EverQuest II “Prison Server” Draws Widespread Media Attention
The announcement that EverQuest II will experiment with banishing players for cheating or other egregious bannable offenses to a “prison server” has been met with mixed reactions. Some have described the idea as bold and a potential money maker as well as providing a petri dish for game bugs and exploits to be discovered and fixed. Others have derided the plans as a waste of development resources. Some went so far as to describe it as the “dumbest idea ever”.
UPDATE! CNN Money has now picked up the story. We’re up to 21 media sites covering this news:
Now it looks like the joke may be on those naysayers. In exchange for a few hours of development time and the relatively low cost of additional server space, this announcement has garnered unprecedented media attention and coverage from no less than a dozen major gaming news sites!
- Kotaku: Everquest II Is Building A “Prison Server” For Shitty Players
- Gamasutra: EverQuest II is getting a ‘prison server’ for bad-behaved players
- PCGamer: Everquest 2 to banish naughty players to “prison server”
- GameSpot: Cheaters to Get Locked Away on Prison Server in EverQuest 2
- Twinfinite: EverQuest II Will Start Sentencing Bad Players to A “Prison Server”
- EuroGamer: Everquest 2 to experiment with permanent “prison server”
- PCGamesN: EverQuest II prison server goes live this week; “Let’s see where this takes us”
- Gamer Headlines: EverQuest II will implement a “prison server” for troublesome players
- NZGamer: EverQuest II Introducing a ‘Prison Server’ for Disruptive Players
- CinemaBlend: EverQuest 2 Is Putting Toxic Players In Prison
- Geek: Disruptive EverQuest II players will be banished to a prison server forever
- WinFuture: Online-Rollenspiel führt “Gefängnis-Server” für Störenfriede ein
- Vandal: Everquest II manda a sus jugadores tóxicos a un ‘servidor-cárcel’
- Vice: ‘EverQuest II’ Creates a Server for Assholes
- The Daily Dot: EverQuest II is opening a prison for players who are jerks
- IGN: EverQuest 2 Cheats Getting Sent to Prison Servers
- Rock Paper Shotgun: Steamfont Prison Experiment: EverQuest II Prison Server
- MassivelyOP: EverQuest II’s Prison Server is a ‘One-Way Trip for an Entire Account Forever’
- MMORPG: EverQuest II News – No Redemption for Troublemakers Sentenced to Prison Server
- GameCrate: EverQuest II Will Soon Begin Exiling Cheaters to Their Own Prison Server
It is my understanding that the “prison server” has been idea in discussion for years and that it was intended to solve a real problem. According to Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, Executive Producer for EQ and EQ2, this was not a publicity stunt. It’s certainly possible that marketing wasn’t involved in this at all.
Some interesting quotes:
If anybody in Norrath ever offers you a ‘holiday in Drunder’, don’t take them up on it – you’re being threatened with custody. Daybreak are trialing a prison server, to which EverQuest II players caught breaking their rules and disrupting play will be sent. With no chance of parole.
EverQuest II cheaters, beware, Daybreak Games is preparing to launch a new “prison server” where offending players will be locked away for good.
Daybreak Games is trying something cool with Everquest II: players caught breaking the rules (or just generally being terrible people) aren’t going to be suspended or banned. They’re going to be banished to a “prison server” known as Drunder.
As spotted by Eurogamer, Daybreak (formerly Sony Online Entertainment) has announced an imminent experiment in which Everquest 2 players who break the game rules will be banished to a “prison server” forever.
Holly Longdale, executive producer on EverQuest and EverQuest II, explained in a forum post that the prison server is something Game Masters have been requesting for years. Ultimately, it will be up to those GMs to determine who deserves the transfer…
The server, named Drunder, goes live later this week. Drunder’s first batch of inhabitants will be players flagged for continually breaking the rules and disrupting Everquest 2’s gameplay.
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Comments (67)
Archangel
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The non-gamer sites will slowly comment. Don’t pop the bubbly yet.
http://www.dailydot.com/geek/everquest-2-opening-drunder-prison-server/
EverQuest II is opening a prison for players who are jerks
By Dennis Scimeca
“If you want to play a massively multiplayer online game that harshly deals with deviants, perhaps you want to give EverQuest II a try.”
