New Stat Boosting Items for Lord of the Rings Online Are Designed to Help New Players

MMO developer Turbine has introduced a number of new items in its official store for The Lord of the Rings Online which allow those who buy them to get an actual boost to their character abilities, causing a stir among the player base, who is afraid that they can be misused by those who want to get an unfair advantage by simply spending money.

But the development team behind the MMO believes that the new items are simply designed to allow newcomers to perform well.

Speaking to Gamefront Adam Mersky, who is the communications director at Turbine, has stated, “We have a lot of different players in the game. Lower level players are telling us that they are having difficulty obtaining good gear. This is us coming up with solutions to problems players are reporting to us. We’re trying to create solutions for players.”

The development team working on The Lord of the Rings Online is watching how the stat boosting items are impacting the MMO and they are ready to launch an update which takes them out if they have a negative impact.

Mersky added, “We’re not adverse to pulling things off the store if they don’t work. We’re committed to keeping things balanced.”

It is not clear how players who have bought and used the new items would be compensated if the items were pulled and whether Turbine will try to create and introduce another system to help low level players quickly boost their character abilities.

The communications director has also said that Turbine is committed to keeping the game as fair as possible and will never try to sell raid related gear in the official store.

The Lord of the Rings Online has been one of the first MMOs to drop subscriptions and based their business model on microtransactions and has since reported healthy increases in both the number of players and the revenue ity derives from the game.