Everquest 2

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Jaguar

And I assume you are roleplaying someone who recycles his witticisms?

The last one linked to is completely different. The first is different to the post you quoted, albeit with the same basis.

Anyway, you found the best way to get wit into your posts.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Btw EQ2ers, I hear on the MMORPG grapevine that the makers are trying to cash in on the real world market for in-game items, which is normally against the rules.

Sounds a bit money grabbing to me.

It sounds like money-grabbing to the vast majority of us and the outrage over this issue is huge. However on a second and more sober view, it is not as bad as it seems.

It is not imposed on all of us, but limited to a small amount of servers, which will operate under this modified ruleset. First they announced, that they will poll every server, if its population agrees to this ruleset, and if the majority does, the server will be converted.

The outcry was enormous. The poll was announced to have three options, yes, no and don't care, and people feared with a reason, that don't care would be counted as yes, too. This, and probably a significant number of account cancellations, made Sony rethink their strategy.

The official version is now, that only one or two new servers with "Station Exchange" rules will be created. For a limited amount of time, players will be allowed to move to the new servers with all their belongings. Later moves to "SE" servers will be allowed, but only "naked", meaning only with attuned (= "bound" in EQ2 terms) and thus, unsellable gear and without money. These moves will be final, moves back to non-SE servers are impossible. The poll, which determines the level of demand, will be helt at end of this week.

The result will be, that non-professional platinum farmers and their customers will likely move to these servers and do their business legally using Sonys Pay-Pal powered services. Of course Sony will collect a percentage of the deal, but this is not my problem. The good effect of this is, that we remaining on the "fairplay servers" will be rid of these jerks. Looks like win-win, they get what they want, we don't longer have to bear their presence.

Professional platinum farmers (IGE and alike) will likely stay, as they want to cover all servers with their services. However chances are big, that Sony will hunt them down much more actively now, since they aren't just a nuisance, but a direct competition.

To Sonys defense I must say, that their track record of banning such accounts is pretty good so far. From launch, over thousand such accounts have been deleted. 500 in a first wave, 700 in a second. The second 700 almost effortless, since a software solution to catch them without having to resort to player reports (= denunciations) has been developed. There were times, where IGE was completely out of stock. Meanwhile they stocked up a bit again, but I sense the next Sony action coming soon.

Bottom line is, that while I don't like this service and would never use it myself, I'm not enforced to. It is opt-in, and who does so, ceases to exist in my virtual environment, which is good, because I loathe such players. Not my problem anymore.

By the way Spikey, it is not against the rules: Sony forbids such transactions, true, but only as long as they don't explicitly allow them. Their EULA is a masterpiece of wish-wash.

[DrSpike]

I actually find the whole market in in-game items debate quite interesting. Though I'd come down against it overall (as most companies and MMORPGers do) I think the argument that you can enjoy the games more if you don't have to farm as much (dependent on game, obviously) or camp for items is a fair one - it's just outweighed by the fact that you should 'earn' what you get. By buying you also affect the sense of achievement that others feel when legitimately progressing.

It's interesting that this development could decrease such behaviour on the servers it doesn't cover. However, I have to say I believe this development (if it goes ahead) is the thin end of the wedge. As long as there are people willing to pay for virtual items, which companies can create at will, there is an incentive for them to cash in by doing so. The only thing stopping them is that people who play the game properly will rightly kick up a fuss - I hope that remains true in a few years.

[Qilue]

Can anyone here who (has) plays(ed) EQ2 and/or (has) plays(ed) WoW give me a comparison.

I played WoW from launch to about mid Jan. However the 12yo playing mentality left me with a bad taste in my mouth after the goodness that is NWN.

So after reading posts here about EQ2, I became interested. Has anyone at all played both EQ2 and WoW?

[Harovan]

I played WoW only briefly and can not post a comparison of game mechanics without resorting to hearsay and prejudice. Others may have no problems with these categories, I however have. The only experience I remember matches with yours, the percentage of "leet doods" in World of Warcraft is amazing. Since this is not the sort of companionship I want to provide my spare time with, I dished the game for good, probably never to return. WoW is good to keep EQ2 clean, that's for me the best feature this game has.

If you want to try out Everquest 2, your best choice is to join a roleplay preferred server. This is true even if you aren't much of a roleplayer, mind you the roleplay is preferred, not enforced. These servers have the highest percentage of good, mature players. After more than five months of playing, I am in a guild with over 150 people, many of which I call friends, have many friends outside the guild too, and my ignore list has a total of 4 names, mainly price gougers in tradeskills.

Both RP preferred servers are excellent choices, so it does not matter if you choose "Antonia Bayle" or "Lucan D`Lere". I play on the latter and did never regret this decision.

[Harovan]

By the way, this morning I filled out the Station Exchange poll, mentioned above. Of course, my choices to the two questions were "Against it" and "Will not participate". Let's see how the endresult will be. Some people are afraid, that Sony will skew it in favor of their plans. I don't think this, I rather believe, that they won't publish them in this case and make just one "alibi" exchange enabled server.