Station Exchange coming to all SOE games.

[Vikken]

Blurb here about Station Exchange coming to all SOE games.

http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=2663&category_id=30

Thursday, October 27, 2005, Austin, Texas: During the “I Have Four Quatloos for the One Ring; Do I Hear Five?” panel at the Austin Game Conference, the controversy over the “secondary market” for online games was discussed. At one point in the panel discussion, Sony’s Station Exchange was mentioned, but none of the panelists were from SOE and could not provide any sort of numbers or results information on this service.

Fortunately for everyone in the room, Chris Kramer, Director of Corporate Communications for SOE was in attendance. Further, he was willing to come up to the microphone and elaborate on some details about the plans and results for the Station Exchange in EQ2. While he discussed these details, he mentioned that the Exchange would be rolled out to all SOE games in the not so distant future.

That one statement caught my attention and had me scribbling notes quickly into my tablet. This is big news that I’ve not seen elsewhere. SOE has a lot of MMOGs on the market, and this would be a big move and show of confidence for the Station Exchange.

At the end of the panel, I asked Chris for clarity on this to make sure he really meant what he said, and he validated that the Station Exchange would indeed become a part of all SOE games. The caveat is that some games, like Star Wars Galaxies, are properties not owned by SOE, so the IP owners (Lucas Film in the case of Star Wars) would have to agree for this to happen in the game for their property.

Beyond that, you can expect the Station Exchange to show up in EverQuest and Planetside in the nearer future. Chris was not able to provide specific dates for the rollout of the Exchange into these games, but he did say that SOE wanted to wait before announcing this change until they were sure that it would function with each specific game.

No details about how the rollout would occur were available, but it is safe to assume that EQ and PS will follow the EQ2 model of having segregated servers supporting the Exchange service.

Continue to check back at GamerGod.com for more details as this development unfolds!

Things that make you say hmm...

[Kailyn]

WTF would you buy in PS?

[Vikken]

Combat levels? He did say where it made sense. I'm guessing PS won't be supported. CL grinding was tedious in that game.

[Raaj]

I should have jihad'd this conference.

[Kailyn]

Jihaded?? Huh?

So not getting what you mean...

[Fenring]

What is Station Exchange? some sort of ebay type deal?

[Tybor]

its sony's way of gettin their piece of the pie that yantis, ige, etc have now. allows you to buy items and plat for real $$$, as i understand it in eq2, it was only avail on seperate servers, and i think they even instituted some sort of flag if you transferred from an exchange server.

dont play eq2, so dont hold me to that tho~

[Arathena]

http://stationexchange.station.sony.com/ is the corporate spiel on how it works:

With EQ2, basically, it created an E-Bay approved server or two, where Sony acted as the guarantor of the transactions, for a fee. All transfers to these servers are 1 way. Sale of items can only take place between characters on such approved servers, as does inter-account sale of characters.

[Shikarii]

I should have jihad'd this conference.

I would have paid to see that...

[Chatja ogre]

Jihad!

[Yoda]

go go go Raaj !

[Bourbon]

I should have jihad'd this conference.

Jihad doesn't mean what I think you think it means.

Jihad (Arabic: جهاد jihād) is an Islamic term, from the Arabic root jhd ("to exert utmost effort, to strive, struggle").

[Aramelus]

Jihad doesn't mean what I think you think it means.

Jihad (Arabic: جهاد jihād) is an Islamic term, from the Arabic root jhd ("to exert utmost effort, to strive, struggle").

Yeah but it's still funny to use in the over-the-top verb fashion, since the media has made it into such a buzzword.

[Benlin]

About time really, its been such a glaring business opportunity over the years, right from the start of the game.

[Dovan]

Durka Durka Muhammad Jihad!

[Baash]

what the hell is the station exchange?.....

[Crashbomba]

An experiment done by SOE for EQ2 in which you can legitamately buy characters, items and plat for RL dollars. You can transfer any toon to the server free of charge. If you buy a character there, the character is transferred to your account and given a free name change. SOE thus provides a risk free enviroment to purchase things taking a cut of the sale as the broker/guaranteer of the deal.

[Vikken]

Indeed, good description. It is important to note that station exchange only works on selected servers and server transfers off of an exchange server is not allowed at this time.

I like the way they did it. I'm also willing to be that it works quite well at keeping ebay/playerauction from affecting the non-exchange game severs too much.

I can't blame folks for wanting this service either. MMOs grinds are boring. Most games use huge timesinks and frustrating mechanics to provide challenge to the game. EQ is a prime example of this. EQ by itself isn't that hard to grasp. Its not exactly noob friendly, but its not hard to figure out what do next. Finding the time, player resources, and dealing with the frustration that comes along with all of that is what makes it difficult.

Someone who wants to buy a cleric bot so that he doesn't have to depend on, I'll just go ahead and say it, testy, irrational, moody, picky, pain-in-the-ass, emotionally delicate clerics, can go right ahead and do it. And the assured that the transation is secure and supported by the game.

How about that epic peice that you dont have time to drag along 6 friends to go and just camp the mob, no guarentee that it will drop, and it probably wont.

How long did I camp valdanov in the vamp castle? How many times did I get guildies to go help me clear the castle? How many times did I see the ashes for sale and not be able to afford them? I did it then because I had the time. If that was the same situation now, I wouldn't be trying to do the quest. I simply don't have the time to waste not playing the game. There is so much I want to see in the game that is not going to happen because i dont have the enourmous ammount of time to play the game any more. Time to essentially waste.

Do I think EQ needs to change? No, it is what it is, but I don't think timesinks are the direction that MMOs are going any longer. And with that comes less dependance on outside resources to "help" in game. I see demand for the services declining, if the current trend to remove timesinks from MMOs continues.

WoW developers made a big mistake making people farm faction. Not only is it directly tied to your character, but it is boring to abtain, and there are no work arounds (buying faction). They made the game less fun, and took a huge step backwards in MMO development.

[Flair]

With EQ2, basically, it created an E-Bay approved server or two, where Sony acted as the guarantor of the transactions, for a fee. All transfers to these servers are 1 way. Sale of items can only take place between characters on such approved servers, as does inter-account sale of characters.

Having seen this discussed, argued, implemented etc while I was in EQ2 there are two sides; the mechanics and the philospohical context.

Mechanically SOE has done a good job creating a "magnet" (e.g. separate servers) to attract and promote this activity. It has created effective containment to those servers (a key concern when it was first proposed) and also has provided SOE with a new revenue stream (and conversely taken money from the pockets of IGE etc).

Now it has fallen down mechanically in the EQ2 world in that it hasnt been joined with higher supervision/enforcement on the non-station exchange servers; without this deterrent there is still a market for e-bay/goods sales for the non-exchange player (e.g the kind that wants to have a bot/get ahead of the Joneses etc all).

Philospohically there is a whole line of discussion of whether its even right to sell/re-sell game goods. SOE stated when they did exchange that they were doing this to help fix the problem, not meaning to be overally cycnical but the lack of investement in suveillance really seems to indicate they implement this just to get a share of the revenue slice (and make some VPs a good career move).

Expanding this to all SOE products is kinda inevitable; on a day to day basis it shoudl have little impact on non-exchange servers provided they follow the same containment protocols.

