Lord of the Rings: Online or Runes of Magic?

[Baratheon]

I downloaded both and started playing yesterday and found them pretty entertaining (so far). I can't afford to play WoW anymore, so I am trying to find the best free-to-play MMO in the market right now. I'm in-between Runes of Magic and LOTRO. I'm not into the whole "Anime/Asian" style MMOs, so I'm leaning a little towards LOTRO but, ROM is almost a copy cat of WoW (which I like).

My biggest question is even though they are (free-to-play) nothing is ever really free. I know if I get more involved in the MMOs I'm currently pursuing will eventually need to put down some money to further advance in the game. My question is which one is cheaper down the road?

Also, which one has better value? Will i get my money's worth more out of RoM or LOTRO?

Thanks.

[Valeron]

I've never played RoM but if you plan to play Lotro for a while you are going to have to pay money to open up content at some point if you wish to progress.

[KCguy]

Well, I've only tried LOTRO when it switch to F2P and it was enjoyable for a little while. That being said, both are free, try them. If both cost money, then this poll would be more helpful to you, but since they aren't, download them and see.

[Baratheon]

For me, LotRO definitely. RoM seems to be just a free copy of WoW, why not play the original instead?

Remember then, LotRO isn't actually "free", you'll have to work really hard in the game if you wish to open everything without paying anything to Turbine. It's still possible though (probably excluding latest expansions).

Is it worth it? The price compared to the content?

[Curanhadin]

I have RoM i bought in the store even though you can download for free buying it in the box got me items ingame i woulda ended paying for anyways. I find it to be pretty fun now and again. I dont play a whole lot ussually only when i want a break from WoW. RoM is possible to play without ever spending a dime as there are people willing to buy or sell diamonds for gold. But from what Ive seen with buying the box set all the items Id consider must buy like a permanent mount come included most of the items you would need money for are vanity and if you want to farm the gold which is pretty easy to do can be traded from other players. I havent played LotRO but from what ive read you would pretty much have to spend real money on order to really play the game and with RoM I dont think you would ever have to spend a dime to do everything.

[Baratheon]

Thank you for the info. This helped a lot.

[Kelimbror]

To give you further clarification:

LotRO has a very solid foundation when it comes to it being F2P. You get points for doing just about everything possible. The story is obviously awesome, even if it doesn't always make sense based on what you know of the books. The graphics and design are still amazing compared to many games that are far newer. There are a lot of breah taking places in LotRO.

It will be very very hard to never spend any money, but the good news is that if you buy points once, you unlock a lot of features permanently. You go from a free member to a VIP/freemium if memory serves corerctly. It gives you a lot of QOL features that are needed to enjoy any MMO. This includes removing the gold cap, additional bag slots, etc.

It is a better value for content that you get if you can at least spend $30 up front on some points and only play one character. If you are looking to have lots of alts, this will not work without a sub or lots of cash. I will also tell you that Best Buy takes a lot of used merchandise these days, in which the store credit can be used to purchase Turbine Pts with the cards.

So if you have any used junk (mp3 players/games/etc) you can trade them in for some upgrades in LotRO (or other freemium games)

[Baratheon]

To give you further clarification:

LotRO has a very solid foundation when it comes to it being F2P. You get points for doing just about everything possible. The story is obviously awesome, even if it doesn't always make sense based on what you know of the books. The graphics and design are still amazing compared to many games that are far newer. There are a lot of breah taking places in LotRO.

It will be very very hard to never spend any money, but the good news is that if you buy points once, you unlock a lot of features permanently. You go from a free member to a VIP/freemium if memory serves corerctly. It gives you a lot of QOL features that are needed to enjoy any MMO. This includes removing the gold cap, additional bag slots, etc.

It is a better value for content that you get if you can at least spend $30 up front on some points and only play one character. If you are looking to have lots of alts, this will not work without a sub or lots of cash. I will also tell you that Best Buy takes a lot of used merchandise these days, in which the store credit can be used to purchase Turbine Pts with the cards.

So if you have any used junk (mp3 players/games/etc) you can trade them in for some upgrades in LotRO (or other freemium games)

Oh cool. ty. I didn't know Best Buy did that.

[wildemu]

LOTRO already hit its peak 2-3 years ago with the Mines of Moria expansion. It's received rubbish support since then, and a large amount of the original fanbase have ditched them. They've become more about deriving cash from its customers rather than producing quality content, another company comes to mind as well.

[Pachycrocuta]

I would personally go with LOTRO. I am playing it right now, and I found it loads better than RoM. Yes, it's better if you spend at least a little money. It's usually suggested that you pay for a single month of sub time, and create the characters that you want (unlocks all the bags and removes gold cap on those characters), and it gives you 500 turbine points free, and when the sub ends, you get bumped to Premium from free. But, you can play the entire game without spending a single dime if you really go for the Deed (achievement) grinding. And believe me, it is a massive grind. You can unlock your first "quest pack" from just doing the deeds in the first 4 zones (Bree-land, Shire, Ered Luin, Lone Lands) that doesn't count any of the group deeds in the Barrows of Bree-land. That's with just 1 character, and will take you to about level 34 or so. And it doesn't count any racial and class deeds you end up completing either. They also have sales on various things in the store each thursday (quest pack sale going on right now).