“if we are reading the announcement correctly EQ II players who are banished to Drunder have to start paying to play EQ II, even if they were not paying to play the game previous to being sent to the prison server.”
http://www.geek.com/games/disruptive-everquest-ii-players-will-be-banished-to-a-prison-server-forever-1631685/
EverQuest II is opening a prison for players who are jerks
By Dennis Scimeca
“Drunder is an experiment players and other MMO developers will watch with great interest. EverQuest II is basically getting a wild west server where bad players can go do bad things if they want to. It could mean players leave the game once transferred, or it may end up being a fascinating experiment and turn into one of the most popular EverQuest II servers.”
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/everquest-ii-creates-a-server-for-assholes
‘EverQuest II’ Creates a Server for Assholes
“Cheaters and other disruptive players are always going to be a problem in online games, and while there are many good solutions, the Hunger Games-type strategies that turn bad players turn against each other are always the most amusing.”
The Prison Server is akin to locking the fictional A-Team in a barn. Unless there’s 24/7 monitoring, put enough “jerks” and “deviants” with exploit hacking skills together and something will break.
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Feldon
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Thanks for the additional links!
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Carnifex
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So…the time locked servers get priority over empty servers that would benefit from mergers. THIS gets priority over the same thing.
Congrats EQ2, you may have just become the Trump of mmo’s.
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Feldon
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It was a few hours dev time. No redirection of resources from the expansion or merges. And frankly this publicity gives the EQ2 team the political capital to ask for more staff, support, tools, etc.
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7rlsy
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Zactly.
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Carnifex
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Publicity of looking like fools? Personally, I think that is something EQ could do without. As of now, the resource impact has been limited, but if this actually goes as plan, that will change. If this took up more than 10 seconds of time that we are paying for as customers, we should all be offended.
They have a chance at redemption by saying this all was joke. That is what I’m waiting to hear, so I can laugh with joy.
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GriffonLady
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Publicity for actually doing something about people that act like assholes. I give it a gold star.
I just hope the refine the rules so people can’t get trolled into reacting and get sent to prison.
Oh, and btw, people that wanted cross server grouping (or better yet, open travel between servers based on the BG programing) so they could keep their names/identities AND make the people who can’t get invited into groups happy? THOSe are the ones that should be offended, but by the merger we were told wasn’t going to happen.
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Carnifex
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That is no solution for people that break the rules. The solution for rule breakers is that you BAN THEM. Forever. Done.
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Dulcenia
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Yes. Banned players do have a good history of remaining banned. They would NEVER make a new account using a different email address, now would they?
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milliebii
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After all they have history of handing out arbitrary bans for no apparent reason. Like say forum bans? Eh Feldon.
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bhagpuss
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I have never in a decade and a half of playing SOE/DBG games had a single, negative interaction with CS, GMs or Devs, all of whom I have spoken to many times during the course of normal play. I’ve been a subscriber sine 1999 and I’ve had a continuous All Access pass ever since they were invented. (Ok, bar one 6 month aberration) when I subbed to WoW in around 2009).
Following this announcement I have not logged into any DBG title. I am scared to do so. I would like some clarification of exactly how a player could end up having their account quarantined in this way. The lack of any appeal process means that it doesn’t seem worth the risk even of logging in right now.
If this persists I may have to re-assess whether there’s any point paying for a service i am too scared to use.
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Dedith
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If you’ve had no negative interaction with SOE/DBG and you are not cheating somehow without being caught, then you shouldnt worry.
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Jeeshman
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Why are you so afraid to log in, if you’ve never received so much as a warning before? That’s like a teetotaler refusing to drive after he finds out his state wants to impose tougher penalties for drunk driving. It also strikes me as a bit early to freak out about it since it hasn’t been implemented yet and we have practically zero information about it.
