[dabble]

The Aion Chinese beta has it.. 4 hours and then you were cut off unless you could prove you were an adult.

[Hatto]

It may also be possible that they don't like the influx of foreign currency into their economy from it, or don't like who gets it. Reasons of that kind of government are difficult to judge. One thing we can be sure, they have the means to enforce it and people who violate it risk alot more than just a few banned accounts.

And they will also be able to force Blizzard to implement technical measures if needed, I doubt those will risk one of their larger market shares over something elusive like freedom.

[Talithia]

Mfdoom posted this on OVF

China bans gold farming

[Loampounder]

LiveGamer is DEAD! Well, it will be in about a month. SOE and LiveGamer are parting ways. VG, EQII, and FR will be dropped from LiveGamer. I wonder what the driving force was behind that change. Feel free to speculate all you want.

There is no way SOE would be removing LG if it made money, especially considering they have three games there. The most disgusting thing...

Part of caring for our customers is listening to you and hearing what you have to say. Additionally, we need to be aware of changes in the industry, changes in player expectations, and larger economic trends in general.

We've listened to your concerns about the complexity of the subscription structure, how the separate forums between EQII and EQ2X divide the community unnecessarily, that the Live Gamer servers are under-populated, and that many people want more flexibility with payment options so they can better manage their personal budgets.

Bullcrap. First it was "we are adding LG because we listen to our customers..."; now they are removing it after years because they listen to their customers? Then why remove FR, a free game, from LiveGamer at the same time?

[AsheMan]

I quit EQ2 the moment they started the $ auctions (was it Livegamer back then?) and I would have quit Vanguard if I were still playing it when they added it in. The damage was done. I'm not going to return this many years later because it's now gone.

FU SOE, you ignorant sons of bitches!

[Fozzik]

My guess would be it's only gone because SOE thinks they've found a way to increase their own profits somehow with a different setup. I wouldn't think that things are going to improve in terms of the integrity or respect for their virtual worlds...my guess is things will actually get worse, there just may not be enough info yet to figure out how they are doing it.

[Loampounder]

I think I remember that there was something incestious between SOE and LG, like the founders of LG were old employees from SOE or something. Considering that, and the fact that all the games are leaving in one fell swoop, I imagine there was some fall out between the two corporations. SOE is LG's only partner in the eXchange, so it looks like that's dieing out totally and LG will only be left with code development for software companies (like Facebook). For all the hype of microtransactions, I see this as a huge win for our side.

Fozzik, I agree with your pessimism, but will take it one step further. I think SOE knows it has failed but don't know how to replace it yet with a different model. They are copying the f2p model from LOTRO and hoping/praying that people come back into their games. That change is easy for them for EQ2 (since it was halfway f2p all ready) but VG would take a lot more work (and no one from SOE management wants to put that kind of effort in VG).

My guess is that VG will be ignored, except for a few half-time developers on it to keep up the facade until it fully dies.