By Alec Meer on September 9th, 2009.
Turbine might be challenging their publisher Atari to a bout of fisticuffs about the fate and funding of Dungeons & Dragons Online, but such conflict has not delayed the re-release of said formerly underpopulated MMO as a free-to-play affair. Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited, as it’s now known, can be had for the princely sum of no-pennies from here. There is, of course, a catch. Two in fact, but one of them might be my fault.
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By Alec Meer on August 27th, 2009.
Something is rotten in the state of pretend online roleplaying universes. Atari, or at least what’s left of it these days, remains license holder for most videogamilial adaptations of Dungeons & Dragons properties, most notably Forgotten Realms titles including Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights. They also publish the Turbine-developed Dungeons & Dragons Online, which is shortly to be relaunched as the free-to-play DDO Unlimited. Only Turbine reckon Atari’s gearing up for betrayal…
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By Alec Meer on June 9th, 2009.
Have we ever posted about Dungeons & Dragons Online before? It’s not an MMO that ever seems to make the headlines and, let’s be honest, most of us either thought it was already closed or was living on borrowed time. In a fairly audacious move, it’s instead gone free to play – rebranded as DDO Unlimited, and pitching itself as “the world’s first free-to-play MMO to offer the quality graphics and robust features previously only available in premium subscription based games.” Hmm. Is that strictly true? Grrrrubish as they were, didn’t the likes of RF Online and Archlord have that? Of course, it’s precisely because DDO is not rubbish that makes this surprise move so tantalising…
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By Kieron Gillen on September 26th, 2008.
We’ve spoke to Turbine Producer Jeffrey Steefel before, but with the forthcoming Mines of Moria expansion, we grasped the chance to do so again. Coming fresh from hands-on with the Beta code in the game, we sat down to talk about how far LOTR:Online has come, the importance of Moria to the RPG, the really novel Legendary Weapons system (which will be the feature which everyone steals, I strongly suspect) and the current state of the Fantasy MMO. The transcript hides beneath the cut. Speak Friend, and enter.
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By Kieron Gillen on September 24th, 2008.
So yesterday I popped along to have some hands-on time with the forthcoming first expansion pack for Lord of the Rings Online, The Mines of Moria, as well as chatting to Turbine producer Jeffrey Steefel. I’ll write more about it in the next few days, but using the provided teleport tags I jumped around the world and found myself near the Mirror of Galadriel with the ur-elf hottie. So clearly, I hit on her. Noldor? Well, to start with, but my hands would wander in an ungentlemanly fashion.
And then another hot bird turned up.
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By Alec Meer on April 9th, 2008.
Apropos of nowt, thought I’d lob up this spare interview with Turbine’s Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel about Lord of the Rings Online, conducted late last year. ‘T’ain’t nothing fancy, and is only a partial transcript (can’t find the original recording, annoyingly), originally intended for an ‘Introduction to LOTRO’ kinda feature in a publication that didn’t eventually happen. Games journalism is a fool’s errand, kids.
Nonetheless, there’s some hopefully interesting comments about the thinking behind the game, its apparent blatant WoWiness and the casual/hardcore split.
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