The Codemasters conundrum
J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote, "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." In light of recent events, we might turn that phrase to become, "Do not meddle in the affairs of players, for they are outspoken and very, very quick to anger."

I'm referring, of course, to the outright debacle that's been happening on the Lord of the Rings Online European front. While Turbine released LotRO's F2P version along with the latest patch a month ago in North America, Codemasters has yet to follow suit, citing numerous problems on its end.

When we first heard of the delay, I assumed it would be shortly resolved -- perhaps no more than a week or two at the most -- which is why I've mostly kept from discussing it in this column before now. Tech problems happen, there's always legal traps waiting, code can be glitchy, and regionalization is an ever-present obstacle. But at this point it feels as though the EU "Have-Nots" community has been under siege from lack of information and a frustrating view of the "Haves" across the pond.

When will it be their turn? Why didn't Codemasters see this coming? How is the EU team trying to mollify the community as the devs scramble to get this puppy to live? Let's take a journey, you and I, through the past month and into the near future. Don't mind the hobbits picketing the Shire -- I'm sure it'll all work out.

Storm clouds are gathering...

Last month when I was at PAX Prime, I sat down with the Turbine devs to talk about the (then) upcoming patch. I clearly recall asking them if it was a go on the European end as well, and they had no comment.

That raised a small red flag in my head.

To put my bias front and center, I've never been a huge fan of Codemasters. I feel that it's developed a reputation of being a subpar operator in the region, a kind of discount service center that fans have to turn to because they're nowhere near the real deal, particularly when it comes to LotRO. Time and again, we've seen the company lag behind Turbine in rolling out updates and delivering the type of customer support that players expected, which all seemed to reinforce the much-cited notion that EU players are second-class citizens in some MMO communities. The DDO community generally disliked Codemasters, especially when the NA side got the spiffy F2P changes while the EU was told to sit on it (that story has a happy ending, as Turbine took back control of DDO in Europe a short while ago).

Bias aside, what seems unforgivable in this situation isn't that Codemasters couldn't get the new patch ready to launch -- it was, after all, a humongous undertaking, and problems were always a possibility -- but that the company waited until a mere two days before F2P was going to drop worldwide to let fans know that, yeah, it wasn't going to happen. At least not for a while. Perhaps a long while.

This put a damper on everyone's parade. Obviously, the EU players had good reason to be upset (just check out this epic thread for a few choice phrases), but I know that many NA players felt bad enjoying a virtual feast knowing that their comrades-in-bytes weren't allowed access to what just became an exclusive club.