Hoax: Selling Loot Rights (SLR) is Ending
A recurring controversy in EverQuest II is the ability to sell or gift looting rights to a player who was not present at the time the mob died. This could be an alternate raider who was sitting out, a player who went linkdead at the crucial moment during the fight, or it could be a player who “buys” the item in auction.
Last night two forum topics were created on the EQ2 forums suggesting that SLR had become impossible on Test, and that only players who had been present at the time of the kill could loot items from chests. I was immediately suspicious due to the lack of details. No raid zone or mob was mentioned. The actual error message was not provided. And it was an infrequent poster with a vague “I just found out in test”. So I held off on an article until some kind of confirmation one way or the other could be had. Looks like we’ve all been masterfully trolled.
Lyndro posted:
We’re taking a look now to see if this is an issue. If this happened it wasn’t an intentional change. If we were to make a change like this, we wouldn’t do it in secret.
and then:
Looks like the looting rules are the same on test as they are on live.
and from Zoltaroth:
Since not everyone goes to the test forums, let me state it here as well:
If this is indeed happening on Test, it is a bug and will be fixed.
Commentary
I could rehash the arguments. From raiders who are struggling with current broken drop rates (which heavily favor scouts and fighters) who would have quit by now if they couldn’t at least profit from item sales, to players who have never seen the inside of a current tier raid zone yet nonetheless have strong opinions against SLR, to hardcore raiders who want to protect what they’ve earned, and then everyone else in the middle who largely doesn’t see a problem with it.
What about games like WoW that only allow those who were present at the time of the kill to loot the item? This comparison falls flat when you look at the state of raiding in WoW vs. EQ2. WoW does not require specific classes or pitch-perfect coordination to raid. EQ2 requires exact classes and certain players to sit out certain fights, with class debuffs, certain fights that have very different requirements, etc.
EQ2 launched with tradeable loot, and introduced NO-TRADE in small measure at first, before eventually flagging almost every group and raid item as NO-TRADE or HEIRLOOM. There’s really no reason why most group and raid loot couldn’t be tradeable.
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Comments (29)
Argond
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SOE isn’t the best bunch of communicators, but they certainly aren’t stupid enough to try and stealth-change a game mechanic of this magnitude. If they were going to alter the way loot mechanics function, they’d at least start a thread about it, first. I know it’s fashionable to bash SOE and talk about how they’re killing the game, but they aren’t totally incompetent, and they have enough sense to realize when their players will be upset by a proposed change.
Well, I suppose any change they make will cause players to be upset, but some people will complain about anything, and I think SOE can tell who those people are.
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Necromancer
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I can tell you one thing – my raiding guild runs with 30 people. We sit people on the sideline because, as I’m sure most raiders know, some fights require 3 or 4 tanks – some fights require 7 or 8 healers – some fights are heavy DPS checks. We rotate people in and out based on what fight we are doing, but we give everyone an equal chance at bidding with DKP for whatever drops. If the people we sit and rotate in and out for certain fights aren’t able to loot that item, it’s going to KILL guilds like ours because then we are ONLY able to bring in the exact same 24 people.
That is my main concern. I couldn’t care less about SLR.
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Nyna
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I for one would welcome if SLR came to an end, because it turns an MMO where you should like to play with many people into a Business to steamroll dungeons with as few players as possible just to sell off the loot and make other players pay your subscription.
I understand that the SLR Mafia loves that there’s always some fool who’re dumb enough to give away SC, but it killed the game for me, since I neither want to pay SC for gear, nor do I wish to participate and become part of the SLR Mafia myself.
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Malade
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Nyna I wish i could plus you.
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Argond
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SLR mafia? Really? People have some crazy conspiracy theories.
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Striinger
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Haha at “SLR Mafia”. I almost blew coffee out my nose! That’s so funny but truly unworthy of a meaningful comment. LoL
@Feldon: You and SJ are of one mind about all loot being tradable. I’m MORE surprised it’s not already that way based on his conviction from a couple of years back.
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Kwill
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I agree all loot should be tradeable. Work arounds only enourage corruption — thus the SLR mafia.
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Bruwin
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To those constantly complaining about SLR, there is absolutely -no way- to properly prevent it. If they made it so you’d have to be present for the kill, then people would just shift to the WoW version of SLR. Basically they would sell raid spots to 4-5 people, and then charge more money if the loot they want actually drops. If they made it so you had to buy all raid gear with raid shards, again, people would just pay for raid spots with good raiders to be ran through content until they got X amount of shards.
So why constantly push to change a system that isn’t broken? Why does it bother people so much that some people are willing to pay plat for their raid gear?
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Landiin
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The large topic could of been avoided if they would of just chimed in sooner. I can see why they didn’t through it gave them a good amount of feed back and as they probably already know, SLR is supported by the majority of the population. There there is the lolz factor, Dev’s say hey lets see where this goes, its gonna be a good thread.
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Seffrid
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“I for one would welcome if SLR came to an end, because it turns an MMO where you should like to play with many people into a Business to steamroll dungeons with as few players as possible just to sell off the loot and make other players pay your subscription.”
I agree.
Why have to have anyone go into the dungeon at all? Why not just have offline looting?
The “instant gratification for no effort” crowd have a lot to answer for in the decline of MMOs, and selling what should be hard-earned loot is simply pandering to them.
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Karith
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I think all loot should be tradeable except war runes or anything that unlocks other REpurchasable loot.. That way you keep an incentive for raiding over farming plat.
