LOTRO Store Armour Sets – Shutting the Stable Door after the Horse has Bolted
Turbine posted the above advertisement on their website yesterday. Finally armour sets with stats are to be sold in the store. Now as Doc Holiday has pointed out these armour sets are not game changers. Better items can be crafted. However, many players are not in kinships or are on low population servers where such items do not appear on AH. Therefore some F2P players will consider these sets as a good option, which is exactly why Turbine put them in the store. However, the wider community has not universally applauded this move. The forums are ablaze and the entire matter is following a somewhat familiar pattern. It would appear that even the most ardent of Turbine apologists are now awakening to the realities of the in-game store.
Eighteen months ago, I would have been aggrieved and felt the need to write copiously against this commercial undertaking. However, in the cold light of the New Year, when LOTRO is no longer my primary MMO, I would simply say to all who have had the scales lifted from their eyes, it is too late now to be concerned or worried. The table was set when the store was introduced with the launch of F2P and the die was cast when the relic removal scroll was introduced. A simple mechanic of the game that had previously been free was removed, monetised and handed back to the player. Apparently it’s one of their best selling items. Turbine got away with it. The community blinked first.
Now if there ever was an appropriate point in time to complain, that would have been it. But the store is too well established now and furthermore popular. Despite so many complaints about pay-to-win from purists etc, a substantial group of players use the store and it has proven invaluable to Turbines revenue stream. Therein lies the irony. An aspect of the game that a percentage do not like, perceiving it as a deal breaker is still being utilised by a substantial proportion of players. It is therefore not going to go away and the range of items on sale will only get more diverse and controversial. The store never was intended for cosmetics only. It was meant to sell items that allowed players with a deficit of time to circumnavigate the restrictions of the labour intensive game mechanics.
So what happens now? Well several things. Turbine will continue to add store items of this nature. If they decide that PvP is the next potential cash cow, then that well could be the next big area of growth. Of course some of those who are bothered by these developments will vote with their feet. New games are leeching players away from LOTRO regardless. Some players will complain, but stay. Casual gamers will ebb and flow and continue to use the store. Personally I see this year as being the final major cash grab made by Turbine, before the game is wound down. It is clear that the developers have been placing more resources into a new product of late. The only thing that LOTRO doesn’t want for at present is the marketing staff that manage the store, which is here to stay. If the store goes, the game goes.
Apologies for the long post but lots to discuss!!! It is my belief that the split between level cap players(experienced) and the more casual player(low level) is heavily weighted on the side of experienced player which would be the case with all established mmos. If you use the fellowship panel and play around with the level filter and class filter you should be able to gauge a view on how the split between these two categories lies. You also have to remember that lots of the people that might appear to be casual are most likely alts of high level characters and most likely will have been through this stage of the game multiple times already. To get a true picture you could probably exclude anyone that is a member of a kin(especially if it is one of the larger kins on the server) and I think you would find that the number of casual players is actually quite small. From this I can only interpret that the new store bought armour will only have a small percentage of the servers availing of them. As with goods that you buy with every day there has to be an onus on the buyer to be aware of the options available to them. If you go into a store to buy a TV the vendor isnt going to tell you that you could to buy it cheaper in a shop down the road. Similarly Turbine shouldnt be expected to let their player base know of the the other options available to them. This is up for their competitors(crafters) to advertise their wares via the global chat channel and websites etc. Regarding your switching between weapons I think you would benefit form making yourself more aware of how the system works. There really should be no need for you to switch between weapons so often as the difference the legacies and also dps level make are not enough to stop you from being effective in your role(what ever that may be) as you level. I have leveled two dps characters up level 75 whilst both used a level 65 weapon. As soon as I hit 75 the old weapon was deconstructed(I used relic removal scroll) and slotted the relics into my new weapon. This weapon will do me for a long time so I have no qualms about having spent the Turbine points on the relic removal scroll. From what I can recall(I might be wrong) but this change was introduced around the Endwaithe expansion(Nov 2010????) and there should be a mechanic that players should be very familiar with at this stage. I was surpsided that your co-host(Brian I think it was) wasnt aware of this change when it has been over a year since it was introduced. Again I think there