Release Nov 18th

[BackAgainAndThere]

An alternative implementation...

How about people who haven't bought HD can do the standard quest parts, but when it gets to the big battles, instead of taking part, they get something like this?

I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.

[Batf1nk]

The Epic Story in Helm's deep is very tightly entwined with the Epic Battle system. The story in Helm's Deep is the Epic battle we all know from the books. We've returned to the core story line from the lore and that line leads in a direct path, laid out by the Professor himself, into Helm's Deep and the battles and heroic deeds that occur there. As a result, this means the Epic story requires the purchase of the Helm's Deep expansion. Otherwise you'd not be able to complete it as it moves through the Epic Battle system.

So why not do it like the volume 2 epilogue?

[bastiat1]

I don't understand- maybe I'm dumb. People are posting quotes from Sapience saying that the Epic Storyline for Helms Deep has to be purchased as part of the expansion, and other people are posting quotes from Sapience saying the Epic Storyline is and will always be free. Which one is it? I guess I'm missing something.

[Lohi]

Agreed, agreed. The F2P model should be designed to bring new players to the game who are prospective BUYERS, not bring players who freeload the entire way and just take up server space.

That's an unfair comparison. Almost all the F2P players I know are a very good part of the community and don't need to be treated like some second class hangers-on. I know plenty of VIPs I'd readily dump in a hurry to make room for more of the civilized F2P players. F2P has been a positive benefit to this game.

Many F2P players do spend money and become premium. There are a few F2P players who continue to remain free the whole time but it is really a small number overall. The goal was to encourage a fraction of free players to spend money but it was never to mandate that all F2P players spend money. If they wanted to play a game where F2P players are called names then would have gone to all the other MMOs that enshrined the second class status to them.

[Hundolf]

I don't understand- maybe I'm dumb. People are posting quotes from Sapience saying that the Epic Storyline for Helms Deep has to be purchased as part of the expansion, and other people are posting quotes from Sapience saying the Epic Storyline is and will always be free. Which one is it? I guess I'm missing something.

The quote saying the epic will always be free is from 9/12/2011 so people are confused how we go from free epic to part of expansion considering that quote from two years ago.

[Kaynith]

I don't understand- maybe I'm dumb. People are posting quotes from Sapience saying that the Epic Storyline for Helms Deep has to be purchased as part of the expansion, and other people are posting quotes from Sapience saying the Epic Storyline is and will always be free. Which one is it? I guess I'm missing something.

Back in 2011 he is quoted as saying the Epic Storyline is and will always be free. Forward to 2013... you are now having to purchase Helm's Deep to play the new Epic Storyline from Helm's Deep forward.

This is what's being discussed.

Honestly, I think Sapience has been thrown under the bus here by the powers that be at Turbine. They just HAD to know folks wouldn't be pleased about this. And this had to have been in the works for quite some time. When do we find out about it? The day HD goes for pre-order. Very shabbily done, IMO.

[bastiat1]

The quote saying the epic will always be free is from 9/12/2011 so people are confused how we go from free epic to part of expansion considering that quote from two years ago.

Oh. Gotcha. Thanks.

[PypeRings]

Well, its good to see some things never change. What is an expansion release without the Three C's ? Controversy, Complaints, and Carping. Sometimes I think they purposely set Sapience up by not telling him about the controversial things just so they can have a good laugh in the office. Nothing says professionalism like Turbine.

[Lynchpin13]

So another junk expansion and more broken promises? Oh well some things never change I suppose.

Turbine = biggest joke in the MMO industry.

[robbie1435]

So another junk expansion and more broken promises? Oh well some things never change I suppose.

Turbine = biggest joke in the MMO industry.

What broken promises?

[Batf1nk]

What broken promises?

New pvp map, twice.
Instances come with Riders of Rohan.
The store will only be for convenience to name a few.

[Lynchpin13]

New pvp map, twice.
Instances come with Riders of Rohan.
The store will only be for convenience to name a few.

All of those and the above mentioned Epic Storyline will always be free promise, LI revamp will reduce grind(yeah right) and so on. This company can't be honest with the customers even when the future of their product depends on it. Hopefully the LOTR rights go to another dev when their deal expires.

[robbie1435]

New pvp map, twice.
Instances come with Riders of Rohan.
The store will only be for convenience to name a few.

-New PvP map: They actually said they WEREN'T doing this on multiple occasions.
-Instances come with Riders of Rohan: I didn't have to pay separate for them, I got them with the Expansion
-The store is a convenience, no?

[JulianPL]

We're working on the issue with Ultimatepay.

Thank you and to your staff! All others who don't have credit/debit card have now the ability to pay for pre-purchase

Another question to you Sapience or anyone who used Ultimatepay already. There is a notification that the account will be upgraded when Ultimatepay will confirm that the money transfer was successful. How long may it take?

