with the trait revamp some class skills too), unrestricted mail / chat / direct trade, swift travel at the stables, +1 character slot, elevated slot in the login queue (means nothing, don't remember when was the last time I saw a queue
), full access to the forum (freeps can only post in selected threads), "read-only" access to the wardrobe (ok, it's not a feature, just a side-effect, but you can access your cosmetic outfits you had in the wardrobe, just cannot add new ones). Probably I missed some stuff... anyways, it's not bad for a month's sub fee 
You don't keep the sub-only stuff (like the PvMP access, or the crafting guild access, or the xp-boost), and the quest packs and skirmishes you don't have.
I tend to do some grinding, not to buy everything, just to get the TP and the bonuses. It's much better to see it as kind of 'low income' of TP rather than something you rely on, that way it grows up slowly without you noticing too much.
By doing that I can also feel not too bad about using mithril coins occasionally to teleport to a quest (one I've done before on another char).