as if /pizza was bad enough.....check this out

[Karou Ariyen]

go read this story, its fightening and offical too

http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news ... th=current

[Chatulio]

hmmm...thats surprising. Thats not on FFXI is it? If it is then I'm definitely voting for no exchange server. I just don't think it's right to buy something that most people work so hard to earn the correct way. Thats just my two cents(or Gil)

[Josiejo]

First: It's obvious that a large percentage of our players either don't mind this activity or actively participate in it. We've done a fair amount of homework on this subject, and we believe this is a $200 million dollar market worldwide

You can basically throw out the rest of that article, because this is as far as their research got. As soon as they realized they could turn a major profit by selling rights to their virtual property, on top of the monthly fees and game sales, of course it sounds like a good idea. And since some players have more money than time to get virtual goods, they will feel less threatened about purchasing, which means they'll pay to buy and sell MMO goods.

Kinda sickening, but it's a cycle, and neither the provider nor the customer are really morally above the other. Some players will go the honorable route, but in the end will probably have to give in due to the fact that their playtime would be spent working hard farming and such instead of the people who bypass work to just play. Not to mention the competition for the most desired gear among companies like IGE and the slew of others that will start up due to the exchange program.

[Yukira]

Oh, no.....I hope this isn't becoming a common trend. This really has me worried about the future of online gaming.

[Sugami]

You can basically throw out the rest of that article, because this is as far as their research got. As soon as they realized they could turn a major profit by selling rights to their virtual property, on top of the monthly fees and game sales, of course it sounds like a good idea. And since some players have more money than time to get virtual goods, they will feel less threatened about purchasing, which means they'll pay to buy and sell MMO goods.

Maybe you should have read the rest of the article, they specifically said that they would not be selling anything and merely providing a platform for people to do so.

Still I guess they figured they can't stop it so the next best thing is to control it. Interesting what the responce will be like and whether their method of control will actually "work".

[Josiejo]

Maybe you should have read the rest of the article, they specifically said that they would not be selling anything and merely providing a platform for people to do so.

Maybe you should be less quick to assume I didn't read the whole thing. What was said was that they would be providing a "service" called Station Exchange that would allow players to use real money in exchange for virtual goods. They never out-right said they would not charge a dime for this service, and if you think about it, nothing about EQII, FFXI or WoW is "free". I bet they'll find a way to dip their slimy hand into that market, whether it's through directly charging players on Exchange-enabled servers, or a flat fee increase across the board.

[Prrsha]

The next thing you know, MMORPG companies will sell their currency to players. It would be a akin to a giant money printing press. The excess gold (or whatever) will inflate the economy, which would make more people want to buy gold, which would make the company richer. All the while they are laughing their collect a**es off at the players.

Heck, due to Blizzards already proven close relationship to IGE, I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard gets a cut of IGE's profit for gold selling on WoW. Who knows maybe they even print money for IGE to sell?

[Sugami]

Maybe you should be less quick to assume I didn't read the whole thing. What was said was that they would be providing a "service" called Station Exchange that would allow players to use real money in exchange for virtual goods. They never out-right said they would not charge a dime for this service, and if you think about it, nothing about EQII, FFXI or WoW is "free". I bet they'll find a way to dip their slimy hand into that market, whether it's through directly charging players on Exchange-enabled servers, or a flat fee increase across the board.

My comment still stands; they are not directly selling game currency, items or character accounts. Remains to be seen whether they'll add a charge to use this service or not.
If they charge to use this service I'm curious as to whether people will still defy them ^^

[Prrsha]

Maybe you should be less quick to assume I didn't read the whole thing. What was said was that they would be providing a "service" called Station Exchange that would allow players to use real money in exchange for virtual goods. They never out-right said they would not charge a dime for this service, and if you think about it, nothing about EQII, FFXI or WoW is "free". I bet they'll find a way to dip their slimy hand into that market, whether it's through directly charging players on Exchange-enabled servers, or a flat fee increase across the board.

My comment still stands; they are not directly selling game currency, items or character accounts. Remains to be seen whether they'll add a charge to use this service or not.
If they charge to use this service I'm curious as to whether people will still defy them ^^

Hmmm, I wonder if that is taxable income or not. Do goldsellers have to deal with the IRS? I'd LMAO if IGE was defeated by the IRS for tax evasion.

