Thread: The Gathering of F2P Beta Testers

Since we can't post on the regular forums due to not actually having a subscription, we can post our thoughts and comments here. So free beta testers, step up and be heard!

Wait...what?

F2P beta testers cant post in the Beta forums?

Or are you confusing these forums (offical live forums) to be the Beta forums?

What is this, a rally?

Seems you are the one who is confused, she said regular forums. The free testers don't have active subscriptions (notice they are technically Guest Accounts) so they can only post here in the New Player Forums and in the Beta Forums. There has been some concern about them not being able to share their thoughts with everyone like those of us who are subscribers in beta. So this is a place where they can post their experiences and give their feedback of the game so others can read it and ask questions.

btw, op, nice forum name

Ya they could post on beta forums. We did listen to there info like how the cost and such. Deed Grinding and so on. They also had some Great ideas.

Originally Posted by Cerridwen

Seems you are the one who is confused, she said regular forums. The free testers don't have active subscriptions (notice they are technically Guest Accounts) so they can only post here in the New Player Forums and in the Beta Forums. There has been some concern about them not being able to share their thoughts with everyone like those of us who are subscribers in beta. So this is a place where they can post their experiences and give their feedback of the game so others can read it and ask questions.

btw, op, nice forum name

True that, it did confuse me. I didnt realise regular forums meant everything outside the new player forums. Can they read, but not post? Or not even veiw fprums other than new player?

Sucks.

True that, it did confuse me. I didnt realise regular forums meant everything outside the new player forums. Can they read, but not post? Or not even veiw fprums other than new player?

We can post in the beta ones, and here, but not in the 'real' ones where all the good discussions are going on Non-players have always been able to view the forums - many EU players read all the time, though we can't post.

I'm a player from the EU, so there was no character copy available and I had to have a fresh character. I also lost my points code, so I was playing without any points at all.

Personally I found the game over-restricted. With only 5 points earned by the time I was 16, there was little incentive to keep grinding deeds just so I could go to the Lone Lands at 20ish. The wardrobe was locked so I couldn't take a look. Swift travels would be locked, I couldn't send some money to a friend and I couldn't sell gathered hides on the AH. The only thing worth doing was the Autumn festival, which is a lot of fun with some nice rewards. Knowing I could not proceed past Bree killed my enthusiasm for levelling, as it has done in past games that have claimed to have a FTP component but locks the majority of the game behind barriers. I know some have suggested a true FTP player could create a new character on each server and grind every single deed and they maybe then will have enough points for the Lone Lands but... really? Really?

I do not like the new opening sequences at all. I find the inclusion of Strider and the hobbits to be cheap and patronising, as if it's felt a new player can't get into the story with new characters - Amdir is reduced to such a tiny bit player now, and it's sad. The story was so much better when we had someone to care about. Now we have Strider complaining we're holding him up and Amdir down to about two lines.

The store potions are a concern, detailed in the General Discussion thread, so I won't make another. The reputation mounts are unpopular (probably not with those that buy them, but with those who liked the reputation system the game used to have, where you earned it. What's the point of grinding it now? Most rep factions, people only wanted the horse!)

The store is slow and difficult to navigate - if you go five steps forward (cosmetics, hats, regional hats... etc) there is no breadcrumb trail, so once you're done looking at the hats (and by that I mean looking at a banner that says 'There is nothing here for your class and level' - is it so wrong to let a level 10 browse the store even if it's for higher level items?) you have to go right back to the start and go through all the wonky little sidemenu paths again. It's difficult to find things because the way its arranged isn't intuitive - could it be in 'regional' outfits or 'special' outfits or simply in 'cosmetic' outfits? (I forgot the names of the actual categories.)

Itemisation is very disappointing, with the majority of the new endgame items being unwearable to any player who's been through Mirkwood. I have never understood the obsession with not surpassing the Watcher, and in some cases the DN, gear with fresh items. If there's enough wiggle room to give us +30 to all our stats, there was enough room to put in a decent armour set. The new warden's shield does not surpass the old Mirkwood one and Loth crafted one. The Hele and Annu armour are gated behind big, many-thousands-of-mark grinds, but are still overall, poorer than the Moria set.

Overall I am currently content that the store won't affect me personally very much; I'm a lifer, I'll go to Enedwaith in a new outfit, that'll be it really. My major concerns are for the game as a whole.

