Lol... Why am I not surprised (at all) that Sony has sunk this low?
- Thread starter Gurck
- Start date
BlueWeasel
Lifer
- Jun 2, 2000
- 15,944
- 475
- 126
Wow. That's terrible. I haven't played EQ2, but if it's like WoW greed will be insane. People will ninja loot everything they can since it's worth real money now.
Bateluer
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2001
- 27,730
- 8
- 0
If you can't beat them, join them. Its likely other MMOs will follow suit as well; especially since a lot of them are usually cash starved and fighting exploiters/fraud/eBay takes a lot of effort.
People already do this crap, even for WoW. Instead of fighting wasting money fighting it, Sony is setting up a system which allows them to monitor the 'market'. You've been able to buy EQ2 and WoW items on eBay almost since their release, and both Sony and Blizzard have been fighting to stop it. Until now anyway.
As for 'ninja looting', I doubt common items that can be looted in such a fashion will be worth anything on the exchange. It'd be the extremely rare, hard to get items that will be worth anything.
John Smedley Discusses Station Exchange
Hello Everyone,
We have a big announcement coming out in the press in the next day, and I wanted to make sure you heard it from me directly rather than reading an article about it.
Starting in late June, SOE will begin offering a new service called Station Exchange. This secure service will allow EverQuest II players on specific servers to buy and sell the right to use items, coin and characters. To be clear, all we are doing is facilitating these transactions. We are NOT in the business of selling virtual goods ourselves.
I'm sure this is going to come as a shock to many of you, since for the past six years, we have held the line in not allowing these sorts of things to occur. I'd like to explain the primary drivers for this change from our perspective:
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, and there are huge numbers of our players taking part in the buying and selling of virtual goods. We have conducted polls, and the vast majority of players either don?t care about it or would like to participate in it. We believe that by allowing this to happen on select servers, we can have a solution for both the many players who want to participate in this and for those who don?t.
Second: Dealing with fraudulent transactions of one type or another takes up roughly 40% of our customer service people's time. We have players calling us up or requesting in-game service for activities related to these sorts of transactions constantly, even though they are specifically disallowed by our EULA. You may ask why the percentage is that high when it's not allowed in the first place? The answer is simple. Many times, people in these situations aren't up front with us about what actually happened. "My sword disappeared from my inventory" comes to mind, when what actually happened is the player has sold the item to someone else. Our CS people have to take the time to investigate this claim because if something legitimately happened, we of course want to take care of the player's needs. We believe that by taking this course, we will free up a great number of resources to deal with other things for our players.
Third: We see this as a potentially interesting model for future games. If we came up with a game specifically designed around these sorts of transactions, it might be pretty cool. Online gaming is always evolving, and we?re going to see how a sanctioned exchange service shakes out in EQII. From our perspective, it's always wise to keep pushing the envelope.
With the big reasons we're doing this laid out, I'd like to now tell you about the process:
On Wednesday, you'll see some press about Station Exchange. After about a week, we will conduct an in-game poll that's going to ask whether you:
1) Want to play on an "Exchange enabled" server
2) Do not want to play on an "Exchange enabled" server
3) Don't really care
Based on the results of this poll, we will light up a certain amount of new servers that are specifically "Exchange enabled." If the percentage of players who want this service is high enough, we might consider converting some existing servers to "Exchange enabled." Players who want to play on those servers will have the opportunity to transfer over to the "Exchange enabled" servers for free on a one-time-only basis (but you can't ever move that character off these servers). We will, of course, let people who don't want to stay on an "Exchange enabled" server off with a free transfer.
I want to be clear here: We will be lighting up a few new servers that are specifically ?Exchange enabled,? and the number of existing servers we convert to ?Exchange enabled? will be based on how many people actually want to be on "Exchange enabled" servers.
In addition to the issues listed above, you may ask, "What about farming?" The simple answer to this is that we're going to continue to heavily enforce the rules of EQ II, and those rules don't permit players to monopolize spawns or in any way harm the play experience of another player. We will continue to enforce these rules, but we also think that by providing a legitimate way for players to buy and sell the use of virtual goods, there will be fewer problems on the non-Exchange servers.
I realize this is a lot to think about, and I expect a pretty good debate to start on this subject. We welcome all your feedback, as it will help determine the future of this service. All I ask is that you consider the fact that we're really addressing this problem in the best possible way for all sides of this issue.
John Smedley
President, Sony Online Entertainment
People already do this crap, even for WoW. Instead of fighting wasting money fighting it, Sony is setting up a system which allows them to monitor the 'market'. You've been able to buy EQ2 and WoW items on eBay almost since their release, and both Sony and Blizzard have been fighting to stop it. Until now anyway.
As for 'ninja looting', I doubt common items that can be looted in such a fashion will be worth anything on the exchange. It'd be the extremely rare, hard to get items that will be worth anything.
John Smedley Discusses Station Exchange
Hello Everyone,
We have a big announcement coming out in the press in the next day, and I wanted to make sure you heard it from me directly rather than reading an article about it.
