Turbine has been doing an awful job with this game the past two years. They don't fix bugs. They are still selling a raid that has a final boss that bugs and cannot be finished in their store. They are all about hype but not willing to put money into the game. They have taken the original developers off Lotro and moved them over to Infinite Crisis.
Helm's Deep looks like a joke. The epic location you can see in screen shots is not epic at all. The wall is not tall and is covered with decorations that anyone could easily climb. Clearly once again they did not put much money into creating this expansion. People in beta have been warning players not to buy the expansion before they see it. Turbine also decided not to include ANY group instances or raids in this expansion - instead hyping up a new skirmish type feature called "Big Battles".
The original content is great - but the game has gotten worse and worse. It is all about TP and shopping now to make the game less grindy. There is a memory leak in the client and serious lag on the servers they have been unable to fix. The have not optimized the client when they released the last expansion, and as a result some players with very good gaming rigs cannot play without huge lag. It is very common for players to post "My PC can play every other game and MMO out there on high settings, but not Lotro". It's sad but it's all about the money now and very little about making a good game. Compared to Rift and WoW, Lotro is a game that gets older and sees very little game improvements.
It is also a very expensive game. With current sales, it is $40 for past expansions, another $40 for the new one, and then you need to subscribe for a month for $15 or be missing many basic game features like 4th and 5th bags. And then, after spending $95 on this game, you still can't access some zones because you haven't bought them yet. All these are the reasons why server populations get less and less - even as Turbine pretends everything is fine.
Here's my thought after playing the game for almost 5 years (off and on). SoA was the best, Moria was good and everything after so-so. After this expac tjhey should just start over with the remainder and go all the way to Mordor in three years. Create a whole new game that we can bring our character stats over to. Update the graphics and animations and create a dynamic event type of game. No one wants to do kill ten of these quests anymore. We want a living world we can explore.
Bring back the RAID's in a big way (Morder should be a RAID type event). The world should be a dangerous place that keeps you on your toes (especially as you get closer to Mordor). We should be fighting with the fellowship not following in their footsteps.
If this is not done I don't see the IP going much further. There is no excitement anymore in the game. Too many good people have left. I hardly check in anymore and am a kin leader on a major server. These days I am playing GW2, War Thunder, and mostly Firefall.
You can be critical of them, but honestly would you have rather seen SOE, Perfect World, or Cryptic's attempt ?
I would have to say yes I would like to see some one else give it a go. IMO they failed to bring Middle Earth from the books that I fell in love with to life.
Well everyone who reads a book will have a different impression of it.
I really don't think the book was their goal though. I think this was meant to mimic the movies, and not the books so much. And truthfully I wasn't blown away by the books anyway. Tell us what your Lotro would have been like.
You said the game was challenging at the start. I am fairly new to the game. Exactly what did they do to "dumb" it down to my level?
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
if this game goes away it will e the greatest travesty of a shutdown since earth & beyond. it is a DAMN good game at its core and does a lot of things 100% right.
the Shire in LOTRO when i visited it for the first time literally brought tears to my eyes. it was so fucking perfect, down to the simple woodwind music.
it is a classic example of big bad company ruins great little game.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Originally posted by Vivasvan I loved this game. This is my all time favourite MMO. I made friends, had experiences, social bonds, the instances were great the raids superb, the addiction to play was huge. I played this game from start until about three months ago.
The type of people I met here I long to meet in other mmos now. I'm in the MMO wilderness now thanks to what turbine have done to this game.
Friends gone, experiences gone, raiding gone, raid kins gone, socialising gone. Just memories left. Sometimes I travel the mines of Moria and remember all the memories. Sometimes I enter the watcher raid and just sit there thinking of memories of old, of friends that all left of all the fun this game gave me.
I long for this to happen again somewhere somehow. I was a lifetime account holder and yet to experience it all again I would happily pay £20 a month.
Turbine have killed this game..
This game broke my heart.
I totally feel this way too. I absolutely loved this game from The Shire to Lothlorien it was an amazing journey. But the F2P model is the worse I've ever seen. Even if you pay a sub you will inevitably use the in-game cash shop. Turbine has amazing products but they are so greedy, it really ruins my experience...
What this game needs is a Mordor expansion, with a new faction, new races and new classes. Bring a sense of evil into the game that the players can actually be part of. The monster pvp play is a complete joke.
