There is a disturbing phenomenon occurring on the Everquest servers. It began with Legacy of Yheska. Pop up ads, appearing during log in. The citizens of Norrath found this to be an annoyance, but we collectively shrugged, assuming that Sony would realize those ads interfere with our gameplay and remove them. Eventually they did, and we gave it no more thought.

Our complacence was a mistake.

Today we see a new breed of pop up. It appears during log in. when switching characters. Even in game, where we pay for recreation, it assails us with systemwide messages. The Lords of Everquest spam is everywhere, and there seems to be no end in sight.

No more.

We have this chance, this one chance to stop this evil from spreading. Citizens of Norrath! Join me in taking a stand against these marketing tactics, and together, we can show Sony that we WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!!!! This is not a balancing issue that most classes of the world can choose to ignore! Like it or not, this is your game. Will you chose to act? Or stand idly by, forever wondering if you could have made a difference as pop up after pop up interrupts your gaming experience?

You can make a difference!

On Wednesday, December 10th 2003 at 8pm eastern, 6pm central, and 4pm pacific time, join your fellow players in a serverwide revolt against the pop-ups and in game spam. There are three ways you can help.

1. I will be hosting a mass protest on the Bertoxxulous server in the Plane of Knowledge next to the Nexus stone on December 10th 2003 at 8pm eastern, 6pm central, and 4pm pacific time. You are invited and encouraged to create a new character (or bring an existing one!) and join in. The more people we have there, the stronger our position will be. Once we are gathered there, we will proceed to phase 2.

2. Even if you can’t make the protest on Bertoxxulous, you can help with this phase. At precisely 8:15 eastern, 6:15 Central and 4:15 pacific time, all protest participants will be asked to /petition the following text:

“I hereby submit this petition in protest of the Lords of Everquest pop up advertisements and in-game spam. Consider this petition notification that I will not even consider buying Lords of Everquest until the ads are completely removed from Everquest. Thank you”

If you like, please feel free to add: “p.s. Kaolian sends his regards”
3. The third and final phase of this protest will be the e-mail campaign. Please send a short message to eqmail@soe.sony.com asking them to remove the pop ups. Please, do not spam them with multiple messages, the goal here is to show them that we will not be ignored, not to knock them off line with a denial of service attack.

We will be coordinating the protest from this thread at Allakhazams:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=1&mid=1070887539773572461
Please check back for updated information as it becomes available

Together, we can reclaim the magic that was Everquest from the hands of corporate greed. Viva la Resistance!!!!!!

Kaolian Drachensborn – an Irate player.


[i]Sobe Edit: Moving this to Unkempt, because thats what it is at this point.

Ugh, its their advertising, on their product. Much like sponsorship at the beginning of a sporting event. And it takes 1 click to get rid of it.

See, if I was a gm, Id wait until that time and day.... then .. when you all sitting there like lemons......

Gm nieros broadcasts 'Would you like to pre-order Lords of everquest ?'

You do know that there are ways to make it go away ? ( and I dont mean buying it for real ;) )

Either accept the offer and close the browser, or :

go to eqclient.ini

find LoEPopUpLastView=1070191038

and change it to LoEPopUpLastView=9970191038

Issue solved.
Still a pain in the arse, but hey...

- nieros

But it is their game not ours. The only way you can speak to them is to not pay them.

Issue solved.


I take it you actually haven't played the game recently. Or how did you miss the MOTD? Or the GM broadcasts?

Whats really annoying, is that being in the UK I can't buy it, yet I'm still subjected to the spam from it :(

Especially since I probably would buy the game if I could.

I take it you actually haven't played the game recently. Or how did you miss the MOTD? Or the GM broadcasts?

I got a brain filter.

Stops spam in its track.

route spam /dev/null

*nods*

- nieros

If SOE are becoming too much annoying to too much players, it will be an additionnal reason to switch to another 'adds free' game like WoW.

Originally posted by B_Delacroix
But it is their game not ours. The only way you can speak to them is to not pay them.

Last I checked I paid for the game and I still pay for it. Since when did I buy something and yet retain no rights to it? I don't buy this argument. I hate pop up adds and I'll live with the one at the login screen, but I hate the little motd and system wide announcements.