Here’s why I’m not worried that I’ll be sent to Drunder: there is no way DBG will send people to server jail without having convincing evidence they were using bots or egregiously violating other policies because they want this to be a PR success. When everyone sent to Drunder protests and says they did nothing wrong (and every single one of them will), DBG must be able to provide logs refuting that or face hundreds of internet articles describing horrible customer treatment.
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GriffonLady
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I got a warning for a typo (and the GM refused to read the whole conversation, because from the context, it was extreeeemely obvious that it was a typo), and another warning for a conversation where I was talking about a cat and someone else twisted it to something perverted.
That is my one worry about this whole idea. Other than the fear of people getting sent there for stupid reasons, I LOVE the prison experiment idea. ^_^
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Amaitae
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Then let daybreak buy new server hardware for the laggy live servers if like they say it is not such a high cost.
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Occam
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The ARE getting new hardware for the live servers. Did you think they’d merge servers onto the same old outdated hardware?
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Sievert
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It wouldn’t be surprising.
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GriffonLady
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They are merging servers. That means they’ll have left over hardware. They’ll probably sell all but what is needed for the new “prison”… and maybe a backup for when that server is too full. >.>
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Anaogi
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Still a crazy idea, but at least Daybreak shows signs of being willing to try new things to shake things up. That much is a good sign.
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7rlsy
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Anybody worked in customer service — especially on the phones and email — for.. oh, any old industry? Well, I’m thinking Drunder may actually save resources. CSRs can spend vast amounts of time dealing with the fallout from one jackass. Options are good.
Besides… the Snake Pliskin thing has already come up. We want to see that play out.
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Finora
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Kinda with you there. It certainly could save time for the limited CS staff they have.
The only problems I have with it, I’ve already mentioned on the EQ2 forums. Since there is no coming back they are really going to have to make sure the offenses actually warrant segregating people from the rest of the game like that.
If they go doing it for typos (people have gotten warnings when a typo turned out to be a bad thing) or just for the number of times you’ve been reported, there will be issues. There are people who just /report at the drop of a hat for some things (botting or afk leveling) with no actual proof. So just numbers would be a pretty terrible way to make such a final judgement on someone.
If they actually do it right and verify the bad behavior, warn people first to give people a chance to straighten up, and have a working system to appeal if you feel you’ve been wrongly sent there (hello mistake bans of the past) it might work out for the benefit of most.
It certainly will be interesting to see how it turns out though.
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Michael42
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This is an interesting idea. From what I’ve read, I do not think I’ve seen anyone mention the fact that DBG can use this server as a ground to learn to combat all sorts of hacks and macros that many use to produce some sort of edge/scam and help to further insulate and protect their products and customers. Let’s call it, ‘Drunder-proofing.’
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Striinger
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“Technically”, using programmable keyboards is against the rules. However, I REALLY don’t think people using a G15 are the folks they are going after. I have faith that it’s the DISRUPTIVE people who will be the target….bot or not.
The only REAL chance to backfire that I can see is if the highest population server winds up being Drunder with massive bot guilds and stuff. *lol* Other than that…it seems a good alternative to a permaban.
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Dulcenia
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Didn’t they say specifically that the G15 was allowed? I’ve never seen the official comment on that, but have read many times on the eq2 forums that it exists somewhere.
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Lateana
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Under Options/User Interface there is a specific button to enable G15 support, so I would say its fine to use it 🙂
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Sievert
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Only the display is allowed. Macroing key combinations is not.
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zzzz's
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I think the idea is brilliant marketing that gives cheaters a place to play and cheat to their hearts content without major detriment to the live and TL servers. Bravo!
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Eschia
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I think people will purposely break the rules to see what its like. A virtual world I used to go to called second life tried something like this once but it failed. You’d be sent to another server grid that was nothing but a corn field, a broke down tractor, and a old monochrome tv that played the same rerun of howdy doody over and over. People thought it was so funny they purposely broke the rules to be sent there. The bad users kept crashing that server, which chain-effected the other servers. It eventually got too aggravating to maintain. it was still a funny concept though.
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Ravanazar
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Perhaps two lawless prison colony servers. One voluntary where you can choose to transfer into or be transferred into until you have served your time, the other involuntary and permanent.
