Turbine asked the community if they would be willing to pay an extra amount per month for another expansion (to go towards the expansion's development). AT the time, Asheron's Call cost $10 a month. It was played off as temporary as they developed Throne of Destiny. Eventually, Turbine stopped releasing any patches for like 6 months (they promised monthly patches). During this time some rather nasty bugs were discovered and abused in the game; especially a few PVP bugs.
So, not only was the price hike per month permanent, when it was implied to be only during the development of the expansion, but they also stopped releasing the monthly updates. Also, the expansion seriously unbalanced PVP since anyone who pre-order got a gem that increased their health 10%. For Asheron's Call PvP style, this was an enormous advantage for the people who pre-ordered Throne of Destiny. THey did not recognize and fix the problem for well over 4 years, and that was only after a big protest movement where a wave of cancellations came in over it.
Plus, the Throne of Destiny promised land control, which was not implemented for another 4 or so years after the expansion. On top of that, the land control that was implemented sounded nothing like what was promised in Throne of Destiny.
I remember mentioning all this when DDO was failing, and LoTRO had a mediocre launch (at best). LoTRO wasn't nearly as successful as it should have been. Turbine, at one time, tried to claim it was the second most successful MMO, but then they changed that to 'in North America'. Then, it was removed entirely. One could argue that LoTRO may have never sold a million copies (something AoC and WAR both did easily). And, LoTR is a bigger IP than Conan and WAR (especially back when it launched).
Companies seem to be tiring of certain types of the most vocal high-maintenance customers.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Ok, I don't want to be a jerk but i am going to say something that is going to sound entirely too much like that of a jerk, so forgive me. Legally, you only have two courses of action:
A.) Dispute the claim with your bank and get your money back and have your account banned.
B.) Sadly, do nothing.
Reason why i am stating the obvious is this, you don't own the legal property from MMO's, you rent them. Same thing for all games that you buy.
Once you agree to those terms and conditions and apply the pre-order to the account, you have locked yourself in to all those terms and conditions which we all agree to and never actually read. Although i don't know what the terms and conditons are with LOTRO, i can say that with other games when i have bothered to read them, they make you agree to things that are just downright crazy sometimes. And the one standard that you will see stated in every one is
"We reserve the right to deactivate your account or suspend use of services for any reason."
Chances are, because you accepted this things, your not going to get anywhere. I feel for you, truely, but unless you can afford a lengthly legal battle, your stuck.
Not entirely true, you can argue or take legal actions if the company went against their policies and I think you meant
"we reserve the right to deactivate your account or suspend use of services if you disobey the terms and conditions"
I have no doubt you will win without getting banned during your dispute, but i agree with this dude ethat it will be a lengthly legal battle. If you got the time go for it, if not just dispute it and move to a different game, GW2 perhaps lol?
I remember mentioning all this when DDO was failing, and LoTRO had a mediocre launch (at best). LoTRO wasn't nearly as successful as it should have been. Turbine, at one time, tried to claim it was the second most successful MMO, but then they changed that to 'in North America'. Then, it was removed entirely. One could argue that LoTRO may have never sold a million copies (something AoC and WAR both did easily). And, LoTR is a bigger IP than Conan and WAR (especially back when it launched).
Plus they somehow buried themselves a bit more by giving those 100$ lifetime offers, which were logically bought by their most loyal players, i.e. probably most of their current players. Hence, they now have to rely on periodic overpriced expansions.
Oh, if they continue to be stubborn on this BBB complaint and provide ridiculous excuses, I'm simply going to file a chargeback. I have no intention or desire to take this to court. I'm more than happy to do a back and forth with them on the BBB to see if they'll finally get the message that lying to customers isn't cool, but if they hide behind their WB lawyers, I'm done.
Not going back to LotRO at any rate. Not immediately filing a chargeback is simply in the name of science to see how hard Turbine is going to cling to a few preorders.
Gotta say that Turbine used to be a great company but charging enormous prices for this expansion and then removing the instance cluster from this expansion just totally dropped any respect i had left for them at this point.
WoW, using Blizzard like tactics and then banning what few fans you have isn't going to help your image Turbine.
Turbine has thrown some shiny apology toys. I refuse to accept this, however.
