LOTRO: Free-to-Play

Robear wrote:

I dunno, I saw a mount in the Lotro Store for level 5 characters. I assume that's the "beginner" mount, but it was not clear. +62% movement speed.

I'm not impressed with the ability to buy *stats*...

I was unimpressed with the store, in general.

Psych wrote:
Robear wrote:

I dunno, I saw a mount in the Lotro Store for level 5 characters. I assume that's the "beginner" mount, but it was not clear. +62% movement speed.

I'm not impressed with the ability to buy *stats*...

I was unimpressed with the store, in general.

The store's UI was actually much worse in the early beta, but it still has a ways to go to be called polished.

Badferret wrote:
Psych wrote:
Robear wrote:

I dunno, I saw a mount in the Lotro Store for level 5 characters. I assume that's the "beginner" mount, but it was not clear. +62% movement speed.

I'm not impressed with the ability to buy *stats*...

I was unimpressed with the store, in general.

The store's UI was actually much worse in the early beta, but it still has a ways to go to be called polished.

It was less the UI, and more the available things in the store. I loaded it, looked at it, and felt *meh*.

Psych wrote:
Badferret wrote:
Psych wrote:
Robear wrote:

I dunno, I saw a mount in the Lotro Store for level 5 characters. I assume that's the "beginner" mount, but it was not clear. +62% movement speed.

I'm not impressed with the ability to buy *stats*...

I was unimpressed with the store, in general.

The store's UI was actually much worse in the early beta, but it still has a ways to go to be called polished.

It was less the UI, and more the available things in the store. I loaded it, looked at it, and felt *meh*.

For the long term subscriber, the store does not offer that much besides a few cosmetic/emote novelties, stat and virtue buffs/tomes and the healing/power pots/rez items.

The store is mostly for the coming horde of F2Pers who will be new to the game and will need to buy quest, vault storage, gold limits and character slots.

Robear wrote:

I dunno, I saw a mount in the Lotro Store for level 5 characters. I assume that's the "beginner" mount, but it was not clear. +62% movement speed.

I'm not impressed with the ability to buy *stats*...

It's an interesting issue. I'm stalled at level 20, and the XP bar isn't moving fast enough to keep me going through the story quests (which I like) without grinding through regular quests (which leave me 'meh'). I'd be willing to pay some cash to speed up leveling and my toon's movement through the world just so I can get through the story stuff.

Robear wrote:

I dunno, I saw a mount in the Lotro Store for level 5 characters. I assume that's the "beginner" mount, but it was not clear. +62% movement speed.

I'm not impressed with the ability to buy *stats*...

+62% is much faster than the previous beginner mount, which was somewhere around +30%.

Is anyone else not seeing those Turbine points they sad they were giving to those with active subs? Was hoping to try out the store but only have 5 points they awarded for completing some deed I done months ago.

Yes, it is a known issue. Some are getting all of their points, some none or only a trickle. Turbine promises that all points will eventually show up on your account.

I jumped on and dabbled a bit. So far it seems like nothing new actually works. Kind of makes me wonder why they bothered to beta test it, and I was in the beta.

The website is also kind of screwed up and keeps insisting that I sign in under my beta forum name rather than my "real" one. Also their support ticket page is so broken you pretty much need to fill out the form in notepad and paste it in, then tab till you find the submit button.

On top of that I've seen tons of threads complaining about tweaks that seem to be for the sole purpose of forcing people to use the store. Hugely inflated costs for tweaking your traits, for instance... unless you buy the limited-use book from the store. If it's that kind of thing then that doesn't bother me too much as I'm a bit too casual to swap out "trait builds" or anything like that.

Anyone know where we can read the full patch notes?

Implementation has been delayed in Europe, maybe as a result of what you guys are finding.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...

LobsterMobster wrote:

Anyone know where we can read the full patch notes?

http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Relea...

And yes, it has been a rather rocky start, and the official forums are now slower than molasses.

I am just ignoring the store (made easier by the fact that I have only received a fraction of the TPs I should have) and have explored a little of the new content which has been much smoother so far.

Thanks for the links.

You can no longer revive after suffering a death by misadventure.

Well that sucks. Except...

The dialog that appears when you are defeated, offering the choice for “revive” or “retreat now,” allows you to put it in the background behind other windows.

Why offer the choice for revive if it's been disabled? Is "suffering a death by misadventure" something more specific than "getting your ass handed to you?"

I'm definitely going to try this out, but I guess I'll wait to set things up until Landroval is available for FTP.

Have you all read the Let's Play on the Escapist? The daring tale of a Hobbit Minstrel in search of... shoes?

Death by Misadventure is just a nice way of saying you got stupid and jumped off a cliff. If you were to revive at the bottom of a featureless valley with no path up, you'd be stuck. So I think it's meant to prevent that. I'm not sure if there are any other 'misadventure' options. I bet lava is one.

