Cultural context can be everything. When I see your user name cowboys are not what comes to mind. There may be some U.S. thing that makes the connection obvious, but for me growing up in Australia as I did it is this insecticide commercial from the black and white TV era that comes to mind.
Honestly? Shut it down. It may be an old game at this point but they have released expansions as slow as molasses anyway. The game is not what I thought it would be nor what was promised and has become far too much like every other game over time.
Honestly? Shut it down. It may be an old game at this point but they have released expansions as slow as molasses anyway. The game is not what I thought it would be nor what was promised and has become far too much like every other game over time.
They can at least wrap things up and let the players help ending the story, the still loyal players deserves that. Just canceling would be rather unfair to people that have given Turbine a lot of cash and faith during the years.
... I think even if WB renews LOTR/Hobbit licenses they have little motivation to waste their resources on LOTRO. But, ideally they will allow LOTRO to go into maintenance mode while they let another developer create the next middle earth MMO.
Turbine's multi-year plan means nothing if WB decides not to fund it or renew the license. MMO development is a risky business these days.
I am not sure they can find another developer that would want to make a middle earth MMO and actually can afford to make it unless they are willing to offer it to NC soft or PWE. Well, Bioware might if offered. Another option would be Undead labs who are backed by Microsoft, their boss is the guy who pitched Wow to Blizz and was lead designer and lead coder for GW and GW2 the first half of it's development so they are qualified.
I don't see Blizz make another MMO soon and if they would that would be Wow 2, that probably would earn more anyways. FunCom, CCP and the majority of other western devs have not the money for it. The only other that havr is Zenimax/Bethesda unless you could interest a large company that so far have avoided MMOs like Valve.
So I think it is rather unlikely that someone starts on a new middle earth MMO in the next 5 years. We might see a MMO renaissance after that and then I guess anything is possible.
My assumption would be that SZC - not the T estate - would renew it and that WB would want to renew it; just a case of agreeing a price. A 5 year deal maybe? That would give WB more than enough time to finish the story and still give SZC a chance to get a "20 year" deal with ..... ?
Nor do I see why people would want LotR to close. I can understand the "complaints" but at the end of the day LotR is a solid game with a great community feel and just about every mmorpg feature known to middle earth peoples.
My assumption would be that SZC - not the T estate - would renew it and that WB would want to renew it; just a case of agreeing a price. A 5 year deal maybe? That would give WB more than enough time to finish the story and still give SZC a chance to get a "20 year" deal with ..... ?
Nor do I see why people would want LotR to close. I can understand the "complaints" but at the end of the day LotR is a solid game with a great community feel and just about every mmorpg feature known to middle earth peoples.
As I see it, there would be 2 reasons to not renew it: Either they think the game would bring negative publicity for the IP or that a new MMO already would be in development and they think that LOTRO would compete with it (or confuse people).
Neither is likely so I would be surprised if it wont get renewed. If anyone kills LOTRO it will be Turbine, not WB.
Honestly? Shut it down. It may be an old game at this point but they have released expansions as slow as molasses anyway. The game is not what I thought it would be nor what was promised and has become far too much like every other game over time.
They can at least wrap things up and let the players help ending the story, the still loyal players deserves that. Just canceling would be rather unfair to people that have given Turbine a lot of cash and faith during the years.
... I think even if WB renews LOTR/Hobbit licenses they have little motivation to waste their resources on LOTRO. But, ideally they will allow LOTRO to go into maintenance mode while they let another developer create the next middle earth MMO.
Turbine's multi-year plan means nothing if WB decides not to fund it or renew the license. MMO development is a risky business these days.
I am not sure they can find another developer that would want to make a middle earth MMO and actually can afford to make it unless they are willing to offer it to NC soft or PWE. Well, Bioware might if offered. Another option would be Undead labs who are backed by Microsoft, their boss is the guy who pitched Wow to Blizz and was lead designer and lead coder for GW and GW2 the first half of it's development so they are qualified.
I don't see Blizz make another MMO soon and if they would that would be Wow 2, that probably would earn more anyways. FunCom, CCP and the majority of other western devs have not the money for it. The only other that havr is Zenimax/Bethesda unless you could interest a large company that so far have avoided MMOs like Valve.
