How much real money have MMOs made you?

New user here, thanks for having me. Here is my story, back in 2000/2001, my buddy and I played on 7th hammer server. We got bit my EQ bug and was addicted. I mained a wiz and leveled up (we started playing just after luclin launch). Well fast forward, my wizard was i think in the 40's or something. I had that stupid flapping familiar and I would do a /pet get lost. (you still keep the buff). Well I unintentionally found what I later called the wiz familiar dupe bug. There were a few things that I had done (again totally unintentionally) but what I had found was when I was killed in the zone by a guard (was freeport), i would spawn at my bind point with all of the items (and plat on me again). I didn't have much plat, but I had my buddy come over, i gave him everything i had (maybe 1k or so) and I got killed by the guard and poof, i was back in with 1k again. We did this a whole bunch and saved up 100k plat and started buying cool things. We bought fungi tunic, manastone, t-staff, all the cool old school things.

Next, I said lets run to the store (we were like 20 yrs old, collecting unemployment, eating burger king playing eq). We bought 3-4 copies of everquest from some computer store, came back, created new accounts. Now we had to powerlevel some wizards (needed to be minimum level 29 to get the first wiz familar spell). we PL'ed him up to 29, got the spell, gave him 200k and all the cool items we had bought in EC tunnel and I did the sequence of events again. Boom it still worked. We laughed so hard, now each time we were giving away 200k plat and all of the items (necklace of superiority was in there along with manastones). This became our full time job. We did this for weeks, I created an account on playerauctions (back before it was all owned by china now), and started selling plat. Going rate was around $900 for 250k (retail rate). We then took money from our first sale and bought every copy of everquest we could find within 20 miles of my house. We created all new accounts with access keys, wrote them all down, kept track of toon names, how much plat they had, and we spread out all of the plat. We were able to do this dupe bug for a few weeks before they patched it. Overall we had somewhere between 20-30 mil plat, and probably had about 100 manastones? I met a guy on PA who was a whole seller and he would by 2-3Mil from us at a time so he could break it up into little chunks to resell retail. Over time, we would lose an account here and there, until finally they banned all of our accounts (and mains btw, sad day). I then bought a new enchanter account with the proceeds to main along with a few other box toons (epic cleric for clicky stick).

Overall I had added up the paypal transactions one day and we made between 65-70k. My buddy lived on this money for like 2 years, for smokes and everquest and fast food. Was a great learning experience and had a blast. Then a year or so later, we talked about getting back into EQ, my buddy had tried to connect to his main and it was still banned. He called and got someone from customer service, he told a sad story to about his younger brother using his account who had recently passed away and she unlocked the account for him. He logged in and his alts had like another 2 mil or so in plat. We got a little bit more cash lol. My buddy has since passed away and I still have his account creds. I log in every now and then for nostalgic reasons. Was awesome.

Hope you enjoyed reading. :) Now 20 years later i've been playing on TLP's for the past 4 years.
 
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Shmoopy

Golden Baronet of the Realm
3,900
17,550
New user here, thanks for having me. Here is my story, back in 2000/2001, my buddy and I played on 7th hammer server. We got bit my EQ bug and was addicted. I mained a wiz and leveled up (we started playing just after luclin launch). Well fast forward, my wizard was i think in the 40's or something. I had that stupid flapping familiar and I would do a /pet get lost. (you still keep the buff). Well I unintentionally found what I later called the wiz familiar dupe bug. There were a few things that I had done (again totally unintentionally) but what I had found was when I was killed in the zone by a guard (was freeport), i would spawn at my bind point with all of the items (and plat on me again). I didn't have much plat, but I had my buddy come over, i gave him everything i had (maybe 1k or so) and I got killed by the guard and poof, i was back in with 1k again. We did this a whole bunch and saved up 100k plat and started buying cool things. We bought fungi tunic, manastone, t-staff, all the cool old school things.

Next, I said lets run to the store (we were like 20 yrs old, collecting unemployment, eating burger king playing eq). We bought 3-4 copies of everquest from some computer store, came back, created new accounts. Now we had to powerlevel some wizards (needed to be minimum level 29 to get the first wiz familar spell). we PL'ed him up to 29, got the spell, gave him 200k and all the cool items we had bought in EC tunnel and I did the sequence of events again. Boom it still worked. We laughed so hard, now each time we were giving away 200k plat and all of the items (necklace of superiority was in there along with manastones). This became our full time job. We did this for weeks, I created an account on playerauctions (back before it was all owned by china now), and started selling plat. Going rate was around $900 for 250k (retail rate). We then took money from our first sale and bought every copy of everquest we could find within 20 miles of my house. We created all new accounts with access keys, wrote them all down, kept track of toon names, how much plat they had, and we spread out all of the plat. We were able to do this dupe bug for a few weeks before they patched it. Overall we had somewhere between 20-30 mil plat, and probably had about 100 manastones? I met a guy on PA who was a whole seller and he would by 2-3Mil from us at a time so he could break it up into little chunks to resell retail. Over time, we would lose an account here and there, until finally they banned all of our accounts (and mains btw, sad day). I then bought a new enchanter account with the proceeds to main along with a few other box toons (epic cleric for clicky stick).

