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European Lotro is Free to Play from Today! - Perhaps Not

BIG EDIT: Despite my post below it now seems that  welcome back week has indeed ended. Now I am red faced. It seems I may be guilty of spreading misinformation.



You may have heard hat the European launch of Free to Play (f2p)  Lotro was delayed days before the promised launch date of 10th September and we are still waiting for a confirmed date. Commentators have pointed out the missed opportunity here and have pointed out that many Europeans who would like to try Lotro may go to the current free US servers instead.

Well I just discovered that you can actually play Lotro for free with Codemasters in Europe already. This post explains it all but the gist is that returning ex subscribers can avail of a free "welcome back" deal which allows them to play for free until f2p launches while totally new players can use the free trial and they too will be able to keep playing for free until f2p launches. The welcome back package also includes accelerated XP and free horse travel for all players.

It's a pretty good arrangement actually and someone staring on the European servers today will have access to more stuff than someone starting a brand new free account on the US servers. The only problem is that Codemasters aren't telling anybody about it. The official Lotro Europe website doesn't explain it and only people who trawl Codemasters forums are likely to find out about it. Codemasters seriously need to overhaul their marketing department because this is not the first time they have had a special offer and not told anyone about it.
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Comments

Stabs said…
Oh dear.

Maybe the issue is that they're worried about players farming the areas which will be behind the paywall during this short all-access period.

And it seems they are trusting the internet to keep their secret.
10:54 pm
mbp said…
Hi Stabs. This isn't the first time Code-masters have tried to keep a special offer secret. I got a great deal on a lifetime sub a while ago and non one else in my kinship had even heard it was on offer. I think there is a bit of corporate schizophrenia going on. Someone comes up with a good marketing offer and someone in another department is afraid that they will lose money so tries to hush it up.

My guess is that they still want to get this months subscription out of current subscribers so they are keeping quiet the fact that you can actually keep playing for free.
12:29 pm
Jayast said…
I've been playing the Welcome Back Week, but yesterday (27th Sept) I was unable to log-in and the log-in window says that a subscription is now payable.

This is most confusing given that I keep reading about Welcome Back Week extending into start of f2p.
6:13 pm
mbp said…
Most confusing indeed Jayfast. It was pointed out last night in kinchat that the special "free horse travel" buff that everyone got during welcome back week was also gone.

I saw you post on the forums - so it seems this may all have been misin formation and I am guilty of spreading it :)
6:31 pm
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