There's a FAQ on the official LOTRO site that might answer some questions.

And in that FAQ, there's a link to this:

All the details about the features and benefits of Free players, Premium players, and VIPs, are listed HERE.

Sounds like the usual F2P limitations on inventory space, character slots, chat, AH, etc. But, yeah, like mlw said, I think every server will be F2P so you can use your exiting characters.

StingingVelvet wrote on Sep 5, 2010, 17:09:
POINTLESS NEGATIVITY RAWR!!!

Will you stifle yourself!

(in response to your Archie Bunker comment)

Is this another Asian grind fest?

The actual gameplay videos don't look nearly as exciting as this trailer. I like the idea of a third person shooter MMO, but from what I've seen of the mechanics of Tera, it comes down to two things--attack and move--just like a console game. In fact, it looked like everyone playing in the videos was using a gamepad to play because they would turn and run, not just back up, and not strafe around the enemy in a circle. I never seen anyone use a defensive spell, not visually anyway, and never seen anyone block an enemy's attack.

The DNF preview didn't really say too much. Being limited to carrying two weapons at once? I don't really like the sound of that. He didn't mention anything about regenerating health--or is that just common knowledge now so no need mentioning it? I was assuming he was playing the game on a PC, but looking at the screenshots, when he moused over a gun turret it said "use" with a blue X button icon.

Hellbinder wrote on Sep 2, 2010, 21:57:
None of you have any character at all. none of you.

you guys are a disgrace..

Wow, how did I know you would say something like that? Oh, I know!

This kind of thinking is utterly LAME.

you guys and gals are a product of modern society.
completely and utterly amoral wich makes you utterly immoral and incapable of sound judgement.

i hope you get the picture now.

Tron You are a cluelesss fool.

I’m just going to say it. Virtually every last one of you is pathetic.

creston and the rest. wake up and pull your heads out.

You guys as usual are complete and utter tools.

I swear you morons make me insane.

It is amazing to me how every single day you blues newsers waste no time in showing your ignorance and mean spirited stupidity.

Why anyone would take anything you dim wits post on this sits is beyond me. You are all a bunch of self important, short sighted, snarky, ignorant jerks.

You all need to wake up and stop being such a bunch of losers.

Schmuck.

You are a deprived product of a deprived world. just like Tiger Woods, only worse.

A lot of you guys are beligerent foul mouthed losers.

You guys can say what you like but your brains are already warped.

I have come to the conclusion that 99% of Bluesnews posters are just flipping RETARDED.

To even say something that STUPID shows how pathetic our society has gotten.

What does Christ have to do with your stupid video games or personal insults?
Laugh and scoff all you want. Your day is coming.
Believe it.

you guys for the most part are a bunch of damn idiots. Seriously.

It is still unbelievable the level most of you have sunk to. A bunchy of foul mouthed self important rude jerks.

That is without a doubt one of the STUPIDEST posts I have ever read.

Funny how no body thinks its even odd anymore that most youth and adults are completely foul mouthed, vulgar and rude.

Wake up to how you act and think and see the truth.

It is absolutely ridiculous how immature you creeps are. Seriously most of you need to be taken out back and get the living daylights beat out of you.

You are nothing but a little gang of punks.

And that's only the first 2 of 18 pages of insults coming from you. I hope this puts things in perspective. How about you take your own advice:

Seriously.. do some self evaluation.

Kind of ridiculous. Aren't the armed forces fighting for FREEDOM? The freedom for Americans to play the Taliban in a game if they so choose?

Ant wrote on Sep 2, 2010, 19:58:
Or like hardcore in Diablo 2. :)

LOL Yeah.. No, I can't see myself playing an MMORPG like that. I think there's been one or two games over the years I've seen mention it, although I'm not sure if any actually released with it implemented. I don't even like the sound of full loot PVP games like Mortal Online. What's the point!

Carcifier wrote on Sep 2, 2010, 01:15:
The real problem arises on large raids. I can recall several times dying on a raid and being unable to get my body back.

Yeah, hadn't really considered that.. but you couldn't have a necro summon? I think summon corpse was a fairly high level spell and required a somewhat expensive reagent.

I really liked how death was something to be feared in EQ1 and I wish there was that same element in modern games. I guess that's wishful thinking since even EQ1 got rid of it.

I played this for several hours during the beta. They may have changed things since, but from my limited experience Frijoles is right about not being able to see anything. You can walk around not knowing where you are, where you are going or where you have been because the whole world pretty much looks the same no matter where you are. I had to keep asking myself while walking around--have I been here before? How did I get here? Or more importantly, how do I get somewhere else? It's nearly impossible to backtrack to another area where you may have seen something you wanted to check out. There are, on occasion, objects that stick out from the terrain that I'm guessing were built by other players. The game lacked any type of tutorial or tooltips at that time so I couldn't figure out how to do anything.

It's like having a lobotomy with the piece of brain removed that allows you to recognize your surroundings. It was a terrible experience and I wouldn't pay money to see it again.

Carcifier wrote on Sep 1, 2010, 15:46:
I still can't believe how much crap I put up with losing gear in the original game and all the headaches resulting from the idiotic death and exp penalties.

Yeah, I played EQ1 around the time when it was first released and resubbed several times over the years. I've never lost my corpse--always ran back to it. Once I couldn't find it and had a necro summon it for me. I lost a lot of time on corpse runs though. Sometimes bound extremely far from where I died and having to wait for a boat too.

