Feldon 
Today, a new EverQuest II server is opening called Isle of Refuge. Similar in almost every way to existing live servers such as Antonia Bayle, Maj’Dul, Halls of Fate, Skyfire, and Splitpaw, this new server does have one unique difference. All non-Marketplace items which are flagged HEIRLOOM can be freely traded between players as well as bought and sold on the broker. This harkens back to the days of Kingdom of Sky when almost all loot was tradeable.
In response to some questions about whether the new Isle of Refuge server shares anything in common with Stormhold, the Time-Locked Expansion server, we got some answers from RadarX:
Will there be an EU Free Trade server?
There will not be an EU Free Trade server at this time.Can I buy a Krono / Heroic Character / House / Mount on the Marketplace?
The Isle of Refuge does not have a limited marketplace. Anything that you can purchase on a normal server can also be purchased on Isle of Refuge with the sole exception of a character transfer token as these could not be used.Is Isle of Refuge a Progression server?
No, The Isle of Refuge has access to all expansion content.
Can I use my loyalty tokens on Isle of Refuge?
Yes!Can I use a Mercenary on Isle of Refuge?
Yes, absolutely!Will there be different XP gain, Live Events, coin/treasure drops on Isle of Refuge?
No, the only gameplay change to the Isle of Refuge is the removal of most Heirloom tags on items.What /claims have been restricted on Free Trade servers?
- Goblin Games Ticket
- Warcry Trial: Red Journeyman’s Cloak & Potion Pack
- Universal Trial: Green Journeyman’s Cloak & Potion Pack
- Curse Trial: Blue Journeyman’s Cloak & Potion Pack
- EQII Fortune League Weekly Participant’s Scroll
- EQII Fortune League Experience Potion
- Welcome Home Potion Pack
- Welcome Back XP Potion Bundle
Also note that the Isle of Refuge server requires All Access either via subscription or Krono.
Commentary
If it weren’t for the rampant plat inflation on existing live servers, this ruleset could (and should) just be rolled out to all live servers rather than starting a new community. And if it’s going to be a separate server, I would allow transfers to Isle of Refuge but limit the amount of plat to 500p and your character is stripped of fuel and any other means of transporting currency.
I don’t understand why we just don’t do this to the live servers, instead of breaking the community down further into smaller servers. My 2 coppers worth. I will stay on my server and turn a blind eye.
My guess is they are testing on that server. If it fouls things up, they can just merge it somewhere and no one will be upset about “that test server stuff they didn’t bring to live”.
At a guess, I’d have to agree with Feldon’s commentary above… the economy on live is so skewed up. Introducing this ruleset there would just mess things up further. They’d need to so some sort of money reset, which is unlikely to ever happen, to fix how messed up the economies are.
I will agree with the economy on live being messed up. When items go for auction for 10k=100k plat for heroic items. All the duped plat still in game. I am not sure how they fix that.
Any insight as to why we are having this type of new server? Is it thought to attract people to the game? Is it a trial to see how it works before rolling it to other servers? Something else?
Why does this show up in my EQNWire feed but not my EQ2Wire one? For that matter, why does EQNWire still exist?
Didn’t we used to have this server? Wasn’t it called The Bazaar? Didn’t it eventually get closed and merged due to lack of interest?
Also didn’t EQ have this server long, long ago, when the RP server Firiona Vie lost all its RP ruleset except for everything being tradeable? And didn’t that server suffer from rampant hyper inflation and also eventually close?
Having all things tradeable always sounds great on paper but somehow it never seems to work out in practice.
The Bazaar had tradeable rules like all other servers. Folks would circumvent them by putting characters with the item for sale for real money.
I’m interested in seeing a discussion about the issues that heirloom/non-tradeable were meant to address, and how those issues are or aren’t currently relevant. There have probably already been some pretty heated internal discussions with more insights than I could hope to bring.
EQNWire.com is expired so I’m not sure how you are still getting anything from it.
No-one told Feedly! I get every post form EQ2Wire on both feeds, which it lists separately. They usually also appear separately, sometimes with quite a long gap between them. This time I got the EQN feed about twenty minutes before the EQ2 one.
I haven’t posted on EQNWire since 2013 so I’m not sure what you’ve been reading. Call Mulder and Sculley!
The Heirloom tag should never have existed in the first place IMO, but there we go.
“All non-Marketplace items which are flagged HEIRLOOM can be freely traded between players as well as bought and sold on the broker”
Not all. The sadly Primordial Adornments are still HEIRLOOM, and the fragments are still NOTRADE.
I love Mel Gibson in that role. All time favorite movie
I, on the other hand, have a vitriolic hatred of both Mel Gibson’s protrayal of Wallace and the movie as a whole for the loathsome Americanised parody of Scot’s history
Troll. Everyone loves braveheart.
Nope 100% serious. I actually find your comment insulting.