Starting in late June, SOE will begin offering a new service called Station Exchange. This secure service will allow EverQuest II players on specific servers to buy and sell the right to use items, coin and characters. To be clear, all we are doing is facilitating these transactions. We are NOT in the business of selling virtual goods ourselves.
I'm sure this is going to come as a shock to many of you, since for the past six years, we have held the line in not allowing these sorts of things to occur. I'd like to explain the primary drivers for this change from our perspective:
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, and there are huge numbers of our players taking part in the buying and selling of virtual goods. We have conducted polls, and the vast majority of players either don?t care about it or would like to participate in it. We believe that by allowing this to happen on select servers, we can have a solution for both the many players who want to participate in this and for those who don?t.
Second: Dealing with fraudulent transactions of one type or another takes up roughly 40% of our customer service people's time. We have players calling us up or requesting in-game service for activities related to these sorts of transactions constantly, even though they are specifically disallowed by our EULA. You may ask why the percentage is that high when it's not allowed in the first place? The answer is simple. Many times, people in these situations aren't up front with us about what actually happened. "My sword disappeared from my inventory" comes to mind, when what actually happened is the player has sold the item to someone else. Our CS people have to take the time to investigate this claim because if something legitimately happened, we of course want to take care of the player's needs. We believe that by taking this course, we will free up a great number of resources to deal with other things for our players.
Third: We see this as a potentially interesting model for future games. If we came up with a game specifically designed around these sorts of transactions, it might be pretty cool. Online gaming is always evolving, and we?re going to see how a sanctioned exchange service shakes out in EQII. From our perspective, it's always wise to keep pushing the envelope.
With the big reasons we're doing this laid out, I'd like to now tell you about the process:
On Wednesday, you'll see some press about Station Exchange. After about a week, we will conduct an in-game poll that's going to ask whether you:
1) Want to play on an "Exchange enabled" server
2) Do not want to play on an "Exchange enabled" server
3) Don't really care
Based on the results of this poll, we will light up a certain amount of new servers that are specifically "Exchange enabled." If the percentage of players who want this service is high enough, we might consider converting some existing servers to "Exchange enabled." Players who want to play on those servers will have the opportunity to transfer over to the "Exchange enabled" servers for free on a one-time-only basis (but you can't ever move that character off these servers). We will, of course, let people who don't want to stay on an "Exchange enabled" server off with a free transfer.
I want to be clear here: We will be lighting up a few new servers that are specifically ?Exchange enabled,? and the number of existing servers we convert to ?Exchange enabled? will be based on how many people actually want to be on "Exchange enabled" servers.
In addition to the issues listed above, you may ask, "What about farming?" The simple answer to this is that we're going to continue to heavily enforce the rules of EQ II, and those rules don't permit players to monopolize spawns or in any way harm the play experience of another player. We will continue to enforce these rules, but we also think that by providing a legitimate way for players to buy and sell the use of virtual goods, there will be fewer problems on the non-Exchange servers.
I realize this is a lot to think about, and I expect a pretty good debate to start on this subject. We welcome all your feedback, as it will help determine the future of this service. All I ask is that you consider the fact that we're really addressing this problem in the best possible way for all sides of this issue.
John Smedley
President, Sony Online Entertainment
Madame Cleo? Is it really you?!? I'd keep my mouth shut about what the future holds, especially considering how successful WoW is... At any rate, I also don't find it surprising you'd defend them for it
Bateluer
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2001
- 27,730
- 8
- 0
Originally posted by: Gurck
Madame Cleo? Is it really you?!? I'd keep my mouth shut about what the future holds, especially considering how successful WoW is... At any rate, I also don't find it surprising you'd defend them for it
Other than WoW and EQ2, the other MMOs are have a fraction of the money Sony and Blizzard have. :roll:
I don't know why I waste my time with the definitive WoW fanboy on these boards. :disgust:
I don't get it, you're someone who can admit no wrong with Sony, and you're calling someone who likes (but doesn't love) WoW, and who freely admits its many faults, a fanboy?Originally posted by: Bateluer
Originally posted by: Gurck
Madame Cleo? Is it really you?!? I'd keep my mouth shut about what the future holds, especially considering how successful WoW is... At any rate, I also don't find it surprising you'd defend them for it
Other than WoW and EQ2, the other MMOs are have a fraction of the money Sony and Blizzard have. :roll:
I don't know why I waste my time with the definitive WoW fanboy on these boards. :disgust:
Must be another one of those leaps of logic typical of ... fanboys I don't understand how this is bad?
If you want items and you don't want to work for them then you can sell them. If you don't need an item you have you can help someone else by selling it to them.
It's exactly like foreign trade.
If you want items and you don't want to work for them then you can sell them. If you don't need an item you have you can help someone else by selling it to them.
It's exactly like foreign trade.
This seems a valid point. If the black market is wasting a lot of support time, convert it to a white market and they save that time as well as protect players (both buyers and sellers) from fraud in black-market sales.
I think buying gold or items with real money is silly, since playing the game to earn those items is supposed to be fun (or why play at all?). But if people insist on shortcuts, why not make it safe and use clean needles?