Racmoor

I don't like the spam any more than you do.

Technically, you pay for access to the game. Much like you pay for access to cable television. You retain no rights to the showings on cable TV any more than you retain any rights to game itself.

To clarify again, I don't like the popups, MOTD's and serverwide messages. I find them repugnant.

This is simply more proof that the Marketing department runs the show at SOE. Think about it. Offering a 'free month' in EQ to those who support another Sony product, is not much different than previous offers, such as a 50% weight reduction bag as an in-game reward for buying the box CD of an expansion (LDoN).

Marketing isn't going to pull the plug on those advertisements until they're satisfied that every player has seen them a certain number of times, including players who only log on once a week. And since research studies have shown that it takes 7-8 views to build significant name recognition value for a new product, I would expect them to run ads for at least that many weeks.

By staging protests, you're creating an illusion that they might have actually listened to players and responded. In reality, those ads will have stopped on the end-date predetermined by Marketing, and not a day sooner. If such a protest happens to coincide within a week or two of the planned end-date, SOE comes out even further ahead, as players can think the company has taken their wishes into consideration.

~Firemynd

I cant wait to see McDonald's restaurants in the new expansion cities, and adds for Pepsi on the boat that will lead me there. 8OP

I got a brain filter.

Stops spam in its track.

route spam /dev/null


True, it doesn't bother me that much, either, because I never read GM broadcasts anyway. Much like I turned off /ooc and /auc and /shout a while back. Makes the game so much more pleasant....:)

AmonraSet,

I was in Game on Friday and they had numerous copies of Lord of EverQuest for sale, so it is definately for sale in the UK.

I picked one up and read the blurb on the back so i'm not insane or imagining it.

Serberus

I wouldn't mind the ads so much if they weren't as obtrustive. If it was a little ad in the corner of the log-in screen or even on the loading, splash screen, I'd have no problem. It's when I have to actively click "no" everytime I log in that it gets annoying. Of course, had they actually put out a good game in LoE they wouldn't have to resort to this sort of stuff...

There is a disturbing phenomenon occurring on the Everquest servers. It began with Legacy of Yheska. Pop up ads, appearing during log in. The citizens of Norrath found this to be an annoyance, but we collectively shrugged, assuming that Sony would realize those ads interfere with our gameplay and remove them. Eventually they did, and we gave it no more thought.

Our complacence was a mistake.

Today we see a new breed of pop up. It appears during log in. when switching characters. Even in game, where we pay for recreation, it assails us with systemwide messages. The Lords of Everquest spam is everywhere, and there seems to be no end in sight.

No more.

We have this chance, this one chance to stop this evil from spreading. Citizens of Norrath! Join me in taking a stand against these marketing tactics, and together, we can show Sony that we WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!!!! This is not a balancing issue that most classes of the world can choose to ignore! Like it or not, this is your game. Will you chose to act? Or stand idly by, forever wondering if you could have made a difference as pop up after pop up interrupts your gaming experience?

You can make a difference!

On Wednesday, December 10th 2003 at 8pm eastern, 6pm central, and 4pm pacific time, join your fellow players in a serverwide revolt against the pop-ups and in game spam. There are three ways you can help.

1. I will be hosting a mass protest on the Bertoxxulous server in the Plane of Knowledge next to the Nexus stone on December 10th 2003 at 8pm eastern, 6pm central, and 4pm pacific time. You are invited and encouraged to create a new character (or bring an existing one!) and join in. The more people we have there, the stronger our position will be. Once we are gathered there, we will proceed to phase 2.

2. Even if you can’t make the protest on Bertoxxulous, you can help with this phase. At precisely 8:15 eastern, 6:15 Central and 4:15 pacific time, all protest participants will be asked to /petition the following text:

“I hereby submit this petition in protest of the Lords of Everquest pop up advertisements and in-game spam. Consider this petition notification that I will not even consider buying Lords of Everquest until the ads are completely removed from Everquest. Thank you”

If you like, please feel free to add: “p.s. Kaolian sends his regards”
3. The third and final phase of this protest will be the e-mail campaign. Please send a short message to eqmail@soe.sony.com asking them to remove the pop ups. Please, do not spam them with multiple messages, the goal here is to show them that we will not be ignored, not to knock them off line with a denial of service attack.