However, I do understand that bringing out a new faction years after the release of a game is not feasible but I believe it is the only way to save this game. Open world PVP with a new faction led by Sauron amd Saruman. Players invading the shire (maybe we can actually have a scourging of the shire, will make up for the terrible idea of Peter Jackson removing it) where players can invade the shire zones and actually fight for control over hobbiton, The mines of Moria and Lothlorien. It would take a lot of hard work and effort by the developers. but it could work if implemented correctly.
I know this is never going to happen, WB just wont invest the money to make this happen. World of Warcraft became so successful because the developers had a passion for horde vs Alliance. Do these developers have a passion for Good vs Evil in LOTRO? It seems not.
What this game needs is a Mordor expansion, with a new faction, new races and new classes. Bring a sense of evil into the game that the players can actually be part of. The monster pvp play is a complete joke.
However, I do understand that bringing out a new faction years after the release of a game is not feasible but I believe it is the only way to save this game. Open world PVP with a new faction led by Sauron amd Saruman. Players invading the shire (maybe we can actually have a scourging of the shire, will make up for the terrible idea of Peter Jackson removing it) where players can invade the shire zones and actually fight for control over hobbiton, The mines of Moria and Lothlorien. It would take a lot of hard work and effort by the developers. but it could work if implemented correctly.
I know this is never going to happen, WB just wont invest the money to make this happen. World of Warcraft became so successful because the developers had a passion for horde vs Alliance. Do these developers have a passion for Good vs Evil in LOTRO? It seems not.
Ah well at least I can dream
At this point it might not be a unfeasible as one would think. The biggest hurdle to massive changes years later is the negative impact it might have on long term adherents. That may be less of a risk these days since they have apparently done such a fine job of disenfranchising many of them anyway.
Turbine was great until, it got in bed with Warner Brothers. They took the game free to play and its not been the same since. The game literally died for me in 2011, I predicted the game would die in 2012, and well it sort of did it went free to play.
Turbine really has not done justice to this game since they let Warner Brothers dictate how they were going to run things.
I think they had a great run, but it is time to let the game go. Hopefully the estate will not renew the license if they know whats good for the IP.
I enjoy following the story of the game, but the gameplay is feeling stretched too thin, like butter scraped over too much bread. I didn't care for things like too much focus on the store, overpriced expansions or expansions with entire instance clusters that deviated from the storyline of the game to feature stuff from the Hobbit and so forth.
It will be a shame if they can't finish off the Lord of the Rings storyline in the game, but I think they are running out of steam for LotRO.
Originally posted by Vivasvan I loved this game. This is my all time favourite MMO. I made friends, had experiences, social bonds, the instances were great the raids superb, the addiction to play was huge. I played this game from start until about three months ago.
The type of people I met here I long to meet in other mmos now. I'm in the MMO wilderness now thanks to what turbine have done to this game.
Friends gone, experiences gone, raiding gone, raid kins gone, socialising gone. Just memories left. Sometimes I travel the mines of Moria and remember all the memories. Sometimes I enter the watcher raid and just sit there thinking of memories of old, of friends that all left of all the fun this game gave me.
I long for this to happen again somewhere somehow. I was a lifetime account holder and yet to experience it all again I would happily pay £20 a month.
Turbine have killed this game..
This game broke my heart.
I could take your comments and apply it almost exactly to Perfect World. And it makes me realize that our state of mind at the time of starting something, can influence how we feel about the next thing. PWI had an awesome, immersive, innovative game and utterly destroyed it. There are still things about PW that are better than GW2.
I play gw2 now, but honestly the early days of PW were immensely better in every way. Maybe if I'd never played it, I'd feel the same about gw2 in the future.
This is what MMO devs have to overcome. They need to create something to make people feel like its a new and fantastic experience - not where people solo to end game in a couple weeks (here's looking at your Neverwinter) and then just create alts to stay keen.....
LOTRO sounded like just more of the same to me, so I never picked it up. Since I'm staying busy with GW2, the devs need to convince me to start something else. I have no interest in just 'trying something out' because you would never stop doing that, with so many choices on the market.....
WB already has access to the movie / merchandising rights via different agreements, securing the digital rights would be the hat trick for the blanket witch has been WB's moniker for the last few years. They like securing everything not only for future projects but to eliminate competing media. a one stop shop if you will. Or Hollywood's version of Wal-Mart
What are you talking about? WB's moniker? Do you mean Modus Operandi? What does 'hat trick for the blanket' mean?And as someone who works in Hollywood (and has worked for Warner Bros on occasion) I can tell you they're not the 'wal-mart' of Hollywood. The 'wal-mart' of Hollywood are companies like Asylum that made Sharknado...cheap movies that sell well.
