LOTRO is the first F2P MMORPG I've played so far, coming from time spent in both FFXIV:ARR & WOW. LOTRO is a visual drop from FFXIV & play-mechanics much closer to WOW. But, it has a rich, robust content & lands to explore from the epic writings of JRR Tolkien.

Your character(s) exist in a beautifully realized Middle Earth at the height of the "War of the Ring". Co-existing with many other player characters, trading, crafting, making music & celebrating together, joining Kinships, and fighting along-side one-another in epic battles together.

Technically speaking, LOTRO is really free-to-play, you earn & bank "Lotro Points" by grinding through content, completing Deeds in game, & those can be spent in the "LOTRO Store" to buy all manner of QoL (Quality-of-Life) enhancements, Traits, Skills, quest-packs, and even full game expansions.

But, I DO mean GRIND, so much so that, if you have the funds available (i.e. not terminally poor), you'll typically give in and either spend real-money to buy items in the LOTRO Store or subscribe to monthly "VIP" subscriptions (which includes many of these items automatically, excluding expansions).

Use the fair F2P model to get in the door, grind to earn "LOTRO Points" to buy your 1st couple QoL enhancements to make your game experience better. Then, if you like what you see, consider laying out some of your hard-earned cash to buy or subscribe to more of the LOTRO experience.

So, if you are a LOTR fan & the idea of playing a MMORPG isn't odious to you, it's a no brainer, the choice is yours, no one controls the destiny of the Free Peoples of Middle Earth, the darkness cannot sway you… Come join us & play LOTRO, "Welcome friends!"

I tried out this new Steam game for a number of hours recently, which is based on the SAO (Sword Art Online) franchise. I own a lot of different SAO video games on Steam, such as SAO: Alicization Lycoris, Fatal Bullet, Hollow Fragment, and Lost Song. But, SAO: Integral Factor brings a couple new factors to the mix,

• Based directly on & follows the 2-year events in the original SAO: Aincrad story arc
  
• You create new, original characters that interact & play with the iconic characters from the SAO franchise
  
• Open world MMORPG
  
• F2P (Free to Play)
  
• Party-up, play with friends, & form Guilds
  
• Cross-playable on Android, IOS, & Steam ( i.e. Windows / Linux )

After downloading & installing, I fired it up to play and initially didn't have a very favorable 1st impression, as it's graphics weren't all that good and the gacha-game mechanics struck me like a merging of PSO2 (Phantasy Star Online 2) and MS2 (Maple Story 2). This was probably because the game was just recently ported from a mobile game of the same name, that was released in 2017.

But what really astounded me the most, was that my first play session ended-up lasting much, much longer that I ever expected, I found myself still playing it at 2:00 AM in the morning and I didn't want to stop... I was really having fun playing!

It's use of a Japanese Visual Novel style as it's vehicle of NPC interactions & story telling was relaxing (even if the flavor audio tracks were in Japanese). It's main story is a new character's fresh-take on the SAO's Aincrad arc from an outsiders perspective and reasonably enjoyable.

Being a MMORPG, the fact that SAO:IF has does't have races, classes, any magic, or multiple character support may seem strange, but these elements are very thematic of the original SAO source material. But the absence of these elements is compensated by highly customized Sword Art skills applied to your character's and their assistant's weapons & armor, make for a varied combat experience, all without being over complicated.

I pretty much ignored the in-game micro-transaction system & still really enjoyed an overall F2P experience. I don't really know more to say about it... Other than sharing my favorable play experience with SAO:IF...