Long ago, Lord of the Rings Online first experimented with having stats on gear you can buy for real money. We bring this up here because… well, let’s unpack the latest patch’s lockboxes as players understand them. These lockboxes drop in numbers sufficient to build a house out of, but they can only be opened with keys. As you probably expect, the keys are bought with real money (or earned in horribly slow increments through play). And what’s within the lockboxes? Why… best-in-slot gear for the next patch’s dungeon?

Yes, this is the system players have found in the current test server for the game’s next update, and it has players up in arms for reasons that should be immediately obvious. Several threads are running in which players ask for Standing Stone Games to reconsider this system or alter the mechanics, since this system makes your chances at acquiring good upgrades almost entirely reliant on spending money on lockboxes… even if you actually like and enjoy the endgame. So that’s not going over well.