Originally Posted by Beladore

Itemisation is very disappointing, with the majority of the new endgame items being unwearable to any player who's been through Mirkwood. I have never understood the obsession with not surpassing the Watcher, and in some cases the DN, gear with fresh items. If there's enough wiggle room to give us +30 to all our stats, there was enough room to put in a decent armour set. The new warden's shield does not surpass the old Mirkwood one and Loth crafted one. The Hele and Annu armour are gated behind big, many-thousands-of-mark grinds, but are still overall, poorer than the Moria set.


My major concerns are for the game as a whole.

This is sad. I love loot. Its my favourite part of video gaming. Collecting cool stuff. Fighting hard and longer to find even more cool stuff.

Except it seems there is no more cool stuff.

Originally Posted by azureal1977

True that, it did confuse me. I didnt realise regular forums meant everything outside the new player forums. Can they read, but not post? Or not even veiw fprums other than new player?

Sucks.

Sorry, hope what I said wasn't taken as rude because I didn't mean it to be. Guest Accounts can read all of the regular (Live) forums but they can only post in the New Player Forums.

Thanks for posting, Beladore. Hopefully more will see this thread and post.

Originally Posted by Cerridwen

Sorry, hope what I said wasn't taken as rude because I didn't mean it to be. Guest Accounts can read all of the regular (Live) forums but they can only post in the New Player Forums. They can't insert links like we can, either.

Thanks for posting, Beladore. Hopefully more will see this thread and post.

No offense taken.

And yeah, more F2P'ers, lets here some stuff from you guys.

Here's the BIG F2P question ...... Will you stick around for when this goes live ? (The folks who never played except in the Beta)

I've posted some of my thoughts in the regular forums using my live accounts, but I will go ahead and post here as well.

My account in beta was an F2P account, and since it couldn't be upgraded to premium without spending real money to upgrade (who would spend real money in a beta that is going to be wiped when all is said and done?) I was stuck as F2P and never saw the Premium player or VIP player side of the equation.

So this is strictly as F2P.

Over the course of my play, I was given 15,000 Turbine Points to spend and it took every one of those points to get me to a decent level of relatively uninhibited play. So what was that? $150.00 worth of points? In what? Six weeks?

Most non-free games give a player 14 days of free play or 30 days of free play. They can advance as far as they want to in that time, but they USUALLY have limits with things like chat and mail so that they can't effectively use chat or email to spam other players and sell gold. Most newer games are limiting auction house or other public sales paths for trial accounts, so I was never very much put out by those kinds of limitations on the F2P account.

However, being unable to send money TO A PURCHASE ALTERNATE CHARACTER on your own account is kind of ridiculous. And without those Turbine Points mailed to me three times over the course of the last five or six weeks, I'd have been forced to give up in the beta.

Once I did get into the Lone Lands and North downs I was able to earn enough TP to get me my choice of the following:

1 additional zone to play in
1 additional character slot
3 trait slots
1 additional inventory bag
1 additional bank vault box (15 slots)
the ability to post in the auction house

Now pay special attention to the fact that I could NOT buy all of those things. I could pick one and only one of those things and buy it. Which one is most important? Well, for me, it was the trait slots. Playing a character without its traits is like playing a character that is missing an arm or a leg. I did not want to play a gimped character, so I chose the trait slots.

My concerns echo those of Beladore: is there enough F2P access to the game to give the new player a good enough taste of LOTRO to become hooked on it? If not, he will not buy from the store on the scale Turbine is hoping for, and he will not subscribe, which is the ultimate goal of F2P.

The answer to that will depend somewhat on the player himself, but overall, I believe that the number limitations and restrictions will discourage MOST of the new players and cause them to leave prematurely. I don't think they are given enough access to the game to have a chance to get hooked on it. Naturally, there are all kinds of people out there, and there are going to be some who don't need much of a hook to become hooked. But I am speaking for a wider majority of people. Mostly, people are going to feel that they aren't given enough to enjoy and won't subscribe.

This isn't a complaint, and it isn't for my own benefit. I have two lifetime accounts and will be VIP when F2P goes live in Q4 (egad!). But I believe that Turbine is doing this to lure more players into the game. And that is going to backfire somewhat if the F2P is too skimpy to be enjoyable.

As for MY OWN PERSONAL experience as a player, it was overall very good. I had 15,000 TP to play with, so I was able to buy off the restrictions on chat, auction house, gold caps, trait slots, riding, etc. And was able to buy the Lone Lands, North Downs, Trollshaws, Evendim, Angmar, Misty Mountains, Forochel and Eregion. However, note that I did NOT have points to blow on cosmetic items or consumables. The rest of my TP went on removing restrictions and to pay for my inventory bags and bank vault space up to 75 slots, and my class trait slots and virtue slots (did not have enough to also buy racial trait slots - but Hunter racial traits mostly suck anyway, so two slots was fine).

