Tag: Turbine

Lord of the Rings Online Server Mergers Coming


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As part of Turbine’s list of updates going live this summer, Lord of the Rings Online will see a number of worlds shuttered with players given the opportunity to transfer their characters and guilds. Updates to the data centers will allow character transfers from inside the game client rather than on the website, as well as supporting Kins disbanding on one server and reforming on another with their status and achievements intact.

You will have 3 months past the date of the launch of the new service in which to continue playing on the smaller worlds while planning and or making your move to a larger server. After that point your characters will always be available to be transferred to one of the remaining worlds, however you will only be able to log in to the remaining servers. More details on all of this as well as detailed instructions on how to move will be provided in email, in-game mail as well as website and forums in the months to come.

More information is set to come in the following months.

(Source: LOTRO)

Turbine Layoffs Confirmed Over Twitter


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It looks like Turbine is going through a round of layoffs. Earlier today, former Community Manager Rick Heaton tweeted “Thinking of my friends at #Turbine and #LOTRO and elsewhere today. I’m easy to find if you need me.” When asked if his tweet was related to layoffs at Turbine, he responded “sadly.”

The comment has seemingly been backed by another former Turbine employee, Robert Hess, who tweeted “My thoughts go out to my buddies over at Turbine today. Sounds like a round of layoffs. If folks need anything let me know.” Turbine has not yet commented to confirm or deny these claims.

(Source: Massively)

Asheron's Call Free To Play, Maintenance Mode


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Turbine Entertainment has announced that Asheron’s Call will be heading free to play as of March 4th, although the game will be heading into maintenance mode at the same time. While there are no plans to shut down Asheron’s Call at any point in the near future, there will also no longer be any updates apart from maintenance, bug fixes, and a few tweaks here and there. There are also plans to allow players to run their own servers, as mentioned in the announcement:

In addition, we have been working within the company to start an initiative sometime near the end of the year to allow players to run their own Asheron’s Call servers. We intend to put the call out to tech savvy enthusiasts that love Asheron’s Call to create a community for players who want to run their own Asheron’s Call servers.

Both Asheron’s Call and Asheron’s Call 2 will be made available to play for free. Given the emphasis on player-operated servers and that the move will shut off what cash flow Asheron’s Call has left, all signs seem to point toward the sunsetting of b0th games in the next year or so, the official servers at the very least. At the very least, Turbine clearly recognizes the passion of their community and is one of an extremely small number of developers willing to hand their game over to the community when it is no longer financially viable for them to keep going.

We will have more details as they approach. Turbine has not commented on whether or not private servers will be possible for Asheron’s Call 2.

(Source: Asheron’s Call)

Turbine Suffers Layoffs


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Turbine is in the midst of a round of layoffs. According to a news article on Gamasutra, the game developer let go an unspecified number of employees, with the explanation that the layoffs were necessary “in order for us to invest in growth areas at Turbine.”

“These are always tough decisions, which we don’t approach lightly, but it’s crucial that Turbine is structured in a way that reflects the current and coming marketplace.”

How these layoffs affect Turbine’s games, including Lord of the Rings Online and Infinite Crisis, will have to be seen.

(Source: Gamasutra)

Turbine Reveals DDO Player Council


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It looks like Turbine is taking a note out of Eve Online’s book, with the announcement of a player council being set up for targeted feedback.

The DDO Player Council is a group of players selected to provide targeted feedback and valuable suggestions to the DDO Team. This will involve participating in surveys, focused discussions, as well as highly structured and targeted developer chats. Often the topics covered will be elements of game design at their earliest stages, well before they are committed to development or appear in our preview programs like Lamannia.

Applications are being taken through January 20th, with the council launching on the week of the 27th.

(Source: DDO Forums)

From The Archives: LOTRO E3 '06 Trailer


Tonight’s bit of nostalgia comes from Lord of the Rings Online, more specifically the game’s E3 2006 trailer. Lord of the Rings Online launched in April 2007. Check us out on Youtube for further videos and nostalgia, or continue following us here at MMO Fallout dot com.

Turbine Responds To True Heart Criticism


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Turbine’s Senior Producer has posted an announcement on the Dungeons and Dragons Online forum announcing that due to player feedback and internal testing, the price of Heroic Hearts of Wood will be greatly reduced when Update 20 goes live. Additionally, players will still be able to purchase Hearts of Wood from the Twelve barter NPC, at least for the time being.

The prices on Lamannia are not final – inspired by the Lamannia feedback, the Heroic Heart of Wood will be greatly reduced from the price displayed in the bartershop today. We’ll be looking at your additional feedback and how players play through sagas, and adjust the costs appropriately. We expect the average player to, upon reaching the minimum level requirement, spend additional hours to obtain a Heart of Wood – but never hundreds of hours.

The post goes on to explain that the original change was to address two goals, the unification to a single currency for Hearts of Wood and to address a major oversight with Tokens of the Twelve, the currency players currently use to buy Hearts of Wood. The tokens were originally intended to be rewards for completing difficult tasks, however the development team did not factor in Epic levels and the tokens have since become rather trivial to obtain. In response, Turbine has been slowly depreciating the value of the token and has not added to the reward system in the past year.