[unclebong]

may he or she with the most real life cash win!

[Vikken]

well detection tools get better all the time. I have no doubt that SOE is investing good money to keep unauthorized sales of their intelectual property under lock and key.

It is no doubt a problem, but I don't think that some of that money is not being funneled to better the game, both in-game and meta-game. More profitable revenues are better for the game, company and genre. All of which I'm a big fan. SOEs problem is thier size. I used to think that they didn't care but after much consideration, even under SOEs rule we've seen many improvements to the MMOs that they produce. Looking at other companies that make MMOs, the good ones are made by small teams, but the worse ones are made by big teams. Its a generalization, I know but it does seem to hold some weight.

One thing to remember is that SOE is very much a corporate company. Some things they are just very cautious about, things that cross the line into personal privacy and trade secrets just aren't talked about. Contast that with a "previously smallish" company like blizzard that has a track record of fanfair and lavish details about thier work. Its just different styles of public relations. So while you see blizzard posted every other week about how many accounts they banned for botting or gold selling, SOE does talk about this when asked or the topic comes up at things like the EQ summits, but overall, they tend to keep that information in the background and instead talk about what they are planning for the game or ask what the players want with thier games.

Just because we don't see the work going on in the background, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Ask someone at SOE how many accounts were banned for ebay/duping/playerauctions, how many exploiters were reprimanded or banned in the last month/6 months/year. I'm willing to bet they could give you some numbers, you just don't see a news item every time they get a nice impressive round number to post on their web sites.

You are right though, it is a 2 pronged attack that is required to make exchange services to work.

[Vikken]

may he or she with the most real life cash win!

The more I work IRL and the less I get to play MMOs, the more I hate people who view this topic with such a narrow mind. Given the prevalence of timesinks, frustrating mechanics, and the dependance of older MMOs on grind mechanics, coupled with newer content almost always only released for the top end players. If you don't make it near the end of an expansion, before the next comes out you will be ill-prepared for the newest content. This is a given. Given that the majority of players stay near the end of the games content, and mechanics that require you to depend on other players, it is in youe best interest to stay near the top too.

Look at the low-mid levels in EQ as a prime example. Nearly all major new content is provided to players above level 50, 60 if you really want to see anything besides the first open zone. EQ is a grouping game, what happens to the players that haven't made it to 50 yet. They get to buy an expansion that they can't reasonably use for 10 more levels? Nevermind the gear factor. A good portion of players do MPG trials and the toughest DoN missions. What happens to the player that can't spend the many hours it will take to gear up to the point where he can reasonably participate with the rest of the players? What if he hasn't been sitting at max level for years to accrue stupid ammounts of AA, or been raiding for superior no-drop gear for year and has nothing to spend plat on so instead he just collects it and inflates prices on other's gear by buying overprices twink gear, when others that could use it for thier gear progression, but alas they spent it all on thier last upgrade so that they could try and play catch up.

Being behind the curve sucks balls in EQ. And EQ is the beggest timesink of them all. I don't blame plat buyers and ebay toons one single bit. There's a market for these services for a reason.

[Isk]

I blame em 100%. I don't care if you get behind in content, if RL comes up, whatever. if that's the case, play more or find another game. diluting the economy - even on an infinitesimal individual level - weakens the game for everyone else. if you wanna cheat, find an offline single player game or load up an EQ emulator.

[Haass]

I blame em 100%. I don't care if you get behind in content, if RL comes up, whatever. if that's the case, play more or find another game. diluting the economy - even on an infinitesimal individual level - weakens the game for everyone else.

That's right, if you don't have 24 hours a day to devote to gaming, get the fuck off my server bitch! Fuckin noobs.

[unclebong]

The more I work IRL and the less I get to play MMOs, the more I hate people who view this topic with such a narrow mind. Given the prevalence of timesinks, frustrating mechanics, and the dependance of older MMOs on grind mechanics, coupled with newer content almost always only released for the top end players. If you don't make it near the end of an expansion, before the next comes out you will be ill-prepared for the newest content. This is a given. Given that the majority of players stay near the end of the games content, and mechanics that require you to depend on other players, it is in youe best interest to stay near the top too.
well, you can hate me or people who think like me all you want, it is still cheating. If the game only realeases content for the players with the highest amount of playtime, maybe you're playing the wrong kind of game.

[Vikken]

I blame em 100%. I don't care if you get behind in content, if RL comes up, whatever. if that's the case, play more or find another game. diluting the economy - even on an infinitesimal individual level - weakens the game for everyone else. if you wanna cheat, find an offline single player game or load up an EQ emulator.

See now thats a thing that most people don't seem to understand. MMOs are not just for playing 100 hours a week. Single players do not offer the same game experience as an MMO. Personally, I'm not a big social type person. I don't play MMOs strictly to play with other peeps. Best scenario for me as far as groups go, is that I need something, you need something, we complete it together. I could do it by myself, and it is possible to do so, but it is faster to do it together.

EQ2 got this right by accident. I would be in some zone doing a quest, being the quest whore I am, and someone else comes along and is doing the same quest, we join forces and make things easier for ourselves. Most of the time, I wouldn't even have to share quest drops, as they were automatic quest updates, so no rolling or tension involved, just killing and clicking and whatnot. Good stuff happened. We both get our quest objectives without stepping on each other's toes, and ended up helping each other out by making it faster for the both of us. WoW did this too with thier autoupdate quest drops, but both still included dropped quest tiems too and those were just a return to the old, who gets loot pain in the ass stuff that made auto updates so fun. Thankfully, most quests, even important ones, used auto update. I wish all games would just drop the whole looted quest updates altogether, but thats another story altogether.

Anyways, back on point, I play because I like the games, not because I happen to have a lot of time to waste, or have a sadistic self hating complex that makes me want to deprive myself of the reward.

Single players games are by and large, simplistic also. They lack the complexity and nuance of even the most mundane MMOs. They often have short progression and run out of content long before I'm finish with the gameplay itself. Take Halflife2 for instance. I loved the game, but it was entirely too short. there simply wasn't enough content to explore and defeat. Not only that I payed 60 odd dollars for it. I played it maybe, 10-12 hours before I had exhasted it completely on the hardest setting. (single player games are always played on hardest to make it last longer.) I can't stand Counter strike and the like (not tactical enough for my taste).

So, I'm left with MMOs for the most part, due to the ammount of content contained within, the complexity of play and the sense of progression they provide.

I'm a gamer, I play all sorts of games. MMOs are by far the most enjoyable for me. I loved zelda for many of the reasons I love MMOs. Progression. You start out a noob and end up badass. Theres plenty of content to explore. The game is long enough to justify the cost. I play many RPG type games for these same reasons.

I do like to play with others though. I love cooperative play. I play my offline games this way, Halo, goldeneye, mariocart, etc, if it is offered and I have someone available to play with.

There's also the issue of persitance. I like the fact that I can log in from anywhere and start right where i left off. I like the fact that things change while I'm not playing. It makes the game more real.

Also tell me how it is cheating if the game supports it. Tell me how it dilutes the economy when the resource transaction is zero sum. How does my actions weaken the game for you. The developers and your actions alone determine the game for you, not me. Surely things most things are related, but how can you sit there and tell me how to play, whilest playing the way that you like.

