No love for F2P

[Feraxks]

Using this argument, Premium accounts should not receive compensation as they are not on a subscription plan and do not require upkeep to stay at Premium. They do not pay for benefits which expire in real time.

In this case as well as the anniversary rewards, Turbine has turned a blind eye to Free players, many of whom have played the game for a long time and are valuable contributors to the community. It'd be nice to see at least some sort of recognition, otherwise, they just risk alienating potential customers.

The difference being that at least the Premium players HAVE paid something at some point. The pure F2Pers have paid NOTHING, so why should they be rewarded?

Regarding your anniversary rewards case, if they have been playing for a long time and have yet to spend any money, then the likelihood that they will in the future seems pretty small and Turbine probably figures the risk of alienating non-paying customers is one they can afford to take.

[gregorik]

Now that I can finally play again, I come back to a 3-day downtime, and apparently my forum account wasn't set...so I couldn't even login/reply to the maintenance thread. Turns out that even now that I was able to set my forum account, I still can't post there.

LOTRO was under maintenance. It needed it, still does and always will. There a couple of server farms needing maintenance and the downtime just happened to coincide with your free time which you yourself admitted followed a few months of not playing. So what is a few more days?

What I was trying to say all this time is that, as usual (in former sub games that were dying), F2P people are set aside, like black sheep - yet the game is marketed as "completely free".

Like someone else mentioned, "completely free" is not the full statement. It currently states "hundreds of hours of adventure completely free." And, it is hundreds of hours. You will earn TP during that hundreds of hours provided you arent just standing still the whole time. With that TP you can purchase things in the store. I do like Guild Wars 2 model better where you can use in games money to purchase gems (TP) better though.

And as far as being pushed aside, far from it. In fact, it seems that turbine has made this game more F2P friendly. Horses used to be around 5 gold, they lowered that to a few hundred silver to accommodation F2P. You used to not be able to ride till what level 35? They drastically lowered that to 5 I think. There are tons of examples of how Turbine has changed this game to make it easier to play for F2p. True, this might be just to hook you in, but they have done more for F2P then you might think.

*We get no forum rights (at least first week upon activating forum account - as far as I've understood - which should not be separate than game account).

I think alot of this is to prevent spammers. If anyone played this game back in 2007 when it came out they will remember alot of spammers. The number was decreased when Turbine started taking away first day privileges.

**And most recently, the downtime yielded absolutely no TP for us.

Why should it? You didn't pay anything for it. You can't use your neighbors wireless signal and then demand money if he turns his router off for the weekend. You are wanting compensation for a service that you haven't even used for a few months. Should Turbine demand compensation for your unused account? Each account take resources on their servers.

My wife and I recently tried the World of Warcraft free. You want to see restrictions, try that. You can't even sell in the game unless you pay for it. Turbine (Warner Brothers now) didn't just make up Lord of the Rings. They have licensing to pay and lawsuits to pay for (Chris Tolkien is trying to sue WB for overstepping their bounds).

[CroKat]

I have played private servers...

You are comparing an established legal game with piracy?!?

How many times did you try to download some music or movies on the internet "completely free" just to find a page that demands your credit card data (and loads you with trojans and keyloggers in the process)? Turbine doesnt advertise falsely, you get exactly what they say, basically the whole game for free.
Yet you think you have right to demand something on top of that.....

[eunusunt]

We never paid anything, so why should they "pay" us? Because we're potential customers, and members of the community as a whole, and also were affected by the downtime (just like premiums if nothing else). Although 250 TP is hardly paying...it's attainable through deeds within 2-3 days, but it's the thought that counts, or in this case the lack thereof.

Some people might very possibly have left already, I've personally seen several "threats" of leaving from stated VIP/premium players, browsing through the maintenance threads. Not to mention those who do not use forums.
I think this downtime was a pretty heavy hit on the playerbase, and making these differences is not helping attract more people, or providing any incentive for freeps to spend cash on the game.

Bottom line - you guys ask why should we get "rewarded" for the downtime - I've answered that. Now my turn - why should I spend money on the game, since they did not show they care about me? (I agree I'm a special case and possibly should not have received anything to begin with, because I haven't played in 2 years BUT they could've easily applied the 30-or-whatever days since last login rule and showed everyone that they care about their players, not just customers).

