Turbine: LotRO revenue tripled since going F2P

@SaintV Worst attempt at a troll, EVER.

Everyone knows LotRO was already successful before it went F2P and that DDOs success going F2P convinced them that it was a better business model.

If you hate the F2P model just say so, instead of making up such nonsense, it's perfectly valid to not like the F2P model.

@hami83

Hate ? Ofcourse not but lets be honest. I played Lotro for awhile and before the f2p merge the areas were like a ghost town except for Bree which wasn't exactly exploding with people either. Sure, the first 2 years Lotro was out it was popular then everyone got bored of the boring world and boring combat.

@SaintV Sign of the idiot, using the word WE in place of the word I.

@hami83

"Everyone knows LotRO was already successful before it went F2P"

Nonsense.

They predicted that just in the West they'd get 1 million subscribers and they invited 1 million players into the beta, meaning at launch they had server resources for 1 million players.

http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/1308

http://icrontic.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55497

If they always planned to have at least 1 million subscribers and spent accordingly in development, then 200k subscribers may have been a massive failure for them financially.

As a private company, Turbine never had to release figures by which real success could be measured - though now they're owned by WB we may start seeing them.

I have to agree with SanitV. Lord of the Rings is a HUGE IP - probably the biggest and most well known in the west. Movie ticket sales and book sales were impressive. LOTRO did not live up to those standards.

And to be honest, it's obvious why. Turbine have never fully understood the IP or their market. If you were around pre-launch when they acquired the rights you'd recall that they originally planned to launch with no spellcasting classes at all. They tried to tell us that magic users like Gandalf were rare. We had to point them to the numerous references to other spellcasters in the books.

Eventually they relented somewhat and introduced the Loremaster class. And seeing as how they later added the Runekeeper I think it's safe to say even they recognised that launching a fantasy MMO without a real mage class was a mistake.

And while I personally like the morale system - cos I see how it fits nicely with the books - it does come across as a 'soft' alternative to hit points. Add to this the 'soft' names for attack abilities (eg. Flurry of Words) and their 'soft' take on PvP and it's obvious why the game's appeal was limited.

Not that I hate the game. It was one of the few MMOs launched post WOW which was actually a polished product at launch. Ultimately (and I've been back several times to try it again, including a few months ago) it failed for me with combat being a mindless and repetitive clickfest - 1,2,2,3,1 etc. etc. - just not to my tastes.

@JohnD212

Sony's been playing follow the leader with Blizzard for a while now, don't think you'll see EQ2 go f2p until WoW does, and we all know how likely *that* is to happen...

@Arkanaloth

EQ2 is F2P but it's a really bad model they're using to do it. They created a F2P server that is identical to the paying one. You are nickled and dimed for literally everything and then if you decide to start to pay for a membership you can't ever transfer your character back to the regular server. They simply fractured their client base which ultimately destroys an MMO that relies so heavily on community.

@Arkanaloth EQ2 has gone F2P some months ago in fact.

@Tom in VA

It's possible to minimize your time in Moria. If you do all of the level 47+ quests in Angmar, Eregion, and Forochel, there is enough stuff to get you to L53. You can then do a combination of Moria quests and skirmishes until 57. Once you hit 57, head to Lothlorien and do the quests there, while continuing with skirmishes. Once you hit 60, head to Mirkwood. Going from 60-63 is pretty fast the way Mirkwood quest hubs are situated. By 63/64, you can handle Enedwaith, the new zone. There are enough quests there to take you to 65. At that point, you can go back and do Moria content at leisure for rep/gear/deeds.

I do tend to stop leveling my alts once they hit Moria content though. So hard to get through the dark and dreary areas. But... they did certainly capture the feel of the place. Makes going back to lighted areas so much more fulfilling.