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Filly67
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They specifically said that they would move people voluntarily in order to avoid this very situation. Instead of becoming a public PIA that will lead you into eile- you can just request a one-way ticket.
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Really
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What I find hilarious about the discussion on the forums is the hypocrisy, I mean nobody could be that naive, of the people in the top guilds crying about botters. Quite a few of those guilds have botters in them, hell Id wager all of them do!
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Tabri
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Its on IGN also
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2015/08/21/everquest-2-cheats-getting-sent-to-prison-servers
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Zeng
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95% of this coverage amounted to: ‘There are people still playing EverQuest?’
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Ardur
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this is the reason why they created this idea/server. to get attention.
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Zzzz'z
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free advertising!
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Carnifex
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That is perhaps possible, doing this simply for the press, but ask people like that subway guy, you can have bad press. That’s what this is, people are not going to go join a moronic community, believe that. They will spend their money elsewhere.
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Korvan
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And that would be exactly the point, no? If things work as planned, it will leave the standard and time-locked servers with a less toxic community and a better overall play experience. And it lets the exploiters and more “socially challenged” among us to either do their thing on Drunder, or leave the game entirely.
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Ardur
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if you honestly believe its going to work out this way you are in for a suprise.
they said this is a place for cheaters, and exploiters and already carebears like you are trying to lump in the “socially challenged”. By the way if someone is rude, it doesnt mean they have broken a rule. This is like a social engineering experiment, its not going to go well. Have you ever heard of the stanford prison experiments?
why dont we just have a public witch hunt and just start polls so people can vote on wether or not a person ends up on a prison server?
better yet lets only send erudites there!
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Feldon
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Assuming you are genuinely trying to have a conversation and not troll us, let me respond to some points…
I’m intimately familiar with the stanford prison experiments. That saw a group of people who have never broken any rules divided into two camps — prisoners and guards. They had to eat, sleep, and crap in a masonry building. There was social pressure to stay and participate in the program. There was social pressure on guards to do their jobs. This Drunder “prison server” will have no guards, only inmates. Nobody will have any power to enforce anything. I think the pop culture reference you’re grasping for is Lord of the Flies.
As for the witch hunt, the vast majority of people who get banned actually thirst for the limelight and draw attention to themselves through their actions.
And as for singling out Erudites, that’s racist!
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Ardur
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my point is that there is a group of people on the forums that dont get all the information and just jump on a bandwagon to either punish, or agree with someone without understanding the consequence that others might suffer as a result.
I agree that maybe the prison experiments was a poor example, and lord of the flies is better for sure.
Yeah maybe the majority does get banned because of those things. But you have been banned. I got banned for pointing out that someone was trying to be manipulative on the forums all while posting a thread making bets on me committing suicide on flames. It didnt make me mad because I understand the nature of eq2 forums. Sometimes you just get banned. The process of how they ban people on the forums, and even in game sometimes gets messed up, and instead of them acknowledging it, they just keep silent and offer no clarity or transparency.
The point is if players have any kind of voice on who gets punished, they should represent themselves with their charactor, and if its able to be proven that they tried to get someone banned wrongfully they should be joining drunder as well.
Singling erudites out was kind of relating to the people that hate/have a problem with antisocial, or socially awkward people. basically people who have socialization issues as bad people who belong on a prison server according to the eq2 population? Its just a stereotype that they seem to place on a player that doesnt want and frankly doesnt have to get along with them. Social game or not that is pretty comparable to racism. Its the principle of lumping people into a category and saying that they deserve punishment when they dont that concerns me.
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Feldon
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I certainly have a concern about staff being trigger-happy with bans. Especially people being banned in EQ2 for actions they apparently took in H1Z1 yet have never played.
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Froak
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the fact that DBG not even 2 days ago wrongfully suspended an entire guild of about 400 people in EQ1 because a GM reacted hastily and did not investigate the issue shows just how much this server would be a cluster fuck.
would this really be any different than banning someone? probably less when you actually think about it. how rarely has this company handed out bans tho? they have always leaned heavily on suspensions with a ban coming after repeat offenses.
guess it will depend on what type of punishment they substitute it for. current suspensions would be ridiculous but bans would mean very few actually end up on this server. perhaps they would need to rethink their entire disciplinary structure where certain violations like automation are a surefire trip to the server.
