Lord of the Rings Online goes F2P

I'm actually shocked at this, as LotRO is one of the more sucessful MMOs out there. Still, it got DnD ALOT more subscribers so I suppose that's what they're going for:

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6264551.html?tag=latestheadlines%3Btitle%3B1

Anyway, LotRO has probably the best community in an MMORPG out there and it's well worth checking out the game.

Bw ha ha.. LOTRO online. Successful? BW HA HA!

On a serious note, Not a huge fan of the books or movies. But clearly a good thing for Rpers if it's now free to play. 

Microtransactions. ( Its a company afterall ;O )

But nonetheless, nice! ;D

Madel/Vectoria/Koblitz wrote:Bw ha ha.. LOTRO online. Successful? BW HA HA!

 

Uhm, it is? It has more subscribers than EvE, Age of Conan or Warhammer Online. It's a relatively low key game, but the areas always have loads of people questing and you always run into people no matter the zone.

Ironically, it feels like a more 'alive' (more people) world than WoW.

^




Have they made it possible to Play (Rp) any Mordor related creatures yet?

The whole "monster play" sucks. The game would've owned if they made both sides available as factions with equal status. (( Starting from lvl 1 etc etc ))

Otherwise, nice graphic. + the fact the maps are perfect and they follow the lore completely. (As far as I'm aware)

Left the game after a couple of months. (( Due to the game being PvE based alot ))

But hey, nice opportunity for those who haven't tried it.

EVE has got a solid number of players, enough for the company to be taking on the honour of making a World of Darkness Mmo AoC and Warhammer online could've been so much better, but meh. All talk and no action once again.

And I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole since middleearth gives me the jimmies.
But like I said, congrats on now being able to play both.

Ok, the game looks amazing, the areas can be amazing, I have one or two characters there (one even has a HORSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!)...

But PVP did suck, thats no biggy, and some of the immersion of the game was lost by wanksponges (no difference to WoW)

I do think LOTRO is a great game, and this may make me visit again.

Great! At least now it'll be worth buying it.

I hated it, purely because there was no Wizard class. I was left with the stupid "Runemaster", or the not-so-bad "Bard" both of which lacked good graphics in combat. Apparently, it's the best MMORPG for an RP community, but I was put off the game before I even got that far...

Never bought it because you couldn't play with the evil forces. Nice to hear they're still making progress though, because LotRO definitely -is- more successful than most of the MMOs that have been farted out these several past few years since WoW.

LotRO has probably the best community in an MMORPG out there

No. Thats sadly still WoW.

I checked it. It was boring. But then again, most MMORPG's are at the start. I didn't like the lack of PvP content *shrug*

Wubeh wrote:

LotRO has probably the best community in an MMORPG out there

No. Thats sadly still WoW.

You would think that, but upon extensive research I did of pretty much every MMORPG there was out there (granted, this was about a few months back), LotRO got their "Roleplay" factor ranked approx 9 on various reviews (as GMs are strict enforcers of their RP Rules), whereas WoW got marked 4's, 5's and 6's... Not to mention, there are RP "bands", as such, that make use of the game's music feature to play custom songs of their own design.

Etular wrote:

Wubeh wrote:

LotRO has probably the best community in an MMORPG out there

No. Thats sadly still WoW.

You would think that, but upon extensive research I did of pretty much every MMORPG there was out there (granted, this was about a few months back), LotRO got their "Roleplay" factor ranked approx 9 on various reviews (as GMs are strict enforcers of their RP Rules), whereas WoW got marked 4's, 5's and 6's... Not to mention, there are RP "bands", as such, that make use of the game's music feature to play custom songs of their own design.

You did the research and granted it a scale?

Can I see that?

No offense, I did like the game, but in all my time playing it, from dancing and singing for hours in the Shire and skulking and camping in the wilds, I didn't see any GM interaction or intervention that removed the "Gandors" ""Legalas" "Stroders" and such... nor stopped the bastardisation of a great idea in the music feature with people thinking it was fun to play the same bit of zelda or pokemon theme again and again.... hardly the music of the prancing pony...

Everything aside, the first time through the fog you see Weathertop is truly amazing. And the game does feel eerie and brilliant at times. And that was before Moria, no doubt it is better now.

