According to Lord of the Rings Online Executive Producer Kate Paiz, the Riders of Rohan expansion will be delayed until October 15th to give the team time to address some issues and concerns brought up by players during the recent beta test. Riders of Rohan was scheduled for a mid-September release.

“We’ve had a very successful Beta program with some of the largest and most active beta player populations we’ve seen since Moria. The amount and quality of feedback on our largest expansion ever has been fantastic,” said Kate Paiz, Executive Producer of The Lord of the Rings Online.

“Thanks to some great efforts from beta players, we’ve identified issues that we think need to be addressed before we can launch. In order to address those issues and meet our expectations for quality we’re going to need more time. As a result, we’ve elected to delay our launch to October 15th.”

“We understand that many players have been looking forward to joining us in Rohan as soon as possible and will be disappointed by this news. As a token of our appreciation for your patience we are granting a gift to all pre-purchasers of Riders of Rohan.”

“We thank you for your feedback and patience and hope to see you all in Rohan later this year.”

Players who have preordered the expansion will receive 500 Turbine points and a "goodie bag" of consumables that will be available to them on September 5th. In addition, the team is planning several in-game events including a celebration of both Frodo's and Bilbo's birthdays!

Read the full post on the Lord of the Rings Online site.

"In addition, the team is planning several in-game events including a celebration of both Frodo's and Bilbo's birthdays!"

Actually, Bilbo's birthday is happening every year, so it's hardly 'in addition' :)

I guess, the delay can be a good thing. It provide a chance to fix the problems, so the launch will be smoother (especially in the light of the previously launched bugfest called RoI...)  Also worth mention, that this way the summer festival won't overlapse Rohan's start, people can focus on the festival :)

Originally posted by MMOGamer71
What are the issues?

WB is forcing them to release an expansion every single year and the small staff simple can't do it.  This is two "expansions" in a row where there is no instance cluster on release.  There are still major bugs from last years dragon raid.

WB philosophy is to squeeze money out of the players by reducing content and raising prices.  Blizzard at least waits until the product is tested and polished.

WoW! just wow. smh.

So they make a game exceeding expensive with a growing cost to players each expansion then they delay it? smh

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by MMOGamer71
What are the issues?

WB is forcing them to release an expansion every single year and the small staff simple can't do it.  This is two "expansions" in a row where there is no instance cluster on release.  There are still major bugs from last years dragon raid.

 

WB philosophy is to squeeze money out of the players by reducing content and raising prices.  Blizzard at least waits until the product is tested and polished.

Even tho blizz waits they are still no better about content release, making players wait because they have a tiny dev team that can't keep up so they can spend the sub numbers on their yacht parties and summer homes really isn't good business either. Can't wait for annual subs to run out.

Originally posted by cagan
I cant wait to grind my way to level 85 fighting the same mobs over and over and over again just like I did to 75. Besides I get a new mount that I can only use in a limited area. And best of all its only $29? $39? I dont even know...  LOTRO died after the mines of Moria expansion....

Absolutely.  that's when they started cutting back on their development team and only made mini-expansions.  they at least had the decency to admit SoM was a mini-expansion and only charge $20.

Now they just pretend they are the kind of expansions WOW and Rift get.

Originally posted by itgrowls

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by MMOGamer71
What are the issues?

WB is forcing them to release an expansion every single year and the small staff simple can't do it.  This is two "expansions" in a row where there is no instance cluster on release.  There are still major bugs from last years dragon raid.

 

WB philosophy is to squeeze money out of the players by reducing content and raising prices.  Blizzard at least waits until the product is tested and polished.

Even tho blizz waits they are still no better about content release, making players wait because they have a tiny dev team that can't keep up so they can spend the sub numbers on their yacht parties and summer homes really isn't good business either. Can't wait for annual subs to run out.

What are you talking about?  Blizz ALWAYS releases content.  It's not their fault that players don't understand the word moderation.  They produce adequate if not more than adequate content.  While it might be a *yawn* been there done that thing but they still produce decent content production.  They routinely release expansions/major patches with new raids, factions (favor), crafting items, quests, and storyline.

Originally posted by clumsytoes44
Agreed SoM was the last good expac. It's really sad that they turned it into crap with the F2P conversion(imho). One of the very few game's I would rather pay a sub for. Now the install disk's make great coffee coaster's.