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GriffonLady
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Oh I dunno. They’re making a whole new server for “trolls”. =P
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GriffonLady
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Gah.. I forgot. Here on EQ2wire, replies do not necessarily pop up under what you are replying to.
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Hoot
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Feldon, I’m so sick of you using the troll arguments. It’s really irritating since he did give a valid reason. This entire server stinks to high heaven on why it’s being made. I highly doubt that the original intention will follow through and innocent people will indeed get thrown in there whether they said something on the forum or someone said something ingame that ‘triggered’ someone else. You have to wonder what the political views are of the people who are all in favor of this server.
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Feldon
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And I’m sick of people throwing around derogatory terms like “carebear” and using weak examples to defend their arguments. If you want to have a hard-hitting debate here, I expect you to bring your A game.
So far the main concern I’ve seen is that this will lead Customer Service and GMs to become trigger happy and railroad people to this new server. That’s a completely valid concern and one I will bring up with the EQ2 team. The rest of what people are posting seems to be largely philosophical differences that cannot be verified until we see how populous and active the server gets.
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GriffonLady
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Lots of reasons to make this “prison” server, but I think the publicity was just a nice side effect. =P
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warren
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As far as I understand it’s going to be a server with no rules. It seems you are gonna be able to do whatever you want.
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Ohnix
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Also posted on MassivelyOP : http://massivelyop.com/2015/08/19/everquest-iis-prison-server-is-a-one-way-trip-for-an-entire-account-forever/
🙂
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Filly67
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I just feel that eventually these people, once moved, will quit and take their money (that DBG is trying to hold onto) with them. They are quickly going to tire of trying to be the worst or the worst and it will be difficult if not impossible for those that know all the cheats and exploits to tolerate it in others. I believe that the entire server will implode in a short time. I guess either way they will at least be off the regular servers.
I am just not sure that this will lead to a better overall experience on the other servers. Nothing likes a vacuum and there are always more jerks out their willing to take the place of the last group. There is no utopia out there.
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Sievert
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I think it will lead to being one of the most populated servers with the best players. 95% of the top end players troll carebears and being they will put people that troll others there. You do the math. Happy home improving.
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Oldschool
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So i might be late to the party, but
This looks like more money to me, nothing else.
What they are doing is making cheating leagal IF you do it on this one server, now can that bring bugs to light .. possibly, but with no CS who will ever know ? I know, i know, everyone will hear about it, it will triggle up.. but really?
In the old days the people who are being put in prison would have been lifetime banned. what we are doing now is allowing the to play IF they pay, and to keep cheating. The trolls, the asshats, the trainers, the disruptive players, those who never got lifetime bans.. do you really think they will end up on this server? i doubt it very much.
So tl;dr its legalizing cheating with the possibility of going there voluntarily, will it be a zest pool, with a toxic environment, more than likely.
Will there be people moving there voluntarily, oh i bet.
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Korvan
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This entire notion of yours that it “legalizes” cheating doesn’t really make sense to me. It’s like arguing that sending a thief to prison is legalizing theft because now he’s somewhere where he can only steal from other thieves, rapists, murderers, etc.
The whole idea is that is our hypothetical cheater is now isolated amongst a group of other, similar players and not in the general population. Who cares what they do to one another on the prison server? Let them dupe, exploit, bot, etc. as much as they want. It should have no effect on the rest of us.
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Cyliena
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/writing slam
The ending to that CNN article is a tad misleading.
This is true that you can get moved there via petitioning, but the way they phrase it doesn’t stress the fact that this is an unreversable “visit” for your entire account. Considering that they quoted “ONE-WAY trip for an entire account forever” at the beginning of the article, you would think they would have written that conclusion better.
That aside.. interesting to see all the media attention on this!
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mithreal
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I really like this idea.
That people are cheering for a company providing a subset of paying players with no customer service seems distinctly odd, no?
