EQ2-Daily.com Forum Posts

[Eve] Eve Bank Looted

7/3/2009 5:41:06 AM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8132547.stm

Space trading game Eve Online has suffered a virtual version of the credit crunch.

One of the game's biggest financial institutions lost a significant chunk of its deposits as a huge theft started a run on the bank.

One of the bank's controllers stole about 200bn kredits and swapped them for real world cash of £3,115.

For a long but incredibly interesting history of scamming in Eve Online I strongly recommend this thread:

http://eve-search.com/thread/940185

[EQ2] Shader 3.0 video's

7/3/2009 1:47:06 AM

Just come across these two videos from the recent FanFaire, the camera work is shaky and the video isn't great, but even with that I can see why the developers were saying that they thought they were looking at a completely different game when they swapped to shader 3.0 on the GPU's.

Part 1
Part 2

For me though I think its the one thing that was missing with the EQ2 graphics before, they didn't seem to use light and shadows so well, looks like they have nailed it here. The talk of having a new torch slot really does show how much of a change this is, seriously impressed here.

And wishing I did head to the Fanfaire £600 air faire or not, next year!

Reply by Lomax :: Trading of virtual currency made illegal - in China

7/2/2009 1:33:28 AM

The QQ_Coin does look like the intended target of this then, and I was getting my hopes up that they would get shot altogether of gold farming just for public image reasons, fat chance of that.

I see the reason for it, by at least requiring that people transfer this virtual currency into a real currency they stop it from being able to inflate the money supply since the QQ_Coins now are not on their own worth anything, but I still think this law does not allow any virtual currency exchanges though in the way its being presented which could be the unintended consequence for gold farming.

As the Chinese government ministry says virtual currencies can only be used to buy services or items from the provider of that currency. Allowing a third party to perform the exchange would blow a hole through the entire thing since you could just take your QQ_Coin to the local corner shop, get them to change them to Yuan, and then buy the goods you wanted in the Yuan you have received.

That definitely leaves gold farming in a illegal position since Blizzard or SOE are not offering cash for their gold/platinum, although Eve can continue to offer game cards.

If they chose to leave a blind eye to an illegal activity though they risk increasing corruption, from what I've heard of China though this probably won't be much of a concern... It will be interesting to hear what happens the first time this law is challenged.

One other bit of interest, they are banning gold buying by minors (from a official Chinese site - wondering in the first story how much gets lost in translation!).

China bars use of virtual money for trading in real goods

Under the new rules, using virtual money for gambling will be punished by public security authorities, and minors may not buy virtual money.

They are cracking down officially on the biggest customers of gold internally, at the least I think all this government involvement is going to drive up operating costs for gold farmers, but the way I read it they still look likely to be shut down, at least the big outfits will be easy legal targets.

Reply by Lazaretto :: EQ 51/50 (opens tomorrow)

7/1/2009 10:30:41 PM

I'm having a blast. The server is jam packed and there are plenty of groups in multiple zones for each level range 50-65ish. I'm pretty slow on the leveling as I haven't had much time to play but I did manage to get 62% into 53 before logging a few minutes ago. I spent a good portion of tonight with Theo and his cousin and we hit up Sol B in search of the Fungi King and Nagafen. We didn't do much on the xp front but we had fun for sure just exploring around the dungeon and trying to figure out how to play EQ once again. We had a few bugs to work out such as a whacky in game chat system but I think everyone had a good time. There are a few guilds forming that look like they will have what it takes to raid and people are progressing along nicely. I think it's been a great success but let's see how it does in the long term. I'm not sure a bonus exp weekend is what the server need but we shall see.

