I think the idea was you were supposed to use the special node and in theory were paying a "specialist" to take the mod out so it wasn't ruined. I guess it was in an effort to add convenience to the game you could now do it yourself but still pay. I don't really have a problem with still paying and elimination the need to go back to one of the crafting tables.

I doubt it will go FTP anytime soon. For launches that are tracked on http://mmodata.blogspot.ca/ it is more successful than a pile of other games.

I love how the defense the ANTI X-server transfer group has... suddenly everyone became a ninja looter and it made bad groups. Like the day cross server LFG went into effect a whole bunch of people woke up took their brains out of their heads and decided to become ninja looters :rolleyes:

How this thread isn't closed is amazing to me.

/sigh... seriously... I don't get the serious over reaction of game companies to take a sledge hammer to an issue. I swear the people involved in "class balance" have never played an MMORPG before in their life. The way they bring in sweeping nerfs (and not just this game) never ceases to amaze me. It's not like nerfs bring people back, it ends up having the effect of making borederline players decide to finally call it quits. Why not small incremental buffs to other classes to bring them on par? Easier to swing the sledge hammer I guess....

They made the tool halfass and somehow it's still the players fault... like it was the players fault... <rolls eyes>

I didn't try to go either light or dark per se. I started with a character concept and then played out the choices how they best suited that character concept. Basically he was a loyal guy to all his friends, but cross him in a serious way and he'd just as soon kill you as take another chance you might double cross him again. By the time I hit level 50 I was around 9k dark and 3k light. I had diplomacy so I ground out to 10k dark. I found that when I payed less attention to the light / dark effect and just played to his character concept I enjoyed it much more.

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png This graph disagrees with your statement. I get that might be your opinion, and that's fine, but, EQ2 never reached the peak sub numbers of several of the other games on that graph, including it's predecessor EQ1

I remember when having CC was required in MMO's, and having to keep 5-10 targets mezz'd or there would be a group wipe. Yes I did have to be way more on the ball when I played my enchanter in EQ, this is much less of an issue in modern MMO's Whether it's good or bad is a point of debate, but one thing that has changed is that in order to do a dungeon crawl you aren't required to have someone who can keep 5+ targets locked down. It makes MMO's in general more accessible to the masses, which I can't say is entirely a bad thing. Not saying I agree either way, it's just that already the MMO model is for :Tank, Healer, DPS, DPS, etc... adding a mandatory CC class can make it that much harder to get a group going for a dungeon crawl, and make it harder for people who just want to hang out and not take things too seriously be able to play.

Your example is more akin to you buy 1 copy of Madden then illegally copying it and give it to your brother. Online games revenue is both from box sales and monthly subscriptions. You know like the increase in manpower that they have when making an xpac is paid for by ... you know the people buying the xpac. Sure after a few years they discount or combine xpacs, but that's like buying day old bread... you know?

Seeing as increasing your vault is tied to levelling it's really not that much of an issue. The whole idea of legacy being tied to a specific server and then limiting your number of characters to 8 on a server is silly. I haven't tried but what is your account limit of characters? Can you have 8 on every server? I'd personally rather see an account limit of say 32 characters however you want across whatever servers you want etc... The way it is now with legacy seems so counter intuitive.

You make some very good points. I don't like the idea of server lottery, although, I don't really like the idea of how MMO's deal with names either. I personally know several Dave's, would be nice if your name was your first and last, or something like that.

One more shot would probably kill it

Or like give away 30 days free they would never do either? Just saying...

This I hadn't really thought about until now. This is always the issue that escapes testing. The unintended consequences of a class now being able to get X ability AND Y ability in 2 different trees that was unaccessible before they added 5 levels.

Haha... that made me laugh... you are so right on the money though. I think a little more thought needs to be put into the crafting system overall.

Lol... yeah cause people knew going in which servers were going to be dead ones and made the conscious choice to be on a server that would be dead 4 months later... Get a clue, when people started playing back in Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar how would they have ever known their server would eventually be a dead one. Yeah clearly they should have known better and it's their fault for making intentionally making a bad choice <rolls eyes>

Although it would be great if JC and FM were destination servers, I think it will be pretty unlikely as they already have health population numbers. Likely it will be part of a paid transfer, which in my opinion is ridiculous as the technology isn't any different to do the process. The only difference is people who "won" the server lottery in terms of which one is populated. This is one of the things that ultimately made me decide to unsubb... the shameless cash grab by EA by charging for transfers to your "preferred" server over theirs because I didn't have the right start server =/ I get that some people don't mind and that's great, but in my opinion when you already have forked out ~60 bucks for the game and a $15/mo sub, I find it awfully hard to then also justify micro transactions of any sort. My entertainment dollars will be spent elsewhere. It just reeks of a way for EA to try and "fleece" their subscriber base.

Unfortunately that about sums it up =/

You know I just couldn't help but gently poke the bear

I played a game where the merger went very smooth. Other MMO's have proven that merges are infinitely better than transfer by allowing all players to remain with the same people and keep the community

Yeah, as soon as I hit the post button and re-read my post I was thinking that. I should have known better. Naming isn't really an issue. Add an X to the end of the character with an active sub, if both subbed or not subbed creation date. Then allow the toon with an X at the end of their name to have a free rename. I see the point about characters per server, however, they could increase the character limit to a reasonable number.

Although I 100% agree with you, I imagine the optics of merging servers 6 months after release has something to do with it. I personally can't see a point to doing this as a 10 step program, other than to drag out "mergers" until a much later date.

Although I could personally care less about if I had to change my name, I have a really hard time arguing with your point. The fact is, you're right, it is basically a server "lottery" as to if you are a destination or not. The fact that we are even having this discussion at 6 months post launch feels like really bad planning on their part. All the coulda/shoulda/woulda's I know doesn't change where we are, but whoever thought a server cap of 3k was a great idea should be fired. Had server pops been much higher with more instanced zones there would be way less of an issue with the severe population issues we are experiencing now. Hopefully this will server as a lesson for the future of not only this game but other MMO's

I don't get why they just don't merge servers... I have been trying hard to convince some of my friends to come back, but unless there is a large scale merger, they just aren't interested =/ If servers A, B, C, D, E all have the option to transfer for free to F what the heck happens to server A when the 100 or so active players leave and the server pop is now 5-10? Close it down? What happens if John Smith decides to return to the game and his server was server A? Why they don't just amalgamate makes no sense.