all of us?
in this situation, return on investment is just as subjective as someone's reaction to F2P.
it's good that you feel you received your money's worth--i do not.
i repeat, a bad investment for me.
i'd sell in a heartbeat.
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Ditto, but i would be sad to see it closed thou...i didn't paid upfront to see myself kicked out after a couple of years with the excuse "you played for what you paid for, thanks"...do this when you buy stocks and you would see an uproar LOL
Glad that is not the case ;)
Are Lifetime accounts still being offered since F2P? A few fellow DDO players are now here doing F2P and want Lifetime. Have not found where to take care of it though...
You can kind of obtain a Lifetime sub right now. However, it would require you to unlock all content and other things via getting all of the quest packs from the Store. You would never attain all of the perks of an actual Lifetime sub in doing so but might come fairly close. I would bet that it would cost a pretty penny to do so however.
Holy cow this thread is huge.
I'm a founder/lifetime account holder that took almost a year off the game when I had another child. Now that I'm ready to get back in, trying to make sense of what I do and don't get is nuts. Especially considering how much the game has changed along with the terms everyone uses. Can someone summarize what I should expect?
I have a lifetime membership. I bought Mines of Moria and the Mirkwood expansion and the other thing (some $20 pack that came with the last expansion??). I have one toon, level 59, that's stuck in Lothlorien right now. The last time I really put any time in was when they made Book 1 soloable, since I'm a relatively solitary player.
I see that I can still log on, and I get 500 points/month now? But it's capped? What's this quest pack thing it tries to sell me? Can I start an alt and have full access like I think I can? If I don't spend my points, can I amass enough to buy Isengard next year? Are there still free content patches like there used to be (Evendim, Forochel, etc)?
Any help is appreciated. I'm sure the resources are there, but like I said, there have been so many changes that I feel like a brand new player.
Lifetime accounts get access to all content. The minor updates are free, the latest being Enedwith. The major expansions are extra. Moria was extra, Mirkwood was extra. Lifetimes could pre purchase the adventure pack and get Mirkwood free. Also people could subscribe for multi month plans and get mirkwood free.
Lifetimer's and subscribers get TP each month to spend as they wish. The points, as far as I know, do not have a cap on the amount you can obtain.
A good chart showing what the different plans get is at http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/vipchart.html
The following is from this FAQ:http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/faq.html
# I have a lifetime subscription to LOTRO. What will Free-to-Play mean for me?
As a lifetime subscriber to LOTRO, you will keep all of your membership privileges and are automatically upgraded to VIP status. You will receive 500 Free Turbine Points every month like the other VIPs, but you do not have to pay a monthly fee since you are a lifetime member. All you have to do is keep playing the game and visit the LOTRO Store to spend your free points and enjoy the wealth of new a la carte items and options to enhance your game experience.
So a quest pack is...pretty much what it sounds like? As in, a F2P player would go into a zone and find no quests available to them at all unless they paid? Then I guess I don't need to worry, and I just need to start re-learning the traits, the leveling and all the other things that pass from memory when you leave for a while.
Thanks!
I'm a lifetime member! Bought in at first beta! Great times!!! Good changes! Fantastic additions this last round to! However...as a lifetime member I thought I wasn't going to need to buy anything like additional stone locations or legendary weapons slots...I'm pretty upset about that! Seriously! one additional milestone location on 6 different characters is 2100 points!!! We only get 500!! Unreal!! I really hope that as a lifetime member there will be a change to give all legendary slots and milestones to lifetime members! Maybe I'm being greedy but I did pay for a lifetime membership so I'd have to spend nothing/very little. I'll keep playing but I'll have to stop for a year so I can get enough points to get milestone spots... then stop playing for another year while i get enough points for the legendary weapons... *sigh* Guess SWTOR will be getting more of my time throughout those years.
We lifers also paid for our shared storage slots, the Dusky Nimblefoot Goat and the expansions. I don't recall whether I needed to pay for Warden and RK, or whether that came with an expansion. I don't begrudge that or the new things at all -- I paid for access and to avoid the monthly charges, but from the beginning it was made clear that we'd be paying for expansions.
