No wonder I can not do my epic

The company was sold off due to years of mismanagement and failed projects little of which had anything to do with EQ1. Were we playing P99 instead and it became known that money was an issue then donating to them makes sense but donate to a corp? Heh

Who said anything about donations?

I can see your point, but they should have an equivalent worth on each server and thus require a similar amount of effort, right? For instance, a krono is worth like 1Mpp(?) on Live Servers and like 18k on Ragefire...each of those amounts of platinum should be a similar difficulty to obtain on each respective server making the kronos relatively equal in "value".

Granted, this doesn't stop the person with a lvl 105 toon on live from farming kronos there to sell on Ragefire...but you also can't just farm an empty server for all kinds of cool stuff because you still need someone to sell to. To equate this to the old days, you had people (on ebay, etc) that would say "WTT 100kpp on X-server, for 50kpp on Y-server". Again, it's nothing new, it's just easier to do...but more importantly, DBG get's their cut.

The simple fact is, that some people are diminutive richards. Diminutive richards are going to be diminutive richards, and they don't need Kronos, or plat or boxing or botting or anything else. They simply can't help themselves. Whiners, on the other hand, can help themselves. They can hitch up their pants and step up to the plate and take their best shot. If somebody is in their way, they need to around them, or over them, or under them, or through them, or wait them out, or be faster than them. Or anything other than whining that somebody else is in the way or they got there first or they had more Krono, cause that is not going to get you your epic. It won't even get you any sympathy.

In the long term you might expect that perhaps, as everyone has had time to achieve "perfect information" and completely adapt to the economies. But it takes a long time to reach the long term

Also other factors can cause fixed differences too. such as the ease of monopolizing a camp on a certain server and selling a so-so item for the same as a much rarer item. That server gets a bonus increase in camp-monopolizing-d'bags that other servers lack. Or the ease of running a naked bot crew due to mage overpoweredness, tilting the scale in favor of RMT'ers over legit player farming stuff to sell for kronos, etc.

A presumption that it's the same everywhere seems to me the least safe position. It is guaranteed to be wrong to some degree.

I don't mind the presence of krono on TLP's. It's not ruining the prices. Krono are easily interchangeable with plat, and provide options for players such as having a little cash on hand, all the way up to buying their epic.

It's completely optional cash input. It doesn't have to affect you in any way. And it hasn't driven prices out of control. During Kunark on the old Nameless, inflation was so bad that an fbss was 10k, and other items were equally outrageous. Grinding plat for gear was a joke.

Greedy players haven't changed, content blocking hasn't changed. If anything, it's gotten better, and more transparent. And with the shortened time span on TLP, and increased player knowledge, you should expect the economy to end up focused around the high end stuff.

Krono aren't the problem. They're one of the best ideas soe had, and saved the game. Cough up your $360, get a guild, or go without. That's one more option than you used to have.

Kronos do have a massive impact early in the server because it allows players to grab a huge percent of the servers platinum early on, use it to build tradeskills, and in turn make a fortune. If you don't start with Krono it is way more difficult to do this. I do agree over time it becomes interchangeable with platinum though and does not affect people very much in long run.

Krono are working exactly as intended

The problem is that you want your Epic NOW and you don't want to put in the wait time or the camp time and want to blame people who will for you not being able to pick it up as a ground spawn.

I can agree with this post.

I play on Firiona Vie and Lockjaw. Nearly everything in the classic game, including dragon loot, was tradable. Trade thrived and strong economies were forged on every server. At least until they basically killed all trade, oddly by the time the bazaar was introduced, by making 99% of everything rot by design.

Anyhow, I think Kronos are fairly comparable on both servers. Yes, on Firiona Vie, people pay 1.2m or so and on Lockjaw they go for 10k, but it takes multiple Krono on either server to buy any raid gear or rares.

So I laughed at all the "Kronos are ruining this game!" nonsense.

