Being on the other side of the pond does have a number of advantages, however, in the realm of online gaming, some of these advantages might be harder to find than our North American cousins. 9 times out of 10 the US market gets their hands on the newest, be that good or bad, while those of us in Europe have to bide their time until publishers and licensees can sort out the EU market. Thankfully, Dungeons and Dragons Online creators Turbine announced last week that said title is now coming to Europe under the same free-to-play model.
Speaking to (appropriately) Eurogamer.net, Turbine made the announcement official, “We are very excited to announce that Turbine will be expanding its operations and will assume full control of Dungeons & Dragons Online in Europe,” says Turbine
“Beginning 20th August, all European players can visit the official site to download and play the English version of DDO Unlimited with no monthly subscription required. Turbine’s new German and French service will enter beta before the end of the year.”
Eurogamer also confirms what I personally have been doing for months now, which is simply connecting to the US servers from here in Austria. Sure, lag is a bit of an issue, but nothing that ruins the overall experience. On a bit of a cultural sidenote, it always amuses me that companies usually fret over German, French, and sometimes Spanish versions of their game, while I’m met plenty of Germans, Austrians, Italians, Poles, and Russians in WoW, and most of the time there’s never any language issues. And then there’s all the Scandinavian countries, i.e. those that don’t overdub their TV programs, and 9 out of 10 of them speak English, perhaps even better than I do. /soapbox.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming….
With the DDO goes EU announcement, Turbine also announced that they’ll be assuming full control of the game, meaning that the current DDO EU operator, Codemasters, is on the outs. Turbine says that they’re working with Codemasters to “facilitate a smooth transition,” but something tells me that Codemasters can’t be too happy with this deal. And remember, Turbine’s officially announced that their flagship title, Lord of the Rings Online will also be going free-to-play, at least in the US, come this fall. If the recently acquired by Warner Bros. Turbine is “assuming the bridge” for it’s DDO EU operations, one can only think that this is a first step in establishing global operations. I.e. we’re likely to see the same methods applied for Lotro’s EU debut in F2P format. Looking down the road, Turbine’s operations could very well be a testing ground for all future Warner Bros. games related activities, if not solely for Europe, the entire globe.
In regards to payment methods, it seems as though Turbine will model the North American release, offering current and former DDO subscribers 5000 Turbine points (approximate retail value: €50/£42) upon character transfer to the new global DDO service.
Turbine, developers of some of the most frequented MMO’s on the internet including Lord of The Rings Online and the (semi-recent) free-to-play revival of their popular Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited, was founded in 1994, and has raised over $46 million in funding since 1998. Their initial release, Asheron’s Call was published by Microsoft in 1999. Turbine later re-acquired the publishing rights to this title.
“Our original seven day trial has been very successful so far,” says Morten Larssen, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Funcom. “But with the holiday season coming up this is the perfect time to shake up our trial offer a bit and try out something new. So everyone who downloads the trial before January 1st will be able to play the first part of the game for free, forever. We are confident that many of those taking advantage of this offer will choose to become permanent players, allowing them to experience all of what the game has to offer including all the additions and improvements introduced since launch.”
Turbine’s Director of Communications Adam Meresky recently stated that the microtransactions business inside the relaunched Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited is thriving. What’s important to keep in mind about this statement, is that the public version, slated to go live today, September 9th, hasn’t even welcomed the outside world yet. Currently, VIP subscribers and open beta participants have been playing what the rest of the world will see today for only about a week. Again, some of these folks are paying subscribers. Many of the available in-game customizations are achievable via in-game actions. The microtransactions are only there to provide the option of spending a buck or two to bypass the X amount of hours that it would take to unlock these items.
“Even in this difficult economy, Masher Media is a good example of how a great new company with an exceptional market opportunity can get investment money and get it fast,” said Richard Sudek, president of TCA.
Turbine gave the official announcement yesterday, setting 
