LOTRO: US and Europe realms will be incompatible

We bring an important clarification for gamers readying for the launch of Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (LOTRO). According to LOTRO official forums administrator “marketroid,” the game’s North American and European versions will be incompatible – each region will get its own set of independent realms, like Blizzard Entertainment’s setup for World of Warcraft.

This report comes in light of LOTRO‘s international release mechanics, as each region had separate publishers and service providers backing up the game:

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.

European players who buy a copy of LOTRO‘s North American release are warned that they will be unable to activate their Product Key on the Turbine billing system. Likewise, American buyers who buy LOTRO‘s European release will be unable to activate their game “with Codemasters from a country outside of the territories they serve.”

Just keep these details in mind when you get your copy of the game, be it a pre-order or store purchase, come launch. LOTRO is expected to launch in both Europe and America on April 24, with an estimated retail price of US$ 49.99 (£ 26, € 38).

We bring an important clarification for gamers readying for the launch of Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (LOTRO). According to LOTRO official forums administrator “marketroid,” the game’s North American and European versions will be incompatible – each region will get its own set of independent realms, like Blizzard Entertainment’s setup for World of Warcraft.

This report comes in light of LOTRO‘s international release mechanics, as each region had separate publishers and service providers backing up the game:

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.

European players who buy a copy of LOTRO‘s North American release are warned that they will be unable to activate their Product Key on the Turbine billing system. Likewise, American buyers who buy LOTRO‘s European release will be unable to activate their game “with Codemasters from a country outside of the territories they serve.”

Just keep these details in mind when you get your copy of the game, be it a pre-order or store purchase, come launch. LOTRO is expected to launch in both Europe and America on April 24, with an estimated retail price of US$ 49.99 (£ 26, € 38).