I enjoyed the new ORDER of the starter sequences. I did not like the way they cheapened Amdir or brought Aragorn in to lecture us about being too slow and stupid to get the job done. I liked the old storyline better, but like the way the quest paths are organized now much better. If they could do that and keep the original storyline, I think this would be a FAR better starting sequence (for the MAN starter).

I like a lot of little things that have been added or tweaked or changed to enhance gameplay. Playing my hunter was more fun than I've had in the live game in ages! The login goes faster, the game performs better overall, and a number of issues relative to Windows 7 have been addressed.

My characters level SLIGHTLY faster. I know there are those who don't like that, but I am a long-time veteran of the game and I don't feel there is any good reason to keep players in a long leveling process now that the level cap is 65 and will soon be 70 (when the next expansion is released). That's a long haul for a new character, so I am glad to see that the haul has been slightly shortened.

So my characters level a little better, and my hunters perform better against mobs their own level. It's not a lot. The difference is subtle and slight. But in live, a twinked out hunter does this well against on-level mobs, and in beta a not as nicely twinked out hunter does about the same. I say not as nicely because a lot of things weren't available to me. As F2P I did not ever see a drop of rested XP. I did not have a weaponsmith character, and there were NEVER any traps in the AH or hunter books, so my double and triple traps were unavailable, and I spent an incredible amount of time waiting for my power to regen. I feel that the lack of the class tools cripples my class. I use them all the time in live to take on multiple mobs for "solo" quests (yeah right) like the one in the lone lands labeled as solo to kill Hontimer (or whatever his name is) and his four buddies.

The things I like specific to the new version of the game are things like being able to buy a mount early in the game and stop being forced to spend so much time traveling. I love the fact that bank vault upgrades no longer have a level requirement and can be purchased anytime as long as you have either the gold or the TP to buy them. That is probably the most wonderful change to the game as far as I'm concerned.

I like the change that allows my character to start producing criticals as soon as he has mastered proficiency.

And I like the new vault system. I hated it initially, but after a couple of updates to it, it has become more practical than the older system, and when you take into consideration additional improvements that they hope to make to the system, I think the new vault is going to be far better than the old vault. Besides, this HAD to be done. The old system would not accommodate more space for characters. That system had to be streamlined to provide even slight expansions to the space. The new system is a whole efficient rebuild of the vault system and will accommodate even more expansion than we are already seeing.

So I love the new vault and the additional vault space. I like the idea that we will soon be able to name the vault boxes and the possibility that these will be tabbed.

I like the new quest log format that lists the difficulty level of the quest, and has much better graphical qualities and a better layout. I like the many small enhancements to the UI. I LOVE the fact that they have introduced Lua scripting for the UI in this game after so many people have requested it.

In short, the change is not small. It is a sweeping change to the game that affects nearly every system in the game. It isn't just accommodation for F2P, it is also a plethora enhancements to many parts of the game.

And then there is Enedwaith.....

Omigod! That's a stunning landscape. For me personally, Enedwaith is by far the most beautiful landscape in the entire game. Makes the shire look positively ugly! But that's probably just me. Different people seem to take Enedwaith very differently. For some it is drab and not much different from the rest of the game. I don't really understand how anyone can say that, but there you have it. For me, Enedwait is an awesome looking place. And it is plain that Turbine learned much from the creation of other zones. Like NOT putting armies of mobs all over the roads. It is a dangerous place if you are under level. But you CAN travel pretty safely (with a handful of exceptions) on the roads. I'm going to enjoy Enedwaith because I will be able to travel without hindrance and will still have challenge out away from the roads.

The store. The presence of the LOTRO store doesn't bother me. The button doesn't bother me. The notice telling me I've gained five or ten more TP doesn't bother me - in fact, I like seeing that icon pop up in the notification list. But here are some changes I would make to the store if I were the one in charge:

1) The costs of zones would be as follows:

• Lone Lands - 295 TP
• North Downs - 395 TP
• Evendim - 395 TP
• Trollshaws - 295 TP (not very much content there)
• Misty Mountains - 495 TP
• Forochel - 495 TP
• Angmar - 495 TP
• Eregion - 495 TP
• Moria Expansion - 1800 TP
• Mirkwood Expansion - 1200 TP
• Enedwaith - 495 TP

2) Class Traits would not be a store item.