And WB isn't going to be allowed to just hang on to licenses without doing anything. Almost all licensing agreements these days have a 'do or die' clause written into the contract. If the Licensee doesn't develop the IP within x amount of time, it automatically reverts back to the rights holder. There are no more movies to be made for the Tolkien IP after the Hobbit is done. At least nothing that Saul Zantz has rights to anyway. Nobody is going to remake Lord of the Rings any time soon either.
Digital rights? It's up to the courts to decide at this point. The letter of the law is in favor of Saul Zantz and WB. The Spirit of the law is in favor of Christopher Tolkien. Who knows which way it'll be decided. If Tolkien Estate/Christopher Tolkien win, then it's likely they'll get a cut of all future revenue from games. I guess we'll see.
I started playing this game during the initial closed Beta era and have one of the oldest characters in the entire game. I have pre-ordered every expansion and enjoyed my time in middle earth.
But I will not pre order this expansion, nor will I buy it and I have cancelled my long standing account. If you are in Beta, you would know why.
WB already has access to the movie / merchandising rights via different agreements, securing the digital rights would be the hat trick for the blanket witch has been WB's moniker for the last few years. They like securing everything not only for future projects but to eliminate competing media. a one stop shop if you will. Or Hollywood's version of Wal-Mart
What are you talking about? WB's moniker? Do you mean Modus Operandi? What does 'hat trick for the blanket' mean?And as someone who works in Hollywood (and has worked for Warner Bros on occasion) I can tell you they're not the 'wal-mart' of Hollywood. The 'wal-mart' of Hollywood are companies like Asylum that made Sharknado...cheap movies that sell well.
And WB isn't going to be allowed to just hang on to licenses without doing anything. Almost all licensing agreements these days have a 'do or die' clause written into the contract. If the Licensee doesn't develop the IP within x amount of time, it automatically reverts back to the rights holder. There are no more movies to be made for the Tolkien IP after the Hobbit is done. At least nothing that Saul Zantz has rights to anyway. Nobody is going to remake Lord of the Rings any time soon either.
Digital rights? It's up to the courts to decide at this point. The letter of the law is in favor of Saul Zantz and WB. The Spirit of the law is in favor of Christopher Tolkien. Who knows which way it'll be decided. If Tolkien Estate/Christopher Tolkien win, then it's likely they'll get a cut of all future revenue from games. I guess we'll see.
I invite you to look at the copy write holdings/licensing of any publicly traded major company. Most do in fact sit on them when not actively engaged in projects. If one holds the license/copy write ones potential competitors do not. It is a form of corporate investment. Particularly in the age of de-leveraging.
The game was taken in the wrong direction even before f2p, at least imo. Playing the same pvp map for 5 years was enough for me. They drove away all of their playerbase besides gear grinding through raids and instances. Next, they stated the other avenues of the game weren't popular therefore were not a priority or anything to work on all-together.
That's what happens what you neglect so many features of an mmo, Lotr is an amazing IP but Lotro sealed it's own fate with the worst expansion I've ever seen with the Gap of Rohan. There literally wasn't enough content to level the 10 levels the that were added to the cap, horrendous.
Sad but true. Instead of reinforcing areas of the game that were popular with core enthusiasts - the kind of players that run guilds and stick around to make the game world fun for others - they went for a serious of "quick fixes" that drove those very people away. It was the sort of "we know best" approach that doomed Asheron's Call 2.
I too loved early LOTRO. It had tons of promise, especially Monster Play. But they veered off into a ditch.
We've seen this extreme silence last year and this year with Warhammer online and that MOBA thing they made. The MOBA was killed early this year and only recently we've heard that the license is not to be extended.
I'm not happy with that parallel, they've just made a moba as well... so basically when they kill off the guardians of Middle-earth, we're doomed
Edit: "they've just made" -> more precisely "just released on pc"
Turbine did not make it at all. Guardians of Middle-Earth is from WB and they've made a number of LotRo IP based games already. Only reason for WB to purchase Turbine was that they'd also have the MMO in their stable (and Turbine needed the money). The license for LotRo lies still with Turbine and not WB...
We've seen this extreme silence last year and this year with Warhammer online and that MOBA thing they made. The MOBA was killed early this year and only recently we've heard that the license is not to be extended.
