One Computer to Rule Them All

It may have been a few years since the last of The Lord of the Rings trilogy hit the silver screen, but the world is still abuzz with talk about one of the most popular literary trilogies of all time. The big news right now is the successful launch of The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™ (LOTRO). Turbine, one of the largest independent online game studios in North America had developed the game, which received critical acclaim when it launched in both North America and Europe in April 2007.

The Challenge: Taking Middle-earth on the Road

Founded in 1994, Turbine has established a position at the forefront of the massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) space with its ability to create living worlds that foster powerful social gaming experiences. From its headquarters in Westwood, Mass., Turbine has become one of only a handful of companies to have successfully launched an MMOG service and is currently operating three successful titles: Asheron's Call®, Dungeons & Dragons Online™: Stormreach™, and The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™.

The company's latest title, LOTRO, attracted a lot of attention from consumers and the press culminating in winning several awards including 2007 PC Game of the Year. This success started months before launch as Turbine took the game on the road to the game to the media. The challenge? There was an enormous amount of anticipation and interest for LOTRO, and Turbine wanted to show it off to as many people as possible, which required an enormous amount of travel. How do you do show-and-tell for a game that pushed the envelope for graphics and sound in the best possible manner without having to ship hardware all over the world?

The Solution: Who Knew There Were Aliens in Middle Earth?

Turbine maintains relationships with all of the major PC manufacturers, but it was Alienware® that stepped up to help with Turbine's media tour. Alienware provided Turbine with two souped-up computers: an Area-51® 7500 desktop and an Aurora m9700 notebook computer.

The Area-51® 7500 is powered by the new Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme Quad Core, which has four processing cores on a single die in addition to the NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 GTX (the world's first DirectX® 10-compliant graphics processing unit) and up to 3 terabytes of storage. It was used to capture footage from the game to put out high-quality video trailers in the months leading up to launch. The Aurora m9700, with its 17-inch screen, NVIDIA® graphics card and 1 Gb of graphics memory, enables Turbine to show off the game when traveling.

The Solution: Who Knew There Were Aliens in Middle Earth? (cont'd.)

“In my world, in order to be able to show the game in its best light, it's all about memory and graphics cards,” said Turbine's Director of Communications Adam Mersky. “The Alienware® Area-51® 7500 features the latest graphics cards from NVIDIA®, two of them linked up to give you more power, and it has the best possible processor on the market. We used a lot of video to showcase the vivid environments of our version of Middle-earth, and this machine ensured that the world looked outstanding. The Aurora m9700 also allows me to easily take the game on the road and deliver the processing power to let me run both the client and the server when there isn't any Internet access. It has plenty of memory on it so that the game runs great and the graphics are awesome.”

The Results: One Game to Rule Them All

With the power of the Aurora m9700, Turbine is able to demo the game wherever they need to do so. In fact, they have conducted demonstrations in a number of cities around the world. And when the press is impressed, it means better reviews, more hype and better sales.

“The press has been really wowed by the game and the Alienware® computers we're demonstrating them on,” Mersky said. “We usually end up hanging out with them for a couple of hours, and when they see these high-end machines, we have at least a five-minute conversation about how cool they are.

“Alienware's computers allow me to go out and show the game anywhere, anytime and support one of the biggest PC launches of 2007. We're lucky to have a partner like Alienware® because they really understand our audience. They delivered what we needed very quickly, which makes it easier to do our jobs. I think it's a great partnership, and it's definitely been baring fruit for us.”