Warcry had an interview with
Jeffrey Steelfel from Turbine Inc. about the Lord of the Ring Online new content update, Book 10: The City of Kings. Apparently, he is not a big fan
of gold farmers. When asked about gold farmers in the LotRO, he stated that Turbine is constantly banning gold farmers and it is a priority for the
company's customer and data services team to track down both trial and paid accounts with suspected activities.
Another developer, ArenaNet who has recently announced 4 million units sold for Guild Wars, is under rumors that the company secretly supports gold
farmers and dupers. The rumor was reported by
Razorwire.
The source of information claimed the company was intentionally involved in the exploit of the game's reconnect feature to create massive in game
gold supply. Possibly, someone had leaked the insider's information of this bug, as a result high demand items such as Ectos or Armbraces of Truth
were duped and sold.
A closer look to
the ex-employee's blog itself revealed the relationship between the
gold farmers and AreaNet. Behind what the players see as a fight with the gold farmers to protect their enjoyment of the game is a shocking truth that
it was a setup.
"We initiated several 'ban floods', much like the publicly announced 26th May 2006 affair. Obviously this was just PR material. These were waves
which bot accounts would be banned. The GFCs knew the accounts that were being banned. We provided them a list of accounts that would be banned."
After all it was the best for both parties; the gold farmers got to run their businesses, and the game company sold new boxes which became part of the
$8.9 million revenue.