I smell the stinch of elitism, and it is not pleasant.

[Flair]

if that's the case, play more or find another game.

I got CIV 4 for xmas...hard to believe but more addicting that any MMORG!

Heh I am avoiding the ethical argument about E-toons (or "test tube" warriors as I used call em)...its clear that they are the cock-roach of MMORG...right or wrong they are almost impossible to kill and probably be around as long as the games are.

As far as detection: I have to qualify my opinion. In EQ2 it is incredibly easy to use a key board Macro program to automate tradeskills (that combined with buying a tradeskill station in your house etc makes it almost impossible to ctach peeps doin it). SOE knows about the problem but did nothing (still hasnt 1+ year later). In a game where real economics/scarcity of goods matters (tradeskilled goods are paramount) this is a death blow and one of the reasons I stopped playing.

[Brabble]

What I want is a service that would allow me to turn in no drop/no trade gear to an NPC in exchange for RL coupons that SOE would mail to me and that I could use to buy beer.

[Haass]

When MMO's find a way to reward skill instead of time invested, you'll see this issue go away.

Until then, I see zero issues with buying gold or anything else. Fuck timesinks. Right in their stupid ass.

[unclebong]

It most certainly is not cheating when the game lets you do it. I guess old EQ changed the rules again. Not that I blame em much. If you cant beat em, join em.

For my playtime I'd rather play a luck based dice game than something more akin to one of these "keep buying more card packs till you get your uber card" Magic the Gathering type games.
What I want is a service that would allow me to turn in no drop/no trade gear to an NPC in exchange for RL coupons that SOE would mail to me and that I could use to buy beer.
I'd sure be playing EQ again lol

[Mady]

What I want is a service that would allow me to turn in no drop/no trade gear to an NPC in exchange for RL coupons that SOE would mail to me and that I could use to buy beer.

Damn straight, what he said.

[Isk]

hell yes I'm an elitist, always have been. to me it's much better than gradually hurting the economy of every MMO I choose to play. YAY make existing timesinks even worse! brilliant idea.

Guild Wars? wasn't for me. DAoC? didn't care for it. City of Heroes? got bored within a week. so I moved on. I didn't try to circumvent the intent of the developers because I didn't have the free time or the inclination to do it right, and I don't plan on doing so in the future.

I realize that MMOs offer rewards that no other games do. the price is timesinks. I do not advocate exhaustive, mindnumbing timesinks, but I accept that a certain level of monotony is the nature of the genre. this whole "play the game your way" attitude is a selfish crock because other players are affected.

when your RL stuff is negatively affected, yeah, time to step away. no way should you be playing so much that you don't, like, take care of business.

[Vikken]

Tell me how using a legit service (station exchange) is hurting the game and I'll be able to understand it better. Player A sells item on RL auction, player buys item for RL cash, zero sum. PLayer A sells plat for RL cash, Player B buys plat for RL cash, zero sum. The function removes as much as it gives, resulting in zero loss or gain, zero sum.

I can see how it may provide RL motivation for some players to farm and camp rare spawns. Then again, that's just how the game has always worked.

The thing I wanted to impress most is that maybe it isn't so bad or wrong for a player to play the game he likes on the schedule he likes, and not worry about hideous timesinks like LDoN/DoN, rare spawns, rare loot drops, faction farming, tradeskill farming, etc. Things that actually detract from the basic premise of the game, the grouping dynamic. I say dynamic, because there are so many factors already involved in the characters themselves that make up the group without adding the destraction of who needs to farm crystals, who needs faction, or which members can play together well because thier gear is equivalent. All these factors separate the players into strata of progression and objective that make even grouping itself tedious and frustrating itself.

This isn't talking about the basic combat tactic required. This isn't talking about levels. We aren't including talking about the player ability to communicate with each other well. We aren't including the myriad of adjustments that groups must make to incluse required classes like with clerics or finding good CC or slow that will work with the group.

Put together a group of players at the same level. 1 war, 1 clr, 1 shm, 1 wiz, 1 rogue, 1 enc. Now have them at all different levels of progression and see how many of them want or able to do the same thing.

You want your elitist crap? I dare say that it will eventually destroy the game.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that EQ is your first major MMO. I'm also going to say that it is your longest played MMO. Its like eating cake all your life and never realizing that you can eat pie, or even trying pie and saying that all pie is crap. I dare say you've haven't given pie a chance. If there is one common thread, it is that player hate change.

They want others to feel the pain they did when they camped ragefire for months. They want others to have to have to grind faction. They want others to camp rare drops. They want it because they had to do it. It has nothing to do with what is good for the game. It has nothing to do MMOs requiring timesinks. It all has to do with, "thats what I had to do, and by god, thats what you'll have to do". It has nothing to do with fun and everything to do with ego.

Shik, you are a conditioned EQ'er. You are so used to how EQ rewards that there exists no other possible way for things to behave.

(I'm not attacking you BTW, just discussing my observations.)

[unclebong]

I think its more about changing the rules this late in the game from where you earn things with your time and lucky dice to where you can earn things with your real life wallet. My own RL finances shouldnt be a factor on whether or not I can get ahead in a game. That pretty much kills the seperation between the fantasy world and the real world.

I never would have picked EQ up in the first place had it been like that but it wasnt, it was more like an old school text MUD with pretty pictures. Everybody started the same and if you got ahead, its because you earned it with your dice and your time. But perhaps that game is loooong gone and the notion of a level in-game playing field is the fantasy.

[Haass]

My own RL finances shouldnt be a factor on whether or not I can get ahead in a game.

And I would contend that certain people's obvious lack of employment status shouldn't affect their's.

Come on, there's no cheating involved here. MMO's only have timesinks. That's it, anything else, you're kidding yourself. So what's the difference if you devote your time to it, or you pay someone else to devote their time to it? Answer = Not a goddamned thing. Everyone could do it if they had the time. It doesn't make you better at the game, it doesn't make anyone else worse. It all comes down to time. And the time is invested by someone..just not necessarily you.

[unclebong]

And I would contend that certain people's obvious lack of employment status shouldn't affect their's.
I think we're saying pretty much the same thing here if you take the 'time is money' point of view.
Come on, there's no cheating involved here.
then why are (or maybe I should say were) they shutting down accounts for buying/selling ingame items? It may not be cheating now, but it was cheating for a long time.
MMO's only have timesinks. That's it, anything else, you're kidding yourself. So what's the difference if you devote your time to it, or you pay someone else to devote their time to it? Answer = Not a goddamned thing. Everyone could do it if they had the time. It doesn't make you better at the game, it doesn't make anyone else worse. It all comes down to time. And the time is invested by someone..just not necessarily you.
Agreed that mmo's only have timesinks. All games are mearly timesinks. Whats the difference between playing through the game vs. buying your way though it? Simple: you didnt earn it. You bought it. And most likely you'll be a worthless player to play with cause you never learned the basics. Kinda like earning money versus being given money IRL. ; )

[Isk]

EQ was my first MMO. I stopped playing a few years ago. since then I've played several. WoW is what I play now.

