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Is it worth going P2P from the start?
I am going to play LOTRO and am convinced enough to play it for a long time. But is it worth to pay from the start (does it give lots of added value), or is it better to wait with paying until a certain level where F2P becomes inconvenient?
Comments
Best advice I can give you is go f2p off the start. Try out all the classes and races. Get a feel for the game, the art style, and in general how everything works. Then if you like what you see dive in. Its the only real way to see if the money your gonna spend is worth something.
I suppose you are right that trying out things does not need the P2P features that are listed in the VIP section.
To me, it's not even worth f2p, much less p2p
You probably should start with the Free to Play and see how you like the game and consider paying once you get to content that you want to try but can't. No point paying if the unlocked content is too far ahead of your level.
To me it is worth the P2P price, i have been playing for 7 months now and will continue with the VIP sub
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
No. You should probably only do it when you reach the point where you hit the locked regional quests. 18th-25th level or so. Because that way if you subscribe, you get those areas free, as opposed to buying them a la carte.
THough it depends how quickly you go through them. If you are like me, well, it took me 2 years to finally get to Moria. So you'd be better off buying. But if you can handle the mind numbingly awful grind from 32 to 46 in a few months, then you should probably just subscribe, then buy Moria. Heck, you should probably buy a boxed retail copy of moria now ($10 at most places, some less), then hold off on activating it until you get out of the starter areas (giving you a free month of the game)
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
Ok, thanks for your opinion. Now, why are you trolling the boards of a game you don't like or play?
Anyway, if you know you'll be playing for a while, definitely subscribe. F2p is very very gimped - not just quest packs, but smaller inventory, chat restrictions, no auctions, no traits/lots of features that will gimp your character very soon (level 15 onwards). It's -far- more expensive to unlock all of the above than subscribing for a month, or hell even a year.
exactly, the trolls dont need to get involved in this thread, i played lotro, not my cup of tea, but i dont sit around in threads trying to give people lumps for liking it! now vamous you dam troll, go play in the sun light and petrify would ya. (see that, thats a lotro troll joke because sunlight turns them to stone!)
Actually, I don't think you will (have those areas opened). As far as I understand it goes like this: If you pay a monthly sub or had Lifetime, you are considered VIP and all areas are open to you, assuming you already paid for the expansions. If you ever paid for anything in LOTRO before but come back and do not want a monthly sub, you are considered Premium and get some additional benefits over F2P HOWEVER...I do believe you will have to purchase the quest packs and expansions through the store. At that point, once purchased they will remain so forever on your account. Therefore if you do the above, which is buy the expansions and apply the keys but then NOT pay for a monthly sub, I believe you still would have to purchase to open up quest areas.
There was much debate over this in the LOTRO forums, as people who bought expansions in the past felt they were paying for the same content twice. The answer seems to be that when you buy a game or expansion you are paying for access, and you can only access such content if you pay the monthly sub. So if you want to skip the sub, you must buy the access to the content for your account, this time through the new store instead of in the form of a monthly sub.
I could be wrong on this but I would suggest you check the LOTRO Forums if you are considering going this route and NOT paying for a monthly subscription.
Everytime i have tryed f2p on any game i did not play them long...The restrictons are sucky...your limited on bags,area's of the game you may not go to...or you can't get higher lvls or send tells to others playing the game... so i think if your going to play a game make a active account atlest then you can do everything and most games give you free time befour billing you and then id you don't like the game end your account.
Think think pink
Turbine's implementation of 'f2p' is pretty unique, so you should take a look at their model (DDO, or wait until Lotro's launches), as it's a hybrid (and functions mainly to push people to subscribe - and you can earn points ot unlock things by questing, as well.
So, this is how the quest packs work: buying Moria unlocks all of Moria's quests (permanently), and buying Mirkwood does the same for Mirkwood (and if you don't sub you'll be a premium member). SoA (levels 1-50) quest packs are all bought individually, and buying the game won't unlock anything once you unsub/your first 30 days runs out. The new area, Enedwaith, will also need to be purchased if you're not a subscriber. So, it's worthwhile buying Moria & Mirkwood whenever, now or later.
I say go for it now ... its a great game.
If you are sure you want to play it why wait till it goes f2p? that alot of days you could have spent having fun :-)
Good luck
Not again. I would rather a monthly fee and paying for expansions than f2p any day.
Why? because the behavior of the majority of people on this planet tends to be better when they are actually paying for a continual subscription than if they are playing for free.
Give me a pay to play service any day. And before anyone cites WoW, that game is not a good example of anything other than to take everything everyone else has done and copy it. The playerbase is some of the worst I've ever seen.
Thanks for all the amazing suggestions, views and opinions!!
I played WoW for 4 years, and I quit because of the crappy community. LOTRO is said to be similar to WoW in gameplay, and more mature. The replies on my topic only verify what I already heard. So yeah, you can imagine now my enthusiasm...;)
~~~See you around in the Shire~~~
Sorry for getting to this post late. This is what I told my cousin.
Buy Moria/Mirkwood and the Adventurer's Pack (Adventurer's Pack is optional though). Pay $15 for the first month of subscription right from the start. Then level from 1-45 (it shouldn't take more than a month even playing casually) if it does that's fine just resub for 1 more month. Once you get you character to 45 turn off your monthly sub. Now play at your leisure through Moria and Mirkwood because you have already bought and unlocked everything from those zones. When you want to level a new character do the same thing all over again. From Moria/Mirkwood you should be able to purchase zones as needed. Of course you could always just pay the sub fee and not have to worry but this is a workaround if you want to save money.
I'm sure someone else can elaborate if this is a viable plan. This is what he is planning to do and what I had suggested him to do.
