For those of us who have never played LoTRO. Perhaps you can explain further. Simply saying it is the best, without any additional explanation, offers little to anyone.
OK.
1) You get 3 "costume sets" for free. You can buy more via the in-game store.
2) One of those "sets" is your actual gear, but you can hide certain elements (cloak, helmet and boots (very popular with Hobbits you know)).
3) The other two "costumes" are purely cosmetic, you can equip any item in to them. Each account has a "shared wardrobe" (bought via the store) and can share items in there. So for example my Lore-Master (Wizard) can wear my Captain's (plate wearing healer/buffer) full plate armour set cosmetically. When you pick up a new piece of gear if it is not usable by your class you can get it in to the Wardrobe by sending (shared normal storage - bought via the store) it to a toon that can equip it, then add it to your wardrobe.
EDIT: There are, literally, hundreds of purely cosmetic items in the game, some drop from random loot, many are available from the different "Armour and Faction Vendors" some are only available through the Store. Nearly all actual gear (armour) is also useable cosmetically. This gives literally thousands of potential combinations for cosmetic gear and it is rare to see even two "identically" dressed toons (except those wanting to show off their latest high tier raid set). So varied are the options that it is possible to turn off "floaty names" and still recognise people. Most players eventually find a "look" for their toon that they stick with, and it is rarely the same as anyone else's.
Each in game faction, which you can earn Reputation with has "gated" Cosmetics only available to those with the highest Rep rating - which adds replayability, because just completing the normal quests in each faction zone isn't always enough to reach max Rep, so players with grind for Rep Items, of complete Instances that reward faction rep to unlock those cosmetics (and Mounts).
4) Dye: Scholar crafting profession makes these from gathered mats. Some a relatively cheap to make, some require special plant components (gathered via the Farming profession). Each Dye can dye on object.
5) Items in your wardrobe can be dyed multiple times at once. So I can have an item of clothing in my wardrobe that has "Default, Red, Blue, Black, Umber, Sienna" etc, when I go to equip it I get a samll drop down menu so I can choose what colour version of it I want to equip. All in all there are about 30 different colours available, including a plain "washed" no colour option. For several expansion now most dropped loot items are found in the default "washed" colour.
EDIT: Once an item is in your wardrobe you can vendor / dump the actual item, as the Wardrobe Copy is just a cosmetic copy, and loses all stats etc.
6) Each costume set can be hot-keyed so that you can swap between them without needing to bring up the character panel.
Why is this better?
It gives the player more initial choices, and once players have some choice they want more.
As a VIP I got 20 Wardrobe slots for free. But when I went Free-To-Play it locked my wardrobe. So I earned in-game credit (equivalent to Zen but without the cumbersome and artificially costly aspect of having to convert AD to Zen) to unlock it again. Then spend real money to add extra slots. Think I have 40 now. I have 7 toons each with 3 costumes, some have more for which I paid real money.
Because some of the Dyes are costly - in terms of time - to get materials to make (some require critical farming results to get just one ingredient, and you'll need 6 or 7 for a full set of dyes if you want to color co-ordinate the whole gear-set) the Dyes are also available via the Store - but for quite low costs (about 1/5th the equivalent Zen Store costs). So players regularly buy Dyes to change their gear, because it is just a few pence/cents.
Cryptic/PWE model seems to be price it high and sell a few, Turbine's is price it cheap and sell thousands.
When LOTRO went free to play, despite their average store-costs being approximately 1/5th that of Cryptic/PWE they managed to almost treble the monthly revenue stream.
Here, I have to pay significant sums of money (in relation to a Monthly sub) to get very basic choices - in effect I am incentivised to learn to do without those choices.
Turbine give you the basic choices for free, then for relatively small sums of money (in relation to a Monthly Sub) let you expand those choices as far as you want to take them - in effect I am incentivised to experiment with those choices.
Even as F2P LOTRO player I was spending the equivalent of a Monthly Sub on Turbine Points (their Zen) a month.
I have been playing since Open Beta and have so far only been incentivised to pay €4.99 for more character slots.
So which is best? €4.99 in three months, or €9.99 a month. In fact so diverse are the options that even as a VIP player (€9.99 month sub) I occasionally spent more money on TP, even though I got free TP with my monthly sub.