From what I understand, it isn't like that any more and they made the game much easier. You can get the items from your corpse through shrines. They have portals instead of waiting for the boats. Fast regen. These are all things I've heard through other people as I haven't actually played it for quite a number of years. I loaded it up for a few minutes when they offered some free game time, but I just couldn't bring myself to do much. Doesn't look like they improved the terrible interface--either that or I couldn't find the option to switch to a better UI. heh

The restrictions seem quite fair to me. The only one that is bothersome to me so far, is not being able sell stuff in the auction house.

Must be difficult to make money if you can't use the AH. I tried to use the OOC channel and couldn't with free account.

I haven't gotten around to really trying EQ2X yet, but I did load it up. I was surprised at how well the "download content as you play" works. I thought I was going to have to spend several hours downloading the client until I would be able to do anything, but it literally look me less than a minute before I could click the play button and begin character creation. Last time I tried LOTRO, I spent over 24 hours downloading the client.

Doesn't look like they let you transfer your F2P character to a pay server if you ever decide to sub. I thought that was the whole idea of it, but I see now it's all about a totally separate game relying on micro-transactions.

Acleacius wrote on Aug 31, 2010, 21:34:
Uninstalled this after trying the first weekend of f2p, maybe the worst f2p plan ever.

What didn't you like about it? Too many restrictions? I actually thought the F2P players were on the same servers as the paid players, but I can see that's not the case after reading this wiki. I might still spend a day downloading it to play it for a few hours and see what I'm NOT missing.

Does anyone still play this? I did my typical 3-4 week thing some years back where I lose interest before I even get out of the free trial. Tempted to install it since it's free and see how it runs on better hardware. I remember the graphics looking pretty good at full settings, but it was totally unplayable. I think I had to play at somewhat minimal settings for acceptable frame rate.

A lot of people liked the crafting mini-game. Just made crafting seem like an even bigger waste of time than the typical "press combine" deal to me. I think I would have preferred the EQ1 crafting interface over it. lol

One letter that stuck out for me was a guy who said the songwriting royalties he had depended on to 'be a golden parachute to fund his retirement had turned out to be a lead balloon.

Which, of course, could be due to a number of variables. Perhaps songwriting just isn't as profitable as it once had been. Time to move on, join reality and find a new job like the rest of us.

Smallwood says he's spent more than 20,000 hours playing the multiplayer online role-playing game since 2004.

That's like playing 24 hours a day for 833 days (2.28 years) all within a timespan of 6 years. Seems absurd.. especially for a game as terrible as Lineage 2.

I bet what really happened was his childhood left him emotionally scarred with a low self-esteem due to that last name. He should have sued his parents.

Fang wrote on Aug 30, 2010, 22:57:
If you want a Netflix device, you could consider getting a Roku device. They are only $99 on Amazon. I've been debating about getting one of those or another Xbox for my main TV.

I have a Roku. It's "okay", but the software seems to have a few minor bugs. I just wish it could play media off a PC, that's it's biggest flaw. If you don't need Wireless-N, you can get their $70 model with 802.11b/g.

The XBL price may only be $10 more, but I didn't agree with the prices to begin with.. Not when you have to be subjected to ads injected into the UI. I mean, it isn't enough they charge $130 for a 250gb proprietary HD? $80 for a wireless adapter? You can't modify your UI unless you pay them for pre-made themes? The whole 360 business model just sucks ass for the consumer. XBL is like an amusement park and an amusement park is nothing more than a guise--a marketing gimmick. You pay to get in, pay for the rides, and you're subjected to marketing between the rides to get you to part with more of your money. I'm not saying I blame a business for trying to make money, but there's a difference between paying a fair price for something and being gouged. Everything related to the 360 is overpriced, yet people just accept that and pay the price.

It isn't really just about an extra $10.

Shred wrote on Aug 30, 2010, 21:24:
It's a shame when they ship games with DLC already included on the disc and you are paying to simply 'unlock' it.

Yeah, it's called DLC not CLD (Content Located on Disc)! Really hating this DLC trend. I feel bad for console gamers who pay a premium for the game and then every DLC. At least PC gamers can get a good deal off of Steam.

kanniballl wrote on Aug 30, 2010, 15:02:
I really enjoyed "The Office" for a couple of seasons. I can't stand it anymore, I don't know if I'm tired of Steve Carrell or the show in its entirety but I just can't sit through it anymore.

I thought The Office was great in the first couple seasons, but it has gotten really stale. I think the show would be much better if they would drop the whole "documentary" premise. Why would there be people filming a documentary for so many years? And then all the times where questions were being asked by corporate.. why do they need to ask anything at all when they have the entire thing on tape?? None of it makes any sense. It's especially annoying when people look directly into the camera.

DangerDog wrote on Aug 30, 2010, 14:54:
I can only watch comedy TV shows that don't have a laugh track.

THIS!! I can't stand laugh tracks and I refuse to watch any show that has one. I don't need a cue to laugh. I don't need to be told, "This is funny." Are there people who could actually be laughing as much as this laugh track implies? Come on! Laugh tracks are loud, obnoxious, annoying and completely unnecessary. Producers need to wake up.

Stormsinger wrote on Aug 28, 2010, 01:14:
I'm still trying to figure out the name. What the hell does Parkour have to do with Mick Jagger and time travel?

Time travel? I think it's because it takes place in New Jack City from 1991 starring Wesley Snipes and Ice-T.

Smell-O-Vision? The technology they have been talking about for the past 50 years? Would be great if you could digitize your own scents. The rickrolling possibilities are endless.