LE:

You are comparing an established legal game with piracy?!?

No, I'm comparing fellow game developers/publishers that show they care about their playerbase. Also not all private servers are illegal, some games are more open-source and allow private servers.

Turbine doesnt advertise falsely, you get exactly what they say, basically the whole game for free.
Yet you think you have right to demand something on top of that.....

You mean a part of the game. The whole of it (based of a real free to play model) would be the entire questline, all areas, no character slots/gold/auction (and more) cap. But nice try.

Also, I appreciate all of you guys' feedback, and did not start this thread to argue or to whine. I'm just stating concerns and bringing some arguments to the table, hopefully some that will be addressed by Turbine.

[SoAndSo]

W



You mean a part of the game. The whole of it (based of a real free to play model) would be the entire questline, all areas, no character slots/gold/auction (and more) cap. But nice try.

the game is free to play. You can play the game without spending a single cent on it.

Sure its not the FULL experience, but you can still play for free.

maybe it should just go back to sub or dont play at all?

[ArtemisNoir]

You get what you pay for...

If you want all the perks of a triple A title you can't expect to easily receive an entirely free ride, sorry.

I have a Premium account and have acquired all of the content up to and including Isengard through a mixture of point purchases, grinding deeds and buying the Isengard expansion. Right now I am in the process of grinding enough points to buy RoR and eventually Great River.. and I am honestly very surprised at how fast it is going. I actually think Turbine's f2p system is extremely generous... We get enough character slots across servers to quite swiftly grind for content. If you make a point of completing all of the deeds in the starter zones, the time flies by. Sure... it can be tedious repeating the same quests and deeds multiple times over, but it isn't actually all that bad. (and despite having a lot of content to play with, I am mostly sticking to the starter zones because it is much faster, so I don't have any particular advantage)

As to not being rewarded points owing to the recent extended downtime...... Uhm.... that would be sort of like a bank giving you interest if you didn't have an account there containing actual cash.

[Flixxer]

You keep mentioning that you couldn't post in the general section because of you being f2p... but are you sure you were logged in? i believe the forums were only a couple of hours read only, after that you could post all you wanted to... i am totally f2p too and i have posted quite a lot during the downtime, so maybe you were not logged in anymore? It is known that the site is really buggy!

[Kamariin]

We never paid anything, so why should they "pay" us? Because we're potential customers, and members of the community as a whole, and also were affected by the downtime (just like premiums if nothing else). Although 250 TP is hardly paying...it's attainable through deeds within 2-3 days, but it's the thought that counts, or in this case the lack thereof.
...

Bottom line - you guys ask why should we get "rewarded" for the downtime - I've answered that. Now my turn - why should I spend money on the game, since they did not show they care about me? (I agree I'm a special case and possibly should not have received anything to begin with, because I haven't played in 2 years BUT they could've easily applied the 30-or-whatever days since last login rule and showed everyone that they care about their players, not just customers).

You sure are a special case... It's just hard for me to understand- You are allowed to get a taste of Middle Earth, and actually have it all, if you're willing to work for it. I could decide long before my 30ish levels (that comes from free content), that I want to continue, even if I have to pay.
Showing care... Simply the fact they got their servers back up before other services and that they actually kept us updated, shows enough care for me.
Let's try to be realistic, can we? I understand the frustration not being able to log in after so long pause (perfect example of Murphy's Law btw), but still... TANSTAAFL (hahaha,I've never ever seen that "short" form, so I actually had to google it when someone said it before)

"It'd be nice to see at least some sort of recognition,"- but when the recognition wont be a monetary (like tp-s etc) gift but a verbal Thank you for playing, would that be enough for you?

Oh and indeed- Premiums have actually spent money on the game. Plus they tend to do this very often. Plus in some cases (like me) they have actually spent more money on it in a month than a vip does in 30 days.

Happy adventuring!

[eunusunt]

You keep mentioning that you couldn't post in the general section because of you being f2p... but are you sure you were logged in? i believe the forums were only a couple of hours read only, after that you could post all you wanted to... i am totally f2p too and i have posted quite a lot during the downtime, so maybe you were not logged in anymore? It is known that the site is really buggy!

I couldn't log in at all, apparently my forum account wasn't set [?] although it uses the same account as for the game.

[Fearendir]

the game is free to play. You can play the game without spending a single cent on it.