I'm not happy with that parallel, they've just made a moba as well... so basically when they kill off the guardians of Middle-earth, we're doomed
Edit: "they've just made" -> more precisely "just released on pc"
Turbine did not make it at all. Guardians of Middle-Earth is from WB and they've made a number of LotRo IP based games already. Only reason for WB to purchase Turbine was that they'd also have the MMO in their stable (and Turbine needed the money). The license for LotRo lies still with Turbine and not WB...
and Turbine being a subsidiary of WB now that WB owns them means in practical effect WB does indeed control the license at least until the term of the original contract are up.
EDIT because honestly who at Turbine could even make a call that ran counter to WB's wishes in regards to patents, trademarks, copy write, license? the janitor? any board members will be representing WB primarily; most if not all senior execs are WB. the devs will sit down and shut-up because WB is on the paycheck. So the statement "The license for LotRo lies still with Turbine and not WB..." while technically accurate is also rather.....and?
The art style and animation has always been a black mark for me on this game. This is coming from a lifetime member (the one and only time I will ever make that mistake). I would however like to see the same art team that worked on AoC take a stab at making a Middle Earth game. I'm not saying Funcom would make a better game, just a better looking game because I think Middle Earth should be a dark gritty place (not saying T and A) and not so clean and ornate like Turbine's version.
As much as I love this MMO, and I love all three of the character's I have in it, on Dwarrowdelf, I'm afraid the grind is not something I would miss. I love the world, and think I should be able to explore it to my heart's content, without being required to fight my way through every single zone, but I have been doing so since 2007, and have come to not mind it. The vista's, the bad guys, the Dragons, the way the world is being laid out, the information that's there, the parallel storyline, it's all awesome. Frankly, I can't see how the license holder could do anything BUT renew. It's fantastic.
"I'm not saying Funcom would make a better game, just a better looking game because I think Middle Earth should be a dark gritty place (not saying T and A) and not so clean and ornate like Turbine's version." ~ rodingo
Well, you've apparently never read the stories, then. It should be exactly as it is.
I really hope that one day some other company than Turbine gets the license and creates a true Lord of the Rings MMO. Lotro was quite fun until after Moria but became too much on rails and overall shallow imho.
The decision will most likely hinge on just how profitable LOTRO currently is for WB.
It sounds like MEE are putting the squeeze on WB to up the license fee. But I doubt that WB will be eager to pay MORE for a license that let's them continue running a game that's making less and less money.
I can see MEE's point of view though, it's a valuable IP and it's not their concern if WB don't feel it's justified for them to pay more. Somebody else may well be willing to. Just hope it's not PWE/Cryptic...
I can see MEE's point of view though, it's a valuable IP and it's not their concern if WB don't feel it's justified for them to pay more. Somebody else may well be willing to. Just hope it's not PWE/Cryptic...
I like their games since CoH, but I have to agree on this. Same goes to the earlier mentioned Funcom, love their games, Dreamworld engine is awesome and they have great writers, but... rather not. I still love Turbine's Middle-earth. They should get their sh*t together though, or else they'll falling apart.
Originally posted by Boneserino
You said the game was challenging at the start. I am fairly new to the game. Exactly what did they do to "dumb" it down to my level?
Classes were pumped up, aggro reduced, some mechanics simplified, Inspired greatness, removal of crafting tier quests, added xp gain on everything, riding at lvl20, then riding at lvl5 with f2p, etc... For example, back then the Undying title ment a lot, it was an achievment indeed. Nowadays, unless you're disconnected or have some technical issues during a fight, Undying is almost received automatically.
Comments
Turbine has been doing an awful job with this game the past two years. They don't fix bugs. They are still selling a raid that has a final boss that bugs and cannot be finished in their store. They are all about hype but not willing to put money into the game. They have taken the original developers off Lotro and moved them over to Infinite Crisis.
Helm's Deep looks like a joke. The epic location you can see in screen shots is not epic at all. The wall is not tall and is covered with decorations that anyone could easily climb. Clearly once again they did not put much money into creating this expansion. People in beta have been warning players not to buy the expansion before they see it. Turbine also decided not to include ANY group instances or raids in this expansion - instead hyping up a new skirmish type feature called "Big Battles".
The original content is great - but the game has gotten worse and worse. It is all about TP and shopping now to make the game less grindy. There is a memory leak in the client and serious lag on the servers they have been unable to fix. The have not optimized the client when they released the last expansion, and as a result some players with very good gaming rigs cannot play without huge lag. It is very common for players to post "My PC can play every other game and MMO out there on high settings, but not Lotro". It's sad but it's all about the money now and very little about making a good game. Compared to Rift and WoW, Lotro is a game that gets older and sees very little game improvements.
