funny site

www.johnsmedleysucks.com

I really don't see the point in everyone getting all upset about it. I don't the sky is going to fall, I don't think the rug is going to be pulled out from underneath anyone (except perhaps the IGEs of the world in the longrun), and quite frankly I have a suspiscion that this is going to do well at the least and become a part of all MMORPGs.

For the most part, most of the poeple who post forums are players who feel strongly enough to do so, and are quite dedicated to the game. However, they can be to a large degree a minority.

To put it another way, I started counting the number of posters in one of the big threads over at the main forums and started noticing that poster A had 10+ post, Poster B had like 10, Poster C had 8, Poster D had 5, Poster E had 3, Poster F had 3. Those 6 Poster alone were responsible for 3 plus pages.

Additionally, I play with a large of guys in WW2 Online. They are also over in SWG as well, although some play WOW and MxO. I polled them on our website, and it was 30% in favor, 50% didn't care, 20% sided with many here and on the EQ2 boards.

Please don't assume that I'm trying to say that your opinion is wrong and that im right, ot vice versa. There really is just no way of telling how this will go as there is a large player base that don't speak their mind in "forums" at the moment so we could judge the outcome.

I think it comes down to the fact that no one likes change, and I don't think you could find many that won't say this isn't a BIG change to the game and the gaming community as a whole. Open your imagination a little and I could conceive extensions of this idea even extending to single player games. To an extent it already does with expansion packs, special items with pre-orders, etc.

Well, anyhow I'm off to play EQ2.

Edited, Sat Apr 23 11:16:54 2005

While I think that this definately changes the landscape a bit, I do not see the difference. You can buy plat and items from numerous sites now. Does it really make a difference if the seller is someone from China on Playerauctions or someone from China on the SOE site?

People who want to farm for cash will find someone to buy their plat. If SOE's action fees make them enough money to keep the monthly subscription prices down, I'm not sure it's a bad thing.

The botters will not be staying on the 2 SE servers, the competion will be too much there, so expect to see more of them on your server. But the worst thing about this whole fiasco, IMO, is that as it stands, we allare on an even playing field, no matter our financial position in the real world. This move will bring in sub standard characters, second class citizens, if you will. Is this acceptable?

Hmmm after all this talk from Mr. Money Bags, I mean John Smedley, now they wanna encourage people to buy/sell for RL money. Bad John, Bad Bad John! What would your Mom think?

Thanks but no thanks, WoW is installing as I type this. Sony is ******** after ******** after ********* I'm done with them, I'll take my business and fun time some where else. Good ol' Blizzard.

Retired Sony Customer

*Edit*

P.S. **** like this is the perfect reason why I paid month to month. Thank God I didn't buy that new "12 year discount fee" Whenever you see stuff like that, they are gonna change something big real soon. Lucky for me /cancel done with it.

Edited, Thu Apr 21 05:00:49 2005

Many many people have run over to wow. EQ lost a huge amount of subscribers and EQ2 didn't take off nearly as well as they had hoped so sony is hurting for cash right now. I am not suprised they are comprimising their integrity when money get's tight.

Edited, Thu Apr 21 02:26:35 2005

Edited, Thu Apr 21 02:25:50 2005

I originally posted this on another site:

Yer forgetting the point

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's simple Sony has decided 2 things:

1) That there is money to be made buy offering a secure method of selling items. Sony stands to make money by a small transaction fee for each auction. They are not even trying to put the big sellers like Mysupersales (Yantis) or Gamingnook out of business, the only one I see having problems would be cannotlinkto since their site will likely no longer be needed if Sony expands this. Yantis and others will still be able to make money by offering their items up for auction under Sony's legal auctions, reducing the need for a web page, having someone log on to do the item transfer, all this will be taking care of by Sony. Sony stands to make more money by the auctions and likely reduce the number of customer service reps they need.

Personally I don't see customer service improving, more then likely they will be inclined to lay off a few more people and save more money.

2) They have decided, even though money is the main idea behind this venture, that Providing a secure, legal method of transfers for their customers is the better way to go then trying to police illegal transfers.
People are doing it now, it is nothing new it is not going away whether you like it or not. If you don't like it don't use it, simple.


Take this statement:

one last thing that sony & whoever else consider's doin this really have to think about is - "WEATHER THEY CAN AFFORD IT OR NOT" - think about that statment,how many have committed suicide over EQ for one reason or another over the year's? not to mention all the other health effect's a game can possably have on a person,now think about thing's like the gambling machine's they have in corner store's that people throw all their money into & cant stop themself's,what happen's when the money is gone & they cant afford that nice sword?,THEY WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKE'S TO GET IT,including stealing & god know's what else,now ofcorse this is the extream but it has to be taking into account,IT WILL HAPPEN.

People are already doing it, right now as we type these messages out. The extremes are already possible, but you have the added problem of an unsecure transaction accuring. Imagine what those extremists would do if they went to the extreme to get an item, pp or character and paid money for it, then got screwed by not receiving it !!!!

What Sony is doing is making money and securing transactions that are already going on, only real difference is if you buy stuff from Sony's auctions the buyer will no longer have to worry about delivery or getting their account canceled or suspended for receiving illegal pp or some other EUA issue.

You have to remember this is going on without Sony's consent now, People are paying real money for in game stuff right this minute, there are thousands of auctions on cannotlinkto. With Sony securing the transactions it is possible that there will be more auctions then there are currently.

How will this effect you? Probably very little, if you elect not to use auctions yer game play will not change, you do the things you have always done, ie. deal with people that do not know how, or are not smart enough to play the game, LOL this something we have had to learn to deal with for 6yrs now, it's not going to change. Surround yerself with friends, be cautious of someone you dont know and pray they dont get you killed 10 times in 10 seconds.