This!

It IS free...every single bit (play on words ) of it.
There's nothing in the game you can't buy with Turbine Points.
You know how to get them-->you play for free.


Should Turbine pay you wages because you are a "potential could-be worker" in their company?

[ThistleRose3]

I find it so interesting that the OP is asking for more free things but is unwilling to support the people who work to provide the game. I guess in her eyes the developers get free food and rent just like she gets the game for free. Unfortuntly that is not the case and by NOT giving out free tp to players who have not finacialy supported the game they are providing a reason for you to spend a little money. If you want to be considered when things go bad and they hand out goodies, spend a little money and support the people that provide the game.

[Harla]

Eunusunt,

You've come to these forums for the sole purpose of proclaiming yourself a loud and proud member of the self-entitlement generation, who feels you're owed everything from the world simply for being, and without giving anything at all in return. Congratulations.

We never paid anything, so why should they "pay" us? Because we're potential customers,

By this logic, Turbine should be giving free gifts with real monetary value to everyone in the world, simply because those people, like you, are potential customers. I'm sorry, no. That's stupid.

Although 250 TP is hardly paying...it's attainable through deeds within 2-3 days, but it's the thought that counts, or in this case the lack thereof.

So, then, I expect that you'll be writing a check to Turbine for $5, and expecting to receive nothing whatsoever in return for it, because, after all, it's the thought that counts. No? You do realise that what you've just said is that a business, who needs to turn profit, should be GIVING YOU MONEY, for NO other reason than because you signed up a free account to them... statistically no different than a hundred thousand gold-farmer accounts? Are you actually genuinely serious about that? Really? I cannot fathom that you actually could be... no-one with the ability to type words could really be that stupid or egotistically self-entitled.

I think this downtime was a pretty heavy hit on the playerbase,

This made me laugh. Here are some facts for you, since you've been away and may have missed it:

Turbine announced an extended down time for back-end maintenance in advance.
Then announced that most services would be offline, and that the forums would be set to read only, at least for a portion of the time.
They kept people updated about how it was going through other media, such as twitter and FB.
Then announced, through these media, and on the client load-page, when they had hit an unforeseen problem, and been slowed in their progress, extending the down-time to 24 hours because of that. Until this point, they had been running a few hours ahead of schedule.
They kept people posted about the problem through their other media, and restored service first to their actual game servers first, before anything else, to allow people back into the game.
They arranged compensatory means to apologise to the playerbase for the longer than expected outage; all players who had lost paid time were reimbursed an amount equal to notably MORE than their actual lost time.
Players who did not lose any paid time received, along with everyone else, their apologies, and service restored as swiftly as they were able.

There are always complaints during down times. they don't generally, mean anything, except that people want to get back into the game.

Bottom line - you guys ask why should we get "rewarded" for the downtime - I've answered that.

You've answered it by saying that you DESERVE it, for no other reason than that you signed up a free account, and made yourself a DRAIN on their resources, without giving ANYTHING back at all. Not a compelling case.

Now my turn - why should I spend money on the game, since they did not show they care about me? (I agree I'm a special case and possibly should not have received anything to begin with, because I haven't played in 2 years BUT they could've easily applied the 30-or-whatever days since last login rule and showed everyone that they care about their players, not just customers).

You should spend money on the game if you enjoy playing it and would like to play more of it. If that's no the case, then stop. You've not given anything TO the game at all, yet, and so far you've been a drain of resource and a use of data that gives them no return whatsoever...

You mean a part of the game. The whole of it (based of a real free to play model) would be the entire questline, all areas, no character slots/gold/auction (and more) cap. But nice try.

You do get access to the entire epic questline for free. You also get access to every single region and zone in the game, for free. Everyone has a cap on how many character slots they can have. you can unlock more with TP, just like everyone else. A subscription gives you an auto unlock on some as a bonus. A couple of the packs give you unlocks on a couple more, as a bonus... but you're no more restricted than anyone else, you just haven't bought the perks they have. Are you demanding that those who HAVE bought those perks be devalued upon your insistence that YOU be given them all automatically when you sign up a free account?

