Tag: Europe

Codemasters Wants Some Well Deserved Hate


So maybe not that brutal...

If you are a newcomer to Lord of the Rings Online, and live in Europe, chances are high that you are currently playing on one of Turbine’s US servers. When Turbine launched the US-based servers last week, they did so with foresight, preparation, and server queues. Lots and lots of server queues. Codemasters, on the other hand, opted to delay the launch to an unknown date, so they could get some kinks out of the system.

Naturally, players are annoyed, and Codemasters wants to validate your anger through an inbox/contest.

The community liaison officers will be your target/punch bag/stress ball and welcome you to throw things at us. The choice of what you throw and how you throw it is yours but you have to be creative: describe it in a text, record a video, draw something or take a funny screenshot – there is no limit to your imagination! You can even bake a custard pie and we will administer the confectionary as requested. The ten most creative and/or funny submissions will receive a Codemasters Goodie Bag and we will feature them on our May Contain Gamers community blog.

PS: Don’t poison the custard pie. Who could say no to a goodie bag? Vent your frustrations and get rewarded for it. Granted, it might have just been easier if Codemasters hadn’t delayed yet another Turbine F2P venture…just saying.

More On LOTRO Europe


Sorry Europe.

“Hi folks,

Following our announcement on Wednesday regarding the delay of Free-to-Play in Europe, we can now provide you with a further update as to its status. It’s not good news I’m afraid. We are currently anticipating a delay of more than a week, potentially launching around the end of the month, and are still not in a position where we are able to confirm an exact date.

As you know, we were tracking a launch date of 10th September and up until recently thought this was still achievable; however, due to some major obstacles this date is simply not possible. Many of you have asked for a detailed explanation as to why this has come to be and why there wasn’t very much notice of the delay. Regarding the implementation challenges we talked about, the good news is that our Store and new servers are just about ready to roll, barring some final, live stress testing that needs to be performed.

We understand this is disappointing for you, more so because of our lack of communication in the earlier part of the week coupled with the last minute bad news. As the situation was changing literally from hour to hour, we weren’t in a position to tell you anything with any stability to it.

As we work to bring Free-to-Play to launch here, all eligible players will still continue to accrue loyalty rewards as per the rewards table on the website. We’re also laying on a bunch of your favourite live events on all servers starting next week and we’re introducing a community competition to allow you to take out your frustration on us and win some great prizes in doing so. We know this won’t substitute for the new Store and Enedwaith, but maybe it will make things a little more fun for you as you wait. Look out for announcements on all of these things within the next few days.

As always, thanks for your support and patience and a particular thank you to all of you who took the time to send us personal messages, those were awesome and really appreciated!”

So no free Lord of the Rings until possibly later this month. Isn’t it about time Turbine took Lord of the Rings back under their watch?

Lord of the Rings Online Free! [Not For Europe]


NSFE: Not Suited For Europeans

Just a friendly reminder to those of you who haven’t been enjoying the head start: Lord of the Rings Online goes free to play today! Well, freemium is a more accurate description. Either way, if you haven’t already been downloading the client, you may want to start it this morning, as the seven gigabyte (ten gigs for the full high-definition client) download is going to take a while, and Turbine’s download servers will no doubt be hit by the sudden rush of players.

Turbine is fixing a bug where players are being shown too many/few Turbine points compared to what they should have. The points may take a couple days to register, for those who obtained them either through Turbine’s subscription promotion, subscription “allowances,” and lifetime subscription allowances.

Reminder: Loyalty rewards may take 7-10 days to appear in your account after the launch of Volume III, Book 2. VIP Points should appear within 2-3 days after your billing date.(Click Here) for more information on account status, points, or other Free to Play related questions.

Still no word on Lord of the Rings Europe. To those player in the US, expect major queue lines (unless you’re a VIP) for the next few weeks.

Lord of the Rings Online: Europe F2P Delay


European.

Even solely a subscription game, Lord of the Rings Online ranks in the higher tier of games that are not World of Warcraft, in terms of population. Turbine has been setting up for the past few months in preparation for the transition to partially free to play, doing everything from beefing up existing servers to adding in new servers. With today’s launch of the head start, Codemasters is having stage fright.

Unlike the United States servers, where the transition went live today, the European servers have been delayed for a yet to be announced time.

“Given the complexities and challenges faced in the preparation and implementation of the new store to work within our infrastructure, we feel more time is needed to deliver the high level of service our players have quite rightly come to expect. As a result, we have decided to delay launch to ensure that we can support the massive increase in players that we are anticipating and deliver them a Free to Play experience like none other.”

I feel bad for the European Turbine fans. I mean, sure the delay may only be the rest of tonight, or it may be next week, but it seems like the European players always get the short end of the stick. Look at how long it took Dungeons and Dragons Online Europe to transition to the free to play model after its much more Yankee counterpart.

I, on the other hand, will be downloading the client off of Turbine’s website, as my special edition (seen below) is so out of date that the client it installs won’t even update.

I used my scanner this time.

Dungeons and Dragons Online Going Free To Play August


Just replace September with August.

I know what you’re asking: Omali! Dungeons and Dragons Online is already free to play! To which I answer: Not in Europe. No, for the past ten months or so North American players have been enjoying the freshly free to play Dungeons and Dragons Online, while our compatriots over the ocean have not. When Turbine’s title went into cash-shop-freemium mode this past September, the dungeon crawler saw an enormous revival both in players and revenue. Since then, Turbine has added yet another server, and has seen increases in revenue in the triple digits.

This fall, not to be out of line with a few other developers, Turbine is taking back Dungeons and Dragons Online in Europe, from the current publisher Codemasters (this is not the first time Codemasters has lost their rights to an MMO), where the title will be reworked and re-released under the Eberron Unlimited title. I don’t think many people should be surprised at this, given the recent introduction of Warner Bros. into the workplace, as well as Europe’s transition being in the cards for some time now.

Turbine is promising that the transition will go as smoothly as possible, hopefully even more smoothly since the transition has already happened once. Dungeons and Dragons Online is currently the third most played MMO in the US, according to NPD Group.

More on Dungeons and Dragons Online as it appears.

Mythic Is Taking Back WAR EU


TERA Time!

Mythic wants its babies back, especially in Europe where hosting has been handled by GOA. Earlier this year, the MMO developer took back Dark Age of Camelot, that GOA had been hosting for the game’s European life-span. Now, in a move that I’m sure will surprise anyone playing WAR Europe Edition, Mythic is taking back Warhammer Online…in Europe!

Servers will transition over the next few weeks, and Mythic has promised that all of your information will transfer over to the new servers. More information is coming soon.