Chronos Ruin the 1999 experience

Ok rant warning...Yes I know Kronos is spelled wrong...lol....this is my personal opinion. There was not any Kronos in 1999 and they have been ruining the experience of game play in a huge way on all of the timelocked servers. This has led to groups of people just trying to get max level as fast as possible so they can sell the gear for Kronos. Back in 1999 the gear that dropped was sold at a price that was dictated by the market of what was available to the players. Now that market has changed because people are demanding Kronos for payment rather than plat. I guess Daybreak has decided that its more important for them to sell Kronos than it is to offer the retro game-play environment that we all loved and enjoyed. Shame on you Daybreak, and shame on the people that are just buying that gear with real cash in order to bypass the game-play. This will and has lead to the power leveling of those servers with people whining that there is nothing for them to do since they have cheated their way through the game. Its interesting how they disable boxes on this server from being on the same computer, but blatantly allow people to purchase their way to the top. Feel free to respond with your flaming comments, but so you know that some of the real players will always think that folks that cheat are losers, and that Daybreak supporting them in that effort has no gaming morals except making money, which is what has lead to the demise of this game in the first place. /rant off.

I guess Daybreak decided it was more important for them to make a profit on Everquest than shut the title down altogether and stop making new progression servers. There is no shame in it. SOE was sold off because they weren't making enough profit.

If you want a no krono classic experience, try P99.

Thanks for the advice, I figured that just once we could have them do something that was built for the players. We are already paying $14.99 to play on a time-lock server. I would also like to point out that imo it was SOE's bad decisions in POK that killed the game in the first place by listening to the minority of whiners that wanted a solo rather than a group game. I do agree that it is better to have a game than to not have one though. /cheers

POK didn't turn the game into a solo fest. Based on how many boxers there still are on live, even that content is hardly "solo friendly".

Hey! Don't be making fun of the God of Time! He'll mess you up.

I understand where you are coming from, Blastaway. Just my observation here, but the server wasn't designed as a to replicate that classic 99 experience. However, many aspects of this server's design are definitely done in a throwback style. That being said, there certainly was a load of RMT in 99. As someone who Ebayed some pixels back then for rent money, I can confirm it. DBG is just replicating that experience through Kronos

I'm not paying 14.99 to play on these servers. Thanks to Kronos. Seem to be fulfilling their purpose

RMT has been around since day 1. Back in the day it was via PL services, account sales and plat sales. To offset the PL services they nerfed mage beam spells, ranger HS, SK swarming, decap and so forth and then launched heroic characters on live. This basically killed almost all PL services on live servers while placing the money in DB pockets. To offset the 3rd party sites they introduced krono's as a way to get a piece of the pie as well. I imagine PL services and selling of accounts might still be viable options on the TLP servers but both have pretty much died on live unless you have a very old account with tons of vet rewards and/or high end raid geared toons. Just to put things in to perspective I know people that bought their first car back in the day selling accounts. Outside of the sub fees SOE at the time did not see much of those profits. Now they are getting a much bigger piece of the pie which keeps the game going for all to enjoy.

There is no 1999 experience. This server is strictly just a Time Locked Progression server.

They do make some adjustments to the game to cater towards those who do actually want a Classic experience, but these TLP servers are by no means meant to relive Classic EQ.

With that said, Kronos are part of modern day EQ. And is likely one of the top sources of income for DBG in EQ.

Sorry to hear if you're one of those from P99 under the impression this is a P99 / Classic clone, it is not.

Kronos are great. It's the money that folks with disposable income use to pay the chumps that are willing to grind and camp their stuff for them. Here are a few Krono, go dig up that SBS in yonder mine. It has always been like this all throughout history.

Work, my little workerbees, WORK!

As Rhett would say, "My dear, I don't give a damn."

you can buy any item for plat, no one only takes krono for stuff.

Exactly the way I look at it. It's not like I'm made of money, but kicking out for a few krono to trade for plat fits comfortably within my monthly gaming budget. Of course, I'm not going to actually do that in classic, because none of this crap is worth krono to me.

I'm not going to play 2-4 boxes and pick through 3-4 instances feverishly trying to farm high value items. Someone tried to convince me that some of the RMT guys are making $70+ an hour farming krono....but I am extremely skeptical of that number. But hey, if they enjoy doing something that in no way will impress any employer, while simultaneously not developing any professional skills that matter, more power to them.

1. Anyone I met yet would take Krono or pp equal to the current Krono price.
2. Krono offers a perfect investment if you want to take some weeks off. Exchange your pp for some Krono, come back and your Krono will be worth more pp than before.
3. Krono provides people with less playtime with the opportunity to get gear they otherwise could not via RMT.

Good advise: think about your goals on the Server/in the game. Then give a deep thought about the influence of Krono on these goals. If you come up with any real impairment, please insert it here.

And items are still selling for what the market dictates. (on both TLP and Live...).

For the record, there's nothing stopping anyone from actually looting whatever item they want other than effort. If you REALLY want that 99 experience, do it like we did back then. Group up and go camp what you desire.

Then get out of my way when I pick over and "DPS Race" your named mob.

