LOTRO: Free-to-Play

edosan wrote:

Any suggestions for a good "Getting Started"-type guide? I've never played LOTRO.

I would also tend to suggest starting as a Man/Woman in Bree, or a Hobbit if like hobbits. I thought the Shire was the best starting area, and Archet (where humans start) the next best. But I really didn't like playing a hobbit, so that took away the charm for me. The game's pretty good about introducing you to the conventions of MMORPG play.

The starting zones for Elves and Dwarves have been improved from how they were originally, though - if you prefer one of those, don't hesitate. I'd still agree that the Shire is the best start zone (if you like hobbits). I'd didn't care that much for Archet myself, but its just a matter of taste.

You can also travel between the major cities as soon you as you get out of the very beginning instanced area. I believe you are now given a perk so that at level 5 you can do so for free.

nihilo wrote:

The starting zones for Elves and Dwarves have been improved from how they were originally, though - if you prefer one of those, don't hesitate. I'd still agree that the Shire is the best start zone (if you like hobbits). I'd didn't care that much for Archet myself, but its just a matter of taste.

I much preferred the Elven starting area to Archet, myself. Archet seems to be scattered over too large of an area with too many hunting quests in opposite directions. Also the town itself is a bit of a maze.

I always seem to blow through the Elven starting area in about half the time.

Does anyone know how it will work for the new F2P will work for people who had accounts but are not active?

Can I just log into my account? And start playing? Do I have to make a new one and lose my toon?

Cheeto1016 wrote:

Does anyone know how it will work for the new F2P will work for people who had accounts but are not active?

Can I just log into my account? And start playing? Do I have to make a new one and lose my toon?

Pretty sure you can just log in and start playing. (After patching of course.)

Seems they discontinued support for the beta's launcher. Could I drop the ftp launcher into my existing lotro folder and have it update? If so, I'd appreciate a link where said files have been uploaded.

Using my existing Turbine account (DDO and LOTRO Beta back in the day), I get a "The username entered does not have an active "LOTRO" subscription. Please try another username." error. Looking at the forums I see a few others having the same issue.

Looks like if you are brand new or an existing subscriber you're good to go, but still some kinks to work out for those like me. Hopefully they'll suss it out soon.

I did a 2 week trial about a year ago before I got hooked by DDO, hopefully my login info still work.

Downloading this now and gonna have a crack tonight. Tried the demo way back but free sounds like a good price point!

I'm skimming but can you use old paid accounts on this new service?

The system is ranked thusly - if you don't pay a fee, your characters operate under free to play rules. If you pay a monthly fee, you get an upgrade to a standard account. If you go lifetime or VIP monthly, you get the full monty of features.

So it would depend on how you pay for the old account moving forward. I'm not sure if you can convert a previous standard account to free to play, however.

Started playing last night. Really enjoying myself. I'm a minstrel on Landroval which is I believe the server most of you guys play on. Is there a post with everyone's names? my in game name is Kahzz

Downloading the game over again. -_- With any luck I may be able to play Sunday night.

Ugh, I couldn't start over again, I've never been one to repeat content.

Wish Turbine would at least tell me how much TP I'm going to get since they are having some trouble giving them out.

Really could do with the Share Storage Space, but at 1295 TP I might still have to top up some later. If I knew that what I'm getting is nowhere near that, I'll buy points and get the Share Space now.

karmajay wrote:

Ugh, I couldn't start over again, I've never been one to repeat content.

It seems some folks right now are having issues getting older accounts up and running, but, we have had many Eldainers successfully log in during the last couple of days using the new F2P option.

Whats the guild GWJers are in in Landroval these days?

Played for about an hour and wasn't that impressesd. I've never tried an mmo before so I don't know if this is typical for an mmo. It felt like a five year old single player rpg.

Granted I prefer the single player experience overall, but if this is what most online mmos are like, than I'm glad that I have not seemed to have missed much over the years.

Some are in Eldain a Firamoin, and some of us went to Guardians of Vilya, which recently merged with Order of the Tower Guard. Basically, OOTG has enough people to do end-game content and raids, but it's still a casual guild. Eldain is smaller, but is pretty much 100% goodgers.

http://www.oottg.com/

We also have a GWJ chat group which everyone is invited to join regardless of kin allegiance.

sithcundman wrote:

Using my existing Turbine account (DDO and LOTRO Beta back in the day), I get a "The username entered does not have an active "LOTRO" subscription. Please try another username." error. Looking at the forums I see a few others having the same issue.