But, they have been getting quite a bit of flack from the player-base recently. They aren't the greatest at fixing things (many bugs have been around for 6 months or more), and like many companies with free to play games, they seem to focus more on the cash shop/micro-transactions than they do on the actual game, and the game itself seems to suffer a lot because of it. And some decisions they make seem to be "WTF?"

[Pachycrocuta]

Do you know how it works for ex-players? I had the base game and the Mines of Moria expansion, I used the free time and I think I paid for one month then stopped playing

I want to make a new character to start from scratch again.

---------- Post added 2012-07-16 at 11:29 PM ----------

sigh, never mind - I didn't convert my account to turbine.

What a waste ..

Yeah, I take it you are EU, and had a Codemasters version. They gave a time limit on converting codemasters to turbine to keep your old account. But, to answer your question above the edit, you would be considered a Premium account since you had purchased a Mines of Moria expansion, and all your old characters would have had the gold cap removed and the 5 bags and the other stuff that Premium accounts get. But starting a brand new character from scratch wouldn't give you any of the benefits your old characters had, but still get the Premium account benefits.

[Anaralah]

Sadly i cant stand movement in Lotro , i forced myself to try to play the game many times as a LotR lover but that movement was just too much everytime and i am not a person that cares that much about animations or movement in games , usually i am not even aware of such issues in games but even i could not force myself to play it

Also i am sure you will have to pay some money to unlock contend as only 1 or 2 leveling zones are available after mini starting zones , and deeds are pain in the ass , they are mostly things like "use this ability xxx times" or "kill yyy of that kind of mob"

I really would have loved to be able to play this game but it just sits installed on my hard drive never to be touched

For the note i played up to lvl 24 most and that was a lorekeeper , i loved the idea behind the classes like lorekeeper, burglar or captain reminding me of guild wars' support/control system

[Baratheon]

Sadly i cant stand movement in Lotro , i forced myself to try to play the game many times as a LotR lover but that movement was just too much everytime and i am not a person that cares that much about animations or movement in games , usually i am not even aware of such issues in games but even i could not force myself to play it

Also i am sure you will have to pay some money to unlock contend as only 1 or 2 leveling zones are available after mini starting zones , and deeds are pain in the ass , they are mostly things like "use this ability xxx times" or "kill yyy of that kind of mob"

I really would have loved to be able to play this game but it just sits installed on my hard drive never to be touched

For the note i played up to lvl 24 most and that was a lorekeeper , i loved the idea behind the classes like lorekeeper, burglar or captain reminding me of guild wars' support/control system

Yea, I'm not very impressed with the overall character designs but the environment/world is pretty damn impressive and definitely surpasses the shortcomings of the character designs for me.

[wildemu]

Just because the original fanbase have left doesn't mean the game is dieing. Threads that show interest in the game such as this are essential for it to continue, I'm actually pretty tempted to try it again now

I'm not even talking about it dying, I am saying that the quality of the game right now and going forward isn't the same as what it used to be. I am giving my opinion on it as I played it off and on, and quite frankly, your idea suggests there should never be any negative feedback on the forums because it will harm the game's popularity.

I am just calling it as it is, the isengard and mirkwood expansions were small, grindy, and didn't contain enough content to sustain interest across a year. I am warning potential customers that you can enjoy the ride to max level, but once you get there, there really isn't much to do. And you may have a different opinion on it, but when you can buy gear in the shop that will improve your characters over others who are just playing the game normally, that's where I cross the line and say this company isn't getting my money anymore.

[Pachycrocuta]

Installed the games from the discs, launcher can't connect to update though.

Tried everything on their support page for it, still doesn't work.

~
It's because it's EU discs, so I have to download the whole game from their website? No thanks, way too large considering I only wanted to play it for a few hours.. what a way to spend the last few hours

Well, its an 8 gig download, and took me about 2 hours to download.

[Fencers]

Runes of Magic is a massive pay-2-win game. If you can deal with the insane bugs and the dependance on the cash shop ROM's gameplay is fantastic.

[Kelimbror]

Well, its an 8 gig download, and took me about 2 hours to download.

Not to mention that it is also available on steam. I find that downloading the complete client from a file sharing site is the most effective anyways. If you try the official installs it uses Pando Media Booster which for all intents and purposes to me, the worst kind of garbage you could have on your computer. Not to mention that it goes slow as mess with it.

I used fileplanet and it took about an hour for the whole thing, then about 30 more minutes to patch once it ran.

[Pachycrocuta]

And do what Kittyvicious said. Download it off of steam, if you have that. Probably is the better choice to get it.