Real Money Transactions within the Lord of the Rings Online
by Nod
Senior Game Master

Greetings everyone,

My name is Senior Game Master (SGM) Nod, a member of the In-Game Support team. The In-Game Support team is part of Turbine’s Customer Service department, and our job is to enforce the Code of Conduct, resolve our players' in-game issues, and monitor the worlds for any new problems or concerns. My responsibility is to monitor, investigate, and take action on all reports of gold farming, spamming, selling, or buying.

With the release of the Mines of Moria, we would like to discuss this issue with our players.

Gold farming, gold selling, gold spamming, gold buying, powerleveling, account sales and purchases, or purchasing items with real-world money within the Lord of the Rings Online are called Real Money Transactions (RMT) and are strictly forbidden on all of our servers. Any time you pay real money for a service, item, or currency, you are violating the Code of Conduct and may be subject to disciplinary action. This can range from a warning to a permanent account suspension. These penalties are harsh because these actions affect significantly more than just your account. Purchasing gold or powerleveling directly contributes to the continued spamming of our game by these organizations, and to the continued farming and exploitation of our game items for their profit.

Purchasing gold or powerleveling directly encourages and supports the farming and spamming of our game.

There are other reasons not to engage in this. By purchasing your way to the end, you devalue the efforts of your fellow players and seriously damage the fun of playing the game. Additionally, you put yourself at risk of theft from risky websites and organizations; the majority of our compromised accounts are a result of visiting websites or engaging in services of this type.

The Code of Conduct for the Lord of the Rings Online clearly states:

10. You may not advertise the intent to, commit the act of, or facilitate the ability of others to commit the act of, unauthorized selling, buying, transferring or sharing access to any Game account.

11. You may not advertise the intent to, commit the act of, or facilitate the ability of others to commit the act of, unauthorized selling or buying of Game items for real-world monetary values or other consideration.

The following is a Question and Answer section where you can read questions and our responses about this issue. To submit a question, send an e-mail to us at rmt@turbine.com with the subject line “RMT Question.” All questions will be posted anonymously.

• Question: How can I report a Gold Spammer? They’re so annoying!

• Answer: To quickly report a gold spammer, right-click their spam in your chat window, click on Chat, then click Report as Gold Spammer. This will automatically block the spammer and report the spam to In-Game Support. If the spam is in your mailbox, click on the mail in your mailbox and choose “Report as Spam” from the bottom options. Please note that only Gold Spam should be reported this way; In-Game Support will not respond to any other issues reported this way.

• Q: How can I report a suspected gold farmer?

• A: If you think someone is a gold farmer, go to the main menu, then help, then new ticket. Change the ticket type to Cheating, put in a description that says you believe this is a gold farmer, and put in the name at the bottom. A GM or SGM will then forward the name to be investigated.

• Q: How can In-Game Support determine if someone is a gold farmer / buyer / powerleveler? Am I in trouble if my friends trade a lot of gold around?

• A: We have several tools that look at the history of a character, account information, and our game logs to help determine which characters have violated the Code of Conduct. Unfortunately, we cannot discuss this in detail because we do not want to give away our methods. Additionally, we do not take action on legitimate transactions such as auctions, trades, or mail from regular players. Only transactions from RMT organizations will result in action. If you believe you have been incorrectly suspended, you may contact us at turbinesupportexperience@turbi ne.com and your suspension will be reviewed.

• Q: Some of these websites tell me this is safe or allowed by Turbine, or that they are “official.” Is this true?

• A: Turbine is not affiliated in any way with these websites. Any websites claiming they are endorsed or allowed by Turbine are incorrect. There is no safe way to purchase gold or powerleveling for the Lord of the Rings Online.