LOTRO Named One of the Top 16 Free to Play MMOs

LOTRO was named one of the top 16 free-to-play MMOs today by Maximum PC who listed LOTRO as one of the first successful free-to-play MMOs.

The article did make one oversight in that it lists LOTRO as only free for the first 20 levels.  It is true that after the Lone-lands players need to buy side quests, but players can enjoy the Epic Story for free until level 85.  Also with Helm’s Deep players should be able to level to 95 for free.  This is not including the fact that players can get everything they need in LOTRO by grinding Turbine points for free.  That being said, Maximum PC did only have a paragraph to describe the business model and the game.

The article also had DDO, another Turbine game, in its top 16 MMOs.  DDO entered the free-to-play MMO space before LOTRO and caused LOTRO to go free-to-play after all the business model’s success.