Is this LotRO’s community being typically atypical, F2P players displaying entitlement, or something else I’m missing?
LotRO recently added (character level) experience for crafting, which is the sort of thing we like around here. As with any change, forum-goers announced they are going to quit. It is “More then ridicules. It’s underhanded,” “a deal bracker,” and it will not “do anything aside from discouraging people from doing crafting.” Oh, you laugh now, but “I hope you feel the same when the game is shut down from everybody leaving and Turbine not making a profit.” (One poster took the interesting tactic of replying until he had 10% of the posts in the thread then declaring, “Good for you u like the idea but sorry to say your out numberd.”) (sic on all those)
Some players do not like outleveling content or leveling too quickly. Except there is more content next zone over, and you can run an alt through that level range rather than doing everything from that level range on every character. Except if you are not paying anything and want to avoid running out of free, level-relevant content. Except your opinion does not matter if you are not paying anything, so pushing the free players through the free content faster is a good business decision. Out of alt slots, out of quests? Oh sorry, that is not a problem for subscribers, $$ button’s over there.
Logging on a level 30-something alt, she needed to farm 2.5 stacks of blackberry (master tier) seeds to get one level, and that is with rested xp. Given the leveling curve, this must be a significant amount at the F2P levels but virtually nothing near the level cap. Festival quests now give scaling xp, I’m told, which will also help F2P players level to paid content more quickly.
Turbine also added an xp disabler to the cash store (although not as a consumable as originally designed). Sure, you can stay in F2P levels all you like, but you’re paying for it. I have sympathy for the argument “this should be free for VIP players,” because there are several things in the cash shop that you would expect as part of your paid account rather than monetization monetization, but I’m also sympathetic to “if you think this game is worth playing for months, how about paying us for it?”
: Zubon
My sympathy for that argument does not extend as far as $70 expansion packs.