Today on the official LOTRO forums, community manager Sapience posted a clarification to the Helms Deep pre-purchase information that set off quite a flurry of discussion around the community. The original question was asking for clarification on what is included in the Helms Deep expansion order (for pay) and what will be granted to all players (for free). The response:
Requires purchase of the Helm’s Deep expansion pack
- Battle of Helm’s Deep (Epic Battles).
- Epic Story.
- Western Rohan/Helm’s Deep Content (Quests).
Does not require Expansion Pack Purchase
- Class Changes.
- Level Cap increase.
- Additional Crafting Tier.
The thing that caught everybody’s attention right away was bullet #2 under the “requires purchase” header. The reason: LOTRO’s Epic Stories have all been free for some period of time, certainly as long as I’ve been playing, and the expectation from the player base was that they always would be. In fact, there are many players who have been around since the free to play transition who claim that Turbine actually made a promise that the Epic Story would always be free. I haven’t been able to find that promise, but Sapience did make a reference to it a couple of years ago, so I’m assuming that Turbine did make it at some point in the past.
Sapience went on to attempt justification of charging for the epic:
The Epic Story in Helm’s deep is very tightly entwined with the Epic Battle system. The story in Helm’s Deep is the Epic battle we all know from the books. We’ve returned to the core story line from the lore and that line leads in a direct path, laid out by the Professor himself, into Helm’s Deep and the battles and heroic deeds that occur there. As a result, this means the Epic story requires the purchase of the Helm’s Deep expansion. Otherwise you’d not be able to complete it as it moves through the Epic Battle system.
Now that I’ve reported on the facts, I guess it’s time to give my opinion. To be honest, on my first realization that the epic would not be free, I was pretty shocked. I think I always had the expectation that that part of the game would always be free to all players, if only because it always had been. Next, I got a little sad. I’ve always been able to hold LOTRO up as a “true” free to play example, because the epic was always there to be experienced by anybody who downloaded the game. It was a shining example of how to pull off a hybrid model. In fact, if it weren’t for free to play, I wouldn’t be writing this post right now. Now, when detractors speak of the ills and evils of the hybrid model, I have that much less ammunition with which to return fire.
However, I think Turbine put themselves in somewhat of a no-win situation when they decided to return to following the books. It was a decision that was unanimously applauded when the consequences were not yet clear. By closely intertwining the book stories with the epics, they ensured that the Battle of the Hornburg would have to be a part of the epic storyline. You can’t follow the stories from Two Towers without a Helms Deep.
As far as the expansion goes, they could do one of two things. They could continue to give away the epic storyline which includes the big battle at Helms Deep, but in doing so, would have difficulty charging the targeted price points of $40 and $60 for what would amount to a quest pack, lest they enrage those who only paid 995 TP for Wildermore. Charging less for the expansion was likely out of the question to the brass at the WB. Their money and development cycles was likely spent mostly on big battles and the class revamps. It would be very difficult to give both of those away for free, taking into account the considerable development costs of both. Execs like to see a return on all of the investment time/dollars they’ve allocated to your team. Charging for the class revamps is not technically feasible. Since you can’t have some players using the skill trees and some opting not to pay for them, the natural conclusion is that you need to charge for the big battles, which we’ve previously established are closely tied to the epic story.
So, Turbine has chosen what they see as the lesser of two evils, to charge for the big battles and the epic, disregarding their promise to players that the epic storyline will always be free to everybody. This will anger a certain segment of the player base, especially those who actually remember “the promise”, but they can more easily justify the price tag of the expansion and recoup the development costs for the game.
In other words, I can see the business side of things. However, I don’t necessarily agree with the way this new information was presented. In my most humble opinion (as a player), if you’re going to go back on a promise you’ve made to your customer base (especially if your slogan is “powered by our fans”), you need to come out and tell them, and give a good reason. Waiting for the players to decipher your marketing material, and then bringing it up only as an answer to a question in the forums makes it look like you’re trying to sneak it past your customers. I have a feeling the way this information came out is not going to sit will with a large portion of the player base. It’s like the instance snafu from Riders of Rohan, except this time they can’t undo (and re-do) it.
