Turbine has modified their refer a friend program slightly by adding a brand new steed into the rewards for referring your friends to LOTRO.
In case you were not aware here’s how referrals to LOTRO work.
Players can invite unlimited number of friends to play LOTRO and if they sign up for a new LOTRO account through your referral link, you will earn 10% of the Turbine Points they purchase in the in-game store. They purchase 1000 Turbine Points and a magical 100 Turbine Points will be awarded to you as well for as long as they play. It does not count towards any Turbine Points earned through VIP or through promotion (like the Steam sale) or for free (like a screenshot contest).
The recent change includes the addition of earning a brand new mount for your referrals. If you refer five new friends and they sign up to play, not only will you still earn 10% of their in-game TP purchases, but you will also receive a Steed of the Winged Herald.
I have no idea on the stats of this horse so if you know anyone who actually earns one, please share that information.
According to the referral program terms of service: “Only players located in the North America (excluding Quebec), Australia and New Zealand are eligible for this Referral Program.”
For more information on how to send links to your friends, see the Referrals FAQ Guide. Page listing the steed information can be found here.
Special thank you to our friend Ardin for pointing out this addition to us!
June 13, 2012 at 9:57 am
Interesting. Thanks for passing along the information. Too bad I had already convinced the gamer and/or LotR fans I know to sign up.
I did not see anything about restrictions on getting the steed (like, your friends have to make at least one purchase), but I have to imagine there might be. Otherwise we’ll see lots of people signing up dummy accounts just to get one.
June 13, 2012 at 11:26 am
There aren’t any such restrictions
June 13, 2012 at 11:59 am
Winged Harold Shots.
http://flic.kr/s/aHsjzS1uSx
+62%, 200hp
June 13, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Thanks for the information!
June 13, 2012 at 11:54 am
You just need friends to sign up using the unique promo campaign link they receive. They need to fill out a one page form and you’ll get credit.
June 14, 2012 at 10:11 am
Good to know, I guess. It just seems the system could be as abused as it is used. Turbine will be left holding many fake accounts that gain them nothing but erroneous signup numbers.
June 13, 2012 at 10:10 am
A pitty the geographical exclusion for EU players!! I don’t get it: being now a global game conducted by Turbine world-wide, how is supposed to affect my location on getting an in-game steed or not?
June 13, 2012 at 10:35 am
I didn’t even notice that it is American-only, but that’s so unfair! This is not the first time I get the feeling EU-players are overlooked. Sigh.
June 13, 2012 at 3:42 pm
laws, lawyers, etc
June 14, 2012 at 9:28 am
EU player myself and I got the steed this morning.
June 16, 2012 at 5:36 pm
How?! EU here myself and I tried it, didn’t get the steed. my.lotro website says referrals are successful, but I didn’t receive the steed in-game. How did you manage it?
June 26, 2012 at 12:04 pm
EU player, EU server. got the steed, no issues:)
June 13, 2012 at 11:37 am
The geographical exclusion is sad! I’d assume it has to do with differences in laws about this type of referral promotion, though. I’m sure Turbine would gladly use this program to get more EU players signed up if they could, but if it’s “void where prohibited by law”…
June 13, 2012 at 1:35 pm
At least they state it this time.
I still fondly remember getting an invitation for the ROI Beta (the participation opportunity had been advertised with my pre-order, IIRC), and downloading several GB worth of client – only to find out that the character copy option to the test server was not available to European players, and the character creation tavern wasn’t open either for the first tests.
At that time, no one at Turbine had been able to insert a note anywhere in the emails that the advertised functions were in fact not available to Europeans, and some US people in the forums didn’t even understand why we complained, because after all we could all create level 1 characters to provide a bit of server load, while they tested the new content that had been advertised in the emails.
June 14, 2012 at 2:09 am
yup, i tried inviting a mate and had the same nice surprise – no euro scum! it’s always nice to feel wanted
June 13, 2012 at 10:16 am
That is, to date, the ugliest horse.
(with the exception of maybe the teal/white/yellow dress horse.)
I must have it.
My dwarf shall ride it proudly.
June 13, 2012 at 12:39 pm
LOL, excellent reasoning for getting a horse. I approve!
June 13, 2012 at 11:14 am
Damn you Turbine for making a steed that is perfect for our kin! (We’re called Heralds of Thorondor, and previously were The Winglord Alliance, so doubly relevant) And then making sure I may never have it! (UK player) *sigh* Nice reward though…
June 13, 2012 at 12:00 pm
They’re not able to give you the TP in the UK, but I suspect that referring a 5 empty accounts wouldn’t be an issue for them if they never bought any TP.