I am not conditioned towards timesinks. I realize that they are not good. I'm not sure I'll play an MMO that is more time-consuming than WoW. Vanguard's premise of a return to Ye Olde EQ Days bores me. I don't want that. I don't want difficult corpse runs, or long travel times, or attritiously slow leveling periods. that's why I'm not gonna play Vanguard. that's why I don't play EQ anymore. that's why I didn't play WoW for a few months, because I wasn't sure I wanted to take the leap from Strath/UBRS to MC and beyond.

many people who excel in MMOs are unemployed, yeah. lots are self-employed like me - we live comfortably yet we have a lot of free time, so MMOs work for us. lots just know how to balance their lives.

the difference between spending the time on x timesink and buying your way through it with RL cash is that the latter dilutes and inflates the in-game economy. after a while it takes more money to buy the same stuff. certain timesinks get worse and worse. I won't even touch on morality or legality - these are subjective, gray-area issues.

if it's authorized in game, whatever, it's their call. I choose not to play that game.

[Vikken]

then why are (or maybe I should say were) they shutting down accounts for buying/selling ingame items? It may not be cheating now, but it was cheating for a long time.

Because other people are making a profit off the unauthorized sale of thier intelectual property?

What is comes down to is that one side with lots of free times wants a game where they can accell by by maximizing thier advantage, time. The others side, with the extra cash that employment brings, want to use thier money to maximize thier advantage, money. Niether is wrong for doing so, or wanting to, I think. Depriving the other side from the choice is a little less clear.

Whos advantage is inherently right? Who decides? There are few here that don't equate time with money. So, who gets to the decide who gets you use thier currency to get better in the game, time holders or money holders?

You can hardly tell me that a fair game is one where one player gets to use thier advantage, while the other does not.

Some games institue handicaps for players who excel to make the game more fun and challenging for the better players. If the same could hold true for EQ, what kind of handicap are we talking about?

There are several ways to think about thie problem, and I do think it a problem, because new content is based on what the average player does. You get too far out of average and the game gets exceedingly difficult. Or content gets hard to design, increasing cost and lowering quality or quantity, because you have to design it for wider and wider variety of players.

So, anyways, you can think about it, you could limite play time, or institue penalties for longer play times. You could boost drop rates, character power, and/or experience rates for those with limited play time (EQ2 vitality, WoW rested status, EQ vet xp AA). You could sell experience, gear, or other in-game advantages and deprive players with longer playtimes/week of doing the same (hasn't been done but it really is the only 2 prong solution, and best one of this type). You could separate the players from each other based on playstyle (EQ2 exchange servers), or you could make character advancement completely time dependant (woot, eve online does this, shameless plug) and in doing so remove nearly the whole problem altogether.

I think it is an interesting topic.

[Haass]

Whats the difference between playing through the game vs. buying your way though it? Simple: you didnt earn it. You bought it. And most likely you'll be a worthless player to play with cause you never learned the basics. Kinda like earning money versus being given money IRL. ; )

I will buy gold for every epic mount for my characters as they hit 60. When I can make enough cash in a few hours of work to fund 800g, and I'm essentially losing money in the game as my warrior gains more purples, it's assinine not to.

Doing so, takes money from the economy and effectively sinks it. The money goes nowhere except it poofs. There is no inflation, there is no dilution.

Furthermore, an epic has zero impact on my skill, except it lets me run down the people who need to be run down. You effectively NEED a 100% mount if you plan on doing anything competitively at 60, I'm sure everyone who's spent enough time in BG's can tell you this.

Feel free to farm 800g. I know it would take far too much of my RL time to be worth the effort. I'll spend a few bucks and get back to enjoying the game.

[Gunnar]

I blame em 100%. I don't care if you get behind in content, if RL comes up, whatever. if that's the case, play more or find another game. diluting the economy - even on an infinitesimal individual level - weakens the game for everyone else. if you wanna cheat, find an offline single player game or load up an EQ emulator.

I agree with Isk. The whole point in playing a game is to play it, not to buy the results of someone else's playtime. I'm kinda surprised that some folks here don't see the obvious lack of integrity involved... in a game yet:rolleyes:

What kind of lesson does this teach kids? God the young applicants I've dealt with that were so hung up on gear and progression. Imo this is very unethical if for no other reason consideraton for those younger, or, emotionally involved players.

Kinda ridiculous, buy a game to play so you can buy your way through it. Good deal for SOE tho.

[Isk]

Doing so, takes money from the economy and effectively sinks it. The money goes nowhere except it poofs. There is no inflation, there is no dilution.
hah. if it's easier to get gold - say 800g for working a few hours' time - the value of gold relative to items drops. sure, some of it is vendored, as it is in your case with an epic mount, but at least as much is simply exchanged between players.

my server has a noticeable prescence of farmers. they tend to sell items high so they get the most gold per epic, so they get paid more (or get paid longer) IRL. if there was no market for Yantis and similar sites, the value of gold would be higher.

[unclebong]

Because other people are making a profit off the unauthorized sale of thier intelectual property?
True. Seems like they could have RIAA'd those sites if they really cared that much but I wonder if they need something like this Station Exchange for that to really work.
What is comes down to is that one side with lots of free times wants a game where they can accell by by maximizing thier advantage, time. The others side, with the extra cash that employment brings, want to use thier money to maximize thier advantage, money. Niether is wrong for doing so, or wanting to, I think. Depriving the other side from the choice is a little less clear.

Whos advantage is inherently right? Who decides? There are few here that don't equate time with money. So, who gets to the decide who gets you use thier currency to get better in the game, time holders or money holders?
Time holders versus money holders. Good way to put it. Now if you take the time is money point of view, they're pretty much equal. Both have an excess amount of their advantage and a willingness to spend on their brand of entertainment. Neither should be rewarded for their advantage in a game but both sides sure do feel entitled to it.

The guys n gals who put out the game decide which advantages they'll give the players and which ones they wont within the confines of their own game. The players do not. Nor should they really. When deciding on how to reward time spent playing their game, I'd much rather they use a measure that is constant amongst all players over one that is not. No matter how much money one may make in an hour, the clock wont tick by any faster.

[Steenky]

What I want is a service that would allow me to turn in no drop/no trade gear to an NPC in exchange for RL coupons that SOE would mail to me and that I could use to buy beer.

I'd open my account again just to use this service!

[Vikken]

I agree with Isk. The whole point in playing a game is to play it, not to buy the results of someone else's playtime. I'm kinda surprised that some folks here don't see the obvious lack of integrity involved... in a game yet:rolleyes:

What kind of lesson does this teach kids? God the young applicants I've dealt with that were so hung up on gear and progression. Imo this is very unethical if for no other reason consideraton for those younger, or, emotionally involved players.

Kinda ridiculous, buy a game to play so you can buy your way through it. Good deal for SOE tho.

You are missing at certain critical point though. Thats there are activities in the game that reward players with lots of playtime more than players that don't. Its not a cheating thing, its a "get me back to the fun stuff" thing.

The player without a lot of game time eventually falls behind his friends and/or new content curve when the pace is being set by players with bucketloads of time to spend in game.

