When is the end ?

[ATomiX96]

As long as they can milk the game dry, they will milk the game dry, dont worry the end isnt nigh.

[SniperCT]

Actually if you check on your MyAccount page it shows you the next billing date for Lifetime . However, I remember a thread where Sapience stated that even this date was just a placeholder possibly because it is ridiculously far enough ahead of any reasonable lifetime of a game.

It used to say 2017 (possibly 2018, somewhere around there). And then was bumped to 2025, then again to 2037.

So it's definitely a placeholder and if the game makes it another 5 years they'll probably bump it again.

I just wanna know who'd be mad enough to cancel!

[Pewpewmidget]

I just wanna know who'd be mad enough to cancel!

lol

[LagunaD2]

Never.

They will keep cutting back on server provisioning to save money, making the game increasingly unplayable, and keep adding more monetization, so you won't have to play it.

[maartena]

Yes, I would like to know when is this game planned to be shut down.
2023?
2024?

At the precise moment the amount of money coming in is less than the cost to maintain the game. They are a business that needs to make a profit (or at the very least not lose any money in a given year), and as long as they make profit, they can continue telling stories in the Tolkien universe for many years.

We have already seen it is possible for them to introduce zones that exist in a separate time (e.g. Mordor Besieged in the 2nd age or Blood of Azog), and that means they can start telling the story associated with the new Amazon TV series - provided they can make an agreement with Amazon and Middle Earth Enterprises on that matter. So if Amazon is willing to forego making a game (which they seem to have done) it is an excellent opportunity to capitalize on the potential popularity of the upcoming series.

They still have some stories to tell, such as the return back home to the Shire at the end of the book, and the following Scourging of the Shire. We might see another zone set in a certain time (a new Shire for instance) that will tell that story with level caps that exist at that time.

After that could come the departure of the elves. We have seen how long they were able to drawn out the storyline of Durin, basically from level 120 to 140 (with a side-track to Minas Morgul for the level 120-130 expansion), and they could tell the story of Elves in Middle Earth in a similar manner, with a new level 140 zone, then an expansion from 140 to 150 or so some time in 2023, followed by maybe two more level 150 zones in 2023/2024.

They are certainly running into the issue of having too many levels and it taking too long to top off a character to max level, so maybe a level crunch is going to be a thing at some point, and the player can choose various quicker paths to max level..... but this game is not even close to being done telling Tolkien stories, and could go on for years telling Amazon 2nd age stories, if that is legally possible.

But at the end of the day, it is all about money. As long as this game makes a profit from selling VIP, selling support packs, points, expansions, etc etc..... they will continue. As soon as they start making a loss, they could pull the plug at any time. So if you want this game to stick around, keep spending money on it. If you do not care about what happens to the game, spend your money elsewhere. It's going to be the budget spreadsheet that will end this game LONG before they are done telling Tolkien stories.

[JERH]

FYI.

“ At the precise moment the amount of money coming in is less than the cost to maintain the game. They are a business that needs to make a profit (or at the very least not lose any money in a given year), and as long as they make profit, they can continue telling stories in the Tolkien universe for many years.”


I know ebitda isn’t “profit” but it’s generally accepted as an indication of financial health. Eg7 1q22 report breakout of daybreak shows
“ For Q1 2022, Daybreak contributed Net Revenue of SEK 212.1 (187.2) million, corresponding to a 13.3 percent growth and Adjusted EBITDA amounted to SEK 74.9 (79.5) million. ”

Doesn’t mean LOTRO isn’t sub par as maartena indicates.

No 2q report out that I can find.

FYI, SEK is approximately 10 US cents.

No breakout of any individual game which is pretty standard in these reports. Square enix and blizzard and Microsoft don’t break out by game but by sector or subsidiary.

[Lambtron]

"End? No, the journey doesn't end here. A game fading is just another path, one that they all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this virtual world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it."

Lifetime Subscriber: "See what?"

"Graphical updates, and beyond, a completely new game, without lag".


Lifetime Subscriber: "Well, that isn't so bad"

"No. No, it isn't."

[Fishgood]

It will end when Gandalf jumps the shark on his motorbike.

[JERH]

It will end when Gandalf jumps the shark on his motorbike.

Very nicely done.

How about it will end when Gandalf jumps onto his gnome motorcycle and rides off into the shadowlands.

