Success Of Free D&D Online Leads To Free Lord Of The Rings Online, Too
from the good-to-see dept
Slashdot points us to the news that Turbine is now planning to offer their Lord of the Rings Online as free to play starting this fall. This follows last year's decision to turn Dungeons and Dragons online into a free offering, which actually resulted in a massive increase in revenue. Nice to see them expanding this to other areas.What may be more interesting here is that this decision comes soon after Warner Bros. (the studio) bought Turbine. Warner Bros., as a movie studio, isn't exactly known for embracing "free," so it's nice to see that they're actually okay with expanding this program. Maybe they'll actually learn something to take back into the other parts of the business...
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Filed Under: business models, d&d, free, lord of the rings, online games
Companies: turbine, warner bros.
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Defamation on Techdirt
I notice with great concern that my name has been used in a defamatory fashion in one of your articles. Could you please let me know how to have this matter resolved, since the article in question allowed commenting without moderation, and i find it hard to believe hoe this is allowed.
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Re: Defamation on Techdirt
2.) It's hard for him to know what article your comment is concerning if you don't point to the actual article in question.
3.) Commenting without moderation happens all the time on the Internet; after all, your comment got through here.
On topic relating to the article: this is good for LotR Online fans.
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Re: Defamation on Techdirt
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Re: Defamation on Techdirt
I was not aware that this had happened - however I am now!
As I don't know who you are I'm probably not bothered to find out about this so called "defamation" however if further comments are posted I can't guarantee that I will contain my curiosity for ever. By complaining about this (esp. in public) all you have succeeded in doing is drawing attention to it. Was this really your intention?
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Re: Re: Defamation on Techdirt
Let me explain the difference between defamation and opinion.
If willowtree said the above and I gave my opinion that this is his intention, that's not defamation. I am looking at the available evidence, the same evidence that everyone else has, and am concluding something based on that evidence, not based on something I know to be false. The key here is that I think that what I'm saying is true, I'm not spreading rumors that I know to be false. Now if I said that willowtree personally admitted to me that this was his intention and this is not true and I know better, that would be defamation.
For instance, say I looked at all the facts in a case and said that X killed his/her spouse. but someone else looked at the same facts in the case and said s/he didn't. Say s/he didn't and was found not guilty but I continued to say that the trial was in error and s/he should have been found guilty. Did anyone defame this person? No. We are all looking at the same facts and drawing different conclusions and we are giving our honest opinion on the matter.
Defamation would be if I falsely claimed this person admit to me that this person killed his/her spouse and I knew better. Or if I claim to have saw this person kill his/her spouse when I did not and knew better. Or if I claim to have saw this person in close vicinity to the crime scene during the night of the murder when I knew that s/he was miles away (now claiming that I saw this person miles away when I knew they were in the same room as the person s/he murdered at the night of the murder could be an obstruction of justice). See the difference?
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Re: Defamation on Techdirt
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if that address is valid it's obviously disposable.
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On Topic
(Not bloody likely though)
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free mmo's
I hope it spreads....
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DDO and free to play
[1] http://www.massively.com/2010/02/26/one-million-new-adventurers-in-dungeons-and-dragons-online/
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Re: DDO and free to play
My experiences with LoTRO indicate that's not as easily translated into the same FTP model, which is pretty readily apparent when you look at the proposed, "beta" plan for the VIP (current subscriber)/Premium (former sub, or cash-purchaser)/Free tiers. LoTRO leaves a lot more limited, even at Premium, than DDO does. One of the big draws for DDO is that once you buy enough content, you're almost indistinguishable from a subscriber.
LoTRO, not so much: gold? limited; chat? limited; auction? limited; mail? limited; crafting guild? limited; destiny points? limited.
Let me be clear. I think this is going to be a success. However, I don't think WB/Turbine's going to come anywhere close to repeating their 500% miracle. The MMO market is pretty saturated when it comes to fantasy games, so hopefully "500% or more" is not the benchmark for success.
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DDO and free to play
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tried sending comments thru the contact us section, under customer service or even general comments, but no one bothered to get back to me!!!
1. Private correspondence??? To whom? if you have a (reliable) contact in techdirt, please let me know!!
2. As for the post....That's why i gave an e-mail add, there are other things i would like to discuss about.
3. AS for the junk mail....ever heard of filtering????
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Re:
2. Ok. I was just trying to be helpful.
3. Yes, I have heard of filtering. It comes with most online mail services. It's not 100%, and it's no fun to invite it to happen.
Again, I was just trying to be helpful. No need to be snarky in return. I'm not the one who slighted you (most likely at least), and the only affiliation I have with Techdirt is reading their articles. Please continue to identify yourself here so that I know not to try to be helpful to you in the future. Don't worry, it will never happen again.
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Concerns
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Perhaps Turbine did it without the consent of Warner Bros?
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Good deal.
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Nothing says we love our customers like installing malware and stealing log in credentials for other games.
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Laugh riot
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Now that is the funniest thing you have ever written, Mike.
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LOTRO Subscribers are actually making at out pretty good. If you have a look at this forum post Here
Subscribers & Lifetime subscibers get to keep everything they already have plus we get free content updates, as well as 500 points a month to spend in the turbine store for free. Lifetimer's get it without having to pay the monthly subsciption free essentially LOTRO is paying them 500 turbine points a month to play a game they already play. Pretty sweet if you ask me.
As far as LOTRO dying it's actually doing quit well Turbine already had this in the works before WB bought them.The acquisition just went through & The beta starts on the 16th you don't develop a beta client in a matter of a months time.
Also you might wanna check out the interview with turbine Here
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