For instance, say a new expansion comes out that requires a certain AC or a certain ammount of AA and all the new kiddies flock to it, as often happens when a new expansion comes out. Older content, the content that the time restricted player is still relying on for progression, is left abandoned. Look at LDoN. Do you have a good idea of how long it would take for me to gring enough LDoN points for agro procs? I certainly don't, the mear thought is inconceivable to me. So anyways, say that new expansion comes out and you, being time restricted, have fallen behind, how do you catch up if everyone is doing the new "fun" stuff and you are left /lfg. How is that even playing the game.

Its hard enough playing catch up when you have nearly unlimited playtime like I did when I first started. I can't imagine doing so now with my schedule. The game is made to be played with other players. When your character capabilities fall behind the lastest expansion inflation, then you got serious problem. Not only do you strictly have a less powerful charcter comparitively, but in a saturated environment of more viable choices, who are they going to pick. The 6k tank? or the 10k tank?

Or would you just rather all those people left the game? Should the developers start designing content with even more variety of character power in mind? Do they even have the budget to do so? Should the developers just start giving away stuff to help the players catch up?

When new expansions come out, they nearly always offer a lower level quest or loot tables that have high risk vs reward returns for lower geared peeps. The harcore always complain that the developers are giving away stuff for free, while they themselves had to earn it. How much of an uproar did the fully augged LDoN sets make when they were first released? DoN cultural? Monster missions? Event drops? All these these things are designed to help lower end players play catch up. Not everyone agrees that they should do this either and it is the root of the problem with the time vs money argument.

With a show of hands, how many here would like everyone that plays the game to have to go through all the previous content progression before moving on to the next? Kael>SS>VT>PoP>GoD>OoW>DoN...

My guess is that most will say no when it is put that way, but that isn't the attitude that you get when we talk about minor things to skip content/grind like expansion goodies or buying plat.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I can't see a single argument against it. They stay on their own server how does that effect anyone else?

Even though I leveled all my guys from level 1 I could really care less if someone bought their toon (I mean whats changed 70pecent of established toons on Zek are on their 3rd or 4th owner).

Vetern rewards are the same thing. I bought a 2 year subscription on my new toons just to get the lessons AA - I can level 2 times as fast with it if I only level 1/2 hour a day. No one seems to complain about that.

There are 5 guilds ahead of me on zek right now, if there were 8 or 10 would it make any difference to me. Doubt it. There are so so many zones in the game now that its not hard to find an empty one. Not to mention instances.

Also there is no way some guy new to the game with his brand new 400AA level 70 toon is going to even stand 1 in 1000 possibilty to beat me at pvp (considering I have 18 toons) ... lol.


I spend 2 hours a day reading the forums for all the classes I play to get strats and what not down, you can't buy that kind of knowledge (green pet pulling for mages is my new research thing lol).

Any of you established players should feel not the slightest threat from these ebayers even if they came to your server.

More people in the game, more possible victims for me is how I look at it.

[Flair]

I can't see a single argument against it. They stay on their own server how does that effect anyone else?

Yeah thats the key as long as its contained its no big deal (and actually serves as an incentive/magnet for the kinda folks who like to buy stuff).

The key concern would be if they ever relaxed that containment; expanded service to non $$$ (hah I like that red/blue$$ dollar servers) and/or allowed peeps to transfer back to non $$ dollar servers.

[Avallach Whitewinds]

True. Seems like they could have RIAA'd those sites if they really cared that much but I wonder if they need something like this Station Exchange for that to really work.

That's something that occurred to me a while back. They're setting a legal precedent here for suing the crap out of Yantis. Yantis is now selling something that SOE acknowledges has real world monetary value... and SOE owns every bit (literally) of it. From what a friend of mine on EQ2 says (2nd hand knowledge I know), the Exchange servers haven't really made an impact on the number of botters or "ebayers" on his server.

I don't really care one way or the other, as long as they keep the Exchange servers "quarantined" as it were. When they start allowing transfers back to non-Exchange servers then I'll have a serious problem.

[Flair]

Interesting article in BBC today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4543212.stm

Kinda related..mostly old hat to MMORG vets but its interesting that peeps are starting to use some the techniques used in the late 19th century; cornering markets/manipulating prices etc.

[Flair]

From what a friend of mine on EQ2 says (2nd hand knowledge I know), the Exchange servers haven't really made an impact on the number of botters or "ebayers" on his server.

Yeah yer friend is right man. The problem with EQ2 is it is designed to have tradeskills be paramount; I guess the best EQ1 allegory is if the best non-raid armor was created by players.

The problem is it is incredibly easy to setup a keyboard macro with 500 fuel/raw materials etc all and hit repeat until done within the confines of your own house (a pocket zone you can restrict access to so noone will wander by and discover you) and tada you are a lvl 60 weaponsmith/armorer whatever. This has crushed the game as it completely wrecks the orginal intent (timesink doesnt exist). So while $$$ servers have moved some of the Botting etc it hasnt solved the core issues with teh game.

With EQ1 you have a completely different animal, the game mechanics, rewards and motivations are completely different.

[Avallach Whitewinds]

Once users get used to seeing items listed for very high prices, Mr Tabony then puts up lots of that item priced way below the high point.

Players snap these up because they look cheap though in fact they may be paying much more than they need to.

Heh I benefited indirectly from this when I was selling tradeskill items I had farmed a while back. The going price in the bazaar was ludicrous, so I put them up for 1/2 of ludicrous (which was only ridiculously high) and made money in a hurry. I have no idea if the folks setting the high prices were tryin to use this scheme or not, but it worked for me. :P

[Jearom]

That's something that occurred to me a while back. They're setting a legal precedent here for suing the crap out of Yantis. Yantis is now selling something that SOE acknowledges has real world monetary value... and SOE owns every bit (literally) of it.
I think this will be an interesting court case if SOE decides to pursue it. Most of you may not remember it but during the late 80s and early 90s when the EULAs started coming out there was some crazy language in them. There were a lot of law suits and the end users always won.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I see this more as an attack on playerauctions and sites like that. They get a cut and if SOE provides those services they can get their cut. It could also provide them with an other tool to see where large transfers of money were occuring and allow them to watch for exploits. Apparently people who get ripped off in deals petition so if SOE overs sees it they could reduce the number of fradulent transactions and help reduce their petition queue.

Either way I do not think it will have much impact on my game play. Except for the occasional spell I buy for twinks all I buy in the bazaar is stat food and drink.

[Gunnar]

You are missing at certain critical point though. Thats there are activities in the game that reward players with lots of playtime more than players that don't. Its not a cheating thing, its a "get me back to the fun stuff" thing.

The player without a lot of game time eventually falls behind his friends and/or new content curve when the pace is being set by players with bucketloads of time to spend in game.

For instance, say a new expansion comes out that requires a certain AC or a certain ammount of AA and all the new kiddies flock to it, as often happens when a new expansion comes out. Older content, the content that the time restricted player is still relying on for progression, is left abandoned. Look at LDoN. Do you have a good idea of how long it would take for me to gring enough LDoN points for agro procs? I certainly don't, the mear thought is inconceivable to me. So anyways, say that new expansion comes out and you, being time restricted, have fallen behind, how do you catch up if everyone is doing the new "fun" stuff and you are left /lfg. How is that even playing the game.

