Quote:
Originally Posted by lite
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VZTZ must have been an interesting place. Was it a lot easier? I think I recall Smedy saying something to that effect.
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It certainly wasn't "easier" because VZTZ had actual competition. PvP was nonstop. The key difference is P99's anti hack code. On VZTZ, almost everyone hacked, including and especially Rexx's guild. I remember completely dominating them in Fear and having my guild banned for hacking the next day. The funny part was they had a wizard using nodescend, which allows you to levitate without ever dropping down ... essentially true flight.
So Rexx's guild were some of the biggest hackers on the server. But I suspect they had a developer in their ranks, so we were banned and they never were. This server had a similar history but Nihilum were the beneficiaries. Both Nilly and Heresy exploited Naggy but only one guild got punished for it, which allowed Nizzar to destroy the server by running Nihilum as an RMT scheme for two years.
Now, before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, I do not suspect any of the current staff of being complicit in any nefarious activities. The skype logs reveal no smoking gun. Derubael was a douchebag and they got rid of him as soon as they knew. This post is about why the culture of VZTZ was so different to Red99.
The answer is that it's due to Red99's greater sense of permanence. On VZTZ I both deleted and gave away multiple level 60s. I allowed people to have access to my characters that I knew were hackers and I didn't give a shit. Why? Because the next wipe was always right around the corner. Those characters had little value to me.
Now contrast that with Red99. The code is far more developed and stable and the developers have a stated goal of never having a wipe. Hacking is under control to a vastly greater degree than VZTZ. Characters on this server should therefore have far greater value to the players. Consequently, items have far greater value as evidenced by the amount of cash Derubael is supposed to have pulled in.
My point in typing all this to shit up Rex's fake death thread is to emphasize once again that the staff should never appear to favor one of the server's top guilds. If there were consequences for one top guild, there should have been similar consequences for the other top guild. Otherwise people stop competing because they assume there is a developer in Nihilum and joining that guild is the only way to win. Simply put, Rogean didn't do a good enough job of avoiding even the appearance of favoritism, and that killed competition.
RIP Rex if you're really gone. You were a better personality than you were a player.