Real Money Transactions within the Lord of the Rings Online

[Nod]

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 by submitting a help request here 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.

Updated 1/7/09

• Q: Some of these websites say that a certain way is safer than another; they say that trade is safer than mail, and auctions are safer than trade. Is this true?

• A: It has been interesting to see this come up in the spam from these organizations. As we have become more efficient in tracking down and taking action on both gold farmers and gold buyers, there has been a push from these organizations to assure potential customers that a certain way is “safer” than another. Our tools can differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate auctions or trades in the same amount of time it takes for normal mail. In short, the method has no effect on our practices or investigations.

• Q: Why is this a problem in the Lord of the Rings Online? Surely Turbine can easily remove these organizations from the game?

• A: Similar to investigations in the real world, looking through our game logs takes time and effort. Contrary to what many players believe, very little in our process is automated because we must log and be able to defend every suspension we make. When a player appeals a suspension, we must be easily and quickly able to return the transactions that caused the suspension. Additionally, these organizations have a powerful incentive to return to our game and do not hesitate to use fraudulent information to gain access to the game. Detecting fraud and removing those accounts takes time and effort, which means that some may get through and impact our players. We are continually working on streamlining our processes and tools to better detect and remove these organizations, but the best way for our players to help is by not patronizing these organizations.

• Q: How does an investigation proceed once a gold farmer is reported?

• A: After a report is received, our team looks into the character see if they meet broad criteria that indicate RMT activity. If the character meets these criteria, they proceed to the next stage where we investigate further and confirm that they are involved in these activities. From there we investigate the entire network of accounts associated with that character, identify any additional RMT accounts, and identify players associated with these accounts.

Remember: If you have a question you would like to see answered, you can submit it to us at rmt@turbine.com.

[Nod]

Some additional questions for this thread.

• Q: My friend was recently suspended for gold farming / selling / buying. We know he did not do this. Why did you suspend an innocent player?

• A: The majority of appeals from players not directly involved in RMT transactions ask this question. When playing a massively multiplayer game like The Lord of the Rings Online, you may develop close friendships with other players in your kinship or on your server. As such it can be difficult to learn that your friend has been suspended for violating the Code of Conduct. This is understandable because no one wants to believe that a friend could have broken the rules. Unfortunately, it does occur and we will take action. Players may be upset when they are suspended for violating the Code of Conduct, or kinship members may refuse to believe they have violated the Code of Conduct and send in appeals asking for them to be released. A player may falsify the reason for their suspension or give incorrect information to their friends, or kinship members may not believe we investigated or took correct action when suspending an account.

Please keep in mind that if a friend is suspended from The Lord of the Rings Online, we do not take action unless it is necessary and we have a clear violation of the Code of Conduct. Additionally, we do not permanently suspend an account unless they have been involved in a serious violation of the Code of Conduct and have ignored previous warnings or suspensions asking them to desist. Lastly, while we understand that you may be upset if a friend is suspended, we do not suspend players for no reason. When a player is suspended, it is because we are protecting the majority of our players who want to enjoy The Lord of the Rings Online without harassment, cheating, or other violations of the Code of Conduct.

• Q: I have gold in my mailbox from someone who I believe is a gold seller. What do I do?

• A: If you have gold in your mailbox from someone you believe is a gold seller (usually indicated by a nonsense name, large amounts of gold for no reason, and not related to any auctions, trades, or friends) the best way to address this issue is by opening a new ticket and asking a GM or SGM to investigate the mail. Please do not detach the gold from your mailbox. Once a GM or SGM finishes investigating the issue, they will either remove the mail or say it is alright to detach.

• Q: I got a suspicious mail / tell in-game asking me to visit a website to file a complaint. Is this legit?

• A: The only avenue to submit complaints or concerns are Turbine websites, such as www.turbine.com or www.lotro.com. Additionally, the only direct e-mail address to the Fraud department is rmt@turbine.com. Turbine employees will always have a + before their name when communicating to you in-game, and you may always submit a new ticket if you have a concern about a message or mail you have received. Please report any players impersonating a Turbine employee immediately.

[Patience]

This thread was recently updated by Nod; please see his new post above this one!

[Nod]

Hello Everyone,

Recently, we have seen an increase in players selling their gold to gold selling organizations. We cannot stress enough that this is a violation of the Code of Conduct. If our anti-fraud team catches an account doing this, that account will be permanently suspended. We must apply the same punishment to all accounts that transfer gold to gold selling organizations.

If you are thinking of selling or purchasing gold from any of these organizations, this is a violation of the Code of Conduct. We actively police and enforce our Code of Conduct, and we can and will permanently suspend your account for engaging in these violations. Selling gold to and purchasing gold from gold sellers encourages:

• Spamming our game.

• Hacking or theft of player’s game accounts.

• Theft of gold buyer’s credit cards.

• Identity theft.

• Disruption of the in-game economy.

You can find our Code of Conduct at http://www.lotro.com/support/coc. If you have any questions, you can contact us at rmt@turbine.com.