In America I have bad teeth. If I lived in England my teeth would be perfect.
Ha. It took me 2 years to get to level 46 playing casually. (And at the same rate, only a couple months to go from 46 to 61).
But otherwise I agree with you. I
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
I know of your exploits :P you are a whole different kind of casual player.
In America I have bad teeth. If I lived in England my teeth would be perfect.
Really, unless money is tight and you absolutely cannot afford it, going VIP is really the best value. On a multi-month plan it comes out to 10 bucks per month. With an active subscription, you also get 500 TP's per month to spend or save as you choose(so, for instance if you went with Moria, and stayed a subscriber, in 4 months you could purchase Mirkwood just with your bonus TP's.
I beta'd the original way back in fall 2006 - but I was pretty heavily into WoW at that time so I never stuck with it. For some odd reason, I got an invite for the F2P beta and decided to give it a shot. I enjoyed it so much, I bought the Mirkwood complete from the Turbine store and subscribed. For the 10 bucks a month it's going to cost (really it's sort of like 5 bucks since you also get 500 points) I find it worth it. Skipping 2 coffee's a week pays for the Sub - and lasts a lot longer
!
I just resubbed to Lotro instead of going f2p. They have a 3 months for $29.00 deal that is running right now. I'm also on Brandywine, the highest pop server, so I was also worried about login priority.
Getting the 500 tps per month is going to be nice. The one thing I didn't like about the game when I played before was having to kill 250 X, Y and Z for traits. It looks like traits may be purchasable in the store, which is what I'm saving my tps for.
offtopic but since you brought it up I just took a alt from 35 to 48 in a little over a week and only grouped a couple of time to help a kinmate out. With Evendim, the expanded quest line in Trollshaws,and the skirmish system it made it a breeze to get through what at release was the low 40 doldrums. At 48 I have my quest book maxxed and just deleted some old trollshaw quests that I skipped and were gray to me. Granted it has been raining and I have been playing 6 or more hours a day and my character gets good crafted gear from his brothers and kinmates.
But back to the OP, Jeremy is right, what I would do is buy a copy of LoTRO off Amazon or other vendor for ten bucks and get the 30 days.
I miss DAoC
I like it...you can sub and not have to worry about new expenditures because your points are incoming regularly. So basically Turbine/CM arranges your expenditures in this way. I like to fully experience a game so this is a good thing in the long run!
My personal beef with VIP is that its wasted money if you later decide to go premium.
Being a VIP is nice, but you will always have to pay your monthly fee. Some of us here played certain MMOs we liked for years. Even with a 30$ 3 month subplan thats going to be alot of money longterm. While a premium account on the other hand, that you slowly built up over the same time will longterm safe you money, of that im sure. Just look at the list of onetime purchases:
1. Expansions. Accountwide, VIP have to buy aswell.
2. Questpacks, etc. Accountwide.
3. Charslots. Accountwide.
4. Bagspace, Vaultspace, Shared Storage etc. Char/Account based.
5. Goldlimit etc. Charbased afaik.
So even while throwing some charbased thingies into it, it should be obvious that many things in that list are not recurring purchases. And those that are going to be recurring purchases are likely being recurring for premium and VIP alike. Its a matter of when being a premium starts being more economic, not if.
The real problem though imho starts when you, after some years of being a VIP, drop to premium. You paid hundreds of dollars but only have the bare minimum of the game left. About as appetizing an idea as an empty plate in very good restaurant, yes the food was good, notice the past tense? What about tomorrow? As a premium after the same time you maybe also spend hundreds of dollars, but you will have a fleshed out game where you can do everything you want. Also as a premium member you have the option of not paying anything if there is nothing released worth your money, as a VIP you pay regardless of wether you use the content or not(for example i dont have a single high level char, i twink and take my time, as a VIP i would feel bad if Turbine where to focus on late game areas and stuff, its included in my sub but i cant use it, as a premium i just wouldnt buy the content i cant/wont use).
So for me its:
Lifetime > Premium > VIP >>>> F2P; If you really like the game and see yourself playing it on and off for as long as the servers are on.
F2P > Premium > VIP >>>> Lifetime; If your unsure and commonly change your opinion about MMOs a couple Days/Weeks in.
The only reason to go VIP imho is if you a) want something only VIPs get(Monsterplay), b) you know you probably will only play until you have seen everything, then drop the game to never touch it again. But honestly, even in the latter case a fleshed out premium account is atleast worth something, while nobody will care about some ex-VIPs account. Imho its the difference between buying an apartment in rates, or living for rent, the basic principle is the same. Obviously lifetime would be buying yourself a house, not a bad idea if you can afford it.
I tihnk you have a good point, being premium is pretty much the same as getting a lifetimesub but in smal pieces.
But you forget that VIPs also get 500tp month so you can save them to when you drop to premium to buy the things you miss. And there are more things that premium players never get such as rested XP and acces to destiny points which I personally would miss alot.
Also when you drop from VIP to premium you will keep alot of things you had as a VIP on your characters such as bags and trait slots. So depending on how you play jumping between VIP and premium may be a good idea in some cases. Basicly the model is very flexible so everyone can fit the payment plan that suits them best which is why I like it so much (even though it doesnt matter much to me since I have lifetime sub).
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
Amen to that Rocketeer.
I chose Lifetime for the simple reason that I am a big MMORPG fan and wanted to switch to more lore and a better community. I know how long I will play this game. I am not kidding that I haven't even tried it, but I just KNOW I will keep playing, having played WoW for 4 years and knowing this game is quite similar besides the better community and graphics here.. Lifetime benefits over everything in the long run, it's why it's lifetime. It's just nice that I can stop worrying about money now
.