LOTR Online boss talks gold-farming

By Robert Purchese Published 29 May, 2007

Says biz model's bound to change.

Turbine executive producer Jeffrey Steefel believes MMO business models will change in the next five years to accommodate using real-life money to buy in-game currency and items.

Steefel was talking to Eurogamer in an exclusive interview, and while Lord of The Rings Online doesn't tolerate the "secondary market" just yet, he said his team would pay attention to developments in that area.

"The 'secondary market' is a huge topic of conversation across the industry, and we're watching it really closely," Steefel told Eurogamer. "Our position is pretty straightforward right now. Our responsibility is to the subscribers of the game, to deliver to them the experience they expect. So we certainly do not support people farming or taking advantage of the system in that way. It's against our Terms of Service and we do try and enforce that."

"But, we all know that something will happen in the next two to five years to business models in general, so we're paying attention to what's going on; watching what's going on with Sony Station whose servers support and manage this."

Traditionally the "secondary market" works by players of an MMORPG going to a website like IGE.com, finding the game and server they play on, checking the availability of currency or items, then buying them using real-life cash. They'll then have the money or bits and pieces delivered to them in-game by an anonymous source.

A no-tolerance policy to "gold farming" is fairly common, and account suspensions or bans are well-documented in both Final Fantasy XI and World of Warcraft. But Sony Online Entertainment is treading new ground with its first-party auction house called the Station Exchange, which gives EverQuest II players the option to "legally" purchase in-game assets. It gives SOE the opportunity to manage and moderate what goes on, as well as provide a secure and trustworthy service.

It begs the age old question of shouldn't some people be allowed to buy in-game clobber if they simply don't have as much time to pour into it as others? What about freedom of choice, etc?

"That's the endless philosophical discussion," Steefel continues. "If I can find a way for every type of person in my game to play the way they want to without adversely affecting anyone else, then that's win, win, win. And that's what we'll try to figure out."

Look out for our full interview with Jeffrey Steefel on Eurogamer later this week.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (17) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Metalfish #1 5 years ago

    Isn't it largely the thought that "I don't want to be beaten down by someone just because they've got a huge trust fund. I get enough of that in real life thanks."?

  • sniglet #2 5 years ago

    My head's pretty split on this. In some ways it's a great way for not-so-regular players to get elite-level items.

    In another sense it may just create more elitism - with those rich enough to be able to afford all the great items getting better and the people who can't afford poop-sock amounts of time (and can't afford to spend their RL cash on in-game items) left languishing with a Rusty Bronze Rake +1 and a Filthy Dustbin Lid for a shield.

    A financially level playing field is arguably the more sensible way to go imo.

  • Gurgeh #3 5 years ago

    In PvP terms maybe. In PvE it just defeats the point. The equivalent would be paying an extra £10 for a console game to access the last boss fight directly without having to spend time playing the first 20 levels.

  • ekko #4 5 years ago

    Make the games more skill based then item/gold based.

  • lambtron #5 5 years ago

    The bottom line here is that they see an opportunity to make mountains of cash. If they can find a way to legalise the secondary market they can then get a piece of the action = even more moolah.

    Whether you think this is sad state of affairs is largely irrelevant because the only way to stop it for good is to fundamentally change human nature.

  • Schiraman #6 5 years ago

    I absolutely agree with ekko: replace the constant grind with skill-based gameplay and you'll eliminate gold-farming overnight. Those people who pay for items or gold do so because they don't want to spend a lot of time doing boring grinding, so why not just dump those old-fashioned mechanics and thus level the playing field for everyone?

    Of course it does risk making MMORPGs more fun and broadening their appeal to include mainstream gamers, but I think that's a risk that might be worth taking ;)

  • Gurgeh #7 5 years ago

    "Make the games more skill based then item/gold based"

    At the moment the items are the reward for skill, gaining each "tier" of items gives access to the next dungeon or zone. Nowadays most such items are bound to the character and cannot be sold or traded.

