Wrong, RoI brought a level cap increase which is something that is never part of a free update. RoI was of a comparable size to SoM. Content delivery is faster and of comparable quantity and I have been playing since the pre-launch beta phase. Your claim of a decline in quality is your opinion and not one that I would agree with. I agree with The Butler and Aidencast. I consider LOTRO's high-water mark to be the Mines of Moria era. At that point, the game was coming off a solid first year with steady, frequent additions of content. And the trend continued well after MoM released: new dungeons, new content filling in the gaps in Eriador (the big region to the west of the Misty Mountains), new systems (such as skirmishes and cosmetic-gear tabs), new in-game tools. Moria is admittedly a near-impossible act to follow, but I thought the game ground to a halt after Siege of Mirkwood went live. In retrospect, this was when Turbine entered into negotiations with Warner Bros. for their buyout -- but in my opinion, this year-and-a-half period of inactivity essentially killed the game. To date, LOTRO has come nowhere close to the level of output we enjoyed in the first two years of its history. So much so, that it's clear they haven't even tried. The Rise of Isengard "expansion" is indeed barely worthy of the name. The land area added by this retail expansion is almost exactly the same as what was added with the Enedwaith content update, right down to the number of quest hubs. The only significant difference is the Tower of Isengard and its associated raids and dungeons. In my opinion, it ws nothing but a quick grab for money by a company desperately in need of an infusion of cash. If you wanted a sensible product to market, RoI and the new Rohan expansion should have been part of one expansion pack. But Turbine split the two, and sold them separately a year apart. And worse, there has apparently been no content additions between. (I unsubbed last December, when SWTOR went live.)

Heh... "KNOWING EA"... This is EXACTLY why I cancelled my subscription within an hour of learning SWTOR was going free-to-play. Consider it the accumulation of EA's many disreputable actions over many years: buying out and gutting popular development studio after development studio, and title after title; DRM, holding back key content from popular games at release in order to sell it later as an add-on sale for "Downloadable Content" (DLC), and on and on. For EA, the adage is starkly true: what goes around, comes around.

What's the point?

In the meantime, they ruined the game by announcing they were taking SWTOR down the free-to-play rat hole. /golfclap.

YES, IT IS. Don't EVEN get me started (again) on LOTRO's F2P model. It would not be pretty. If you really want to see my thoughts on the matter, check some of my previous posts. I've gone into some detail elsewhere. For now, suffice it to say WB/Turbine SCREWED their subscribers -- badly. In many ways. Because they apparently felt they *needed* ways to mulct even paying subscribers into spending Turbine Points on must-have stuff that was once readily available in the in-game environment, but is now a Turbine Store exclusive.

Pizza by the slice vs. buying a whole pizza would also have worked.

Yeah... saved. The game SUCKS. Not exactly what I would consider "saved."

After watching Warner Bros/Turbine convert Lord of the Rings Online to a free-to-play model, this news makes me very, very sad. F2P, in my opinion, just sets up far too many temptations for a company to screw over its player base, be they subscribers or free-to-play. I saw it first hand in LOTRO, when WB/Turbine did things like remove critical items from the general in-game environment and make them exclusively available in the Turbine Store, EVEN FOR SUBSCRIBERS. I saw it in the way WB/Turbine turned EVERY LITTLE ITEM IN THE GAME into an insane grind -- a grind that can be BYPASSED ENTIRELY, ALL FOR A LOW 295 TURBINE POINTS (or whatever)!!!1!!11! I also saw its effects in the form of seemingly-endless tweaking of the low-level/entry-level areas of the game, leaving the "endgame" (the veterans and subscribers) to rot. It was CLEARLY all about churning the subscriber base, bringing in new suckers... erm, CUSTOMERS... faster than people were quitting in disgust. Or at least, trying to compensate for the mass exodus. Or partially compensating. Or heck, just surviving in the face of the mass exodus. I don't know. Bottom line for me is, I watched SWG go up in flames because SOE succumbed to a case of WoW envy. I watched LOTRO do the things the devs SWORE they would NEVER do -- screw their existing players. And now, EA/BioWare are taking their first toke on the crack pipe that is F2P. I'm outta here. Congratulations, EA. You've devoured yet another once-beloved game company, and turned it into... well, you-know-what. Your reputation as America's most-hated company is reinforced.

Face it. P2W is inevitable. As are Pay-to-play microtransactions. They'll just save it until you get hooked.

CORRECTION: It WAS a great game. With F2P, it goes from great, to horrible.

Because F2P is a HORRIBLE idea, that's why.

BioWare once had the guts to do games that no one thought could be made, like Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic. Today's F2P announcement is a sad, sad day, because it clearly marks the fall of a once-great studio.

See my sig.

Sorry, but anyone who thinks LOTRO's move to F2P worked "great" didn't have a high-level character. LOTRO vets got SCREWED. Badly. Repeatedly. Both F2P and subscribers. I've posted repeatedly on what Turbine did to its most loyal long-term subscribers, so since this is now chiseled in granite that SWTOR is officially adding F2P, I have nothing further to say. Expect my unsubscription in short order. Freeloaders, enjoy your gimped game.

When I look at the Rakata sets for Consulars, I immediately think, "demented Christmas Tree angel" or "This was stolen from the wardrobe of the Queen of Naboo." The War Hero set, with its off-the-shoulder toga look, draws comparison to Queen Cleopatra. Definitely NOT Jedi-like, and definitely NOT very practical-looking for an athletic Shadow.