[Uroc]

Very nicely done.

How about it will end when Gandalf jumps onto his gnome motorcycle and rides off into the shadowlands.

And then he meets a crystal dragon Kralkatorik that turn him into crystal Gandalf.

My guess is that end is after next expansion. Because Gundabad is beautiful but quests are cheap (too many repeating). And they having so empty end game for so long time. It looks like they prolong it for a reason. But I hope I am wrong.

[LabadalofDorlomin]

End is near because ssg don't even have money for RAM

I'm assuming you have no idea of the amount and cost of each?

[maartena]

I know ebitda isn’t “profit” but it’s generally accepted as an indication of financial health. Eg7 1q22 report breakout of daybreak shows
“ For Q1 2022, Daybreak contributed Net Revenue of SEK 212.1 (187.2) million, corresponding to a 13.3 percent growth and Adjusted EBITDA amounted to SEK 74.9 (79.5) million. ”

Doesn’t mean LOTRO isn’t sub par as maartena indicates.

Daybreak is only the publisher, which means they do a lot of the marketing, advertisement, and SSG utilizes some basic company needs from them such as Human Resources, Accounting, and Legal departments. The profit that daybreak reports is in no way indicative of what SSG may make from LOTRO and DDO.

Daybreak runs the games Everquest, Everquest II, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Planetside 2, H1Z1, and DC Universe Online. Those are the games Daybreak directly makes money from, while anything Lotro and DDO is owned by Standing Stone Games, and they run their own profit and reporting. Since they are a LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) they do not have to publish figures in public like a publicly traded company like Daybreak has to do, so it will remain a bit of guesswork.

One site says its revenue was $20.7 million in 2020, another site claims it is about $5 million.

They have roughly 40 to 45 employees. I'm going to guess that most employees make more than middle class Americans, as game coding, 3d development, and related job functions pay fairly well as an industry average. Let's say $75k on the low end, up to $150k on the high end with maybe an average of $100k or so. Purely guess work here, but Boston is not cheap so salaries typically reflect the local cost of living. So with that said, paying 45 employees $100k is 4.5 million, so it is HIGHLY unlikely they run on $5 million revenue, as they have to pay for their building, pay to heat it and AC it, pay for their data center, pay business taxes, pay insurance, pay utilities (gas/water/elec), pay their internet connections, pay all sorts of third party services (Office 386, XSolla, Translation Services, etc), pay license fees for their software..... all the way down to paying a company to clean the office and supply the coffee. Think of anything that a business needs to run, and SSG probably pays for it. Oh, and they have to pay Middle Earth Enterprises too for the license, but I am venturing a guess that that does not break the bank.

So a revenue of around $20 million seems more likely, and even with that and all the things above they need to pay for (and then some) they seem to be running a pretty tight ship. Some of their profits will be invested back into new/replaced hardware, some will be put in the bank for their rainy day fund so they can pay people when everyone revolts and cancels their VIP..... at least for a short time.

Some people believe that SSG is raking in the gold from their players, have a big Smaug in their basement guarding it all, and that they buy yachts and luxury automobiles from our money, but I think in reality they make a lot less profit then you might think, and they run on a pretty tight budget.

Als long as that budget stays in the black, LOTRO will be fine. If it goes in the red..... all bets are off. So SSG needs to continue to make money, and that money comes from us, the players.

[Meshuggenah]

I read on an encrypted globalist irc channel that the Bildaberg group is having a secret meeting under the mountain to discuss the end of LOTRO.

If you got your invitation remember to bring your moose hat.

[Radhruin_EU]

We have already seen it is possible for them to introduce zones that exist in a separate time (e.g. Mordor Besieged in the 2nd age or Blood of Azog), and that means they can start telling the story associated with the new Amazon TV series - provided they can make an agreement with Amazon and Middle Earth Enterprises on that matter. So if Amazon is willing to forego making a game (which they seem to have done) it is an excellent opportunity to capitalize on the potential popularity of the upcoming series.

We heard that Amazon cancelled their LOTR MMO in April of last year so it's a bit more than 'if' and 'seem to have done' by now, it's ancient history. And as for RoP, we had that exact same sort of loose talk about 'opportunity' back when the Hobbit movies were under production. Tell you what, when that doesn't happen yet again you can switch over to talking about War of the Rohirrim instead.