They had no choice lol, you think they wanted to do this? Anyways the damage is already done i doubt people are going to resubscribe, undispute the charges, restore respect back to turbine. They lost so many customers and money from this they had no choice but to accept what the community asked or they wouldve lost more subscribers.
Turbine has thrown some shiny apology toys. I refuse to accept this, however.
Additionally, some players had questions about the instance cluster coming after the launch of RoR. While we are still not ready to talk about the details of the cluster we did want to confirm that we will be releasing a new instance cluster in an update after Rohan launches, and that the cluster will be free to all players who have purchased the Riders of Rohan expansion.
Isn't that what you wanted? The inclusion of the instance cluster?
Turbine has thrown some shiny apology toys. I refuse to accept this, however.
Additionally, some players had questions about the instance cluster coming after the launch of RoR. While we are still not ready to talk about the details of the cluster we did want to confirm that we will be releasing a new instance cluster in an update after Rohan launches, and that the cluster will be free to all players who have purchased the Riders of Rohan expansion.
Isn't that what you wanted? The inclusion of the instance cluster?
Its calld customer relations. Turbine had false advertisment, ontop of that lying to the public, threatening to ban accounts, lying to BBB.
The instances was included because of their loss of $$
It certainly was. However, this entire process of getting them to listen has been a bit ridiculous, and what evidence do I have that I won't be forced into this same process for every expansion?
Ok, I don't want to be a jerk but i am going to say something that is going to sound entirely too much like that of a jerk, so forgive me. Legally, you only have two courses of action:
A.) Dispute the claim with your bank and get your money back and have your account banned.
B.) Sadly, do nothing.
Reason why i am stating the obvious is this, you don't own the legal property from MMO's, you rent them. Same thing for all games that you buy.
Once you agree to those terms and conditions and apply the pre-order to the account, you have locked yourself in to all those terms and conditions which we all agree to and never actually read. Although i don't know what the terms and conditons are with LOTRO, i can say that with other games when i have bothered to read them, they make you agree to things that are just downright crazy sometimes. And the one standard that you will see stated in every one is
"We reserve the right to deactivate your account or suspend use of services for any reason."
Chances are, because you accepted this things, your not going to get anywhere. I feel for you, truely, but unless you can afford a lengthly legal battle, your stuck.
Actually no, there is a lot more that can be done legally on this. You see, the other thing Turbine set themselves up with is pre-purchase (not pre-order) meaning a customer paid in full. This sets up a whole new slew of regulation and legal obligations than a deposit only pre-order does.
There are already enough screenshots to prove what is happening with RoR in this case, including threats and coercion (Yes, stating you may ban an account for seeking a refund on an undelivered component of it is outright coercion which, in the State of Masschusetts, is a general civil offense under General Laws 93). Turbine are idiots for documenting such in the e-mail reply will most likely lose them a case in court. Second, if evidence could be presented that this is a repeat offense (informational misdirection) such as with RoI, which there are plenty of screenshots from lotrocommunity.com to show, the court may in fact find that Turbine is intentionally practicing deceptive business practices - and that could open the liability up in the millions.
I encourage someone to check with a class action law firm in Boston area, present them the evidence, fill them in on the repeat offenses, let them know Turbine is owned by WB (thereby letting them know there is a company with big pockets), and see if they will pursue the case. That e-mail response alone would have many with their chops salvating. Remember, these firms do not charge the plaintiff any fees, instead they go after fee reimbursement from the defendants. Turbine's repeat predatory business practices need to be stopped as it just keeps getting worse.
I hope someone exposed to the damage from this has the courage to finally put them through the ringer for this. They only brought it on themselves. At the very least, if a case was filed, WB would most likely terminate the employees responsible to protect their backside and say they were unaware this was happening and took appropriate disciplinary action when it was brought to their attention.
Companies seem to be tiring of certain types of the most vocal high-maintenance customers.
How dare companies address legitimate complaints of customers who they have deceived through their own documentation, what ridiculous demands these customers are making Icewhite.
They also locked and deleted a bunch of threads on the off topic forum which existed for months if not years and which were talking about other games. They also gave infractions and bans to random posters of those threads.
Insecure much, Turbine?
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
They also locked and deleted a bunch of threads on the off topic forum which existed for months if not years and which were talking about other games. They also gave infractions and bans to random posters of those threads.
