CheatCC says: "The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria is a fun and more-than-significant increase in content for its players. Turbine has definitely done a great job of capturing the epic nature of Khazad-Dum, especially when it came to its world design and visual style. Veteran players who have been waiting for more places to explore in Middle-Earth should not pass up the opportunities found in Mines of Moria."
Turbine has released five new images showing the Gathburz area in the upcoming expansion for Lord of the Rings Online; Siege of Mirkwood.
IncGamers' MMO Editor Bill Vaughan runs through all the big MMO News from the last seven days:
"As always, there's been tonnes of MMO news around this week, and because I know it's hard to stay on top of it all, I've wrapped it all up in one place. Read on for the very latest on Star Trek Online, EVE, Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft, Champions Online, Stargate Worlds, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Age of Conan."
Shame about Stargate Worlds.
Unless something big changes, I don't think we'll see that for a long time, and by that time the game will be outdated :(
Disappointing but it's high risk to invest in an MMO at this time so not entirely unexpected.
Before the financial crisis, this game would've been a sure bet. So many fans worldwide.
The discussion about the creation of the Republic's capital, Croissant (or whatever) was pretty cool, I missed that, thanks :)
I have friends who are really looking forward to stargate worlds, although not all hope is lost it does look grim...
I don't think Stargate World was ever going to do well, it was always riddled with problems, and it was only a matter of time before this announcement was made.
Veyr very tempted by the eve tester call out but it's such a huge timesink I'm hesistant to go down that road.
Jeff Hollis is back with another opinion piece looking at failed launches of MMOs. We've asked him to go into marketing, but he's not interested. This is a taster of his popular weekly feature:
"It's not like players aren't looking for something new. If anything, the initial launch figures of several games indicate that players are, in fact, sniffing around for a new MMO. For example, both Conan and Warhammer sold over a million copies of their game early on, only to have their subscription numbers dwindle later. It's rather widely believed that LOTRO, Warhammer, and EVE all boast similar subscription figures, at around 300,000. Of course, hard information on all this is very challenging to come by."
wow is no fun to bash, since it's too well armored with billions of dollars. feels no pain...
Hehe, there that international group that does sales figures should do subscription figures :)
WoW is an aberration, and analysing why it's done quite as well as it has, I think, comes down to the fact that it was a polished game that hit at just the right time and has kept pushing and pushing.
Very good point in the mid-game content, though. Online, there's a lot of people vocal about the endgame, but that tends to be the hardcore minority. The beginning content is obviously important as it's what pulls players in and keeps them there, but yes, the mid-game is hugely important. Weird how I can still think of areas in WoW that I hated so much I've never, ever done again, but that there were always others for me to do. I'd not really thought of the mid-game as being that important before.
