Daagar
2861
That’s too bad. I actually really intended to play more of LOTRO to fill my occasional MMO need, but now I’m more inclined to maybe check out ESO. Which means I’m probably part of the problem that leads to a studio turning into a f2p mobile studio :(
So, I’m guessing LoTRO and DDO will be maintained until the license runs out.
Sad,. I really liked LoTRO. DDO I never quite got into. I liked the dungeons but hated that almost all the xp was tied into the dungeon rewards.
LOTRO’s never getting to Mordor now. A shame. I would have loved to have seen the game with ArenaNet-sized backing.
yes from all accounts that I have heard, this is the step before the end. 20 years is a good run, but it could have went on a lot longer. At least this time most of the people that made the poor decisions also got let go, but it’s too late to save the place. Its been hard watching layoff after layoff over the past 4 years. Part of the reason I was more than happy to get out of dodge back in 14. Now, I’ll save who I can, and wish the others well.
Turbine was never lacking talent. It was lacking solid leadership. I cant tell you how many times I watched a project switch direction in mid stream, work on some not critical feature to keep marketing happy, doggedly keep a bad feature because too many hours were put into it. Being away for a couple of years showed me how toxic the management team there was, and how completely stressed I was because I couldn’t turn the damn Titanic.
I haven’t played the game in years. While flipping to f2p might’ve kept the game afloat years longer, it also destroyed so much of what I enjoyed about it. The new content was grindy as fuck, the quests were utterly formulaic chained scripts, and everything, even the book quests, were converted to being solo-friendly for obvious monetary reasons. I’d love to hop onto a server configured on the game state somewhere between the Evendim update and the Mines of Moria expansion.
From all reports, the F2P change was wildly successful and Turbine implemented it better than most other MMOs. But that was like 6 years ago, and LOTRO was never a huge hit. Nothing lasts forever.
It wasn’t bad at first, but they eventually inserted it into basically every aspect of the game. And the content became very geared for single player gaming, which sort of defeats the point of it being an MMO.
Free to play or not isn’t that the way all MMO’s have gone recently? Granted many of them have a group dungeons but typically people will come together for that, do it and then go their merry ways. In fact I can’t think of a single recent MMO a lot of forced group content… Not one that succeeded, that is.
I didn’t play a lot of LOTRO but I always felt like they were subtly and not so subtly pushing me toward paying a nickel here and a dime there… it felt very nickel and dimey. Unlike a game like path of exile, where the paid aspects are all cosmetic and storage and you end up paying for stuff because you want to not because you want to unlock an additional trait or a third bag slot. Granted, different genres and different server costs, but still it’s easy to see differences in philosophy.
Yep, ESO has very strong solo aspects and I love it to death lately. It’s not a long-term time investment, but I’m fine with that-- and since there’s no subscription fee, the studio should be too/
But… but… but I bought a lifetime subscription!
Silly me.
Or maybe they know something you don’t…
/spooky
Honestly, LOTRO wouldn’t be around right now if they hadn’t done both of those things (F2P and solo focused). I played heavily for the first couple of years the game was live (2007/2008) then off and on ever since, including a decent stint when QT3 decided to return to the game en masse at one point. Throughout that time the game was an amazing amount of fun, especially when you had good server populations and a strong active guild (like the QT3 return).
But like any MMO excepting WoW, after some time there just wasn’t a decent enough population left playing to merit a subscription-based model, so Turbine converted the game to F2P with transactions, and they did it brilliantly. To this day it remains a shining example of how to treat your legacy players who paid good money prior to F2P when converting your game into F2P. I never missed a beat after the transition, and never felt like my time or money pre-F2P had been wasted now that the game was F2P.