We will be coordinating the protest from this thread at Allakhazams:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/for...887539773572461
Please check back for updated information as it becomes available

Together, we can reclaim the magic that was Everquest from the hands of corporate greed. Viva la Resistance!!!!!!

Kaolian Drachensborn – an Irate player.

So advertising a protest about advertisement is going to solve issues how?~

Geez it's their own game. I'd understand the anger if they were advertising Coke, but this is the same company advertising their own product!

It's like complaining about seeing adverts for McDonalds burgers when you walk into a McDonalds.

Yes the popup was annoying from a usability point of view, but it only takes a click to get rid. As for MOTD and GM messages, who reads em anyway? :)

Quick text based message, doesn't affect gameplay at all. (Unless you use 1 chat window 3 lines long for all comms, in which case set it up properly!)

Is only 1 click, it won't kil you or anything. Just "one" click =p Don't see any reason to protest against it unless gms spamming repeating in game about it. Which they don't =p

1) Should have hosted your main protest thread on Stratics. /wink.

2) eqmail@soe.sony.com is not a real email address.

3) Everquest was always based on corporate greed.

4) Sit-ins get people banned.

5) We all know that petitions don't work.



All kidding aside. I think one of the reasons why you are being met with a relatively negative response, is that you had not established yourself to the community here. You are asking them to change their actions with no reasonable expectation of anything happening. And while you may never actually ever come back here to read this message, it does give you a clue as to how not to motivate people(for future reference).

Everyone seen this ? :P

http://www.gucomics.com/archives/view.php?cdate=20031205

Question...What do you consider commercials? They are basically the same thing. Are you going to go sit out infront of television stations and protest commercials now too?

Originally posted by Colcannon Bacstai
Everyone seen this ? :P

http://www.gucomics.com/archives/view.php?cdate=20031205
LOL. Wouldn't put it past them.

Lol, that is great.

I cant wait to see McDonald's restaurants in the new expansion cities, and adds for Pepsi on the boat that will lead me there.

See, the day they put 'pizaa hut' into the game and you can walk up to it, click 'order < insert pizza here >' and they deliever it to your house..... Im going to be SOOO happy *nods*

Uk expansion only :
Do you wish to pre-order 'Virutal Tescos' expansion for rivervale ?

Us expansion only :
Do you wish to pre-order 'Virtual Wall Mart' expansion for butcherblock ?

- nieros

The really bad thing is that I already bought Lords of Everquest once back when it was called Warcraft 3... and I'm still subjected to the spam.

Perk

Um...Yea, I quit watching TV. I watch HBO and the movie channels, but I seldom if EVER turn on the "commercial" channels anymore. I'm really starting to get irritated at all the commercials they put now in theatres...not the previews but the commercials. You can now arrive 15 minutes after the "start" time displayed for the movie and still not miss the beginning.

Racmoor

You can protest all you want, but its basically turned into a rant - so I have labeled it so, first time posters that begin with PROTEST I usually watch the post for a couple of days and the responses.

- you have the ability now to turn it off if you just follow some of these peeps advise.

Sure the pop-ups are annoying.. sure DVD's with commercials you can't Fast Forward through are annoying.. sure when you go to the movies and they advertise other movies and the theatre advertises its fine $10.00 popcorn .. Its annoying..

Last night watching Sci-Fi - "Battlestar Galactica" THERE WERE SO MANY COMMERCIALS!! .. I guess someone was trying to pay the bills.. because it seemed like 7 mins of commercials.. 4 mins of film.. rinse and repeat.

I won't watch another night of it .. I will just record it on my TiVo so I can fast forward through the commercials, IE: the commercials were basically ruining the program.

So in retrospect.. clicking No to the Pop-up or changing the text file... is the same thing I do with my TiVo - .. bypass the commercials to get to the "program".

Not a big deal /shrugs