Lord of the Rings Online - I have to wonder....

[Signe]

I had this ordered from EBgames back in December...  just because.  Today I get a shipping conformation for Lord of the Rings:  Battle for Middle Earth, which I have no interest in.  I check my order on EB's website and it does say that I've ordered the EA thingy and not the Turbine thingy.  I KNOW this is wrong, because I've checked the order several times (they pushed the release to May, I think) and if I had ordered the EA game in December, it would have already been shipped, no?   In the mean time, Turbine's MMO has disappeared from eht EB site.  Did they dump it?

I'm so confused.   

[Murgos]

Sounds like bait and switch, you should sue.  A nice law suit would probably keep you entertained better than some funky MMO anyway.

[schild]

What's she going to sue for $50 and a free copy of Robotech? Get your local District Managers number, it's Maryland right? It should be Bruce Horowitz, I can give you his cell phone number if you like. You can rip him a new asshole if you want. He deserves it.

[Signe]

I just checked and they haven't charged me anything for it.  It's a free game I don't want and will never play.  Well, at least no charge yet, just a shipping confirmation.  I usually get charged at the same time or, sometimes, a bit before.  I still wonder if Lord of the Rings Online is still being developed.

Oh, and we're not moving to Maryland until July.  Do try and keep up!

[Trippy]

The lack of buzz for this game is astounding -- Turbine may have even a bigger snoozer than DDO on their hands if they don't do something to generate more interest in this game pronto. They are also clearly not going to meet that May release date given that the game hasn't even gone into wide-scale Beta testing yet.

[Miasma]

From what I've read about this game it sounds like they have hamstrung themselves so badly by sticking to the IP that it will be dead on arrival.  No mages, no PVP, can't play high elves and you can't even play evil races.

No one will be happy, people who only want to play it for the Lord of the Rings connection will be mad because you can't be a member of the fellowship, will have no impact on the story and can't play high elves.  People who just want to play a game will feel constricted by all the stuff they can't do so that the game will "stay true" to Tolkien's world.  Not to mention the lack of crafting, mounts and player housing at launch either.  Bleh.

I might not even buy this and I tend to buy all new mainstream MMOs just to try them, that terrible DDO game they just put out is still fresh in my memory too.  Or maybe they will learn from DDO's impending failure and delay release a year so that they can put in core features that people expect a game to ship with from the start nowadays.

[Strazos]

I have never understood the allure of player housing. It doesn't really serve much of a purpose.

[schild]

I have never understood the allure of player housing. It doesn't really serve much of a purpose.

I understand player housing and it's on my list of "must haves" for MMOGs. The fact WoW didn't have it really hurt the quality of the world, imo.

[Murgos]

What's she going to sue for $50 and a free copy of Robotech?

Sure, why not?  Lot's of people make law suits a hobby, they're a fun if not very economical form of entertainment.

You get triple damages if you manage to work Jack Nicholsons soliloquy from A Few Good Men into your arguments.  Lights flash and horns blow, it's pretty cool.

[Arthur_Parker]

Release date is 2007, Turbine have not stated a month.  I'm guessing they are aiming for a pre christmas release as with DDO, and like DDO it may be delayed a few months.

[Signe]

I was going by the EBgames release date from before the game totally disappeared from the site... but I think you know that, Arthur, my old son.

[Arthur_Parker]

Sorry I should have quoted Trippy.  I don't have anything to add about EBgames removing it from their site, no clue what's going on there.

[Signe]

I called EB and sorted it out.  Well... being the wrong game and all.  They are linking the error to having just redone their website, including "My Account" and "My Orders."  The woman I spoke to suspects that Lord of the Rings Online has been cancelled and when it was removed from the site, there was a database error.  Actually, I led her in that direction.  I have awesome telephone persuasion skills.  She actually was completely confused by it all so I helped her make up the bits that didn't fit.  I bet I started in internet rumour, too! 

[raydeen]

What's she going to sue for $50 and a free copy of Robotech?

