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Author: Meldarion
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Several vendors released ship dates for LotRO this week, each one with the same date: 5/1/06. Now, before anyone gets worked into a frenzy, let me douse the flames a bit by pointing out that the game hasn't even reached Beta yet, so why would Turbine give an official release date to these vendors? Simple answer: They didn't.
Unless Turbine is set to pull off the biggest suprise in MMO history, don't expect a release within the first half of '06 and maybe not until the end of the year or later. Turbine has shown themselves to be a wiley bunch when dealing with the release of game information, but I don't think that even THEY could pull off doing a super secret closed Beta without someone spilling the beans. That is unless they have some super covert CIA operatives that are running things over there, which they don't.... or do they? Sorry, I'm afraid that we'll all have to wait.
The thing that is so irksome about this whole debacle is that there will invariably be some unlearned person, or multiple unlearned persons, who catch wind of the supposed new release date, and then it's off to all the forums to spread the good news. Oh, sure, intelligent people like you and me are smart enough not to fall for this dastardly trick the game merchants use to try and get your early money, but think of all the noobs out there who start plunking down their hard earned wealth just to be disappointed by the time May 1st rolls around. Heck, they shoulda made the release date 30 days earlier. Then everyone could have a laugh about the April fools joke and move on, but noooo. They are looking for gamers to swallow the lie: hook, line and sinker.
Even now as I write, there are a couple of threads on the Official Turbine forums that have been locked tight before the subject even cooled off. A lot of the Forum Vets are still trying to gear down from having to direct noob traffic to the plain truth that the game is still quite a distance off. Funny thing is that this has all happened before, a couple of times. I'm beginning to think most the vets on the Official Forums have created an Emergency Alert System for this type of mess. I can see 'em all rolling their eyes, putting on the hardhats and rolling up the sleeves, and getting down to the dirty work of putting out the nasty fires that rumors often start. It's an admirable profession, but volunteer work like that don't pay much.
One of these days, the game will actually ship, and nobody will be caught by suprise. Why? Because there's a certain order to things and when the pieces start falling into place, the picture becomes clear. Then there'll be a collective "OH" heard round the world as all the noobs actually see for themselves how the process works. Cool thing is, once they see it, they'll know better next time. And that next time, it will be their turn to quell rumors about the next big thing.
In the end, I guess it's fair to say that we've all been there and learned from those types of mistakes. The world goes round, and when everything is working right, you learn and move on. Hopefully, next time something like this happens, whoever runs across it will use their all important enlightenment and laugh it off. That is unless they actually do have a super duper secret Beta test going on right now.... meh! Hold your breath if you want to; as for me, I like oxygen too much.
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