The Amazing Disappearing Turbine Points

I did get on the morning of the 8th to find that the LOTRO Store was open for business at last.

I was also able to check my Turbine Point balance.  I previously calculated that I might end up with as many as 5,000 of those points that will now be driving, if not the Middle-earth economy, then at least Turbine’s bottom line.

I turned out to be pretty close.  I had 4,540 Turbine Points.

I dug about in the store to see if they had accounted for the various bonus rewards that went into to creating that particular total, but I was unable to find anything.  How it all added up to 4,540 will be left to my imagination I guess.

I did not have time to start spending those points however.  That was going to have to wait.

When I got home, my point total had changed.  Now I had 4,515 points.

25 Turbine points had melted away.  Did I have a leak in my purse?  Was I given 25 points to which I was later deemed to not be entitled?

Again, no accounting was available.  The total simply was.

Still, 25 points… not that big of a deal I suppose.  And it is day one of the store.  Besides, I was more interested in spending a few of those points.

Silinus, my hunter, was feeling particularly constrained when it came to vault space, so the first item on the list was to buy him another 15 slots.  He was at 58 of 60 slots filled.

And the price was just 95 Turbine Points.  Not that dear at all.  And so my point total was down to 4,320

Only, I didn’t get any increase in the number of vault slots.  Or any sort of token that would increase said slots.

I got a receipt for the vault slot upgrade.

95 Turbine Points for what?

I opened a ticket, to which I got a very quick, if less than satisfying response.  The rep suggested that I log out and log back in.  If the additional slots were still missing, and they were, I would have to contact the account support team, who are apparently a different group.

So I realize we’re just in the first 24 hours of the store going live, but I’m already down 120 Turbine Points and I have yet to successfully obtain anything from the LOTRO Store.  And I’m just one guy who is pretty tolerant on the subject of day one MMO blues.

This coming Friday though, there is going to be a lot more people headed into Middle-earth, and the business plan is to get them to spend money and feel so good about it that they spend some more.

I am not keen to try spending any more and I want to.  How are the fresh faced masses going to deal with it?

Now to figure out how to contact the account support team.  It will be in the forums somewhere I am sure.