i happened to find this site abt tis rpg and i would like to share with you all, its not out yet but it will be out in US in 2006.

here are some quotes from the developers

2.7 Costs
The game will not be free: you will have to buy the game/box and in addition pay a monthly fee. The exact prices are not known yet but will be �competitive�. Current similar games cost the following:

one time 50 US dollars for the initial release including one month of playing time

after the first month 10-15 US dollars each month depending on the number of months you subscribe for at once including (smaller) periodic expansions

30 US dollars for each separate released big expansions

This "high price" will come as a surprise to some people but are needed to cover the high costs (see below) and you are getting a lot for it in return:

You will get to wander the whole of Middle-earth and not just a small sliver the Fellowship walked through (like in other LotR-inspired games). To give you an idea of the size: running from the Grey Havens to Rivendell will take about 10 hours real time.

The game will get new content every 6-8 weeks financed from the monthly fees

You can play together with some 100k people of which some 3,000 will be directly playing on the same server as you: with those 3000 nuts, you can play with (and against), chat with and conquer the troubles of the world with.

The game will be moderated/controlled giving cheaters and griefers less chance

Periodic free additions to the game making it possible to find new things all the time and the occasional paid for HUGE addition

Because of the previous things, the game will remain fun and new for a long long long period of time, which will save you heaps of money since you do not have to buy another game for a long long long time.

Apart from wanting to make some profit, the reason for a monthly fee is simply that they need recurring income to pay for recurring costs:

Costs for technical and CS staff
Costs for bandwidth
Costs for replacing equipment
Costs for the live time making periodical expansions at no extra costs.

In addition the development costs are much higher because the game must be incredibly big to be able to entertain a few thousand people at the same time. Also they need to buy all the servers to run the game

if you wish ti vist the site: http://lotro.turbine.com/

happy comments if you want, if you want to flame tis post go ahead im glad of it

Well, a MMORPG based on LotR does have a lot of potential. But i suppose it`s up to the develops to realy dish out something not just riding the tails of the franchise. But so far, it`s certainly looking pretty neat indeed.


Also, i didn`t even notice this was in the GD forum. :0

What do you mean competitor for World of Warcraft?

If you thought that World of Warcraft was the most popular MMORPG, think again.

What do you mean competitor for World of Warcraft?

If you thought that World of Warcraft was the most popular MMORPG, think again.

I'm pretty sure WoW beats out Lineage 2 in US sales, so maybe that's what s/he meant?

Sales isn't the same thing as popularity, if you stop playing after your first free month you still have contributed to the overall salesnumbers.

I'm pretty sure WoW has the most subscribers in the US as well !

And WoW is most definitely the fastest-growing MMORPG out there.

I'd have more faith in this if it wasn't being developed by Turbine. Didn't they just have to pull the plug on Asheron's Call 2?

Besides, is this still current? EA snapped up the rights to all LOTR games, book and movie based, a little while back.

To be fair, Asheron's Call 2 was a dismal failure for Turbine. It never had a very solid player base, so its doom was inevitable. On the other hand, Asheron's Call is still active, has been for years, still has a large number of customers, and gets updated frequently. If you use AC as the model for anticipation of things to come, it's not unreasonable to expect a lot out of this one.

However, I despise the very concept of the game, so I will not be playing it. I am quite happy reading about Middle Earth. The last thing I want is to see that world polluted by the same failings that made Star Wars Galaxies one of my most hated games of all time.

Yeah, nothing kills the spirit of Middle Earth faster than the thought of a n00b registering a Hobbit and immediately falling into bitching about wanting to get The One Ring so they can be invisible.

That's why we have the Ring Wraiths.