I'm a new player, I don't own any quest packs or expansions, I've only played up to lvl 25.
My friend tells me I need to buy quest packs and stuff to continue further.
My question, what is the best thing/things to purchase?
Should I subscribe, buy quest packs, buy expansions, or pre-order Riders of Rohan?
It's very confusing, how do I get everything/most of it for best value?
The next area past the free ones (The Shire, Ered Luin, Bree-land, Lone-lands) is Evendim, that will get you to mid to high 30's range. To get Evendim you have 4 options.
1. Buy the quest pack from the store. If you don't have enough TP to buy it you can grind deeds in free areas to get enough or buy points (buying points would switch you from F2P to Premium, which is still free but you would gain an extra character slot and your currency cap would be 5 gold).
2. Buy the Steam Starter pack for 29.99. You would get North Downs (which would be good for the 25-30 range), Evendim and The Misty Mountain quest packs, a token that increases your XP for monster kills by 25%, a free horse and 1000 Turbine points. This will also move you up to Premium.
3. Subscribe. One month is $14.99 and 3 months is $29.99 and you get access to all the quest packs (excluding the expansion areas of Moria, Mirkwood and Isengard). Your characters also gain the permanent unlocks for Currency, traits, all 5 bags and swift travel as long as they have been logged in at least once during your VIP time. Once you stop subscribing you will drop down to Premium.
4. The Rise of Isengard Legendary Edition is $49.99 and contains the quest packs for Isengard, Trollshaws, Eregion, Lothlórien, Moria and Mirkwood Quest Packs, a free horse, instances, a raid and 1000TP you could use to buy the earlier quest packs to get you up to where these start. This will move you up to Premium.
Sorry if I made it more difficult Welcome to Middle-earth and enjoy the journey
Edit: I didn't know about RoI Legendary going away, you may want to take JustAmy's suggestion, that would give you all you needed for quite some time plus 500 TP for every month you subscribe. Just remember if you stop subscribing you will lose access to the lower quest packs (for lower level alts) that you haven't purchased yet, but you should have some TP saved up to buy them easily enough.
You're friend told you wrong. You can go all the way with out buying anything, considerably harder to do, you miss out on a lot, but this is actually free to play.
You're friend told you wrong. You can go all the way with out buying anything, considerably harder to do, you miss out on a lot, but this is actually free to play.
Yeah I know, but I can only do the Epic quest then.
No, if you do not mind the grind you can get enough TP
by doing deeds, to get ALL questpacks unlocked.
I used to create a char on another server and do the
deeds in the starter areas, delete that char and make
a new one, every time I was short on TP...
The TP you get is accountwide, not server or toon-dependant.
I do believe getting VIP for 1 month is best value for
money, especially if you have your toons at the end of
all F2P questlines. This way you can skip buying the next
questpack for levels 30-40 for now and get 40-50 instead.
You will keep all traitslots unlocked, goldcap removed
and 5 bags on all chars you have logged while VIP, saving
you an enormous amount of TP, you can the use for
yet another questpack...
No, if you do not mind the grind you can get enough TP
by doing deeds, to get ALL questpacks unlocked.
I used to create a char on another server and do the
deeds in the starter areas, delete that char and make
a new one, every time I was short on TP...
The TP you get is accountwide, not server or toon-dependant.
I do believe getting VIP for 1 month is best value for
money, especially if you have your toons at the end of
all F2P questlines. This way you can skip buying the next
questpack for levels 30-40 for now and get 40-50 instead.
You will keep all traitslots unlocked, goldcap removed
and 5 bags on all chars you have logged while VIP, saving
you an enormous amount of TP, you can the use for
yet another questpack...
Hmm, maybe, I'll see when I'm done with Lone-Lands.
If you roll an elf and do the Ered Luin/elf chain of quests (starting in Celondim w/ ~3-4 quest givers there), plus all the EL Slayer deeds, plus the easy Explorer Deeds, and then hop over and hit the easy Shire Slayer/Explorer Deeds, it takes maybe 6 hrs and you get around 150-200+ TP.
If you do it in Fellowship, that could cut an hour or more off the effort. (Fellowships share Slayer kills if the party members are not too far from each other.)
Ignore crafting & crafting quests, ignore loot, ignore extra kills or xp, ignore tasks, ignore anything that does not get you TP - that is the only goal, anything else will only slow you down. The character gets deleted afterwards (or can be - but that's the mentality to get it done fastest.)
If you can sit down and devote an afternoon/evening to it, you can use the free 24 hr horse (from the blue box), and if you plan ahead you can make good use of the Slayer Deed boosters from same to save more time (dourhands in Kheledur, then hendroval & then spiders, all close by each other.)
The free 24 hr horse is from the red box.
