Originally posted by Khalathwyr
Man...if they had only stuck with the Asheron's Call forumla and iterated on it. What a shame.

I still have hope they may wake up to the idea again. Something is brewing but have to wait for some leaks or announcments.

Originally posted by xalvi

FOR THE SAKE OF THE MASTERMIND TOLKIEN, this mmo should be disbanded. 

 

Need a new mmo with the LOTR title developed by a company that actually knows what its doing, perhaps Anet or can't believe im saying this blizzard. 

 

p.s - I haven't been following this game for a while. Does WB now own the lisence of LOTR gaming in the mmo industry, since they bought turbine?

Blizzard will never make a game of someone elses IP.  Why share profits when you can make up your own IP and rake in the cash.  ANet fancy themselves as a new Blizzard, I doubt they'd share profits either.

I believe a company could still make an MMO based on the films, but since WB owns the films I guess WB indeed has control of any LOTR MMO until Turbines license expires.

Originally posted by Xstatic912
@bbbb42

Customer loyalty is priceless, and blizz is one of the few companies that have good customer loyalty.. For everyone that was angry at blizz for D3, 5 more fans agree with the decision they made... Crazy I know..

As such you maybe right on them seeing sandbox mmo style is the untap market, and they wanna get there project out the door before blizz, but that is going to work in blizz favor, because blizz will look where they all went wrong, make it simpler for mass acceptance and then these guys will scratch there head and say why they didn't do it like that... And of course blizz loyal fans will follow suit...

I know it's common knowledge now that Blizzard takes ideas from other devs and uses them, but I'm not so sure they can pull it off successfully a 2nd time like they did with WoW . Their last project(D3) sort of showed their age, kind of like that MMA fighter that has passed his prime.

I'm hoping Turbine will make Middle Earth Online.

Originally posted by Skuz

That company used to be Turbine, originally they were planning a "Middle-Earth online" a sandbox style "world" game with content creation being player-driven, then they switched to a theme-park, had they stuck to their original vision I think they would have the better game by now.

Hear,hear!

Originally posted by DOC_AVENGER

Well... Lord of the Rings Online is one of the most polished and succesfuls games on mmo, after a few expansions is getting better on his way to Mordor.

One of the better F2P out there, imho. You can achieve enough TP to buy on in-game store without paying a cent. So, after this few hirings it'll be for sure one of most succesful MMOs we'll see...

I'm confident on them, let's see how it goes

a game that goes f2p isnt called succesful

Originally posted by DOC_AVENGER

Well... Lord of the Rings Online is one of the most polished and succesfuls games on mmo, after a few expansions is getting better on his way to Mordor.

Polished yes.

Successful, no. They were forced to go FTP after all, and their expansions have been getting worse and smaller each year. 

[mod edit]

Originally posted by defector1968

Originally posted by DOC_AVENGER

Well... Lord of the Rings Online is one of the most polished and succesfuls games on mmo, after a few expansions is getting better on his way to Mordor.

One of the better F2P out there, imho. You can achieve enough TP to buy on in-game store without paying a cent. So, after this few hirings it'll be for sure one of most succesful MMOs we'll see...

I'm confident on them, let's see how it goes

a game that goes f2p isnt called succesful

Actually he is right in his assessment. A game that get continuous development (as opposed to, say Warhammer), a game that sees an influx of new and returning players, a game that has one of the best F2P cash shop models around can be considered successful. Lets not forget how long the game is running, the engine updates it has received over the years plus the quality of the content updates.

In such a competitive environment any mmorpg that:

• Receives content updates and development time
• Maintains their player base
• Generates profit for the development team

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by defector1968

Originally posted by DOC_AVENGER

Well... Lord of the Rings Online is one of the most polished and succesfuls games on mmo, after a few expansions is getting better on his way to Mordor.

One of the better F2P out there, imho. You can achieve enough TP to buy on in-game store without paying a cent. So, after this few hirings it'll be for sure one of most succesful MMOs we'll see...

I'm confident on them, let's see how it goes

a game that goes f2p isnt called succesful

Actually he is right in his assessment. A game that get continuous development (as opposed to, say Warhammer), a game that sees an influx of new and returning players, a game that has one of the best F2P cash shop models around can be considered successful.

Stopped reading there. Turbine's cash shop is one of the worst things I've ever seen. One of the most restrictive on the market, easily.

