Originally Posted by
Farian
Just a quick comment on WoW before I talk what I think about LOTRO right now. I don't think Blizzard is a good example of "good company" if you think on the side of the players. Although everyone is equal there by paying subscription and without "extra boosting/consumables" on some kind of money-sucking store, Blizzard still has no consistency when it comes with concepts on the game-play, specially classes. They don't aim for balance, they make a quick research on "which class is popular now" and boosts that class to overplay another ones. Then when they see that the less favored classes are making the players who favs them leave, they boost it again and keep doing that with everyone - they are as much meta-money as Turbine is right now.
Now to Turbine: Lets say Turbine FINDS the "perfect formula" for every class. Lets say everything is balanced and working - lets say that you don't NEED to make big changes on classes again because they are already working how they KNOW (and they know already) it should work. You think they would leave it at that? No. I bet they'll start doing the same as Blizzard. It'll be like [Turbine] "Champs got a nerf!", [Champ Players] "Ohh.. =(", [Turbine] "RK's got a boost!", [RK Players] "Yaaay! =D", [Turbine] (just 2 months later) "Wait wait champs, you got a boost back! Dont leave the game", [Champ Players] "Yaaay ty Turbine! =D". And goes like that forever lol. They can tst it enough and make classes balanced, with everything good working, in about 6 months or less of game after the next expansion. Thats how the game was before F2P, you would very rarely see any class changes. But now? Get ready for the rollercoaster.
I played this since about.. 4 months before Mines of Moria release, so I played a lot of LOTRO before F2P.. and a lot of FTP LOTRO now too I guess. When I heard it would become "free", it was obvious to me that you would play a very poor free version of the game, so you would want to stay a subscriber (now called VIP) anyway.
But thats old story. I was happy because I thought it would bring life to the game again. If Turbine was having a hard time to raise funds to keep the game updating and making a new expansion, then this "maneuver" would give them what they needed.
They said turbine store woudn't have anything that you can't get in game, except for cosmetic stuff. In othe rword,s if you were already a VIP you would browse the store for CONVENIENCIES and not boosts, like horses, outfits, outfit storage, name change, crafting boosts, xp boosts etc. On the practical (non-cosmetical) acquisitions from lotro store, you would be able to level faster your char, craft, get disered legacies, scrolls of empowerment, etc. But never permanent boosts.
They LIED because they reinforced, and I read it more than once, that LOTRO store wouldn't contain such things. They even said something like "A player's character wont be more 'powerful' fro lotro store because everything on the store can be acquired on game". Then the +10 to +50 stats tomes came and, to maintain their lie, they added a 0.0001% chance (if not less) of you getting a random stat tome from a mob in game. It is already done, characters are already walking around with +50 permanent bonusses to all their stats (or just those that matter to their class) and its not only that - they now added LOTRO store consumables that stacks with crafted consumables. You get defence tomes that actually give you a percentage defense against all damage, another for percentage bonus to your outgoing damage... there's morale and power strong potions that doesn't share cooldown with your potions.
Turbine can say what they want now and they maybe will say something if too many people complain - but dealing with the public is also a treasured GM skill and I bet they have people who can turn lies like that into a beautiful thing by throwing meaningful (not) explanations full of energy and optimism. And, if you're easily swayed by the things, you'll say "whoa how cool they are! thank you turbine! I'll deposit more money in your account right away!"
If by the time they announced F2P there was anyone suspecting that players who buy turbine points frequently will have a lot more of TP even compared to VIP's - who """just""" pay their monthly fee like they always did for years - and would have more meta-game benefits in game (not only "conveniencies", like Turbine said), you don't need to suspect anymore - its already the reality of LOTRO today.
If you want to know how absurd this got, I heard of an european kinship that only raids with ppl who bought stat tomes and that buy damage, healing and/or defense tomes and lotro-store pots to raid OD T2. I can honestly believe that. FOr now you can say that peopel who do that have it easier in game (which is wrong already and contradicts Turbine's promisse) but what if the "T2" or the new raid(s) are purposely made so hard that its almost an requirement to have stats tomes on your char and to buy turbine-store consumable ot be able to beat them? Am I being paranoid? Just wait to see the new extra stat tomes on LOTRO store and what-else they'll add in the store from now on.
I sitll have faith that they realize they have their money comming in a stable and very profitabl way as it is and they don't triev for more by eroding the game more (than they already did on LOTRO store). You know how humans are tho, so we can only hope Turbine is made of decent ppl... or perhaps of elves and hobbits =P (dwarves are also too greedy lol).