My account was banned when I did a charge back after requesting by phone, support ticket and email that my account not automatically renew. I didn’t want to close the account just switch over to using my Kronos. I will admit that I didn’t really understand the process of canceling the automatic renewal by the account page – said close account. I did find my support ticket numbers in my email later after thinking I didn’t have them, but those didn’t really matter, DGC wanted payment for the new year and did not acknowledge my efforts or their responsibility. I did get my EQ and EQ2 accounts back by letting them just scoop up my Kronos from my ingame bank, but I would have preferred to take a break from time to time, control when I paid with Krono when I wanted to play.
After a somewhat lengthy and frustrating experience getting my account restored, I wonder now, if with the new Drunder server I would have just been in a new level of customer hell with no redress?
DGC doesn’t answer my questions when I ask them about account issues. Maybe someone can answer one here, what happens to my account when the Kronos run out? Can I still log in or is the account frozen?
Again, I really like this idea, but can’t help but be a lil skeptical. Given that change seems to be positive recently, I am a lil less skeptical than I otherwise might be.
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Feldon
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Just for future reference, delete all the credit cards off your account, or change the information to invalid info so it won’t go through. It can’t charge of it has no valid credit card numbers.
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mithreal
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Feldon, I did this more than a month before my renewal and they still put it through.
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Feldon
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Geez. Well customer service is having real problems these days.
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Korvan
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I don’t think it’s odd at all. It’s appreciating the fact that people who have made their bed will be required to sleep in it (and when they crap all over the aforementioned bed, as they most certainly will, we won’t be in there with them).
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Maver
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Oh my, when I first read this I seriously took it as a bad joke, which I still think it is.
I’m sorry that I have to burst a few bubbles here, but there’s no way this is gonna reduce CS load. On the contrary, they’ll have much more work at their hands with people appealing those “final decisions” and handling the outrages on the forums.
Also, like others pointed out, it could only work if they make absolutely bullet-proof sure, that the ban (which it effectively is, except they can still milk money out of those banned) is justified. How exactly is this gonna work without putting in a lot of resources.
No DBG, this to me seems like the wrong way. It doesn’t benefit your honest players in any way and the worst case I could imagine is that if the hackers and exploiters are even encouraged to do so (in their own little space) it’s only a matter of time till they find out how to break something important.
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Korvan
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I don’t know this for certain, but I suspect (and I think it’s logical to presume) that most of the people that customer service are forced to deal with in this regards are “repeat offenders”. If that is indeed the case, I can see where it has the potentical to significantly reduce their workload.
Once those repeat offenders are banished to Drunder, they’re effectively gone forever, as far as customer service is concerned. They’ll never have to deal with them again. And yet, that player’s money will continue to flow into Daybreak as long as they continue to want to login and play the game.
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Hoot
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Probably the most media attention SoE/DBG has gotten in over ten years.
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Alphonsus
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I like how the CNN article refers to Drunder as Australia.
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milliebii
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Yep that is really offensive given the actual proportion of convicts to free settlers in Australia’s history. Also more convicts were sent to the Americas than were sent to Australia.
Finally a good many of the convicts sent to Australia were ‘prisoners of conscience’ sent for their political views and not for criminal acts.
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Pipsissiwa
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What is to stop these people just making a new account with a new email address as they could if banned? I know many will love being on Drunder, but the criticism of banning has been that people just make a new account – can’t they just do that if sent to prison?
I am also worried about trigger happy GMs, plus what in chat counts as bad enough? Or /reports you don’t even know you have cos someone got upset you accidentally stole s node… I will need to see clear info on what DBG consider Drunderable before I stop worrying…
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Korvan
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I think if you follow the “mom rule”, then you’d be safe. That is, don’t write anything in general chat that you wouldn’t say to your mother, or wouldn’t want her to read.
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Miragian
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I can’t remember the name of the game(s) but this is not the first game company to do this (or currently be doing it).
Assuming the information is valid there was a you-tube video put together by one of those online new people that included top 10 things done to cheaters or something like that. Being banished to a special server forever if caught cheating is done on some other game, so I think it can work. It will just depend on how things go I guess.
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