LOTRO Closed-Beta Non-Impressions

Finally, the heatwave is at an end. I logged into the LOTRO closed beta and played for a bit last night and so now I am writing a post about nothing. Nothing because it is a *closed* beta, however I wanted to communicated a couple impressions I had that are vague enough that I am sure will not violate any secrecy terms.

Firstly, when I made my initial visit to the in-game LOTRO Store, I had a tentative sigh of relief. There are so many ways the transition to a freemium model can go bad in general and despite the apparent success DDO has had, Turbine is just as susceptible as anyone to bad decisions. Though maybe not real-ID-ly  as susceptible as some. OH NO I DI-INT!

From my initial impressions, however, it seems like their basic strategy for monetizing non-subscription players is pretty sound and not what I feel was "fundamentally broken." Hence, the sigh of relief.

However, one qualm I do have is that it seems really super-duper expensive to be a "free" player. Like crazy expensive. But all that might just be me -- I am rather notoriously cheap.

It does seem like Turbine 'learned some lessons" or (perhaps their new overlords are "cracking some whips"?) with the move of DDO to a freemium model. In other words they learned they either (a) need to generate more real revenue from the Store to justify the expense of running it, or (b) realized they can make a metric shit-ton of money from these crazy store thingies.

I'll let your cynicism be your guide. As I always, I think it probably lies somewhere in the middle. Despite the fact I carried a subscription to LOTRO for the better part of its existence, I really wanted to create a new honest-to-god "free" account so I could see better how the LOTRO Store will play out. Instead I was weak and allowed myself to be suckered into resubscribing ... it has nothing to do with fishing during the Lithe Festival ... REALLY.

So I am a "VIP" in the beta which essentially means I am regular subscriber in the LOTRO freemium ecosystem. So far, there doesn't appear to be any appreciable difference between being a subscriber now and in the brave new f2p world. Which is a good thing.

I have done my best to be really vague and yet try to get across some of my personal impressions about the beta so far. I probably won't write much more on it here, because I do want to respect the NDA.

However, there is one new aspect to LOTRO I am bursting at the seems to shout about. It is looking to be a really, really, really exciting addition to LOTRO, and something some players have been asking for since the beta for Shadows of Angmar. But I won't give away the secret except to hint that it is a feature of both WoW and Warhammer, and it is game feature players who also are software devs in real life cream their pants over.

Alas, I can say no more -- I don't want a ban! But for some current-and-future LOTRO players, this news is going to by the biggest thing coming out of the LOTRO overhaul. Biggest by far, I think.