Update:
MadeofLions has posted a response in the forums explaining some of the history of the epic story development and walking us through Turbine’s decision process for this change. (Thanks Jonathon from Twitter for the link). He’s pretty much validated my conjecture above, but makes no mention of any past Turbine promise to keep the epics forever free. Here’s the crux of the issue:
(in reference to the Rise of Isengard epic story)
I had a choice to make. We could make the Epic in such a way that it avoided all those iconic locations that are part of the ‘expansion content,’ and that way the Epic could remain separate from the expansion and stay free. Or we could keep it the way it is and charge for the Epic as part of the expansion, so you only get to play the Epic in Isengard if you bought the Isengard expansion. But there was a third choice, and it’s the one we went with: I could refuse to change the Epic, keeping it in Isengard with all of the iconic things and happenings there, and we keep it free. It’s certainly the biggest public relations win – I mean, who doesn’t love free stuff? We were adored as heroes of the people, and life was good.
But there would come a time in the future when the decision wasn’t so easy. What if there were a system looming on the horizon that would be the centerpiece of an expansion, such that everything was tied into it, and the Epic Story needed to interweave with it in such a way that we couldn’t separate the two, but we also couldn’t give you the entire system for free? Ah, I’m sure our Future Selves will handle it.
Well, here we are in the future, confronted with a system that allows you to experience the Battle of the Hornburg in all its rainy glory, and an Epic Story that would be doing you a disservice if it didn’t tell the story of that battle. There are players who play the Epic even without buying the expansions, and I am sorry that this is a change for you guys. But it’s a change that serves to reward the players that do pick up the expansion, and makes the expansion a better deal, more worth your time and your money. This is just an expansion change for now – I’m hoping we can keep the Epic Story free in other updates. But for big expansions I’d expect that it’ll be featured as one of the Things You Get on the ‘virtual box.’
The good news is that they don’t seem to think this sets a prescedent to charge for epic story moving forward – for non-expansion updates, anyway. However, that word “hope” along with recent deteriorating credibility makes me somewhat skeptical.
Again, I think if this would have been better communicated and at an earlier stage, players would have been a little more understanding. As it is, it remains to be seen whether “better late than never” actually holds.
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Simple solution: Cinematic explanation of battle to allow you to continue the story.
While yes it is not satisfying, they don’t break the promise this way. My main issue is that they have gone to such great lengths to make the EPIC Story completely soloable and completely free. Now it is no longer free.
Another issue I have with it is that here are really only two free things in LOTRO. There are the landscapes and the EPIC. Now one of those is gone. THAT IS HUGE! I hope this is the only time they break this rule. The fact is though they will have to for future Big Battles if they plan to continue this trend. That means that we might not see many more free EPIC Story expansions. This is a really big issue and I hope people do not underestimate the path this could lead to down the road.
All of that being said, I understand the decision.
I can understand the business end of the decision and agree that, given the choices they made to follow the books for the Epic, they boxed themselves in.
At the same time I’m confused. If the Big Battle system is the Epic will we be ‘redoing’ the Epic repeatedly when we repeat the Battles or will we be doing other battles within the Big Battle system? Or does that even make sense? I dunno, can’t quite make heads or tails of how it’s going to play out yet. If the Epic is separate then why couldn’t that have been free?
I think the last question is what everyone is asking.
That is unethical. It is called breaking a promise. They could have done things differently, as they have done in the past. The Big Battles system could have been available with elements of the session play concept, allowing them to write an epic that followed the pattern used throughout the game to date, mopping up operations after the main events. In the books, we are told that Theoden left Rohan to be pillaged, plundered and destroyed by roaming bands of orcs, Dunlendings, and an army from Mordor that crossed north of Cair Andros. And there are ways of continuing that on through the Stonewain Valley and Lebennin as well. Maybe they just need to hire different or more writers. They could be doing the same thing with the festivals too. Not nearly as much work as all of the designing of new systems!
