Lifetime Account Members Thread

[floredon]

yeah LOTRO is unique there isn't quite another MMO like it.

[daygamer]

I love this one. How many MMOs over the years were supposed to put LOTRO in it's coffin?


Lifetime was the best $200 I ever spent.

I agree. Lord of the Rings online Rocks.

[darshie76]

I'm currently not a lifetime subscriber but I did try my hardest to become one during a sale (i think their last unless I missed one) just prior to F2P.

With expenses at the time between cars, rent...and at that specific time a money grabbing ex...it was difficult for me to justify the cost yet I managed to get the money set aside and logged into account section and was ready to pay and then...BAM. I missed the sale by 5 to 10 whole minutes.

A phone call to turbine essentially received the response of "bad luck"

So, I did the next best thing when F2P came about as I kept that money aside - I cancelled my sub, and purchased everything cold-case. Quest Packs, skirmishes, raids, everything that leads to virtually a fully unlocked game.

Now I do occasionally resub for whichever reason - but I'm essentially a lifer just without the gimmick. I don;t lose anything except moors access (which matters not, I pvp in games that offer better pvp...and a better pvp population in terms of personality) and soem bonus rested XP...which is less than what rested XP was anyway, so I'm really not missing anything.

The only difference is i pay for a new quest area when it comes out - but that's usually covered by deed grinding anyway.

Almost a lifer ...."Missed it by -that- much."

Well, that must suck big time...and is strange that Turbine told you "too bad", because they lost 200 bucks telling you no It was already strange to see again the offer for lifetime subs, before F2p launch, but maybe there will be another chance for you. Altho the lifetime subscription after f2p has a total different meaning....before was a must have, if you don't want to pay the monthly bill (in less than 2 years it would pay itself)

Now, I am not sure why did you cancel your sub...the subs were automagically changed to VIP, so you could simply stop to pay, and retain the advantages and quest packs that you already have (of course if you did not purchased Moria expansion, probably was not that relevant). The only players that has it rough, are the cheap ones...the players that play only free content without buying ever anything They have locked features and it makes the game much harder to play; I did not see that much difference between the guy that goes to the store and buy LOTRO and MOM, using a f2p account, compared to a lifetimer or VIP subscriber.

Resubbing won't bring you any advantage, other than getting turbine points; which for me are useless, since I don't buy stuff on the store, other than in rare cases (artifact removal scrolls for example, or the mount skill so my alt can ride immediately, and I save the riding quest ); not sure what other advantage you may get, with the subscription. Since you purchased from the store once (you said you bought the quest packs and such), you are in fact a silver member, so you have no limitations in the end

Altho keep in mind that free point coming with the lifetime, means that you will never pay for quests or expansions...as you can see it goes beyond the simple XP boost or more inventory space When you see how much you pay between quests and expansion, you will see that just that is enough in a f2p model, to be convenient.

[Nosdracir]

Now, I am not sure why did you cancel your sub...the subs were automagically changed to VIP, so you could simply stop to pay, and retain the advantages and quest packs that you already have (of course if you did not purchased Moria expansion, probably was not that relevant). The only players that has it rough, are the cheap ones...the players that play only free content without buying ever anything They have locked features and it makes the game much harder to play; I did not see that much difference between the guy that goes to the store and buy LOTRO and MOM, using a f2p account, compared to a lifetimer or VIP subscriber.

Resubbing won't bring you any advantage, other than getting turbine points; which for me are useless, since I don't buy stuff on the store, other than in rare cases (artifact removal scrolls for example, or the mount skill so my alt can ride immediately, and I save the riding quest ); not sure what other advantage you may get, with the subscription. Since you purchased from the store once (you said you bought the quest packs and such), you are in fact a silver member, so you have no limitations in the end

Altho keep in mind that free point coming with the lifetime, means that you will never pay for quests or expansions...as you can see it goes beyond the simple XP boost or more inventory space When you see how much you pay between quests and expansion, you will see that just that is enough in a f2p model, to be convenient.

He used the money to buy all the QPs and stuff. Kind of like lifetime light, but if you don't play in moors and all your characters are set with the VIP perks that persist as Premium, it's effectively a lifetime sub. Have to buy new expansion like everyone does, and the new added content QPs, skirms, raids, etc., if you want them.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

I love my lifetime. Bought it for £75 when Codemasters were having a sale back in 2008 or so. Means I can dip in and out of lotro when I want whilst playing other games and the free 500tp per month allows me to have some pocket money for store stuff.