is an onus on the players to educate themselves on the ins and outs of both the legendary and relic systems. The lorebook has a lot of usefull information regarding this system. I dont intend to come across as elitist with this response altough it may appear so. Just take this as some friendly advice from someone who has had a lot of experience with the system. http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Legendary_Items_Guide Regarding Lotros ranking in the gaming world another piece of data we can loot at is the xfire rankings. Again this is a third party data but in the abscence of anything official is the best we can go on. This reflects hours played and so is in effect active accounts. The obvious disadvantage of using this data is that not every user uses the software but it is a disadvantage that all games will share and so I'm not too concerned about it. When comparing vs. other generes I believe it to skew the figures as sometimes other generes dont have a social side built into them and would require their player base to use 3rd party software to keep in touch with friends. There may also be issues with the sample size and also the timeframe(single day) but again its all we have to go on. I think looking at the xfire data we can get a feel for how lotro compares to others and be quite happy with where it resides(especially if you discount the presence of SWTOR as with it being so new it has yet to suffer the drop off in numbers which all mmos can expect to occur in the months following release and it will be a couple of months before it sttles). http://www.xfire.com/genre/mmo/massively_multiplayer_online/ Regaring the future.... the release of The Hobbit film will only assist with the games popularity. I fully believe that Turbine and Warner Brothers will take advantage of this opportunity and undertake a huge advertising push on the game at the same time. It is a logical choice and I really cant see Turbine missing out on this opportunity.
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LikeAs Doc Holiday has stated there are similar pieces available from the Skirmish vendors so there is no need for people to buy these from the store. Having leveled multiple characters past level 40 I can tell you that there are ample rewards from quests that negate the need for buying such items especially as you will outlevel them quite quickly anyway. Regarding the relic scrolls there was a bit of commotion on the forums when these were introduced. To be honest though the need for a player to purchase these is quite rare. It was stated on the podcast that these are needed every time you reforge but this is simply not true. They are really only required when you decide to replace your old weapon(and hence deconstruct your old one) which occurs much rarer then a reforge. Also people should only look to slot high end relics when they have settled on a weapon which they know they will be keeping for a long time. If in doubt slot mid tier relics(3 0r 4) so that it matters little whether these are lost to you. It should also be noted that at end game relics are quite easy to come by. Some classes are able to solo both the stoneheight and north cotton farm instances and if not one of these classes both instances are easily duoed. Many players do so and split the item xp and relics betwen the players on a pre-arranged agreement so that both get the items that they need. If you are not at end game you shouldn’t place much emphasis on the top tier relics as you will quite happily survive with mid tier until you hit cap. I think it important to remember that the official forums are not always a true reflection of the community. People tend to voice their opinion when they have something to complain with the opinion of the majority of players who are not affected by this change not being heard. Until it is an issue that affects the majority of the player you will always get a skewed viewpoint from the forums. The real question that should be important to players is the precedence that is being set. If they were to introduce such items at end game(I would estimate that about 95% of the player base has an end game character) it would all depend on how these items compare to ingame acquisitions. Possibly I am being a bit naive but until this happens and I can see the comparison I wont be grabbing my pitchfork. You also have to remember that Turbine have to make their money from somewhere. People are no longer paying a monthly subscription so this revenue stream must be replaced by something else. I think its reasonable to expect players to spend a couple of dollars/euro on the game which if they need the said items they have obviously invested a lot of time and probably not a lot of money. The only other free to play game that I have played is Allods online and in comparison the lotro store is very tame. Lastly.....regarding the future of lotro I do believe that you are way off the mark in predicting its demise(18 Months!). The player base is strong which can be seen in the nielsen figures at the link below which afaik is the most accurate comparison available. They will have lost a percentage of their player base(I would estimate 10%->20%) to SWTOR but I expect many players to return when their initial months free play elapses so this is only a temporary loss. http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/top10s/video_games.html Any chance you could do a comparison feature on the lotro store other f2p games in a future podcast as I would be interested to see if your views when you have compared it to other games working on the f2p model.
