EverQuest Frustrations Surface

The game has the capability to foster strong emotions toward its virtual world and inhabitants to a degree I’ve haven’t seen matched ever. It’s EverQuest, and one man argues that the way the game was meant to be played is “slowly dying”. His main points are the kill stealing, the immaturity of the players and over-inflated prices.

Well, it’s a very interesting read, however most of the points in his article were there during the time I played (for about a year ending this time last year), and at times, even more so (kill stealing comes to mind before the aggregate group experience patch which allowed groups to take kills rather than the single person with the most damage).

Here’s a snippet:

But it’s when you see auctions for stacks (a stack being equal to 20 units) of food being sold by players for 5pp (equivalent of 50 gold pieces), which you could buy from a merchant yourself for less than five gold pieces, that you really see the greed in some players. Here, the seller targets a zone where there are no merchants who sell food close by (in this case it was in Lake of Ill Omen) and gives the players the chance to save themselves the trip to Firiona Vie to buy food and water at the expense of over-inflated prices for the convenience of it. It’s easy to see how people are screwed over when using the /auction feature to buy and sell products if they’re not up on the current market value of an item or service. That example was just for food! When you get up to weapons, armor, and jewelry, it gets bad sometimes. 🙂 A select few people know this and exploit it.

On an EverQuest for profit tangent:
I understand what he’s saying, but however, I actually think of this as smart thinking (though wily) on the part of the player using this tactic. They’re using the old supply and demand principles to fill in a need where one is not being met… and profiting from it. The auction channel can be switched on and off, and only those that could find the item/food useful need respond… it’s up to their discretion. Not to knock the article in any way, because “playing nice” is what it’s all about and he nails that concept throughout… it would be a much better world if people all respected one another, but it sounds as if the game is exactly the same addiction machine as it was when I fortunately cut the habit with some added benefits and the same unfortunate annoyances.