The resurgence post-F2P revitalized the game for some time. Numbers quoted around the internet seemed to indicate that the game was making far more money post-F2P than it had been making in the months previous. Eventually though the populations dropped off again. Given how integral group play was to success in the original game, especially when doing the book quests, Turbine needed to change the game or there was no way remaining players were going to be able to advance. So they made the whole thing far more solo-friendly, and now players can enjoy the experience regardless of server populations and time of day they are playing. It was a smart choice that allowed the game to continue to survive, especially since ultra-casual players like myself, who might pop in every few weeks or months to play for a few nights, could now do so much more easily, and thus be tempted to spend money again.
To me, the F2P stuff never felt like nickel and diming. If you had an account prior to the change, you got a ton of stuff new players had to pay for, such as a removal of the gold cap on your characters and all available storage slots already unlocked. If you did need something, like a zone quest pack or an unlock for a brand new character, sales were frequent and turbine points were available to earn in game. If you were patient, you could also buy lots of Turbine points on the cheap when Starter Packs and other combo packs went on sale. Early on post-F2P I spent $15 to buy three starter packs on sale from GamersGate or some such and netted 4500 TP for $15. That lasted me quite some time and by waiting for sales I was able to turn that into several zone pack unlocks and buy the Mirkwood expansion. Later I bought the Isengard and Rohan expansions on sale for at least 50% off their normal prices. All told I’ve probably spent $50 on LOTRO since it went F2P and have pretty much every zone unlocked and access to everything I need to play the game with a full set of 5 different characters. Given that that same $50 would have paid for less than 6 months of subscription time, and it’s been over 5 years since they went F2P, I think I got a great deal.
I am sad to see this ending. I just reloaded it on my recently rebuilt gaming rig so that I can sneak in some final sessions between now and whenever the end finally comes. Even after 9 years there is still stuff I haven’t seen and things I haven’t done, so it might be time to work through that Middle Earth bucket list before it’s gone forever.
I’m aware of all that slainte, I played almost daily from 2007 to 2011, and then very sporadically afterwards. But for me, I think I would’ve rather seen the game die as it was than morph into something I didn’t care for at all. Seems like that process must’ve seen the talented devs laid off, because by 2011 the quests, the new content, were all pretty uninspired. The dragon raid I liked, but the sheer grindiness of Rohan, east and west, and then Gondor, was terrible. F2P didn’t have to force such changes, but it seems like the design talent had left by then.
Nesrie
2875
I was a subscriber early on too. It was fun for about a year for me, but as the content became harder the lack of death penalty kind of bugged me… i mean i remember launching ourselves off a mountain rather than fight our way down because… who cares about death? Getting groups became a challenge as people started falling off, and the housing expense was kind of ridiculously high.
I went back for free to play but… there wasn’t a way to buy away some of the barriers. It felt like they still me to subscribe.
Tim_N
2876
This game was my first and last mmo addiction. I remember it and my loremaster very fondly. I played alot until after the moria expansion, and never touched it in its f2p incarnation but I always liked seeing it still around. Like an ex you want to see do well in life and be happy.
Thanks to all the people who made this game if it so happens that any of them are reading this post.
Yea, I played LOTRO a lot more after it went F2P. And outside of Warframe I’d say Turbines implementation of F2P in LOTRO was the best implementation from the games I’ve played.
Guess I should hurry to finish everything before they get shut down then.
I did too and think I got excellent value out of that one. Both in subscription fees saved before the f2p move and in the perks after.
My wife and I spent so much time and had so much fun questing in Middle Earth. LOTRO remains one of my all time favourite MMOs.
Wendelius
I was one of the LOTRO Founders who also bought a lifetime subscription. It seemed like a lot of money to pay at the time, but I did get a lot of gameplay out of it. I wish Free to Play had never happened to it.
This is the only MMO I put any time into (before F2P) and I enjoyed the couple of months I spent with it. The skill trees were interesting, and some of the quests were fun. Most of all, I thought they did a great job with the world. I was amazed at how big (and pretty) it was. I found myself wishing I could explore without a bunch of MMO foes waiting to be aggroed.