[Tivia]

It really boils down to this.

This is the future of Online gaming, Wether or not any of us like or dislike it, It is here to stay. I would far rather see a company Control the buying and selling transactions themselves so its more closely monitored then, the current freelance on third party auction sites which generate massive amounts of complaints and ability for people to exploit others. I think that by Game companies controlling more and more these types of ingame actions, that the number of people taking it a step further and trying to scam people will start to dwindle due to the majority of the purchasing players going to a more secure system.

I had actually come up with an idea a few years ago that developers could implement in game where those desiring to sell items/coin could type a command in game to bring up a gui window, they enter the item or coin amount into it and the asking price and complete the transaction and the item and coin would automatically be removed from their inventory and listed on a website auction hosted by the dev. The advantage to this of course is the entire process is recorded by the game client and saved to the servers providing a record of the entire transaction preventing scams. For those who chose not to utilize this service, well buyer beware.

There are already several games out in which you can buy virtual currency straight from the Developers...This to me is a horrendously bad idea. Coin that is already in the market is one thing, coin that is falsly added is a completely different cup of tea.

My only gripe with this is, that they would consider converting existing servers if the vote was high enough. I personally do not want to be on an exchange server, however I certaintly do not want to move servers either as my guild is well estabilished as the top guild on our server and we have no competition...I like it that way and do not care to move to a more crowded server. I think they simply need to create a few servers that allow it, and since they are offering free char transfers, allow those players wanting that to move, then crack down even heavier on the non exchange servers.

As a note, SoE has really rather well impressed me with their vigor in shutting down the bot teams as of late. They have not been public about it, but quietly nixing them. In the past 3 weeks, I am personally aware of 17 dedicated and known bot groups across 3 servers that are completely gone. I have been speaking to others on the various servers, and by all appearances all of their known bot groups are gone as well, It has been 2 weeks since a single known bot group has been seen on any server. This is very nice, all the spawns they were camping are no longer camped except by groups that come in for a kill or 2 just like it should be. Now there are still people farming coin, but none of them are 24/7 like it was, just on for a few hours and thats it.

[Prrsha]

It really boils down to this.

This is the future of Online gaming, Wether or not any of us like or dislike it, It is here to stay.

I don't agree. Once the company supports such transactions, much of the player base (those that do have gaming morals) will leave the game.

[Sugami]

Hmmm, I wonder if that is taxable income or not. Do goldsellers have to deal with the IRS? I'd LMAO if IGE was defeated by the IRS for tax evasion.

Teehee! We can all hope ^^

[Tivia]

It really boils down to this.

This is the future of Online gaming, Wether or not any of us like or dislike it, It is here to stay.

I don't agree. Once the company supports such transactions, much of the player base (those that do have gaming morals) will leave the game.

I have watched this market for the better part of 9 years. It started out as a few rogue account sales in early UO, and has continued to explode from there. It really took root in Original EQ, when their EULA mentioned nothing about it due to the fact that is was a relatively unknown activity at the time. A few people exploited that through ebay and found that people not only would buy accounts, but would actively buy Coin and other items, and from there the market skyrocketed. Ever since the Game publishers and developers have fought this every step of the way. However with the Internet information act and a few other acts associated to attempting to deal with Virtual property, Game developers have found the courts more then unwilling to give a listening ear to their claims.

You are right, players will leave. Not necessarly due to morals some yes..but not all with morals will leave. I for example would never consider for a moment buying coin and I consider those that do an insult to gamers. However as the buying and selling of coin has little to no effect on me personally because of my particular playstyle, it can go on for all I care so long as its kept under a reasonable about of controll. But the realization is this, This market is here to stay there is no way to uproot it as its far too entrenched at this time. Companies have fought it legally and lost, they have tried banning players..but they just buy new accounts and keep going, and due to the time it takes for an individual account to be investigated they can more then turn a profit in that time if they are bound and determined to. However lest we forget that realistically the Majority of money for sale or sold to companies like IGE come from individual players not bot teams. The majority of these players sell once or twice here or there. No particular pattern, usually just someone with a little extra coin and decided they wanted a little extra quick cash for whatever reason. I mean afterall think of it this way.

