EverQuest 2 - Transfer Wrangle Continues @ Official Site

I've resisted posting regarding this until now since it's the sort of wrangle that either appears a storm in a teacup to those not involved, or provokes the sort of bitter flame war only found on internet forums. For those that have followed the transfer story to this point, the following post from Bruce Ferguson, Senior Producer for EverQuest II, might be of interest.

There has been quite a bit of discussion recently about something we were doing to show kindness to some valued members of our testing community who have been working diligently to improve EverQuest II for the last three years.
What we did was take a group of characters from the test server, scrub them by hand of all test gear, and any 'privileged' equipment, titles, etc, and grant their wish to continue to play as a group of friends, on a live server.
Had we been aware that being a little extra kind to these folks would cause such an uproar, there is no doubt we would not have taken this step. However, due to the current situation, I find myself apologizing to you for allowing this situation to occur.
We are in the process now of removing the characters that we copied to the live servers. Obviously, we overstepped the bounds of kindness in attempting to thank these people for their efforts in testing, and we are working to rectify this situation before the end of the day today.
Thank you,
Bruce "Froech" Ferguson
Senior Producer, EverQuest II

Click to expand...

More information.

Good Lord, I can only wonder at the amount of naivety some ppl have! The entire idea of "all people are equal" never existed in history and it only makes me laught that people obviously really believed in it! I mean, come on! We ALL are more generous to friends and those who supported us, we give and take. NO one treats total strangers he ows nothing to the same than friends or people who helped you out - like testing the game in this case. Its what makes humanity drive since civilization rose. *shrug*

Why humans are always so surprised when the fundamental truths of live appear, I dunno... Manus manum lavat. Thats how EVERYTHING works! Just wake up to reality, folks! The only REAL reason is envy it werent YOU who has this special connections! HAHA. >

And besides: does it minimize MY experience of fun playing EQ2? Not a BIT! I play EQ2 since launch and the fact others were given a bonus for testing and being friends to devs... I couldnt care LESS.

So..people were complaining that playtesters got privileges from management for helping out?

Yep, that sounds like an online gaming community. Mine was like that anyway.

The one that took over my server started handing out all sorts of favours to his friends and justified giving himself a Roleplaying award. When I ran things I actually took privileges away when people became part of leadership. Although the faction leaders had access to any of the factions resources. You had to look for people who wouldn't suddenly think they were owed. It was the people that realized it was just a game and it wasn't real that were the most helpful. Of course, many of these people were just your buddy to get in good with management you'd find out the hard way.

oh, I like the sarcasm in the quote below:

Obviously, we overstepped the bounds of kindness in attempting to thank these people for their efforts in testing

Click to expand...

yeah, that was a funny quote. What BS!

But read the posts in that thread from these people, theyre on fire about this.

would love to a look under the SOE rug to see how much dirt is under their. i would not have even thought about it until today

Click to expand...

Oh yes, what dirt indeed. I dont miss the MMO drama queens at all!

Asbjoern said:

oh, I like the sarcasm in the quote below:

Click to expand...

To me, this rather sounds like bitterness.

Wow, then I guess I am the only one, unless I am missing all the scarcasm, that understands that from day 1, the rules state NO one may transfer from Test to Live. Additionally NO one puts their MAIN on Test servers and this has nothing to do with being normal guilds being crybabies, SoE was breaking there VERY strict policy, for ONE guild ONLY on Test.

This is bad for everyone, since once all the HELPFUL guilds on Test found out they all wanted to be MOVED now and these guys get at the very least Double XP and still had very elite gear even though the Legendary Gear was stripped.

Most of these PvE guilds have been around since the beginning and now they have a CHEAT guild dumped on their server where, everyone else had to actually work for their gear. Well ok there are a small minority that buy good gear, but most high level guilds don't tolerate buying gold, which is pretty evident when a new member level 10 member shows up in level 70 gear.

The idea you guys are justifying, (if I understand your post ) cheating in mmogs highly suggest you really don't play them or are in fact the ones we read about whom buy everything with gold, you buy on the internet, instead of earning it. Now personally I have nothing against people buying gold to give them a boost if maybe they are new and the games too hard for them just beginning, BUT to then come post on forums how everyone should be FORCED into Cheating, totally sucks.

Nope, haven't played one in quite a while -- and this is just one manifestation of why I don't. Even when I was playing, I couldn't have cared less about other guilds.

