I love The Lord of the Rings. I've read the books, as well as Silmarillion and all that other nonsense. I've seen the films and of course I own the Collector's Editions. I beta tested the MMORPG and played for a few months after launch - I quit from frustration with the wonky game mechanics and ridiculous rough edges.  
 
With the recent announcement of the move to Free-To-Play, I decided to give LotRO another shot. I was kind of looking forward to playing with my little brother, who has been playing for a while now. I logged in and was all ready to go, when I noticed that some things were...not right. Apparently, Free-To-Play comes with a whole set of convoluted restrictions. Things like "Hey, you purchased the original 1-50 game, but if you wanna level past 20 you have to buy the quests one zone at a time!"  
 
Now I know all the arguments about how before F2P, I couldn't play at all without a sub, and how a subscription is required for access to the game in the first place, blah blee bloo. But seriously. You're asking what most certainly adds up to more than a lifetime sub just to have access to the content I thought came with my shiny cardboard box? It just seems a little screwy. Maybe that's just me knee-jerking. We'll see. 
 
Oh, and let me say that I have never seen so much WoW-directed vitriol on a game's forums. Turbine is testing the waters with allowing outside add-ons and plug-ins, and there seems to be an overwhelming response of "IF YOU WANT TO PLAY WOW GO PLAY WOW NUB" and "Addons make you a bad player" and all sorts of angry diatribes about WoW ruining everything for everyone ever. Did Chris Metzen murder your mother or something? Why do people who don't play WoW feel the need to hate on it so much? Also, if you don't want to know why you keep missing attacks or dying in one boss hit I guess that's your prerogative, but I prefer to find out what stats I'm lacking and how I'm dying, even if that means *gasp* installing meter addons. I'm pretty sure that minimizing misses is something a good player does.  
 
-The Bunn