I'm stepping down as moderator of this forum. I'm going to be leaving EQ2, at least for a bit. The lack of integrity by SOE over this recent drama has been the final straw for me.

Thanks for all the "good old days" everyone, and I'll miss my friends here, and the silly comments that make me laugh in /test. Good luck to you all.

I too have canceled my account, effective 12/16/07

I will really miss the community and the feeling that we were helping make the game better, but being outright told that the contributions that I and my wife (Kethaera/Masume) and all of our friends have made are not not valuable or deserving of any kind of thanks or kindness is something I don't wish to continue being a part of. Our "non-vibrant community" as Grimwell stated has been a very pleasant place to play and feel like a part of something, and I truly will miss you guys.

Take some time to step back and have a deep breath.

It's funny how this 'drama' has been whirling around Blacksabath (the wife), but hasn't really phased me too much. I've grown rather immune to the Dev viewpoints as well as 'Live' players and their distain for Test players.

I guess I've just played on so many "Test" realms for my MMO gaming, that I don't get phased by it.

The item wipe in EQ1 was a bit distressing, but I -was- a ranger... /laugh

What finally made me snap was Froech's response to the epic thread on the official SOE forums. That we the Testers should be insulted and blamed for this... Kella STAB.

I have a reponse to this.. i just don't know enough french.

Sorry to see you two go, you will be missed.

I do have to ask though, how has any of this affected anyones game? UT had almost completely left Test Server and rerolled on Unrest already, so was no longer playing there regardless. None of this drama came up until weeks/months later when some characters were copied off. Which by that time, had zero additional affect on Test as far as I can comprehend.

It was pretty clear that almost no one on Test wanted anything/much to do with UT because of playstyle differences and all attempts to make the sever whole failed completely. Honestly, if were to have wagered on the outcome, I would have put my money on the Test players rejoicing at UT leaving the server.

I guess I am missing how any of this actually affected anyone else.

edit: previous two posts made while I was typing this, guess I need to read those 50+ pages. /dread

edit part II: Bah, I can't read all that. Got through a few pages and it made my head spin from all the misinformation / prejudices / cluelessness. Uber guild & gear with plats out the wazu.. hehehe... UT probably has the worst gear of any raid guild in EQ II, not to mention the brokest members.

Kwoung.. honestly i suggest you read the first few half of the pages of the posts on eq2flames.. those are the ones that really got things going.

The blantent lies by lucky just ticked me off beyond belief.. so i responded to them.

I suggest you read through the point where the Kylie links where posted (s/he locked it shortly after so no one else could see the items she had from Contencted Mayong).. and you might want to read up to the post where people posted about Zindi. At least this way she'll know where she was discussed.

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Why I'm leaving has absolutely nothing with Lucky or UT. I put up with that stuff for so long, I wouldn't let it drive me away now. Why I'm leaving has *everything* to do with the way SOE handled the situation. They patted all of UT on the back for being such good testers -- just for the guild tag you carry -- and ignored everyone else on the server, then had the gall to do it in public.

I don't blame most of you in UT for what happened. I'm sure a lot of you guys saw the offer of a copy by a dev as perfectly legit, and thought "oh, cool, ok." I might've too in the same situation, I don't know how it all went down. I do feel really bad that you're getting all of your characters deleted now, that's really shitty.

In the end, it's the corruption both by SOE and that SOE has allowed on the Test server that are finally making me throw in the towel. I'm really sorry it had to come to this, but I have a lot of good memories of better times.

I wish you *all* the best.

Ok, I read the first/last few pages over there.. and will attempt to go find what the new producer posted to you guys, that sounds just wrong.

As for what Lucky posted, I didn't see a lie in there. It was all done on the up and up and it did go up through the proper channels right on up the chain to the top as far as I am aware. I know for a fact Scott was well aware of our desire to do this, because I emailed him personally about it a couple times. I honestly never expected them to say yes, but like everything in life, if you never ask, you never recieve.

And honestly, if others on Test would have wanted to leave Test as well, it probaly would have been a lot more likely to happen if they had also just asked privately, as opposed to starting what appears to be some pretty huge flame threads on the subject and dragging the entire EQ II community into it. I find it hard to believe that a dersire to also be transferred off Test, was the intention of starting those 100+ pages of rants / flames / etc... as nothing good ever comes of that. As is well reflected here. I find it very sad that so many good players and nice people are going to leave the game they have enjoyed for years because the flames got out of hand.

