The test server for Lord of the Rings Online’s next patch opened up this week to run Update 28.3 through the paces — but it also opened a dam of player anger as well.
The controversy over this proposed update stems from SSG’s decision to level-lock certain legendary item empowerment scrolls and reputation accelerator tomes, a move that many see as a not-so-subtle attempt to force players to spend money on the cash shop empowerment scrolls instead.
Just about nobody is happy with this change, as both the forums and Twitter pushed back fiercely against this. “What about all those players that haven’t purchased the most recent expansion? They what… just can’t level their [legendary items] anymore? REALLY?!” one player asked.
“We need and deserve clarification and, more importantly, justification for these changes because as it stands at the moment, there will be no one who is grateful for this change and you will only risk losing more players than you might generate in revenue afterwards,” said another.
“This is another example of removing a benefit without an equitable replacement,” MMO blogger Roger Edwards at Contains Moderate Peril opined. “But ultimately the degree of inconvenience, be it big or small, is not the point. There is a fundamental principle of quid pro quo at stake here and it is being eroded. Hopefully, the feedback on the forums will alert SSG to the PR disaster that potentially awaits them. However, given their track record, I suspect they may well just blithely walk into it.”
The move came just a day after SSG had improved the community mood by bundling expansions together in a cheaper package. We’re with Roger in hoping the proposed changes never make it to the live server.