FUGM

RMT was conducted in the shadows, because it was not allowed by the policies of the game. It still happened, and it still affected the prices of the items you bought back then, you just might not have been aware of it.

Krono sales happen in the open, because they are part of the game and there is nothing to fear. I dislike them as much as you do. I don't like seeing them advertised, as it does mess with the nostalgia. But it's a fairly minor issue, and not one that I'd get upset about.

It's actually kind of funny to see the price wars. When somebody is trying to sell Krono for 2200p and the next guy is taking 1200p, I laugh a little inside. Saw an FBSS for sale for 3 Krono yesterday, that could be 6600p or 3600p depending on the moment. It's nice to see them down in that range already, in classic they were 10k for a long time, way too long.

I'd recommend hiding the auction channel when you aren't shopping, especially if you pass through Commonlands much. I keep it on to get a sampling of the market, but sometimes it's nice to shut it off and enjoy the silence.

An item in everquest is worth whatever someone is willing to pay.

From a sellers perspective an item is worth selling to whoever will pay the most.

From a buyers perspective it means an item is worth whatever the highest price you as the buyer are willing to pay, and no more.

The problem is that if a seller finds one person willing to trade a krono, or multiple krono for a specific item they are selling and actually sell it for that price, the price it sells for is never going to be the same price that all the other buyers are willing to pay.

But once someone trades an item for a few krono, other players who have the same item for sale or can get the same item to sell will expect to be able to get as much as the other seller got if not more.

This means that many items end up overpriced and out of reach for the majority of players.

In the olden days, krono weren't there, and real money was not really traded in any form. Also boxing was frowned upon, or non existent, reputations mattered, play nice rules were enforced. Items could not be artificially boosted in drop rates, because there were no pick zones or agents of change instances. So items had value all the way up from the most minor, to the most rare and powerful items that simply did not come to the market. But of the items traded there was plenty of wheeling and dealing, there were no links to items. If you had an item or memorized its stats you could message others about what you wanted to buy or sell. Trading was not done via shared banks or parcel systems, it was common to meet someone in ec tunnel and ask to look at the bags of items they had for sale. The seller would give bags full of items to the buyer without clicking trade just so they could look inside and see what was up for sale/trade. Also players were less focused on just trading for platinum, but also to trade for tradeskill items, or to barter by trading a good item yet one their class couldn't use for some assorted number of lesser quality items that together would be worth more once resold.

Some players did not "farm" items, or loot them at all, but have arrangements to buy the loot from grouping farmers who knew where what dropped and had the level to kill it. This ment that a low level player could via trading end up with gear that was well beyond their capability to kill for, and either use the items or sell them to increase overall wealth.

You could gauge the value of your overall gear and going by common prices know what a players gear was worth altogether. The lower level players who traded for midlevel or higher level gear were often called "twinks" meaning they either were given powerful items from a higher level friend, or the character may have been assumed to be an alternate character of a higher level character.

I myself was able to trade around and end up with an fbss by the time I was level 16-18 or so. Yet I started as an iksar so its not like I started on day 1 and had fbss by 16-18, I started after fbss had already been dropping for some time already.

All of this aside, you need to consider two things, what are you willing to pay for an item, and what is the most you can expect to trade that item for if you sold it. If you are willing to pay more for an item than you could sell it for, that means you are more likely to buy kronos and trade them for any important gear you need. But if you think you can get more for an item than what you pay for it generally, then you should consider trading/selling what items you can for kronos.

Face it, it used to take 100 copper to make 1 silver, and 100 silver to make 1 gold, and 100 gold to make 1 platinum. Yet now its only 10 copper per silver, 10 silver per gold, and 10 gold per platinum. So getting some platinum could be as simple as killing a couple level 1 mobs...

Krono is like the super platinum, it was trading around 1000pp per kroon, yet lately there is preasure to advance krono value up towards 2000pp.

So get as many krono as you can now, because later on you could then trade off krono to players who quit the server for large amounts of platinum that you could turn around and use tradeskilling or for other purposes.

As for the groups who pickzone farm as many possible named as they can? As long as they do not train other players, engage the target first, and do enough damage to get credited for the kill, don't knock the good thing they got going. If you are a group sitting at a named camp for several spawns, its on you to be prepared for the spawn when it comes, to clarify the camp you have taken, and work via diplomatic channels to stop pickzone invaders from stealing from you. But if they break all the rules and you feel slighted, try a petition/report and if it persists then possibly move on to another camp or zone altogether until a gm responds to you.

Yes, it was. $ for Plat. $ for Characters. There was no middle man, there was just $ and whatever a person could get for it. Like I said earlier, it wasn't done out in the open. People didn't put it in Auction or OOC. It was done on the web, setup outside of the game and then handled quietly for the in game part. Sometimes it was legit, sometimes it was a scam. It's not like people could petition for being scammed on RMT.

This conception that Krono's introduced RMT to EQ is a fallacy. Krono's replaced the wild-west version of RMT that already existed. Krono's can be exploited to continue RMT for those who still want to profit from them. At least now DBG gets money from it to help keep things going. It's a compromise to be sure, but a necessary one.