Edit: Worked after 10 minutes. I strongly recommend Ultimatepay to those who are distrustful when it comes to their bank accouts.

[Eartholloth]

-New PvP map: They actually said they WEREN'T doing this on multiple occasions.
-Instances come with Riders of Rohan: I didn't have to pay separate for them, I got them with the Expansion
-The store is a convenience, no?

Your wasting your time... Just walk away...

[Lynchpin13]

-New PvP map: They actually said they WEREN'T doing this on multiple occasions.
-Instances come with Riders of Rohan: I didn't have to pay separate for them, I got them with the Expansion
-The store is a convenience, no?

Ladies and gentlemen we have an apologist.

They promised a new PvP map as recently as before RoR, the pathetic instance cluster came how many months after RoR launch?

And the store is full of pay to win power boosters such as the stat tomes, potions and PvP brands. Also artificially adding grind to everything to promote the store. The only people the store is convenient for is Turbine and their accountants.

[Vandervahn]

I still don't get the uproar over this. Don't most F2P buy the expansion with tps they earned in game??? If all you do is the epic line, your game play is quite boring.

Wrong. There is a myriad of places between the "pure" F2P status and the lifer that has it all.
There are lots of people that regularly pay, but do NOT own all the QPs and expacs.

The change in handling the epic sets a nasty precedent for the future. Because previously anyone could at least travel and follow through all zones and follow the main story without buying everything. You could for example elect to not buy Mirkwood, but at least see it and follow the important points through the epic quest. Which Turbine religiously touted as their MAIN selling point for F2P and select-purchase.

If Turbine follows the HD model in the future, all following content will be cordoned off unless you buy everything there is. Goodbye select-purchase then, we´re back to a subscriber-only-with-a-twist game.

...

-Instances come with Riders of Rohan: I didn't have to pay separate for them, I got them with the Expansion ...

And you paid up to 2.5 times as much as previous expansions, waited twice as long for the instances than in RoI and got less content for that. Badum-TISH

[Cheethorne]

They promised a new PvP map as recently as before RoR

But isn't the reason they are not putting more effort into PvP because not enough people are playing it / dropping money on it for it to be worth their time compared to the other parts of the game? Now, something certainly could be said that if they put more effort into it, then more people would play it, but that sort of effort becomes more like an investment and if they have to invest in something while having limited resources, then they want to invest in something that makes more sense, namely the other parts of the game.

Also, they might feel that since the PvP map is generally large and landscape based instead of a smaller instance-type situation, that making a second large landscape map with the limited population they see playing it would just make it a worse experience for those already trying to play PvP. Basically, why split a small population over more maps when you want / need a good-sized population to make their model of PvP work.

the pathetic instance cluster came how many months after RoR launch?

An instance cluster being "pathetic" is not an excuse to say that it wasn't part of an expansion. If you bought the expansion, you received the instance cluster for free when it was released and it was the next thing that they released after the expansion was released, so it is not like they moved on to other things first. Now, I would agree that releasing it with the expansion would have been better and maybe they simply didn't properly plan or design the instance cluster and ended up needing more development resources on it then they had expected or other problems in the expansion, like war steeds, caused them to allocate resources in a way that understaffed the instances.

And the store is full of pay to win power boosters such as the stat tomes, potions and PvP brands. Also artificially adding grind to everything to promote the store.

Perhaps, but I don't see much way around the fact that buying things in the store, like virtues, is more "convenient" then grinding them out. Now, they set it up to be that way on purpose, but what else did you expect they meant when they talked about it being "convenient"?

[BackAgainAndThere]

Wrong. There is a myriad of places between the "pure" F2P status and the lifer that has it all.
There are lots of people that regularly pay, but do NOT own all the QPs and expacs.

The change in handling the epic sets a nasty precedent for the future. Because previously anyone could at least travel and follow through all zones and follow the main story without buying everything. You could for example elect to not buy Mirkwood, but at least see it and follow the important points through the epic quest. Which Turbine religiously touted as their MAIN selling point for F2P and select-purchase.

If Turbine follows the HD model in the future, all following content will be cordoned off unless you buy everything there is. Goodbye select-purchase then.

Yeah I think this is a mistake on Turbine's part. They can no longer say in a description of the game, "Level up and partake in quests involving all the key places of Middle Earth for free!"..... Now they have to say something like "Level up and adventure in all the key places of Middle Earth! Then farm TP to get into one of your favorite places - Helm's Deep - for free!"

Basically, making the epic quests tied to the expansion gives Helm's Deep a huge selling point. However, it takes away a huge selling point for F2P'ers. Most F2P will probably go through 85% of the game under the assumption that the epic quests are all free, and then they'll all of a sudden have a "###!111" moment when they get to West Rohan and either A) buy the expansion, or probably B) ragequit out of sheer frustration.

