The Yule Festival steed is not available in this year’s Yule Festival. I have been able to confirm with Turbine staff that the Yule Festival Steed is the exclusive store mount and that is why it is not available to buy in game.
I confirmed that the mount is available in the store when I got home this evening. It is selling for the typical exclusive reputation/festival mount price of 1195 Turbine Points.
This is the original Yule Festival Mount, not the Snow Steed from 2009 festival.
It can be found in the store under Travel > Mounts > Store Exclusive.
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December 14, 2010 at 10:23 pm
I am far from completionist with my mount collection, but I am disappointed that this is store-exclusive.
December 14, 2010 at 10:36 pm
More store only stuff. This is a dark road we are going down.
December 15, 2010 at 12:04 am
This is exactly what irritates the crap out of me. I’m starting to repeat myself, but the whole story when this started was that it gave players options. Now it just takes options away. stupid stupid stupid. DCUO looks fun.
>:(
December 15, 2010 at 4:04 pm
It isn’t!
December 15, 2010 at 9:03 am
Very, very irritating.
I was finally beginning to justify the direction of the store (as just a different means of acquiring the same stuff) when this happens.
No sir, I don’t like it!
December 14, 2010 at 11:34 pm
Yeah. I’m definitely not impressed by this move by Turbine.
December 14, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Bah humbug, I say.
December 15, 2010 at 12:15 am
It’s the one in picture that’s store exclusive? Don’t mind it then, it’s ugly!
December 15, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Gotta second this! With two better-looking Yule-themed horses currently available for a measly 200 in-game silver each, this seems like something of a nonissue to me!
December 15, 2010 at 12:24 am
Yule Festival Snow Steed is pretty similar to the store exclusive one, so I’m not too worried about it.
December 15, 2010 at 12:25 am
I actually like that mount even if it is an older model. But I’m also patient enough to not play the Turbine Store game. I’ll get it next year. Sorry Turbine but one shenanigan desreves another.
December 15, 2010 at 8:22 am
I bet youll see this for each of the remaining festivals as soon as the 3rd mount for each comes along, the old 1st year (autumn, spring, summer, winter) horse will drop off the map and be only available in the store henceforth.
December 15, 2010 at 12:26 am
This proves that Turbine does not care about having VIPs just paying $15 a month. Is a free to play player going to buy these mounts? No way. They are going to buy quest packs and such. These mounts are to get more money from VIPs. If i already pay $15 a month then i should not have to buy stuff in the store i CANT get in game.
December 15, 2010 at 4:43 am
Mmmm, so as I’ve been playing a long time I already have this mount, but new players now have to buy this – IMHO this is definitely not fair to make this store exclusive now after being in-game previously…
December 15, 2010 at 7:27 am
that is last year’s Yule Horse, isn’t it? if so, then it’s only an ‘exclusive’ to those people who don’t actually have it yet.
and hey, now my wife’s poor abandoned champ now has something exclusive, because that’s the only horse the champ has
.
December 15, 2010 at 7:44 am
It is not the 2009 horse. This is the horse that released with the original Yule festival.
December 15, 2010 at 11:58 am
To say nothing of it being a store exclusive (At least on the 4 new servers) by the fact that its never been available there in any other way. (No Prior Yule Event to obtain them at)
December 15, 2010 at 11:48 am
My latest thoughts on the mounts for sale-
In order for Lotro to keep going Turbine needs to show a profit w/ Lotro. If it doesn’t break the game and doesn’t break the lore and it help to put $ in the bank for them I’m fine with it.
It basically comes down to more $= more content. Problem is that there is some lag between them making profit and putting out new content. It takes time to make the content.
December 15, 2010 at 2:27 pm
I am yet to be convinced of the argument that more money for turbine = more content. It could just as easily be that more money = more profit for turbine. How much of that profit they decide to re-invest into the game remains to be seen.
What is the ratio of that reinvestment? 10% of every new dollar? Less? More?
That said, I am not bothered by festival mount being store only, there are still plenty of mounts available. I do have heartburn with the rep mounts being store items. I think we all need to accept that mounts are a money maker for Turbine and accept that many of those mounts will be for sale.
December 21, 2010 at 6:42 pm
“I am yet to be convinced of the argument that more money for turbine = more content. It could just as easily be that more money = more profit for turbine. How much of that profit they decide to re-invest into the game remains to be seen.”
Seriously? I want Turbine to make a profit, because by showing a profit, it means the game will continue forward, and the way forward is to make… more content. It’s not rocket surgery. More money for Turbine can equal both, and I’m good with that.
December 15, 2010 at 2:31 pm
My problem with this argument is that there is no way to prove it, save by some report from the company.
If this is true it means that they had _barely_ begun working on the next expansion after Mirkwood, which released last year. So, from that time, they required 9 months of development to create one zone (Enedwaith) and two full years to produce three more zones (Isengard).