Your sitting at home, between paydays, hardly anything to eat in the house. you have 100k for example sitting in your virtual bank that is unused and you cant think of any use for it currently. You know there is a website that you can sell the coin to, for $20 for example and they will pay your paypal account instantly which goes directly into your bank account...so you can sit there hungry or try and find something less then desirable in the house to eat..or sell a little coin and have a pizza in an hour..understand the temptation now? Now of course this is just a rough example however it gets my point across, Coin sales are not exclusive to bot teams, heck individual players created this market long before Bot teams ever came to light. Game developers cannot possibly dedicate the resources to combat something like this, It just is impracticle from a monetary standpoint.

So, SoE is the First Major publisher to walk down this road...They set the standard for the market of other mmorpgs with EQ, now they are setting new standards. It would be foolish to think that other developers after spending countless millions combating this, will not walk down the same path when they realize they can redeem that money and potentially use it to invest back into the game making the gaming experience even better. Of course I use the word potentially, because it could just as easily line more pockets, but i am trying to be optimistic.

Also one last thing...those who will in fact quit a game over something like this, unfortunatlly are in the minority. Those casual players that will flock to a game for something like this because they feel they can compete with the real gamers now, far outnumber those who will leave. This is why SoE is doing this, they realize like I realized a long time ago..This group is very very very big.

Idiots will always out number smart people, however the smart people will profit off the collective stupidity of the idiots.

[Crispleaf]

I don't think something like this will work.

When people buy gil/items/characters as they do, it's to compete with legitimate players. In other words, they want to cheat so they can seem to be as good or better than the characters that worked hard to get where they are.

If you have servers where they openly allow everyone to "cheat," then there are no legitimate players. The joy of owning a level 234 character is not as good if you aren't standing by other level 234 characters who had to spend aeons reaching that point and love their characters. If all the level 234 characters were either bought or are owned by players looking to turn a profit, then what's the point?

It defeats the whole purpose of a MMORPG. The draw is cultivating a character from early beginnings and turning it into a beloved, powerful force. Cheaters, those that buy gil/items/characters, are just leeching this feeling off those who had to do it the hard way. But if nobody had to do it the hard way, and everyone can just buy their own $1000 uber character, there's no one to leech these feelings off of.

It's an interesting idea to try beating IGE by becoming IGE, but I think Sony has missed the boat on this one.

[Tivia]

I think you are missing is slightly crisp,

Even on the servers that Virtual selling is allowed, There will be nothing for sale unless someone legitimatly got it.

Meaning SoE is not offering a service of buy your plat and char..They are simply providing a service in game that allows those wanting to sell the stuff they have earned, a means to do so legally through the game. Nothing is being sold that was not aquired by the player.

[Crispleaf]

Even on the servers that Virtual selling is allowed, There will be nothing for sale unless someone legitimatly got it.

I understand this... I think I just didn't communicate what I meant very well

I think a server that allows the selling of money, items, etc. won't be filled with people who love their characters and people who want to play legitimately. I think it will be full of people who are trying to make some real-life money.

So, I don't think this will work because no one playing on those servers actually wants to be there to nurture a character they'll love. A player who wants a legitimate character isn't going to play on a server where its acceptable to buy, in real life, whatever you need.

And because no one loves their characters, "cheating" to be like a loved character isn't possible, so no one will really want to play on that server. "Cheaters" need to be around legitimate players in order for the cheating to be worthwhile.

That's what I think, anyway.

[kittykitty]

Recently I was on ebay (for the heck of it) and I saw a character for sale for like $750. Now this guy had it all, I mean 3 lvl 75 jobs, a whole bunch of money, I mean everything. Now when some noob goes and buys this character what will happen? He didnt learn the ways of the MMORPG. People tend to help other people and its a general respect. Now if every lvl 75 went and sold their game we wouldnt have that certain game maturity from which the newer players can learn.

I think the selling of accounts will create problems in the integrity of ingame relations. And create the fact that if the pld your partying with is rank 10 with 3 lvl 75 jobs could have never played the game before. Just the fact that having a complete noob control a character like that is like a con artist saying hes gonna be your broker...it doesnt work out too well, and in the end its you being screwed.

