Lord of the Rings Online blogger and guide-maker extraordinaire FibroJedi has pubbed a super useful post this week we just have to highlight because it ties in so perfectly with our recent conversations on hoarding in MMOs. Specifically, FJ has assessed all of the options in LOTRO for expanding and exploiting all of the different types of inventories and inventory-related purchases available in an effort to help folks decide the best bank for their buck.
To do this, FJ calculated the cash-shop-currency-to-inventory-slot ratio for everything you can’t just buy outright with in-game gold (obviously, do that first). That includes bag slots, bank slots, shared storage slots, shared wardrobe slots, housing storage, carry-alls, alt characters, and even the mail itself. Granted, each of these comes with different advantages and drawbacks. You can’t put stacks of food into your wardrobe, after all, and my own fallback storage option – character mules who exist for nothing but storage – isn’t exactly what I’d deem convenient. But is it cost-effective?
According to FJ, yepperdo – by a lot. Even by the most conservative estimate, you pay less than 8 LOTRO Points per slot with the lowliest new toon. And if you’ve got respectable shared storage and some account-wide bag expansions, you can get even more space and utility out of that cute level 6 hobbit you have logged out by the bank or VIP NPC.
The worst option? Small carry-alls. “Don’t buy a small carry-all ever,” FJ warns. Large carry-alls aren’t bad by comparison, but try to get them on sale (as they were last week!).
It’s totally worth it to see FJ’s full breakdown as well as the pros and cons of each option because in reality, you’re not going to choose just one of them; you’re going to layer them together. It sure does appeal to my brain, anyhow!