I dont take it all that seriously, Ace.

I do play MMO's (or have), but I dont really play PvP or competitively, so I really dont care much what the next guy is doing. Gold farmers are a different story, because them and their idiot bots physically get in my way all the time and disrupt my game time.

I dont think anyone got financially ripped off, did they? A few people got their free characters given to them, while some others didnt get theirs. Big deal, ya know.

That's how I see it purrsonally of course, I quit the MMO/chat drama club a long time ago!

I don't have an emotional bias for or against people in this case, but it doesn't take much logic to determine that it's not a good thing to have developers support cheating in a competitive environment.

I have friends who openly buy gold in WoW, and I consider them cheaters. It's not relevant to me how they attempt to justify it, and to me it will always be cheating because they're actively breaking the rules established by the developers, and mixing real money with a game is never a good idea, unless all involved agree about it.

This transferring of characters consitutes an unfair advantage, and it doesn't matter you can argue that it's minor. What's worse, is that SOE condoned something that is obviously against their own rules, which again on principle is totally and utterly wrong. You can never make little exceptions like that, because then you're telling the audience that such things can happen, and what might the next breach be.

They demonstrated a very poor judgment in this case, and in my mind it's not a trivial mistake. As I said, I don't have any emotional bias against people here, but I have to say I think it's a bit scary how easy you can shrug something like this off, considering you're players of MMOs yourself. It's not exactly helping the genre to accept cheating in any form. I know I couldn't enjoy a competitive game if cheating ever became an accepted standard. Take a look at what has happened to Tour de France lately, if you want to see what happens when cheating becomes the norm in a competitive environment.

Moralism gone rampant. The only reason people are upset is it wasnt THEM haha! I dont believe anyone would have turned down and said no to favours.

If you have no work, and you are one of 10 candidates, and your friend is in the company you want to work in: do you NOT ask him to favour you? Or if you decide who gets the job in your department, and of 10 similarly able candidates, do you NOT favour your friend?

If you are in a club for collecting train miniatures: if you are rich, do you NOT buy more and better trains than the other club members? Or if you know someone in a factory who makes miniature trains, do you NOT use your connections to get that special edition rare train model?

Of course we all do, unless we were brainless. All this little-people moralism "oh noes he got a bigger sword because he bought it for 10 dollars" is just so sick. You know, if I would buy gold for MY HOBBY, MY SPARE TIME FUN, I would not care A BIT if anyone LIKES that or not! Its MY frigging hobby, and if I buy a manor and a THOUSAND golden swords its none of your friggin buisiness.

Man, isnt there some REAL unjustice you can fight for, like starving children, global warming or war on terror instead of a silly computer game? Geez, you little-people backwater moralism really makes me laugh! None of you would turn down favours, its like the world functions, so you better wake up to reality and stop making moralistic crusades for trivial things like pixel games. We are all similarly selfish, thats what drives the world, but I dont pretend to be anything else.

elikal said:

Moralism gone rampant. The only reason people are upset is it wasnt THEM haha! I dont believe anyone would have turned down and said no to favours.

If you have no work, and you are one of 10 candidates, and your friend is in the company you want to work in: do you NOT ask him to favour you? Or if you decide who gets the job in your department, and of 10 similarly able candidates, do you NOT favour your friend?

If you are in a club for collecting train miniatures: if you are rich, do you NOT buy more and better trains than the other club members? Or if you know someone in a factory who makes miniature trains, do you NOT use your connections to get that special edition rare train model?

Of course we all do, unless we were brainless. All this little-people moralism "oh noes he got a bigger sword because he bought it for 10 dollars" is just so sick. You know, if I would buy gold for MY HOBBY, MY SPARE TIME FUN, I would not care A BIT if anyone LIKES that or not! Its MY frigging hobby, and if I buy a manor and a THOUSAND golden swords its none of your friggin buisiness.

Man, isnt there some REAL unjustice you can fight for, like starving children, global warming or war on terror instead of a silly computer game? Geez, you little-people backwater moralism really makes me laugh! None of you would turn down favours, its like the world functions, so you better wake up to reality and stop making moralistic crusades for trivial things like pixel games. We are all similarly selfish, thats what drives the world, but I dont pretend to be anything else.

Click to expand...