I agree with just about everything you said except I DO want to go to Helm’s Deep and fight thousands of orcs. They could have found a way around I think.
Right, the Big Battles and so forth would be what you would buy. But you could also have an epic that takes place after the battle of Helm’s Deep, Theoden has mustered the Rohirrim to ride to lift the siege of Minas Tirith, but the women, children and elderly men are stuck in Aglarond and Dunharrow, and some haven’t probably made it. Lots of quests that could have been strung along an epic concerning those matters, with instances that you pick up as quests along the way if you’ve purchased the package, for that actual battle sequence. Then everyone would have been happy except possibly for some bean counters.
Absolutely no reason they could not offer limited access to big battles for the epic story and tie unlimited/full access to the expansion other than a) they are being lazy, B) greedy, or c)both.
I will never blame a company for wanting to create revenue and turn a profit, unless it is done by underhanded measures, broken promises or lies.
Turbine said epic lines would always be free and now they are going back on it. Allowing access only for use via the epic book would not cost them revenue and allow them to stay true to their word. Instead they break promises. What’s next? Reneging on the monthly TP bonus for VIP?
NO SIG! Don’t give them ideas!
Likely they already have them. 🙂
I know.
This is exactly how I thought it should have been rolled out. Allow free users the ability to trial the Big Battles system for themselves via the epic line. By letting players give it a shot before possibly shelling out the $$$ for the expansion/piecemeal content from the LOTRO store, you are letting your work speak for itself.
If they enjoy it and want to play around with the Big Battle instances further, they can purchase the content and further delve into that content. If not, well…at least they still got the ability to explore the Epic content for no charge. If you build it, they MIGHT come!
With the WB buy, there are new people in the command structure, the devs are probably the same, with unchanged attitudes towards us. This is not likely a dev decision.
Turbine has stressed in the past that these types of decisions are in-house, not WB. Would expect to hear the same should they address it again.
There is a solution, a true solution.
The epic battle of Helm’s Deep could be done in solo, especially to allow solo players to do the epic.
It’s simple, give the solo instances of the epic battle for free, and charge the group ones.
This way, the epic story remain free. More, it give a glance of the epic batle, and possibily incite to buy the group instances of the battle.
They could remove some of the features of big battle if they want, like promotions and the 3 roles (vanguard, officer, engineer), allowing only buyers to play with it.
OK so the BIG battle is in EPIC quest line, that’s ok with me especially as they have already explained that it required a lot of work to do, but is it just that volume/book?
Will the Epic story now suddenly be milked as a cash cow in further expansions…
Turbine/WB really suck at keeping this LOTRO fan base happy…be honest and communicate…we LOVE your game and can actually be easily won over.
Companies renege on their “free forever” policies all the time (see: my bank), so I have no problem with that. They’ve provided the epic storyline free for 4 years and through two expansions. I understand that circumstances and financial realities change. No one can fully anticipate the future 4-5 years out.
All the same, the community relations team has got-to-go. Could they bungle the rollout of their new products any worse? As a lawyer, it is basic trial strategy that, if I have any weaknesses in my argument, I get those out in the open at the beginning, when I can do it on my terms and soften the effect. The worse thing you can do is wait till your opponent brings them out when they have the floor and can make a dramatic overstatement of their damaging effect. For some time (forever?), Lotro has hidden any of the negatives in its presentations, even though they (should) know by now that they have a very intelligent, inquisitive, and diligent player base who is going to ferret out all of the hidden downsides. Even if they don’t want to do it in their main promotional materials, the very least they could do is create a thread explaining why they had to backtrack on a promise, especially something as major as starting to charge for the epic storyline.
I almost wish that they would just skip the whole promotion phase as the worse thing about the game right now is their snide, secretive, obfuscating, and sometimes condescending community team.
I’m surprised this wasn’t at least hinted at in one of the developer chats prior to the release of the pre-order information. Get it out in the open, let people discuss it, mull it over, argue about it, and possibly even gradually come to accept it. You don’t want your big announcement marred (again) by this type of controversy.
