EQMac.com

+1.

I'd pay $5 a month to not have to leave a toon/account logged in and/or physically in the bazzy to sell stuff. EQ overheats my laptop a bit so leaving HyaTrade on and the comp unattended for more than 4-5 hours at a go is risky.

The Kunark/Velious Quest armor isn't way overpowering, but still fully outfits a new toon until they can raid. Also if the server stays around, it gives Vintage the option to re-Velious era themselves and go back to their guild rules should they choose too, without having to sacrifice too awfully much. It would also make joining Vintage with an alt a more appealing prospect (if they would allow this as an option).

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I mezz four mobs at a time without using mana.
I run faster than any other character without using SoW.
I power level newbies without using buffs.
I GATE-HAMMER out of Vex Thal. Alone.

What can bard do for you?

Hyacinth Stormsong
Level 65 Maestro Extraordinaire
Destiny

Just remembered, player houseing. Diddint they release some type of player houseing in the 38th or so expansion? (lol). But seriously, from what I know of my fellow Alkaborites.... you will make thousands of dollars on selling them house plots and stuff to decorate it with heh.

I'm already planning out the Love Nest me and Neea are gonna decorate with only the finest coffee tables station cash can buy.

I dont think all this other talk about "buying" loot and AA's (exp pots sure, but not outright levels and AAs..come on) are even nessesary. Just sell us the next 3 or 4 expansions (DONT go past OOW.......), give us whatever marketplace EQlive currently has, and sell us whatever UI type things came out past OOW (like the houseing, the bandoleer and whatever else I am not aware of).

Those things will make sony money, but wont turn Al'kabor into a mess.

And some people may hate them, but mercs would make sony bank here too. I can think of worse things already on Al'kabor then mercs btw.

I mean, if you are going to "buy" armor dies, and then "buy" maps.....and then "buy" charm... despense with all the crap and just "buy" Legacy of Yekesha and get some new zones to boot! Ditto for all the odds and ends in LDON and GoD/OOW.

Please no armor dyes. I hated when they added those. So cool being able to tell what BP or robe someone is wearing just based on the look because it is the only one in the game with that unique look.

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Indie <Dark Conquest>
65 Arcanist
Al`Kabor
Previously Ralanorn, 60 Sorcerer of Xegony

The fact that so many people have taken this question seriously means the server is already dead. It was great while it lasted.

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Miuma of Sanctuary

Well F2P means I can save that $500 or so I spend annually on EQ. Not a snowballs chance in hell I'm buying anything from their marketplace.

Learned my lesson coming home drunk from the bar and playing those facebook games where you can buy points/items/packs/skills/whathaveyou.

Take your marketplace and shove it, I'll continue to pay $500 a year to play this game across 3 accounts without one before converting to that scheme.

The nice thing about the potential Marketplace is that you don't have to use it if you don't want to..... But people who do can feed SOE more $$, helping to keep our server viable, without grossly tilting the power scale. Especially if it is limited to things like Tradeskill materials, illusions, and buff potions. (i don't want to speculate on what it may or may not consist of, we don't even know if it will come to pass at this point.... )

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I mezz four mobs at a time without using mana.
I run faster than any other character without using SoW.
I power level newbies without using buffs.
I GATE-HAMMER out of Vex Thal. Alone.

What can bard do for you?

Hyacinth Stormsong
Level 65 Maestro Extraordinaire
Destiny

I respect your opinion, Hyacinth, and totally understand where you're coming from, but I think this is a central issue upon which many people will disagree.

Simply by logging into the same server, what one person does affects every other person playing on the server.

To use a completely innocuous item as a very basic example (and something that I have no interest in), let's take the market for Rockhopper hides! Let's say that my favorite thing in this game is to come home and farm rockhopper hides and sell them for platinum. I do this every day and just love it! Then someone else starts doing it, but starts selling them for 50pp less than I am. Obviously that's something they can do, but, naturally, that changes the market and affects me and how I play the game. I may decide it's no longer as fun to farm rockhopper hides and move on to something else, or I may quit the game entirely.

Obviously, this is a ridiculous example, but I'm just trying to show that we can't simply ignore what other people do in this game, it's a game based on the community (as we've all extolled recently!).

I do think the marketplace can be utilized in a very good way for our server, especially if it helps save us from extinction, but I think we can keep at least a modicum of decency by limiting it to novelty items, UI upgrades and other peripheral things. I see a lot of comments about how much $$ SOE can make, but not a lot about how much of our ruleset we can keep intact.

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I like the expendables..buff potions, port potions, tradeskill materials, etc.

Also some UI plugins- I would buy a shared bank, a map system that drew itself as I explored places, group and targetting rings, tradeskill UI, etc.

I would also buy new expansions up to OoW.

Has their ever been a model where your subscription rate is based on what features of the game you sign up for? Expansions could be a $1/month, UI plugins $.50/month, etc. You can tailor it and change it month to month, adding or subtracting. Sort of like Netflix.

Not a fan of buying the best items or quest drops.

