Lotro Forums
Just for a fun little contrast in the .. erm.. timbre.. between the two communities.
One is whiny and complaining all the time, the other is grateful and excited.
I don't give Turbine all the credit for this. Lord of the Rings as an IP naturally attracts a more mature (or geeky) audience than steampunk, goofball WoW does. However they (as developers) have been careful in their expansion process to avoid nullifying previous achievements and dungeons as much as possible, and have gained their communities respect and excitement for each new bit of content as a result. Only raising the level cap by 5 levels is a cheap trick that both are using but at least Turbine is trying to keep hard earned radiance gear relevant and continues to expand horizontally the whole time. (They recently revamped the Lone Lands, Book 2 doubled in size and Agamaur/Red Maid, the second dungeon was split into three dungeons; Incidentally, the previous book, book 8 revamped Bree land and Ered Luin quite significantly quest wise and the instances have changed too) WoW's expansion model has been lately to save all the good stuff for a once every 1.5 years or so expansion, which is too long for most subscribers to wait, so they play through it, unsub and then resub again once it gets in. One failing on Lotro's part this expansion has been the nullifying of previous legendary weapons. One major success has been Skirmishes. Hopefully they'll get it right in Rohan.
Just in case you missed it, there's another kid on the block today. Alganon launched today and here's an interview about it: http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=20741
2 comments:
I'm idly curious what effect the lifetime subscription has on the psychology. I know it affects how players approach the game on a daily basis. I suspect it also applies here; if you're a lifer, you're likely to be grateful for *anything* that they add to the game that isn't completely stupid.
And I wonder what a lifetime sub option would do to WoW's community.
That may well be at the heart of the difference I agree. If I have a subscription I'm more... driven, irritable with problems, eager to get in enough fun for the month, etc..
I would have bought a lifetime subscription to WoW in a heartbeat back when I was playing it. I easily paid for more than that anyways. If they had let me they'd still have me logging in and improving their community every so often. Oh well.
Maybe there's hope for their next MMO. Or someone else's. As long as they don't do it like Champions Online did, with no confidence in their product and as if they were just selling betas for the next thing they were cooking up.
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