Tag Archives: jeff steefel

If, as planned, Lord of the Rings Online can successfully launch in China next year, the game is likely to become only the second truly successful western MMO released in Asia, the game’s dev lead Jeff Steefel has told VG247.

“I would argue that if we could successfully launch LotRO in China, we will probably be the second western game to be viably successful in Asia,” he said.

“It’s taken a while for them to get used to our games and for us to learn a little bit more about what they like to do.”

Steefel said that LotRO won’t launch until 2009 in China as it’s taken time to work with local partners to prepare the game for release in the country.

“I think it’s like anything else: everybody’s going to be rushing to do it,” he said. “The people that have been working on it and planning it for a long time are much more likely to succeed.

“I don’t think Asia’s a place where you can just suddenly decide that you want to be there.”

The first western title to crack the MMO market in the East is, obviously, World of Warcraft. Steefel made no bones about how significant WoW’s Chinese launch was to the Blizzard game hitting its current 11 million subs level.

“I think WoW’s success in Asia has validated it for western markets in theory… If you look at World of Warcraft and the way their subscription numbers have grown, a significant, if not a majority portion of that has come from the East,” he said.

“That’s where a big part of the global gaming market is and it’s been that way for a long time, but we’re only just now figuring how western games can begin to tap into that market.”

Lord of the Rings Online’s Mines of Moria expansion releases in the US and Europe today.

Lord of the Rings Online boss Jeff Steefel reckons Wrath of the Lich King isn’t a problem to his Mines of Moria expansion, despite the fact the two are launching within a week of each other.

“The way that we succeed is by focusing on ourselves and competing with ourselves, and that’s what we’re continuing to do with this,” he said on the subject of feeling pressure from Blizzard’s latest.

“It’s going to be interesting. It’s not just us and Lich King: there’s an EQ2 expansion coming out, there’s an EVE expansion coming out. I think it shows a change in the market, right? I think it’s going to be happening a lot now.”

Steefel added that Lord of the Rings Online is a very different beat to World of Warcraft, and that the modern MMO market’s mature enough to support both.

“The interesting thing about the MMO space now is that it’s got diversified, and our game is extremely different from other games,” he said.

“The kind of players that play WoW regularly and the kind of play LotRO regularly, and the kind of players that play Warhammer regularly are different. We have a market now where people tend to move around between games.

“We’re less concerned than we would have been than we would have been in the days where there was one game out there and everyone played only that one game.”

Mines of Moria, the second major expansion to Lord of the Rings Online, launches on November 18. Wrath of the Lich King launches this Thursday, November 13.

Turbine will announce console MMO “products” early next year, Lord of the Rings Online dev boss Jeff Steefel told VG247 today. Note the plural.

“We’re really not talking about what our console product plans are, but we will be soon,” he said when asked specifically if we’re going to see a console version of LotRO.

“I would guess by early next year’s we’ll be able to be much more specific about what we’re doing with console, what kind of products we’re putting on console.”

Steefel said that the developer’s work on console games is currently focused on working with platform holders to pave the way for the first wave of console MMOs, and that Turbine’s console plans are still early.

“What we’re doing now is the early development work and the work with the hardware manufacturers to understand where they’re heading in the online space, where the connectivity between the console and internet is really headed.

“That’s everything from how the games really need to behave to the relationship between the hardware manufacturers and the developers to the publishing model, to the consumer business model,” he said.

“It’s never been done before.”

Turbine’s console plans are still a mystery, but rumour of a LotRO port has been heavy. But then, so has a Harry Potter game, so you never know.

Steefel was talking ahead of the launch of Lord of the Rings Online’s Mines of Moria expansion, which ships on November 18.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Lord of the Rings Online boss Jeff Steefel has said that his game has the most chance of the fantasy MMOs to follow World of Warcraft into the mass market.

“There’s another level of success, which is reaching a certain mass-market critical mass, which to be totally fair, only Blizzard has achieved completely so far,” he said.

“We think that we are the game that has the most likelihood of being the second to do that, but we’re not there yet.”

More through the link. There’s a full interview

0 Posted in: Codemasters, MMO, PC
Tags: jeff steefel, lord of the rings online, turbine entertainment

As well as announcing expansion Mines of Moria for Lord of the Ring Online at Connect this morning, Turbine’s confirmed annual updates in a similar fashion to WoW.

“Our focus is to be consistent with what players have already seen us do with the game – continually update content with a lot of new, rich, deep and meaningful content on a regular basis – and that’s something we are going to continue to do,” said Steefel, the game’s executive producer.

“We’re going to have an expansion to the product on an annual basis. So we are going to be keeping up the pace of this game, this game will be evolving, growing and expanding constantly.”

There were still no user figures for the game, but Steefel assured that the game had been very successful in Europe and the US, with Asian launches promised this year.

Speaking at GDC yesterday, Turbine head Jeff Steefel has warned that open world MMOs are baffling to the masses and that the rigid structure of games themselves is needed to help them make sense.

“Coming into a completely open environment for a lot of people is completely overwhelming, especially when you reach out into a broader audience,” said the Lord of the Rings Online developer. “The biggest intersection between games and virtual worlds is that games provide structure by their very nature.”

He added: “Our jobs going forward, and the art of what we are doing, is in the balance between freedom and structure.”

Steefel will be appearing at Codemasters’ Connect 2008 event in the UK next month.