Overall I had added up the paypal transactions one day and we made between 65-70k. My buddy lived on this money for like 2 years, for smokes and everquest and fast food. Was a great learning experience and had a blast. Then a year or so later, we talked about getting back into EQ, my buddy had tried to connect to his main and it was still banned. He called and got someone from customer service, he told a sad story to about his younger brother using his account who had recently passed away and she unlocked the account for him. He logged in and his alts had like another 2 mil or so in plat. We got a little bit more cash lol. My buddy has since passed away and I still have his account creds. I log in every now and then for nostalgic reasons. Was awesome.

Hope you enjoyed reading. :) Now 20 years later i've been playing on TLP's for the past 4 years.
Wow great story.
 

Zapan

Lord Nagafen Raider
101
96
Wouldn't have really been true. He was a whale that didn't really play/raid with the guild at all, he spent 177 KR on the first SoD. The only person that really knew him stayed with the guild until Yelinak launched.
Clueless and cute.
 

Mrniceguy

Trakanon Raider
618
335
Clueless and cute.

You left mid SoV, the guild still exists. Once DBG put the ST 1.0 on the back the Velious Tier 2 nobody gave a shit that your side crew woke the Sleeper.

GiGs total Payout for PoP not including LDoNs or small man stuff was a little over 20,000 Krono worth of plat. Not exactly the numbers of GDKP guild that got "Splintered from the inside out"
 
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Zapan

Lord Nagafen Raider
101
96
You left mid SoV, the guild still exists. Once DBG put the ST 1.0 on the back the Velious Tier 2 nobody gave a shit that your side crew woke the Sleeper.

GiGs total Payout for PoP not including LDoNs or small man stuff was a little over 20,000 Krono worth of plat. Not exactly the numbers of GDKP guild that got "Splintered from the inside out"
I don’t claim to have killed the guild, but did people leave as a result of what we were doing? Yes.

Zaide Zaide , did you leave at all because of what we were doing? I believe there were multiple reasons, but I was told by Krims and others that a significant reason was that I (and others) weren’t raiding, buying up all of the T1 loot first two weeks of each expac, and it wasn’t sustainable or good for culture (which I agree completely with, and we rooted for you/Faceless once formed).

In the off chance the above is true, then taking part in Faceless being created, however minor, only to steamroll whoever you were in GiG even expacs later, puts a smile on my face.

GIG was one of (if not the) most toxic guilds I’ve ever been in. I thought I was playing Diablo 2. And if you were there, enjoying it, raiding from launch through PoP, I’m sorry that’s how you spent your year.

My goals were simple - I wanted to enjoy a different side of the game as my primary goal (small man focused), while benefitting from how GIG was set up, and breaking its system was a bonus. Virtually every loot rule was changed because of the way I bid. I spent roughly 600 - 800 krono in the 5ish months I was in the guild. The number of conversations I had with officers and hate tells I received from players was daily.

And yes, downplay Sleeper, but I was in those discord channels listening to the fury of 120+ children as you wiped running down to the pit to race us, and that put a smile on my face too.
 
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DickTrickle

Definitely NOT Furor Planedefiler
12,940
14,845
"guild was so toxic"

"I'm so proud of having been one of the most toxic players in it"
 
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Mrniceguy

Trakanon Raider
618
335
I don’t claim to have killed the guild, but did people leave as a result of what we were doing? Yes.

None of the loot rules where changed because of you. The people trying to flip every item played a much bigger part in why the rules were changed, you'd know this is if you ever actually raided with the guild or interacted with people in it. If anything the "You have to be at a raid bid" helped bring the guild together. It drove away a lot of people that just viewed GiG as money making scheme and not a GDKP guild. It was probably the single best thing to happen for the long term health of the guild.

You kinda did the opposite of what you're claiming.
 
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Elderan

Blackwing Lair Raider
590
407
I quit during kunark and came back later in kunark and furor getting mad at me because my toon was missing all its non nodrop gear lol.
 

Zapan

Lord Nagafen Raider
101
96
None of the loot rules where changed because of you. The people trying to flip every item played a much bigger part in why the rules were changed, you'd know this is if you ever actually raided with the guild or interacted with people in it. If anything the "You have to be at a raid bid" helped bring the guild together. It drove away a lot of people that just viewed GiG as money making scheme and not a GDKP guild. It was probably the single best thing to happen for the long term health of the guild.