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LikeBlister, thank you for taking the time to write such a lengthy response. As discussed in the podcast, there are other armours sets available with better stats. However, what needs to be remembered is a lot of casual players do not research websites, compare gear on spreadsheets or in fact explore the game to the same level that some player currently at level cap do. Many players are oblivious to the subtleties of the game mechanics. I have at time met players with characters in their mid 20's that still have sub par gear. This is because they do not know of the alternatives and some simply do not care. They just amble through the game in a fashion they like and stats don't really feature too highly on their radar. For every serious role player or core gamer at level cap, there are twice as many people who simply log into the game and bumble around Middle Earth. If they run into an obstruction, then turning to the in-game store is the natural solution. Therefore, these items will sell. As for the relic removal scrolls, their usage depends on your game play. I do not use them as you say, simply at the end of a weapons life. I will frequently have several weapons being levelled simultaneously. I add relics and swap between them to see what has the best results. Reforging requires relic removal and so I use the scrolls. But this is really not the point. The issue still stands that a mechanic of the game that was free (or at least came with the core subscription) is now being sold as an additional service. I fully understand that the Turbine store is how LOTRO is financed. I also stand by my assertions that more and more items will go on sale over the course of this year. Items that will bother some. But all that matters is that enough people buy them. I suspect that the revenue that Turbine is making is going into the development of other projects and is not solely being ploughed back into LOTRO. The test will be when we get the next expansion. If Turbine are making so much revenue then they should be able to create an incredible realisation of Rohan. But I suspect not. The game still has tons of bugs that have not been fixed. The developers also fail to meet targets and schedules. Why? I would love to follow the money but we, as players don't get to access such information. I am sceptical of any 3rd parry data about LOTRO's player base. The only people who can truly inform us are Turbine and they won't. The only figure I'm interested in is active accounts. If we new that we would need to separate the lifetime account holders. It is new accounts that interest me. How long do they stay for and what is the churn rate. Finally when I talk about LOTRO's demise, I do not mean through purely a declining player base. I am implying death at the hands of it's own developers. People often talk about new games being WoW killers, but I always think that the only thing that will kill WoW is Blizzard themselves. I think similarly of Turbine. They have a major new product under development. I suspect that's where the cash raised from LOTRO is going as well as being the focus of their developers. If LOTRO fails in the future to achieve the financial targets the bean counters have set, then the plug may well be pulled, in favour of a newer product. Irrespective of existing players, critical acclaim or any other non financial factors, if Turbine (or ultimately Warner Brothers) no longer have any confidence or interest in LOTRO, simply in it's capacity to generate revenue for them, it will be closed. This happens all the time. TV shows get cancelled, even if the ratings are borderline, simply co's the financiers lose faith in the long term future of said show. Also, SWG got canned, so that there were not two IPs from the same franchise competing. With The Hobbit due out at the end of the year, there could well be newer Tolkien based products under development. Out with the old, in with the new, is not a phrase I care for, but it springs to mind.
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LikeI play the game because I love LOTRO and because I am co-hosting a podcast. When I found out that the once-free relic removal scroll was sold in the store for TP I decided to go premium and never pay for points with cash again. I will continue playing the game and ignore whatever the store offers. The moment I notice that Turbine makes it very hard to advance without store items I simply leave. There are many other fish in the pond. It's a game. Something I do for fun. When it starts to upset me it's time to leave. I never complain, I just vote with my feet.
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LikeDon't forget similar if not the exact pieces are available to everyone via the skirmish vendors.
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