[Teyaha]

how is the game nowadays?

i bought a lifetime back when the game launched. played a lot - especially early broken loremaster - and was eventually invited to the isengard private server. however my interest in the game waned extremely quickly (due to the very, very VERY slow level progression at launch and the daunting task of deeds) and moved on before hitting 40.

is there a decent population now? i imagine i must have more turbine points than i know what to do with when i log on. not sure if i should get started now or wait for the class changes. do deeds still have that ridiculous daily limit on them?

[darshie76]

how is the game nowadays?

i bought a lifetime back when the game launched. played a lot - especially early broken loremaster - and was eventually invited to the isengard private server. however my interest in the game waned extremely quickly (due to the very, very VERY slow level progression at launch and the daunting task of deeds) and moved on before hitting 40.

is there a decent population now? i imagine i must have more turbine points than i know what to do with when i log on. not sure if i should get started now or wait for the class changes. do deeds still have that ridiculous daily limit on them?

The level progression is the same as launch...will take you months to reach cap if you don't play 4-6 hours a day every day BTW LM was not broken, was harder

At this point just wait for the changes, altho you gotta buy the expansion thou (and all the ones before it...Moria, Rohan and now HD, but with all the points accumulated, probably you will get them all without pay a single dime).

The population grew, but for the good and the worst, like any other f2p; altho I still find this community, the most mature one (12 years old troll usually go play wow :P); you may find here and there someone embarrassing himself, but overall is a lot of fun to go around and tackle quests with others I never stopped since launch, and the consistency of the player base and the positive community has always been a plus.

[Tiempko]

The level progression is the same as launch...

This is actually not true. A while after launch, Turbine reduced the amount of XP needed to gain a level by about 15%. Characters gained about 3 levels overnight. After that, they increased XP for monsters. Then they added tasks (additional XP for tuning in vendor trash). And, recently, crafting XP. So, leveling is much easier.

[darshie76]

This is actually not true. A while after launch, Turbine reduced the amount of XP needed to gain a level by about 15%. Characters gained about 3 levels overnight. After that, they increased XP for monsters. Then they added tasks (additional XP for tuning in vendor trash). And, recently, crafting XP. So, leveling is much easier.

Well, this apply for lower levels; once you are in the 35+ range; leveling is still a chore, and takes quite a lot of efforts, doing over and over again the fedex quests and the repeatable quests.

Of course we are talking of people that play an average of 4-6 hours per week...in all these years I've barely hit 66 few months ago, and I have 2 other toon, which are 28 and 14. the first 20-25 are easy, then it gets steep.
Turbine did great to try to fix things, and make the game more approachable from the start, but fundamentally, the leveling progression is far from being linear and consistent (altho I don't want a game that is too quick to reach the peak, like STO, but if you play GW2 you see that their leveling approach is almost spot on, especially because they scale your level, so no quest is a waste of time, xp-wise, and you can visit different areas and level up happily).

If you take a toon and level it from 1 to 65, you will see that until you hit 35-40, it goes pretty well; then it is the same as at launch...I spoke with people that took the chance to test this and in fact, they were right (playing the same class, same race, same everything, it took lesser in the beginning, but once you hit a certain level, you slow down considerably, and the grind fest begin).

Then if they changed things in the past year or so I can't tell, until the last expansion, it was like that

My opinion was not the verb

[cdq1958]

Well, this apply for lower levels; once you are in the 35+ range; leveling is still a chore, and takes quite a lot of efforts, doing over and over again the fedex quests and the repeatable quests.

Of course we are talking of people that play an average of 4-6 hours per week...in all these years I've barely hit 66 few months ago, and I have 2 other toon, which are 28 and 14. the first 20-25 are easy, then it gets steep.
Turbine did great to try to fix things, and make the game more approachable from the start, but fundamentally, the leveling progression is far from being linear and consistent (altho I don't want a game that is too quick to reach the peak, like STO, but if you play GW2 you see that their leveling approach is almost spot on, especially because they scale your level, so no quest is a waste of time, xp-wise, and you can visit different areas and level up happily).

If you take a toon and level it from 1 to 65, you will see that until you hit 35-40, it goes pretty well; then it is the same as at launch...I spoke with people that took the chance to test this and in fact, they were right (playing the same class, same race, same everything, it took lesser in the beginning, but once you hit a certain level, you slow down considerably, and the grind fest begin).

