Why does Verant (AKA Sony/Everquest) even care that items are being traded for cash? The only plausible "reason" I can fathom is that their employees are becoming career gamers, finding it more lucrative to play EQ than to punch a clock. It seems to me that the Ebay market complements Verant's interests, I am certain that the game would be much less popular if players could not buy themselves an advantage which makes the game more fun. Many people buy and sell game items through Ebay not for profit, but because it is simply the best way to find what they want.
This is not exactly a small market. In my estimation, Ebay is/was making as much or more profit from Everquest as Verant (Verant grosses more of course, thier overhead is much higher). On Jan 17 At 9:30 PST I did a search of Ebay's ended Everquest auctions and found that there have been over 21000 between Dec 28 and Jan 17, and I would estimate that average selling price on each auction is no less than $25. Yep, all those spent out, post-Xmas shoppers are still coughing up $250000 a week for their habit. By the time Ebay makes their cut on insertion fees, end of auction fees and Billpoint fees I would think they might actually be willing to take this to court if necessary.
At present Everquest is by far the most popular multiplayer online role-playing game. In the absense of a comparable or better game they will retain that title simply because players have invested so much time and energy in a character that they are unwilling to permanently delete so that they can save $10 a month. The aggressive stance that Verant has taken toward cash sales does nothing to contribute to the success or popularity of the game. It only encourages a healthy percentage of their clientelle, including the sellers, consumers and hard-core gaming fun-mongers, to seek out and bolster the next game that caters to the way they want to play.
There is plenty of motivation for police to bend the truth, or in this case testify to unfounded speculation. Getting arrests and convicting "criminals" will gain a cop the attention of his superiors, and he is more likely to be promoted. The bigger story here is that the police intentionally use scare tactics to intimitate protesters. The purpose of this is not to uphold the law, but to create a more docile and maleable populace. These arrests are not fair and just, they are punitive, and they set a precedent for future protesters to fear.
This issue was covered well Tuesday on "Off the Hook", 2600's New York radio show. Here is the url of where you can listen to it online (MP3 or steamed on realplayer):
http://www.2600.com/offthehook/2000/1100.html
Ahh, the contentious frame rate question again, *sigh*. For years we've had the 60 fps cap forced on us by anyone who believed whatever they read and didn't make the effort to find out for themselves at what Hz they could no longer distinguish an improvement. Personally I can distinguish 85 fps and I know people who can do close to 100. Jack the fps up to 150 then back it down to 80, see the difference? It's a pretty easy thing to test scientifically if you have one person setting frame rates and the subject is consistently able identify when the fps is below his threshold.
In quake you want the average framerate much higher than your perception threshold, because when 6 players pull out their plamsa guns your fps are really going to bottom out. Until Carmack recently patched Quake 3 certain physics were also linked to framerate, that's why some people (who turned off anything that would slow the game down) could do jumps that to most people were simply impossible =). I haven't played for a long time now, but I'm sure there are still plenty of servers running with the unpatched version to preserve this advantage for 31337 players.
I regularly post auctions on ebay and was growing increasingly impatient with Paypal's eternal promise that they would be offering their services internationally. Although the fact that I live in Canada is clearly displayed in the auction header, many people blindly place bids with the intent of using Paypal and will actually reneg on their bid when they find out that is not an option!
I finally decided to get an American mailing address two weeks ago for this sole purpose and have been overwhelmed with repeat sales to bidders who confessed that they would not buy from me if I didn't use Paypal.
So don't get frustrated, just do what I did, suck it up and get an American mailing address! Paypal rules, it's worth the effort!
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Why does Verant (AKA Sony/Everquest) even care that items are being traded for cash? The only plausible "reason" I can fathom is that their employees are becoming career gamers, finding it more lucrative to play EQ than to punch a clock. It seems to me that the Ebay market complements Verant's interests, I am certain that the game would be much less popular if players could not buy themselves an advantage which makes the game more fun. Many people buy and sell game items through Ebay not for profit, but because it is simply the best way to find what they want. This is not exactly a small market. In my estimation, Ebay is/was making as much or more profit from Everquest as Verant (Verant grosses more of course, thier overhead is much higher). On Jan 17 At 9:30 PST I did a search of Ebay's ended Everquest auctions and found that there have been over 21000 between Dec 28 and Jan 17, and I would estimate that average selling price on each auction is no less than $25. Yep, all those spent out, post-Xmas shoppers are still coughing up $250000 a week for their habit. By the time Ebay makes their cut on insertion fees, end of auction fees and Billpoint fees I would think they might actually be willing to take this to court if necessary. At present Everquest is by far the most popular multiplayer online role-playing game. In the absense of a comparable or better game they will retain that title simply because players have invested so much time and energy in a character that they are unwilling to permanently delete so that they can save $10 a month. The aggressive stance that Verant has taken toward cash sales does nothing to contribute to the success or popularity of the game. It only encourages a healthy percentage of their clientelle, including the sellers, consumers and hard-core gaming fun-mongers, to seek out and bolster the next game that caters to the way they want to play.
There is plenty of motivation for police to bend the truth, or in this case testify to unfounded speculation. Getting arrests and convicting "criminals" will gain a cop the attention of his superiors, and he is more likely to be promoted. The bigger story here is that the police intentionally use scare tactics to intimitate protesters. The purpose of this is not to uphold the law, but to create a more docile and maleable populace. These arrests are not fair and just, they are punitive, and they set a precedent for future protesters to fear. This issue was covered well Tuesday on "Off the Hook", 2600's New York radio show. Here is the url of where you can listen to it online (MP3 or steamed on realplayer): http://www.2600.com/offthehook/2000/1100.html
Ahh, the contentious frame rate question again, *sigh*. For years we've had the 60 fps cap forced on us by anyone who believed whatever they read and didn't make the effort to find out for themselves at what Hz they could no longer distinguish an improvement. Personally I can distinguish 85 fps and I know people who can do close to 100. Jack the fps up to 150 then back it down to 80, see the difference? It's a pretty easy thing to test scientifically if you have one person setting frame rates and the subject is consistently able identify when the fps is below his threshold. In quake you want the average framerate much higher than your perception threshold, because when 6 players pull out their plamsa guns your fps are really going to bottom out. Until Carmack recently patched Quake 3 certain physics were also linked to framerate, that's why some people (who turned off anything that would slow the game down) could do jumps that to most people were simply impossible =). I haven't played for a long time now, but I'm sure there are still plenty of servers running with the unpatched version to preserve this advantage for 31337 players.
I regularly post auctions on ebay and was growing increasingly impatient with Paypal's eternal promise that they would be offering their services internationally. Although the fact that I live in Canada is clearly displayed in the auction header, many people blindly place bids with the intent of using Paypal and will actually reneg on their bid when they find out that is not an option! I finally decided to get an American mailing address two weeks ago for this sole purpose and have been overwhelmed with repeat sales to bidders who confessed that they would not buy from me if I didn't use Paypal. So don't get frustrated, just do what I did, suck it up and get an American mailing address! Paypal rules, it's worth the effort!
BTW, according to Forbes Ellison may very soon edge out Bill Gates (aka Bilgatus of Borg) to become the wealthiest person alive (at least on paper).