June 13, 2012 at 4:54 pm
You aren’t able to refer if you’re from outside the US
June 13, 2012 at 11:15 am
hmm, I may give this a try and see if I can get some folks to signup.
June 13, 2012 at 12:04 pm
I got the horse. It’s granted to your inventory after you log in after completing the 5 referrals. It’s 200 HP 62% speed. It looks nice with the RoR preorder cosmetic set.
http://i.imgur.com/WOm8Q.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6x1rF.jpg
June 13, 2012 at 12:09 pm
http://i.imgur.com/0RU0P.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6hzit.jpg
June 13, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Very pretty!
June 13, 2012 at 12:26 pm
At first I thought this was a very ugly horse, then I saw some in game pics and its much better looking then the promo pic. kudos to those that get one
June 13, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Okay, so I’d love some clarification. Is the steed (not the TP) available for EU players, or is both the steed and the TP non-available to EU players?
June 13, 2012 at 1:01 pm
I cannot answer this question. There is no information indicating there is a difference between the reward offerings and if the horse is available to others.
June 14, 2012 at 2:11 am
the horse is not available to anyone outside U.S.
June 13, 2012 at 12:42 pm
I’m Eu player and got it .Its looks nice, my favorite horse
June 14, 2012 at 2:12 am
EU player on EU server / account?
June 13, 2012 at 1:13 pm
Is the horse account wide or only on the toon that you accept it on?
June 13, 2012 at 1:38 pm
The horse is account-wide and distributed to all of your characters’ bags automatically upon login.
June 14, 2012 at 12:35 am
*I* remember the days when we had to purchase our horse for 1995! And it was only for one character! Uphill! Both ways! In snow THIS deep!
… not to mention what a bugger it was to save for one in ’07.
My how the times have changed.
June 13, 2012 at 1:44 pm
http://i46.tinypic.com/nvrs7m.png
It’s my horse #53 on my main – as a horse collector I of course had to go and get it immediately, even though I’m still hoping that one day, we will get a purple mount…
June 24, 2012 at 9:10 am
PvMP R12 steed reward is purple
June 13, 2012 at 1:49 pm
thank you for the reply, will have to look into this more. cheers!
June 13, 2012 at 1:54 pm
I’m pretty sure they made this steed just to match my in game outfit
June 13, 2012 at 2:36 pm
So one of each: Mailinator, Melt Mail, 10 Minute Mail, Guerrilla Mail and TempEMail will do the mount??
After this referel, Turbine has got about 1 Million new fake-gamers… ;D
June 13, 2012 at 8:32 pm
I wonder if they know that XD
June 13, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Anyone else having a problem trying to open that page AND be logged in? Any browser will not open it for me to even look at, it just says about too many redirects
June 13, 2012 at 4:14 pm
That horse looks like they are trying to appease the “flying mount” crowd. I’m going to pass on this one, that is some gaudy barding and way toooooo over done imo.
June 13, 2012 at 4:21 pm
I got this horse! Got it yesterday it is a very cool looking horse
June 13, 2012 at 6:57 pm
I imagine this will slightly inflate Turbine’s “active account” numbers for its quarterly report to WB, even if it adds zero new players to the game.
June 14, 2012 at 12:05 am
I wonder, then, if we are hurting our own cause by helping them fudge the numbers like that. Will that just make the likelihood that we descend further into the nickle and dime RoR release pricing and extras more in the future or do things like this not add up to detract from our experience. I think everything is a brick in the wall we are building between ourselves and fair pricing, but they seem to know the buttons to push.
June 14, 2012 at 1:32 pm
I’m pretty sure the bean counters at WB are smart enough to know how easy it is to create a free account. They will be more interested in seeing the increased revenues from those free accounts. It’s doubtful Turbine will be able to pull any wool over WB’s eyes.
June 13, 2012 at 7:31 pm
Really looks cool, I think they did a nice job with it personally. Unfortunately most of the people I’ve referred were done so indirectly and never used my link lol
June 13, 2012 at 7:36 pm
Just get 5 of your friends that don’t play LOTRO, let them know you’re sending a referal link to them, they click the link from the referal email and sign up for free account….done. They don’t actually have to DL the client or even play after that for that matter. You’ll get 5 referals, they will have a LOTRO account should they ever decide to play. If not , you still have the mount
June 13, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Example of 5 people:
Your mom, your dad, your brother/sister/cousin….hey that’s 5 right there, hehe!
