The COVID-19 pandemic has had a few silver linings, and one of the greatest of those has been seeing how the world and communities band together to help fight against the spreading pandemic. One of these greatest of this has been the gaming community and the way in which developers have taken steps to help encourage social distancing and give those that are under quarantine a bit more joy.
Standing Stone Games announced today that they’ll be allowing all players to access all content for free for more than a month. They hope that by doing so, they’ll encourage others to stay home and practice social distancing to help fight against the spreading of the pandemic.
“Here at Standing Stone Games our goal is to bring joy to everyone through our games and we feel that is more important than ever,” Standing Stone Games writes in their announcement. “We are making all our adventures and stories open to everyone through April 30th. In addition we will be running extra events for the games.”
Happy 14th Anniversary Dungeons & Dragons Online! We want to thank YOU for making this possible. #DDO pic.twitter.com/4s05U7A0H6
— Standing Stone Games (@StandingStoneMA) February 28, 2020
The following features will be free on Dungeons and Dragons Online until April 30th:
- All dungeons and raids are open to all players, including content normally locked behind expansion packs.
- The Buddy Bonus 5% XP will be active for a short time through March 20th through 29th. This will stack with the weekend events.
- The Mimic Event will be active from March 26th to April 6th.
- The Anniversary event will also be active for all of April, beginning March 26th and ending April 30th.
With Lord of the Rings Online, the following will be made free:
- All quests, instances, and skirmishes are open to all players, including content normally locked behind expansion packs.
- The Curator will return from March 26th to April 30th.
- A 10% virtue XP boost will be active from March 26th to April 6th.
- The Baggins Birthday Event is live from March 26th to April 6th.
It’s fantastic to see Standing Stone willing to come together with the gaming community like this. They easily could’ve turned it into a marketing bonus and put the content on discount, but instead, they’re providing the community with it for free. It’s moves like this that help to promote a loving and happy atmosphere in the gaming community.
If you’ve been a big fan of either of Standing Stone’s big franchises, now is a great time to put some more hours in. If you’ve been from the outside looking in, you likely won’t be getting a better opportunity to hop in and give the titles a shot!