Its hard enough playing catch up when you have nearly unlimited playtime like I did when I first started. I can't imagine doing so now with my schedule. The game is made to be played with other players. When your character capabilities fall behind the lastest expansion inflation, then you got serious problem. Not only do you strictly have a less powerful charcter comparitively, but in a saturated environment of more viable choices, who are they going to pick. The 6k tank? or the 10k tank?

Or would you just rather all those people left the game? Should the developers start designing content with even more variety of character power in mind? Do they even have the budget to do so? Should the developers just start giving away stuff to help the players catch up?



No, I didn't miss that point Vikken, it's kind of obvious don't you think?

Tons of hobbies require huge time investments, friends don't always get to play together at the same level. In EQ it's actually pretty easy for your friends to to gve you a helping hand comparatively. Just because it's not easy doesn't mean players should buy an easy way out.

Is this the solution for any player who fails to achieve what he desires from playing the game? To buy that achievement? It's a game, purchasing game advancement with real life cash is not playing the game. You're buying someone else's achievements and gameplay.

The number of young enthusiastic players I've met who are highly focused on character progression leaves me feeling this is a highly unethical route for SOE to take. Not just in terms of sacrficing the integrity of their game, but, in their lack of concern for portions of their playerbase. It's teaching a bad lesson. You really don't see the hypocrisy in a game developer selling you the rights to play a game then offering to sell you advancement in that same game?

It's no where near impossible for you to work your way up Vikken. Lots of players do it. Gunnar duoed for 80 percent of his xp on Stromm to level cap. A large chunk of what was left was done in small groups. If you want to level up you can do it, you don't have to buy your way there.

If the game is too demanding for some folks, then yes they are better off gone now, before they begin to pay to advance their characters. I'd bet you would not feel good about it in the end. Where will it stop anyways? Everytime you fal behind you'll pay more money to buy stuff other players earn in game? It makes a joke of the actual gameplay, your character and anything you acheive with it in game.

The precedent being set here by SOE holds further potential problems for the genre. I'm not sure what i will do in EQ. However, if they continue to support this $ for game advancement crap I won't be buying future SOE products beyond EQ. It disgusts me tbh.

[Tybor]

who has the sig with the line; arguing on the internet is like the special olympics.......;

this thread reminds me of that~

happy new year all

[Gunnar]

When new expansions come out, they nearly always offer a lower level quest or loot tables that have high risk vs reward returns for lower geared peeps. The harcore always complain that the developers are giving away stuff for free, while they themselves had to earn it. How much of an uproar did the fully augged LDoN sets make when they were first released? DoN cultural? Monster missions? Event drops? All these these things are designed to help lower end players play catch up. Not everyone agrees that they should do this either and it is the root of the problem with the time vs money argument.

With a show of hands, how many here would like everyone that plays the game to have to go through all the previous content progression before moving on to the next? Kael>SS>VT>PoP>GoD>OoW>DoN...

My guess is that most will say no when it is put that way, but that isn't the attitude that you get when we talk about minor things to skip content/grind like expansion goodies or buying plat.

This is a different argument.

Personally, I do not like the devaluing of old content through better rvr in new content at the same level of progression. I think it's dumb. However, that's the game designers bag. I don't see it as unethical. I'd rather not confuse the issue by mixing it in hehe.

[Gunnar]

Hehe, just talking to my wife about it...

She says on that note we should sell memberships to and gear from the guild:rolleyes:

[Vikken]

The reason why mentioned progression is because it is related to the problem, and in fact the main driving force behind the issue. Buying your progression is a way to aleviate these problems.

Can't fight in zone_a because your gear is too poor? But more gear/plat for gear from players with more time than money. Can't get into zone_b because it requires a raid drop that you simply don't have the time to do the 4-5 hours it takes to do it in a pick-up group? Buy the tradable key from a player with more time than money.

Keep in mind, I don't like the idea of doing these things in principle. Practicality has always been the method for smart decision making though.

These games shouldn't require these types of questions to be answered, but they do. They shouldnt include timesinks to simulate challenge, and/or to keep content development ahead of content consumption. A developer shouldn't be required to always add to the top tier of content, but they are. They shouldn't have to constantly measure player progression and consumptions rate to know how to piss the least amount of the players off, but they have to do it.

The game itself progresses at a certain rate. Given time, what was hard, will later be easy. What was uber will be gimp. Progressing too slowly is the same as deleveling, inaction is the same as gimping your character. Its called database deflation. Everyone is always in a state of decline, unless progressing. Given enough time, your character will not even be able to function in the current game.

We as players see this all the time, but we fail to reconize it for what it is, evil. Another player progressing, while my character stays the same is not just a jealous reaction, it is because my character is becoming less powerful by inaction, the same as if I were to slowly take off my gear and lose levels and AA.

Developers design for the majority, they also design for inflation. This means that new content is harder than it is supposed to be to make up for the fact that will later be gimp because of players better gear/aa/levels/tactics. This means that if you slightly below average, now the newest content can and will possibly be well out of reach.

Content that a given player may have paid good money for could be useless for some time until inflation or his own progression makes the content possible. In a multiplayer environment where grouping is required, being behind is a very bad place to be.

Lets look at levels for instance:

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=906&stc=1&d=1135991807 Courtesy http://www.raphkoster.com/

This is a level distribution chart. It shows how many players are at a given level in the game. It looks this way for nearly every vanila favored level based MMO that has matured. You know this also by taking a /who all x, from 1 to 70. Nearly all the players are at 70. Then comes the alts and abandoned characters that finally trick down till you get to the highest levels thenit quickly ramps back up in numbers.

In an MMO that requires group support, your hardest levels are those preceeding max level. Being behind just behind the curve is the worst place to be in the game. Its not just psycological, you simply have less people in which to engage group appropriate content with.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that gear progression works the same way to a lesser extent. Someone geared just behnd the curve of the "designed for" goals of the content is going to have a much harder time than someone riding it.

You want some more information from an industry expert, go to http://www.raphkoster.com/?p=214 and read up. Its about levels specificly, but some of the information is useful for other topics. It is 2 parts, I suggest you read both if you are interested.

I know I disgress, but I think its interesting how so few player acknowledge this phenomenon (difficulty curve related to player populations) when discussing problems with the game.

[Gunnar]

I agree with some of the logistical concerns you mentioned Vikken. Many are challenges for the game designers to deal with I'm sure. I don't agree personally with speeding up late comers in a game like EQ. I almost quit after my first 6 months or so because I realized i was farming plat to buy other peoples crap instead of adventuring for my loot. I came to the old TSW and read what folks had done before and I felt cheated. I wanted to work through a game where what I did in the field made sense to my characters progression. The old quests and mobs were trash compared to higher level player cast offs. I wanted to go through the same kinds of challenges they did.

Luckily they opned Stromm around this time. Doing all the older stuff was fun and rewarding on a new server. I still didn't have a large pool of players near my level so I duoed and small grouped a lot. That hurt when they added the group xp mods and kite groups caught up and sailed past hehe. Still the quests and hunting loot were better than the stuff that was beginning to trickle into the bazaar. By the time the Bazaar was rolling we were in mostly NO DROP gear. I still run through the bazaar about twice a year. It had little to do with Gunnar on stromm though, thankfully.