It is easy to grind enough tp to get Evendim. I have done it on my main character. Just do all the easy deeds in Ered Luin, the Shire and Breeland.
I really would recommend buying RoI Legendary package while it lasts - that is, until July 9th. For $50 you get all three current expansions (Isengard, Mirkwood, Moria), three other quest packs (Lothlorien, Eregion, Trollshaws), 3 account-wide horses and 1000 TP to spare on at least 2 more quest packs. If you like the game and plan to stay for months and months ahead, this package is the best deal you can get right now. Normally, I would recommend buying it at level 42+ or so, but it is going away on July 9th and as far as we know won't be made available again ever (much like Adventurer's pack or Lifetime subscriptions).
I am well aware that $50 is a lot to spend on a game at once, but this really will make your leveling and adventuring in LOTRO that much easier.
I really would recommend buying RoI Legendary package while it lasts - that is, until July 9th. For $50 you get all three current expansions (Isengard, Mirkwood, Moria), three other quest packs (Lothlorien, Eregion, Trollshaws), 3 account-wide horses and 1000 TP to spare on at least 2 more quest packs. If you like the game and plan to stay for months and months ahead, this package is the best deal you can get right now. Normally, I would recommend buying it at level 42+ or so, but it is going away on July 9th and as far as we know won't be made available again ever (much like Adventurer's pack or Lifetime subscriptions).
I am well aware that $50 is a lot to spend on a game at once, but this really will make your leveling and adventuring in LOTRO that much easier.
The difference between quest packs and expansions is a little vague. Are you really getting all three expansions with this (character slots, classes, etc.), or just the quest packs? Basically, if I'm a VIP and I buy this, do I have everything available for the game at this time?
Seems like a much better deal. 2000 points on top of what I'm getting as a VIP means that by the time I'm out of Moria I should have more than enough TP to purchase RoI and Mirkwood that way. Right?
The difference between quest packs and expansions is a little vague. Are you really getting all three expansions with this (character slots, classes, etc.), or just the quest packs? Basically, if I'm a VIP and I buy this, do I have everything available for the game at this time?
VIP + Isenguard Legendary Edition gives you quests and deeds in every zone available at this time. The only thing you won't have is Rohan, which isn't out until September.
You won't have access to the Runekeeper and Warden classes but you can buy them with your 2000 TPs.
For a VIP, the only thing that the Mithril edition gives you is the Moria quest pack. You already have access to the other zones as part of your subscription.
As these are the "Free Player Forums", I have to shake my head at posts that jump to urge spending "only $50" or even less. $10 for VIP is, for many, THE way to go - but it's still simply NOT FREE, and so often still "just too much".
So, with that in mind...
Originally Posted by Matsemann08
My friend tells me I need to buy quest packs and stuff to continue further...
Just to be clear - are you sure he meant "with real-life money"? Because you don't need to buy anything.
As mentioned above, you gain "Turbine Points" as you adventure for free. With a little extra effort, you can earn quite a lot of TP - infinite, in theory. You can then "buy Quest Packs" with those points. It's slower than spending cash, and (as also mentioned above) if you spend just a little RL cash you can get a mess of good stuff - but you don't have to drop one penny if you really don't want to.
The difference between quest packs and expansions is a little vague. Are you really getting all three expansions with this (character slots, classes, etc.), or just the quest packs? Basically, if I'm a VIP and I buy this, do I have everything available for the game at this time?
You don't get the extras from the Moria expansion. It's just the Moria quest pack. In the case of Mirkwood, there's no difference, as that one doesn't have a separate expansion version with extra stuff. (Mirkwood is only an "expansion" in the sense that it's not included with a VIP subscription.) RoI Legendary does have the full expansion version of Isengard itself. The only things you'd be missing which the expansions would have gotten you are the warden & rune-keeper classes and a couple extra character slots. Those can be purchased separately.
However, not even the expansion versions give anybody "everything available for the game". Turbine is trying to encourage even VIPs to keep spending money in the Store. Even a VIP with every expansion would not have any Shared Storage, or the highest few upgrades to the vault, or the Premuim wallet, or extra milestones, etc. unless they purchase those separately. If you're looking for what purchase will give you everything in the game, there isn't one. There will always be more stuff in the Store that you can't get except by buying it through the Store.
So the combination of a VIP subscription and the Legendary Edition of Rise of Isengard would give you all "content" (i.e. all quests, deeds, instances) currently in the game, but not all features.
As these are the "Free Player Forums", I have to shake my head at posts that jump to urge spending "only $50" or even less. $10 for VIP is, for many, THE way to go - but it's still simply NOT FREE, and so often still "just too much".
So, with that in mind...
Just to be clear - are you sure he meant "with real-life money"? Because you don't need to buy anything.
