Ok, I do love the move to F2P however, this does come with a significant downside – Turbine has confirmed that there will be no new LOTRO content until this fall. I really wish Turbine would’ve separated the Volume 3 Book 2 content out from the F2P switch as we’ll end up going almost 6 months without any new content and even that content was completed almost immediately after it launched. I’m actually thinking we’re looking at almost a one year gap between game content as I don’t think we’ll see this update until the November time-period which would put us just about the same time as the Mirkwood launch.
For much of the player base we’ll be stuck with the same exact content we’ve been doing for the past year. I’m just real worried that this will kill off a lot of people and really sour them on the game in general. I don’t think the prospect of F2P will offset this lack of content for many players. Sure some will come back, but it could be a pretty painful chunk that decide to leave. And it will take a while for the new influx of F2P people to make much of a dent in the higher end (level 30+) player base. Granted, this may give players like myself a chance to get more toons all geared up but without groups that may prove challenging.
Now the beta does provide a bit of a diversion for folks but it won’t compensate for playing on our “real” characters. Certainly I’ll be anxious to see how the pricing models work and help test out the acquisition of in-game points. The end-game content will be intriguing as well, but I’m mainly worried about the point stuff. Of course, that’s assuming I get into the beta 😉
So unless you want to roll an alt (or a few alts) or get into the Beta, I’m guessing this will be a slow summer for LOTRO activities. Basically my love for the F2P news is almost offset by the news of no content updates for a lengthy period.