General Discussion

MMORPG.com News Manager Keith Cross spoke recently with Turbine's Jeffrey Steefel about the state of Lord of the Rings Online and the game's future.

Once each month, someone from MMORPG.com sits down with the Lord of the Rings Online developers at Turbine to participate in a conference call.  This month it was my turn to take part in our regular monthly talk with Turbine, where they normally share a few new details about an upcoming expansion, a new promotion, an event, or a new feature that they’re particularly excited about.  But this month’s interview came at an odd time in Turbine’s development cycle and in our news cycle.  They had just launched Book 13: Doom of the Last King which opened up the icy Forochel region in the north of Eriador, and they were too early in the development of Book 14 and the Mines of Moria expansion, which is due out later this year, to talk about those projects in detail.  On top of that, I had just spoken to Craig Alexander, Turbine’s VP of Product Development at the New York Comic Con just two weeks before.  Basically, there wasn’t a lot of new information available.  All that needs to be said about the above topics has either already been said, or isn’t ready for the public, so with that in mind, now seems like a good time to catch up with Turbine and the flurry of activity that has surrounded LotRO’s first year of operation.

Read more here.

That's all fine and dandy, but PR spin is not what I was hoping for.  What is the real state of the game from Turbine's view?  I mean, talking about a free weekend, fishing, and an upcoming Korean launch (which won't do much for US servers AFAIK) is pretty weak.

well, what did you want to know?

and?

Originally posted by daeandor

That's all fine and dandy, but PR spin is not what I was hoping for.  What is the real state of the game from Turbine's view?  I mean, talking about a free weekend, fishing, and an upcoming Korean launch (which won't do much for US servers AFAIK) is pretty weak.

Um.  The real state of the game is:

They just launched a popular expansion.

They have a paid expansion upcoming.  (most of the details on these two items were reported two weeks ago)

They are expanding to the biggest markets in the world in east Asia.

They are hiring here too, briskly.

They have a promo that says, "OK, so you missed your bet twelve months ago that we'd run at least 20 months for pre-pay lifetime accounts.  Wanna bet now we'll run at least 32 months?"

They have another promo that says, "Pay $9.99 a month -- but if you ever skip a month, you're back to $14.99.  So we'll reward your consistant loyalty in advance...uh...kinda."

Fishing is popular.

Patches are regular and competently deployed.

What more do you want?

Meh, some people look for ambulance chasing...whatever...:)

Shava

Might be nice to actually add something to the game that is actually challenging. My 3 yr old daughter could easily play this and eat sloppy joes at the same time and prob never even get killed in game ....

Originally posted by daeandor

That's all fine and dandy, but PR spin is not what I was hoping for.  What is the real state of the game from Turbine's view?  I mean, talking about a free weekend, fishing, and an upcoming Korean launch (which won't do much for US servers AFAIK) is pretty weak.

I cant say that I know so much about the mmo business but isnt Korea one of the bigger mmo markets? An h sucess would greatly increase  the cash  flow into this lovly game.   And as a fomer wow player  I do find the new fishing skill quite nice (if you know what i say).   Great interview btw, keep up the good work.

Originally posted by shava

 

Originally posted by daeandor

That's all fine and dandy, but PR spin is not what I was hoping for.  What is the real state of the game from Turbine's view?  I mean, talking about a free weekend, fishing, and an upcoming Korean launch (which won't do much for US servers AFAIK) is pretty weak.

 

Um.  The real state of the game is:

They just launched a popular expansion.

They have a paid expansion upcoming.  (most of the details on these two items were reported two weeks ago)

They are expanding to the biggest markets in the world in east Asia.

They are hiring here too, briskly.

They have a promo that says, "OK, so you missed your bet twelve months ago that we'd run at least 20 months for pre-pay lifetime accounts.  Wanna bet now we'll run at least 32 months?"

They have another promo that says, "Pay $9.99 a month -- but if you ever skip a month, you're back to $14.99.  So we'll reward your consistant loyalty in advance...uh...kinda."

Fishing is popular.

Patches are regular and competently deployed.

What more do you want?

Meh, some people look for ambulance chasing...whatever...:)

 

Shava

Actually, you probably said what I wanted to know better than the "interview" did...

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Originally posted by shava

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Originally posted by daeandor

That's all fine and dandy, but PR spin is not what I was hoping for. What is the real state of the game from Turbine's view? I mean, talking about a free weekend, fishing, and an upcoming Korean launch (which won't do much for US servers AFAIK) is pretty weak.

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Um. The real state of the game is:
They just launched a popular expansion.
They have a paid expansion upcoming. (most of the details on these two items were reported two weeks ago)
They are expanding to the biggest markets in the world in east Asia.
They are hiring here too, briskly.
They have a promo that says, "OK, so you missed your bet twelve months ago that we'd run at least 20 months for pre-pay lifetime accounts. Wanna bet now we'll run at least 32 months?"
They have another promo that says, "Pay $9.99 a month -- but if you ever skip a month, you're back to $14.99. So we'll reward your consistant loyalty in advance...uh...kinda."
Fishing is popular.
Patches are regular and competently deployed.
What more do you want?
Meh, some people look for ambulance chasing...whatever...:)

Shava

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very nice summary