3) Virtue Traits would not be a store item.

4) Racial Trait slots would default to three free slots and two pay slots.

5) Trait slots would cost 95 TP each.

6) Legendary skill slots would cost 150 TP each (first slot free).

7) Bank vault expansions would be 250 TP each

8) Inventory Bags would be 250 TP instead of 495.

9) Auction house posting slots would be 50 TP each (250 TP for lots of 5 slots).

10) Gold cap removals would be equivalent to 5 bucks (500 TP).
11) purchase of gold cap removal would apply to the ACCOUNT. Bank vault expansions and inventory bag expansions would apply to the account. Zone and content purchases would apply to the account.

12) Riding skill and mount purchases, cosmetics and consumables would all apply to only the purchasing character. Same with personal buffs and trait boosts.

13) Map skills would be SKILLS rather than a consumable. As a consumable, I feel these items are considerably overpriced.

14) Each item in the store would mention that it applies either to the account or only to the purchasing character. There are too many gray areas in store item information.

Turbine is thinking in terms of what they need to make to make this profitable for them. I know they are also trying to determine a happy medium between what the player will pay grudgingly and what the player simply WON'T play. But I honestly don't think they can go by that alone. I feel that most players are going to look at the prices and mutter "no way."

And more importantly, the immediate expansion areas (Lone Lands and North Downs) need to be cheaper, period. They need to give the F2P players more area to play in to fall in love with the game. Also, certain necessity items need to be attainable via earned TP as well. At least one or two more virtue slots and class slots before the TP well runs dry on the F2P player. This means prices will have to be lower or rewards will have to be higher. Not enough to make the whole game free, but enough to let the player attain necessary items (inventory bags, one or two bank vault upgrades, class and virtue slots and minimal auction house posting, and gold cap removals), and still have just enough to buy one of the expansion areas. That area will provide more TP and it would be enough - if the player is careful with his TP - to buy the next area. But since those prices go up, it would not be possible (without a great deal of grinding) to buy zones beyond the LL and North Downs.

But I also feel that asking more than 5 bucks per zone is asking for a lot of people to just say No! In the F2P games I've played, I was okay with the 5 dollars here and there, but when zones went up to 7.50 and higher, I stopped paying for them.

That's just me. Other games (like Wizard 101) are getting a good deal more for each zone (Krokotopia, purchased ala carte, would cost you around 24 bucks to buy access to the entire zone in this manner) and yet the game's popularity is still increasing, rather than decreasing.

So Turbine will ultimately have to determine where the cutoff point is. Where they would rather lose a potential customer because he just isn't willing to pay enough to make it worth their while.

I'm just glad I will be a VIP when this goes live. Silly thing is....I'm perfectly willing to spend small amounts of money in small chunks, but give me a better value, but higher price, and I am less willing to buy it. Go figure.

Originally Posted by tuor66

Here's the BIG F2P question ...... Will you stick around for when this goes live ? (The folks who never played except in the Beta)

I'm brand new to LOTRO as of the F2P beta and I'm mulling that question over right now as you read this. I've been playing WoW for four years, UO for two years before that.

Originally Posted by Beladore

*snip*

Originally Posted by Darkonius

*snip

Thanks for posting here. Hopefully more people will find their way to this thread and we can get a nice discussion going.

I agree with Beladore about not liking such notorious characters being introduced right off the bat; it seems forced and kind of tacky. I've not read the books, but it sure seemed out of place to see Frodo & Co. walking down the road in the middle of the night (Hobbit intro). Other than being iffy on seeing these characters right at the beginning, the intros seemed fairly well done and they flowed pretty nicely.

Gaining lots of Turbine Points through game-play really will take a while; I think I earned 5 points by the time I was 8 (and I don't even remember what for). You get 5 points for the first tier of deeds and 10 points for the second tier, from what I have seen. I guess if people are really bored, they can grind out deeds, re-roll, grind, repeat. I don't think I could tolerate it.

I understand that Turbine is a company and has to make money, but the free side of things seem so restrictive (like Darkonius said) that many people might just try the game and leave in anger rather than buy into the game as Turbine hopes. Then again, this piece-meal purchasing stuff might be right up some peoples' alleys because they can spend some here and there as needed. Not everyone plays several times a week so they might not have seen the reason to fork over the monthly fee whereas now they have an option that might suit them. I also know some will buy into the game as has already been witnessed in beta with players completely new to the game enjoying it so much they subscribed.