(Source: DDO Forums)

Player Protest True Heart Update In DDO


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MMO gamers are hardly strangers to in-game protests. We’ve seen plenty of protests in games like RuneScape, Aion, and more over everything from updates to lack of communication and more, the removal of a mechanic or the reintroduction of one that had been removed. The size and efficiency of said protests ranges based on the catalyst and the game in question, but players have had quite a bit of success in the past with organizing sit-in’s and mass exodus or unsubscribing. There is plenty of debate as to whether or not protests actually accomplish their goals, because you won’t find many developers willing to admit if they are.

Players in Dungeons and Dragons Online organized a sit-in on the Wayfinder server in Stormreach city, to show their dissatisfaction toward a change in the True Reincarnation system coming with Update 20. True reincarnation resets your character to level one with bonuses from your “past life.” The update removes the primary way players obtained True Hearts of Wood and will require players to run epic-level sagas in order to obtain commendations to trade in for True Hearts. In layman’s terms, the update will add a lot of grind and make the process of True Reincarnation much longer, with the goal of either directing player’s attention to sagas or toward the cash shop to open their wallet.

Will Turbine cave in to player demands? Tune in next time to find out.

(Source: Occupy Stormreach)

Turbine’s Billing Server Explodes, Issuing Refunds


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Turbine is in the process of issuing refunds after a major glitch caused a number of players to be charged multiple times for their subscriptions. The number of charges varies widely from player to player and bank to bank, with some reporting as little as a couple of extra charges and others reporting into the hundreds. The unfortunate collateral damage is that the multiple charges also seem to be setting off fraud alerts, resulting in the banks automatically freezing said accounts, while many customers whose banks did allow the charges were forced to watch their funds drop to zero or below. To make matters worse, this issue occurred on a Friday, meaning anyone whose bank account was drained/frozen will not have access to their money over the weekend and into midway through next week.

Turbine has posted a notice with a phone number, asking anyone who is hit by penalties or fees due to the charges to call them. The developer is in the middle of processing refunds for the erroneous charges.

If you do not see the refund on your statement after a few days, if you incurred any penalties due to the charges, or if you need further assistance with your account or billing, our Customer Service Agents will be happy to take care of you. You can get in touch with Account Support by going to support.turbine.com, then clicking on “Support Center” and “Submit a Ticket.” Players can also contact Account Support toll-free at 1-855-WBGAMES (Account Support Hours: 10am – 7pm Eastern Time 7 days a week (GMT -5).)

MMO Fallout recommends that any players who were affected immediately contact their banks, as well as any companies who will be expecting a payment from you over the next week to explain the situation and hopefully come to an agreement. Be proactive, it isn’t a guarantee but you’ll come out a lot better than if you just wait for them to contact you. Customers who feel that they have been severely damaged (and I emphasize severely) by this billing error, whether it be damage to your credit score, heavy late fees or interest rate hikes due to late payments, etc, should take a look at the following guides on filing a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve, the IC3, and check the following list on how to contact your state’s Attorney General.

(Source: Turbine)

Turbine's Billing Server Explodes, Issuing Refunds


helms_deep_en

Turbine is in the process of issuing refunds after a major glitch caused a number of players to be charged multiple times for their subscriptions. The number of charges varies widely from player to player and bank to bank, with some reporting as little as a couple of extra charges and others reporting into the hundreds. The unfortunate collateral damage is that the multiple charges also seem to be setting off fraud alerts, resulting in the banks automatically freezing said accounts, while many customers whose banks did allow the charges were forced to watch their funds drop to zero or below. To make matters worse, this issue occurred on a Friday, meaning anyone whose bank account was drained/frozen will not have access to their money over the weekend and into midway through next week.

Turbine has posted a notice with a phone number, asking anyone who is hit by penalties or fees due to the charges to call them. The developer is in the middle of processing refunds for the erroneous charges.

If you do not see the refund on your statement after a few days, if you incurred any penalties due to the charges, or if you need further assistance with your account or billing, our Customer Service Agents will be happy to take care of you. You can get in touch with Account Support by going to support.turbine.com, then clicking on “Support Center” and “Submit a Ticket.” Players can also contact Account Support toll-free at 1-855-WBGAMES (Account Support Hours: 10am – 7pm Eastern Time 7 days a week (GMT -5).)

MMO Fallout recommends that any players who were affected immediately contact their banks, as well as any companies who will be expecting a payment from you over the next week to explain the situation and hopefully come to an agreement. Be proactive, it isn’t a guarantee but you’ll come out a lot better than if you just wait for them to contact you. Customers who feel that they have been severely damaged (and I emphasize severely) by this billing error, whether it be damage to your credit score, heavy late fees or interest rate hikes due to late payments, etc, should take a look at the following guides on filing a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve, the IC3, and check the following list on how to contact your state’s Attorney General.

(Source: Turbine)