Connectivity issues have been the bane of many players in The Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) and Dungeons & Dragons Online since this weekend. After an extensive internal review of their own network, Turbine managed to ascertain that the connectivity problems stemmed from outside of their network and datacenters. The good news is that the cause of the problem has been discovered through one of Turbine’s affiliated connection providers and steps are being taken to address the issue by the provider. The bad news is that it may still take some time for the issue to be completely resolved.

Some players have found workarounds that may aid others with their connectivity problems while the new fixes get into place. For now, you can read the full message from LOTRO Community Manager Rick “Sapience” Heaton below.

Source: LOTRO Connectivity Update

Since Saturday afternoon we have done a complete review of all of our internal systems from the networking hardware and connections all the way through the complete billing stack and game servers.

Once that process yielded no results and no issues we could address, we began taking requests for region, ISP, and traceroute data to help us pinpoint any possible geographic or internet routing similarities that would give an indication of the root cause of the issue. We have also been monitoring other services and working with third parties to further pinpoint the probable cause of these issues. Initial investigations pointed to causes outside our network and datacenter.

As we've worked through this process we have seen players report workarounds to the issues which have allowed others to connect consistently. These have included the use of alternate connection methods, such as VPN’s, tethered cellular, acquiring a new IP (internet protocol) address from your ISP, or using an alternate internet connection that does not happen to route through the same networks as your existing provider. This further confirmed our suspicions that the issues lay outside our direct control.

This morning we have received word that one of our affiliated connection providers is taking steps to re-route services around certain areas of the internet that are experiencing issues we believe are the root cause of the reported issues.

This work may take some time to propagate through the internet in general. If you are able to take advantage of the temporary workarounds detailed above, this may allow some of you to enter the game until such time as this rerouting and propagation completes.

We appreciate the efforts by those who discovered workarounds, other reports of similar issues elsewhere on the 'net, and all of you who submitted tickets detailing your issues and locations and other requested data.