Well Fuck, SoE finally Did it...who will follow suit?

[Northerner]

I guess the real question now, given that virtual items will have a very trackable value, is how long until someone works up a class-action suit based on a server rollback or other in-game problem. It becomes much more likely if you can quantify damages after all and making a case for negligance might well be possible. I am no lawyer though, I just remember this being the third-rail so often discussed back when damages had been awarded in Asia on a similar suit.

I can't say I'm shocked SoE has gone this route to be honest. I am a little surprized that they went straight to EQ2 though and didn't play with it some on EQLive first. Still, in the end I am a lot less horrified about the whole business than I once would have been.

Hmm, I wonder how much they'll charge for a straight single character transfer to another account of your choice? Are you going to need to put things up to a general auction or can you "sell" it to a friend for $1 + service fee?

[Tripamang]

Originally posted by Rune
No. It's a sad day because SoE (and Blizzard) are too fucking lazy to get in there and cut this shit out at the source. They're not willing to take the initiative to hire people to look at logs in increments of 100's of platinum, or your currency of choice, and have corresponding bannings. They're too content to let it 'extend the life of their game' or whatever the fuck the current MMO management 101 philosophy is.

Instead they fold up and pretend that it's impossible to avoid this kind of corruption, and it's part and parcel of the system. It's not.

No one in big business is willing to take a stand and set an example, to be the shining light in the darkness. There are no ethics anymore, just bottom lines. This is yet another sign of this, as though we needed it.

That is why it is a sad day.

You stupid fuck.

You seem like someone who supports the war on drugs =p hah

Anytime you have a market there will always be a supplier no matter what the cost is to supply. SoE did the only thing they could do really, regulate it to drive down support costs. Now they have a venue to make money, where they were just throwing it away in a customer service nightmare before.

I'll do the drug comparison again.. the war on drugs costs huge amounts of money, and all it does is drive up the price of drugs and makes it's a more lucrative/profit producing business.

Regardless of whether you like something or not, you have no way of catching all of the transactions.. and those transactions that you can't control end up costing you cash. Drugs might be bad for people, but banning them just hurts the people who buy them and costs the government huge amounts of money to make a futile attempt to stop them. Same goes for doing behind the scenes transactions, tons of people get ripped off, and nobody is there to stop the people from bring ripped off, in the end it's the game company who pays the price.

I don't like IGE, I don't like farmers, but it doesn't make sense to not regulate something that you're regulating unoffically anyways.

[Fammaden]

Originally posted by Northerner
I guess the real question now, given that virtual items will have a very trackable value, is how long until someone works up a class-action suit based on a server rollback or other in-game problem. It becomes much more likely if you can quantify damages after all and making a case for negligance might well be possible. I am no lawyer though, I just remember this being the third-rail so often discussed back when damages had been awarded in Asia on a similar suit.

I also wonder if there will be any sort of specialized EULA for the new $erver$.

It is not very surprising. I do not agree with the practice of buying and selling game items and currency in general, but it doesn't make my blood boil or anything knowing that it occurs. Honestly though, I think that waging war on the auction companies is a bit like the war on drugs. The only way to really kill the black market is to kill the profit margin for the undercover peddler. It is certainly a confident move on SoE's part. The results of this will be interesting and the ramifications far-reaching even if they end up falling flat on their faces.

[Sorran]

That thought occurred to me too Northener - on the other hand, maybe it is really time some of those kind of issues got sorted out in the courts, just so everyone at least knows where they stand. At the moment, everyone (companies and players alike) keep dancing around it for fear they don't like what a court might actually decide .

I also agree with the lack of caring one way or the other anymore. As I said earlier, I *personally* don't like real money involved in my games, and it's not a service I can see myself using, but I am so goddamn tired of hearing people rant about it like it's the end of the fucking world. The argument's been done to death, everybody has an opinion, nobody is likely to change theirs and it's pretty damn obvious to me that my opinion (I wish it didn't happen) is in the minority.

Cheers,

Sorran.

[Krones]

Originally posted by Northerner

I can't say I'm shocked SoE has gone this route to be honest. I am a little surprized that they went straight to EQ2 though and didn't play with it some on EQLive first. Still, in the end I am a lot less horrified about the whole business than I once would have been.