"instead of doing this i think thing's like the bard horse price should be lowered to an obtainable price"

WHY??? People will still buy pp and they will still get the horse for cheaper then before, you may get it sooner but then it lowers the value of yer accomplishment. I saved and I saved to get my Bard speed horse, i wanted it so bad, got to around 60k pp and my guild started doing LIS, after several raids of LIS the black ornate chain bridle dropped, OMG i got to spend dkp on it instead, I was so excited when i won it i actually ran from Qeynos to West Freeport just to see how fast i could do it. My point is if you want something in the game and want to work for it, you will enjoy the accomplishment if that is the type of player you are. Not everyone is that way, some just want to have it, if they have to pay $ for it then that is fine by them, that is the way they enjoy the game, like it or not everyone is different and they like to do things different ways.

Quote "it all come's down to greed in the end for sony - "and we believe this is a $200 million dollar market worldwide" ,that's the only reason they are caving in to thease lazy rich kid's."

How is this caving in to lazy rich kids? It is already happening.

I am sure I will get lot's of flames for my statements, but just take a second and think about what is going on, Sony really isn't going change that much. They are going to get richer and amazingly they are going to even help some of their customers by not letting them get ripped off more. If you dont like acutioning dont use it.

Quote:

"i suspect i am not alone in being entirely willing to not simply cancel a small game account, but to extend it to the entire Sony family. i would repeat, do anything you wish with new server(s), but leave norrath as is, where is."

PP (gold,influence, or whatever currency yer game has), item and account selling is going on now on yer server, dont believe me go to cannotlinkto, everquest and look for yer server, odds are that over a million pp on yer server is being auctioned right now as well as a couple of accounts. How will Sony enabling auctioning on Norrath change your game style?????? If you dont like auctions DON'T USE them.

What better way to get rid of the competition (plat-sellers) than to become one and force them out of business?

Of course this is just a way for SOE to get their hands on part of the "$200 million a year" industry. They are also justifying it by saying that "40% of customer service is devoted to this kind of problem", and by embracing it, they assume they will save that 40% in customer service hours. Not true, as those problems will be replaced by others.

- Is it fair for someone to buy an uber-level and go straight to the raid content?
Not really, but who determined that the raid content is the "ultimate" goal in EQ2?

- Is it fair that you worked so hard to get to where you are, and in walks uber_ebay_01, still with the plastic wrap?
Not really, but remember they have no clue what content there is from level 1 to 50. You do, and that what makes you who you are.

I never agreed with the plat-sellers and hoped they would not do business. Yet to those that buy the uber-gear, I do not feel anger, just pity.
This game is not designed to have an ultimate end. It is designed to explore, quest, interact, solve, etc. Buying gear will rob someone of the experience of questing and fighting for it. So that gear will become disposable, cheap, worthless.

If someone joins my group with uber gear, I don't really care. The true test will be if they know how to use it, and if they know how to play. If they are a knucklehead, they will get a few polite /tells. If they persist, they will get booted. A noob that shows up on his first day with uber gear will be pretty easy to spot.

Keep in mind that we all participate in a form of SE ourselves. We buy gear from the broker which is buying from other players. Even though it is all virtual items with virtual coin, the premise is the same. You spend time and effort to get virtual cash. Don't you also spend time and effort to get real cash? You place value on both, you a frugal with both, you care about both.

I also know full well that EQ2 is a GAME and everything can go away without impacting your life. Easy for you to give up the game by giving all you have to a stranger. Not so with your real cash. I don't think any of us would do the same with our real life possesions. (Unless you are, then send me an email :) )

If EQ2 was a game that had an "end", and someone's goal was to go beat the last boss to get the "You Win" screen, they could and would do that. Then they will blink in surprise trying to think of what there is to do next. And there will be nothing for them to do except what we all have done...

That is, start from the beginning, explore, quest, craft, fight, die, win. That is what makes the game worth playing.

But if they only care about the end-game, then that is all they will want. There life in the game will short lived, as they will run out of things to do.

The only long-term life will be on PvP servers. Don't we all just love a 13-year old kid, with a freshly bought uber_50_Zerker_01, corpse camping? Yea, go have fun with that.

I joined EQ2 not for the end-game, but for everything in-between. And after several years of playing, I will fondly remember many adventures, many friends, many places, all from the beginning.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- - Robert Frost

I think keeping it to a limited number of servers is a smart move myself. It keeps the RMTers out of the hair of people who don't want to play with them. I think they'll find, however, if they start moving this to all servers, that they'll ultimately lose money due to more people quitting the game altogether than they would have had to ban for buying and selling. Hopefully they'll do a little more research and polling of the people remaining on the mainstream servers before doing something that will drastically alter the face of the game like that.

Edited to add: They need to fire the artist who did the little comics on the front page of the Station Exchange website. O_o LOL

Edited, Wed Apr 20 10:43:41 2005

I hope this is some sick joke...or a bad dream. I hate ebay pukes. There are a **** load of players out there can not play their toons worth a **** as it is...and they have been playing since lvl 1.
All we need is MORE morons that have no idea what to do in a group, or raid.

Being a leader in a guild I have to help these guys learn. When they ask how I know what I do I say "I have not only played since lvl 1 but I have studied how to play better."

Then they ask what I have studied...I direct them here and other places...or just google it...

But the point is with lvl 50 noobs running around how is this going to effect the raiding pool for guilds to draw from?

I hope this crashes and burns...

I just wonder what the impact on guilds will be. Not just with the lack of skill in some players, but the migration of some players to the exchange servers...

Xeagar
Co-Leader
Blood Council
Oasis

This will be the finishing blow to online gaming for anyone who has an ounce of honor.