You kinda did the opposite of what you're claiming.
The long term health of the guild? What guild?

And they were literally called the Zapan loot rules when they were implemented - couldn’t buy multiple items of the same kind per raid after I bought all of the Azure robes for my box crew, must attend a raid to bid, then it was you had to be at the tick an item dropped to bid because I was showing up for part of a raid, then it was that I couldn’t buy all of the T1 items first week, I had to split it up across multiple weeks, and more.

I attempted to raid, but listening to Peepo or any of the other goons on those discord channels vomit into their mics and play their toons with their dicks wasn’t enjoyable.

I hate(d) GDKP, so whether people left or GiG evolved, either are positive.

Again, I feel sorry you spent all of that time in GiG chasing plat and befriending flippers, but you’re frustrated at the wrong person.
 
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Cyni

Lord Nagafen Raider
549
192
I for one thought Zapan taking every item was pretty hilarious and just showed what a broken system we had. We all made plat either way so it didnt really matter one way or the other unless you were thinking a +25 hp item actually made a fucking difference.
 
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cabbitcabbit

NeoGaf Donator
2,622
7,915
The raiding in GIG was probably my least favorite experience in any trp. Just pure raging autism from the top down. I made a shitload of plat and kr but hearing certain people sperg out every single raid killed any fun I thought I was having.

Still, shout-out to Zapan Zapan for helping me with my monk epic because that shithead was sniping the xenevorash kills from underwater from people.
 
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Zaide

TLP Idealist
3,741
4,398
I don’t claim to have killed the guild, but did people leave as a result of what we were doing? Yes.

Zaide Zaide , did you leave at all because of what we were doing? I believe there were multiple reasons, but I was told by Krims and others that a significant reason was that I (and others) weren’t raiding, buying up all of the T1 loot first two weeks of each expac, and it wasn’t sustainable or good for culture (which I agree completely with, and we rooted for you/Faceless once formed).

In the off chance the above is true, then taking part in Faceless being created, however minor, only to steamroll whoever you were in GiG even expacs later, puts a smile on my face.

GIG was one of (if not the) most toxic guilds I’ve ever been in. I thought I was playing Diablo 2. And if you were there, enjoying it, raiding from launch through PoP, I’m sorry that’s how you spent your year.
I left for a lot of reasons. I didn’t like that no one cared so much of the loot was RMT’d. I disliked the lack of team environment, it never felt like a real guild while I was there. I remember guildies dps racing each other for classic camps and Bro Z robes.

I generally did and still do dislike the existence of “small-mans”. In classic GiG it was a real issue for me because an officer would not batphone two OW mobs which enabled his small man to regularly farm them. Remember this wasn’t like shit Yelinak loot, it was CoFs, WDCs, AoNs and shit too.

Some people might not see an issue here but I’ve always felt that part of being “leadership” is that your interests and the organization’s interests must be totally in line with one another or you must put the good of the guild ahead of your personal enrichment, your friends etc.

Now let me be totally clear here - I am past the part of my life where I batphone shit personally but I felt this was a big ethical issue even though I wasn’t going to call or attend any batphones. It was also a frequent point of contention among members while I was there.

I remember posting these screenshots in the discord and people getting a bit riled up about it.
8CB515C9-F6AC-41D6-930A-60D1B9F70D82.jpeg

9114947B-2904-4AF8-917F-EB13DDB96DCB.jpeg

Lastly, I learned that I am not a fan of co leadership. I don’t work well with it and I don’t do a good job as a co leader either.

As for Faceless (real Faceless) I am glad I formed it but starting a guild post launch isn’t easy. Most people are already in guilds which are doing fine and easily clearing the trivial early content so recruitment is a daily challenge unlike pre launch where I can post a thread saying Faceless is recruiting for Server X and we get 200+ apps and 20 statics before launch. People need a lot of confidence in you to risk burning bridges with an established guild to gamble on your new thing that could just fail to launch. Sure you could 6 man Kunark shit with boxes but six people isn’t a guild.

Then you need to find officers who are competent, not corrupt, not annoying, online often and most importantly dumb enough to accept the job for no tangible benefit. I think I have

We started raiding like two days after I formed the guild but I’d say we didn’t really hit our stride until Luclin where we could consistently split all the content each expansion, had ironed out most of our rules and begun to reach stability with the officers.

My major focus has always been recruitment. Cast a wide net, filter out the worst people, try to teach the bad people and retain as much as you can. Every person you recruit on a TLP is someone the “competition” doesn’t. Attrition is so high on TLPs that if you ever stop recruiting you wake up one day and find your guild has shrunk significantly before you really noticed.