June 13, 2012 at 8:11 pm
Or, in my case, they were:
garbledname1, garbledname2, garbledname3, garbledname4 and garbledname 5, all who seem to have hotmail addresses. Isn’t that a coincidence?
June 14, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Oh, really… I assumed they had to actually spend something. Thanks!
June 13, 2012 at 7:53 pm
I got an email about this earlier, but the link in it didn’t work. Thanks for the info.
I wonder why it’s not available for EU players. Actually it confuses me that they even sent the email to me and others like me as their records will show we’re EU.
June 13, 2012 at 8:06 pm
They might be getting wise to the overwhelming flood of fake emails, as the mail service is getting slower to send out the invites.
June 13, 2012 at 8:08 pm
ah, nevermind — was just in the “junk” folder of the fake address. The Irony drips.
June 14, 2012 at 7:29 am
My mind is always slightly boggled at why the T’s&C’s are small print when they’re on a website. All the info there is about the TP’s and no mention of the mount so should be fair game for the denizens of the world outwith the us, oz and nz.
Are turbine so strapped for cash that they’re needing to save on pixels?
June 14, 2012 at 9:33 am
Its EU as well.. got it this morning. (Holland player)
June 14, 2012 at 11:10 am
Just like Tom, I can confirm it works for Europeans.
June 14, 2012 at 12:32 pm
How do you Get the mount for EU players i can’t get onto the referal page for some reason:(
June 14, 2012 at 1:12 pm
Even though I’m from Europe, I play on an American server. When I login at my.lotro it says ‘account in: North America’. If this matters, this apparently does the trick. Don’t know why it won’t work for you, maybe it depends on your account location.
June 15, 2012 at 6:34 am
The “Account in: North America” is shown for everybody, so that won’t help.
I have checked it and with my former (and now migrated) Codemasters-Accounts I am unable to access the referal page while logged in.
My Turbine-Account (created long ago for beta testing) on the other hand can log into the referal page without problems.
All accounts have no mailing address info, I will see if giving this will fix the problem.
June 15, 2012 at 6:45 am
Ah, found the problem!
Former EU players who are in long standing kinships often have problems with my.lotro.
The players who are affected by these problems can not log into the referal page.
June 17, 2012 at 11:27 am
I left kinship and tried, to no avail, still not loading the page.
June 14, 2012 at 7:09 pm
Time to abuse having my own email client and the ability to make new emails and delete them afterwards instantly. Mwahahaha
June 15, 2012 at 9:35 am
One has to wonder why they did this, they aren’t dummies about the referral program and have put in blocks before to prevent abuse, but this is so open to fraud and easy to do I have to think they were deliberately trying to up their subscriptions on purpose in order to meet some WB quota…..or to tie in the subs with the release of RoR expansion to buff its success to their bosses ie WB.
June 17, 2012 at 10:19 am
This is so bad… I’m getting tired of the discrimination the EU players have to endure… Only North America, New Zealand and Australia can sign up for this offer. GOD DAMN YOU TURBINE!
June 18, 2012 at 9:42 am
I have to suspect, it’s probably the following way.
Some EU players cannot make it work, others can. I suspect that old accounts from before F2Play are marked as EU, since they where moved from codemasters.
While new accounts, made in the F2P era, are flagged as both EU/US. Since right now, i don’t think turbine flags accounts based on IP, all new accounts are treated as US/EU/Pacific etc..
So newer EU players, like myself included (playing since dec. 2011) can make the referral and get the mount, while older EU players from the pay 2 play era are actually flagged as EU accounts and cannot make it.
June 19, 2012 at 7:37 pm
I’m an old EU player and I just got it, so all players may actually get this horse. What you need to do is to send a link to five friends, so they can register.
The link is:
http://my.lotro.com/referral/Username
If your username is Mordor, then the link will be:
http://my.lotro.com/referral/Mordor
Username is the same as when you log in with the client.
June 22, 2012 at 5:54 am
I can confirm that this works – I could not see that page when logged into my account but using this approach I managed to get my friends referred. As did another friend of mine.
June 26, 2012 at 7:34 am
just reg 5 emails you own and voila!
works like charm. i’m from EU.
also you get it on all the toons on your acc.