Then if they changed things in the past year or so I can't tell, until the last expansion, it was like that

My opinion was not the verb

After level 20, the experience is roughly 30 white quests per level, all the way to cap. The curve is log-linear after 20. The first 20 level are very fast, after that, it is steady. How you do that journey is up to you.

[darshie76]

After level 20, the experience is roughly 30 white quests per level, all the way to cap. The curve is log-linear after 20. The first 20 level are very fast, after that, it is steady. How you do that journey is up to you.

I am curious to check how many white quest I can do before leveling up; I have a 66 toon, and will do the same with the 28 toon; it should take more or less, 30 for each, but i suspect that the lvl28 will take 1/3rd less of the lvl66. This is an interesting test.

If you go around per area, and do the quest in linear fashion (stop at a location, accept all quests; do the quests, cash in the quests, move to the next location); then your mileage may vary. In other games; you can follow the flow of the story and the main quests and still level up at a good pace. I don't see the same here.

If the leveling is log linear, then you will have a curve that is steep at the beginning, and then get flatter...which means that it takes longer, independently from the number of quests (which would prove what I said earlier )

a logarithmic progression looks like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...action.svg.png

Time on the X, level on the Y

[trancejeremy]

how is the game nowadays?

i bought a lifetime back when the game launched. played a lot - especially early broken loremaster - and was eventually invited to the isengard private server. however my interest in the game waned extremely quickly (due to the very, very VERY slow level progression at launch and the daunting task of deeds) and moved on before hitting 40.

is there a decent population now? i imagine i must have more turbine points than i know what to do with when i log on. not sure if i should get started now or wait for the class changes. do deeds still have that ridiculous daily limit on them?

Heh, I was in the same exact boat. I bought a lifetime sub (and the Moria expansion) when I was 25th level, thinking the rest of the game would be like the first part. Then things just got so sloooooooow.

I came back periodically, determined to level. Probably every 3-6 months I'd play for a month or two. My main is now at 76th level, with about 600 hours invested.

They did streamline things a bit when F2P launched. 1-20 is really quick, but the rest seems the same. The Lonelands and North Downs still drag on. At 32 or so, it picks up quickly because you have the new Evendim, which has a huge amount of quests, all grouped nicely in hubs. But after that, 40-50 is still awful, 50-60 is terrible (Moria is awfuL), 60-65 has been shifted from Mirkwood to Enedwaith and isn't bad. Isengard is actually pretty good, if a bit slow. Rohan, OTOH, what little I've experienced is terrible.

[trancejeremy]

I am curious to check how many white quest I can do before leveling up; I have a 66 toon, and will do the same with the 28 toon; it should take more or less, 30 for each, but i suspect that the lvl28 will take 1/3rd less of the lvl66. This is an interesting test.

If you go around per area, and do the quest in linear fashion (stop at a location, accept all quests; do the quests, cash in the quests, move to the next location); then your mileage may vary. In other games; you can follow the flow of the story and the main quests and still level up at a good pace. I don't see the same here.

If the leveling is log linear, then you will have a curve that is steep at the beginning, and then get flatter...which means that it takes longer, independently from the number of quests (which would prove what I said earlier )

a logarithmic progression looks like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...action.svg.png

Time on the X, level on the Y

One of the things is that combat at higher levels simply takes longer.

From 1-20 (even to 25) you typically have 4-5x the amount of morale that mobs do. Killing a mob usually takes two or three button presses. I've been noticing that on a 20-25th or so champ, sometimes combats are over before the let fly skill is reset (I think has a 10 second cooldown). And that's with ###### gear.

But that changes once you hit the upper 40s. Mobs have have as much morale as you do, if not more, and they also can stun or disarm you, which seemingly adds 5-10 seconds to every combat. A single mob can take a minute or two to kill. (A lot of this is also dependent on gear)

[darshie76]

One of the things is that combat at higher levels simply takes longer.

From 1-20 (even to 25) you typically have 4-5x the amount of morale that mobs do. Killing a mob usually takes two or three button presses. I've been noticing that on a 20-25th or so champ, sometimes combats are over before the let fly skill is reset (I think has a 10 second cooldown). And that's with ###### gear.