I don't know, my thoughts are scattered on it. I probably didn't make much sense in this post, heh.

Originally Posted by Darkonius

However, being unable to send money TO A PURCHASE ALTERNATE CHARACTER on your own account is kind of ridiculous. And without those Turbine Points mailed to me three times over the course of the last five or six weeks, I'd have been forced to give up in the beta.

Once I did get into the Lone Lands and North downs I was able to earn enough TP to get me my choice of the following:

You've got a lot of great information there, and love the full picture you're giving. I did want to clarify a couple of things here, though, from a slightly different perspective.

I also initially created a completely f2p account, and played it without applying any points codes to it at all. I was able to play that character up to the mid 20's (and could have gone further but didn't want to take the time). I was able, as a dwarf mini, to earn enough TP in Ered Luin and Breeland to open up the Lone Lands quest pack. If I'd wanted to go do the Shire deeds and finish up a couple of other deeds in Bree, and combined those with the deeds that could be done in the Lone Lands, I would have been a good bit of the way to opening up another area's quest pack.

Do the same for a different character on a different server, and you also get those points for deeds added. Between two characters on different servers you can easily earn enough points to open up Lone Lands and either North Downs or perhaps 2 smaller quest packs. That's a lot of game for not paying a penny.

The three bags were not a problem (much of the vendor trash stack sizes have been increased). And I know I'm in the minority here, but honestly only having 2 trait slots is really not a hindrance on a character up to their mid 30's, and 3 up into their 40's. The two trait slots they give you is fine, and don't play a big role at those levels, and their visual impact is almost indiscernible.

If people need more traits or packs at that point, then they are probably going to upgrade in some way anyways, whether it's through buying points or sub'ing. And that's the whole point of the system.

And for what it's worth, my young teenage son was able to accomplish plenty on his free to play account as well, had a blast, and told me he never felt hindered at all. Enough so that he was excited enough to start telling his friends who are all now wanting to play (thank God he's a good kid and so are his friends! hehe)

I'm really hoping that Crell will post on this thread. He is really the f2p expert, coming in as a new player, testing a ton, and seeing how far he could really go without spending money. He's got it all down, analyzed, and figured out.

If you complete all of the deeds in the shire (and only the shire) you'll have roughly 140 Turbine Points when you're done. If you max out your Mathom rep while you're there, that's another 50 or so. So if you never left the shire, and did all there was to do, you'd have ~ 190 Turbine Points.

You'll still have Ered Luin and Breeland and all of the Turbine points there to earn as well. Both of those areas have more deeds to complete than The Shire. Both also have reputation factions. Complete all there and you'd have earned around 700 Turbine points.

Originally Posted by Sapience

If you complete all of the deeds in the shire (and only the shire) you'll have roughly 140 Turbine Points when you're done. If you max out your Mathom rep while you're there, that's another 50 or so. So if you never left the shire, and did all there was to do, you'd have ~ 190 Turbine Points.

You'll still have Ered Luin and Breeland and all of the Turbine points there to earn as well. Both of those areas have more deeds to complete than The Shire. Both also have reputation factions. Complete all there and you'd have earned around 700 Turbine points.

Thanks Sapience. And for those wondering how that translates out to which quest packs you can buy:
Quest Packs:
LLs 600
NDs 900
Enedwaith 750
Trollshaws 750
Evendim 750
Eregion 750
MMs 750
Angmar 900
Forochel 750

Originally Posted by sirwillow

Thanks Sapience. And for those wondering how that translates out to which quest packs you can buy:
Quest Packs:
LLs 600
NDs 900
Enedwaith 750
Trollshaws 750
Evendim 750
Eregion 750
MMs 750
Angmar 900
Forochel 750

Thanks for posting those. I'll just throw out a reminder that all prices in beta are subject to change.

--
To be fair, Ered Luin's rep faction (Thorins Hall) Requires reaching upwards of Level 40 to make any serious progress, by way of the reputation dungeon. [Or perhaps there's enough reputation hidden away in the remains of Volume 1]

Bree comes quite naturally and quickly. Mathom comes more slowly, but is reasonably natural.. I'm currently finishing up kindred most of the way through level 38.
--

As a brief introduction. I joined the ranks of the F2P beta during B1 as a newcomer to Lotro. I fell in love with the place and for the most part went out of my way to test as a free-player.

Unlocking your first quest pack of Lone Lands at 25 with earned TP is reasonable to accomplish, especially since the Barrows in Bree are now a Level 20-25 reputation dungeon, except for an inner-portion devoted to the epic book.

