WoW, you've been trumped!
WoW, you've been trumped!
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Discussion

nsmith1180

Original Poster:

3,941 posts

207 months

Wednesday 3rd November 2010
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Do you know your one ring from your true king? If so, you can have World of Warcraft shaking in its MMO shaped boots care of an email that arrived in my inbox from Codies this morning.

Codemasters have announced that LOTRO or Lord of the Rings Online is, as of today, FREE to download and play for the first 50 Levels of character development. They have also launched a new LOTRO Store to buy all the little things for your character that dont ususually come in the game. To make your hobbit or elf more comfortable.

Not really my cup of tea, I only like the second two films because a lot more arse gets kicked in them! but it its up your street, I thought you might like to know.

Chunkychucky

6,094 posts

198 months

Wednesday 3rd November 2010
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And for all the good people at home, where is it available to download from?

Famous Graham

26,553 posts

254 months

Wednesday 3rd November 2010
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www.lotro.com probably.

And I doubt Blizzard will care. Quite the opposite, actually - both Codemasters and Sony Online Entertainment (for Everquest2 in their case) have done this now. Primarily because of a huge drop in subscribers.

They're going for the micro-transaction model. Play for free, but buy points for cash to spend on the top weapons, armour, skills etc.

Edited by Famous Graham on Wednesday 3rd November 14:39

Odie

4,187 posts

211 months

Wednesday 3rd November 2010
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This is the way mmo's are going, moving away from the traditional subscription towards micro-transactions


Hirez have done it with Global Agenda, CCP are doing it with EVE and Dust 514, a few other MMO's are doing it.

It wont be long until its the norm and of course WOW will copy it, as thats what the game basically is a copy of all the best bits of other MMO's.

Daston

6,148 posts

232 months

Wednesday 3rd November 2010
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Think WoW got trumped at the same time as I installed EvE....which is also free to play online using in game money

HereBeMonsters

14,180 posts

211 months

Wednesday 3rd November 2010
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So I would need to start paying for stuff even though it's free to "start"?

Robert Burns

915 posts

198 months

Friday 5th November 2010
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Im saying, Rubbish. I hate it

J-Tuner

2,855 posts

272 months

Saturday 6th November 2010
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I got given a copy ages ago - its ste, hence why its free.

MattyB_

2,329 posts

286 months

Saturday 6th November 2010
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Odie said:
This is the way mmo's are going, moving away from the traditional subscription towards micro-transactions


Hirez have done it with Global Agenda, CCP are doing it with EVE and Dust 514, a few other MMO's are doing it.

It wont be long until its the norm and of course WOW will copy it, as thats what the game basically is a copy of all the best bits of other MMO's.
Will never happen, especially not to WoW. It only happens if the game isn't good enough, or big enough, to warrant a subscription; or with existing sub-based MMO's, if the subscriber figures are so poor you have no other option.

Why would you turn down a consistent £10/month from all subscribers and instead go for a few quid here and there? Not to mention that "free" MMO's attract the worst kinds of players - not to sound elitist, but at least charging a monthly sub goes some way to keeping out griefers, lolkidz and general t*ts.