So I think it is rather unlikely that someone starts on a new middle earth MMO in the next 5 years. We might see a MMO renaissance after that and then I guess anything is possible.
It depends on if WB wants to renew. I don't even know who their developers are any more (besides Turbine). I know WB owns the movie based licenses and acquired the book based MMO license by buying turbine. I have no idea when the movie based games licenses expire.
But yeah making another Middle Earth MMO is very risky as they supposedly kept Turbine from making a true two faction game. I think two factions could have worked given the limitation that the forces of evil eventually lose. Making raids and instances would be problematic though. That's kind of why I think turbine never really wanted to make a two faction game anyway. They didn't even have the resources to make player versus monster very polished.
Anyway, my long term hope is that after Chris Tolkien passes, new leadership will allow for silmarillion era based games as there's a lot more freedom and amazing stuff in those time periods.
Simply put - I've played LoTRO for 10 years (September 2006 - Beta 1 tester) so the idea of LoTRO closing shop is a very sad one to me. The two-year plan sounds interesting, and it does give me reason to be hopeful. But in the end... we'll see.
The price of premium housing they better not just shut it down. Those big kin houses are 50-65 bucks real money depending on the rates at which you bought TP and then Mithril coins. I heard people are buying multiples of them and 'renting' them out to players for in game gold.
But at this point it would be better for some other company to get it and start all over. Most of us probably wont live to see a truly epic game based on the most epic story ever told but every game that has been made involving it has been disappointing to say the least.
But in this day and age and the way MMOs are going its unlikely anyone has the resources or ambition to try and do it justice.
But it would be nice to see them make the game on a more modern engine, best one I could think of would be the modified Torque 3D engine.
But its unlikely any of these scenarios ever come to fruition. The age of the 'blockbuster' MMO ended a long time ago.
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troll much Lemmyfan?
I am not sure they can find another developer that would want to make a middle earth MMO and actually can afford to make it unless they are willing to offer it to NC soft or PWE. Well, Bioware might if offered. Another option would be Undead labs who are backed by Microsoft, their boss is the guy who pitched Wow to Blizz and was lead designer and lead coder for GW and GW2 the first half of it's development so they are qualified.
I don't see Blizz make another MMO soon and if they would that would be Wow 2, that probably would earn more anyways. FunCom, CCP and the majority of other western devs have not the money for it. The only other that havr is Zenimax/Bethesda unless you could interest a large company that so far have avoided MMOs like Valve.
So I think it is rather unlikely that someone starts on a new middle earth MMO in the next 5 years. We might see a MMO renaissance after that and then I guess anything is possible.
My assumption would be that SZC - not the T estate - would renew it and that WB would want to renew it; just a case of agreeing a price. A 5 year deal maybe? That would give WB more than enough time to finish the story and still give SZC a chance to get a "20 year" deal with ..... ?
Nor do I see why people would want LotR to close. I can understand the "complaints" but at the end of the day LotR is a solid game with a great community feel and just about every mmorpg feature known to middle earth peoples.
Neither is likely so I would be surprised if it wont get renewed. If anyone kills LOTRO it will be Turbine, not WB.
But yeah making another Middle Earth MMO is very risky as they supposedly kept Turbine from making a true two faction game. I think two factions could have worked given the limitation that the forces of evil eventually lose. Making raids and instances would be problematic though. That's kind of why I think turbine never really wanted to make a two faction game anyway. They didn't even have the resources to make player versus monster very polished.
Anyway, my long term hope is that after Chris Tolkien passes, new leadership will allow for silmarillion era based games as there's a lot more freedom and amazing stuff in those time periods.
But at this point it would be better for some other company to get it and start all over. Most of us probably wont live to see a truly epic game based on the most epic story ever told but every game that has been made involving it has been disappointing to say the least.
But in this day and age and the way MMOs are going its unlikely anyone has the resources or ambition to try and do it justice.
But it would be nice to see them make the game on a more modern engine, best one I could think of would be the modified Torque 3D engine.
But its unlikely any of these scenarios ever come to fruition. The age of the 'blockbuster' MMO ended a long time ago.