Kronos are a simple way for people to trade in game goods and services for game time. You have extra money and want to spot someone a month of play time for helping you out... cool. Or maybe you want gift someone some play time...awesome. Kronos are great because they benefit DBG (you give them money) and you benefit whoever youre dealing with (you give them play time).

Kronos are not the problem with Epics or any quests. The problem is that they designed a game where you can multi-quest items. They designed quest items to be trade-able. They designed spawns that can be monopolized (and then asked people not too).If people didnt use kronos they would use plat or other items. If they didnt use plat or other items they would just sell items and services via auction sites and for real currency. People will always find a way to do shady stuff .... at least this way our company wins the lions share.

What they should have done with Epic and quest items was make the spawns and the drops unique to the quester. For example tasks/triggers and/or triggers.

TL/DR: Kronos are not the problem. Game design is the problem.

As someone who played heavily on every tlp server. If you look and compare strictly the last 2 generations (fippy/vulak) and (rage/lockjaw) you can clearly see krono are definitely adding to the problem.

I ran the same box crew on fippy as I did on these servers, but fronting the money for the accounts, buying them multiple months in advance to save money was definitely worse than trading for a few krono.

Most people won't do that. There's a risk associated with fronting a few hundred dollars to box and not guaranteeing how it will turn out. The risk is not the same using krono from live servers, or farming for a few early on and increasing your accounts slowly.

Krono most certainly increase the viability of 6+ boxing, in turn making it more prevalent. So while you would still see people selling epic drops from plat, you wouldn't see as many box crews around.

The people complaining that kronos are ruining things are partially correct.

As soon as someone pulls out the "but DB needs money" line then they are talking donations not payment for reasonable services. Sure they need money as do I. It must be expected those that I trade money for services to actually give value not destruction.

I wont donate to The Destruction of EQ Fund (tm).

Look around at this game and tell me its in a better spot than before the krono, in particular the recent ClusterFrak of TLPs and TBM xpack.
Yeah it changed their entire focus from producing to fleecing and some people seem to be fine with that.
Unreal

Plat can be sold for cash, and cash used to pay for subscriptions. It's just not as convenient.

You understand that since Krono has a real life monetary value, actually worth more than what it costs for a sub, that the risk is still there, right?

Even if Krono didn't exist and someone wanted to box to try and farm plat to sell for cash, like any investment, there's an initial outlay. You pay that initial outlay no matter what. So, in the end, you end up at the same place - if you can make enough plat to sell for the current cash equivalent that a Krono sells for (on those same 3rd party sites), you're at the same point.

So either
A.) your argument says RMT is good for the game and should be supported
or
B.) you admit it is a not conducive to a well managed game and actually makes the company a party.

Which is it as my position is fairly clear on either.

When you're not fronting hundreds of dollars, and instead using items you can earn from playing the game legitimately... There's alot less of a risk.

If you have any other suggestion, as to why mage armies on this server are so much more prevalent than on fippy/vulak I would love to hear it.

But the answer is kronos. As explained in my post.

To be clear, I'm not against kronos, I just think they give people who otherwise wouldn't spend their money on multiple accounts, A way to play multiple accounts.

Join a guild and camp it?

Well, considering that Krono purchased from DB is technically RMT.

As far as liking RMT, no, not really, I don't. But it's existed since the game started, way before Krono, and Verant/SOE/DB are powerless to stop it, so my statement stands.

As far as point B in your message - doesn't matter to me, honestly. I make enough money in RL that if I wanted to buy something in the game, I could buy Krono and buy it. Or I can get loot in the game, sell it for plat, or trade it for Krono...whichever. Or I can get with my friends, and go kill/get whatever I need for my epic. They're called options.

In the end, you about Krono ruining things is off. Because if people can make money by farming stuff and selling it for Krono, they can do the same selling it for plat. They can then sell the plat for RL money, just as some do with Krono. So, in the end, the only way you would be happy is if MQs weren't in, there were no plat (since it can be sold), and you logged in and were handed your epic (so you wouldn't have to make friends to help you). Got it.