It's not about beliefs or how you perceive yourself. It's about either cheating or not cheating. You don't pretend to be anything but selfish, and that's good for you. I can't say I find it impressive, though, and I hope you don't either. But that's not relevant.

If we are all similarly selfish, then why are some people fighting to eliminate starvation or global warming? If they are just pretending, then I don't really see a problem with that delusion. As long as people keep pretending, the world can improve and that's enough for me.

As for games and how unimportant they are, well, I don't think measuring the amount of right something will do is the only consideration to be had when deciding for or against it. Cheating makes for a bad competitive environment, and I don't think supporting it will improve the game.

I find a lot of pleasure in gaming, and I don't intend to actively work against the enjoyment of either myself or others by cheating. That doesn't make me superior in a moral sense, and to be honest I couldn't care less if it's wrong or right in that way. It's simply a matter of applying my pragmatic point of view, and in this case it's exceedingly obvious that supporting cheating is detrimental to the experience. Therefore, I don't cheat and I will speak against it.

It's interesting how certain people who spend so many hours of their free time playing MMOs, are constantly trying to underline how insignificant games are. It's almost as if they're pretending - as you say - that they have more important things to do. It makes you wonder just how honest they really are with themselves overall, and whether or not they're cheating because they can't play by the rules, because that makes them feel inferior.

DArtagnan said:

I have friends who openly buy gold in WoW, and I consider them cheaters. It's not relevant to me how they attempt to justify it, and to me it will always be cheating because they're actively breaking the rules established by the developers, and mixing real money with a game is never a good idea, unless all involved agree about it.

Click to expand...

I don't get the desire to do it (why play a game you don't seem to enjoy playing?) but it wouldn't bother me.

In a PvE situation, what do I care what other people are doing? In PvP...the water's muddier but the result is the same. I come up against Axeblood the Bad -- what practical difference does it make if Axeblood spent 20 hours a day grinding better stuff than me, bought it from a gold vendor -- or got it given to them by a guild mate?

Dhruin said:

I don't get the desire to do it (why play a game you don't seem to enjoy playing?) but it wouldn't bother me.

In a PvE situation, what do I care what other people are doing? In PvP...the water's muddier but the result is the same. I come up against Axeblood the Bad -- what practical difference does it make if Axeblood spent 20 hours a day grinding better stuff than me, bought it from a gold vendor -- or got it given to them by a guild mate?

Click to expand...

Firstly, I wouldn't say I was bothered by it. It really depends on the extent, though. I suppose you could say that it annoys me on principle, and I find it slightly disturbing that people can't see why it's bad.

Most MMOs are quite competitive in nature, and it doesn't have to include PvP. The rules of the game are clear, and we all have to grind for whatever we want to enjoy. If someone buys gold and gives himself superior gear, then he's letting things outside the realm of the game influence his success in the game, be it PvE (raids) or PvP. That's not fair to the people who're spending hours to achive that, and it also affects the economy of the game.

Now, there are many ways of measuring how good you are in a game, and to some people it's important that they're doing well in raids, or that they're winning more in PvP. Ideally, people win because they are more skillful, in one way or the other, but most MMOs favor superior gear to a large extent, and therefore it's meaningful that everyone should work for that. Otherwise, people will slowly realise that they're wasting a lot of time trying to achieve a level playing field, and pretty soon it will become an accepted standard to buy your gold. When that happens, we're entering the realm of class-based levels of success, meaning those that are richer will be the most powerful players in the game, or those that are willing to break the rules more.

I don't know about you, but I couldn't enjoy a game when my personal ability to succesfully play the game wouldn't matter a lot, and instead the size of my wallet, or my financial commitment to a game is what determines my power.

The same is true for most modern sports, if you ask me, where money is the name of the game. It's no longer about the sport itself, but how well you manage your funds and everything is totally blown out of proportion based on greed. It's not a very positive development in general, and I wouldn't want that kind of thinking to needlessly influence the realm of gaming.

The effect on the economy is a good point. I don't think it has much bearing on the test-server guild but I take that point. I can also understand it's bad for the community, so I'm not supporting gold sales.

I appreciate people will have a different view to me on this. Personally, I don't care about someone's wallet -- it was never an even playing field. I don't have the time to grind 20 hours a day or operate two accounts to twink my characters; it makes no practical difference to me whether you just out-grind me or out-spend me - same net result; you have more/better gear than me over any time period.