Comments
You must have more money than sense (blue text under name)
OK.
1) You get 3 "costume sets" for free. You can buy more via the in-game store.
2) One of those "sets" is your actual gear, but you can hide certain elements (cloak, helmet and boots (very popular with Hobbits you know)).
3) The other two "costumes" are purely cosmetic, you can equip any item in to them. Each account has a "shared wardrobe" (bought via the store) and can share items in there. So for example my Lore-Master (Wizard) can wear my Captain's (plate wearing healer/buffer) full plate armour set cosmetically. When you pick up a new piece of gear if it is not usable by your class you can get it in to the Wardrobe by sending (shared normal storage - bought via the store) it to a toon that can equip it, then add it to your wardrobe.
EDIT: There are, literally, hundreds of purely cosmetic items in the game, some drop from random loot, many are available from the different "Armour and Faction Vendors" some are only available through the Store. Nearly all actual gear (armour) is also useable cosmetically. This gives literally thousands of potential combinations for cosmetic gear and it is rare to see even two "identically" dressed toons (except those wanting to show off their latest high tier raid set). So varied are the options that it is possible to turn off "floaty names" and still recognise people. Most players eventually find a "look" for their toon that they stick with, and it is rarely the same as anyone else's.
Each in game faction, which you can earn Reputation with has "gated" Cosmetics only available to those with the highest Rep rating - which adds replayability, because just completing the normal quests in each faction zone isn't always enough to reach max Rep, so players with grind for Rep Items, of complete Instances that reward faction rep to unlock those cosmetics (and Mounts).
4) Dye: Scholar crafting profession makes these from gathered mats. Some a relatively cheap to make, some require special plant components (gathered via the Farming profession). Each Dye can dye on object.
5) Items in your wardrobe can be dyed multiple times at once. So I can have an item of clothing in my wardrobe that has "Default, Red, Blue, Black, Umber, Sienna" etc, when I go to equip it I get a samll drop down menu so I can choose what colour version of it I want to equip. All in all there are about 30 different colours available, including a plain "washed" no colour option. For several expansion now most dropped loot items are found in the default "washed" colour.
EDIT: Once an item is in your wardrobe you can vendor / dump the actual item, as the Wardrobe Copy is just a cosmetic copy, and loses all stats etc.
6) Each costume set can be hot-keyed so that you can swap between them without needing to bring up the character panel.
Why is this better?
It gives the player more initial choices, and once players have some choice they want more.
As a VIP I got 20 Wardrobe slots for free. But when I went Free-To-Play it locked my wardrobe. So I earned in-game credit (equivalent to Zen but without the cumbersome and artificially costly aspect of having to convert AD to Zen) to unlock it again. Then spend real money to add extra slots. Think I have 40 now. I have 7 toons each with 3 costumes, some have more for which I paid real money.
Because some of the Dyes are costly - in terms of time - to get materials to make (some require critical farming results to get just one ingredient, and you'll need 6 or 7 for a full set of dyes if you want to color co-ordinate the whole gear-set) the Dyes are also available via the Store - but for quite low costs (about 1/5th the equivalent Zen Store costs). So players regularly buy Dyes to change their gear, because it is just a few pence/cents.
Cryptic/PWE model seems to be price it high and sell a few, Turbine's is price it cheap and sell thousands.
When LOTRO went free to play, despite their average store-costs being approximately 1/5th that of Cryptic/PWE they managed to almost treble the monthly revenue stream.
Here, I have to pay significant sums of money (in relation to a Monthly sub) to get very basic choices - in effect I am incentivised to learn to do without those choices.
Turbine give you the basic choices for free, then for relatively small sums of money (in relation to a Monthly Sub) let you expand those choices as far as you want to take them - in effect I am incentivised to experiment with those choices.
Even as F2P LOTRO player I was spending the equivalent of a Monthly Sub on Turbine Points (their Zen) a month.
I have been playing since Open Beta and have so far only been incentivised to pay €4.99 for more character slots.
So which is best? €4.99 in three months, or €9.99 a month. In fact so diverse are the options that even as a VIP player (€9.99 month sub) I occasionally spent more money on TP, even though I got free TP with my monthly sub.
EDIT: I had more here, but lost it in an edit.
All The Best
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