Here's something else for you to consider. Aside the free complete access tot he game that you get, aside the full access to the entire epic questline, aside access to advanced game systems like mounted combat for free... aside all of that.... EVERYTHING ELSE, barring one exception, you can ALSO get FOR FREE, without paying Turbine a single cent. There are players out there now, who are sometimes dubbed FreeIP, who have absolute and complete access to everything in the game except free-side ettenmoors... every bonus, every feature, every quest in every zone, every expansion and pack... all without having paid turbine a single cent... and they have all of that forever, absolutely.

You mentioned 'tons' of other games that do better... well, I can promise you the thread won't get locked for you mentioning names, since these discussions have happened before... I dare and challenge you to name even one single MMO that is a game of this size, calibre and quality, that offers as much as LotRO does for absolutely free without paying a cent... find me an MMO of this grade that offers more of its totality for free than LotRO, and I'll be very surprised. And you want -More- ... no, wait, you don't -want- more... You're demanding that you -Deserve- more.

Also my main gripe was with the downtime and the fact that we (freeps) only got some dust in our eyes out of it.

The servers went down. You couldn't play the game for longer than expected, but were kept up to date by other means of media. Then the servers came up again, and you could play again, and Turbine apologised for the extended outage. ... and somehow, that's them kicking dust in your eyes? Really? Is your life so devoid of purpose and direction that being unable to play a game (which you'd not been playing at all for a long time beforehand), for a few extra hours longer than expected, is, in itself a massive slight against you? explain to me how this is a slight against you, please... I'd love to hear it.


There's nothing misleading about the Free to Play title at all. It's not a chance to 'try' the game in some crippled sense; it is literally the freedom to play the game, just as any other, for free, without paying. A little while back I was in a level cap raid in Helegrod, for example. The Lore-master next to me was a free player... never payed a cent to turbine, yet there he was, alongside us, playing the game and getting nifty loot, just like everyone else. I think he won a decent sword and a starlit crystal. He was right chuffed. That is the very definition of free-to-play... and it's far more than any other game of this size and calibre allows for free.

[Katerchen]

@Harla: excellent reply! +rep

[eunusunt]

@ThistleRose3: I'm a guy.
And I never said I won't ever purchase TP or VIP rights. Just haven't gotten to it up to this point.
By not showing the same consideration to freeps as to everyone else, Turbine are most definitely NOT providing a reason for us to spend money. Just offering the game was available before the downtime. What about during it?

I'm not even going to acknowledge Harla until he/she washes their mouth with soap and posts a decently worded reply.

[mjk47]

@Harla: excellent reply! +rep

Heartily agree.

[ThistleRose3]

@ThistleRose3: I'm a guy.
And I never said I won't ever purchase TP or VIP rights. Just haven't gotten to it up to this point.
By not showing the same consideration to freeps as to everyone else, Turbine are most definitely NOT providing a reason for us to spend money. Just offering the game was available before the downtime. What about during it?

I'm not even going to acknowledge Harla until he/she washes their mouth with soap and posts a decently worded reply.

If allowing you to play the game that I paid hundreds of dollars to support for free is not enough incentive to get you to spend some money how is giving you 250 tp worth at most $2.50 going to get you to open your wallet. Be honest you just want more free stuff.

[eunusunt]

More free stuff aside from the free trial? Yeah, kinda.

[yawumpus]

There are players out there now, who are sometimes dubbed FreeIP, who have absolute and complete access to everything in the game except free-side ettenmoors... every bonus, every feature, every quest in every zone, every expansion and pack... all without having paid turbine a single cent... and they have all of that forever, absolutely.

This is almost unbelievable.

I added up all the per account stuff just to buy all the VIP purchasable stuff + expansions (note, you also can't buy swift travel and your mailbox is always restricted) and got 20415 (I think I'm missing the instances & skirmishes that go with expansions but not the packs they are in). Fitting each character slot out is 1465 (less 595 each for the first two), so 9065 for seven (and I don't think I included buying warden and runekeeper). Total of 29480, which is close enough to Turbine's "over $300.00 value for VIP (but I don't think they can get there without expansions, which aren't included in VIP. Presumably including a years worth of TP, which is silly).

Anyway, after checking a bunch of links my best guess is that you can grind 50TP/hour, or the whole thing will take 589 hours (maybe less than 300 with almost all 50% off sales. I'm assuming anyone who can grind like that can obsess over sales as well). This is nowhere near "complete access to everything" (it doesn't include shared storage, premium wallet, and only the same wardrobe space as VIP, skirmish traits), as Turbine needs things to get subscribers to pay for, but at least is a stopping point.

