Straight from the devs:
Hello everyone,
Throughout the Alpha and Beta phases of development, we have worked hard to satisfy the enthusiastic community that has risen up in support of LOTRO. We listened to and incorporated your ideas many times throughout development and our game is now stronger for it. As we prepare for launch we wanted to let you know that your feedback still matters. We have been listening and will continue to do so in the future.
Recently, some players expressed their concern about our plans to implement IP blocking. After listening to our fans, we have decided to remove IP blocking in North America.
However, we strongly encourage players to purchase and play the game in their region to receive the best game experience, connectivity and local customer support. Please note that regional clients are only operable with their respective regional services.
In closing, we would like to thank the players for your feedback. Your honest input has been invaluable to us throughout development. We are always listening to your feedback.
Enjoy Middle-earth!
In other words LOTRO multinational guilds rejoice!
It’s really great to see a company listening to feedback and responding so quickly. It wasn’t more than a few weeks ago that Turbine announced this information and it’s already being reversed. Congrats to the players who made this possible.