THE
LOTRO STORE ARRIVES IN MIDDLE EARTH
href="http://tentonhammer.com/lotro">The Lord
of the Rings
Online
free-to-play has been up and
running on all servers for about a week now, and after a bit of a rocky
start it looks like things have more or less smoothed out.
The first few days of the
head-start for subscribers saw a
number of database-related issues - lifetimers and founders were
initially missing their loyalty reward points, and the LotRO Store was
taken offline for a little while until some issues got sorted out on
Turbine's end. There were also issues with some returning
players unable to access their accounts, or having their access levels
(Free, Premium, VIP) miscalculated.
Since the transition from
subscription to free-to-play was a major undertaking, it was only
natural that there would be a few such problems, but Turbine has been
and still is working hard to get people where they should be so that
they can keep playing.
The LotRO Store: Access It
Everywhere. Seriously, Everywhere.
One of the bigger changes for
old-timers is the addition of
the LotRO store. Those who have played Turbine's
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/ddo">Dungeons
and Dragons
Online
are
already familiar with this concept, and it isn't terribly different in
LotRO. Players can buy pretty much anything from the store - character
slots, expansion packs, permanent stat boosts, cosmetic items, et
cetera. Turbine really wants its players to use this
feature, and have made a great effort to make it available through as
many avenues as possible which we'll look at in more detail below.
The tongue-in-cheek television
ad campaign promoting the free-to-play launch for LotRO boldly
proclaims, “You shall not pay!” And while this may
be entirely true when it comes to getting into the core game, Turbine
has certainly given players ample opportunities to pay through the
newly added LotRO store. There's even a giant button for it on
the completely-redesigned character selection screen, so you can buy
new things before you ever set foot in the game.
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/89620">
alt="LotRO Store Button at Character Selection"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/89620/preview"
width="620">
Giant
button on character selection screen allows you to purchase
account-bound (rather than character-bound) items
before even entering
the game.
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Once you log in, there's
an ever-present store button on the
end of the toolbar, allowing you to access the store from anywhere in
the game.
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Since virtues can now be
ranked up by purchased upgrades, any
virtue that is lower than rank 10 can be clicked on to open the store.
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Don't have that swift
ride to wherever yet? No problem.
The button to unlock it (by purchasing an upgrade at the
store) is even more visible than the Ride button. The Unlock Travel
button opens the store and allows the player to purchase swift travel
destinations.
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Got a slayer deed you've
been working on forever and wish
there was a way to accelerate your progress (crawler-slayer in
Trollshaws comes immediately to mind)? Now there is, and
there's a handy button for it. The
Accelerate button opens the store and allows the player to purchase a
double kill-count item for completing slayer deeds faster.
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Additional vault storage
space is just a click away. Vault
space sells in 15-slot increments and are for one character only.
Shared storage sells in 10-slot increments and affects shared
storage for all toons on that account on all servers.
And, of course, the moment you
get more points, you are
immediately encouraged to spend them. A gold coin
notification pops up in the alerts panel, and clicking it brings this
up:
alt="Notification of newly-earned Turbine Points"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/89619/preview">
There is even a low-level quest
to show the player how the
store works. It can be done only once per server, and rewards
the player with 10 Turbine Points - which must be immediately spent on
a nifty horn similar to a Champion's horn in order to complete the
tutorial quest.
And these are for VIP accounts.
Free accounts have
even more ways to spend their Turbine Points. But, since free
accounts have only very limited access to the game and all its
features, and all of the stuff that separates Free accounts from Premium can be purchased through the store,
this sort of makes sense. For example, free players start
with only three inventory
bags. At low levels, this is not often an issue, but at
higher levels, when players need to carry lots of potions, food, class
tools, crafting supplies and various other sundries, those other bags
are sorely needed.
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Here you can see the
Free-to-play
toolbar with locked inventory bags and store-bought horn quest reward.
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/89646/preview">
LotRO
Store Best-Sellers
Now that you've seen some of the numerous ways which the LotRO Store can be accessed within the game, let's take a brief look at some of the store's more notable offerings. Currently, the top 8
most-popular
items are:
-
Tome
of Vitality:
Upgrade I
- Provides a
permanent, +10 boost to the character's Vitality score. Cost
is 495 points. -
Tome
of Will: Upgrade I -
Provides a permanent,
+10 boost to the character's Will score. Cost is 495 points. -
Tome
of Might: Upgrade I -
Provides a permanent,
+10 boost to the character's Might score. Cost is 495 points. -
Riding
Skill - Grants the
basic riding skill needed to use
regular mounts (not required for the slow, starter horses). Cost is 195
points. -
Shared
Storage (20 Slots) -
Creates a storage space that is
shared across all characters on the server, with 20 slots. This is the
same as the shared storage available to those who bought the Siege of
Mirkwood Adventurer's Pack. The cost for the initial 20 slots
is 1036 points. Additional shared storage is also available, and if you
already have shared storage, upgrades come in 10-slot increments. Shared storage and any subsequent upgrades, when purchased, is available to every toon on every server, though it cannot be used to transfer items from one server to another. If you're an alt-junkie, this extra space comes in handy. -
Quest
Pack: Lone-lands -
Grants access to quests in the
Lone-lands region - over 100 quests and 3 instances for level 22-32.
Cost is 350 points. -
Elf-queen's
Dress - A fancy
cosmetic dress not available
anywhere else. Cost is 195 points. -
Hauberk
of Rhun - A handsome
cosmetic hauberk not available
anywhere else. Cost is 195 points.
alt="LotRO Store Best Sellers"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/89615"> style="font-size: 8pt; text-align: center;">LotRO
Store Bestsellers
Popularity doesn't necessarily
equal value, however. Free
accounts will probably want to save up their hard-earned points to
purchase more quest packs before anything else, as these are rather
expensive. It takes a lot of deed-grinding to earn 350 points
- completing a Bree-land, Shire or Ered Luin slayer deed, for example,
requires killing 90 creatures of a given type to get the title and the
virtue, and completing both halves earns you 15 points. A
player would need to complete 24 slayer deeds to earn enough points to
purchase the Lone-lands quest pack, which is a lot of bugs, wolves and
goblins.
Serious-minded free players
will want to keep this
in mind and conserve their Turbine Points for things that will provide
long-term gains rather than burn them on fluff and things that can be
earned through other means. VIPs, who get 500 free points
every month, can afford to be a bit more cavalier with their Turbine
Points, and it's these folks that you will more likely see running
around wearing neat outfits and using the /drive emote.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Lord of the Rings Online Game Page.