Whoa! Let's not gloss over this free copy of Robotech thing! Can we do that?! I'll take Season 2.

[schild]

What's she going to sue for $50 and a free copy of Robotech?

Whoa! Let's not gloss over this free copy of Robotech thing! Can we do that?! I'll take Season 2.

I meant this.

[Telemediocrity]

Not to mention the lack of crafting, mounts and player housing at launch either.  Bleh.

Mounts... eh.  Give me runspeed like in AC1, and I care not for mounts.  Make travel meaningful, and mounts aren't that important.  Player housing?  I want a game that puts player housing on the landscape, and not shunted off into a side zone either like in DAoC.  Crafting?  I've never seen the appeal, but I don't get why crafters expect every game to have crafting - would it be reasonable to expect every game to have unlimited PvP?

Crafting is by no means a 'standard feature' that a MMO is incomplete without.

[Signe]

Since I saw Calandryll logged in to this forum earlier and he didn't deny it, I will take that as confirmation of my internet rumour.   Sound as stone.  Without a doubt.  Solid proof.  Kind of.

[5150]

I meant this.

I'm guessing it sucks then? I'm only interested because I've been looking at picking it up [cheap] for my XBox

I do like by mech games but I'm afraid Steel Battalion raised the bar higher than most mech games (including the bloody sequal) can reach!

[Lantyssa]

OMG, they cancelled MEO!?  I've got to tell all my friends!

(Okie, I'm not quite THAT gullable...)

[jpark]

I have never understood the allure of player housing. It doesn't really serve much of a purpose.

I understand player housing and it's on my list of "must haves" for MMOGs. The fact WoW didn't have it really hurt the quality of the world, imo.

Yes.  This observation strikes me every time I log in 

[schild]

I have never understood the allure of player housing. It doesn't really serve much of a purpose.

I understand player housing and it's on my list of "must haves" for MMOGs. The fact WoW didn't have it really hurt the quality of the world, imo.

Yes.  This observation strikes me every time I log in 

If my paladin had a house to store all of his PvP won trophies from the hordefolk, I might still be playing the game,

[Telemediocrity]

What's the appeal of housing, exactly?  Is it to show the world, "Look what I did!"?

I always thought that the cool part of housing was how it integrated into the world - that you can walk out your front door and realize you're in Interesting Location X, which is now your character's 'home', and thus that housing was only about as spiffy as the area that surrounded it - infinitely less so if the housing was instanced, so you step out your front door and you're standing with 50 other people who all own the same 'house'.

Reading the posts on this thread, it sounds like housing means some very divergent things to different people.

[Signe]

What's the appeal of housing, exactly?  Is it to show the world, "Look what I did!"?

I always thought that the cool part of housing was how it integrated into the world - that you can walk out your front door and realize you're in Interesting Location X, which is now your character's 'home', and thus that housing was only about as spiffy as the area that surrounded it - infinitely less so if the housing was instanced, so you step out your front door and you're standing with 50 other people who all own the same 'house'.

Reading the posts on this thread, it sounds like housing means some very divergent things to different people.

I've just always assumed people mostly use them for sex.  (not me, other people)

[Sparky]

From what I've read about this game it sounds like they have hamstrung themselves so badly by sticking to the IP that it will be dead on arrival.  No mages, no PVP, can't play high elves and you can't even play evil races.

I don't think it's slavishly sticking to the IP so much as a convenient way to sell huge cutting back of the project to their pipeweedtard fanbase.  Before the big overhaul there was to be PVP and the forums weren't full of Tolkien scholars quoting why that'd be a horrible idea.  But there was to be loads of crafting, player housing and so forth too.

[Venkman]

It's the book IP. The book was well known, but it's the movies that brought it to the masses. Those movies are old now though, in the eyes of the LCD, so unless Peter Jackson releases The Hobbit next year, there's not much in the way of IP cache Turbine can draw upon to prop up interest for the title. This has been my concern for it all along. LoTR is big and all for fantasy roleplay gamers, but it's all about the story, the story one won't be a part of in the game. And this genre has enough stock fantasy RPG sims already.