It is also a very expensive game. With current sales, it is $40 for past expansions, another $40 for the new one, and then you need to subscribe for a month for $15 or be missing many basic game features like 4th and 5th bags. And then, after spending $95 on this game, you still can't access some zones because you haven't bought them yet. All these are the reasons why server populations get less and less - even as Turbine pretends everything is fine.
Here's my thought after playing the game for almost 5 years (off and on). SoA was the best, Moria was good and everything after so-so. After this expac tjhey should just start over with the remainder and go all the way to Mordor in three years. Create a whole new game that we can bring our character stats over to. Update the graphics and animations and create a dynamic event type of game. No one wants to do kill ten of these quests anymore. We want a living world we can explore.
Bring back the RAID's in a big way (Morder should be a RAID type event). The world should be a dangerous place that keeps you on your toes (especially as you get closer to Mordor). We should be fighting with the fellowship not following in their footsteps.
If this is not done I don't see the IP going much further. There is no excitement anymore in the game. Too many good people have left. I hardly check in anymore and am a kin leader on a major server. These days I am playing GW2, War Thunder, and mostly Firefall.
Well everyone who reads a book will have a different impression of it.
I really don't think the book was their goal though. I think this was meant to mimic the movies, and not the books so much. And truthfully I wasn't blown away by the books anyway. Tell us what your Lotro would have been like.
You said the game was challenging at the start. I am fairly new to the game. Exactly what did they do to "dumb" it down to my level?
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
if this game goes away it will e the greatest travesty of a shutdown since earth & beyond. it is a DAMN good game at its core and does a lot of things 100% right.
the Shire in LOTRO when i visited it for the first time literally brought tears to my eyes. it was so fucking perfect, down to the simple woodwind music.
it is a classic example of big bad company ruins great little game.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
I totally feel this way too. I absolutely loved this game from The Shire to Lothlorien it was an amazing journey. But the F2P model is the worse I've ever seen. Even if you pay a sub you will inevitably use the in-game cash shop. Turbine has amazing products but they are so greedy, it really ruins my experience...
What this game needs is a Mordor expansion, with a new faction, new races and new classes. Bring a sense of evil into the game that the players can actually be part of. The monster pvp play is a complete joke.
However, I do understand that bringing out a new faction years after the release of a game is not feasible but I believe it is the only way to save this game. Open world PVP with a new faction led by Sauron amd Saruman. Players invading the shire (maybe we can actually have a scourging of the shire, will make up for the terrible idea of Peter Jackson removing it) where players can invade the shire zones and actually fight for control over hobbiton, The mines of Moria and Lothlorien. It would take a lot of hard work and effort by the developers. but it could work if implemented correctly.
I know this is never going to happen, WB just wont invest the money to make this happen. World of Warcraft became so successful because the developers had a passion for horde vs Alliance. Do these developers have a passion for Good vs Evil in LOTRO? It seems not.
Ah well at least I can dream
At this point it might not be a unfeasible as one would think. The biggest hurdle to massive changes years later is the negative impact it might have on long term adherents. That may be less of a risk these days since they have apparently done such a fine job of disenfranchising many of them anyway.
Turbine was great until, it got in bed with Warner Brothers. They took the game free to play and its not been the same since. The game literally died for me in 2011, I predicted the game would die in 2012, and well it sort of did it went free to play.
Turbine really has not done justice to this game since they let Warner Brothers dictate how they were going to run things.
I think they had a great run, but it is time to let the game go. Hopefully the estate will not renew the license if they know whats good for the IP.
I enjoy following the story of the game, but the gameplay is feeling stretched too thin, like butter scraped over too much bread. I didn't care for things like too much focus on the store, overpriced expansions or expansions with entire instance clusters that deviated from the storyline of the game to feature stuff from the Hobbit and so forth.
It will be a shame if they can't finish off the Lord of the Rings storyline in the game, but I think they are running out of steam for LotRO.
I could take your comments and apply it almost exactly to Perfect World. And it makes me realize that our state of mind at the time of starting something, can influence how we feel about the next thing. PWI had an awesome, immersive, innovative game and utterly destroyed it. There are still things about PW that are better than GW2.
I play gw2 now, but honestly the early days of PW were immensely better in every way. Maybe if I'd never played it, I'd feel the same about gw2 in the future.
This is what MMO devs have to overcome. They need to create something to make people feel like its a new and fantastic experience - not where people solo to end game in a couple weeks (here's looking at your Neverwinter) and then just create alts to stay keen.....