Three hundred hours seems possible, but something I think many people would regret*. To anybody considering this, I would like to point out that Turbine's other f2p MMO, Dungeons & Dragons Online, includes something called "True Resurrection**" which allows you to effectively use your main character for TP grinding. The idea is that you can restart at level 1 and grind to cap (or the old cap when this was introduced) and keep your equipment. Since the free TP is clustered at early levels (but doesn't ever stop), this seems like a better way to get everything (after doing a pretty tedious grind just to unlock the path to cap).

* I understand that some people have internet and computer access but lack the disposable cash to buy TP. This doesn't mean that grinding out every last option still makes sense once you have enough for a fun and workable game unlocked.
** I think that grinding the cost for True Resurrection is feasible (with most of your ground TP left intact). They may have nerfed this since I left.

[Loseda]

You want free stuff from this game, play the lottery...pretty sure that's open to f2p, vip and premiums (when it's working).

You want incentive to continue to play the game...think of the people like Sapience, Celestrata and all the other employees of Turbine that are working on the back end of this game. They have to work for a living and pay their bills just like you do. When I pay my VIP subscription I am, in a way, supporting those people. How are you, as a f2p player contributing to Turbine's bottom line or helping to pay for their servers or their employees?

When the servers went down, it was not a surprise and we were kept updated on the progress. I did not expect any compensation what-so-ever. I am happier about the replaced days than I am about the 250tp.

You could look at that as your incentive...if you want free stuff during their unexpected downtimes, invest a little money into the game. If you've read any of the tips on how to become a premium player, you'll see that it's relatively easy and requires very little investment.

Yes, it would have been a nice gesture for Turbine to give you those TP but, what have you done for Turbine to earn them?

[Loseda]

@yawumpus

These numbers might be true, but did you take into account what you get with the quest packs as you get them...I believe Moria still comes with RK and Warden (not sure) also, the QP's go on sale quite regularly. I know several people who are f2p. I've helped them grind the deeds to get their quest packs...yes, it takes longer than someone who can whip out the old credit card and purchase the tp or quest packs right away or pay vip subs but it is do-able.

[yawumpus]

@Loseda

I'm pretty sure my numbers were based on the "quest pack" rather than the "expansion pack", so no extra classes (or extra instances). I didn't include either of those costs because I wasn't sure. As far as sales go, the ~300 hour mark assumes almost everything is bought at 50%. 50% is the best I've ever seen on stuff in the DDO store, and I think they switched from great sales in the store to great sales on TP itself to stop this type of thing years ago. No idea if you can get 50% off at the LOTRO store on packs.

At first I simply thought it was impossible, that it would take years of grinding (there was a claim of a similar unlock on DDO, but when Turbine got excited about it the claimant shut up). After running the numbers, I realized that it was possible, just very, very, tedious and likely unfun. If you had the time, the connection, and the computer (likely due to a medical condition like the guy claiming to have done in DDO claimed), you could eventually do it with only a fixed percentage of your time grinding. After that I wanted to include a note about the DDO TR treadmill, which sounds like a slightly more appetizing project of similar nature.

I also suspect that most of these claims are a confusion of the idea that no matter how much a premium player spends, they are still "f2p" (thus causing more anger at pure f2p like you see in this thread). You can knock of more than half the per-slot costs (~1kTP per slot) by going VIP for a month, and then pick up another 3k worth of packs and another 2k of TP (which then can be spent on packs when they go on sale) by picking up the Mithril Edition (rumor has it that it goes on sale for $10 four times a year. If so, look for the next sale in March). These bundles plus careful use of deed-based TP can unlock much of the game pretty quickly.

[Bel-Astarte]

you can pay with time (by grinding tp).

Servers do not run on air, and employees tend to require paychecks that do not bounce.

If you find this game fun, continue to play, and hopefully find a way to chip in that doesn't including stamping your wee foot and insisting you are being treated badly because you didn't get a pressie for the downtime.

If you do not, I hope you enjoy whatever game you go to, for however long it can be run with players who don't think they should help pay their own freight in some way.