Looks like if you are brand new or an existing subscriber you're good to go, but still some kinks to work out for those like me. Hopefully they'll suss it out soon.

I'm running into the same problem. I have a turbine account, but I cannot seem to link it to the LOTRO free-to-play. I enter my information, and it tells me the account already exists. I can log into the account on the myaccounts site, and see the other Turbine games currently registered, but I can find no option to sign in and have an activation code emailed to me for the LOTRO game.

sheared wrote:

I'm running into the same problem. I have a turbine account, but I cannot seem to link it to the LOTRO free-to-play. I enter my information, and it tells me the account already exists. I can log into the account on the myaccounts site, and see the other Turbine games currently registered, but I can find no option to sign in and have an activation code emailed to me for the LOTRO game.

I put in a support request yesterday for the same issue, but haven't heard back yet. Maybe I'll get to play next weekend.

Robear wrote:

Some are in Eldain a Firamoin, and some of us went to Guardians of Vilya, which recently merged with Order of the Tower Guard. Basically, OOTG has enough people to do end-game content and raids, but it's still a casual guild. Eldain is smaller, but is pretty much 100% goodgers.

http://www.oottg.com/

We also have a GWJ chat group which everyone is invited to join regardless of kin allegiance.

You can find Eldain here.

And now that the summer is winding down, we hope to get back to raiding ourselves.

To join the GWJ channel in game, simply type /joinchannel GWJ

To talk in that channel, you will most likely type /1 and then what you want to say. If you have joined multipile user created channels, you can figure out the right number by typing /listchannels.

sheared wrote:
sithcundman wrote:

Using my existing Turbine account (DDO and LOTRO Beta back in the day), I get a "The username entered does not have an active "LOTRO" subscription. Please try another username." error. Looking at the forums I see a few others having the same issue.

Looks like if you are brand new or an existing subscriber you're good to go, but still some kinks to work out for those like me. Hopefully they'll suss it out soon.

I'm running into the same problem. I have a turbine account, but I cannot seem to link it to the LOTRO free-to-play. I enter my information, and it tells me the account already exists. I can log into the account on the myaccounts site, and see the other Turbine games currently registered, but I can find no option to sign in and have an activation code emailed to me for the LOTRO game.

I found a way to fix this. Go to the following link and request a free-to-play beta key (it requires a Gamespot login):

http://www.gamespot.com/event/codes/...

You can then use the first key listed (it'll give you two keys separated by a space) in the account page at Turbine. This will activate your existing account with the LOTRO game and open up the ability to log in for the free-to-play service.

Hopefully this will work for you (and Katy) as it did for me.

Good luck.

sithcundman's suggestion worked (though I didn't have time yet to actually play), and support also got back to me with a product key after I tried that solution. So my account is either all set, or will be wholly confused.

My arm is killing me after jamming out with some random guy for like an hour.
Erm... wait... that sounded...

Has anyone noticed the appearance of Pando Media Booster with their installation of the new LOTRO f2p client?

I came home tonight to see my upload speed maxing out for no apparent reason. After checking around I noticed Pando Media Booster running in the background and as soon as I terminated it my upload went to zero. I googled it and apparently it comes bundled with various apps and is categorized as a media streaming service and has been determined as legit. Apparently it was installed yesterday which is when I put I replaced my beta LOTRO client with the f2p one. I don't recall seeing any checkboxes regarding it and I run a tight ship and watch my installs carefully.

stauf7 wrote:

Has anyone noticed the appearance of Pando Media Booster with their installation of the new LOTRO f2p client

It is part of the download, sounds basically like a P2P client for LOTRO files, like Blizzard did with WoW but sloppier.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

My arm is killing me after jamming out with some random guy for like an hour.
Erm... wait... that sounded...

...dead sexy? :p

LeapingGnome wrote:
stauf7 wrote:

Has anyone noticed the appearance of Pando Media Booster with their installation of the new LOTRO f2p client

It is part of the download, sounds basically like a P2P client for LOTRO files, like Blizzard did with WoW but sloppier.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...

Thanks for the link and the clarification. Other LOTRO users will just have to get their install files from someone else.