Insecure much, Turbine?
Not getting into the discussion of what went down over expansion....
The "dont talk about other games on our forums" I can totally understand. If you wanna talk about those games, do it on someone else's bandwidth. The MMO space is a dog eat dog arena. You sure dont want your customers thinking about other ventures. That would akin to stepping on your own tallywacker....which it sounds like they did anyways pertaining to expansion.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
They also locked and deleted a bunch of threads on the off topic forum which existed for months if not years and which were talking about other games. They also gave infractions and bans to random posters of those threads.
Insecure much, Turbine?
Not getting into the discussion of what went down over expansion....
The "dont talk about other games on our forums" I can totally understand. If you wanna talk about those games, do it on someone else's bandwidth. The MMO space is a dog eat dog arena. You sure dont want your customers thinking about other ventures. That would akin to stepping on your own tallywacker....which it sounds like they did anyways pertaining to expansion.
Then they must make a change of policy and warn posters, and not just arbitrarily nuke posts (and people) suddenly for something that has been authorized for several years.
It's obvious that it shows their insecurity about their own product, and it's obvious LOTRO isn't doing well... when dictator style moderation appears out of nowhere, it's never a good sign.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
If they promise new instances and then removes them after people have ordered the game, people have the right to get a refund. Did they even threaten? didn't know a company with such a community would do something like that. Wouldn't surprise me if Blizzard did it though ,cause they are all dickheads.
Originally posted by InFlamestwoIf they promise new instances and then removes them after people have ordered the game, people have the right to get a refund. Did they even threaten? didn't know a company with such a community would do something like that. Wouldn't surprise me if Blizzard did it though ,cause they are all dickheads.
Turbine also promised an additional inventory bag for all preorders of Rohan, and then they only put it in the most expensive version of the expansion, which costs more than a brand new complete game.
The time of "powered by our fans" is over at Turbine - and I've been a fan for over 10 years, being an avid player of Asheron's Call 1 too. Now its "powered by our fan's wallets" all the way. They have become 10x worse "dickheads", as you say, than Blizzard ever was.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Lotro is the best PvE game currently on the market IMHO.
Huh? Is this a joke? It has combat speed catered to the elderly and barely adds content.They also never figured out how to fix the bugs with the Dragon raid released last year where you'd get no loot and have to wait a week to try again.
They also locked and deleted a bunch of threads on the off topic forum which existed for months if not years and which were talking about other games. They also gave infractions and bans to random posters of those threads.
Insecure much, Turbine?
Not getting into the discussion of what went down over expansion....
The "dont talk about other games on our forums" I can totally understand. If you wanna talk about those games, do it on someone else's bandwidth. The MMO space is a dog eat dog arena. You sure dont want your customers thinking about other ventures. That would akin to stepping on your own tallywacker....which it sounds like they did anyways pertaining to expansion.
Then correct thing to do is to set rules like that. Post them in relevant (sub)forum, as other games were discussed in "off-topic", explain this to consumers and then close topics.
I am sure most people would understand.
Instead after long years after this was permissable (to speak about other games in off-topic forum), Turbine jsut silently nuked those topcis and handed out bans left and right.
In case you haven't heard, there's a bit of drama going on in the LOTRO world. Turbine had promised on a FAQ to include an instance cluster with the expansion. This statement was later removed and there is in fact no instances coming with the expansion. This of course, angered quite a few who pre-ordered the expansion thinking they would get some instances included with their purchase. They're flat out refusing refunds and threatening account bans if anyone pursues it.....
Here's the forum post with a screenshot of the email from Turbine:
Odd how you leave out the part that says this person already recieved benefits to the account from ordering the expansion. That looks to be the reason for the possible banning, what would you expect a company to do? They state it pretty simple, if this person is going to dispute charges then the account will have action taken against it. How do you jusitfy getting services that you don't pay for? If you don't pay your internet bill, you don't continue to get it for free, unless you are, to use one of your own words, "crooked".
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
I lost all respect for Turbine when they chose to go paytrap with LOTRO...it went against everything the industry knows. DDO was a massive hit with F2P because it was F2P with a store with great items...they made a TON of money like all really good F2Ps do, no paytrap has ever been close to being as successful(Money wise) as the better F2Ps.
