Those of you hoping to get your hands on Dungeons & Dragons Online’s new free-to-play expansion/game changer, DDO Unlimited, will have to lace up their mithril boots of waiting and strap on their heavy shield of patience.  Turbine has announced that the switch-over will be pushed back from next week until August 9, 2009.  

The publisher explains,

"We've had a tremendous response to DDO Unlimited from the players and press who are participating in our beta program.  We've been holding a series of live events as part of the beta program and have seen an unprecedented level of participation from players. While we are very pleased with the performance of the game and are excited about the response from the players, we are committed to delivering a high-quality experience. We feel that more time is needed to deliver on this commitment. As a result, we are delaying our launch to ensure that we can support the massive increase in players that we are expecting and deliver them a free to play experience like none other."

So basically, they want to tune up their servers in anticipation of a massive influx of new players.  Makes sense; I know I’ll be one of the many clogging them up now that it’s free.  I’m hopeful that the switch goes well for them, because I think that if it does run smoothly, DDO could pick up some hug numbers in the long-term.  It’s a very good MMO, and with a $0 price tag, it may even sway some financially conscientious WoW players.  Some, not many; let’s not get crazy, here.