I was asked if I was interested in doing a guest post over at mmorpg-info.org regarding my decision to leave EQ2. It’s not often I get asked to do these and I was flattered (plus I’ve been a long fan of the site) so of course I said yes. You can find the article over here: Guest Post. Hopefully with that this unpleasantness of giving up a game is behind me and I will move on to writing about other adventures.
A few notes. Since I’ve posted my goodbye things have changed even more. There is the server merge between Lucan D’Lere and Crushbone, which for those who do not know is the merge of an RP server into a non-RP server. We already saw this when Vanguard merged, and while it doesn’t affect me I do know how disheartening it is for those role players out there. I also think that this choice is better than no choice, or the choice of letting a server completely die.
Then there was the fact that all of the Velious beta forums were moved to the EQ2X forums which means those people who wanted to completely ignore EQ2X would also have to ignore those beta forums and never log in. With this move came a leak of everything that was on those forums, as they were set to public. Not only that but the old forums which resided on the EQ2 (regular) section were actually completely deleted, not transferred over. Players were requested to start their beta posts from scratch, no archives.
My question to that would be – why are there completely separate forums. EQ2X members are not allowed to view the ‘regular’ forums at all. They don’t have access. Players with a paid EQ2 subscription have access to both. This entire us verses them that I feel goes on between EQ2 and EQ2X (enforced by Sony, not the players) is just odd.
In any case, there you have it. Now, lets get back to playing games!
Safe travels.
Taking bets on how long it takes until the first EQ2-EQ2Ex server merge. There would have to be slight changes to the Gold membership level, but it could be done easily.
/flame_proof_undies_on
I play on LDL and I’m happy to see it’s going to be merged with something. I’m not really an RPer though — I joined an RP server because I prefer not to have my game full of OOC chatter and silly character names (and that didn’t really work out at all :P ).
Also, the walling off of EQ2X may be enforced by SoE policies, but the us vs them attitude originated with the players — or at least with a certain segment of the Live population that is vehemently opposed to anything connected with RMT.
I see your point about the server merge. However, on all RP servers, there are many people (many times the majority) who don’t rp so I can’t see it affecting the LDL players that much. As for the Crushbone players, they will get their heads around seeing people talk in character.
It’s still a strange decision though. Maybe it would have been a good idea to offer LDL rpers a free transfer to AB. However, SOE don’t really do “free” so maybe not.
Either way, I’m not affected as I don’t play on LDL and I don’t play EQII any more. I never thought I’d be saying that. It’s a sad farewell to my first mmo love.
While I’m happy that no one is being merged into Antonia Bayle, considering that you can’t even do a simple quest there without tripping over a hundred other players, I have sympathy for the roleplayers of LDL as they chose to be on an RP server when they started the game and that choice is now being removed.
“There is the server merge between Lucan D’Lere and Crushbone…” Oh argh! I’m not technically a RPer in MMOs, but Lucan was my home server and — damn.
Just another brick in the wall, I think.