Probably because EQ1 is in the midst of their own armageddon and EQ2 tanked target expectations and retention is less than stellar. If anything is sustaining their success it would their All-Access-Pass subscription model. I wouldn't be surprised too see the commdified system implemented for EQ1 after the servers stabilize and the dust settles.

[Elgonn]

I'd assume that the reason EQ2 is doing it is because it already has a completely functional web <--> character system in place.

EQ1 would probably take work.

[Samus Aran]

Originally posted by Northerner
I guess the real question now, given that virtual items will have a very trackable value, is how long until someone works up a class-action suit based on a server rollback or other in-game problem. It becomes much more likely if you can quantify damages after all and making a case for negligance might well be possible. I am no lawyer though, I just remember this being the third-rail so often discussed back when damages had been awarded in Asia on a similar suit.

They're giving out a limited license to use their stuff. They're not giving it a value.

[Sorran]

No, but the players are, and since it is a service that is provided by the company, a court may well decide that it's the companies responsbility to compensate for "losses" due to rollbacks, code bugs, and so on (essentially something that was the company's "fault"). That's just my view on the matter though, a real court may have a completely different interpretation .

Cheers,

Sorran.

[soulfly24]

Hopefully, the revenue generated from these transaction are used to help fund new expansion projects, adventure packs and *gasp* real testers.

As for the service, whatever. I'm not opposed to it, but i'm not happy about it either.

[Gilson]

You guys are slackin'.... Where's the old EQ Legends SS with the guy in Befallen petitioning for some rations and water and a stack of bone chips? I'd desperately like to post that on the official forums.

[Malvesti]

So some people are still going to play on the non-ebay servers (think of it as Hard Mode) and then some portion of them will still want to buy and sell cash.

Is SOE going to spend time and effort blocking cash transfers there? I guess they will if there's money in it for them. How about this:

"If we catch you trading items/gold on a purist server, then we will charge you an additional month subscription, as well as transfer you to an ebay server."

If SOE could figure out how to make this fly, they'll be all over people trying to trade on purist server, because every one means additional revenue. Hmm...

[Awanka]

Originally posted by Rune
No. It's a sad day because SoE (and Blizzard) are too fucking lazy to get in there and cut this shit out at the source. They're not willing to take the initiative to hire people to look at logs in increments of 100's of platinum, or your currency of choice, and have corresponding bannings. They're too content to let it 'extend the life of their game' or whatever the fuck the current MMO management 101 philosophy is.

Instead they fold up and pretend that it's impossible to avoid this kind of corruption, and it's part and parcel of the system. It's not.

No one in big business is willing to take a stand and set an example, to be the shining light in the darkness. There are no ethics anymore, just bottom lines. This is yet another sign of this, as though we needed it.

That is why it is a sad day.

You stupid fuck.

Ethics? Lol. You have some gargantuan nuts mentioning the word "philosophy" in your post. You don't know the first thing about it, most five year olds can understand the concepts better than you. What is unethical about selling items ingame? Why should Blizzard or SOE spend a single penny to stop it, much less set up an anti-computer crime division?

I always hear dumbasses like you on these forums complaining about Ebayers, and how selling ingame items is wrong, and unfair, and the devil Wahh waahh. Noone gives a fuck. It was never amoral, or bad, or illegal(laff), and the way SOE, and now Blizzard goes through such lengths to stop it is a stupid waste of resources.

I predict some retard who took high school economics is now going to tell me how ingame selling ruins the economy.

[Fer0x]

If you really think about it, this could be the absolute best method to cut down on the farmers. The thing about ige and all that is they charge a premium. Now you have all kinds of people who would be willing to sell their goods for much much cheaper price. This will lower the profits of the farmers significantly imo, and lower how much they farm.

[Tomas]

You know, maybe this is just a kneejerk reaction to the whole situation, but I really hope that Blizzard protects the "purity" of WoW.

Yeah, I know, I know, that sounds retarded, and I recognize the economic rationale behind SOE's policy. However, there's just something... distasteful about the whole thing.

Maybe I'm just an idealist.

I had heard that Blizzard had stepped up their enforcement of late of banning buyers of gold and items in addition to sellers. Any truth to that rumor is it all BS? Maybe that's a good sign, cut off the source of the funds.

[Grimble]

So what is the point of the game now that money = items and nothing else matters?