Lord of the Rings Online MMORPG

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

I personally think that the whole move to f2p across the board in MMOs is caused by most developers not having a clue how to make quality products and their incompetence is being shown by the hordes of small time people who are making small f2p games that are better in quality to almost anything being put out by a big name studio.

The saddest part of all of this is that had Turbine maintained their original MEO concept, stayed truer to the lore and eschewed the WoW influence, they'd have as many loyal customers, if not more, than they do now. Having MEO as a boutique design for 300,000 to 400,000 zealous Tolkien fans worldwide may have commanded a higher monthly fee, and would certainly have assured a higher customer retention rate. How do I know this? Well, from a personal standpoint, I am still in touch with most of the people involved in the design prior to LOTRO's release. It was always Middle-earth and not necessarily the game, a fact lost on Turbine.

Once they cheapened the game with lustful dreams of stealing customers away from WoW, they lost many adult fans, such as me, who would have paid more simply because the game DID NOT attract the WoW crowd. But they lost a ton of money by going immediately for marketshare, offering ridiculously low lifetime rates at the game's release. Start high while the game is fresh and people are excited (that's at least what I learned in college Marketing). You can always go lower, but you can never go higher without attrition.

Just plain ig'nant.