Paradigm Shifts & The Death of the Dinosaurs

[GrimwoodCT]

I was amazed today that when, on a whim, I searched and found about 50 MDS/GDH for sale on Cazic Thule. I said to myself, "Self, it seems unlikely that these people really think they are still for cultural, they are probably just scammers trying to dump their left over materials."

Bad enough, thought I.

Worse, there were still quite a few buyers still buying up MDS & GDH!

It amazes me that when this paradigm shifted and old cultural materials were made obsolete with months and months of notice, so many people still are selling and buying these, now, ersatz, materials.

[Bara]

I was amazed today that when, on a whim, I searched and found about 50 MDS/GDH for sale on Cazic Thule. I said to myself, "Self, it seems unlikely that these people really think they are still for cultural, they are probably just scammers trying to dump their left over materials."

Bad enough, thought I.

Worse, there were still quite a few buyers still buying up MDS & GDH!

It amazes me that when this paradigm shifted and old cultural materials were made obsolete with months and months of notice, so many people still are selling and buying these, now, ersatz, materials.

What is to be supprised about it? Just /join General and you will see proof confirming many players stupidity from their own words. Not that I'm any genius; I just try to avoid displaying my stupidity in public. Sometimes I even succeed.

[Unapuma]

Still a lot of GDH and MDS on Maelin but the two reseller (seems to be same player?) consolidated the stock to one seller and is now selling at almost the lowest price.

Now to see if a Chinese plat farmer who don't understand English would try to buy up those cheap GDH and MDS and corner the now worthless market.

[Niami DenMother]

What you're seeing is one of THE most frustrating parts of running these sites over the years.

No matter how much you spoon-feed folks the information, and give advanced warning, repeat yourself in multiple places, someone will always be caught flat-footed.

Worst was a guildie in EQ2 the other week "Well, I shouldn't have to be required to read anything to play the game." This said less than 60 seconds after "Why didn't they TELL us ____?" This was, mind you, about something that was in the SOE EQ2 Community News forum, and in the SOE Test Server Patch Notes forum, and echoed in the EQ2TC forums, AND plastered across the front page of my site AND a posted reminder on our guild forums ... oh, and did I mention calling her by name in guildchat and telling her that she should go read about it the week before?

Maybe next time we need to try psychic messages?

[Pootle]

Maybe next time we need to try psychic messages?

Thats just not good enough Niami...

Now while I realise that flying yourself or the House-Ogre out to London and coming to my house (on a sat or sunday, and not too early please) to tell me in person, may not be financially possible....

...I do however expect a handwriten letter explaining everything, to be delivered to my residence, giving me at least a months notice, before you make any more changes.

Thank you very much.

PS, Waa Waaa, you owe us a weekend of double exp because I have 2 MDS's in my bank and you ruined the game for me by nerfing them... Waaa Waaa... I'm telling my mummy!

[KyrosKrane]

No, no, Pootle! We're tradeskillers. We don't need no steenkin double experience.

Now, double success rates and double yields, THAT's what I'm talking about! /grin

[Cerpicio]

"Well, I shouldn't have to be required to read anything to play the game."

Has there ever been a point in EQ where you could play the game without reading message boards elsewhere? I'm not blaming you, I just don't understand how people can have that expectation. Anyone that doesn't look elsewhere for information about current MMOs is doing themselves a disservice.

Info on quests, mob and zone levels so you know where to hunt, spell info, spell lists, spell descriptions, weapon and armor info, AA info, skills and stats, etc.

How many people completed their epic without any out-of-game help?


/shrug
-- C.

[Tyranthin]

Remember, these are the same people who ask "I'm a level 14 monk, where should I hunt?" (or worse, "I'm a level 57 enchanter"), immediately followed by "How do I get there?" when someone answers them.

On an unrelated note, there's never a bad time to break out the old "Burned Woods" joke. Makes me smile every time.

[GrimwoodCT]

Has there ever been a point in EQ where you could play the game without reading message boards elsewhere?

I think the first site I was on was eqmaps.com, followed by cazic-thule-corner.com (which quickly became a flame fest with very little eq-centric stuff). I was on Alla's after a few years.


In the early days of EQ it was like what Earth "culture" must have been like before the printing press. Very little information was able to be circulated, intellectual currency was more important than money, those with the knowledge were able to achieve levels of success faster than those without the precious knowledge. Information was hoarded, guarded jealously. The few sites that did have information were laggy, held conflicting information or were just plain wrong (/roleplay causes aggro!?!?!). Arguments raged over which guild could/will/has killed Naggy & Vox. Guild strats were closely guarded secrets.

So you could play EQ without reading but it would be akin to driving cross country without a map or sailing without a compass. You might get where you were going but by the time you arrived it wouldn't matter.

[olhoss]

of course, a major way to prevent such things is to make the game not require major overhauls such as this. To that end, once again our beloved Ogre is doing an outstanding job, but until it's all cleaned up there are going to be a lot of painful episodes like this.

[Unapuma]

You have it easy this time around with a few months advance warnings. I knew of a few tailors who got burned by a surprise nerf to some high trival recipes like ceremonial solstice robes and arctic wyvern stuff.

[Roanne]

Thus are the consequences of lacking foresight. Blood cries out for blood. Little kittens cry out for their mothers.

Your ****ed if you dont give enough information in the right way (there are a lot of people who just log straight into the game day after day and dont pay much attention to the patch messages)

Your ****ed if you give too much information although this is not usually taken as badly as underinforming (a la the so much advanced warning on the new cultural changes by the time it actually happened no one was sure if it wasnt just another boy calling wolf).

[Wyvernwill]

No doubt, how many irked posts have there been because the patches got pushed back? It was ridiculous... We had warning, but people were irritated that they burned their stockpiles early because it was suppose to be going away with a patch and it didn't!

*boggle* Definitely no way to win.

[Bara]

Maybe next time we need to try psychic messages?

I dunno, I would have used the Guild Boot first and not given them a chance to whine and flaunt their stupidity a second time. But, that is just me; I mean my Kindergarten teacher did write, "Does not play well with others." (seriously, no joke) on my report card.

[Akael]

I'd just like to stand up for the non-message-board-reading crowd. This is the first and only message board for an MMO that I've ever been an active member of. The last three days on this MB aside, the only time I've ever looked at a messageboard was if it popped up in google when I needed to find one specific piece of information. Period.
The only reason I ever clicked the link to this messageboard was because I seriously believed my guildy was trying to pull one over on me when she said that all my cultural armor stuff was going to turn into junk in less than 24 hours. The only reason I've stayed, is frankly, that I've been spending most of my in-game time trying to get all my characters with 250 tradeskills up to 300 (I've been on vacation), and I seem spend a lot of time sitting around waiting for whatever I'm farming to repop.
Normally, I read patch messages. I read the MOTD. And that is ALL. I don't read class messageboards, I don't check EQTraders news (sorry!), I don't subscribe to the general channels. I log into EQ to have fun, not to read news articles about a fictional world (I'd turn on Fox News if I wanted to do that.) I personally think that if I ever have to look something up, then it was very very poorly implemented. I don't want to play my games by the textbook, I want to explore and improvise and make the occasional huge train.

"...you could play EQ without reading but it would be akin to driving cross country without a map or sailing without a compass..." - maybe I'm crazy, but that sounds divine to me.