[Neoshinobi]

This really scares me.

Like others have said, paying to become the best doesn't work on my road, I can't go all out and spend hundreds of dollars just to be better, I'm already struggling to pay for what I already have.

The idea of having to buy item/gil with real currency I feel threatens ANY game that does it, fake virtual currency is TOTALLY different than real life currency in the virtual currency is easier to come across.

In real life you can't just go out and "farm" and hope that this is the lucky one where you get that big expensive item. People have to put real working labor to get the greenbacks, not like gil, which can be easily come across as all that litter you see out on the streets and what not. :!:

[Yokki]

I think about a year ago, when I was playing EQ, SOE polled all the players to ask what their opinions were on SOE being an, um, "auction house" for buying and selling accounts.

So I can't say that I didn't see this comming >_<

P.S. + + + + = me

[Tivia]

I understand your persective perfectly Crisp

Before it sounded like you were thinking they were just gonna be selling.

And yes I can certaintly understand that setiment, Its a distinct possiblity. I could not begin to guess at this point however.

[Prrsha]

I think you are missing is slightly crisp,

Even on the servers that Virtual selling is allowed, There will be nothing for sale unless someone legitimatly got it.

Meaning SoE is not offering a service of buy your plat and char..They are simply providing a service in game that allows those wanting to sell the stuff they have earned, a means to do so legally through the game. Nothing is being sold that was not aquired by the player.

Nope, you are dealing with goldsellers that would work in 3 world countries who camp every worthwhile mob 24/7. Legit players would be pissed that the only way they can aquire such items would be to buy them with RL cash. MPKing would ensue, and well, you have a real shitty example of a game server where no one would join. I'd wager that if you took a pol about gold buying/selling 75% of the playerbase would be against it. That's a large %...

[Tivia]

I think you are missing is slightly crisp,

Even on the servers that Virtual selling is allowed, There will be nothing for sale unless someone legitimatly got it.

Meaning SoE is not offering a service of buy your plat and char..They are simply providing a service in game that allows those wanting to sell the stuff they have earned, a means to do so legally through the game. Nothing is being sold that was not aquired by the player.

Nope, you are dealing with goldsellers that would work in 3 world countries who camp every worthwhile mob 24/7. Legit players would be pissed that the only way they can aquire such items would be to buy them with RL cash. MPKing would ensue, and well, you have a real shitty example of a game server where no one would join. I'd wager that if you took a pol about gold buying/selling 75% of the playerbase would be against it. That's a large %...

You are most correct, however that is a worst case scenario. the system that SoE is putting in place would free up alot of rescources for them to monitor this type of activity closer. There are all kinds of monits and flags you can implement into a system like this because its a part of the game specifically. SoE states they will be able to crack down harder on bots, MPKs and the like. Now I am giving them the benefit of the doubt on this one, and trust me thats stretching it for SoE bit since this is a system I have seen coming for year I am trying to remain on the optimistic side and see if they do it right.

Of course even if they do, its not necessarly a good thing..this honestly is more of a lesser of two evil's sort of thing.

The best case scenario that could come out of this is a more stabilized econ due to the exchange rate being more constant, less bots and less mpking. I do realize this is alot to hope for however I will watch it with much interest. As I have stated..this is the inevitable future of mmorpgs..Its been coming for years wether we like it or not.

[Crispleaf]

As I have stated..this is the inevitable future of mmorpgs..Its been coming for years wether we like it or not.

I disagree.

I think the backbone of these games are legitimate players. Without them, those who would cheat would have nothing to aspire to.

If a company makes a game where anyone and everyone can get ahead in exchange for real life money, most people won't play. Those that do will get bored fast. If there's no challenge, there's no reason to stay, especially if it costs you lots of money for nothing to be satisfied over.

[JediKitsune]

I think I have a fairly good example of just what happens when companies begin to sell virtual goods.