Games that have tiered payment systems are different, because it's impossible to have the same gear without paying more.

Dhruin said:

The effect on the economy is a good point. I don't think it has much bearing on the test-server guild but I take that point. I can also understand it's bad for the community, so I'm not supporting gold sales.

I appreciate people will have a different view to me on this. Personally, I don't care about someone's wallet -- it was never an even playing field. I don't have the time to grind 20 hours a day or operate two accounts to twink my characters; it makes no practical difference to me whether you just out-grind me or out-spend me - same net result; you have more/better gear than me over any time period.

Games that have tiered payment systems are different, because it's impossible to have the same gear without paying more.

Click to expand...

Well, as I said, I don't emotionally invest in whether people have cheated or not. It's not visible to me anyway, so I couldn't even know about it.

My problem is purely about the lack of an equal playing field and an adherence to the established rules. It's like if someone is stacking their deck in poker to give themselves a statistically higher chance of winning - because they don't have time to learn to play right, and I would be against that as well - even if I never knew about it. The thing is about the competitive nature of MMOs, and if you have no interest in that part of the genre, then I can understand why you wouldn't care.

However, about time versus gold buying, I think there is a gigantic difference. Whether or not I personally choose to invest my time in the game is largely irrelevant, but I'd like to know that people with better gear than myself acquired it by following the rules. I can deal just fine with people investing more of their life into the game getting a bigger return out of it, as that's how it should be. You spend hours each day playing? Then you deserve to improve your character, of course. People who don't have time to be competitive, have time to do something else and that is where they deserve to shine, be it another game, family, or a job. Sure, they pay the subscription as well, but if they don't have time to play, then they shouldn't be cheating to make up for their own choice of lifestyle. Nor should they get more powerful skills because they lack the time or will to invest in the game, and I don't think they deserve a helping hand.

It's just not right.

No one seems to have mentioned or noticed yet the Real World Legal ramifications of SoE violating there own contract.

Dhruin said:

Even when I was playing, I couldn't have cared less about other guilds.

Click to expand...

I know what you mean, there is no denying top guilds are very political in mmogs. I mostly am talking in general, since I couldn't even tell you which guild, server or the names of anyone involved. I certainly haven't bothered to read any of the post at SoE, just picked up the info from Gamesites doing reporting.

xSamhainx said:

I dont take it all that seriously, Ace.

Click to expand...

Me too, Sam. It has been 8 to 10 months since I played EQ2, I just went back for the latest expansion for about 2 months. I know what you mean about the Farmers, as they can camp good spots 24/7, which certainly prevents real players from spending an hour or so in a good area.
I don't think it would be a problem either except it violates strict fairness policies put in place by SoE, to prevent guilds and GMs from cheating just like this. So what happens when your a struggling 2nd place in the mmog market and you dump a cheat guild on a Live server with most of your loyal fans occupying that server for 3 years or so and they threaten to leave? Not to mention even though this took place on one server it effects all servers as, it could then happen to them, so this is more based on the economics of a mass exodus

DArtagnan said:

If we are all similarly selfish, then why are some people fighting to eliminate starvation or global warming? If they are just pretending, then I don't really see a problem with that delusion.

Click to expand...

Exactly, elikal's whole position is a scam.

It's not a very positive development in general, and I wouldn't want that kind of thinking to needlessly influence the realm of gaming.

Click to expand...

Why I don't waste my time watching sports anymore, it's all about self aggrandizing greed, at least for the most part here in the corporatist US.

elikal said:

Moralism gone rampant............We are all similarly selfish, thats what drives the world, but I dont pretend to be anything else.

Click to expand...

You are trying to equate moralistic behavior to cheating in a For-Pay Game, then turning around saying everything is based on selfishness in the real world, so either your profiting from this i.e. a member of the guild in question or you really don't understand economics.

So, it's ok for SoE to pick 1 out of 10 (guessing on the total number) guilds from all the Helpful guilds on Test to Break Strict Company Policy by moving them to a Live Server? This Cheats the paying Live Server Guilds and the other Test Server Guilds.

While you pretend to hide behind some false selfish lifestyle of world beliefs, it's clear you have no idea about how economies Real or Virtual work.
Additionally pretending to have some holier than thou position because you immorally compare Real World tragedies of Humanity caused by the very selfish people you claim to be and support, is pretty low.

