Tag Archives: turbine entertainment

A number of pieces of disaparate evidence suggest Warner Bros. may have a new Lord of the Rings game on the boil.

More »

Big changes are coming to Lord of the Rings Online’s Wardens in the imminent update. The class is undergoing such a dramatic change that Turbine has decided to implement a grace period to allow players to collect gear appropriate to the new builds. If you play or are interested in a Warden, check out this developer post detailing the changes and what you need to do about them. The update brings all sorts of changes and new content and is expected soon.

Thanks, Massively.

DDO is having its 7th birthday next week, and as part of the party they’ve launched Update 17 and given everybody presents.
More »

The Lord of the Rings Online Update 10 is coming soon, and Jonathan Steady at Turbine has posted a Dev Diary to explain some upcoming changes to the game they haven’t yet talked about, such as boss loot alterations and what’s going on with armor set bonuses.
More »

Dungeons and Dragons Online is n its way to Mac. A beta client for the free-to-play MMO is available right now from this link; it comes with a number of caveats so be sure to read the accompanying FAQ on the forum. Turbine recently produced an OS-X friendly version of The Lord of the Rings Online, too.

Thanks, Massively.

Lord of the Rings ONline will gain a new kind of daily quest with the Riders of Rohan expansion – Warbands.

More »

This new trailer gives a peek at the environments to be found in the newly-released update for Lord of the Rings Online.

More »

The very first expansion for six year-old MMORPG Dunegons and Dragons Online will go on sale on June 25, with pre-orders netting a substantial list of bonuses.

More »

The free to play revolution isn’t killing premium subscriptions, Turbine believes, but it’s forcing providers to give consumers flexibility.

More »

New, performance-enhancing premium items added to the Lord of the Rings Online store are there to help out new players, Turbine has explained.

More »

Kotaku’s posted up a new Lord of the Rings Online dev diary, this one detailing the new classes to be released in the Mines of Moria expansion later this month.

If Runemastering and Wardening have been top of your list of fantasy things to do since you were eight years old, you’re in luck.

Take a look.

On CVG. The second major Lord of the Rings Online expansion ships on November 18, and is looking tasty if hobbits are your thang.

The video gives a look at some of the game’s new classes, and the 17 shots show the Central Levels and Khazaddum area.

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.

Codemasters has confirmed that LotRO expansion Mines of Moria will release in both Europe and the US on November 18.

Exec producer Jeffrey Steefel said, “Beginning November 18 players across North America and Europe will journey with the dwarves deep into Middle-earth to reclaim the ancient kingdom of Khazad-dûm from the minions of Saruman.”

More on MCV.

As spotted by Eurogamer, Turbine’s posted a job ad which could point to a console version of Lord of the Rings Online.

The company is looking for a senior user interface engineer to “bring the user interfaces of our massively multiplayer titles to the next level” and do so “across both PC and console platforms”.

Specifically, “this engineer may be refactoring existing user interfaces or implementing completely new user interfaces for systems such as combat, skills, inventory, treasure, and social systems”.

More through the link.

As far as MMOs go, this looks amazing. Turbine’s shown off a video of scenery from the Flaming Deeps section of LotRO’s Mines of Moria expansion, and “pretty” isn’t the word, really.

We’re going to get a closer look at this later in September. See it for yourself after the break.

More »

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

Turbine’s inviting applications for the final stage of the Mines of Moria beta, so go over to the official site and fill in your details if you want to get involved.

The Lord of the Rings Online expansion’s listed as a Q4 release on Gamespress, and there’s a UK press event for it in late September, so you’ll be able to be a non-beta Moria inhabitant before too long, anyway.

According to this Private Equity Hub report, LotRO developer Turbine’s raised a further $40 million in VC funding for as yet unknown purposes.

The company has now raised a total of $90 million in VC, apparently, the most recent round being a $30 million injection in February 2005.

That piece speculates that Turbine is about to announce “some major strategic change”, although it doesn’t quantify it, guessing at a move into console or mobile markets. We reckon a mobile LotRO spin-off would be well worth $40 million. Do you?

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.