Idon't agree with some of SOE's game design decisions. Sometimes, because I lead a guild in EQ I even get minor headaches over them hehe. Still, it's a game and i wouldn't call the addition of progression content in any way innately evil. I think if you begin to feel that way it's time to step back and take a look at your hobby, whatever it is.

If folks can't be principled in something as easy as game, then I dunno what to say. I don't want to play with them though. SOE has an obligation to conduct their game with integrity, or, make of it a joke. They have an obligation to their wide playerbase to not lead them down that path of pewp, of buying achievement in a game they've already purchased.

Of course SOE will do what they like regardless of what I think. I just want future games to come with a big stamp on them, clearly proclaiming their stance on this kind of stuff. I'll leave those games on the shelf and hope not too many people get suckered.

[Vikken]

It would be interesting to test if scaling the difficulty of rewards as an inverse of that chart would eleviate some of the problems.

Making mobs hit points dynamic based on database farming. The less players at your level, the less hitpoints, less damage, etc the mobs will have at that level. The more twinked each level on average is the harder the content is. Its a hack I know, because we don't address the root of the problem only its results, but it would be interesting to see this in action.

If done properly, the lowest levels would be just as hard as the highest levels. Difficult throughout the game would stay relatvely the same. Some mobs could be innately more difficult by a base multiplier, some movs, like trash could be less difficult by a base multiplier. This gives you variety and you could have a standard deviatation that is wide enough to make it fairly unpredictable. The challenges might stay the samr though the basic difficulty is the same. At the lower levels mobs have less hitpoints based on level populations and even non-solo classes could find something to do in group-less environment. At the higher levels, where content difficulty is ramped up due to bazaar trickle down and more peeps to play with it gets more group centric, and finally ending at MAX level where things are very group dependant, and bazaar farming is coming to an end for many players.

Just talking out the ass here. I'm not suggesting anything about EQ speciificly, though I think it is a good canidate. With a good script you could probably run through the EQ mob database fairly quickly. Move it to test, where low population is a big probem anyways and see how it works. If anything they should like the change.

I'm a whatif kinda guy though, so I know others are going to absolutely hate the idea, even if the goal is to maintain difficulty of the game as it was intended rather than let decay over time and mitigate extenuating circumstances that the leveling process creates (level distribution, twinking) from affecting the basic difficulty of the game.

EDIT: This is already happening manually by the devs at higher levels, in this case 50-70, by the devs introducing better risk-rewards like the examples I provided in a previos post. The only difference is that this system is automatic and the devs can focus on making content and addressing other problems, and lower levels player reap the same beneift that a max level guilded highly progressed guild does.

The biggest problem I see to this is that high level players will still want others to have to go through the same problems they did. The thing I see is that this a bug in the basic game design that needs to be fixed.

[Hassan]

Furthermore, an epic has zero impact on my skill, except it lets me run down the people who need to be run down. You effectively NEED a 100% mount if you plan on doing anything competitively at 60, I'm sure everyone who's spent enough time in BG's can tell you this.



Depends on your class, I play a Warlock and we love fearing/deathcoiling, dotting (if you're specced properly for the stun chances) mounted players, makes it easier to kill them.

Even better is when you have a Succubus out. Charm the mounted player, then fear them. They won't be able to dismount until the charm breaks, giving you that much more distance, which is a lifesaver when you're facing Warriors, as they have to orient themselves and close the distance gap, usually suffering hundreds of points per tic in DOT damage.

I still use my 60% Felsteed, because to date I haven't needed anything else.

I don't play a Warrior in WoW though, so maybe Warriors do need Epic steeds to do anything competative. Since I hit 60 though, I've done nothing but BGs in what little time I have to play (maybe less than a month since I hit 60), it hasn't impeded my progress or ability at all as a Warlock.

Heck, the faster the steed, the worse it is keeping your pet under control and in range too :(

[Greyfin]

Durka Durka Muhammad Jihad!

Way way late, busy at work this time of the year... off the main topic of this very serious thread to boot. But that made me laugh loudly when I saw it (just recently saw Team America for the first time...). Thanks for the belly laugh ;)

[Macedon]

Gunnar : I agree with pretty much everything he said

Isk : Same

Vikken: Heh.. dude.. lot of long posts ( talking about time sinkage ) but all you do in them is moan and whine how:
- Grinding is boring and waste of time
- Camping gear or rare drops is boring and waste of time and requires help from others
- Buying gear or toons with real $$ is the way to go
-`High lvl toons` are jealous of people that dont bust their ass for gear but buy it on Ebay instead.
I dont think you understand EQ at all my man and I wonder where you find the enjoyment in playing it and why do you play it in first place.

I play this game for many reasons but top 3 would be:
- Team play
- Strategy
- Tanking stuffs

Being a Warrior and member of raiding guild allows me to be involved in all 3.

Now back to Plat farmers , Ebayers , Chinese EQ sweat shops and all that Jazz.. It`s bad. It`s bad and it kills the game for many.

I couldnt care less if you buy your toon or gear or if you bought your whole guild with real cash. Being able to sell plat or gear for real money prevents non raiding TS and Quest loving players to ever finish anything.
Quests are long and hard yes. But put on top of all that a sweat shoper standing 24/7 on spawn point of your quest mob and I can see how someone can get frustrated to the point of quiting the game.
SoE is not able to prevent this so they must have figured .. hey , if someone must make money from this let it be us.
Will this change anything ? I dont think so. The problem will stay the same .

[Vikken]

Vikken: Heh.. dude.. lot of long posts ( talking about time sinkage ) but all you do in them is moan and whine how:
- Grinding is boring and waste of time
- Camping gear or rare drops is boring and waste of time and requires help from others
- Buying gear or toons with real $$ is the way to go
-`High lvl toons` are jealous of people that dont bust their ass for gear but buy it on Ebay instead.
I dont think you understand EQ at all my man and I wonder where you find the enjoyment in playing it and why do you play it in first place.

I play this game for many reasons but top 3 would be:
- Team play
- Strategy
- Tanking stuffs

Being a Warrior and member of raiding guild allows me to be involved in all 3.

Now back to Plat farmers , Ebayers , Chinese EQ sweat shops and all that Jazz.. It`s bad. It`s bad and it kills the game for many.

I couldnt care less if you buy your toon or gear or if you bought your whole guild with real cash. Being able to sell plat or gear for real money prevents non raiding TS and Quest loving players to ever finish anything.
Quests are long and hard yes. But put on top of all that a sweat shoper standing 24/7 on spawn point of your quest mob and I can see how someone can get frustrated to the point of quiting the game.
SoE is not able to prevent this so they must have figured .. hey , if someone must make money from this let it be us.
Will this change anything ? I dont think so. The problem will stay the same .

Lots of posters here don't get me. I don't have an agenda, so its hard to peg me down into a camp. If I was in a camp, it would be casual play in EQ needs work, but thats about a specific, unhelpful, and whining as I think I can get.

I play a lot MMOs because I like the genre. I'm a game fan as well. I'm interested mostly in things that move the genre forward and making better games, specifily massively multiplayer titles because I think they have profound potential in what they can teach us.

I used to be really frustrate with this game. Back when I was in my 50s with my warrior and previously, but to a lesser extent, with my druid. I've seen first hand the dark side of EQ. We've all experienced it some to degree in what forms it may take. My biggest complaint is that players want to impose tedium and frustration on others, simply because they had to go through it.