Spot on both you …
Who know what kinds of backroom hands were tied but all the same just horrible!
The people in the chats have to follow orders or lose their jobs. We’d be worse off, I think, if they lost their jobs.
I wasn’t suggesting that anybody go off the rails during a dev chat. I would think this type of information would be something that would be scripted into one of the answers in order to prepare the player base for what was to come. Officially sanctioned information. Not that I think it’s possible to go “off the rails” during a Turbine event. I get the feeling that their answers are monitored fairly closely, if not reviewed & approved on the fly.
I said in another post about this, the free-to-play content is shrinking so much that they will be forced to change the selling point of calling it a free to play…because it isn’t. I created a f2p account to create a character JUST for doing the epic quest line for my epic story scrapbook…and unless I wanted it to take YEARS of grinding, I HAD to go VIP…because the character has to level up in order to do the epic…so really, the epic was never really FREE anyway. It was said when f2p started that it was really just a free trial..and it becomes that more and more with each expansion.
The thing was, in the past, VIP didn’t have to pay for Epic, it was free. You didn’t have to buy the expac to continue the epic you could go on ahead and see it if you wished. This was, as far as I can remember, one of the promises made to current, paying customers when Turbine decided to start giving things away free to new players.
It never affected me personally in the past because I always pre-ordered the expansions and have always had full complete access.
I know, but my point was, while you could DO the epic for free, you still have to level up in order to even get the quests….you’re not gonna get to level 40 in the free areas so that you can even get the book 5 quests. So even to do the epics, you kinda have had to spend some money on quest packs or something.
free to play is a trap.. this model of MMO is almost dead, in the end is expensive.
time to leave.
Oh they had to go and cluck it all up didn’t they?
I was so excited but all the expansion hype and then I had the opportunity to try on the new armour and loved it. Already asking for the pre-order for my bday.
I really dislike charging for the epic line, they could have found some way to let folks have the battle once for free then charge for it after. The worst thing is the fact it appears they are being completely sneaky about the whole issue.
I am very suspicious at the way this trend is developing and feel WB are trying to milk this cash cow for every last drop.
Nice way to break a promise and ruin your big announcement!
With regards to F2P not really being F2P:
One of the regular blogs I check is from this player in Lithuania, lv80 Champion and grinding for Rohan
http://mmoblogg.wordpress.com/
Never paid a cent, tp ground every expansion and item needed.
AMAZING job
For those who are interested, I give you the original F2P FAQ, courtesy of the Internet Archive:
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“As a Free player, you have access to Middle-earth, the greatest fantasy world ever created, and you can play LOTRO’s award-winning Epic Story up to level 50!”
(source: web.archive.org/web/20100607163912/http : / / http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/faq.html)
“Here are all the benefits you get when LOTRO Free-to-Play is available:
PLAYER TIER VIP PREMIUM PLAYER FREE PLAYER
Epic Story* Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
”
(source: web.archive.org/web/20100607163922/http : / / http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/vipchart.html)
Footnote:
“* Purchasers of the Mines of Moria™ expansion get access to the Mines of Moria region and content, premium classes (Rune-Keeper and Warden), legendary items feature, Tier 6 crafting feature, 2 extra character slots and a level cap of 60. Purchasers of the Siege of Mirkwood™ expansion get access to the Siege of Mirkwood region and content, a level cap of 65 and the Siege of Mirkwood skirmishes.”
(source: web.archive.org/web/20100607163922/http : / / http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/vipchart.html)
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Make of that what you will.
Personally, I have a lot of mixed feelings about this expansion. They could have handled it better. For all of our sakes, I hope they do some damage control, and soon.
Lotteries for HD are on LOTRO.com!
Where is the player council!
Aren’t they supposed to be the voice of the unheard and ignored?
Aren’t they supposed to be the ones telling Turbine that F2P should have access to a different epic than the VIP?