  • Schiraman #8 5 years ago

    @Gurgeh

    No, for the most part both items and gold are the reward for time invested, not skill. Frankly MMORPGs are not generally a genre that requires skillful play so much as a great deal of spare time. I'm not saying there's no skill involved, but generally it's less of a factor than with other gaming genres.

    Items being bound to owners in WoW doesn't exactly stop gold-farming, it seems to be pretty prevalent in all modern MMORPGs. Besides which if you bind grind-progress completely to characters all you'll do is force people to sell entire characters rather than just items or gold.

    In the long term the only way to avoid people paying others to do grinding for them is to eliminate grind.

  • AOFanboi #9 5 years ago

    Great, so instead of reporting and getting gold spammers banned, we soon will have to accept their presence as part of the game? Is the already present "store" doing EverQuest II any favours?

    Genre death at 11.

    (Ironically, the gold spammers filling my in-game mailbox and every chat channel known in Azeroth was what drove me from WoW - to LOTRO...)

  • Evil_Jez #10 5 years ago

    Surely the fairest thing to do would to seperate the servers;


    Those that want to buy in game money or items, or those that don't mind go on to one set of servers.

    Those that don't want to, and don't like other people buying their way to the top, go to the others.


    It would make cracking down on gold sellers easier too if you only need to concentrate on half your servers.



    There will probably be those that think that buying on a non-buying server is a good idea, but I would have thought they'd be easy to spot as cheaters!
    Edited by 1 at 29/05/07 @ 16:19

  • Gurgeh #11 5 years ago

    "No, for the most part both items and gold are the reward for time invested, not skill."

    I can see why people think this but I would argue the evidence proves otherwise. Consider World of Warcraft with millions of players. How many of them have actually killed Lady Vashj? A few hundred at most, and it's not a measure of who's played longest. How many have killed Gruul? That's a boss you can go kill as soon as you get to 70, and I bet there's a hundred or less players per server that have killed him.

    MMOs with decent raids require excellent teamwork more than individual skill, although it only takes one bad apple to bring the raid down.

  • Schiraman #12 5 years ago

    @Gurgeh

    Well I did say "for the most part" and I stand by that. Also the time and effort involved in getting to level 70 and setting up a good raiding guild is hardly insignificant, I'm sure all that does require skill - but it sure as hell requires a lot of hard grind too ;)

    The point is MMORPGs generally require a lot of time to get the most out of them, and much of the gameplay required to each those heady heights is very repetitive - so as long as the games work that way some people will always pay to circumvent that long grind.

    All I'm suggesting is that if most of that grinding was removed and replaced by more accessible skill-based content (and I think it's fair to say that level 70 raid content is anything but accessible, however skilful it may be) then there'd be no point to gold-farming or people buying their way to the top.

  • FWB #13 5 years ago

    LOTRO focuses on PvE. The PvP isn't the main aspect. I haven't even looked at it yet, tho I am sure its fun. So none of its a biggy for me.

    Besides which, the fun is had in grouping and taking on hordes and that is only worthwhile if you are all around the same level.

  • Macross #14 5 years ago

    Hmm if Turbine do decide to eventually do a similar thing to SoE then itl cost them my subscription, one of the charms of MMOs is it takes you away from the need for real world money etc.

    PS and agreed with ekko! nice stuff is all well and good but someone with the best gear ever should still be able to lose to someone amazing at the game.

  • 3william56 #15 5 years ago

    How about a new icon appearing above any player who has equipped a paid-for item; perhaps a pumping fist clasping a p*nis and spurting dollar signs. So you can avoid the cashed up crew if you choose.

  • Genji #16 5 years ago

    The idea of paying real money for fake currency and items fascinates me.

    And sickens me.

  • davisorle #17 5 years ago

    I've been telling everyone off around me that ever used cash for ingame money/items and I will keep doing that. Either learn hwo to f*cking play either let it go if you're to be playing real money for somethign you already paid for. Play it or dont be so stupid to get played.

    Turbine is intrested in doing that? Well just for that I swear I'm already thinking of canselling my account at LOTRO.

    That's all I have to say about this subject. Thank you.