Lazaretto

Reply by yaris :: Trading of virtual currency made illegal - in China

7/1/2009 7:41:05 PM

I'm not sure how much this will affect gold farming. Rather, it probably will end services like QQ coin:

The QQ coin is a virtual currency used by QQ users to "purchase" QQ related items for their avatar and blog. QQ Coins are obtained either by purchase, one coin for one RMB, or for using the mobile phone service. Due to the popularity of QQ in Chinese young population, QQ coins are now accepted by gradually more and more online stores and gaming sites in exchange for "real" merchandise such as small gifts, and raised the concern of replacing (and thus "inflating") real currency in these transactions. The People's Bank of China, China's central bank, says it is investigating the possibility of cracking down on QQ coin, due to people using QQ Coins in exchange for real world goods. Tencent claims the QQ coin was merely a regular commodity, and thus not a currency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent_QQ#QQ_Coin

Back on the gold farming topic. I think the regulation is designed to forbid game developers from creating a currency with the intention of that currency being used to buy real world items. Gold farming falls outside of this definition.

Players who farm gold in WoW can't use that gold to buy a new television. They must exchange gold for RMB and use the RMB to buy the item. The Chinese gov't seems ok with this. A small but important distinction.

Reply by Dardore :: EQ 51/50 (opens tomorrow)

7/1/2009 3:25:41 PM

Laz, so how was the release? Everything you expected it to be? Was intrigued about it, but decided against it last minute. EQ2 is enough for me right this second.

If I wanted EQ style, I'd just sign into Shards of Dalaya. Plus it's free. Minus anything POK and after, it's still a good game.

Reply by Cyanbane :: Trading of virtual currency made illegal - in China

6/30/2009 4:59:38 AM

The hardest part is going to of course be enforcement. But this is very very interesting.

[M:TGO] Magic The Gathering Online

6/30/2009 4:57:23 AM

Does anyone play Magic The Gathering Online? I have recently just gotten into the Online play (I have played the tangbile card game a couple of times in my past). The online game is pretty decent and current it seems. Anyone else play?

Link: Magic The Gathering Online

Reply by Lomax :: Illusion changes

6/30/2009 3:27:45 AM

Almost since Nagafen's launch I have used an illusion as my primay appearance. With GU52 illusions are now randomized with each cast. There is a current thread complaining about this on the official forums.

I am now stuck with original unwanted racial look or having a new appearance each time I log in.

An update I read here, it sounds like its getting fixed, although in a different way then just rolling back to the way it was before, it sounds like a good implementation now since people have opt for either the random illusion or to pick a particular one.

Illusions Driving You Crazy? - A change was made in GU52 that racial illusions pick a random appearance each time they are displayed. This applies to guild hall NPCs as well. Even the devs are annoyed at this change, so are investigating a Magic Mirror house item to set your illusion appearances, and a similar mechanism for guild hall NPCs. Also, some folks make frequent use of different illusions. Look for an Illusion Manager window.

Trading of virtual currency made illegal - in China

6/30/2009 1:17:32 AM

I've just read this story, it was linked from a WoW site saying about how gold farming was being made illegal in China.

But the implications are potentially huge, here's an excerpt from the story

In addition to its ongoing crackdown on Internet porn, the Chinese government has declared that virtual currency cannot be traded for real goods or services.

Virtual currency, as defined by Chinese authorities, includes "prepaid cards of cyber-games," according to a joint release issued by China's Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Commerce on Friday.

"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services," the Ministries said.

This rules out the station exchange style servers from being allowed to operate legally out in China, it also prevents Eve in its current form from being able to be run out in China since you can use in game currency to buy game time.

The extent to which the Chinese government will apply its virtual currency rule to online role playing games remains unclear. A report in the English-language China Daily says that in-game gear is not considered virtual currency, so selling virtual items may be allowed to continue.

So far it looks like strangely enough you can buy virtual currency with real money, and the same for virtual items, but its illegal to transfer the money back again. In a perfect world this shuts down gold farmers hard, although how well this is enforced remains to be seen. Its a big surprise for me for this to be coming out of China, it shows it must be a recognised problem out there, wondering whether this will just be enforced for the money launderers, or for the whole gold farming industry.