As to housing? Take it or leave it, though I don't believe for a second schild would still be in WoW if he had a place for his trophies  :mrgreen:

[Shockeye]

As to housing? Take it or leave it, though I don't believe for a second schild would still be in WoW if he had a place for his trophies  :mrgreen:

Not unless they give him free gametime.

[schild]

As to housing? Take it or leave it, though I don't believe for a second schild would still be in WoW if he had a place for his trophies  :mrgreen:

Not unless they give him free gametime.

I don't get it.

[Trippy]

Release date is 2007, Turbine have not stated a month.  I'm guessing they are aiming for a pre christmas release as with DDO, and like DDO it may be delayed a few months.

The currently scheduled release year is 2006 as stated on their forums:

http://forums.lotro.turbine.com/announcement.php?f=25&announcementid=7

[Trippy]

Player housing has no appeal to me personally as well unless it has an utilitarian purpose like item storage (e.g. FF XI and Neocron) but then I'm an anti-social person so I don't feel the need to lure invite people over to my pimp pad tastefully decorated dwelling ("Look I preordered *and* bought the Collector's Edition!" "Ooohh!" "Aaahhh!") for some cybering stimulating conversation. On the other hand I do understand that it does appeals to *a lot* of people, and in fact there are millions of people around world that are paying money just to play this sort of housing "mini game".

As for "instanced" vs. "non-instanced" housing I understand the appeal of having your house actually be a part of the game world from an immersiveness standpoint but like other "virtual world" ideas UO showed just how badly things can turn out when players are given that sort of freedom. The urban blight in cities caused by playing housing in UO was just silly where walking through town required navigating through a maze of structures and vendors. Then of course the urban blight spread into the wilderness turning it into the suburbs -- and like suburbs in real life the wildlife disappeared since they were conveniently being captured inside player housing (oops). On top of all that seemingly every week or so a new housing exploit would become public, and who knows how many exploits were never publicized. In 3D games there are additional graphic issues with allowing players to place structures willy-nilly since you can overload an area with too many polygons and so it's very understandable that "instanced" player housing is the norm now.

[Arthur_Parker]

The currently scheduled release year is 2006 as stated on their forums:

http://forums.lotro.turbine.com/announcement.php?f=25&announcementid=7

I'm going to lie down and rest, I meant 2006.

[WindupAtheist]

I have never understood the allure of player housing. It doesn't really serve much of a purpose.

It keeps the roleplayers from going fucking batshit loony.  If WoW had housing, I might...  Well no, I wouldn't still be playing.  But I might not have had to put up with Drizzt Ghey'elph shrieking "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" everytime I wandered into some unused building in Stormwind.  And I might not have been so afraid to walk upstairs at the inn.

[El Gallo]

How many shitty games can Turbine vomit out before people stop buying their games?

[Telemediocrity]

How many shitty games can Turbine vomit out before people stop buying their games?

The answer would probably be "quite a few", considering the SOE example.

That said, taking your opinion as indicative of the norm is what makes this line of thinking fall apart.  AC1 was on balance a success, as is DDO.  Their "generally agreed to be shitty" game count currently stands at a big fat 'one'.

In a market glutted with MMOs, Turbine has released 3.  Two of them offered some of the most fun and unique gameplay on the market (IMHO) and were commercially successful.  One of them flopped.

How does that spell out "ZOMG Turbine should be doomed" in your mind?

[Arthur_Parker]

Prove DDO has been commercially successful.

[Telemediocrity]

Prove DDO has been commercially successful.

I remember seeing a number quoted on these forums as something like 60,000 subscriptions.  For a niche game that does its niche well, that strikes me as quite good.

By commercially successful, I don't mean "OMG blockbuster", or even hitting their own optimistic internal projections - I just mean that the game is operating at a profit rather than at a loss (i.e. AC2, Shadowbane), and can thus be sustained pretty much indefinitely for those who enjoy it (a la AC1).