They still have some stories to tell, such as the return back home to the Shire at the end of the book, and the following Scourging of the Shire.

Something they seem to be in no hurry to do and unsurprisingly so as it's the hobbits' own show, something our characters couldn't be involved in directly without stealing the show and making the whole thing look ridiculous as that'd require there to be powerful enemies there (when the whole idea is that there aren't).

After that could come the departure of the elves.

It hardly seems likely that they could make an Elven counterpart to the Gundabad thing out of that because there's nothing so dramatic to go on. Beyond the establishment of the new Elvish realm of Eryn Lasgalen (the former Mirkwood) it's more sad than anything else. If they have any sense at all they'll put off the scene at the Grey Havens (the 'real' end of the book) indefinitely.

Also don't assume Amazon's version of the Second Age is a story worth telling: they're clumsily messing it about, bringing their own agenda into it and wanting it to reflect the modern world (the very last thing a timeless tale should be doing) as well as mashing most of a whole Age into no time flat. If anything SSG could earn some kudos by doing tales from the 'real' Second Age in flashback, at least those bits of it that LOTR's Appendices can support; I'm damn sure MoL et al. could make a way better job of that even with the limited source material.

[Meshuggenah]

Also don't assume Amazon's version of the Second Age is a story worth telling.

I suggest watching a few episodes of Amazon's Wheel of Time adaptation.

They haven't just made the adjustments necessary to adapt from book to film. They've literally rewritten the entire narrative, characters and shoehorned in a bunch of gratuitous sex scenes for reasons. It's a disgrace.

The only hope is that Amazon is such a large corporation that the production companies that worked on WoT have nothing to do with the LoTR show.

[JERH]

Daybreak is only the publisher, which means they do a lot of the marketing, advertisement, and SSG utilizes some basic company needs from them such as Human Resources, Accounting, and Legal departments. The profit that daybreak reports is in no way indicative of what SSG may make from LOTRO and DDO.

Daybreak runs the games Everquest, Everquest II, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Planetside 2, H1Z1, and DC Universe Online. Those are the games Daybreak directly makes money from, while anything Lotro and DDO is owned by Standing Stone Games, and they run their own profit and reporting. Since they are a LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) they do not have to publish figures in public like a publicly traded company like Daybreak has to do, so it will remain a bit of guesswork.
.

The eg7 acquisition information packet shows SSG was acquired by daybreak in 2016 and revenue and ebitda was added to daybreak. It also details the revenue and ebitda added by the daybreak acquisition delineating ~15% from lotro. The publisher only rumor is not supported by the eg7 documents. The legal structure of eg7 shows daybreak owning darkpaw owning Standing Stone Games LLC. Bethesda (ESO) is like this with Microsoft owning Bethesda and large numbers of LLCs and companies stacked under Bethesda.

https://www.enadglobal7.com/wp-conte...reak-Games.pdf



Still as I stated it is hard to tell what the stream is for SSG/Lotro.

[SniperCT]

Pirates of the Burning Sea

I thought that game died!

Man, I gotta install it

[Foxmaiden14]

My theory is that they will keep jacking up the level cap until player-customers get sick of it and leave and the only ones that are left are bots and gold-sellers trying to sell to the bots. Even dismal Blizzard realized constantly raising the level cap wasn't working.

This isn't 2000, we're not kids anymore and don't have the time/patience to grind hundreds of levels.

This is what I think will ultimately kill lotro.

[DavidmeetHal]

My theory is that they will keep jacking up the level cap until player-customers get sick of it and leave and the only ones that are left are bots and gold-sellers trying to sell to the bots. Even dismal Blizzard realized constantly raising the level cap wasn't working.

This isn't 2000, we're not kids anymore and don't have the time/patience to grind hundreds of levels.

This is what I think will ultimately kill lotro.

Maybe not. I enjoy the leveling process, and I might not be the not one.

[Pewpewmidget]

Maybe not. I enjoy the leveling process, and I might not be the not one.

I enjoy the leveling process as well but I am NOT wanting to go through all 140 levels just to do endgame.
Level 50 was fine for Shadows of Angmar because the questing was decent and gave enough experience to make 1-50 seemingly painless.
Moria gave more than enough quests to make 51-60 painless and same with Mirkwood 61-65.
That was probably the last level cap where leveling wasn't too much of an effort.



