Tony posted this on June 30th, 2009. It has 1 Comment »
Categorized as News.
Tagged as China, Gold Selling.
This news has gotten a lot of attention so far, and justifiably so. China has been one of the countries at the forefront of gold selling and their presence has certainly been felt within LotRO at one point or another. If this law adhered to and enforced, essentially all virtual “black market” sales for items, gold, etc. will be officially against the law. I think this best sums it up:
“The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services,” the Ministries said.
I’ve noticed that obvious gold spamming in LotRO has gone down a lot over the last several months. It used to be that any given day you’d run into several of these sellers within Bree, in particular. It didn’t matter what server you were on, Brandywine or otherwise. Sometimes you’d find farmers as well, who were generally pretty obvious because they all wore the same thing, ran in suspiciously tight groups and had similar names (Xihu, Xiho and Xiha, for example).
I don’t know that it’s for lack of trying, though. Turbine has tools to report gold spammers (although those weren’t always in place), but I think the main difficulty for sellers has been what I perceive is a general lack of interest in these offerings from LotRO players. I could be wrong, but the benefits of buying gold in LotRO just don’t seem as strong as in some other MMORPGs. The game, overall, doesn’t suit that mind set . . . particularly when many of the best things in the game (and thus, most desirable) can’t be bought or traded in the first place.
Obviously defeating selling in China also involves defeating buying as well. I don’t know that this can be understated, given how much of the population in the country actively plays MMORPGs. It’s a huge market and this will be a major blow for these companies. Richard Heeks at the University of Manchester estimates that around 80% to 85% of gold sellers are based within China.
This is actually very well timed with LotRO’s upcoming launch in China. Hopefully it will help things go a bit more smoothly.
Tony posted this on June 29th, 2009. It has No Comments »
Categorized as News.
Tagged as CDC Games, China, Launch.
Sometimes it’s easy for me to forget that LotRO isn’t truly a “worldwide” game just yet. It’s still expanding even now, with Russia and South Korea being the most recent additions. In some senses I think this is a good thing; the game appears to be pretty healthy considering all of the markets it hasn’t entered yet.
Turbine has apparently teamed up with CDC Games to release the title in China, according to LOTROLife (via a press release on Earth Times). CDC Games will be the MMORPG’s exclusive distributor in the country. As you might expect, both parties are excited about this: CDC has 13 million active users for the games it currently handles and expects LotRO to get a piece of that. Here’s a bit from the release:
“CDC Games and Turbine have been strong and trusted partners through the process of localizing the game and adding major new content to appeal to the distinctive China market,” said Monish Bahl, CFO of CDC Games. “We feel the estimated timing of this launch is a good opportunity in light of the current competitive environment in China, especially with the recent situation of certain popular foreign titles of this genre. The closed beta test results for the game also are very encouraging evidence of the potential this game holds in the China market and we look forward to a commercial launch in the near future.
An exact release is not yet announced, but CDC is aiming for the “second half” of 2009. Considering we’re already in that, I suppose it’s anyone’s guess as to when this might happen. My assumption would be closer to the end of the calendar year.
Tony posted this on June 29th, 2009. It has No Comments »
Categorized as News, Patch.
Tagged as Book 8, Europe, Patch.
The title tells you pretty much everything you need to know.
Book 8: Scourge of Khazad-dûm will be going live on the EU servers tomorrow!
about 2 hours ago from web
This was posted on the official LotRO Europe Twitter page. Europe lucks out a bit as this patch includes the recent instancing and stuck character “hotfixes” that the US received.
Tony posted this on June 26th, 2009. It has 1 Comment »
Categorized as News.
Tagged as Subscription.
If you’re planning on playing LotRO for a while, you might want to switch to the 3 months for $29.95 plan. Turbine is only offering this until the end of the month. I’m sure it’ll pop up again (likely around the next expansion or the holidays), but it’s a good offer either way.
I imagine the $9.99 pricing for the full game will be ending around that time as well, but don’t quote me on that.
Registering before that date will also net you the subscriber gift Turbine will be passing out sometime after the 31st. Anyone subscribing around that time will be sent a skill that lowers travel costs. Nice.
Tony posted this on June 26th, 2009. It has 1 Comment »
Categorized as News, Patch.
Tagged as Book 8, Bree, Patch, Revamp.
I’m sure many are aware of the Bree-land revamp that came along with Book 8. I’ve not had a chance to play yet, but this is something that really caught my interest. I never thought Bree-land was bad, but it sounds like these adjustments make it a lot more fun.
Doyce has a great post about this on his site that I encourage everyone to read. He hits upon all of the areas and quests that have frustrated people over the past couple of years. Interestingly, they also made another pass at the Old Forest, which was surprising to me as well:
They revised the Old Forest (which I didn’t think they’d bother messing with, as it’s already seen one revision) and somehow – magically – found the perfect sweet spot between the original Old Forest (horrible death trap, but cool) and the more recent version (sadly, laughably harmless).
Whenever I finally get to go in game again, I’ll be interested in seeing how all of this played out for myself.