Turbine deserves to lose money for doing what they did with LOTRO, the game should be making more than Runes of Magic and Atlantica Online COMBINED...instead, it isnt even doing half what either of those games are making. Its the same with Funcom and AoC, Sony and EQ2 and even DCUO....all of them should be making far more than any of the F2Ps out there because of the quality and depth they bring.
Instead, they are making a fraction of what they would be because its just a paytrap...games that arent good enough to sub for in the first place, which is why the populations dropped so much, makes no sense to use a paytrap model with games that are near death.
In case you haven't heard, there's a bit of drama going on in the LOTRO world. Turbine had promised on a FAQ to include an instance cluster with the expansion. This statement was later removed and there is in fact no instances coming with the expansion. This of course, angered quite a few who pre-ordered the expansion thinking they would get some instances included with their purchase. They're flat out refusing refunds and threatening account bans if anyone pursues it.....
Here's the forum post with a screenshot of the email from Turbine:
Odd how you leave out the part that says this person already recieved benefits to the account from ordering the expansion. That looks to be the reason for the possible banning, what would you expect a company to do? They state it pretty simple, if this person is going to dispute charges then the account will have action taken against it. How do you jusitfy getting services that you don't pay for? If you don't pay your internet bill, you don't continue to get it for free, unless you are, to use one of your own words, "crooked".
Refund was possible because of Turbine changing content of what was selling. Only because of that.
So it was Turbine fault and reponsibility not user's.
Secondly they could withdraw expansion access from those user's who had valid refunds.
If they technically could not do it - it is only their own fault.
I lost all respect for Turbine when they chose to go paytrap with LOTRO...it went against everything the industry knows. DDO was a massive hit with F2P because it was F2P with a store with great items...they made a TON of money like all really good F2Ps do, no paytrap has ever been close to being as successful(Money wise) as the better F2Ps.
Turbine deserves to lose money for doing what they did with LOTRO, the game should be making more than Runes of Magic and Atlantica Online COMBINED...instead, it isnt even doing half what either of those games are making. Its the same with Funcom and AoC, Sony and EQ2 and even DCUO....all of them should be making far more than any of the F2Ps out there because of the quality and depth they bring.
Instead, they are making a fraction of what they would be because its just a paytrap...games that arent good enough to sub for in the first place, which is why the populations dropped so much, makes no sense to use a paytrap model with games that are near death.
Agreed. For a Lotr genre, a mmo should be making 2nd to WoW (if WoW is still #1, that is) on the playerbase+money income. Lotr has an enormous amount of fans, but turbine has failed to deliver on many levels. People could say this isnt a pvp game, but for those lore-nerds isnt monsterplay part of the lore? Fighting the army of the eye on the well-known map ettenmoors and such.
When you said turbine deserves to lose money, they alrady are and going down really fast hence why free2play came. Not much people respect this company not only on a personal level (being lyed to, financial, poor expansions), but for the outdated gameplay (Combat, graphics).
I have no sympathy for any turbine employes and i hope they get shut down for all the backstabbing they did to us loyal Lotr fans.
Comments
Another kind act by Turbine:
Turbine asked the community if they would be willing to pay an extra amount per month for another expansion (to go towards the expansion's development). AT the time, Asheron's Call cost $10 a month. It was played off as temporary as they developed Throne of Destiny. Eventually, Turbine stopped releasing any patches for like 6 months (they promised monthly patches). During this time some rather nasty bugs were discovered and abused in the game; especially a few PVP bugs.
So, not only was the price hike per month permanent, when it was implied to be only during the development of the expansion, but they also stopped releasing the monthly updates. Also, the expansion seriously unbalanced PVP since anyone who pre-order got a gem that increased their health 10%. For Asheron's Call PvP style, this was an enormous advantage for the people who pre-ordered Throne of Destiny. THey did not recognize and fix the problem for well over 4 years, and that was only after a big protest movement where a wave of cancellations came in over it.
Plus, the Throne of Destiny promised land control, which was not implemented for another 4 or so years after the expansion. On top of that, the land control that was implemented sounded nothing like what was promised in Throne of Destiny.