We should do a level squish back to 60 and maybe squish Eriador back 10 levels and then have each expansion pack offer separate lvl 41-60 paths.
We also should go back to selling each expansion pack individually or bundled; giving us everything up to HD for free was way too much imo.
Anyone without expansions could just do the filler regions to level from 41 to 60.

Enedwaith, Great River, Wildermore, Fangorn, and West-Central-East Gondor for lvl 41-60 or
Old-Far Anorien, Pelennor, Osgiliath, North Ithilien, The Wastes, Eryn Lasgalen and the Dale Lands for lvl 41-60 or
Iron Hills, Ered Mithrin, Vales of Anduin, Wells of Langflood, Elderslade and Azanulbizar for lvl 41-60

This way, you will have plenty of options for leveling.

[LagunaD2]

This way, you will have plenty of options for leveling.

What you suggest would result in a completely disjointed and incoherent set of quest zones jumping back and forth in time through the story. It's completely unworkable.

Better would be to make XP from the epic books sufficient to reach level cap, and make all trait points and virtues based on level and/or reaching milestones in the epic story.

[Foxmaiden14]

Stopping leveling at 100 would be fine, 80 would be best. GW2 has had a level cap of 80 since it launched and no one's whined or moaned about wanting the cap increased yet. There are ways to make progression without tacking on levels every expansion.

[wispsong]

Stopping leveling at 100 would be fine, 80 would be best. GW2 has had a level cap of 80 since it launched and no one's whined or moaned about wanting the cap increased yet. There are ways to make progression without tacking on levels every expansion.

We stopped levelling at 100 years ago. That was replaced with the ILI, problem was that these monstrosities needed to be fed and the requirements went already too far at 100. Then we got a new raid and new level increase with Far Anorien. Another unnecessary level increase came with 115-120 grey mountain quest pack.

[wispsong]

I enjoy the leveling process as well but I am NOT wanting to go through all 140 levels just to do endgame.
Level 50 was fine for Shadows of Angmar because the questing was decent and gave enough experience to make 1-50 seemingly painless.
Moria gave more than enough quests to make 51-60 painless and same with Mirkwood 61-65.
That was probably the last level cap where leveling wasn't too much of an effort.



We should do a level squish back to 60 and maybe squish Eriador back 10 levels and then have each expansion pack offer separate lvl 41-60 paths.
We also should go back to selling each expansion pack individually or bundled; giving us everything up to HD for free was way too much imo.
Anyone without expansions could just do the filler regions to level from 41 to 60.

Enedwaith, Great River, Wildermore, Fangorn, and West-Central-East Gondor for lvl 41-60 or
Old-Far Anorien, Pelennor, Osgiliath, North Ithilien, The Wastes, Eryn Lasgalen and the Dale Lands for lvl 41-60 or
Iron Hills, Ered Mithrin, Vales of Anduin, Wells of Langflood, Elderslade and Azanulbizar for lvl 41-60

This way, you will have plenty of options for leveling.

Doesn't work that way because the epics tell a continuing story.

Right now we have 1-50 vol 1, 50-65 vol 2, 65-75 1st part of vol 3, 75-95 2nd part of vol 3, 95-115 vol 4, 115-130 BBoM, 130-140 dwarf story.

[SniperCT]

Doesn't work that way because the epics tell a continuing story.

Right now we have 1-50 vol 1, 50-65 vol 2, 65-75 1st part of vol 3, 75-95 2nd part of vol 3, 95-115 vol 4, 115-130 BBoM, 130-140 dwarf story.

VIPs should have a toggle to basically level with the epic books alone. Give all class traits via gaining levels and/or epic books would prevent being super weak at cap, but I think they should do that for all players period.

As for a level squish, could basically have volume one be levels 1-20, volume 2 20-30, volume 3 30-40, volume 4 40-50 and then mordor/dwarf story 50-60.

Or a similar breakdown anyway.

The sheer number of zones and content available is something that makes the concept of a level squish very difficult, but I'm of the opinion that 140+ levels is already INCREDIBLY daunting to new players, and also old players like myself with a lot of alts.

So I think making class traits occur naturally as you level, maybe make virtue levels account wide, optional 'level only through epic book', and other such changes would definitely help.