Gunbound

Here's an example of a perfectly solid game. Upon release, it was a fun little Korean artillery shooter (something like Worms or Scorched Earth) with a very small amount of RPG element. In the game, you create an "avatar", either boy or girl. At first, they look the same as any other boy or girl avatar. However, the game's real feature is the avatar shop that lets you purchase clothing and armor and such that would both change your look and give you little boosts in stats (attack, defense, health, movement, etc). All items were purchased with ingame gold that you earned by playing well, essentially. That is, winning matches and landing more difficult shots. It was fun and addictive, not to mention completely free.

Soon enough, people began to wonder just how the company was paying for all of this. Come November-December of 2003, a new system was implemented known as the CASH system. The concept behind it was simple: Using PayPal, you paid a certain amount of real money for ingame Cash. Cash was seperate from Gold, which you could still earn by playing. This naturally brought concerns of people essentially paying their way to the powerful items and such. Luckily, all items originally available through cash were all under a certain limit (Essentially no high tier items). This was harmless at first and the game was still fun. I actually purchased a bit myself in want to support the company.

However, things began to change and quickly. As months progressed and the cash system remained, things such as game updates were less frequent; that is, updates to the game mechanics and fixes to balance issues and major bugs. More items were introduced, all purchasable by cash and seeming a bit more than mid-tier in terms of stat bonuses. The player base had grown significantly and seemed to grow a bit more....sour....Sure, there were morons and rude little kids here and there, but there seemed to be more of them. These morons and little kids, of course, always had the powerful items but more often than not had little grasp of the game. At this point, I still played the game much and had plenty of fun, but I was beginning to get a bit annoyed at the community.

Even later, a new system involving cash was implemented: The Power User. With purchased cash, users could now become Power Users, which essentially gave them more privileges for a specific amount of time (one week, two weeks, etc.). Power users had more control over their game rooms and their rooms showed up first on the room list. (A bit of info: The game is played in rooms of up to 8. The room listing is in groups of 6 and in numerical order, meaning lower number rooms are more frequented by players). This gave Non-Power Users difficulty when making their own rooms, as players were generally very impatient and not willing to sift through higher number rooms.

By then, the gameplay-related updates had stopped almost entirely. The game was buggy (and still is) and the balance issues were rediculous (and still are). We DID, however, receive new items to purchase with cash, some only available through cash and CONSIDERABLY more powerful than non-cash items. The rude little kids and morons, naturally, always had these items.

There have been many more reasons of decline in the community, but the sudden focus on greed by both players and the company is surely one of them. Few people seem to play for little more than earning a high rank and powerful items while the dwindling group of non-greedy players were shunned almost entirely. People don't even play the game honestly anymore; there have been numerous cheats released for the game designed to do things such as never miss shots, give invinciblity, and simply crash the game. There also bots designed to give the "player" mass amounts of rank points and gold by setting up rigged games where the "main" account does nothing but start games and the "dummy" opponent loses intentionally by suiciding. Naturally, the top ranking players are known botters.

The game had lost its original colorful charm and fun. It's now just a contest of who buys more cash and bots more.

I very rarely play this game after finding Final Fantasy XI. If I didn't have FFXI, I'd probably have just quit online gaming for the time being (Admittedly, FFXI's community is just as bad in some cases, but generally much better). [/url]

[Neoshinobi]

Well said! ....and that kitties is the reason this why such a proposal won't and shouldn't happen.

[Tivia]

I think I have a fairly good example of just what happens when companies begin to sell virtual goods.

Gunbound

Here's an example of a perfectly solid game. Upon release, it was a fun little Korean artillery shooter (something like Worms or Scorched Earth) with a very small amount of RPG element. In the game, you create an "avatar", either boy or girl. At first, they look the same as any other boy or girl avatar. However, the game's real feature is the avatar shop that lets you purchase clothing and armor and such that would both change your look and give you little boosts in stats (attack, defense, health, movement, etc). All items were purchased with ingame gold that you earned by playing well, essentially. That is, winning matches and landing more difficult shots. It was fun and addictive, not to mention completely free.

Soon enough, people began to wonder just how the company was paying for all of this. Come November-December of 2003, a new system was implemented known as the CASH system. The concept behind it was simple: Using PayPal, you paid a certain amount of real money for ingame Cash. Cash was seperate from Gold, which you could still earn by playing. This naturally brought concerns of people essentially paying their way to the powerful items and such. Luckily, all items originally available through cash were all under a certain limit (Essentially no high tier items). This was harmless at first and the game was still fun. I actually purchased a bit myself in want to support the company.

