LOTR: War in the North

[Jimmeh83]

I know it will probably be craptacular, but I've decided to give it a go for the co-op play if nothing else.

What really annoyed me today was the release date information, which I felt was pertinent to the "No More Oceans" incentive (or lack thereof)

From the official forums:

Don't see your country listed? Reply here, and I'll work to get this first post updated regularly.
* US/Canada/Mexico – November 1, 2011
* EU not stated elsewhere - November 4, 2011
* Africa - November 4, 2011
* Middle East - November 4, 2011
* Russia - November 4, 2011
* Brazil – November 4, 2011
* South America – November 4, 2011
* Nordics – November 8, 2011
* Germany - November 9, 2011
* France - November 10, 2011
* Aus/NZ – November 16, 2011
* UK - England/Northern Ireland/Scotland/Wales - November 25, 2011

As you can see the UK get the game 3 weeks after the rest of Europe!

Here is the reasoning from one of the forum admins:

A WIDE semi-quasi response.
Release dates have a TON of decision making that goes into them. For any type of media - Particularly when it's developed stateside and then shipped internationally...
Between:
Development timelines (we finish making a game, YAY!)
Submissions timelines (when the Microsoft or Sony people say "thumbs up")
Ratings timelines (when the ESRB/PEGI/USK/BBFC and other ratings boards say who can buy your game)
Manufacturing timelines (time to actually get the discs into a localized box)
Shipping timelines (whether truck, plane, train, or boat, which ALSO includes any timelines for country imports/customs/clearing that we are actually shipping what we say we are into that country)
"Trade" timelines (when a store or chain of stores or online merchants are actually willing to accept the boxed discs into their possession)
"stocking timelines" (when a store is willing to take the boxes out of their warehouse and put them on a shelf)......

Phew...

There are a LOT of timelines!
No one thing goes into a staggered release timeline. It's usually a mixture of some or all of the above. It isn't with any malicious intent toward any one territory. We want users to be happy, to have a great experience, and to enjoy our content.

In that vein, the dates are what they are, and there is no way that we can modify that November 25 date for the UK. That being said, what we CAN do, is support that date the absolute best way we can. If you have any ideas on how we can better support that date, please feel free to PM me, or start a thread. We're always willing to listen and try our best to work with you.

So I have the game sitting pre-loaded on Steam, my friends in the US will be able to play today, and I am expected to wait 3 weeks to unlock a game that is already on my hard drive? Obviously I will just use a VPN tonight so I can get around the problem somewhat, but the whole thing just seems absurd to me.

What are your thoughts?

[Vexing Vision]

A smart decision.

It really takes longer to get through ESRB etc here in Europe than it does in the US. This would delay the release by a few days. Which brings it much closer to the 11/11/11 - and any third-person fantasy-game aiming for a release at that day is performing literal suicide.

[deano2099]

A smart decision.

It really takes longer to get through ESRB etc here in Europe than it does in the US. This would delay the release by a few days. Which brings it much closer to the 11/11/11 - and any third-person fantasy-game aiming for a release at that day is performing literal suicide.

It's launching in Europe on the 4th. It's just the UK getting shafted. The BBFC classified it yonks ago (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ADM281818/) and I don't believe that retailers are turning it away when they know it'll be out in the US already (but maybe they offered them more shelf-space if they delay it).

Only other explanation is they can't make enough copies, in which case they have singled out the UK as the lowest priority market.

[Jimmeh83]

Exactly. I would have expected to see it on Friday 4th, the closest Friday to the US release as per usual. If they have managed to localise the game for the rest of Europe for between 4th and 10th, what possible reason could they have to delay the UK release (which requires little if any localisation) till the 25th?

It has to be something political.

Edit: In addition, further reading of this thread suggests it said 1st Nov on steam up until yesterday. I thought I was going mad and hadn't paid attention when ordering.

So that changes the complexion somewhat. I ordered the game and preloaded it ready to play today, only to have them slap a further 3 weeks and 3 days onto the "time till unlock" counter less than 12 hours before release.

That is not on at all.

Im in the UK, and on Steam, it says it is available on the 1st November?

This is an error in the Steam Store. All PC skus (including Steam) are set to align with the console release dates in the Original Post of this thread.

UK for Steam is November 25.

We are working to resolve all of these as soon as possible.

Edit 2: For those interested, I unlocked the game with a VPN then disconnected. I can launch using the .exe in the steam folder no problem, but I haven't tried to connect to anyone else yet.

Been trying to find the config file to have a poke around, if anyone knows where it lives give me a shout please.

[sabrage]

So... how is the game?

[Moraven]

Reading reviews it it looks like a solid update to Snowblind's past Action-RPGs (Baldur's Gate 1&2, Everquest Champions). Solid fun, not necessarily GOTY material but still fun. Not sure I like the idea of being forced having a party of 3, where the other 2 are AI till you have another join if you choose.

Have this ordered for PS3 (Local co-op with the lady), will play some when I get the chance.

[Anthile]

Reading reviews it it looks like a solid update to Snowblind's past Action-RPGs (Baldur's Gate 1&2, Everquest Champions). Solid fun, not necessarily GOTY material but still fun. Not sure I like the idea of being forced having a party of 3, where the other 2 are AI till you have another join if you choose.

Have this ordered for PS3 (Local co-op with the lady), will play some when I get the chance.

He means Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1+2, before someone turns into an angry internet man.

[Bristoff]

He means Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1+2, before someone turns into an angry internet man.

I was just about to :P

[DigitalSignalX]

I thought this was an expansion for the MMO at first. Am now also curious how the game turns out.

[Jimmeh83]

I played a couple of hours last night with friends. It's certainly not awful but its very typical "on rails" console fare. At the moment the worst thing about it is the inability to disable in-game voice comms, so we couldn't use our ventrilo server properly without hearing each other 2-3 times.