Thread: a question or two

So i'm new to Lotro but not new to mmo's in general and if you want my extensive list of what i played pm me or something anyways ill just get to the questions

Number one: because of my budget.. my extra tight budget, i really really dont want to spend any money. i dont mind soloing. though i do like the occasional party and even a little bit of endgame. because of my budget how gimped am i going to be for the lategame/endgame portion.

Number two: (coming soon if i can think of something)

If you can't, or don't want to spend any real money on the game, you don't have to, from what I understand enough TP can be farmed to get the quest packs and such to get you leveled to the cap, and you may also want to unlock extra skirmishes and trait slots and such as well. Should be doable, and I can't really think of any other way in which a free account would be at a disadvantage at end game.

Originally Posted by Zatamataz

So i'm new to Lotro but not new to mmo's in general and if you want my extensive list of what i played pm me or something anyways ill just get to the questions

Number one: because of my budget.. my extra tight budget, i really really dont want to spend any money. i dont mind soloing. though i do like the occasional party and even a little bit of endgame. because of my budget how gimped am i going to be for the lategame/endgame portion.

Number two: (coming soon if i can think of something)

F2p (free to play) actually gives you quite a bit of content to level with and of course all the epic book quests whether you have the area or not. You will spend some TP (or money) on quest content and expansions eventually, so if you play and grind deeds you should earn enough Turbine points (TP) to continue to play for free. If you want all the bags, extra storage and such, become a VIP for one month, you get to keep the bags and extra storage, also you get that third character slot. All in all, I started as a F2P and now am a VIP for the last 6 months. I saved all my TP and purchased Rise of Isengard, Mines of Moria expansion and a few other places. end game/late game you will find it will be easier to play if you have purchased the areas, but you can earn the TP by doing deeds so no out of pocket expense, just a hella grind but definitely doable without spending a dime.

Hope my rambling has helped you decide whether to make a financial contribution to Turbine.

If you can set side one quarter (25 cents) every day, in a month and a half you'll have $10 saved - and that will get you 2 things on Lotro. First, a month of VIP - which has its own rewards during that month. But after that month it will permanently give your charater(s) MUCH more than pure F2P does. Not that you can't get there via pure free play, but that $10 gives SO much value for the money in this game.

If you really like the game, treat yourself, just that once. (More threads on this if you Search around.)

And 40 days is about right - or more, if you level slower. Make it a dime a day.

The 10$ deal is only if you subscribe for three months at 30$ total. One month is US 15$, higher in other currencies. It's a decent deal, but not one that everybody can afford.

If you go totally free, it will take a while before you can get to end-game, probably longer than the Decemberish when there will be new instances out, but eventually you can get there. If it helps any, each new expansion has very few instances, so you're not missing a whole lot unless you like running the same 6-man multiple times per day and the same raid once per week.

As for spending no money. That means grinding deeds for turbine points(TP). A couple of things to know about that.

TP are account wide, that means all TP earned with all characters on all servers on that account are shared.
Not all items in the store are account wide, some are for one character only, read the descriptions.
Buy things from the point store when they are on sale, wait for sales.

For endgame there are a number of things you will need to unlock that are character only, like traits. So you might want to concentrate on only getting one character raid ready.

If you can scrape together the 14.99USD for a month of vip I would really think about it as all characters logged in during that month get some items unlocked that you then don't have to spend TP on, like trait slots.

It can be done, it will require a little more grinding on more than one character simply to get the TP needed to purchase what you need.

Have fun.

Originally Posted by Zatamataz

So i'm new to Lotro but not new to mmo's in general and if you want my extensive list of what i played pm me or something anyways ill just get to the questions

Number one: because of my budget.. my extra tight budget, i really really dont want to spend any money. i dont mind soloing. though i do like the occasional party and even a little bit of endgame. because of my budget how gimped am i going to be for the lategame/endgame portion.

Number two: (coming soon if i can think of something)

You really can get almost everything for free if you are willing to turn the game into a job and spend untold hours earning the turbine points.

The biggest thing about endgame or high level content.... you will want some of these extras and those cost a LOT of turbine points...

-- storage space.... whether the extended wallet or just a bigger vault, you will probably want some by level 50.
-- boosted stats. If you want real endgame, you probably want to buy the tomes of stat upgrades, which cost a ton of TP
-- legendary item stuff... here again, while you could grind it, the legacy tier scrolls and reset scrolls and so on are pricy but the alternative way of earning them is fairly tedious.
-- content, including all the skirmishes so you can do them in 12 man raid mode, and enough content to unlock the raids ....
-- which means you also want the expansion packs...
-- this is on top of the other stuff you need to get which includes gold cap removal, riding skill, content/quest packs, and more.

You can function without the above, of course, except for enough quest packs to unlock the content you want to play. But to really have a decent character, you will want a lot of the above and that takes time or money.

If it were me, I would make a RL game out of it. Find ways to save money in real life --- coupons, a cheaper cell phone (prepaid!!), use less gas, cook instead of eating out, do something on the side to make a few bucks, etc. Set that aside for fun (and not just LOTRO!!!) and use a portion of it to buy some of these things rather than grind them. I mean, mow some old lady's lawn, get $20 for 1/2 an hour of work, and buy some TP with that.... the same 1/2 an hour of grinding in game might get you $5 worth of TP on a good day.... and a little exercise on top of it.