Since the NDA is lifted, I'll probably be putting up my spreadsheets soon so you can all see for yourself how reasonable earning TP can be. With 10 reputation factions that you can grind out reputation for if you want, you can earn a total of 500TP just in reputation grinding by reaching kindred without ever purchasing a single quest pack.

I'm a pure F2P account as well, and my main concern is the purchase of Trait Slots as well as the disparity between legacy and F2P members.

I feel all else can be ignored if you're patient, or purchased if you're not, which strikes me as the whole point of a game with a cash shop. These slots though, essentially define your skill sets and resistances as I understand it. You're handicapped without them.

Someone said today that people who don't pay *should* be handicapped. They then turned around in another thread(s) and argued vehemently against the store bought potions and their advantages. Hypocrisy truly must be a matter of perspective.

I have loved my time in the LOTRO beta, it's the most beautiful, in-depth MMO I've ever played. I will surely continue to enjoy it up till its close. But when it goes live? I can't say.

Having spent the (if 1 tp = 1 cent) equivalent of $75.00 or so (with 8500+ free tp left) to unlock all my available trait slots, 3 more inventory bags, 5 auction slots, disable the gold cap, allow the riding skill, and 3 quest areas is not a real life financial option for me. However, being patient and grinding some TP deeds to pay for bags and AH access, and maybe 1 quest area, and perhaps paying 10-20 bucks IRL for other perks is an option.

The person who argued F2P should be handicapped would surely say "if you can't pay, we don't want you." - I hope Turbine and the majority of the community disagree.

http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/9575/58122817.jpg

(can't link images for some reason)

It's a valid point, but I do worry many free players simply won't grind that many deeds - and yes, this may be the fault of the player, but in 2 years I haven't finished 100% of my Shire deeds either, and am a chronic deed-skipper in other zones (I pick my 5, get my 10s, get my titles and that's it). I loved how it was a choice to grind or not grind, or to grind only when the mood took you. Nothing was locked behind 60 neekerbreekers or 60 more wolves. And how do you earn THAT much mathom rep at that level?

It's DOABLE, sure, I just don't know how realistic it is.

Originally Posted by Sapience

If you complete all of the deeds in the shire (and only the shire) you'll have roughly 140 Turbine Points when you're done. If you max out your Mathom rep while you're there, that's another 50 or so. So if you never left the shire, and did all there was to do, you'd have ~ 190 Turbine Points.

You'll still have Ered Luin and Breeland and all of the Turbine points there to earn as well. Both of those areas have more deeds to complete than The Shire. Both also have reputation factions. Complete all there and you'd have earned around 700 Turbine points.

Did you guys switch around how reputation works for eded luin and shire? Cause mathoms and the thorins rep only drop from higher level mobs. With out these items you will not be able to get to the higher ranks of reputation.

Although to be completely honest, finishing all the deeds in Bree, Ered Luin and the Shire isn't much of a task. I did all the Ered Luin deeds in one afternoon on a level 16ish character.

Shire might be a bit slow simply because a lot of the deeds are a bit slower going (I'm looking at you mail and pie delivery quests) but not terribly hard to accomplish.

I skip many deeds (even though it bugs the heck out of me) and only work on ones I want the traits for because I get so tired of mindless killing; one reason I hate rep factions also. Then again, I've been playing the game for a little over 3yrs so I may be a tad jaded by now.

I forgot about the rep also giving points, so that does help. It just appears to be so little because it's 5 here, 10 there, maybe 15 thrown in somewhere? But just like saving your change in real life, it all adds up.

@DigitalSignalX You can just ignore the person who said that. He's just about always a general pain and likes to cause problems on the forums with snide remarks.

Originally Posted by Sapience

If you complete all of the deeds in the shire (and only the shire) you'll have roughly 140 Turbine Points when you're done. If you max out your Mathom rep while you're there, that's another 50 or so. So if you never left the shire, and did all there was to do, you'd have ~ 190 Turbine Points.

You'll still have Ered Luin and Breeland and all of the Turbine points there to earn as well. Both of those areas have more deeds to complete than The Shire. Both also have reputation factions. Complete all there and you'd have earned around 700 Turbine points.

How was the math done for players who already did all these deeds beforehand?

Originally Posted by highlandgirl

How was the math done for players who already did all these deeds beforehand?

If you already completed these deeds on live, you don't get any retroactive TP. The reason is because on live we got XP for our deeds, but now instead you will get TP for completing deeds.

