Post by Terina/Sinaroc on Mar 16, 2007 14:11:05 GMT -5
On behalf of both Turbine and Codemasters Online Gaming, we wanted to answer some of the questions we’ve been seeing from the LOTRO community about Pre-orders and access to The Lord of the Rings Online game servers.
As you may know, the LOTRO Pre-order is now available in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. European customers in countries* served by Codemasters will be able to Pre-order LOTRO both in-store and online in the coming weeks. As the game begins to enter global distribution we wanted to take a moment to explain how the game is operated internationally.
For each region where the game is available, Turbine partners with a publisher who handles production and distribution of the packaged product as well as marketing support. In some regions we also partner with a service operator who will host and manage the service, including billing, customer service, and community.
In North America and Oceania, Turbine is the service operator. We work with two publishers to support our service – Midway in the US and Codemasters in Oceania. In Europe, Codemasters is both the publisher and the service operator.
What this means is that the version of the game you can play is determined by the service operator that supports your region. Since the service operators maintain completely separate billing, hosting, and support systems it is not possible to allow players to access both services – they’re just not compatible with each other.
There are a variety of differences between the EU and NA versions of the game and service. In order to provide the best possible experience to our EU players (including local language game content and customer service) both Codemasters and Turbine have implemented blocking rules to prevent players from activating keys from outside their home region. Specifically, players must register on the service for their region and only client software and keys purchased in that region will work. This applies to both Pre-order programs as well as the final retail game.
If you are a European player and purchase the game from a retailer based in North America you will not be able to activate your Product Key on the Turbine billing system. The reverse is also true: Copies of LOTRO intended for the European market cannot be registered with Codemasters from a country outside of the territories they serve.
Any questions about this policy should be directed to the customer support representatives for your region.
As you may know, the LOTRO Pre-order is now available in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. European customers in countries* served by Codemasters will be able to Pre-order LOTRO both in-store and online in the coming weeks. As the game begins to enter global distribution we wanted to take a moment to explain how the game is operated internationally.
For each region where the game is available, Turbine partners with a publisher who handles production and distribution of the packaged product as well as marketing support. In some regions we also partner with a service operator who will host and manage the service, including billing, customer service, and community.
In North America and Oceania, Turbine is the service operator. We work with two publishers to support our service – Midway in the US and Codemasters in Oceania. In Europe, Codemasters is both the publisher and the service operator.
What this means is that the version of the game you can play is determined by the service operator that supports your region. Since the service operators maintain completely separate billing, hosting, and support systems it is not possible to allow players to access both services – they’re just not compatible with each other.
There are a variety of differences between the EU and NA versions of the game and service. In order to provide the best possible experience to our EU players (including local language game content and customer service) both Codemasters and Turbine have implemented blocking rules to prevent players from activating keys from outside their home region. Specifically, players must register on the service for their region and only client software and keys purchased in that region will work. This applies to both Pre-order programs as well as the final retail game.
If you are a European player and purchase the game from a retailer based in North America you will not be able to activate your Product Key on the Turbine billing system. The reverse is also true: Copies of LOTRO intended for the European market cannot be registered with Codemasters from a country outside of the territories they serve.
Any questions about this policy should be directed to the customer support representatives for your region.
The above was a message posted on the main page of the beta area. Basically anyone in Europe will not be able to play on American servers even if they buy the American version of the game and vice versa.
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