I've mostly moved past that. When I get frustrated with EQ now. I stop playing. I have better things to do than be tied up in a game I'm not enjoying. I also have several other MMOs that I play as well that provide different types of play akin to playing CS one day and WC3 the next.

We used to not have that choice. For PvE play, EQ used to be the best there was. Now we have WoW. EQ still has the best grouping game. I've said that before. EVE could be that game with a bit of work, and supposedly, it is coming in the next expansion. EQ also has some of the deep progression you will get in a game and loads of content, though most of it is stale and unused.

That siad, you will probably realize that I don't enjoy EQ for the same reason that you do. I do not like raids. In fact I avoid them unless it is personally, and immediately, beneficial to my character. I'll do things like PoP progression raid, beause it'll upgrade my charm for instance.

We've gone off topic, so I'll move back in line.

Unless you missed it, I've already said that I don't like the idea of "buying" progression. I extend that to include playerauctions, bazaar toons, and even expansion including free /claims and increased risk/reward. It cheapens the game. I do however think it is very near the breaking point of nessecity in EQ. The developers have to do something about keeping players playing and introducing new blood at the same time and make it fun. They've been doing this thus far with expansion twinks (DoN cultural, LDoN fully aug'd armor, MM drops). Thye've been conservative and think it is showing. Making the game more casual/new player friendly isn't just about gaining market share either, its about making the game more fun by making it more accessible. If most of the content is at the top, you've got to make the top more accessible.

I don't know how to eleviate these problems, but it is fun to discuss these things, which is why I do it.

On an added note, EQ is not particularly strategic on the character/avatar level, so I'm not so sure I follow your reasoning. Most players never see the strategic element to EQ because it is spread throughout the classes. About the only people that really see strategy is a raid leader.

With my warrior, I have to worry about agro and my position.

Contrast that to, say, EVE where at any moment I have to be aware of my ranges, NPCs abilities, my equip modules, my number of targets, my trageting speed, and my speed and direction, my oppoentents speed and directions, what modules my enemy appears to have equipped, and my objective and how they relate to each other. Suprisingly, most fights are even very hands off too, even though there is a lot going on. You'' understand why I don't find EQ particularly strategic. Hell, WoW is more strategic than EQ.

So anyways, I've gone everywhere I shouldn't have with this post, but I'll leave it at that becuase it is late. A whiner and critic are separate things. I'd like to think I've stayed the latter of those two for the most part.

[Haass]

Depends on your class, I play a Warlock and we love fearing/deathcoiling, dotting (if you're specced properly for the stun chances) mounted players, makes it easier to kill them.

Even better is when you have a Succubus out. Charm the mounted player, then fear them. They won't be able to dismount until the charm breaks, giving you that much more distance, which is a lifesaver when you're facing Warriors, as they have to orient themselves and close the distance gap, usually suffering hundreds of points per tic in DOT damage.

I still use my 60% Felsteed, because to date I haven't needed anything else.

I don't play a Warrior in WoW though, so maybe Warriors do need Epic steeds to do anything competative. Since I hit 60 though, I've done nothing but BGs in what little time I have to play (maybe less than a month since I hit 60), it hasn't impeded my progress or ability at all as a Warlock.

Heck, the faster the steed, the worse it is keeping your pet under control and in range too :(


Hehe, apparantly the people you fight haven't learned to dismount either. Probably 60% of the people I kill in WOW overall die running away, mounted or otherwise. And I play on a PvP server.

But yeah, due to the way warrior's work, Charge + Intercept aren't always real reliable for getting mounted people locked down. It's really bad if it's in a crowded area, Charge/intercept sometimes won't even put you in the same zip code. The only way I get a 2nd chance is with an epic. There's a lot of other reasons too, but the main ones are just being able to run people down when they resist your charges (Funny how damned near everyone does that nowadays too..can't remember the last time i resisted a stun).

[Jexis]

Very interesting discussion on the subject. In my opinion it's all about business models.

For e.g., regarding"players with money" vs. "players with time":

Some of the early text-based online multiple-players rpgs on GEnie and Compuserve used to charge by the hour. As I recall it was like $6 an hour during evenings, and $12 an hour during daylight hours. Then TSN (anyone remembers the Sierra Network? :D brought the cost down to $125 a month for unlimited hours of play. Finally, it all became like $12 for a month of unlimited hours! Well, the business models turned out to have drastic impact on the player community. When games cost $6 an hour, it was the richest players who dominated the top end of the game. I remember at least two CEOs being top players. And I (being a poor kid at the time) wanted to see game cost brought down so people would be on "a leveled play ground". Now it's the other way around! People who work and have money don't have time. In general, (not to offend people) richer adult players used bigger vocabulary even though they could be as childish as the poorer players. But in-game atmosphere did deterioate when a lot of 13-year-olds with a ton of time after school got out at 3 p.m. became top players that controled the game world.

I always loved EQ for being a massive game where you didn't need to be rich to reach the top. But lately things have definitely soured. Mmm.. KS was an old problem, but now I find myself surrounded by farmers. Worse yet, dupers have ruined the economy. When the business model favors poor people with a ton of time, it naturally encourages famers from 3rd world countries. In a way, our American dolllars are flowing to China, India... World equilibrium in economy at work.

So the question boils down to "what's the best business model"?

There was always a long debate on "casual players vs. hardcore players". And a chief complaint from some of the casual players was: They paid for development cost on raid contents they never got to see. Well, there are things like LDoN that are designed for casual players which the hardcore raiders don't get to play much either. My feeling now is: SoE may be starting to experiment with new business models soon. Like the special module exapansions in EQ2 where those who pay and buy the expansion get to play and do the quests. This is a fair business model where people support development cost for the content they want.

Now I'm an adult, and have to say those who pay the bills get to have more fun. It's the law of economy. Game companies are here to make money, not to let their blood, sweat and tears benefit 3rd party farmers.

I'd rather see money going directly to SoE for its development effort than going to farmers. But SoE should still try to appeal to the masses, and make sure the cost of the modules are within reach by most people. If poor kids want to be the best equippted, they can find after-school jobs and earn the money to buy the expnasion modules. It will train them to become better adults.

In the end, it all depends on what will bring SoE the most money. Make no mistake about it. I may not even be able to afford the top gear. As I recall, one CEO player paid $3000 for an in-game sword back when I was a poor kid. Errr.. I hope that does not happen. But it might :( So I'm really hoping SoE will go to a happy medium where most people can afford the nice expansions. Maybe SoE should use the movei theater tickets model. :p

[Shikarii]

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=906&stc=1&d=1135991807 Courtesy http://www.raphkoster.com/

This is a level distribution chart.

i knew a girl that had a boob that looked like that

[Yoda]

ewww...

[Vikken]

Just one?

[Celeritum]

Am I the only person that sees a vividly depictive pornographic scene in that curve that involves two girls, 1 guy, and a few toys? Oh and three cans of beer and one bottle of Yoda juice?

[Yoda]

I don't... And since I've never let Yoda Juice(tm) get out of TSW, I doubt it was a real one that you saw in this movie.

[Celeritum]

Look harder, it's all in the curve ;)