Harry Hol
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Posts by Harry Hol
Codemasters General Manager responds to free to play delay
Oct 19th
It seems the higher-ups at Codemasters have heard the cries of outrage from their customers. David Solari, general manager of Codemasters Online, wrote a message, in which he (sort of) explains why Europe hasn’t received the free to play update yet.
Turns out the reasons are “contractual rather than technical”, something that most players suspected. Solari goes on to state that release is now “imminent” since “most” of these contractual problems have been dealt with. According to him, these contractual problems cannot be explained, since there are confidentiality clauses in effect.
Solari’s message is a direct response to the demands of players on the Codemasters forums, who wanted to hear something ‘direct from the horse’s mouth’ rather than through the usual forum moderators.
You can read the full message from Solari here.
The March for Information (to the gate and back again)
Sep 30th
I stand on the boulder in front of the Prancing Pony. There are about fifty other players there. We have gathered to make some noise, and I deliver my first virtual speech. People scant ‘Free Middle Earth’ or /roar. And while we march through Bree I wonder how the heck I got into this in the first place.
Tuesday, September 7. Twitter shows some disturbing news. I quickly log into the EU Lotro forums and see the official confirmation: Free to Play has been delayed. I am upset, and immediately see the irony. My first response to the actual announcement of F2P was one of utter disgust.
My annoyance isn’t just as a player. A week before I wrote an article in my newspaper announcing Lotro launching free to play on the 10th. It’s also the lack of an explanation that bugs me. The forum mods give no details and no new date. Calling Codemasters yields a friendly request to send my inquiries by mail.
More >
The pain of delaying Free to Play in Europe
Sep 9th
Before I got into this journalism thing, I was a drama major. I’ve done a couple of musicals (even though I have the dancing skill of a couple of broken brooms duct-taped together) and directed plays. Theatre teaches you the true meaning of deadlines.
As I’ve told nervous actors time and time again: there is this fixed moment (let’s say Friday, September 10, at 8 ‘o clock) when the curtain rises. This is an immutable fact. Some stage hand will pull a cord and the audience will see whatever it is that you’ve worked on for all those months.
Whatever the audience sees then (and what will wind up in the reviews), is the proverbial ‘it’. There are no excuses, no disclaimers. If you don’t know your lines by then, God help you and the rest of your career. This makes theatre a rather stressful occupation.
Only once during my years in theatre did the curtain not go up. This was doubly painful as this was supposed to be my big break. Still a student, I managed to get a part in a big budget production of a show called ‘Jack the Ripper’. It would tour the Netherlands, and there were huge stars in the cast. I met one of Holland’s most famous singers (Ramses Shaffy) and managed to embarrass myself in front of him, as is tradition when a young actor meets someone he idolizes.
Something wonderful will happen!
Jun 11th
A couple of weeks ago I was involved in a rather nasty car accident. A truck hit me from behind, and I ended up with a serious concussion. You might wonder what this has to do with LOTRO, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
I found out about LOTRO going Free to Play on Twitter a few days after my accident. As a journalist, I reacted in a dignified and objective manner, as expected from someone in my profession.
“LOTRO F2P? NOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Okay, I admit it. My first gut reaction was “There goes the neighborhood”. My scrambled brain conjured horrifying visions of The Great Unwashed storming the Shire, while screaming “WOW IS BETTER! WOW IS BETTER!” over general chat. I felt an urge to hide in the Prancing Pony with my fellow LOTRO players, barring the doors and hope they’ll go away or set the inn on fire. Either way, ending the suffering.
“My God,” I thought. “There will be tons of people entering this game. They will be all new players, who have no idea of what they are entering. They will be running all over the Shire and Breeland and the Lonelands. They’ll be everywh…”
This was the moment my concussed brain started making this squeeling little noise. Almost like it was trying to point something out to me.
Tales from the other side
Apr 4th
When Chris asked me to write something about Lotro from a ‘European perspective’, I hesitated. True, I am a European player (Dutch, in fact. Nope, no wooden shoes. Yep, lots of Tulips. And as for drugs… well, let’s focus on one addiction at a time here, okay?) and I have been playing Lotro on Codemasters’ servers since 2007. But how would my perspective on the game differ from those of you on the other side of the pond? I mean: has your Gandalf developed a Southern drawl? Do your Hobbits eat Quarter-pounders for their fifth meal? It seems to me, Europeans and North Amercans share the same electronic hallucination. Both are driven to oust the forces of Sauron for Middle-Earth, while mildly griping about the most recent changes Turbine has made to our beloved game.
