LOTRO’s and DDO’s freebie content codes are going live today [Updated: They’re here!]

Fun fact: Our story on how Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online were going to be extending their content promotion and essentially giving away formerly pay-to-play content on a permanent basis was one of our biggest posts last week, proving once again that controversial content really isn’t always the type that gets the most attention here in MMO world.

That said, the promotion has been pretty confusing for players and press on the ground. Standing Stone Games told everyone last week that we’d be getting a coupon code for LOTRO that would include a bunch of zones that aren’t traditionally part of the discounted expansions. Apparently, then someone at the studio published an unfinished version of the code yesterday that went viral and added to that confusion when it didn’t work. In any case, SSG says it won’t be long now.

“The code will be live within a few hours here,” SSG’s Cordovan told forumgoers this morning. “A work in progress page was briefly published yesterday that included the code, and someone spotted it and distributed the code over Reddit and elsewhere. In general, it is not advisable to try to redeem a code that is not yet live, as it has the potential to cause issues for you. However, in this case, things look ok, so if someone did redeem the code before it went live, they should be fine.”

We discussed the promotion on yesterday’s MOP Podcast; MOP’s LOTRO columnist Justin Olivetti surmised that the cost of playing the entirety of LOTRO now is something on the order of five bucks, excepting the most recent pair of expansions, making it an obvious pick for a summer destination for those still practicing social distancing or subject to stay-at-home orders during the pandemic.