Lord of the Rings Online Free to Play Starts September 10th

AS FIRST REPORTED ON LOTROREPORTER.COM


by Chris "Almazar" Perry


"Today Turbine announced that the Free-to-Play transition will occur on September 10th. This is much sooner than most of us expected (me included!) and I’m quite excited to see this major change to the game take place. I think that my biggest excitment is for the fact that we will not have to wait long to see how the game that we all play and love will be changed by this new business model. We’ve all heard the “the sky is falling” comments about the influx of new players, and also the “nothing is going to change” comments that seem to ignore that the game is evolving at all. My thought, as I’ve stated before, is that yes, things are going to change. How? Most likely for the better or very little. The only thing that is certain is that the game will be different…..somehow.

I’m also excited because this means that all of the game mechanics (Instance Join, Class Change, Plugins, etc) and the new content (Enedwaith) will be in game in just a few weeks!

I’m very impressed with the efficiency with which Turbine has gone through this Beta. Remember, the Beta only launched in June, and we’re already going live in September! That’s wonderfull when you compare it to the much longer drought that DDO had during their transition to Free to Play.

To quote Kate Paiz, Executive Producer of LOTRO, in Turbine’s Official Announcement:

“Our LOTRO beta program has been a huge success and we want to thank all of our players who worked with us to get the game ready for launch. Our unique pricing model has revolutionized the industry and starting in September, players will be able to choose how they pay for and play one of the world’s best online games and we can’t wait to welcome millions of new players to Middle-earth!”

View the official Press Release here.

For those of you who have not been following the news about LOTRO’s Free-To-Play transition, take a look at the Free-To-Play category for more columns on this topic. What do you think about this date? Have you been in the beta and feel that the game is ready? Almost ready? Not even close? Comment and let us know!