If you were hoping that the Russian version of Lord of the Rings Online would last forever, we have some sad news for you today. The game’s localized servers will be shutting down on June 1st, with new account registration already disabled and all cash shop items discounted to cost just 1 mark. There’s also an NPC to power your character up in case you weren’t already at maximum level for whatever reason.
It’s not clear at this time whether Mail.ru was unwilling or unable to reach an agreement with Warner Bros. for extending the license for the game. Bonuses are being offered for Russian players affected by the shutdown in the other games that Mail.ru maintains.
[Source: MMO Fallout]
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Blackomen Eh no. It was actually ~5$ for a month. The problem was that player may bought subscription with ingame farmed TP’s. So after Turbine’s transition to no expansions model game become inprofitable :(((
Not surprising, I mean how could they afford to pay the licensing fee to WB when after the exchange rate people were only pay the equivalent of $0.40 a month in rubles for their subscription? (I kid, I kid, sort of.)
Whenever I see Mail.ru mentioned, I shudder and think of Allods. No wonder LoTRO is closing there.
hardy83 There are so few big MMOs that got shut down within the last decade, but most of them have at least 1 private server which you can play – which is much better than just a free roam camera. SW:G of course as one of the most prominent, but also Warhamer Online has one, Â which is in an Alpha State, Lineage 1 has one as well and dozens more of games which aren’t even shutdown (WoW for example). Theres only 1 big one which doesn’t have one that I can think of and that’s City of Heroes. Once Lotro will get shutdown (which will happen sooner than most other MMOs since it’s based on a licensed IP) there will be most certainly a private server, but I guess it’s a few years away, so we don’t have to worry (yet)
Well Russia that’s what you get for not bowing down for the Emperor until your faces touch the dirt. No more western bread and circuses for you! Just make a Tolstoi War and Peace MMO with Tchaikovsky music? I’d play that. Or use the original version of russian Winnie the Pooh that Disney stole from you? Or a space MMO about the first man in space? Countless altnatives!
hardy83 Something like that has been done for WoW. Â Using the game assets, you can roam around the world in 3D.
http://wowmapview.sourceforge.net/
I would think something similar could be done for LotRO if someone wanted to do it.
Ouch. An expensive I.P. to maintain. Hopefully not a sign of things to come in the west. Good luck finding new work, to those who run LOTRO Russia and sympathies to the fans who play it.
Sad to see [almost] any MMO go away, sorry for people losing their game/job.
Note however, that it is more complicated to do business there these days.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/07/05/0053220/new-russian-law-to-forbid-storing-russians-data-outside-the-country
RL topics like Putin, Ukraine, sanctions, Snowden, NSA … make life more complicated and sometimes it spills over into games.
To be fair, Russians already live in the human part of a Lord of the Rings universe. They’ll survive.
anatheod The Russian server was where the action was at. Â Search Youtube for the video where the GM’s released the monster players into Forchel, making it a PvP map for a limited time.