Eunusunt,
You've come to these forums for the sole purpose of proclaiming yourself a loud and proud member of the self-entitlement generation, who feels you're owed everything from the world simply for being, and without giving anything at all in return. Congratulations.
We never paid anything, so why should they "pay" us? Because we're potential customers,
By this logic, Turbine should be giving free gifts with real monetary value to everyone in the world, simply because those people, like you, are potential customers. I'm sorry, no. That's stupid.
Although 250 TP is hardly paying...it's attainable through deeds within 2-3 days, but it's the thought that counts, or in this case the lack thereof.
So, then, I expect that you'll be writing a check to Turbine for $5, and expecting to receive nothing whatsoever in return for it, because, after all, it's the thought that counts. No? You do realise that what you've just said is that a business, who needs to turn profit, should be GIVING YOU MONEY, for NO other reason than because you signed up a free account to them... statistically no different than a hundred thousand gold-farmer accounts? Are you actually genuinely serious about that? Really? I cannot fathom that you actually could be... no-one with the ability to type words could really be that stupid or egotistically self-entitled.
I think this downtime was a pretty heavy hit on the playerbase,
This made me laugh. Here are some facts for you, since you've been away and may have missed it:
Turbine announced an extended down time for back-end maintenance in advance.
Then announced that most services would be offline, and that the forums would be set to read only, at least for a portion of the time.
They kept people updated about how it was going through other media, such as twitter and FB.
Then announced, through these media, and on the client load-page, when they had hit an unforeseen problem, and been slowed in their progress, extending the down-time to 24 hours because of that. Until this point, they had been running a few hours ahead of schedule.
They kept people posted about the problem through their other media, and restored service first to their actual game servers first, before anything else, to allow people back into the game.
They arranged compensatory means to apologise to the playerbase for the longer than expected outage; all players who had lost paid time were reimbursed an amount equal to notably MORE than their actual lost time.
Players who did not lose any paid time received, along with everyone else, their apologies, and service restored as swiftly as they were able.
There are always complaints during down times. they don't generally, mean anything, except that people want to get back into the game.
Bottom line - you guys ask why should we get "rewarded" for the downtime - I've answered that.
You've answered it by saying that you DESERVE it, for no other reason than that you signed up a free account, and made yourself a DRAIN on their resources, without giving ANYTHING back at all. Not a compelling case.
Now my turn - why should I spend money on the game, since they did not show they care about me? (I agree I'm a special case and possibly should not have received anything to begin with, because I haven't played in 2 years BUT they could've easily applied the 30-or-whatever days since last login rule and showed everyone that they care about their players, not just customers).
You should spend money on the game if you enjoy playing it and would like to play more of it. If that's no the case, then stop. You've not given anything TO the game at all, yet, and so far you've been a drain of resource and a use of data that gives them no return whatsoever...
You mean a part of the game. The whole of it (based of a real free to play model) would be the entire questline, all areas, no character slots/gold/auction (and more) cap. But nice try.
You do get access to the entire epic questline for free. You also get access to every single region and zone in the game, for free. Everyone has a cap on how many character slots they can have. you can unlock more with TP, just like everyone else. A subscription gives you an auto unlock on some as a bonus. A couple of the packs give you unlocks on a couple more, as a bonus... but you're no more restricted than anyone else, you just haven't bought the perks they have. Are you demanding that those who HAVE bought those perks be devalued upon your insistence that YOU be given them all automatically when you sign up a free account?
Here's something else for you to consider. Aside the free complete access tot he game that you get, aside the full access to the entire epic questline, aside access to advanced game systems like mounted combat for free... aside all of that.... EVERYTHING ELSE, barring one exception, you can ALSO get FOR FREE, without paying Turbine a single cent. There are players out there now, who are sometimes dubbed FreeIP, who have absolute and complete access to everything in the game except free-side ettenmoors... every bonus, every feature, every quest in every zone, every expansion and pack... all without having paid turbine a single cent... and they have all of that forever, absolutely.
You mentioned 'tons' of other games that do better... well, I can promise you the thread won't get locked for you mentioning names, since these discussions have happened before... I dare and challenge you to name even one single MMO that is a game of this size, calibre and quality, that offers as much as LotRO does for absolutely free without paying a cent... find me an MMO of this grade that offers more of its totality for free than LotRO, and I'll be very surprised. And you want -More- ... no, wait, you don't -want- more... You're demanding that you -Deserve- more.
Also my main gripe was with the downtime and the fact that we (freeps) only got some dust in our eyes out of it.
The servers went down. You couldn't play the game for longer than expected, but were kept up to date by other means of media. Then the servers came up again, and you could play again, and Turbine apologised for the extended outage. ... and somehow, that's them kicking dust in your eyes? Really? Is your life so devoid of purpose and direction that being unable to play a game (which you'd not been playing at all for a long time beforehand), for a few extra hours longer than expected, is, in itself a massive slight against you? explain to me how this is a slight against you, please... I'd love to hear it.
There's nothing misleading about the Free to Play title at all. It's not a chance to 'try' the game in some crippled sense; it is literally the freedom to play the game, just as any other, for free, without paying. A little while back I was in a level cap raid in Helegrod, for example. The Lore-master next to me was a free player... never payed a cent to turbine, yet there he was, alongside us, playing the game and getting nifty loot, just like everyone else. I think he won a decent sword and a starlit crystal. He was right chuffed. That is the very definition of free-to-play... and it's far more than any other game of this size and calibre allows for free.
Rider, Fighter, Virgin, Lover; Watcher, Chaser, Bearer of Pain.
Victim tormented, Abused and Broken; Rise from the ashes and Hunt once again.
And Vengeance Be Thy Oath.