I've been eyeing the legendary slots, but not sure it's worth the TP to me. However, I don't really need them, so not buying them isn't going to cripple any of my characters... which my.lotro.com assures me number 109, though I only play the nine and a monster or two on Riddermark now.
I don't know why you had the expectation that you'd get everything for free... all they promised me, anyway, was freedom from monthly charges for life. Getting all the free TP each month after F2P was a nice surprise for me, and one I didn't expect them to feel they needed to kick down with.
Honestly i do not feel like i am spending any point, other than for multipliers for legendary experience and skirmish marks and to remove the dread when i die in a skirmish, and the free passage tokens to travel...sometimes i bought the bonus to xp and accellerators for deeds and crafting but i can live without, since i do not do farming to complete a deed (last thing that i wanna do is to play LOTRO like WOW).
Not sure why you say that you cannont play or that you feel bad for not being able to use these items in the store.....i play like you since beta, pre-ordered and became a founder and lifetime from day 1; and so far i never had issues with the f2p switch; many of these items would not exist without the store, so i don't feel the need to buy them (the steed of the night? yeah.....wait there, i am saving my points for that ...right :P); maybe i play not so often like many hardcore people in here, but for me the game is the same that it was before the f2p, with maybe few extra helps that i use spending my turbine points.
After all i purchased moria, and the last expansion with the explorer pack (that gave me the goat and don't remember what else...the horn that gives +1 to hope and the shared storage with the wardrobe?), so if another expansion will come i will have to buy it anyway; if we would not have turbine points...so in the end for me nothing changed; i will put money only in the expansion like i did for the previous 2 expansions, but for sure i don't buy anything with money in the store; i just use the points (if i have any, otherwise i just don't buy); so far i still have a lot of points saved thou.
I have another lifetime to STO, and they have the store there too; with the difference that i don't get any free point because i am a lifetimer; so you should consider yourself lucky that you get points every month for free :)
The game can be played from a to z without buying anything from the store (if you have all the areas and quests of course, otherwise you need the quest packs, but as lifetime probably you already have both expansion); and these are just extras, they are not part of the game, so as lifetime player you should not ask to get any of these for free....you already got a LOT in the past 3 years, considering the cheap price of a lifetime ;)
Those are just optional add-ons, not critical to typical game-play. Do you really need additional milestone locations? Do you need to have more slots for LI blanks? I don't. I'm a Lifer too, and I'm very pleased with what Turbine provides.
BTW, thanks again for the trade we did in-game earlier today. ;)
well..there is a perception...and i kinda agree with it ...
that they are slowly trying to make it so that lifers/sub'ers HAVE to spend to keep pace or use new features...
my take on the subject is this....
as a lifer/sub'er...i bought with the expectation that the ONLY thing i would have to spend extra money on was expansions..and i have no issue with that AT ALL...
now...if these new features were added as part of a content update before f2p...all lifers/sub'er would get em free of charge...everyone else (free trialers, first monthers) would have to pony up money to get em.
so...to me it seems as though they are trying to make it that eventually...whether you are lifer/sub'er or somewhere in between...there is no distinction between any of them as they ALL have to spend TP in order to compete/keep pace...
now it isnt like that yet....but with this new update..it sure as hell seems like it....
lifers/sub'ers shoulda have gotten at least one of the new cosmetics slots and 2 or 3 milestone slots gratis.....
the idea that they are not...seems like big ole gouging to me...
my whole point is..there should be a HUGE difference between lifer/sub'ers and freemiums
:D
I am a lifetime member (4 of them in the family) I was thinking about the resent update and would have liked to get some more cosmetic slots and shared stored then I looked at the price tag.
3 x Cosmetic Slots @ 495 each
5 x 10 Shared Storage @ 595 each
I was looking at $45+ worth of points. Would I have bought a expansion at $39.99 if it came only with 3 more cosmetic slots and 50 more shared storage? Absolutely not. I am not sure I would pay half that.
The prices of the store are far too expensive for minor things. I will keep playing, but I have pretty much determined that my last dime for points has been spent on the game until, prices start hitting sanity. I am saving my points for next expansion and nothing else.
well;
#1: nobody would have to pony money..if you were a subscriber you would get it as part of your monthly subscription, if you were lifetime you would get it for free; so I don't see the difference
#2 there hasn't been ever a differentiation between lifetimer and subscribers; for the same reason there will never be a differentiation between free players and subscribers/lifetimers, other than the little advantages that you get for being a VIP.
