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We are in the midst of roadmap season I suppose. We got them early from Microsoft around World of Warcraft, both retail and classic, back during the online “not a BlizzCon” event and we are starting to see others pop up, with SSG putting out one for Lord of the Rings Online around mid-December.
And it was a bit underwhelming.
LOTRO Plans for 2025
I mean, in a way I understand some reticence to commit to anything too fully. The 2023 and 2024 roadmaps will remind people of what SSG missed as much as what they managed to accomplish. There is no need to continue to emphasize the point that when SSG says they are going to do some things… they might possibly do one of them.
Also, SSG is notoriously bad at communicating things to their fans. For every tidbit they bother to put into the news feed on the main site there are a half a dozen more hidden away in some thread in the forums or 45 minutes into a community stream that is otherwise mostly snore inducing stuff.
I am a long time critic of companies who behave like amateurs or hobbiests when it comes to messaging, haphazardly tossing out communication in random channels… and SSG is hardly the sole offender. (CCP remains notorious for announcing some things only on Twitter.) But it does make their two titles more difficult to follow without turning it into a part-time job.
So the roadmap is sparse, incomplete, and probably out of date already after about three weeks. And if that graphic is all you looked at you could be excused for thinking that you could have predicted most of that (Oh, a Q4 expansion? What a surprise!) and for missing some of the key items on the agenda, like 64-bit servers. I mean, there is a quote right there in the Producer’s Letter about this with a date nailed down that somehow didn’t make it onto the roadmap.
In the early part of the first quarter of 2025, we plan to open new 64-bit servers in Europe and the United States. The new servers will be open to all players and will not require VIP status to access. We will have more information about servers and transfers to these new worlds in early 2025. This has been a long effort, and we appreciate your patience and support while we get all the details right.
This, of course, has players in a panic because they have experienced in the past how SSG handles new servers and server transfers. That was an easy way to sow a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt and it reared its ugly head immediately in the forums.
Raise your hand if you have characters trapped on a no longer live server! Me! Me! Me!
Maybe that is why they didn’t put it on the roadmap… though I am not sure that would make me feel any better, them knowing they’re going to cause a panic and screw things up for players.
So the fact that SSG is going to handle the 64-bit server upgrade as a mass transfer event rather than an upgrade to existing servers means turmoil as fellowships need to coordinate and those who are first to go find the problems with the transfer mechanics. Meanwhile people who have taken a break are likely to be left behind. Basically, by this time next year I expect I will have no playable characters left in the game.
Meanwhile, basic account security remains a bit of a joke. Multi-factor authentication still isn’t a thing… though at least they seemed to have fixed the ability to update your password, which was broken for a stretch.
And, as I fully expected, there is nothing on the roadmap around my own specific issues with the game. As I noted in my opening post for 2025, I don’t need 4K support, I just need some pretty rudimentary fixes and some settings to persist between sessions. That however, is unlikely to occur.
So it goes as another year kicks off.
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