However, things began to change and quickly. As months progressed and the cash system remained, things such as game updates were less frequent; that is, updates to the game mechanics and fixes to balance issues and major bugs. More items were introduced, all purchasable by cash and seeming a bit more than mid-tier in terms of stat bonuses. The player base had grown significantly and seemed to grow a bit more....sour....Sure, there were morons and rude little kids here and there, but there seemed to be more of them. These morons and little kids, of course, always had the powerful items but more often than not had little grasp of the game. At this point, I still played the game much and had plenty of fun, but I was beginning to get a bit annoyed at the community.

Even later, a new system involving cash was implemented: The Power User. With purchased cash, users could now become Power Users, which essentially gave them more privileges for a specific amount of time (one week, two weeks, etc.). Power users had more control over their game rooms and their rooms showed up first on the room list. (A bit of info: The game is played in rooms of up to 8. The room listing is in groups of 6 and in numerical order, meaning lower number rooms are more frequented by players). This gave Non-Power Users difficulty when making their own rooms, as players were generally very impatient and not willing to sift through higher number rooms.

By then, the gameplay-related updates had stopped almost entirely. The game was buggy (and still is) and the balance issues were rediculous (and still are). We DID, however, receive new items to purchase with cash, some only available through cash and CONSIDERABLY more powerful than non-cash items. The rude little kids and morons, naturally, always had these items.

There have been many more reasons of decline in the community, but the sudden focus on greed by both players and the company is surely one of them. Few people seem to play for little more than earning a high rank and powerful items while the dwindling group of non-greedy players were shunned almost entirely. People don't even play the game honestly anymore; there have been numerous cheats released for the game designed to do things such as never miss shots, give invinciblity, and simply crash the game. There also bots designed to give the "player" mass amounts of rank points and gold by setting up rigged games where the "main" account does nothing but start games and the "dummy" opponent loses intentionally by suiciding. Naturally, the top ranking players are known botters.

The game had lost its original colorful charm and fun. It's now just a contest of who buys more cash and bots more.

I very rarely play this game after finding Final Fantasy XI. If I didn't have FFXI, I'd probably have just quit online gaming for the time being (Admittedly, FFXI's community is just as bad in some cases, but generally much better). [/url]

Its a good post, and precisely why I remain 100% against the companies Selling virtual goods.

However what we have with EQ2 is completely different. SoE is not selling anything. They are simply providing a broker service for players to sell and buy items through an authorized means. This activity is already happening on every server, in every mmorpg. SoE is simply stepping in to control it more. Nothing is being added to the economy that was not already there before.

Also In EQ2 there is a major difference in how gear affects your character. Someone can buy there gear, but they cannot uber twink themselves due to level restrictions on gear. However Gear in EQ2 while important, has no bearing on effect on a player if they simply suck. tieing into that, you have your raid mobs, just like EQ. Those mobs are controlled by the top tier guilds. You do not get into a top tier guild in EQ2 based off people likeing you or, your gear. You get in based off your skill. We have Ebays apply to our guild all the time in EQ2, Every single one gets rejected because it takes all of two raids for them to prove they have not got the slightest clue what they are doing. In EQ2, if your level 50, and well geared..but guildless..there is not alot for you to do. you gain no experience in 50 and there are no alternate advancement skills currently, so they may have bought a level 50 uber geared toon, but its useless to them.

[Prrsha]

Like I said, you would have a server of cheaters (one that endorses it). Who the heck would want to play a game like that?

Like I said in my above post, goldsellers would own the servers and mobs. A monopoly would exist on certain items. The only way to aquire these items would be through real life cash. Since only people with large amounts of RL cash would be able to afford these items, it would make the playing field of the game way uneven.

I really don't understand what part of buying items for RL cash = cheating, don't you understand.

[Tivia]

I understand it fully, and I agree. I have an extremely low opinion of those who buy cash in an online environment.

However that belief does not lead me to the conclusion that it makes the playing field uneven, because it does not. I have played games like this for 10 years, never once have I had a bot team beat me on a mob I wanted, never once have I had one sucessfully mpk me out of a camp, Oh I have certaintly had a share that have tried, I have yet to run into one with enough skill to do so.