#3 give me a reason why we should get something for free :P we should be glad that after 3 years we were not kicked out...300 dollars is equal to 1.5 years of gameplay; if you wanna play the game of the shark that finance them when the game was in the beginning, you have got 100% return on your initial investment, and a monthly allowance of points for the "hassle" to play ;) Look at WOW people....there are some that are still paying since day 1 and don't say a word....go tell em how does it feel to have to pay every month because blizzard don't even think about giving lifetime subscriptions.....because this is where they make money ;)
#4 your whole point should be justified by facts about why there should be difference between subs and freems :D as now i can't find a single reason...not now after 3 years playing for just 300 dollars (unless you wanna pay 300 more to get the uber vip title and get all for free ) :)
I am saving points but i know that an expansion will cost me more than what i can save; so i just use cash and buy the expansion like i did in the past 3 years.
The whole thing here is that we are here to play; and unless my experience gets worst or stay the same as it was 3 years ago, I really have nothing to complain about (maybe i can complain about the fact that with the f2p there are too many helps for who wanna pay, but this was inevitable since this is how the f2p model works...look at mafia wars, farmiville and similar).
I think what they have done is pieced out their coming expansions, where it all used to be included with one big $50 price tag, now we see some slots here a perk there for sale in the store.
$45 is too high a price but that's just the regular price, I have only purchased 2 things at full price in the store, the rest waits for a sale. The prices are set with sales in mind to make us think we are getting a great deal.
It's the same way with grocery stores, ever buy a box of cereal for $4? I wait for it to go on sale for $3.00 and use a $1 coupon before I do. You wonder how they can stay in business selling them for $2.00, it's because it only costs them 50 cents and the $4 price tag is to catch people in a hurry and want it NOW.
Personally I have a list of things I want to buy from the store - I build up TP and wait for a sale then decide if I want to buy it now or wait to see what goes on sale next. I can never resist those 50%-75% off sales though (but only if it's on the list).
Sorry, started to ramble - I'll wander off now................
I think that's the big issue that the lifers/subs have with the way things are going. If you were in that group you had 100% access to everything before the F2P move, now Turbine is moving more things to store only so you are being forced to use the store and burn through the 500TP per month. And that goes against what Turbine claimed when they were first making the move to F2P that the game would not change for its VIP players. Having to spend additional money for what you used to get as part of your sub is a pretty big change. Waiting for TP to build up is fine if you have the time to wait for it, but Turbine keeps adding stuff so you may not have the time to wait for it. Also how are they going to work expansions, will they be sold in the store only? Will they offer a special points pack for lifer/subs so it won't be any different than buying the expansion in a store or will Turbine make the expansion cost an odd amount of points forcing you to buy extra points you may never use?
Anytime, love to trade!!!
Now just to clarify, I don't want to come across as a whiner!! I'm very happy with LOTRO and everything we get from Turbine (Points, content, etc.) I can 100% understand no cosmetic or anything that isn't "game necessary" however the Stones would be so nice...although I wonder what value my hunter will have now? Lets start that conversation here! :) LOL Seriously, I do really enjoy LOTRO and how Turbine has stayed true to the lore or Tolkien and am having lots of fun. I'll stop complaining now...
Is not a matter of complaining; keep in mind that all these extras would never be released if there was no switch to f2p, so as I said many times, unless Turbine takes away something from my experience that i had before the switch, i would not feel like they are doing anything bad.
The cosmetics and other extra tomes and "helps" that are in the store are just to get f2p people to spend money (and maybe all the others too to spend their points...don't be stingy! LOL), but they are just aids that improve the game and make it "easier".
The stones for example: if you are in a kinship and they have the house, you have the "return to the kin house skill; if you are an elf you have the "return to rivendell" skill; and if you complete the men of bree faction you get the map to return to bree; plus you have your standard map to set as home with the stones.....honestly i do not feel like i need any extra stone; at the best i buy the free horse rides for one hour token :)
the only thing that attracts me are the quick xp tomes, but the gain is so little that i am not really interested in spending money or points for that