I am from EU, should i download US client or EU client?

sacredfool

I have a week of free time so might as well see what's teh fuss about. However, just in cas ei fall in love with the game.. should I go US or EU?

I hear EU has worse management and is behind with updates, but at the same time I would like to raid/group at proper hours and being from EU myself am wondering what is the eu population like on the US servers?

Coman

Originally posted by sacredfool

I have a week of free time so might as well see what's teh fuss about. However, just in cas ei fall in love with the game.. should I go US or EU?

I hear EU has worse management and is behind with updates, but at the same time I would like to raid/group at proper hours and being from EU myself am wondering what is the eu population like on the US servers?

There is a "EU" server at the US. A server where most of the EU folks gone to when the game became F2P there. Not sure if they all moved to the EU F2P though. 

sacredfool

Name of said server?

bandontcare

I would strongly advise against starting on the US servers. The time difference will be a huge problem, trust me.

The server he's talking about is Riddermark.

Rocketeer

Also EU neither has worse management nor delayed updates. The difference is that US patches on tuesdays and EU patches on Thursdays, if something goes horribly wrong patching in the US we sometimes got a delay of a week or two in order to fix the problem but that is rather rare.

There was a delay with F2P but that had nothing to do with technicans, management or getting a worse service. It had all to do with lawyers, a relaunch and working out contractual problems. It won't affect future updates because those do not require contractual changes.

I also advise against the US server, because 1. 90% of EU folks didn't know Riddermark was the unofficial EU server, so really they did not all go there and 2. because ping will be a problem, sure there will be people who tell you it doesn't matter but those people do not play a warden or are responsible for interrupts in their party.

And thats not even mentioning that the EU pop is slowly shrinking in US now that EU has full service. Only people who stay there are those with friends or who invested lots of money in their accounts over there, but there is not enough turnover in the EU timezone.

crazynanny

I'd say go for US without any doubts. Why?

1. EU is bout 30% more expensive, due to VAT tax and just simply charging more because they can.

2. Patch delays about 1-2 weeks. Patches coming up few days after US were exceptions. This time is at least 8 days IF everything goes well. F2P change was example how much EU care for it's own customers.

3. No Bullroar - aka preview server on which You can see upcoming changes.

4. No Isengard or similar programs for alpha/beta testing.

5. No myLOTRO and direct communication with Devs.

6. Almost no help in case of getting hacked. No item reimbursement, some folks didn't even got their deleted toons back. It'll probably change but US already have it, EU is always behind and You feel like 2nd rate customer.

7. Check the deal with DDO where EU(same company) customers were screwed for half a year to be finally transfered to US. Warner Bros(Turbine owner) stated that they want rights for EU MMOs back. So similar will most likely happen to EU LOTRO(there is already note in ToS You agree to share personal data with US).

8. EU servers except from German ones are less populated then US counterparts. Why? Simple example - US had massive queues after F2P while EU didn't. So despite proper timezone You may still have not so many people around.

9. So far EU store had worse offers and it most likely stay that way as Turbine won't really
care for EU as those are NOT their customers.

10. EU servers often lag - especially in PvMP zones - see some thread from bout 1 month ago on least populated server. Also people did check and pings for US were good enough to play with no issue at all as this isn't FPS shooter.

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I can see only three reasons why to play at EU

1. EU has one advantage - RP servers so if You are into that - play in Europe.

2. You are into heavy raiding - then timezone may count enough.

3. You want to play FR/GER language version.

Rocketeer

Originally posted by crazynanny

I'd say go for US without any doubts. Why?

1. EU is bout 30% more expensive, due to VAT tax and just simply charging more because they can.

True. But its VAT only, they don't just charge higher prices.

2. Patch delays about 1-2 weeks. Patches coming up few days after US were exceptions. This time is at least 8 days IF everything goes well. F2P change was example how much EU care for it's own customers.

False. From launch till now there where exactly two delays of more than 10 days, one was a horrible buggy book release(book 7 of moria) and the other was F2P rerelease, which was delayed due to contractual problems with Turbine, not because of how little CM cares.

3. No Bullroar - aka preview server on which You can see upcoming changes.

Thats strange, because i am a EU customer and could use Bullroar fine. What exactly is stopping you from just going on the US test server?

4. No Isengard or similar programs for alpha/beta testing.

Isengard is currently unavailable for EU people, due to a change in Turbines account system.

5. No myLOTRO and direct communication with Devs.

If you think all it takes for "direct communication with Devs" is a US account you can create one for free and send PMs and whatever to the designers.

6. Almost no help in case of getting hacked. No item reimbursement, some folks didn't even got their deleted toons back. It'll probably change but US already have it, EU is always behind and You feel like 2nd rate customer.

Why are you getting hacked, and how did CM not help you? Im really curious because CM is widely acknowledged to have a vastly better service than Turbine.

7. Check the deal with DDO where EU(same company) customers were screwed for half a year to be finally transfered to US. Warner Bros(Turbine owner) stated that they want rights for EU MMOs back. So similar will most likely happen to EU LOTRO(there is already note in ToS You agree to share personal data with US).

Yeah the deal with DDO that involved Atari and a big freaking lawsuit over the publishing rights. This has to do what with LotRO? Also WB never said anything like that, Turbine said that before they where bought by WB and later backpedaled in regards to LotRO. Incase you don't know Turbine has no desire whatsoever to run russian or chinese versions of their games, not even blizzard has the resources for that.

Besides the note in the ToS is for myLotRO, they are working on allowing us to use our EU logins for it and that requires Turbine to have access to our account information.

8. EU servers except from German ones are less populated then US counterparts. Why? Simple example - US had massive queues after F2P while EU didn't. So despite proper timezone You may still have not so many people around.

US had massive queues because all the europeans went to US to take a look at F2P and their server queue software was buggy. Also i never had queues at EU times with the US servers, in EU i do. CM isn't opening new servers because their current ones are underpopulated, i have yet to see Bree without layers even once.

9. So far EU store had worse offers and it most likely stay that way as Turbine won't really

care for EU as those are NOT their customers.

So far EU store had the exact same offers as US. Also the offers in EU are made by CM not Turbine, they have total freedom about offers and sales and flatout told us we will see the same kind of sales as US. But not on US holidays, because they are freaking US holidays and not ours.

10. EU servers often lag - especially in PvMP zones - see some thread from bout 1 month ago on least populated server. Also people did check and pings for US were good enough to play with no issue at all as this isn't FPS shooter.

Yeah avoid known laggy server, but its one of them, not all. And about the ping ... some complain about it others can't notice it. Imho it depends on the class, its bad on warden but really unnoticeable on my LM for example.

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I can see only three reasons why to play at EU

1. EU has one advantage - RP servers so if You are into that - play in Europe.

US has fairly decent unofficial RP servers, while this may be a factor i wouldn't consider it the deciding one.

2. You are into heavy raiding - then timezone may count enough.

Bigger pop is always good. Be it for raiding or trying to get a group for that level 30 instance onlevel. Playing in US was sometimes frustrating, and im talking about right after launch. I doubt it has gotten better now that the EU population has dwindled.

3. You want to play FR/GER language version.

faxnadu

eu servers. if you are from eu

Thillian

EU naturally. Those that keep saying US servers are great, are just the vocal minority that wasn't patient enough to wait for EU f2p launch, and now struggle to find players playing during their prime time. Indeed, US servers do have a different prime time (which is during  2-6am our european time). Add to that, the US pings and the ridiculous nazi-like Turbine rules on official forums, and you've got an easy decision.