Etular wrote:

Wubeh wrote:

LotRO has probably the best community in an MMORPG out there

No. Thats sadly still WoW.

You would think that, but upon extensive research I did pretty much every MMORPG there was out there (granted, this was about a few months back), LotRO got their "Roleplay" factor ranked approx 9 on various reviews (as GMs are strict enforcers of their RP Rules), whereas WoW got marked 4's, 5's and 6's... Not to mention, there are RP "bands", as such, that make use of the game's music feature to play custom songs of their own design.

Not to mention, GMs actually aid in roleplaying events and even set up entirely seperate instances for them. In an event involving a group of some 20+ Rohan characters, the GMs spawned a line of 25 or so Warg Riders for them to fight. In our Dunedain kinship (guild) during an event, a GM took control of a Black Rider and actually roleplayed along with it.

Sounds nice, however there are stories of GM participation all over WoW too. Even have a few personal experiences of my own. And yeah I played this game awhile back up to level 20 as a human champion. Was nice but a bit too PVE focused for me, and the monster play was crap.

Eruadan/Gunnell/Graham wrote:

Etular wrote:

Wubeh wrote:

LotRO has probably the best community in an MMORPG out there

No. Thats sadly still WoW.

You would think that, but upon extensive research I did pretty much every MMORPG there was out there (granted, this was about a few months back), LotRO got their "Roleplay" factor ranked approx 9 on various reviews (as GMs are strict enforcers of their RP Rules), whereas WoW got marked 4's, 5's and 6's... Not to mention, there are RP "bands", as such, that make use of the game's music feature to play custom songs of their own design.

Not to mention, GMs actually aid in roleplaying events and even set up entirely seperate instances for them. In an event involving a group of some 20+ Rohan characters, the GMs spawned a line of 25 or so Warg Riders for them to fight. In our Dunedain kinship (guild) during an event, a GM took control of a Black Rider and actually roleplayed along with it.

That sounds absolutely tottally 100% awesome.

I love them GM's already.

To me, LotRO is still a bad game, as you still only can roll good characters.

I remember when I first bought LotR, I absolutely loved it. But after a while I got really, really bored because I was totally lost. I had no idea who was who but I really loved how "big" Middle Earth felt. I rarely play video games anyways, I always buy new ones and just throw them away after a week. The only games that I still play after getting them are WoW and Pacman.

And I never knew people role-played in LotR! I never saw anybody do it anyways.

Wouldn't be surprised if WoW went F2P in a year or two. Or that they'll make their new MMO F2P, probably more likely.

It's a growing trend, they'll be hardpressed to ignore it.

Etular wrote:

Wubeh wrote:

LotRO has probably the best community in an MMORPG out there

No. Thats sadly still WoW.

You would think that, but upon extensive research I did of pretty much every MMORPG there was out there (granted, this was about a few months back), LotRO got their "Roleplay" factor ranked approx 9 on various reviews (as GMs are strict enforcers of their RP Rules), whereas WoW got marked 4's, 5's and 6's... Not to mention, there are RP "bands", as such, that make use of the game's music feature to play custom songs of their own design.

The RP community is only a small part of WoWs community, bud. If you want to weigh RP vs RP though, LotRO beats WoW by a mile, WoW was never really intended for RP.

Wouldn't be surprised if WoW went F2P in a year or two. Or that they'll make their new MMO F2P, probably more likely.

It's a growing trend, they'll be hardpressed to ignore it.

Get it off me! GET IT OFF MMEEE!

grufftoof wrote:
You did the research and granted it a scale?

Can I see that?

No offense, I did like the game, but in all my time playing it, from dancing and singing for hours in the Shire and skulking and camping in the wilds, I didn't see any GM interaction or intervention that removed the "Gandors" ""Legalas" "Stroders" and such... nor stopped the bastardisation of a great idea in the music feature with people thinking it was fun to play the same bit of zelda or pokemon theme again and again.... hardly the music of the prancing pony...

Everything aside, the first time through the fog you see Weathertop is truly amazing. And the game does feel eerie and brilliant at times. And that was before Moria, no doubt it is better now.

Actually, I looked at various reviews - each of which granted the game their own scale. Here and here for LotRO; Here, here and here for WoW. Upon other reviews and comparisons (which I can't be bothered to search for the source of), I found that LotRO was marked far higher and WoW marked far lower in the RP Department.