What would be cool though is if all purchased items were tagged as bought, e.g. "Sword of Sharpness +10 ($)" and with visual cues (floating green $?) so you can spot the posers
I don't know if I would cal it "low" This just seems to be formalizing what's been going on for years. I remember seeing rare Diablo 2 items for sale for real money on eBay. But the transfer of funds for virtual stuff was always logistically awkward, with plenty of potential for ripoff. Sony just seems to be catering to an audience, and allowing a formal channel for bartering safely.
Hopefully it would avoid situations like this, where people with no lives end up lifeless.
Hopefully it would avoid situations like this, where people with no lives end up lifeless.
This is on specific servers. If anything, its a good thing because it allows those that like this type of stuff to play on servers that allow it.
Once money gets involved the game ceases to be a game for many people. Scruples and courtesy fly out the window.
I'm not even going to get into the details of it, but think of it this way. There are factions on WoW that have been very successful at cornering the market on various items. Imagine if these people decided that they were only going to offer these items for cash. If I want those items but dont want to pay real money for them then I'm simply out of luck.
Some people in WoW are already very nasty about in-game money. Imagine how much worse it would be when real money was involved. The possible implications are very far reaching.
Amazing that you people continue to excuse them... and one of you had the nerve to call me a fanboy?
If Blizzard did this and you called it low, I'm not sure what I'd do first - make a post agreeing with you or cancel my WoW account.makes sense to me.
they've been fighting e-bay gold sellers without too much progress. at least this way, they'll be able to make some profit on it.
they've been fighting e-bay gold sellers without too much progress. at least this way, they'll be able to make some profit on it.
No, a few years back they told Ebay not to allow sales, and Sony being the giant it is, Ebay did as they were told. They could have easily stomped much smaller operations, but they let it happen. I always hypothesized that they did so because they were taking a cut but wanted to maintain some dignity. It now seems even more likely that they were.
Wow, so Sony sued eBay so people would stop selling virtual gear, just so Sony could take the corner on the virtual property market. Nice.
Schadenfroh
Elite Member
- Mar 8, 2003
- 38,416
- 4
- 0
I could name you 5 farmers (gold farmers) on my server right now. They never leave certain provinces except to spam org, they also never go offline. They are guildless lvl 60 rogues. That being said, i wish blizzard would stop them. But what sony is doing here makes me mad and glad that i canned my EQ2 subscription.
For some intelligent posts where Gurck won't call you a fanboy for agreeing with something SOE does:
Fohguild.org Thread on EQII selling.
Getting an account there might take a while to be approved. They might still be closed actually.
Fohguild.org Thread on EQII selling.
Getting an account there might take a while to be approved. They might still be closed actually.
Not an option for the typical fanboy, Sony's shaft is buried too deeply in them - a quick pullout like that could cause hemmoraging.
This transcends petty squabbles about the various companies putting out MMOGs, nobody but someone with a 5 foot thick layer of sony's crap caked on their nose could forgive this. No shortage of you guys here
Originally posted by: Gurck
Not an option for the typical fanboy, Sony's shaft is buried too deeply in them - a quick pullout like that could cause hemmoraging.
This transcends petty squabbles about the various companies putting out MMOGs, nobody but someone with a 5 foot thick layer of sony's crap caked on their nose could forgive this. No shortage of you guys here
Forgive them for what? Stopping IGE from making millions off of their game? When players can sell legitimately throuh SOE, you increase supply. Increased supply will decrease the cost of buying, lowering IGE's profits. Win-win there. You should see the extent of the farmers in FFXI, its rediculous. Just wait a couple more months to see how prevalent they become in WoW. Hiring a team to completely stop IGE and their ilk would cost many millions.
They stopped ebay, and ebay is an elephant compared to the bugs that are playerauctions and ige. They didn't stop it because they were taking a cut. This is disgusting. Only a complete idiot or utterly delusional fanboy could agree with this.
It actually makes a lot more sense. Not only is it all done by SOE (which allows for better cheat/crap checking since eBay is almost a free-for-all) the actually exchange of items and other things will be handled in server.
For example, you put an item up for auction, as far as I know, it is removed from your player and put in a limbo server. Once the auction is one and you receive the payment and it is verified by SOE, they transfer the item to the winner. No out-of-game BS... it's all very streamlined and efficient.
Plus, it's SOE's game anyway. They should make most of the profits. You wouldn't get mad at Blizzard for trying to make money on their games, would you?
For example, you put an item up for auction, as far as I know, it is removed from your player and put in a limbo server. Once the auction is one and you receive the payment and it is verified by SOE, they transfer the item to the winner. No out-of-game BS... it's all very streamlined and efficient.
Plus, it's SOE's game anyway. They should make most of the profits. You wouldn't get mad at Blizzard for trying to make money on their games, would you?
erikistired
Diamond Member
- Sep 27, 2000
- 9,739
- 0
- 0
WoW is already full of farmers. and you can still buy gold for eq2 on ebay so i'm not sure how they "stopped" anything. you don't even have to do research, you just have to search on ebay.
i don't know why you feel the need to be such a jacktard gurck, are you that bored? and you reek of fanboy, every single post proves it.
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