I remember mentioning all this when DDO was failing, and LoTRO had a mediocre launch (at best). LoTRO wasn't nearly as successful as it should have been. Turbine, at one time, tried to claim it was the second most successful MMO, but then they changed that to 'in North America'. Then, it was removed entirely. One could argue that LoTRO may have never sold a million copies (something AoC and WAR both did easily). And, LoTR is a bigger IP than Conan and WAR (especially back when it launched).
Companies seem to be tiring of certain types of the most vocal high-maintenance customers.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Not entirely true, you can argue or take legal actions if the company went against their policies and I think you meant
"we reserve the right to deactivate your account or suspend use of services if you disobey the terms and conditions"
I have no doubt you will win without getting banned during your dispute, but i agree with this dude ethat it will be a lengthly legal battle. If you got the time go for it, if not just dispute it and move to a different game, GW2 perhaps lol?
Plus they somehow buried themselves a bit more by giving those 100$ lifetime offers, which were logically bought by their most loyal players, i.e. probably most of their current players. Hence, they now have to rely on periodic overpriced expansions.
REALITY CHECK
Oh, if they continue to be stubborn on this BBB complaint and provide ridiculous excuses, I'm simply going to file a chargeback. I have no intention or desire to take this to court. I'm more than happy to do a back and forth with them on the BBB to see if they'll finally get the message that lying to customers isn't cool, but if they hide behind their WB lawyers, I'm done.
Not going back to LotRO at any rate. Not immediately filing a chargeback is simply in the name of science to see how hard Turbine is going to cling to a few preorders.
Gotta say that Turbine used to be a great company but charging enormous prices for this expansion and then removing the instance cluster from this expansion just totally dropped any respect i had left for them at this point.
WoW, using Blizzard like tactics and then banning what few fans you have isn't going to help your image Turbine.
Yeah.
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=6232652#post6232652
Turbine has thrown some shiny apology toys. I refuse to accept this, however.
They had no choice lol, you think they wanted to do this? Anyways the damage is already done i doubt people are going to resubscribe, undispute the charges, restore respect back to turbine. They lost so many customers and money from this they had no choice but to accept what the community asked or they wouldve lost more subscribers.
Additionally, some players had questions about the instance cluster coming after the launch of RoR. While we are still not ready to talk about the details of the cluster we did want to confirm that we will be releasing a new instance cluster in an update after Rohan launches, and that the cluster will be free to all players who have purchased the Riders of Rohan expansion.
Isn't that what you wanted? The inclusion of the instance cluster?
Its calld customer relations. Turbine had false advertisment, ontop of that lying to the public, threatening to ban accounts, lying to BBB.
The instances was included because of their loss of $$
It certainly was. However, this entire process of getting them to listen has been a bit ridiculous, and what evidence do I have that I won't be forced into this same process for every expansion?
Actually no, there is a lot more that can be done legally on this. You see, the other thing Turbine set themselves up with is pre-purchase (not pre-order) meaning a customer paid in full. This sets up a whole new slew of regulation and legal obligations than a deposit only pre-order does.
There are already enough screenshots to prove what is happening with RoR in this case, including threats and coercion (Yes, stating you may ban an account for seeking a refund on an undelivered component of it is outright coercion which, in the State of Masschusetts, is a general civil offense under General Laws 93). Turbine are idiots for documenting such in the e-mail reply will most likely lose them a case in court. Second, if evidence could be presented that this is a repeat offense (informational misdirection) such as with RoI, which there are plenty of screenshots from lotrocommunity.com to show, the court may in fact find that Turbine is intentionally practicing deceptive business practices - and that could open the liability up in the millions.
I encourage someone to check with a class action law firm in Boston area, present them the evidence, fill them in on the repeat offenses, let them know Turbine is owned by WB (thereby letting them know there is a company with big pockets), and see if they will pursue the case. That e-mail response alone would have many with their chops salvating. Remember, these firms do not charge the plaintiff any fees, instead they go after fee reimbursement from the defendants. Turbine's repeat predatory business practices need to be stopped as it just keeps getting worse.
I hope someone exposed to the damage from this has the courage to finally put them through the ringer for this. They only brought it on themselves. At the very least, if a case was filed, WB would most likely terminate the employees responsible to protect their backside and say they were unaware this was happening and took appropriate disciplinary action when it was brought to their attention.
