As of today, another Turbine MMO title has become free-to-play, for the most part. Lord of the Rings Online has finally adopted its sister game’s (Dungeon and Dragons Online) micro-transaction scheme in order to swerve away from the traditional subscription models that are so commonly seen in the higher-end MMOs like the industry-leading titan, World of Warcraft.
With this announcement comes a TV commercial planned to be aired on this coming Sunday night, September 12th. Scheduled to appear during a Family Guy episode on FOX-TV, the very action of turning to television ads sets Turbine up beside Blizzard itself as the second MMO company to have gone down this marketing road.
The commercial, as embedded above, shows thousands of fans storming a fictional Lord of the Rings office building, demanding that the game be free-to-play. An actor, depicted as Gandalf from the hugely popular novels and movies on which the game is based, stands before the crowds and announces “You shall not pay!”. This is a play on words from the famous scene in the first book of the trilogy, in which Gandalf falls to his death fighting an ancient demon in order to save the rest of the fellowship (link).
Turbine and Lord of the Rings Online are expecting a marked increase in player activity, both from new and reactivated accounts. This expectation is likely based on the amount of life that will be breathed into the starter zones of this otherwise declining franchise.
Posted below are dozens of new screenshots, detailing not only new areas that have been released with the release of free-to-play Lord of the Rings Online, but also the new in-game Micro-transaction store, character creation screen and a few shots from the starter tutorial for humans and hobbits. This game looks more polished and play-wise, better than Dungeons and Dragons Online.
It would be reasonable to expect that with the commercial’s prime-time airing and Turbine’s flagship MMO becoming more accessible that this will give Turbine what it needs to become king of the free MMO in the North American market.
[imagebrowser id=234]