Normal death still offers the Revive option

I haven't paid much attention to the store either. Most of my characters are only level 19ish anyway. The cosmetic option seems to be making characters look a LOT cooler. I have to figure out what they're doing because my characters are all decidedly uncool, what with their purple shirts and orange pants.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Why offer the choice for revive if it's been disabled? Is "suffering a death by misadventure" something more specific than "getting your ass handed to you?"

Death by misadventure means that you died outside of combat, usually having fallen off of a cliff.

*Edit* Tannhausered.

Ahhh, I see! On the surface it looked like a, "ha ha, you can no longer revive unless you pay us money" when instead it is a, "ha ha, you no longer have to stand around for up to an hour contemplating the admirable depths of your own stupidity!"

Works for me.

Another patch note I noticed was that Hobbit minstrels no longer play their bagpipes with their noses. This is truly a sad day.

Oh, you thought they were playing bagpipes ?

I was getting more of a George Clinton / Funkadelic vibe, what with them fields they were always harvesting and the large number of chemists in Bree

LobsterMobster wrote:

Ahhh, I see! On the surface it looked like a, "ha ha, you can no longer revive unless you pay us money" when instead it is a, "ha ha, you no longer have to stand around for up to an hour contemplating the admirable depths of your own stupidity!"

Works for me.

Another patch note I noticed was that Hobbit minstrels no longer play their bagpipes with their noses. This is truly a sad day.

I think it is meant for players like me, who are too lazy to find the real way down sometimes. A lot of times when where I want to be is way down, I would just jump off, and revive if I died.

Any suggestions for a good "Getting Started"-type guide? I've never played LOTRO and this will actually be my first MMORPG (too much of a dilettante to pay a monthly fee for anything).

edosan wrote:

Any suggestions for a good "Getting Started"-type guide? I've never played LOTRO and this will actually be my first MMORPG (too much of a dilettante to pay a monthly fee for anything).

I'd say try just jumping right in, the tutorials and hints are pretty good, and with the Quest Guide its difficult to get lost these days (unless you want to).

absurddoctor wrote:
edosan wrote:

Any suggestions for a good "Getting Started"-type guide? I've never played LOTRO and this will actually be my first MMORPG (too much of a dilettante to pay a monthly fee for anything).

I'd say try just jumping right in, the tutorials and hints are pretty good, and with the Quest Guide its difficult to get lost these days (unless you want to).

Cool. This is my plan for next week. It'll give me something to do while the wife is out of town.

They say the free-to-play starts today, but I don't see a link anywhere to begin the download or set up a profile. My drunken Hobbit antics will have to wait.

It's a rather large download. The link is over on the 'join the community' page, here.

I could not create a Turbine account without a Product Key. Launching the game and choosing the create an account option from there brings up a different registration page that didn't require a key, but that didn't work either, claiming a timeout.

Right now they are letting subscribers and recent beta players into the F2P. Everyone else will follow soon, I suppose.

I actually considered re-upping my subscription recently to play a little before FTP, but the 3 years worth of updates were brutal. Goddam 3rd world internet.

Edosan, start on Landroval to be with the Goodjers. My mains are Arhad and Brindaur; my wife is Feldrel. Look us up with questions.

I'm actually quite happy now with the changes. I realized the stats don't really matter that much, since there's no character pvp (just monster play and sparring), so it's not a big deal. The store and points work for me, and my Lifetime memberships are automatically VIP level. So they are actually paying me back $5 a month with the free points, and I'm not paying a monthly fee anymore.

I did pretty well out of it. Well, I had to respec my legendaries, but outside of that, no issues and some good improvements. I need to get Arhad into Enedwaith and look around.

Now that I'm getting settled in I rather like the changes. The wardrobe shows off the positive side of monetization as they clearly put it in so you wouldn't have to purchase a favored item for every single character on your account. Contrast this with the summer festival rewards, which you had to grind individually and were previously non-transferrable.

The tool tip for the wardrobe says it lets you store "non-bound" cosmetic items but I think the way they worded it is misleading. The items within the wardrobe are non-bound. The items you put into it can be (such as the aforementioned summer festival items).

Not crazy about all of the GUI changes though. Everything seems a bit bigger. I think there's a way to shrink stuff though, so I'll need to have a look around.

The crafting changes are GREAT. Weaponsmithing/woodworking just got a LOT more flexible, with lots of multi-output items at every tier.

All skirmish marks spent on soldiers have also been refunded but not the first second and third marks. I thought it was bad enough that I had over 10,000 of the things waiting to be respent by my LM, but one of the well known players on the Elendilmir glff channel said he over 200,000!

What is the deal with multi-output, Lobster? Not sure I get that.

EDIT - My wife just showed me this - it allows you to choose the type of bonus you put on a piece of jewelry, for example, while still only having one recipe for that piece.

I'll be making a character over the weekend. My wife had a good time in the beta, though she's much more of a LotR fan than me. Still, can't beat free