But that changes once you hit the upper 40s. Mobs have have as much morale as you do, if not more, and they also can stun or disarm you, which seemingly adds 5-10 seconds to every combat. A single mob can take a minute or two to kill. (A lot of this is also dependent on gear)

Which seems fair to me; the more time needed to kill a single mob should be reflected in the amount of XP that you get.

If you play for example with GW2, you will notice that you are never over the mob level; even if you are 50, and you go in areas that are for lvl 15-25, you get scaled down; and the fight is as hard as if you would fight against lvl50 mobs, but you get a good amount of XP out of it, so it makes it worthwhile. It is not perfect, since you are never in a "safe" area; and even a puny mob can cause you troubles, since you get scaled down to his level.

If it takes me time because of the mob AND the XP, then it is quite painful Don't want to reach easily the level cap, but at the same time I find quite discouraging, to have to work so hard to get to the point where I can explore new areas...it should be natural to progress trough areas (and quite silly if you ask me, to have to renounce to some areas, since when you level, you will miss some for sure, due to the same level range quests); I should not be forced to grind until I can progress.

Anyway that's going OT here....we may open a level thread in a different section of the forum, altho I think there are too many open already

[cdq1958]

I am curious to check how many white quest I can do before leveling up; I have a 66 toon, and will do the same with the 28 toon; it should take more or less, 30 for each, but i suspect that the lvl28 will take 1/3rd less of the lvl66. This is an interesting test.

If you go around per area, and do the quest in linear fashion (stop at a location, accept all quests; do the quests, cash in the quests, move to the next location); then your mileage may vary. In other games; you can follow the flow of the story and the main quests and still level up at a good pace. I don't see the same here.

If the leveling is log linear, then you will have a curve that is steep at the beginning, and then get flatter...which means that it takes longer, independently from the number of quests (which would prove what I said earlier )

a logarithmic progression looks like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...action.svg.png

Time on the X, level on the Y

For me, I know how long it will take to gain a level. It is roughly the same from 20 to cap. It takes about 30 white quests (the exact number does vary some but the fit is log-linear by level) and about 4 hours of play time (actual time, not necessarily in-game time).

Ah, I see you took the log-linear to mean time. No, log-linear by level. Time to level is pretty much constant after 20, if you want to take that route. Interestingly enough, the xp gain is such that for green to red your time to level is nearly constant anyway. You can finish a green quest faster, but you get less xp per mob and a bit less per quest. For a red one, it'll take longer to complete it, but the xp from mob kills is a bit higher and higher per quest. If you want to power-level, just roll through each zone doing dark blue to orange quests. When a zone goes cyan, move on. If you want to plod along, get a disabler or do the quests that are grey. You don't get kill xp but you do get some quest xp. You can supplement that with xp from harvesting nodes. (Think of that as character xp, not combat xp, though the grant is based on 'white mob kill xp'.)

[Namesse]

There's a 100% xp bonus in all worlds now until HD launches, so this is your best chance to level faster if that is your goal. There will still be class deeds and virtue deeds to do, but the slayer deeds do go quicker when you're really over levelled.

As for server population, some servers are really hurting from what I hear, but that's hearsay; Turbine doesn't disclose server numbers. Population always sinks prior to an expac anyway, but at this point it's pure speculation what the numbers will be after the expac launches.

Game is free to play, and you're a lifer, might as well check it out for a few hours and see if you want to return.

[Teyaha]

BTW LM was not broken, was harder

playing the cc class at a time in the game when cc was needed and being unable to cc the most predominant mob type in the game at that time - to someone like me who has played MUDS and MMORPG's since 1995 - is broken.

[Nymphonic]

One of the things is that combat at higher levels simply takes longer.

From 1-20 (even to 25) you typically have 4-5x the amount of morale that mobs do. Killing a mob usually takes two or three button presses. I've been noticing that on a 20-25th or so champ, sometimes combats are over before the let fly skill is reset (I think has a 10 second cooldown). And that's with ###### gear.

But that changes once you hit the upper 40s. Mobs have have as much morale as you do, if not more, and they also can stun or disarm you, which seemingly adds 5-10 seconds to every combat. A single mob can take a minute or two to kill. (A lot of this is also dependent on gear)

I do not see how this is an issue. Even with out the xp bonus I'm steadily going up in levels, sometimes I think too fast. For example, when I'm done with Forochel which is the upper 40's, I outlevel the rep gear from the rep vendors by the time I finish with Forochel.