LOTRO sounded like just more of the same to me, so I never picked it up. Since I'm staying busy with GW2, the devs need to convince me to start something else. I have no interest in just 'trying something out' because you would never stop doing that, with so many choices on the market.....
What are you talking about? WB's moniker? Do you mean Modus Operandi? What does 'hat trick for the blanket' mean?And as someone who works in Hollywood (and has worked for Warner Bros on occasion) I can tell you they're not the 'wal-mart' of Hollywood. The 'wal-mart' of Hollywood are companies like Asylum that made Sharknado...cheap movies that sell well.
And WB isn't going to be allowed to just hang on to licenses without doing anything. Almost all licensing agreements these days have a 'do or die' clause written into the contract. If the Licensee doesn't develop the IP within x amount of time, it automatically reverts back to the rights holder. There are no more movies to be made for the Tolkien IP after the Hobbit is done. At least nothing that Saul Zantz has rights to anyway. Nobody is going to remake Lord of the Rings any time soon either.
Digital rights? It's up to the courts to decide at this point. The letter of the law is in favor of Saul Zantz and WB. The Spirit of the law is in favor of Christopher Tolkien. Who knows which way it'll be decided. If Tolkien Estate/Christopher Tolkien win, then it's likely they'll get a cut of all future revenue from games. I guess we'll see.
I started playing this game during the initial closed Beta era and have one of the oldest characters in the entire game. I have pre-ordered every expansion and enjoyed my time in middle earth.
But I will not pre order this expansion, nor will I buy it and I have cancelled my long standing account. If you are in Beta, you would know why.
I invite you to look at the copy write holdings/licensing of any publicly traded major company. Most do in fact sit on them when not actively engaged in projects. If one holds the license/copy write ones potential competitors do not. It is a form of corporate investment. Particularly in the age of de-leveraging.
The Secret World
Hedonismbot: Your latest performance was as delectable as dipping my bottom over and over into a bath of the silkiest oils and creams.
Sad but true. Instead of reinforcing areas of the game that were popular with core enthusiasts - the kind of players that run guilds and stick around to make the game world fun for others - they went for a serious of "quick fixes" that drove those very people away. It was the sort of "we know best" approach that doomed Asheron's Call 2.
I too loved early LOTRO. It had tons of promise, especially Monster Play. But they veered off into a ditch.
Turbine did not make it at all. Guardians of Middle-Earth is from WB and they've made a number of LotRo IP based games already. Only reason for WB to purchase Turbine was that they'd also have the MMO in their stable (and Turbine needed the money). The license for LotRo lies still with Turbine and not WB...
and Turbine being a subsidiary of WB now that WB owns them means in practical effect WB does indeed control the license at least until the term of the original contract are up.
EDIT because honestly who at Turbine could even make a call that ran counter to WB's wishes in regards to patents, trademarks, copy write, license? the janitor? any board members will be representing WB primarily; most if not all senior execs are WB. the devs will sit down and shut-up because WB is on the paycheck. So the statement "The license for LotRo lies still with Turbine and not WB..." while technically accurate is also rather.....and?
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
"I'm not saying Funcom would make a better game, just a better looking game because I think Middle Earth should be a dark gritty place (not saying T and A) and not so clean and ornate like Turbine's version." ~ rodingo
Well, you've apparently never read the stories, then. It should be exactly as it is.
GW2, Firefall, and War Thunder. MMO's have evolved.
The decision will most likely hinge on just how profitable LOTRO currently is for WB.
It sounds like MEE are putting the squeeze on WB to up the license fee. But I doubt that WB will be eager to pay MORE for a license that let's them continue running a game that's making less and less money.
I can see MEE's point of view though, it's a valuable IP and it's not their concern if WB don't feel it's justified for them to pay more. Somebody else may well be willing to. Just hope it's not PWE/Cryptic...
I like their games since CoH, but I have to agree on this. Same goes to the earlier mentioned Funcom, love their games, Dreamworld engine is awesome and they have great writers, but... rather not. I still love Turbine's Middle-earth. They should get their sh*t together though, or else they'll falling apart.
Classes were pumped up, aggro reduced, some mechanics simplified, Inspired greatness, removal of crafting tier quests, added xp gain on everything, riding at lvl20, then riding at lvl5 with f2p, etc... For example, back then the Undying title ment a lot, it was an achievment indeed. Nowadays, unless you're disconnected or have some technical issues during a fight, Undying is almost received automatically.