Kate Paiz answers the "Whys" of LotRO's changes

by Justin Olivetti on Dec 3rd 2010 8:00PM

Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Interviews, Previews, Free-to-play, Dev Diaries

When a parent tells a kid to do something, the immediate follow-up question is invariably, "Why?" Likewise, Lord of the Rings Online's Kate Paiz knows that players are constantly asking "Why?" when Turbine makes any additions or changes to the game, which is why she spends a bulk of her December Producer's Letter explaining the company's actions and decisions.

Paiz says that the team saw that not enough F2P players were heading into the Lone-lands, which is why they made the zone's quest pack free for everyone. Other deep LotRO secrets she reveals are the reasons behind removal of radiance, dual upgrades to the legendary item system, the addition of cosmetic pets for all (which may provide buffs when used!), and the expansion of Monster Play so that all tiers of players can participate.

She also shares an encouraging word about the financial state of the game: "Revenues for the game have continued to increase. While we are getting some great feedback on what the LotRO Store can do better and what other items you'd like to find there, Store usage continues to be much higher than industry averages!"

You can read the full Producer's Letter over at LotRO's website.

Source: Lord of the Rings Online

Tags: cosmetic-pets, dev-diary, f2p, free-to-play, kate-paiz, legendary-items, lone-lands, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, monster-play, producers-letter, pvmp, radiance, turbine, Turbine-Entertainment, why

Reader Comments (3)

I just hope they improve the character models and animations. The elves look frickin' atrocious!

While LOTRO is a great game, I feel more like a single player game. Once I ran through all content, I never felt like staying. I play with every new expansion a few weeks for the new content and then leave again. Not sure why LOTRO just fails to keep me.

I'm a deeply contented LoTRO player, and have been since OB. I welcomed the change to F2P and embraced the new structure and have been enjoying the game even more often since. The single bone of contention I had at that point was the decision to make Monster Play a subscriber only option, for two reasons. 1) The F2P game suddenly became half the game I paid for in the first place. It was like losing an arm or a leg, and seemed nonsensical to me. 2) MP relies on having a large player base having access to it, to keep the monster/heroes balance at a playable level, and taking it out of F2P for 75% of the players was, to my mind, totally idiotic.

So! I'm very pleased, and delighted, to see it return to everyone. Thank the gods that someone saw sense finally!