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epoling
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One thing I noticed in the different threads on this issue was the complaint that SOE wasn’t commenting. Based on SOE time, the threads started mid-afternoon on Sunday and they were replied to mid-morning Monday. It shows how much people are willing to deride Sony that they get mad they aren’t online answering questions Sunday night. I don’t see a conspiracy theory given the timeline.
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Gourdon
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@Seffrid
More people in your group or raid does not equal more effort. Wanting ways to progress in game without the drama of playing with random people on the internet isn’t about instant gratification.
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Kralus
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no eq next? that’s depressing.
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Ghouti
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Good SLR would be just stupid from a raid perspective and i already thought it a weird change.
Any word on the changes to Reforging though ? read on eq2flames they were ninja nerfing the conversion to MA and AE attack, that really so ?
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Jay
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It was a masterful troll, one of the better in fact, especially as Talathion fell for the original and started it all again.
Kudos to the troller on one that even had the Die Hards of EQ2 frothing at the mouth.
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Melpheos
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I made a proposition on the forum regarding SLR (thread locked since then) that would make everyone happy and actually make price more in line with the economy and remove plat from the game as well.
Keep Heirloom but make it Heirloom-Broker Only.
Item can be passed to players on the same account and can be sold only on the broker (not traded between players on different account)
This will make an incentive for former SLR because it’s faster to put everything on the broker at the end of a run rather that stopping at each exquisite and wait for SLR auction to end.
Nothing prevent items to be shared between raid members or split coin once item is sold.
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Melpheos
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Sidenote : they should put smart looting back in place !!!
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Nyna
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I hate raid loot alltogether. it should all be replaced with some tokes that are distributed evenly. Nothing more annoying than joining a raid and having to worry about weather the leader is honest, they’ll scheme you out of loot rolls, being forced to raid multiple times with the same morons just to be allowed to roll at all , etc…
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Mike
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We sit people on the sideline because, as I’m sure most raiders know, some fights require 3 or 4 tanks – some fights require 7 or 8 healers – some fights are heavy DPS checks. We rotate people in and out based on what fight we are doing…
And this is what makes raiding in Rift a lot less annoying than EQ2 was. Need extra tanks, healers with specific capabilities (e.g.: cleansing, heavier AE heals, etc.), or more DPS? No problem, it literally takes 5 seconds to reconfigure the raid to exactly what the fight requires. No sitting people out or requiring heavy rosters.
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Necromancer
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Yes. I forgot how in Rift you can play as three different classes, so instead of master one class, you’re mediocre at three classes.
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Feldon
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You’re too funny.
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Necromancer
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Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that Rift at the end line content isn’t a huge mess with a plethora of people who have absolutely no idea what they are doing because of the three soul system that allows them to do anything. Instead of making one single class, that people play as and master as they go through the levels, they give people three classes that they wind up having no idea how to play either class, so at the end line content it’s a huge mess.
Tell me I’m wrong, because that’s exactly what happened when I bothered to play Rift.
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Collene
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I personally would love the removal of SLR. There’s no adventure anymore for the non-raider. It’s getting tiring to log into EQ2, and sit and listen to /auction channel to buy loot when no groups form to actually GO into those zones. Make everything sellable / tradable. It only makes sense.
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LimeSplitpaw
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I wish soe would make something about SLR. eather they should make trading loot to anyone not present imposable or they should remove the no-trade/heirloom tag, cause what’s the point of item with no-trade/heirloom tag if they can be sold anyway but not to the built in broker system. maybe guild should be able to sell from there guildhalls? ether open up for market or close it really.
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Whilhelmina
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I’m reading this and it makes me wonder. The last SLR we had on Storms was Veeshan Peak. I even placed a bid for hubby at that time (his guild was raiding but still a bit under geared to progress farther in VP and the additionnal bought loot did gave them the power to go farther and start killing the mobs who dropped the loot). Since VP, it dwindled down. There was still a little bit of SLR with moors but I haven’t heard of anything sold since then.
A tiny bit of loot in some instances, but very few of those. Nothing close to the heavy actionning you’re speaking about.
On topic: I read the topic on In Testing Feedback and the one on reforging and wondered at the obvious trolling. If something changes on Test without notice after a patch, ASK FIRST if it’s intended or not. Don’t just assume it’s a stealth nerf.
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Feldon
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I don’t think that’s fair. SOE changes things all the time without comment and it’s like pulling teeth to get an answer. Especially anything they consider an exploit, they stay silent. I’m surprised they replied at all about the Reforging.
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Mike
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Tell me I’m wrong, because that’s exactly what happened when I bothered to play Rift.
I think you’re wrong. Anecdotally speaking, I haven’t run into any greater percentage of “bads” in experts and raids in Rift than I did when I was playing EQ2. But overall, it’s my opinion that SLR is detrimental to a game and fortunately in Rift it’s unnecessary. If you want gear, earn it by killing the mob that drops it, not paying someone to do it for you.
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Orangello
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Personally speaking only, SLR is not something I will ever participate in. With the introduction of kronos to pay for a month subscription all the buyers of loot are doing is enabling the raiders to play for free. Selling “XYZ of ABC for 1500 plat” is the same as saying “who wants to fund 2 of our raiders for another month?” So the end result is non-raiders paying cash for subscriptions/Station Cash/kronos to keep the game alive while the raiders are playing for free. So, go ahead, pay plat for items to someone else so they can enjoy a free month as a gold member while they whine, and moan about a lack of content to keep them entertained.
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