Thread: VIP/Premium: Not Why... When!?

Hello community,

I played about a year ago, little more than, and quit as university work demanded more time from me. It still does, but I just want to play LOTRO somewhere in that time. I know I love this game, and I see it has only gotten better and looks to be headed for even more expansion and improvement.

However, there's something I want to do. I don't quite want to become a consistent VIP member, I cannot get my value out of it as I play too sparingly, for now; I might upgrade for the summer months, for example. I heard that if I go VIP for a month, many of the benefits remain when you're demoted back to a premium member... which, exactly and is it worth it to do that or are the perks that last after the month is over not worth the month's VIP cost?

Second, what level is it most advantageous to become VIP. I just started the other day, and am a lvl 8 LM. I'm going to level slowly, as I have midterms, but for future reference, what would be an ideal level to go VIP for a month (if that's advised) or at least premium? I hear 20 because of the mount, is that sound theory?

Third, if going VIP -> Premium isn't that great of an idea, what content or expansion should I look to get? Should I wait for the fall/spring for the new ones? Should I get all? Which ones cost and which are free? What paid content should I focus on? Etc?

Lastly, one more thing. It says you get 500 TBs for each month. However, it says it comes after the anniversary of when your VIP... would I get them if I only sign up for one month?

Thanks for any help, thanks for being a great in-game community;

WHYALWAYSME!?

Originally Posted by whyalwaysme

However, there's something I want to do. I don't quite want to become a consistent VIP member, I cannot get my value out of it as I play too sparingly, for now; I might upgrade for the summer months, for example. I heard that if I go VIP for a month, many of the benefits remain when you're demoted back to a premium member... which, exactly and is it worth it to do that or are the perks that last after the month is over not worth the month's VIP cost?

you can simply become premium by spending a few $£% on TP however you will also become premium once you downgrade from ViP but this has more benefits which you retain for any toons (characters) you logon during your ViP time. this sticky should explain how, why what or when you get stuff
Answers to Your Questions

Second, what level is it most advantageous to become VIP. I just started the other day, and am a lvl 8 LM. I'm going to level slowly, as I have midterms, but for future reference, what would be an ideal level to go VIP for a month (if that's advised) or at least premium? I hear 20 because of the mount, is that sound theory?

imho the optimal time to upgrade to ViP is once youve complted the lonelands
but if you upgrade before you have full access to the game... bags, auction house, chat channels, mail, stable quick travel, gold.
excluding moria, mirkwood, dunland (RoI) and RK\warden

Third, if going VIP -> Premium isn't that great of an idea, what content or expansion should I look to get? Should I wait for the fall/spring for the new ones? Should I get all? Which ones cost and which are free? What paid content should I focus on? Etc?

regardless of whether your f2p, premium or ViP everybody has to purchase moria, mirkwood, dunland. approx level for each zone are
moria 50
mirkwood 60... imho this is skippable if your short on cash\TP
dunland 65
moria and RoI (dunland) are available as expansions or quest pack. expacks contain more than the qpacks
mirkwood is quest pack only

expansions include instaces, quests and skirmises quest packs do not.. moria expansion also includes runekeeper, warden and 2 character slots

Lastly, one more thing. It says you get 500 TBs for each month. However, it says it comes after the anniversary of when your VIP... would I get them if I only sign up for one month?

Thanks for any help, thanks for being a great in-game community;

WHYALWAYSME!?

anniviersary is the date you purchased your subscription. regardless of whether its 30days, 3, 6, 12 months. if you purchase your subscription on the 19th of the month you will get your 500TP on or arround the 19th of each month and every month untll your subscription ends

Going VIP for just one month is, in itself, a great idea. For more than one month, it truly depends on how fast you can get thru an area (i.e. a quest pack, since they are categorized by region). Also a VIP month removes the currency cap for ever.
If you can go fast enough, some area are just not worth to buy apiece.

I recommend you go take something like the mithril edition. I know it's a bit of a hoard of cash, but it's really worth it: if just for the Path of the fellowship (PotF), giving you Trollshaws, Eregion, Moria (just the quests not the extra classes and slot) and Lothlorien.
Those four are worth (1495+695+695+595=) 3480 TP. With the current (today's) deal on simply buying TPs, it costs 34.99$ to get 3150 TPs.
But Mithril edition also gives you a wonderful 2000 TPs. And it costs 29.99$, so a great deal!

