Meanwhile Turbine is, like, uh, EVERY OTHER MMO OUT THERE, still happily trying to sell me a cheap multi-month sub.
So please remind me, what does the EU distributor (CM) have to offer to EU players, especially new ones without established accounts and social circles, that Turbine doesn't provide better and for a lower price?
A lower ping.
ReplyDeleteNot really noticeable, imho, in a game like this.
ReplyDeleteServers with enforced naming conventions (Official RP worlds) and foreign Language primary servers)
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why they got rid of the multi-month subscriptions either. Seems silly.
ReplyDeleteI played Everquest on the US game servers because back then games weren't restricted to what servers you could join. If I wanted a transatlantic ping to the US server farm that was my choice; I was constantly around 300ms. We had 100+ people raids in EQ and I can't recall ever lagging.
ReplyDeleteI think Xhii is right, pings aren't noticable in a game like this unless you're talking ~600+ ms where the packet loss becomes noticable in terms of game lag.
Jon Andrist has a good point - the RP servers and their unique community and atmosphere are the reason I've stuck with LotRO for so long! While I'm sure the RP community on Landroval in the US is also very vocal and well-organised, it can't quite compare, in my experience, with having a special RP ruleset set and, occasionally, even enforced.
ReplyDeleteAnd the French- and German-language servers are of course a boon to people from those language regions - I wouldn't be surprised at all if on the EU side just the German population outnumbered all the combined native and non-native English speakers!
I haven't played on the US LotRO servers more than some irregular solo questing, so I've no idea how the increased ping affects raiding, but I guess it's not much different from playing when my bf has all the torrentz running and eating our bandwidth :D.