How dare companies address legitimate complaints of customers who they have deceived through their own documentation, what ridiculous demands these customers are making Icewhite.
/sincerity on.
They also locked and deleted a bunch of threads on the off topic forum which existed for months if not years and which were talking about other games. They also gave infractions and bans to random posters of those threads.
Insecure much, Turbine?
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Not getting into the discussion of what went down over expansion....
The "dont talk about other games on our forums" I can totally understand. If you wanna talk about those games, do it on someone else's bandwidth. The MMO space is a dog eat dog arena. You sure dont want your customers thinking about other ventures. That would akin to stepping on your own tallywacker....which it sounds like they did anyways pertaining to expansion.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Then they must make a change of policy and warn posters, and not just arbitrarily nuke posts (and people) suddenly for something that has been authorized for several years.
It's obvious that it shows their insecurity about their own product, and it's obvious LOTRO isn't doing well... when dictator style moderation appears out of nowhere, it's never a good sign.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
If they promise new instances and then removes them after people have ordered the game, people have the right to get a refund. Did they even threaten? didn't know a company with such a community would do something like that. Wouldn't surprise me if Blizzard did it though ,cause they are all dickheads.
The time of "powered by our fans" is over at Turbine - and I've been a fan for over 10 years, being an avid player of Asheron's Call 1 too. Now its "powered by our fan's wallets" all the way. They have become 10x worse "dickheads", as you say, than Blizzard ever was.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Huh? Is this a joke? It has combat speed catered to the elderly and barely adds content. They also never figured out how to fix the bugs with the Dragon raid released last year where you'd get no loot and have to wait a week to try again.
I don't think this will help the conversation or not; but in general I find pre-orders to be a scam.
Early access to beta being a "prize" is just as bad as this in my opinion.
a yo ho ho
Then correct thing to do is to set rules like that. Post them in relevant (sub)forum, as other games were discussed in "off-topic", explain this to consumers and then close topics.
I am sure most people would understand.
Instead after long years after this was permissable (to speak about other games in off-topic forum), Turbine jsut silently nuked those topcis and handed out bans left and right.
Pathetic.
Odd how you leave out the part that says this person already recieved benefits to the account from ordering the expansion. That looks to be the reason for the possible banning, what would you expect a company to do? They state it pretty simple, if this person is going to dispute charges then the account will have action taken against it. How do you jusitfy getting services that you don't pay for? If you don't pay your internet bill, you don't continue to get it for free, unless you are, to use one of your own words, "crooked".
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
I lost all respect for Turbine when they chose to go paytrap with LOTRO...it went against everything the industry knows. DDO was a massive hit with F2P because it was F2P with a store with great items...they made a TON of money like all really good F2Ps do, no paytrap has ever been close to being as successful(Money wise) as the better F2Ps.
Turbine deserves to lose money for doing what they did with LOTRO, the game should be making more than Runes of Magic and Atlantica Online COMBINED...instead, it isnt even doing half what either of those games are making. Its the same with Funcom and AoC, Sony and EQ2 and even DCUO....all of them should be making far more than any of the F2Ps out there because of the quality and depth they bring.
Instead, they are making a fraction of what they would be because its just a paytrap...games that arent good enough to sub for in the first place, which is why the populations dropped so much, makes no sense to use a paytrap model with games that are near death.
Refund was possible because of Turbine changing content of what was selling. Only because of that.
So it was Turbine fault and reponsibility not user's.
Secondly they could withdraw expansion access from those user's who had valid refunds.
If they technically could not do it - it is only their own fault.
Agreed. For a Lotr genre, a mmo should be making 2nd to WoW (if WoW is still #1, that is) on the playerbase+money income. Lotr has an enormous amount of fans, but turbine has failed to deliver on many levels. People could say this isnt a pvp game, but for those lore-nerds isnt monsterplay part of the lore? Fighting the army of the eye on the well-known map ettenmoors and such.
When you said turbine deserves to lose money, they alrady are and going down really fast hence why free2play came. Not much people respect this company not only on a personal level (being lyed to, financial, poor expansions), but for the outdated gameplay (Combat, graphics).
I have no sympathy for any turbine employes and i hope they get shut down for all the backstabbing they did to us loyal Lotr fans.