You can see it is outdated by content, but is still quite accurate:
http://lotro.mmorsel.com/2010/08/con...vel-chart.html
is a great chart to see which content (quest) pack is worth it and which is not. It will also allow you to see that PotF covers levels 32-45, leaving you with a small gap here, and 48-63 ish thanks to lothlorien having quite a few quests and even more that are repeatable. Also, know that free content stops at level 32 in the lone lands. So that all you really need to do after all is: find something to level you thru 45-48, and sometimes the content left in some zones is gonna be painfully harder than the rest to do on your own.

I myself recommend buying Evendim, or if you can go thru even dim at a faster pace (can level the whole zone in 12-15 hours tops) get a VIP month there and then.

But your mandatory month should be taken near level 20 indeed, if only for the mount. I for one would consider making an alt also, get it to level 20 (or very close) so that during that sole VIP month you can get the mount for both your toons.

hope all that gibberish is helpful. I was typing this as I was disturbed about 20 times by the kids, so the structure of my text may be quite ... nonexistent really.

Thanks you very much, both of you, for your help.

Going to level up both my LM and likely an alt to around 20-ish, then hopefully go VIP for a month; Mithril at the same time?

Originally Posted by whyalwaysme

hopefully go VIP for a month; Mithril at the same time?

go ViP for a month then purchase mithril.. that should be enough to get you to dunland although you may want to resub for a month or purchase enedwaith

The question of when to go VIP is relatively straightforward for a single character but becomes a lot more complex if you are hoping to level multiple alts to cap and/or are interesting in crafting guilds.

I think you're on the right track generally but do consider the question of crafting guilds if that is something that you're interested in. If you want to get full benefit out of crafting guild access, you'll need to level all the way up while you are still a VIP, and that may require joining the guild and stockpiling rep items while you are still ftp so that you have enough to get to Master of the Guild in one month.

Originally Posted by Ramabu

But your mandatory month should be taken near level 20 indeed, if only for the mount. I for one would consider making an alt also, get it to level 20 (or very close) so that during that sole VIP month you can get the mount for both your toons.

I think that the 95TP savings for the riding skill when getting it during VIP time with the level 20 quest is kind of a smaller factor when thinking of whether to go VIP for a month or not.

More important is the overall planning of how many alts you want to have as the per character downgrade perks is what is most valuable: all bags, no gold cap, all traits unlocked and swift travel. All but the swift travel can also be permanently unlocked with TP but the trait slots are only a per character unlock with TP hence very expensive if you want to have multiple alts.

Additional character slots cost TP (495) and you want to have the VIP to premium downgrade perks on all of them.
While premium itself gives you an additional slot you will be able to create up to 5 characters during VIP but fall back to 3 when going back to Premium. You can unlock these later by buying character slots.

However if you want to have crafting alts and have each crafting profession covered by a crafting guild you will need 7 characters as a character can only join a single guild.
Maybe you want to have a character of each class, then you also have to have the runekeeper and warden class before VIP ends to be able to create characters for these classes. This also needs 9 character slots.

Also think about creating several toons on different servers during the VIP time. Maybe you never want to play them but maybe you want to. And if you do you might want to have the downgrade perks as well.

So overall: Think about your playstyle and what you want in the end and what you want to get out of the VIP time: Lots of unlocks or taking advantage of opened content and level only 1 or 2 toons through it during VIP time.

if you as you said used to have an pay per month account you should just reactivate that account and will have all the stuff an premium account has.
the CS hotline is quite helpful in recovering lost userid/PW as long you remember with which CC you had subscribed and a few more details.

when i was a lower level, i didn't buy anything other then mount skill. when you get to about 32 is the best time to go vip. when i did this, i grinded leveling for a month, and got to moria, i grinded deeds for TPs and then got moria and mirk from store (500tp from vip helped) and then got RoI for 30 bucks, over all i got to level 75 for 45 bucks and some time. probably the smartest way in my opinion. good luck

This is still a very helpful thread. I just leveled up to 20, going to make a second character and get it near, too for maximizing the benefit over all my characters. Hardest decision isn't about going VIP/Premium, just what the second class I should make... don't think I'd be able to affectionately play more than three.