[yawumpus]

If allowing you to play the game that I paid hundreds of dollars to support for free is not enough incentive to get you to spend some money how is giving you 250 tp worth at most $2.50 going to get you to open your wallet. Be honest you just want more free stuff.

Oddly enough, my first experience with extended Turbine downtime was in (f2p) DDO before LOTRO was released. After it was over, Turbine started a "+2 loot week" (which meant much more powerful/valuable loot dropped everywhere). While this benefited everyone (VIPs, premium, and f2p alike), the catch is that (at least back then) DDO drops gear for much lower level than you can use. While you might have found something great, you would have even better luck on the AH, selling your best stuff and hoping to find something affordable at your level. The catch is that in DDO, f2p only gets one slot and you can't unlock it with TP (paying customers have something like 30 slots), but I don't know if that motivated many people to cough up money or not. I think the first "double bonus point" (getting a healthy bit higher than 100TP1$) brought in more sales (which at $50 probably doubled the amount I had paid into Turbine so far). I don't recall much anger about this (I may have missed that as the default forum state of an MMO player to change is rage, and I was as happy as a kid in a candy store with my first chance to get my hands on higher level loot).

Getting free stuff makes people happy. Getting in game loot costs Turbine nothing. Getting TP probably changes people's buying habits very little, but I'm sure some people will not buy points because 250TP will just be enough to make that last purchase. I'm not completely certain how Turbine views f2p play (I explain to outsiders that it works like the old Apogee/ID shareware system where you give 1/3 of the game away and people come back for the next hits), but it looks like wearing players down to the point where they want TP faster than it drops from deeds. Handing out TP gets in the way (unless the player already buys it in bigger batches). If Turbine somehow gave TP to pure f2p accounts, I'd hate to think of the rush to create mule accounts to catch the next rain of TP mana. I recently ground TP for a horse on an explorer mule and was shocked how much it was worth it. I'm sure I could find uses for free TP on a ton of accounts. I'm not sure that Turbine wants to host that type of load as almost certainly eternally-free-2-play accounts get generated left and right**.

I'm also very thankful that Turbine brought back the game without the store. Not only were they willing to let the f2p types "play for free", they were willing to delay when they would start getting revenue again to make sure everyone could "play for free" regardless of whether revenue would come in or not. Coming from a premium background, that means a lot. In all the venom directed at f2p types who when given a great free game and want a great free game plus two and a half bucks, those of us who are premium should be thankful that Turbine was more than happy to let us play the whole game when they knew we couldn't spend any money on it. It isn't like running the game without the store brought the billing system up any faster, if anything they us play knowing it would cost them more money since the weekend players couldn't spend money on it. I'm sure they know that keeping the LOTRO addiction is what keeps the money flowing in, but a lot of managers will panic when they see "total real-time revenue= $0.00". I'm glad Turbine sees the big picture.

* for what it's worth, I was premium in DDO then (I've put much more in since then) and am premium in LOTRO.
** note to Turbine. A sufficiently cheap Sam Gamgee starter pack would work well on mule accounts (especially after a housing update with enough deluxe houses for all of them). It isn't like people are buying TP for these accounts all that often or buying Sam's pack after a few months of play, so you have little to lose.

[ArtemisNoir]

@ThistleRose3: I'm a guy.
And I never said I won't ever purchase TP or VIP rights. Just haven't gotten to it up to this point.
By not showing the same consideration to freeps as to everyone else, Turbine are most definitely NOT providing a reason for us to spend money. Just offering the game was available before the downtime. What about during it?

I'm not even going to acknowledge Harla until he/she washes their mouth with soap and posts a decently worded reply.

wow... just wow.
This is what you remind me of, and I am not referring to the father:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElgkLZX401E

I think Harla worded that extremely well myself... The post was well-written, clear, logical and hit the nail precisely on the head (without the use of profanity, which washing out somebody's mouth with soap implies). Or perhaps you just don't like being sussed out.

[TinDragon]

I'm not even going to acknowledge Harla until he/she washes their mouth with soap and posts a decently worded reply.

I was suspicious that you were just trolling before. This post confirms it.

Harla took every single one of your points and made a logical argument against each one, and did it in a concise and understandable manner. You essentially replied with your fingers in your ears going "la la la I can't hear you".

For the record: "freep" refers to someone in the Moors on the free people side. The term you're looking for is F2P, not freep.