People said items gained by some members of UT were gained by Dev/GM powered help. Lucky said this not true, and that we have hardly any interaction no devs other then Saedie. While this may be true recently, even you know this not to be true.

If you and I have agreed on things in the past is beside the point...items gained is one thing, and what happens on test stays on test. I'm okay with that, and have no problem, b/c your right it doesn't effect my game play. However, characters were moved off test with some of these items (it was proven by other posters on that thread), which is what caused the major hoopla.

End the end we are leaving b/c of the same reason Keth gave, the post quoted above is a real slap in the face to those of us not moved..and not in UT. There are other legitmate testers on test.. <shrug>

Lucky lost those powers long long ago and honestly, I can't belive that old news was even brought up. Anything gained from that period of time has long been replaced. Like I said, I did not go into the entire thread, but everything I did see linked and bitched about was all gained via regular game play.

Not to even mention, the gear I wore from raiding on Test, I recently replaced with upgrades from the RoK quest line... heh. People made a pretty big deal out of what in the scheme of things, was some pretty crappy equipment. Of course when people say "Equipment gained via GM powers", everyone ASSUMES it to be the best stuff available in game... no one bothered to mention it was from 2 expansions back and some of the crappiest gear available. Being as it was tradeable fabled gear and the very same stuff that is available in bulk off the broker (at discount rates I might add) on any live server.

Anyways, like I said, that was really old news, to us at least. But I will point out that although it was probably a mistake on SOE's part, one of the original intentions of that action way back when it was done, was to help gear up Test a bit (in a non-public manner) so we could actually start testing the stuff that the live servers were so far ahead of us on (even back then). I believe they approached it the way they did, because if they had simply dropped a buff bot on Test at the time, it would have definately destroyed the existing community and caused way more harm than good to the server. Unfortunately, the views of that action on Test were split in two...

1. Some saw it for what it was and tried very hard to meet the intended goal.

2. Some saw it as "cheating" and cried foul.

In the end, it created a huge rift on the server. Which when it comes right down to it, is pretty much what led to this recent situation.

You're out of line there Kwoung. Neither of those threads were started by anyone on test.

Possibly, although the original posts on the public forums were not from Test players, it seemed pretty obvious (to me at least reading what I managed) that the sources of the information they posted came from Test. Which if is so, is how they were started, thus my comment.

Here is the order in which the threads about this subject were posted...

EverQuest II » Top » Community Workshop » Testers Only
12/11/2007 16:59:02: Question reguarding server moves policy changes...

eq2flames
12-12-2007, 06:39 PM Unhallowed Triad/Unrest - moved from Test by SOE

General EverQuest II Discussion » Gameplay Discussion
12/12/2007 20:29:31: Any Devs Wanna Explain Test->Live Transfers?

As we are all well aware, there are many non-test players who have access to Testers Only, some of which frequent eq2flames quite heavilly. My guess would be that is how this was started. So & so PMed/emailed LFG the info, LFG followed up with a bit of research, people spilled even more beans... LFG made his post... the rest is history.

It is all quite unfortunate how it turned out and very few people (if any at this point) have ALL the information about this. Much out of date or complete misinformation was posted. Nothing was mentioned of the quality of gear that everyone was so up in arms about. Nothing was mentioned of the fact that UT had actually rerolled from scratch on Unrest months earlier and many members had already leveled the regular way into their 60's. Nothing was mentioned of the fact that some of the UT members on Unrest were either born there long ago or paid their $50 to be transferred there from another server.

LFG got what he wanted though, a new flame thread to help drive up his site hits. Its always great when he can post a subject that isn't server or class specific, its a sure fire guarentee to generate a lot of activity on his site. In short, we all got used to drive up his advertising revenues... don't think for one minute that he gives one hoot about you or your situation.

Well I guess I stand corrected, it seems a couple folks did have some better than KoS loot... I guess me being clueless as to where some stuff comes from doesn't help. But they really had to dig to find very few players out of a guild of over 100 that had some questionable gear... and I know for a fact that I was on the raids where Kylie got some of the stuff they linked from him.

Pretty sad they brough Zindi into all that as well, being as she has done so much for the game and could care less about anything more than crafting, chatting and simply playing with friends.