Originally Posted by Cithryth

If you already completed these deeds on live, you don't get any retroactive TP. The reason is because on live we got XP for our deeds, but now instead you will get TP for completing deeds.

XP is gone from deed to slow down the rate of leveling. They want to lower the ability of people being able to skip leveling zones, and raise the sales of the +XP tomes. The less xp you earn in each zone the more money they can make in the store.

+Sapience appeared to be coming at this with the thought of potential grinded characters all the way though. [Which, coincidentally is where my 10 rep factions x 50TP (Net) for hitting kindred=500TP potential in reputation grinding came from, (IL, AA do not award TP for their rep teirs), I only counted pre-moria factions.

When I said it was reasonable to earn the 600 for LL by 25, that didn't mean completing every rep deed. I'll have to check when I'm at home exactly which rep-teirs I was at by then, but I assure you, it wasn't terribly far for bree/mathom, and Thorins hall was almost non-existant (I had 900Rep for them, total at that point). I still wasn't able to turn in mathoms (level-gated), it was purely by gift mathams though, now that I think about it.

I also tested the free player experience. A test I'd love to do would be to upgrade a fresh Free account to Premium via a purchase of the smallest amount of TP for sale.

From the testing I have been able to do with a Premium friend, here's what I ~think the Premium value proposition is:

Let's assume I buy 500 TP for $5.00 and I haven't spent any of the TP I've earned in-game so far. The purchase upgrades me to Premium and I get:

Character Slot (595 TP)
Character Slot (595 TP)
Currency Cap Removal (595 TP)
5 Slot Auction House upgrade (495 TP)
Removal of chat restrictions (not purchasable in the store)
Removal of mail restrictions (not purchasable in the store)
Removal of trade restrictions (not purchasable in the store)
Higher login priority (not purchasable in the store)
30 days Customer Service (not purchasable in the store)

So, assuming 100 TP per dollar, that's about $23 worth of value for making a $5 purchase. And I have another 500 TP to spend.

I understand some folks want the challenge of proving you can play for 100% free and many others truly can't afford a monthly subscription. But I imagine most non-subscribers will find a way to become Premium, even if it means getting a gift card for their birthday or other occasion. Remember we are talking about folks with a gaming computer and broadband access here, so not without resources.

Originally Posted by Liberta

I also tested the free player experience. A test I'd love to do would be to upgrade a fresh Free account to Premium via a purchase of the smallest amount of TP for sale.

From the testing I have been able to do with a Premium friend, here's what I ~think the Premium value proposition is:

Let's assume I buy 500 TP for $5.00 and I haven't spent any of the TP I've earned in-game so far. The purchase upgrades me to Premium and I get:

Character Slot (595 TP)
Character Slot (595 TP)
Currency Cap Removal (595 TP)
5 Slot Auction House upgrade (495 TP)
Removal of chat restrictions (not purchasable in the store)
Removal of mail restrictions (not purchasable in the store)
Removal of trade restrictions (not purchasable in the store)
Higher login priority (not purchasable in the store)
30 days Customer Service (not purchasable in the store)

So, assuming 100 TP per dollar, that's about $23 worth of value for making a $5 purchase. And I have another 500 TP to spend.

I understand some folks want the challenge of proving you can play for 100% free and many others truly can't afford a monthly subscription. But I imagine most non-subscribers will find a way to become Premium, even if it means getting a gift card for their birthday or other occasion. Remember we are talking about folks with a gaming computer and broadband access here, so not without resources.

Might want to take a look at the VIP chart cause some of the stuff you posted is not accurate. Please let me know if they changed it and the VIP chart is wrong.

http://www.lotro.com/news/709

I had both a VIP and an F2P account. I started on the F2P one. I spent no points, except to purchase one extra character slot. So far the highest is level 25, and not enough points have been earned through normal game play to purchase a quest pack (normal means I'm not grinding deeds on purpose). I have plenty of points though given to me as a tester, but if I were a true free player I would not have earned enough points.

Overall, the experience is very similar to being in the free trial. The benefits and disadvantages of both are somewhat different but overall similar. Ie, no ability to send gold, send private messages, etc. The free trial currently has no restrictions on getting a horse or content or trait slots, but on the other hand it is extremely rare to see a brand new player needing these things within the ten days you get in the trial. The F2P account has these restrictions, but there is no time limit.