As mentioned above, you gain "Turbine Points" as you adventure for free. With a little extra effort, you can earn quite a lot of TP - infinite, in theory. You can then "buy Quest Packs" with those points. It's slower than spending cash, and (as also mentioned above) if you spend just a little RL cash you can get a mess of good stuff - but you don't have to drop one penny if you really don't want to.
Just to be clear.
I get your point, but this game is not truly free to play unless you don't mind lots of grinding.
It's easy enough to pick up quest packs by grinding, those are usually in the 600-800 points range. But expansions are running 1500-5000 points or so per, and that can be discouraging if you want to get to end game. I know a lot of folks who are stalled at Moria or Lothlorien and can't go further.
Much as it pains me, *if and only if you really like the game and don't mind the technical issues that are likely never to be resolved* then go for the legendary Isengard and one month of VIP - that will get you a lot of unlocks, and 1500 points to spend on the quest packs you'll need to fill in any gaps (like Evendim and Angmar). It will cost you 65$ US, which is a fair chunk of change. If you're a very casual player, one of the folks who'll take months or years to level, then I wouldn't bother.
With an imminent level cap rise and Rohan coming out soon at an exorbitant cost, though, I really don't know what to say.
I get your point, but this game is not truly free to play unless you don't mind lots of grinding.
That's what the term "Free To Play" means. You can play for free by doing lots of grinding, or else you can avoid that grinding by paying money. Nobody has to pay if they don't want to, and you can get all the content, including all expansions, for free, but naturally, it's going to take a bit of extra effort to do that.
The game isn't being developed for free. Turbine and their parent Warner Brothers have lots of expenses in developing the game, maintaining the servers it runs on, customer support, etc. There obviously has to be a payment structure set up that allows them to recoup those expenses and then make some profit. They're being generous enough to allow people to play entirely for free because doing so brings in a lot of players and a high enough proportion of those will choose to become paying customers that they can offset the cost drain of the ones who don't. If the rule were that everybody gets absolutely everything in the game for free and without needing to do any grinding for it, then who in the world would choose to give Turbine the money they need to develop and run the game?
I get your point, but this game is not truly free to play unless you don't mind lots of grinding.
(I understand, and agree 100%*, but I try to answer an OP as posted before going off-topic and urging a different solution. (Not that you do/did that, Chan', but many seem to quite readily.) Some Players don't mind grinding, and since this is the FTP sub-forum, call me whack but the default operating assumption should be "no money spent", not the other way around. Start there, then suggest an alternative.
(* I decided not to be pure ftp after a month of playing - once I decided I liked the game, I dropped $20 on MoM, just before RoI came out. I level slowly, so that'll hold me for a while. And $20 on a great game is a bargain; $10 for a month of VIP even better - for me, at least.)
[/I] Some Players don't mind grinding, and since this is the FTP sub-forum, call me whack but the default operating assumption should be "no money spent", not the other way around. Start there, then suggest an alternative.
[I]
......
</off topic, with apologies>
And more off-topic. This isn't the F2P sub forum. We no longer have a free-to-play subforum. This is the generic new players forum, regardless of account status.
As the topic starter asked about subbing and buying quest packs the information given wont break any terms of use. Unless you're suggesting that free players shouldn't be using the forums to enquire about upgrading their account.
Anyway...
If you're 25 and not bought any upgrades as far as questpacks go then I'd strongly suggest you look at evendim as a zone. I've found it to be a very enjoyable zone for levelling in that has pretty good flow of quests and the revamp that was done did wonders for the place.
As you asked about subbing I'd suggest that you do read up on it as subbing will unlock a lot of stuff like traits and bags that you'd otherwise need to pay for per character as you level up. Sub a month is a very good plan if you can afford to do so because a lot of those unlocks wont get taken away from you after the sub runs out. Now if you were to sub first you could get a feel for a zones quests before you buy the packs.
For buying packs wait for the sales to come into the TP store, forochel and great river are coming in summer one day sales for example. Or again if you're willing to spend real money take a look at the various packs mentioned above. The steam and mithril editions are similarly priced (£20) and come with different packs and the mounts are account wide unlocks so every character you make will have those given to them. That makes the steam pack with it's 68% horse better from that perspective. Again it's a good idea to make use of sales if you see them. The introductory price for the steam one was superb even for a player with the quest packs as the cost covered the TP's and account wide 68% mount, even now it's the cost of a per character mount in the TP store once you do the sums.
If you want to use the TP store then I'm pretty sure there's a website or two that will outline the number of TP's you can gain from a zone and maybe use that to influence your choices until you start to fill gaps in the collection. Obviously the higher potential TP yield from a zone is preferable although the downside is you might not enjoy that zone. Take a visit first if you can.
Avoid store fluff like the class steeds and cosmetics until you've got a good selection under your belt. You will end up kicking yourself if you cant afford a quest pack after buying a cloak or lockbox key.