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Just a bard

I must say, I do concur.

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Indie <Dark Conquest>
65 Arcanist
Al`Kabor
Previously Ralanorn, 60 Sorcerer of Xegony

If the server is already dead, then why are you still playing on it?

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Mushka the Space Lizard, Transcendent, Temerity

Hobart,

I pretty much stopped reading on page 3, as it seems I will probably be a lone voice in this choir...

I already pay to play Everquest, as it is the game I have chosen to occupy my spare time (and sometimes more...). I feel it is worth its monthly subscription fee, and would rather see an increase in my subscription fee, than get the "added value" of making my game easier, by spending $x/month more on purchasable goodies. This would turn Everquest into every other game on my iPhone that I delete after I find out the only way to make any progress is to purchase things with real money.

I would probably keep playing - but what would happen when I simply become inferior because I'll still be grinding away my levels/AA's with "normal" gear. "You don't have a 25 point damage shield, a 1k clicky nuke, insta-invis, insta-gate, insta-charm, etc, etc, etc?"

The advantage of an older player-base is that a higher proportion of them have disposable income that they're potentially willing to spend. Let me just vote against it, as an older player, who would see this as devaluing your product, and hope that this doesn't happen, because I probably won't spend a dime more than my subscription fee. It's an immersive game, and is meant to be played - as what would seem to be a purist server of EQ, please don't let this happen to it.

Mukk the Smelly (and the older guy who plays him)

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Mukk the Smelly
Not so smelly alts: Slave Driver, Mach One, Mukks Muscles, Iason MD, Tele Porter

if the alternative is killing alkabor, then i'm all for it.

I voted yes on smedleys poll, but come to think of it i doubt i will be playing on any other server. For me its either Alkabor or its time to move on with life.

It would be a shame to lose this great game and community but i've accepted that its probably going to happen. If a marketplace can save the server then that great (as long as the items for sale do not ruin the game).

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Darco 65 Enchanter <Destiny> Australia
Darcreign 65 Magician <Destiny> Australia
Darcnite 65 Paladin <Destiny> Australia

Hobart, I know you're trying to do good here and find us a way out, and I appreciate that you'd even be willing to do all the extra code-work to get us working with a Marketplace, but I think this is a really slippery slope we'd have to be careful with. IMHO, the answer that would probably piss off the least number of people would be to stick strictly to the following restrictions:

1) As far as actual permanent stats-slot gear goes:

a) Definitely not items from future expansions the server doesn't even have (and btw, I think this is what he meant in the first post about future expansions - as opposed to paying for the expansion *itself*, I don't think).
b) Definitely not NODROP loot items. It should almost all be stuff that it's at least plausible someone could pick up in our Bazaar today from another player.
c) The focus here is: this should be stuff that's good for twinks, about what a rich twink could get today with just bazaar cash, but not affect endgame play for main toons.
d) I could see some exceptions for a few items that are commonly handed out at GM events, maybe
2) Permanent gear that isn't main stats slot stuff:

a) Horses are ok
b) Anything else you can think of that's more-or-less a game-unaffecting prestige item (e.g. some badass looking non-stats clothing or whatever).
c) In that vein, character titles would be ok too.
3) Expendables:

a) Mostly, again this should be stuff that could be gotten from our Bazaar today
b) In addition, I could maybe see XP potions (not insane +1000% ones, but maybe like, +10-50%-ish ones of reasonable duration).
c) Mana and HP regen buff potions, with the caveat that (i) they're no more powerful than KEI and Blessing of Replenishment in effect, and (ii) They don't stack with the afore-mentioned spells. Probably the easiest option here would be to have them cast exactly those already-in-game buffs, on the player himself only.
4) Platinum. Yep, you heard me, I know that sounds out of place on my restrictive list. But frankly, it'd be a big money draw, and it's no worse that offering up droppable bazaar gear in the first place, since the two are exchangeable already in the server economy.
5) Minor in-game features would be ok, so long as they don't affect the real game against the mobs. Certain game features are likely to be sellers, if you could actually implement them, e.g. Share bank slots, or the ability to add extra toon slots to an account, or something like that.

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I would certainly pay for dyes for smithed items. One of the biggest disappointments of this game was when I was working on GMing human cultural smithing. After months of effort I made a set for myself only to finout it was pink, or as some suggested Salmon. The last upgrade I got was boots, and thank god, I was tired of all the "nice pink booty" comments I got. I still would pay good $$ to dye that color away.

I would also pay decent $$for spectral and glyphs turn ins. I think that would be better than outright buying spells, and considering how hard some turn ins are to get, It might even become quite lucrative.

In general, however, I would prefer to see most items for sale things not acquired in the game as it currently is, or perhaps easily. I would not trivialize content by having everything for sale, but a super fast horse, or new type of mount such as a drogmor, would be quite the eye candy for folks to spend real $$ on.

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Duke Sharpe Dunsinane
65 Crusader
250 Human Smith
Member of Destiny

Pretty much this.

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