That means theres been one sub-par xpac in your opinion (and mine). That happens with most mmos . This ones not released yet so its hard to know what its like . The fee to play conversion made it better imo . Its easier to group up when your leveling etc .I do know people that agree with you though but they are more hard core players . I only ever played lotro as my second mmo so I probably havn't been hit by the same things that annoyed you enough to give up . I still enjoy it . It still has a great community and its a nice relaxing interesting world to quest around . Maybe not the most exciting mmo ever but its still very much a world as a game . Which is what an mmo should be . 

SHOCKING NEWS

It was always stupid of them to try and release this tiny expansion sandwiched between the monsters of GW2 and MoP

I mean, people are still not going to care at all about this come October because this game is dead, but it's better than not caring at all in the negative zone!

Very well said roo67.

I guess the naysayers wont be happy until the good people at Turbine work for free. I'm happy to pay for what I enjoy and after 5 years (albeit on and off being a lifetimer) I still enjoy the game and as said above, the community.

Draw yourself two big circles that cross each other. Write AAA title in one. Write quality community in the other. Write Lotro in the bit that overlaps. I challenge you to put another name in that space.

Actually, the real reason for the delay is that they still need to polish quite a few things, like class balance (especially in mounted combat), itemization, quest rewards, etc. Currently, experience differs considerably, depending which class you have chosen to test. Some are quite polished, but some aren't. Thus, the decision is actually very good, and the LOTRO community is responding very positively. I must say from what I have seen from beta (NDA is already up, so I can talk), the expansion is very impressive, and is worth your dime. In fact, Turbine is currently going uphill, as the latest content update (the Great River region) was actually quite good. Thus far, the work done on Riders of Rohan is very impressive, and mounted combat is a true novelty system. It will require some getting used to, but Turbine are certainly offering something new this time.

I don't want to go too far, but this expansion has the potential of rivalling Moria in terms of quality. The only stain so far is the delay of the instance cluster, but as said above, Turbine are pressed to release expansions every year now, and the team is simply not big enough. Besides, this is certainly something to cheer about - a developer delays a product, admitting it is not ready yet. This is certainly a change in attitude, and I hope it continues.

Not to mention the community rep actually said that Rohan will be bigger than moria, in terms of landmass aswell as quests, deeds etc.

Also it makes sense to release endgame instance clusters a bit later, cause people will need time to level up their chars first anyway. There is no point in delaying a whole expansion just for the couple nolifes that will complain about lacking endgame 2 days after headstart of a new expansion. 

I mean they could have just added 2 months to the announced release date early 2012 and we would get the expansion in december with instances. I prefer this way, not just because it means the instance cluster will get its own beta test and they will have the time to fix any bugs in MC instead of releasing buggy MC and buggy instances.

And no, they don't want to double dip. The IC coming later is included in the expansion price, it simply gets out later.

Originally posted by Rocketeer

Not to mention the community rep actually said that Rohan will be bigger than moria, in terms of landmass aswell as quests, deeds etc.

Also it makes sense to release endgame instance clusters a bit later, cause people will need time to level up their chars first anyway. There is no point in delaying a whole expansion just for the couple nolifes that will complain about lacking endgame 2 days after headstart of a new expansion. 

I mean they could have just added 2 months to the announced release date early 2012 and we would get the expansion in december with instances. I prefer this way, not just because it means the instance cluster will get its own beta test and they will have the time to fix any bugs in MC instead of releasing buggy MC and buggy instances.

 

And no, they don't want to double dip. The IC coming later is included in the expansion price, it simply gets out later.

Moria is actually bigger than it's top down footprint, there are multiple levels there but turbine likes to quote Moria anyway.  Quest comparisons are fair, assuming they are equally interesting/complex.  You can make a ton of kill "X" quests to boost a quest count.

You run a lot faster on mounts and Rohan is mostly fields.  It's nice to get large areas but you can't forget the fact that it is mount based.  Moria had a LOT of detail in it's design thanks to the large dev team and budget.  RoR really does not.

Turbine adds instance clusters later because WB forced them to release expansions in September and they fell behind.  Rather than release the expansion when it's ready, like any good developer/publisher, they release it on artificial deadlines based on financials. 

This year they took advantage of being behind on instances and their plan was to double dip and charge everyone for them.  They had to cancel that when their FAQ was copy pasted from last years which said it was free to those buying the expansion with cash.

You may fool some people with this post.  But I pay close attention to Turbines statements and actions.

If you love the game and are happy with the prices they set for their content, that's great.  But if you read their official forums, even people who were OK with RoI were unhappy with RoR.