Good successful games don't have their staff layed off.

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by defector1968

Originally posted by DOC_AVENGER

Well... Lord of the Rings Online is one of the most polished and succesfuls games on mmo, after a few expansions is getting better on his way to Mordor.

One of the better F2P out there, imho. You can achieve enough TP to buy on in-game store without paying a cent. So, after this few hirings it'll be for sure one of most succesful MMOs we'll see...

I'm confident on them, let's see how it goes

a game that goes f2p isnt called succesful

Actually he is right in his assessment. A game that get continuous development (as opposed to, say Warhammer), a game that sees an influx of new and returning players, a game that has one of the best F2P cash shop models around can be considered successful.

Stopped reading there. Turbine's cash shop is one of the worst things I've ever seen. One of the most restrictive on the market, easily.

Good successful games don't have their staff layed off.

Oh but they do. It's sound business practice to increase the size of an org during development and then layoff after. I doubt you'll hear about the addition of staff because, well frankly, it doesn't make good fodder for the type of people who get pleasure from reading about others' misfortune.

Originally posted by grimgryphon

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by defector1968

Originally posted by DOC_AVENGER

Well... Lord of the Rings Online is one of the most polished and succesfuls games on mmo, after a few expansions is getting better on his way to Mordor.

One of the better F2P out there, imho. You can achieve enough TP to buy on in-game store without paying a cent. So, after this few hirings it'll be for sure one of most succesful MMOs we'll see...

I'm confident on them, let's see how it goes

a game that goes f2p isnt called succesful

Actually he is right in his assessment. A game that get continuous development (as opposed to, say Warhammer), a game that sees an influx of new and returning players, a game that has one of the best F2P cash shop models around can be considered successful.

Stopped reading there. Turbine's cash shop is one of the worst things I've ever seen. One of the most restrictive on the market, easily.

Good successful games don't have their staff layed off.

Oh but they do. It's sound business practice to increase the size of an org during development and then layoff after. I doubt you'll hear about the addition of staff because, well frankly, it doesn't make good fodder for the type of people who get pleasure from reading about others' misfortune.

You have that on individual games. YOu don't have that on MMOs. When an expansion is done, you start working on the next one. In my 6 years playing DAoC, I don't remember ever once seeing a news report that Mythic canned a bunch of people after an expansion released. 

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Originally posted by grimgryphon

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by defector1968

Originally posted by DOC_AVENGER

Well... Lord of the Rings Online is one of the most polished and succesfuls games on mmo, after a few expansions is getting better on his way to Mordor.

One of the better F2P out there, imho. You can achieve enough TP to buy on in-game store without paying a cent. So, after this few hirings it'll be for sure one of most succesful MMOs we'll see...

I'm confident on them, let's see how it goes

a game that goes f2p isnt called succesful

Actually he is right in his assessment. A game that get continuous development (as opposed to, say Warhammer), a game that sees an influx of new and returning players, a game that has one of the best F2P cash shop models around can be considered successful.

Stopped reading there. Turbine's cash shop is one of the worst things I've ever seen. One of the most restrictive on the market, easily.

Good successful games don't have their staff layed off.

Oh but they do. It's sound business practice to increase the size of an org during development and then layoff after. I doubt you'll hear about the addition of staff because, well frankly, it doesn't make good fodder for the type of people who get pleasure from reading about others' misfortune.

You have that on individual games. YOu don't have that on MMOs. When an expansion is done, you start working on the next one. In my 6 years playing DAoC, I don't remember ever once seeing a news report that Mythic canned a bunch of people after an expansion released. 

It wasn't so publicized either at that time.

An expansion is released, typically theres a period were production is lessened in which case theres a chance of actual Layoffs. Lets face the facts here, no matter how successful a game is the need for workers after an expansion is less. Most work for the next expansion is often times not done immediaitely, and much of the work itself is more 'design' areas' that early where theres a lot less individuals needed for the process. Typically this 'need' becomes even less as expansions are often more 'content' updates then mechanic updates, making jobs that might have been in place to handle extra systems in the game might have no purpose for that next expansion whenever it comes. 

Expansions are often bigger projects so they can be costly to do, so for many companies who seek Profit > Quality games, they will layoff and then rehire when they need those extra bodies. It helps to let the expansion run its course and hopefully make up for the costs and getting them the most profit possible not having to support workers that aren't very useful at that point.