The restrictions really start becoming apparent to me in the low twenties, and when you decide you want to treat this as a real game you want to stick around in long-term (and it's low twenties, because if you finish up all your bree-land quests first, and try out skirmishes, and do Great Barrows, you'll be 23 or 24). So once you decide you want to stick around in the game, it makes sense to pull out the wallet, and the decision is whether to go ala-carte and just buy a quest pack at a time or to go ahead and subscribe. $6 for North Downs can occupy a lot of play time.

The big controversy really seems to be whether or not the restrictions are going to discourage a player from staying or not. If 20-25 is too low a level to decide that you're staying, then what is the right place?

Originally Posted by Patrickwg

Might want to take a look at the VIP chart cause some of the stuff you posted is not accurate. Please let me know if they changed it and the VIP chart is wrong.

http://www.lotro.com/news/709

Oh, believe me, I've stared at the VIP Chart plenty. I've BUGGED the VIP Chart.

I do see one inaccuracy in my list -- Premium does not get a "currency cap removal", they get a higher limit of 5g. Whereas I struggled to stay under the 2g limit in the free zones, I have had no trouble staying under 5g in the paid zones. I believe the coin drops were accelerated at lower levels. So even though Premium doesn't remove the cap, it (IMO) removes the NEED to purchase the currency cap removal.

The other place I see where I don't jive with the VIP Chart is that it says there will be social limits on Premium accounts (chat, mail, trade). I tested these explicitly with a Premium friend and it's there's a limit, we couldn't find it. Indeed, Free players get a very explicit message when they hit the mail and trade limits, that wouldn't apply to a Premium player: "You cannot send or trade currency until subscribing or purchasing Turbine Points." The chat message "Tell not received. You must be a friend of the target or in the same kinship or fellowship." was not seen ever by the Premium player.

Anything else you are concerned about?

Originally Posted by Sapience

If you complete all of the deeds in the shire (and only the shire) you'll have roughly 140 Turbine Points when you're done. If you max out your Mathom rep while you're there, that's another 50 or so. So if you never left the shire, and did all there was to do, you'd have ~ 190 Turbine Points.

You'll still have Ered Luin and Breeland and all of the Turbine points there to earn as well. Both of those areas have more deeds to complete than The Shire. Both also have reputation factions. Complete all there and you'd have earned around 700 Turbine points.

Im trying to figure out what sort of time frame this would be set into. And Im also wondering how often per month I could be bothered to do that. And then Im thinking I could become a TP farming zombie.

woo.....blah

Originally Posted by Patrickwg

Did you guys switch around how reputation works for eded luin and shire? Cause mathoms and the thorins rep only drop from higher level mobs. With out these items you will not be able to get to the higher ranks of reputation.

Thorins yes, that stuff comes from Sarnur. But you can farm mathoms in the Barrows.

Originally Posted by azureal1977

Thorins yes, that stuff comes from Sarnur. But you can farm mathoms in the Barrows.

Farming Mathoms in the Barrows is a bug. If you read the description, Mathoms are supposed to drop from level 35+ humanoids. Haudh Iarchith is still being reitemized for level 20, so I expect Mathoms to disappear from there by launch.

Don't forget also that you have the slot on the other servers to earn TP. So the 700 TP from the 3 quest hubs X number of servers would be what you could spend. Maybe this is just unlocking things for one char or unlocking the account wide items.

IMO it's not suppose to be a cake walk to do it just F2P as there should be benefits from purchasing items and subbing.

Originally Posted by Liberta

Farming Mathoms in the Barrows is a bug. If you read the description, Mathoms are supposed to drop from level 35+ humanoids. Haudh Iarchith is still being reitemized for level 20, so I expect Mathoms to disappear from there by launch.

Fair enough. I only noticed the mathoms when I was farming my Bree rep.

Why characters on other servers to complete deeds? Do you only get credit for a deed once per server?

Originally Posted by Habble-TES

Why characters on other servers to complete deeds? Do you only get credit for a deed once per server?

Yeah, Im wondering if a deed is account bound, or if you can farm as many deeds as you like as many times as you like on as many servers as you like.

Delete the characters and start again.

Ad infinitum.

Originally Posted by Sapience

Thanks for posting those. I'll just throw out a reminder that all prices in beta are subject to change.

Prices also subject to SALES !!!

Originally Posted by Habble-TES

Why characters on other servers to complete deeds? Do you only get credit for a deed once per server?

Free accounts are limited to one character per server. So the idea is that you deed for TP from the starting zones on other servers to feed your main. Not that this is actually testable yet - there is only one Beta server.