A while ago Josh E. Sawyer praised a game (hitman: blood money) on the Obsidian site getting other people to comment on that there were supposed to be 'no advertising' on Obsidian's site. Other people told those that complained that they needed to relax a little since it was his (and Obsidian's) site. So they did - and a very interesting discussion about Hitman: Blood Money took place.

The same applies to the Everquest site and servers, me thinks. It is the company behind the Everquest games that pays the bills for the servers etc. so they can do anything they want, in my book. Basically, it is their site and their game.

If they want to thank some very hardworking people for their hard work done on testing their games they can do so. Yes, they can even decide to breakk their own rules, since it is they who have made them up in the first place. This means that they can do what they have done, they can allow people from their test community who maybe have tested their games for many many years to transfer their test characters to a specifik Live server so they can continue to play on as friends and gamers, both with and against each other.

They wanted to play as 'a group of friends' on a live server. EQ's company and developers decided to grant their wish. And then apparently all hell broke loose - even if it Christmas - and the spirit of the Holiday giving should be in people's hearts, not pettiness nor envy nor jealosy. Instead people should be happy that EQ's developers and company etc. think of their testers as much as they do.

aries100 said:

A while ago Josh E. Sawyer praised a game (hitman: blood money) on the Obsidian site getting other people to comment on that there were supposed to be 'no advertising' on Obsidian's site. Other people told those that complained that they needed to relax a little since it was his (and Obsidian's) site. So they did - and a very interesting discussion about Hitman: Blood Money took place.

The same applies to the Everquest site and servers, me thinks. It is the company behind the Everquest games that pays the bills for the servers etc. so they can do anything they want, in my book. Basically, it is their site and their game.

If they want to thank some very hardworking people for their hard work done on testing their games they can do so. Yes, they can even decide to breakk their own rules, since it is they who have made them up in the first place. This means that they can do what they have done, they can allow people from their test community who maybe have tested their games for many many years to transfer their test characters to a specifik Live server so they can continue to play on as friends and gamers, both with and against each other.

They wanted to play as 'a group of friends' on a live server. EQ's company and developers decided to grant their wish. And then apparently all hell broke loose - even if it Christmas - and the spirit of the Holiday giving should be in people's hearts, not pettiness nor envy nor jealosy. Instead people should be happy that EQ's developers and company etc. think of their testers as much as they do.

Click to expand...

I don't think anyone is suggesting that they can't change the rules for their own game, and indeed they have done so numerous times. Let's not even get into SWG and what they did to that game.

We're talking about the consequences of doing so, not the legality. Nor do we suffer illusions that we can control their actions.

In my mind, we're simply commenting on what they did, and why we think it's bad for the game. It's not about this one incident, which I would agree is somewhat trivial (though I don't know the details), but the implications of that KIND of action being accepted. It's very important to me, to feel that the developers understand the principles of a level playing field. It shouldn't be decided on a case-by-case basis depending on whatever the developer figure in charge happens to think about any given case, on any given day. It has to be established beforehand and remain visible and uncompromised throughout.

If they do favors for people that support them more, then no matter how insignificant they can be argued to be, there is a chance they're going to do more favors and who's to say if the people in charge will think of these favors as significant. So it could indeed be something significant, which would effect the power of the players in ways that would be even more detrimental to the competitive spirit.

They're retracting what they did, which tells me that they ultimately understand why it was a bad move. I know they've peppered their response with something resembling sarcastic bitterness, but to me it sounds more like whining. They did something that is principally wrong, and no matter what their intentions were and how nice and good-hearted they are, it was still wrong.

I really don't think the people opposing this action are primarily petty or selfish, at least I hope not. I'm sure there are those that look to themselves before even considering the big picture, but I'd ask you not to lump us all into that category. I just see something that is not beneficial for the gaming community as a whole, and something that should be discouraged.

If they want to reward players, they should give them something that can't be equated to power like some nice looking clothes or whatever. Something that will have no effect on the competitive aspect of the game, but even that is a grey area. Some people play these games for the prestige driven gameplay, and stuff like that might be seen as a breach of balance.

I thought he clearly stated that ALL the characters were "scrubbed" of all gear and items...in my mind that sounds like just the character itself was transfered. No items, no plat...nothing.

Was their experience lvl carried over...I guess "some" would yell about that too though. But I'd think that the vast majority would only be mad IF they somehow carried over their items...I'm I missing something else?

Regards