While fans of Dungeons & Dragons Online in North America have had good reason to celebrate the game's transition to a free-to-play model and its subsequent revival, European players have had to make do with the regular (i.e. subscription-based) version of the game under Codemaster's rule. Like angry twins facing each other across a crowded cafeteria, the two versions of this MMO created an uncomfortable tension in the air over the past year.
This is about to change, however, as Eurogamer reports that Turbine is taking operational control of the game from Codemasters. With this move, Turbine is bringing DDO Europe in line with its North America sibling, transitioning the game to free-to-play on August 20th. This transition includes bringing European players together with NA players with global servers.
Looking to calm any apprehensions by the players, Turbine plans to pave the way to their new global servers by giving current DDO Europe players 5000 Turbine Points to spend in the DDO store. While there will only be an English service initially, French and German account services are in the works.
Reader Comments (10)
Posted: Jul 20th 2010 10:16AM Lobotomist said
There is no reason to play EU version. I switched to USA servers long ago due to DDO:UO and never looked back since. Ping is very good (never above 150) and there are always european players playing
Posted: Jul 20th 2010 10:40AM (Unverified) said
I was playing the USA version? I never knew! I didn't even know there were separate EU servers.
Posted: Jul 20th 2010 10:53AM (Unverified) said
huh, I wonder if the same scenario will happen with LOTRO... now that I've read this post, I realized that the news about LOTRO going f2p was visible only at the american webpage, the european never mentioned anything about it *gulp*
Posted: Jul 20th 2010 10:56AM Lobotomist said
Yea...sadly this would mean we have to kiss bye bye to our codemasters LOTRO characters. Or ?
Damn...What about expansions we purchased ?
Damn...What about expansions we purchased ?
Posted: Jul 20th 2010 11:10AM (Unverified) said
http://www.massively.com/2010/06/04/lord-of-the-rings-online-going-free-to-play-this-fall/ says that Codemasters will be doing the same pricing.
Posted: Jul 20th 2010 11:27AM Renko said
Personally I can't understand why anyone is still playing the EU version!
I also expect to hear that NetDevil have taken back the EU publisher rights for the still in development Jumpgate Evolution, which Codemasters support for has been nonexistent for awhile now. Seems like Codemasters is getting out of the MMO business altogether.
I also expect to hear that NetDevil have taken back the EU publisher rights for the still in development Jumpgate Evolution, which Codemasters support for has been nonexistent for awhile now. Seems like Codemasters is getting out of the MMO business altogether.
Posted: Jul 20th 2010 12:33PM (Unverified) said
You say that, but if you look on the CodeMasters website, they are actively recruiting for Online Games Designers - this would lead me to think they want to develop their own game - not just publish others'.
Reply
Posted: Jul 20th 2010 1:52PM (Unverified) said
Honestly, it's not entirely accurate to say this is DDO-Europe going Free to Play, although the announcements from Turbine and Codemasters would lead to that terminology.
What's actually happening is DDO-Europe's service offered by Codemasters is being shut down and European server players are being offered the chance to transfer to the DDO:U service that has been offered by Turbine since September of 2009. Which is pretty much what much of the DDO:Europe crowd has been hoping for.
The only "new" stuff that could be termed a "Global DDO" rollout, besides the transfer option, is the plan by Turbine to have a beta version of DDO:U in French and German language clients (or something) sometime later this year. Although I would not be surprised to see Turbine announce a new server or two at some point here, it would be an easy way to deal with duplicate names and guilds.
What's actually happening is DDO-Europe's service offered by Codemasters is being shut down and European server players are being offered the chance to transfer to the DDO:U service that has been offered by Turbine since September of 2009. Which is pretty much what much of the DDO:Europe crowd has been hoping for.
The only "new" stuff that could be termed a "Global DDO" rollout, besides the transfer option, is the plan by Turbine to have a beta version of DDO:U in French and German language clients (or something) sometime later this year. Although I would not be surprised to see Turbine announce a new server or two at some point here, it would be an easy way to deal with duplicate names and guilds.
Posted: Jul 21st 2010 7:43AM Misterlee said
Wow I didn't realise they were still stuck on the subscription model in the EU. Just reinforces my view that Codemasters are the worst publisher for MMOs. They made a terrible job of LotRO in Europe, the services were not even remotely comparable with the same game in the US and apparently it was the same with DDO.
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