Euro LOTRO free-to-play relaunch dated

By Robert Purchese Published 29 October, 2010

Next week Samwise to you?

The European free-to-play relaunch of The Lord of the Rings Online will happen on Tuesday, 2nd November, Eurogamer can exclusively reveal.

Mandatory monthly subscriptions will be dropped and replaced by three tiers of membership - VIP (has a monthly fee), Premium and Free - and a LOTRO Store. There you can buy expansion packs, premium add-ons, thousands of convenience items, additional character slots, potions and character customisation options. The LOTRO Store works within the game.

The free-to-play overhaul introduces other new features, too: a new Wardrobe storage system for cosmetic items, an updated character creation system, a revamped new player experience and redesign for the vintage dungeons of the world, which will become not only repeatable, but feature scalable content to keep the challenge fresh.

Eurogamer logged in to explore a free-to-play Lord of the Rings Online in August.

Coinciding with all this will be the arrival of meaty update Volume III, Book 2: Ride of the Grey Company. Join the elves of Rivendell as they form the Grey Company and venture into new region Enedwaith. And join alone, as Book 2 contains 15 solo chapters to work through.

On top of all that, The Harvest Festival is back in town. Gather near Bree where those fat hobbitses reside and bob for apples, pick pumpkins and explore a haunted hobbit house.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (17) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • CoopLK #1 2 years ago

    about time :)

  • butler` #2 2 years ago

    good news, was googling this earlier to no avail

    little did i know the eurogamer mastermind was arranging some 'exclusive' link bait

  • Mkwone #3 2 years ago

    So am i right in thinking i can play the whole game without needing to pay, or is it up to to a certain part that's free and then you pay?

  • levitate #4 2 years ago

    Great news! I might actually consider dusting off my old boxed copy of the game and install it. I receive my new 1TB harddrive on Tuesday so the timing couldn't be better. 160gb only gets you so far when you're a gamer. :p

    Then again, I've pre-ordered Football Manager 2011 so I'm not sure how I'm gonna solve that little "problem".

  • levitate #5 2 years ago

    @Mkwone

    Check their website. They have excellent information about the tiered memberships.

  • iokthemonkey #6 2 years ago

    Only 2 months late...

    Mkwone - you can play all the quests up to level 20 for free. After that you have to buy quest packs or level-up by completing Deeds (achievements) - i.e. kill 200 Wargs, etc.

  • NunianVonFuch #7 2 years ago

    Excellent. Getting this for sure. WoW is fun, but having to pay twice to chill in the game with my gf - no thanks!

  • Benno #8 2 years ago

    chill in the game with your girlfriend?

    i remember back when this was all fields, couples used to have sex

  • StolenGlory #9 2 years ago

    @Benno.

    That is what Goldshire is for.

  • argus_raphite #10 2 years ago

    @iokthemonkey

    That's not completely true, as I understand, the Epic Quest Line will be free, so as long as you're following that, the appropriate area's will open up as you complete them.

    [link url=http://www.codemasters.com/lotro/freetoplay/faq/
    ]http://www.codemasters.com/lotro/freetop...[/link]

    "As a Free player, you have access to Middle-earth, the greatest fantasy world ever created, and you can play LOTRO’s award-winning Epic Story up to level 50!"

    :)

  • rottingbadger #11 2 years ago

    that subtitle pun is truely horrific...

  • iokthemonkey #12 2 years ago

    Yeah, sorry - I forgot the Epic line. However, from what I understood you'd still need to buy quest packs for those particular areas - in other words, you can explore Moria, etc but you need to buy the quests for each zone.

    It matters not to me, as I'm a Lifer and get it all for free anyway, but I think there's still a good whack of free content in there anyway.

  • argus_raphite #13 2 years ago

    yeah, thats what it sounds like to me too.

    And ditto, proud to be a founder/lifetime subscriber guy :D

  • organica #14 2 years ago

    Right on time, as my computer has gone belly up. Not that I particularly cared about the F2P side, but I have been looking forward to the Captain updates...

  • Gearskin #15 2 years ago

    I might get back into this

  • tenebrae #16 2 years ago

    Correct. If you choose to go non-VIP, you use the store to pay-as-you-go instead of a monthly subscription. What is completely free are the starter zone quests (Bree-land, Shire, Ered Luin) and some other stuff, as explained behind the link posted above, on the "information" page. Beyond those zones, your access is not restricted at all, but you have no quests available beyond the Epic Questline - you have to buy zone-specific quest packs.

    At the moment, you cannot enter either of the expansion areas, Moria or Mirkwood, without buying the said expansion, but it seems they'll be getting the treatement next year - you will be able to enter, but don't get any quests. I'm not sure how they plan to handle the level cap after that. The present scheme is, your default cap is 50, if you buy Moria expansion it rises to 60 and buying Mirkwood after that raises it to 65. (Incidentally, the free starter zone quests will get you to about level 25.)

    And to point out a small mistake in the article: while the Grey Company will gather at Rivendell, the elf-home, but it is made up of thirty-plus Rangers of the North (that is, humans) and the sons of Elrond (who are half-elves both). Oh, there're more than 31 Rangers in the Company, but not all will of them make it to Aragorn.

  • levitate #17 2 years ago

    Well, today's the day. I've already made sure I've reinstalled the game (took me two days) so now I'm ready to try it out again.

    Who knows, maybe I get stuck into it this time!