stusser
2901
If they lose the license in a year, that means the game dies in a year-- that is what happened to Star Wars Galaxies.
Of course they could renegotiate terms, but they certainly aren’t in a strong position to do so now.
It’s funny, I was thinking of SWG reading this announcement.
I didn’t expect them to say anything different. They certainly aren’t going to publicly say “We are just running out the clock on this one. kthankxbye.”
When it comes to these types of announcements, I just don’t put a ton of faith in them. I remember an interview I had with SOE about the NGE and they swore up and down the release wasn’t tied to the Revenge of the Sith DVD and if there were bugs, they’d delay the release.
Naturally, it released the week after the DVD and was a buggy mess.
Warner owning Turbine gives me some hope, but if Warner was invested in the property they wouldn’t have had the massive layoffs.
I sympathize with people holding out hope of active development on LOTRO, but I think the writing is on the wall. The studio is being turned to mobile development, and the license goes away soon. The CM can say they’re not in maintenance mode, but I wouldn’t expect anything more than minor patching, managing holiday events, and maybe creating some new cosmetic bits for purchase.
I’m sure they have a new skirmish or two mostly finished that they can release and claim as “development”. There certainly doesn’t seem to be enough people left on the team to be actively creating a Mordor expansion to complete the game.
I jumped back in last night. Spent about three hours playing, the first of which was entirely comprised of visiting the bank, dropping a few gold on 15 more bank slots, and then managing my character inventory which had become filled with “Anniversary Gift Boxes” and other little tokens awarded over the past few years of very causal play. Those gift boxes are a killer. They can have some nice stuff, but opening one means trading one inventory space required for half a dozen. I have all 8 Anniversary Gift Boxes, so needless to say I don’t have nearly the inventory space for that nonsense. They went straight to my bank unopened for now…
The last two hours I spent cleaning up deeds in Breeland. Turns out I was really close to finishing half a dozen deeds. A quick visit to the Tarsnip orcs northwest of Bree finished my advanced Orc slayer deed, and 45 minutes splashing around the swamps east of Bree killed off both my Sickle Fly and Neeker-Breeker slayer deeds. This in turn finished my Breeland Slayer deed, which once completed finished the last component of the Deeds of Breeland meta-deed. Then it was over to the Barrowlands to work on Grave Digger and Executioner of the Wicked deeds, and while doing that I picked up the Nemesis of the Fallen deed.
All told I scored around 70 Turbine Points, several hundred Marks, boosts to several Traits, lots of rep with Bree (I’m already maxxed though), and a Bronze Loot Box with Steel Key to open it from deed completion. Also scored lots of mathoms to put towards my Shire faction (which is not maxxed) and several other useful pieces of crafting loot along with a couple of more Bronze Loot Boxes. Best of all, I was able to get the hang of the UI and combat again without serious threat of dying at any point. It was a very relaxing return to Middle Earth, beautiful scenery, cool design in places like Bree (which I swear has changed dramatically) and the Barrows, and the music, man I missed that music. When the character select screen started playing the Tom Bombadil’s Home theme I may have teared up a little…
I can’t wait to go back again tonight.
SWG’s license was more taken away to give to EA for The Old Republic than it was expired. But similar.
Andon
2906
Dangit, I’m going to have to patch up and play again aren’t I. I was just headed into Mirkwood on my Warden last I played.
I think I’ll head back a bit as well, with Legion coming out September I wont have time at that point.
I would love to have the option in perpetuity to jump back into Lord of the Rings Online, even if I never do. Which is likely to be the case.
But isn’t the Lord of the Rings license effectively dead? Or at least on hiatus until some sort of cinematic reboot in ten years? Is there some animated series I don’t know about? Is the Tolkein estate writing more books? Without more Lord of the Rings movies – Peter Jackson’s Silmarillion! – it doesn’t seem like a big commercial concern anymore. So I’d guess it wouldn’t be too difficult/expensive to renegotiate the rights beyond 2017, especially if Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is already developer a Shadow of Mordor 2. Actually, are they developing a Shadow of Mordor 2? That’s not a confirmed thing, is it?
-Tom
A translation of Beowulf was posthumously published a couple years back. Does that count?
The biggest issue is that the managers of the license aren’t really happy with LOTRO and negotiations to continue were a bit intense last go around. While the license might not have the same value, that is actually supposed to be less of a concern than how the license is treated. Will be interesting to see how much effort WB wants to put into getting the license extension for LOTRO. Also, I believe the LOTRO license and the Shadows of Mordor license are actually two separate negotiations, but that was a little after I left Turbine, so not completely sure on that.
The Hobbit movies placed a huge sad damper on the license and demonstrated that we are in the shameless milking period now.
Interesting. I always thought LOTRO was one of the most thoughtful and respectful adaptations of Tolkien’s work. Can you tell us what they were unhappy about? If it was a revenue sharing/royalty cut issue, I get why you won’t be able to talk about it, but if it’s an issue over how the material was handled, I’d love to hear more.
Yeah, that makes me wonder what the license managers are thinking. I mean they obviously never spoke to any LOTRO players who are Lord of the Rings fans, as damn near every one would tell you it’s absolutely Middle Earth come to life. I can’t imagine a Lord of the Rings game handled with more respect for the source material. Everything from the beautiful settings to the detailed towns to the enchanting music, it’s all pure magic. If they’re just disappointed in the numbers, that’s not really Turbines fault.
I wonder with Turbine going to mobile games, and Pokémon Go! suddenly all the rage, if someone at Warner Brothers / Turbine is thinking “Hey, Lord of the Rings would make a fantastic mobile AR game!”. Imagine fighting Uruk-hai at Starbucks and finding The One Ring in your bathroom.
Razgon
2914
Okay, I dont care for pokemon, but now you got my unterest. Please make this happen!
Just to be clear, I was a data warehouse architect there, and not involved in the design of LOTRO or privvy to the actual communications. But my understanding was that some of the concessions to make it an MMO weren’t as well accepted by the license holders. Everyone that I knew who worked on the game were huge Tolkien nerds and did keep the idea of what would be best alive, but there were concessions needed to make the different types of character classes, how magic works, and then of course some of the store stuff.
Obviously, it wasn’t so bad that they lost the license last time the negotiations happened, but I don’t know how much heart WB Games has to go through another round. I would expect that if the license could be extended with minimal fuss, and the revenue flow makes sense with the license cost, they would do it. But if it requires a lot of work, then I am not sure how much they would fight for it. But it really does come down to what the revenue flow looks like upon time for the license negotiation and how much that makes WB Games willing to fight.
Ah. Thanks. That’s too bad, really. I’m not a gigantic Tolkien nerd, but it seemed pretty obvious that the people that worked on the game really loved the property and went out of their way to be respectful. No elves surfing down oliphant trunks here.
No kidding. Of all the various LotR media released, I’d think that LOTRO treated the license with the most love and respect.
I would never accuse Tolkien’s estate of being good caretakers of his legacy.
I can’t comment, other than to point people to Cordovan’s comments in Daagar’s link.
But here’s one of my favorite Tolkien quotes:
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
Daagar
2920
Wait, I thought we were discussing LOTRO, not the confirmation of HL3…