I realize there is more to MMOs besides content areas but to me the current drought of content is very, very frustrating and causes me to question how they are allocating their resources and why. Sure, the store is meant to ‘save’ LotRO and there are going to be some new raids and changes to the LI system, but this is superfluous. Broken or poorly implemented systems (like Rad and LI) should have been fixed after their release (that is to say two years ago) or *gasp* released when they were ready. In other words, there is no excuse for such a lag between content updates.
So saying they need money to develop is true but suggesting that they need to nickel and dime their _subscribing_ customers suggests that they were dead broke about a year ago and unable to do more than produce one zone a year. This I have a hard time believing.
I’m a little annoyed and jacked up on coffee right now so hopefully I’m wrong, but things like this are really getting under my skin.
December 15, 2010 at 11:54 am
I just hope all the cash from the mounts on sale helps make Isengard a really good expansion. LOTRO may be up against the new Star Wars MMO & maybe even Guild Wars 2 in Fall 2011.
December 15, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Of course Turbine needs to make money and im all for that. The problem with the model they have is that $15 a month doesnt get you everything you could want in game. A VIP still needs to fork over more money for store items if they want access to everything.
It seems people are doing just that. They want $25 a month from VIP not just $15. Many mmos only charge $15 and all items are in game.
Its like they are losing money on FTP people to make it up with more $$$ from VIP. I was VIP but with them shoving the store down my throat, especially with store only items, like my $15 wasnt good enough for them.
So now i am going to try FTP and they can make the money they lose on me from silly VIP people who pay $10 to $20 for one horse.
Yes i know they give VIP 500 points a month but that just encourages people to buy more as opposed to just giving avenues for VIPs to earn everything in game.
December 15, 2010 at 6:22 pm
It’s a horse. An old horse. I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all for them to replace quest rewards from time to time with different or updated models; the fact that they put them in the store afterward is pretty irrelevant.
Will it really hurt anyone if the prior version of a festival horse is available for points purchase? I don’t think so. The only people who might get tetchy about it would be mount completionists who must have -every- horse ever, and I reckon many of them already have it.
December 15, 2010 at 7:28 pm
I really don’t understand all the hate for store exclusive items. Since VIPs get 500 Turbine Points a month it’s not as if this item is out of reach…
December 17, 2010 at 5:35 pm
The old yule mule, which I have on one or two toons, was a problem because I couldn’t get outfit that matched except that silly hobbit pant suit with the teal/blue shirt. Now that they added all the lovely bright/new dyes, they make exclusive the single horse in my collection that I couldn’t make match my outfit … until now. Its funny. I hate the idea of exclusive; but I really don’t obsess over skins. As long as I look good I’m cool.
December 17, 2010 at 10:54 pm
A few things. For one, I don’t really like the store ‘exclusive’ not actually being exclusive because it was like 2008′s horse. I have it on a lot of my characters, and I have no need to buy it again… but I feel for people that didn’t get it and were expecting it to be in this years festival. The people who really wanted it, and now need to pay a lot of real life money for it. That sucks.
As for the person that said ‘I don’t understand all the hate, VIPs get 500 points a month,’ you realize that its 1.1k points right? That’s at least 3 months worth of saving to do to get the 1500 points to get it and that leaves you with 400 something. That’s not a lot. In fact, 500 points doesn’t get you a lot, at all. Maybe 1-2 things a month. I know– I’m VIP. As it stands now, I have no money to get this horse anyway because even though I had 4k tp that I got retroactively when FTP went live. That all went on unlocking wardrobe slots and shared slots when they went on sale. I have about 500 left maybe. Now, lets say I was desperate to get this horse after missing out last year. I would not put TP aside for it because I would have no reason to believe they would yank it from the world and make it store exclusive this year. But that’s just what they did. So, in my situation, if I wanted this horse, I would have no option but to pay MORE money in addition to my subscription to convert more TP to get this horse. That’s what’s unfair. And like I said, this doesn’t affect me because I don’t want it, but there will be people like me it does affect, and well, it sucks to be given something for free last year and paying for it this year, especially if you’re also already paying for the game.
I have actually already bought more TP once, too in the thanksgiving sale– to get the cosmetic outfit exclusives while they were on sale. And even with the money I converted, I still can’t afford this horse.
Someone mentioned they are ‘nickel and dime-ing’ their existing subscribers and this is true. I feel like they’re doing this to milk money out of VIPers, who already are loyal and are supporting the game. It’s like they not only want my $15 dollars, but they want above and beyond that. I love lotro and I was willing to give some money here and there, but thanks to this I will never convert my money to tp ever again. I feel like a sucker and I feel unappreciated.
December 20, 2010 at 10:41 am
Bah.
I love the Lord of the Rings stories, world, and lore. Loved LotRO since I started playing two years ago.
But I’m feeling abandoned by LotRO lately. Do they care about VIP subscribers *at all*? Are we actually VIPs then?