[Elderban]

-New PvP map: They actually said they WEREN'T doing this on multiple occasions.
-Instances come with Riders of Rohan: I didn't have to pay separate for them, I got them with the Expansion
-The store is a convenience, no?

There was a new PvMP map in the works for Moria. It got canned right before Moria went in to beta (Source: Alpha Tester)

There was "brand new [PvMP] region" promised to be released with Rise of Isengard. Never happened. (Source: WB/Turbine Press Release)

Instances did come with Riders of Rohan, but were originally slated not to and were only added after players created an uproar and (I am guessing) Turbine made very few sales. Additionally, they did not ship with the expansion, they came out several months later. Had players not complained, you would have had to pay for the instances.

As far as convenience goes, it depends on how you define it. But, ultimately, it depends on how Turbine defines it. If an item has a 0.000000000001% chance of dropping in the game, and Turbine sells the same item in the store, then to them it's convenience. Of course, then there's the rumors of being able to "buy" your way to level 50 with Helm's Deep. Is that a convenience? And then there's the ability to buy skills as a Monster Player. Is that a convenience? Stat tomes. Convenience? I could go on.

But the ultimate statement that Turbine made that they said they would never do. "We will never go with microtransactions for LOTRO"*. People seem to forget that one.

On the subject at hand, though, I have to side with a lot of other people here and ask...if the Big Battles are part of the Epic Story and and "integral part" of the expansion (thus the reason we have to pay for the Epic Story), then why are people at level 10, who are nowhere near said part in the story, able to partake in the Big Battles? And, furthermore, does this mean that going forward that we will have to pay for the Epic Storyline?

*Note: Not an exact quote, but I can't find the original one.

[MotorZ0]

Plans change, guys. I'm sure their intention two years ago was that the epic would always be free. As someone mentioned above, they likely felt HD was not worth its price tag without the epic story being part of what you pay for (or they don't yet have enough Big Battles outside the epic story to make it worth it either).

Edit: To be clear, not necessarily saying it is a good plan, but...it's business. And if you have played many MMO's at all, it happens everywhere.

[JellyBlobOfDoom]

Drama? Check.
Overreaction? Check.
Conspiracy theories? Check.
I see I've arrived at the LOTRO forums. Most passionate fanbase...indeed.

Look, if you're worried about spending your money on a pre-purchase, chances are you should hold onto that money until such time as that worry subsides. Nothing wrong with that and it's probably a wise approach with any transaction.

On the other hand, if you're stoked about getting your hands on the new expansion and the pre-order goodies (understanding of course that class trees are likely to be a major change for all of us and that all new releases come with at least some new headaches) AND assuming the money is not a serious issue for you, then fire away, send in your pre-order funds and enjoy while you wait for the eventual release.

I, for one, can't wait to get online tonight to get my pre-order done. Account-wide shinies are always nice especially with a bunch of mid-level alts in my stable.

Wow. That might just be the first rational post I've seen on here.

[LethalLethality]

I don't see the big deal about the Epic Quest line being a pay thing from HD onwards. How many people are playing just the EQ-line and not playing anything else? I find it hard to believe that people are playing to 85 without purchasing something with either money or farmed TP, and I imagine Turbine has the stats to show what percentage of accounts have an 85 character and have not purchased any expansions in one way or another.

[Lohi]

New pvp map, twice.
Instances come with Riders of Rohan.
The store will only be for convenience to name a few.

Well technically, were the first two actually promises? I think one case of "we'll have a new map" that was withdrawn not too long after.
Second case, the instances were indeed included with the price of RoR, just not delivered on the first day.
Third case, I think this is still true. Everything there that I can really see is for convenience. The potions are sort of marginal, but now they drop in-game, and are actually pretty common in the slot machine. No raid leader has ever required their use. Similarly the relic removal scroll is really just optional, for convenience, though some players will insist that some oldrelics declared as obsolete are mandatory to have. I have over 25000 TP, because there is absolutely nothing in the store I want to get and absolutely nothing that is required (except expansions).
The only case where "pay to win" might remotely apply is PvP, the only place where "win" makes sense, but pvp issues and griping should never impinge on pve.

This epic quest thing to me sounds like the first case of an actual about-face of "we'll never do X".

[Lohi]

And you paid up to 2.5 times as much as previous expansions, waited twice as long for the instances than in RoI and got less content for that. Badum-TISH

The only way to pay 2.5 times as much is to waste money on the legendary kit while bypassing the much cheaper basic kit. That's like going to the auto store and getting all the options, leather seats, moon roof, alloy ties, rust protection, undercoating, and then complaining about the cost.

If they sold a optional $1000 version that included a platinum figurine of Frodo, someone out there would complain about it being the most expensive game ever :-)