Account Selling

[Feather]

Originally Posted by Tuggo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

and I'd be sad how?

You would be sad that I won't group with you because I would know how to play my class and would be an asset to the group - - and any good player won't want to group with someone who hasn't put in the time to learn their class.

There was nothing more ridiculous than a level 50 High Elf Wizard asking for directions to the guild hall in Felwithe. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Noselacri]

I'm sure the team has a reasoning as to why they let the selling of accounts happen, I just fail to see it.

The reason, I'm guessing, is that they don't have dozens of professionally hired GMs to deal with this sort of thing. It's not exactly hard to get away with buying a character, especially if you buy one that isn't well known (one of these hypothetical PL-to-50 deals), so they would have a lot of trouble policing it. Thus, instead of having the inevitable drama of everyone accusing everyone of being a purchased character, they allow it. Most of us, and I'm assuming the admins included, would prefer if it didn't happen at all, but it's unavoidable.

RMT has to be disallowed because it compromises the server since it operates on the sole premise of SOE not crushing EQEmu, something that hasn't happened because there isn't a real-world currency business involved. However, there hasn't been a server as hugely popular as this one before, and if RMT was to become widespread, SOE might start to take an interest. It would be hard for Nilbog to prove in court that they're not the ones making money off of character sales, especially because they very easily could. A private WoW server recently got sued for $80mil because the operator was offering in-game services of some kind for real money, and another classic EQ project (unrelated to EQEmu) was ordered to cease and desist by Sony one or two years ago despite not involving any kind of profit at all and not even being launched yet. I'm sure the p1999 guys want to avoid that sort of thing, even if they can't stop the much more common and more easily accessible plat-for-toons trades.

[yraapt]

That doesn't really make sense. If they were against it but didn't have the power to enforce it they could at least prohibit advertising it on the official forums.

[Messianic]

Originally Posted by yraapt [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That doesn't really make sense. If they were against it but didn't have the power to enforce it they could at least prohibit advertising it on the official forums.

Why? It's more effective to have communication logs (PMs, posts, etc) as extra evidence...

[yraapt]

I would guess that if a person wanted to buy a char for cash they would just send a PM asking for the user's email. The advertisement happens on the official forum, but then the actual RMT offer would happen via another channel.

but thats just a guess... I'm sure there some people who offer cash via PMs. I don't know if admins catch that or not.

[Noselacri]

Originally Posted by yraapt [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That doesn't really make sense. If they were against it but didn't have the power to enforce it they could at least prohibit advertising it on the official forums.

Because it'll happen no matter what, and transparency lessens the drama. This way, the GMs will be able to keep some measure of track and control over traded characters in case one is used for exploiting or harrassment, something that is probably more likely to be done by a character bought for plat than one played by an active and known member of the community.

[Dantes]

I'm not so sure about that. If you took away their best advertising medium, most folks probably wouldn't even bother selling the accounts in the first place.

[HippoNipple]

Yeah if they made a statement in an update and when you log in that said as of October 5th all people trying to purchase accounts with platinum or real $ will be banned. All people advertising for sales of accounts on the forums will also be banned, it would stop 99% of it.

I don't know why they don't do that. It would make the community healthier.

[Noselacri]

Hard to say unless they make a rule about it. I wouldn't mind if they do, but I also don't have as big of a problem with toon-buying as some seem to. I suspect it'll decline considerably in Kunark, though, because the 50s take so long that PLing through them is barely an option. By then, character selling might be reduced to people who want to actually reroll, and not people making a business out of PLing characters to sell them, if that in fact happens.

[Darklake]

Originally Posted by Lazortag [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I can't stand account selling for a very different reason - the people buying the accounts take on classes that they have no idea how to play. It's fucking frustrating when you know that the guy you're grouping with didn't get to 50 on his own because otherwise they wouldn't play like shit.

But the majority of people here at Project 1999 would have had prior experience of live EQ - say the person buying that level 50 Enchanter was the top of his server back in the day and really doesn't want the grind to get there? Don't assume all purchased accounts would be clueless noobs.