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Will the Game Shut Down in 2017?
MagicMush
Member Posts: 65
Ok, so I've come back to the game after a few years and am thoroughly enjoying it. The thing is, in world chat the other day I saw that people were mentioning Turbine only had the rights to the Lord of the Rings name up until 2017 and that they might not extend it - meaning this game might only last another 2 years.
This would be a great shame as it's the one and only MMORPG that I'm prepared to sink hours into. Are there any well-informed people out there who could shed light on this matter? I really don't want to invest hours into the game if it closes in two years as I intend to play this on and off for a very long time.
Comments
"Turbine's PR company states that they have extended their license agreements with Tolkien Enterprises for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit until 2014, with the rights to claim them all the way up to 2017 if they so choose."
Source.
This means that Turbine is still on it's original (2008) license and that Turbine has claimed the rights for an other 3 years after they ended in 2014. This would raise questions if/why Tolkien Enterprises didn't renew the license in 2014 for an other period.
I personally think that Tolkien Enterprises didn't renew the license after the (bad) turn the story in LotRo made and getting out of sync with the actual lore. With WB now being done with all the Tolkien movies (Lord of the Rings & Hobbit trilogies), there's no real need for Tolkien Enterprises to let WB/Turbine stick to the license to keep LotRo going...
On a personal level, I stopped playing when it went from Codemasters to Turbine and thought I'd lost all lifetime subscription privileges. Thankfully, I downloaded the game through Steam, entered my old username and password and was thrilled to see my account stil live and my four Level 42 characters back again!
While getting back into the world of Middle Earth again, I have to say that this is by far the best MMORPG that I've ever played. Everything about it has class, no other comes close and I really don't want to go play any other. The game will hopefully keep me occupied for years - but if it's going to stop in two years from now then it will be a very sad day indeed.
CM did inform everyone very well about the transition toTurbine. That included the life-time account (have one as well). I'm glad to hear that when you logged on from Steam your old account was still there. I had different experiences with DDO (no lifetime, but did have a couple of months of playtime back then).
LotRo WAS a good game. Though the world with all it's lore and pretty active story itself is still good, what has become of LotRo after Mines of Moria and Freemium is just utter garbage. Each and every character I've made and played didn't survive after passing through Moria.
Also, keep in mind that 2017 is the 10-year mark of the game's release. Either they'll have huge festivities then OR it'll die (I hope for the players that it's the first one).
As others said, who knows where will we be in 2017? You need to worry only when we get there, but still plenty of time till then
Eu servers will coming back to Amsterdam this year, meaning a better connection and less ping. Not to mention, the welcome back weekend is switched on right now, probably for your welcome (but can't say that for sure
).
There were many changes since you left, have fun discovering the game again, and welcome back. "The game will hopefully keep me occupied for years" it surely will, at least 2-3 more years.
Player numbers are still high (remember it has 29 servers currently). New people are joining every day, the recommended server is always busy. There are plans for lots of content this year. I think the consolidation will help the game a lot in the long run.
Er, ok.
IMO Middle Earth Enterprises (formerly Tolkien Enterprises), a.k.a. the Saul Zaentz Corporation care less about the lore than the long-term profitability of The Hobbit / Lord of the Rings as a brand; these are the people who let one of their licensees run virtual gambling slot machines purportedly based on a book by a Roman Catholic moralist with a fairly unsubtle text about the corrupting and destructive effect of the desire for wealth. So basically, whether or not the license gets renewed is dependent on whether or not Turbine / Warner think the game is going to be sufficiently profitable long-term to be prepared to pay SZC whatever they're asking.
Shadow of Mordor (single player game) seems to be enjoying some success. I'm not sure what a new Middle Earth based MMORPG would look like, but I believe it could be done. There certainly seems to be enough interest out there.
I'm going to have to agree with fizzer on this one. I think the game company is going to say f frodo and throw him in the mountain instead of the ring. Its all cause of what they did to classes a while back.
in Rise of Isenguard they changed the classes from unique to stat based. meaning every class now was stat based purely and it dint matter what you could do for utility. So you seen buglars dps go right through the roof, and champions, reguardless of the old setup system. they had to come back and change the dps some of the classes do cause it was right over the top. All the classes got to keep the utilities they had before which was the justification of some classes doing more dps then others in the old system. The new system put everyones dps on a level playing ground with stats, but they did not add utility or uniqueness to other classes to make up for the imbalance.
Think of it this way, Frodo was the only one to make it to the mountain to throw the ring in, all the other fellowship (in this case customers) were lost on his journey there.
here we go again
Could Lord of the Rings Online end in 2014?
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/04/the-road-to-mordor-could-lord-of-the-rings-online-end-in-2014/
EQ2 fan sites
I don't think that is necessarily true. A fantasy MMO can start into development with a name such as "Project X" with the anticipation of getting the Tolkien license needed to slap the "Middle Earth", "Lord of the Rings", "The Hobbit" name on it once 2017 rolls around. It's entirely possible for WB to have another developer already lined up doing concept and proof of concept work on a fantasy title without breaking any licensing or copyright laws. Besides, I think Peter Jackson's Middle Earth look is already ingrained in most people's minds by now, so to have more games share the same aesthetic could potentially sell well as opposed to Turbine's wonky character style and animations. That's partially because Lotro was made before Turbine was acquired by WB and partially because it seems Turbine's art department is lacking in talent in a lot of areas. They do have good environmental artists though.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
There does seem to be a newly found(since early last year-ish) urgency in development to finish up the books. It seems they are moving full steam ahead toward Mordor(Minas Tirith is coming this year), whereas in previous years they were branching off into other directions(Evendim, Forochel, Mirkwood, the Dale/Erebor instances, etc).
Server populations have been declining, at least on some of them. The server unlock system they put together for Dol Amroth a few months back(players contributed stuff to unlock instances) made that painfully obvious; Firefoot didn't unlock the instances until about 2-3 weeks before the next update. I bet Turbine won't make that mistake, again.
I rolled my Beorning on Brandywine, and I'm sure glad I did. Much healthier pop.
Anyhoo, back to the point. My technical answer to the question is no. The license thing is nothing. I don't think 2017 was chosen with the idea that that's about when they'll close their doors, nor do I think the IP has any plans to terminate it at that point.
BUT, the idea that it might close up thanks to good old fashioned pop-drop isn't a far fetched one. It seems like LotRO was stable for a good long time, up until the last Xpac. Not that it was a bad one, IMO, but it really seems like that's when Firefoot started its decline into a very lonely place.
Personally, it felt like we were in Dunland/Rohan for about a year too long.
Finally, just a message for anybody wishing LotRO would go away so another company will pick up the license: If that DID happen, I suspect that the new game would be even less like what you want. I assume(maybe wrongly) that you probably want a massive open world, rich in Tolkien lore... and/or maybe what they pipe-dreamed MEO was going to be. And that there might be open world PvP, even less emphasis on magic, etc, etc...
Don't count on it. If you think a newer game will be more like EQ/Ultima and less like Neverwinter, you're probably gonna be disappointed.