Also SoE has made an extended effort to clear Bot teams, there has not been a single one active on any Server that I am aware of for at least 3 weeks now. Sure there are people who farm, but thats normal, those people never last very long anyhow. There are no 24/7 camps right now. The primary reason is, unlike in ffxi and EQ, in EQ2 you can get loot off nearly every mob, a named mob does not necessarly mean good loot. You have just as much chance, actually you have a better profit/hr if you are dungeon crawling killing stuff as you go. You get alot more loot then sitting camping a named. As another interesting change, named mobs in EQ do not have the same skills each and every time, they can and do spawn as different class's. One example is a mob in permafrost that is notorious for spawning as a wizard and one nuke killing people with a 26k ice comet, This is simply more then a bot group could possibly hope to handle.

As I said, lesser of two evils. When posed with the situation of which I would rather have, uncontrolled botting and cash selling with no realistic way to stop it like it is now, or controlled selling that SoE is offering, I will take the controlled. Also its going to be on select servers, not on all and free server transfers will be avail. to those thinking its going to be a farmer server..I guarantee these servers will be the most populated servers because people who want to participate in this will go..and there are alot of people that participate in this activity.

Here is another way to view it, It free's up more CS resources to remove these types off the main servers, Encourages an undesirable group of gamers to go to a server they will be welcome to participate in their activity, and in one stroke gets rid of the two most worthless group's of people in gaming off my server. In my eye's it does not get any better then this. So even if the econ and what not goes to hell on those servers, I frankly do not care. SoE is offering a free one way ticket to all who want to go there so, I say bye bye enjoy the trip, and if it sucks and they all quit the game, I do not see any real loss in that.

[Prrsha]

You just don't get the point. Maybe it's a moral problem with you, I don't know.

Prove that item buying with RL cash is NOT cheating. Prove how it DOES NOT give players with more RL cash an advantage over those who do not. Prove to me that a MMORPG game company can actively enforce their monopoly camping laws. Because that's what you'll have 1,000+ goldsellers camping the same mob wanting to get a drop that they will turn around and sell for RL cash.

You have yet to address those comments.

[Prrsha]

I have played games like this for 10 years, never once have I had a bot team beat me on a mob I wanted, never once have I had one sucessfully mpk me out of a camp, Oh I have certaintly had a share that have tried, I have yet to run into one with enough skill to do so.

Then you have been extreemly lucky or haven't camped NMs often that gilsellers do.

Also SoE has made an extended effort to clear Bot teams, there has not been a single one active on any Server that I am aware of for at least 3 weeks now.

Prove it.

The primary reason is, unlike in ffxi and EQ, in EQ2 you can get loot off nearly every mob, a named mob does not necessarly mean good loot. You have just as much chance, actually you have a better profit/hr if you are dungeon crawling killing stuff as you go. You get alot more loot then sitting camping a named.

Incorrect once again. I can make more gil per hour farming regular mobs in FFXI then I would say camping Leaping Lizzy for boots.

I guarantee these servers will be the most populated servers because people who want to participate in this will go..and there are alot of people that participate in this activity.

Or sure, the goldsellers would love it. Most of the legit or casual players without the RL cash to bankroll their game would look elsewhere.

Here is another way to view it, It free's up more CS resources to remove these types off the main servers, Encourages an undesirable group of gamers to go to a server they will be welcome to participate in their activity, and in one stroke gets rid of the two most worthless group's of people in gaming off my server.

LMAO, do you really think that the goldsellers would leave legit servers? The items that they would sell there through IGE say, would be worth more then they would be in a "sell" server.

In my eye's it does not get any better then this. So even if the econ and what not goes to hell on those servers, I frankly do not care. SoE is offering a free one way ticket to all who want to go there so, I say bye bye enjoy the trip, and if it sucks and they all quit the game, I do not see any real loss in that

Oh so you are saying that you don't care if the econ on the selling servers goes belly up and they all quit? What do you have then? Only legit servers are left. Oh wait? Where would the goldsellers go then? Yep the legit servers. You are back to square one then.