Just like when you have Race-specific quests, you could have 2 choices of advancement: VIP gets to choose to go battle or (since they’re VIP) can pick the F2P option of watching elongated cutscenes, session plays of women or children, or possibly even….fetching water. F2P could then advance through the Epic Questline, although it not being as “savoury” as the epics played by VIPs, it’d still be free.
I guess the Player Council doesn’t give a crap about F2P anymore because they probably all got Lifetime memberships and free legendary expansion packs as well as complete alpha/beta access, since they are technically Turbine Employee.
I am sorry if you got lost in my mess of thoughts. Although, all of the above opinions may have been completely irrelevant as I am a former-VIP who can reinitialize as I please and I have the money (and my birthday coming up) for the expansion itself.
Yea. I make no sense.
I’m not sure what the player council’s involvement was, here. I don’t believe Turbine has said, and the PC isn’t *supposed* to say, but I’ll grant your point that the avoidance of this type of hoopla was why they were formed in the first place. Granted, they only serve in an advisory role, so ultimately Turbine makes all the final calls. It’s on them to take the advice of the PC or not.
Expect to pay for the Epic Storyline from this point forward. They set a precedent, and if the players accept it, then it will continue to happen. Much of what was LOTRO is no more. It’s not even a “hybrid” model anymore. Eventually there will be no VIP or F2P and everyone will be “premium” players. You will have to pay for EVERYTHING, but instead of paying for an expansion once a year, they will nickle and dime you to death.
If people actually stopped to add up how much they’ve spent on LOTRO since it has gone F2P, they would probably find out that they’ve spent more on the game then they ever would have if they were to remain a VIP and only buy the expansions once a year.
And what’s with the prices? We’re getting very little, yet we are paying more than we have with previous editions. I mean, $100 for an expansion (Legendary Edition)? I don’t even pay that much for other games.
P.S. I wouldn’t be surprised to see flying mounts in the future. It’s about the only “word” they have left that they haven’t gone back on…
i rate that lotro should have let 1 epic battle be free so that we could taste the new content instead of us having to find out if its good or not 🙂 and also guys u cant be so upset with turbine i mean if we dont buy this expansion then how will they get money to make other expansions and upgrade and revamp areas please tell me that?
I personally would have been fine with it if they had gone out and said it. It is the way the information was released. The devs dodged the question more than once before they gave a real answer.
I agree with the way it turned out , complaining about one epic book isn’t gonna kill ya (Breaking the Promise to Keep Epics Free)getting upset cause they dodged the question , maybe the answer wasn’t theirs to give.. Hell other games only allow u to lvl up so far being a free 2 play (person/s) atleast they didn’t take the lvl cap out , should be thankful u can lvl up 1-85 as is
I have been looking into this promise and from what I could uncover, it seems it was not a “free for always” promise. At first it was with the free-to-play release. Then came Moria and Epic wasn’t free at first. Then it was. Then came Isengard and with a continuation of the commitment to keep the storyline free.
The way I see it: they determine it Expansion/Update by Expansion/Update. Apparently now it was too complicated to give it for free. Although I’ve seen several suggestions to make the epic story free and with perhaps 1 epic battle for free as a sort of preview and than have everyone pay for epic battles after that.
Regardless, I think Lotro has become a “free-with-a-paid-twist” game.
I’ll really need to do my utmost to be able to get all the expansions now with grinding free TP. Of course I don’t want to miss out on this part of the epic story…..
Hmmm… anyone got a 32-hour office/administrative/receptionist/telephonist job for me instead of my job as a cleaning lady? Then I’ll hopefully earn more and be able to simply buy all the expansions!
Okay, done complaining. Since I’ve got still a long, long, looong way to go until I’ll ever reach Helm’s Deep, perhaps I can just sit back and relax and buy it (with free TP’s?) on sale.
Yeah, I’m starting to think that “the promise” is folklore. Perhaps it came about as a result of some past marketing materials stating that “the entire epic story is free to play” and players’ expectations that built up over time. I’ve searched for it on the web, and could not find anything definitive. I think that if it existed, somebody who read this article or listened to the LPN podcast would have sent us a link by now.