Anyway, leading guilds in EQ TLP is pretty much an awful idea and never worth the effort. Dealing with EQ players all day is cancerous as people ask you tons of easily googleable questions or require you to mediate problems a five year old could solve. If you ever take a day off you get to wake up to discord looking like this:
CF5A17AA-581B-440D-BF81-705B06EB6B5E.jpeg
 
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BoozeCube

Von Clippowicz
<Prior Amod>
48,272
283,454
This just proves the type of person who still tries to play EQ isn't normal. It was fun back then but reliving it is just autistic retards doing autistic retard things. Classic WoW had a bit of that as well people going full retard over speed runs like a transsexual crackhead Jonesing for their next fix.

Thing is due to the level of griefing, exploiting, abusing, and poop sock fuckey that one can do in EQ it's head and shoulders above in bringing out the worst cock pirates in existence.
 
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Mrniceguy

Trakanon Raider
618
335
The raiding in GIG was probably my least favorite experience in any trp. Just pure raging autism from the top down. I made a shitload of plat and kr but hearing certain people sperg out every single raid killed any fun I thought I was having.

I can't think of anything less autistic then playing the same 23 year old elf sim for the 5th time. Clearly you're not on the spectrum at all.

I generally did and still do dislike the existence of “small-mans”. In classic GiG it was a real issue for me because an officer would not batphone two OW mobs which enabled his small man to regularly farm them. Remember this wasn’t like shit Yelinak loot, it was CoFs, WDCs, AoNs and shit too.

There was no GIG in Classic. There was FxIV. Then you guys split, GIG was just a different guild. I didn't join GIG until the end of Kunark so i can't really say how things were before that, but from what i was told it was an officer in your guild whose name begins with a C that was the one that start this. By the time i joined GIG they had a policy that small man crews couldn't do open world batphone targets. Only one time did someone break this rule with a meaningful target and there was extenuating circumstances.

Also a bit weird that you're trash talking small mans while joining a discord and signing up to raid with a small man from a different "rival" guild.
 

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Zaide

TLP Idealist
3,741
4,398
I can't think of anything less autistic then playing the same 23 year old elf sim for the 5th time. Clearly you're not on the spectrum at all.



There was no GIG in Classic. There was FxIV. Then you guys split, GIG was just a different guild. I didn't join GIG until the end of Kunark so i can't really say how things were before that, but from what i was told it was an officer in your guild whose name begins with a C that was the one that start this. By the time i joined GIG they had a policy that small man crews couldn't do open world batphone targets. Only one time did someone break this rule with a meaningful target and there was extenuating circumstances.

Also a bit weird that you're trash talking small mans while joining a discord and signing up to raid with a small man from a different "rival" guild.
Cassiera never effectively small manned anything and created her discord in response to Qelyn and Toxn and co small manning Innoruuk and Yael in OW and all targets in dz for most of classic. This is something you could investigate pretty easily in your own discord history and something many people on this board could corroborate.

E60A1D02-F7DB-4126-9792-7FE57267A5C0.jpeg


I think your bar for “trash talk” is pretty low if me saying “I generally dislike” = trash talk. I did sign up for one raid that wasn’t on our schedule to help Ibodls side thing shortly after he joined our guild. I don’t know if this screenshot is supposed to be a gotcha or something? Lmao.
 

Mrniceguy

Trakanon Raider
618
335
I think your bar for “trash talk” is pretty low if me saying “I generally dislike” = trash talk. I did sign up for one raid that wasn’t on our schedule to help Ibodls side thing shortly after he joined our guild. I don’t know if this screenshot is supposed to be a gotcha or something? Lmao.

You signed up for multiple things, but never showed up. Pretty much everyone in that SS was in GiG. Were you also not doing Qvic as a guild? It's just wild to me that you would criticize others for doing that while considering doing it with the "enemy." Like if you're gonna do small man non scheduled stuff why not invite your guildies? Isn't that what you just were arguing?

Like i said i don't really know what happened in Classic with "batphone" targets and small mans. I assumed both sides were giving me a half truth and trying to make themselves look like the good guys rather than tell the whole truth. Based on that SS my assumption seems right. I really don't care what people do with alts in DZs.
 

Zaide

TLP Idealist
3,741
4,398
You signed up for multiple things, but never showed up. Pretty much everyone in that SS was in GiG. Were you also not doing Qvic as a guild? It's just wild to me that you would criticize others for doing that while considering doing it with the "enemy." Like if you're gonna do small man non scheduled stuff why not invite your guildies? Isn't that what you just were arguing?
We stopped doing Qvic pretty early. You can see here that I announced Ibodls Qvic to the entire guild as an open invite (sort of the opposite of a small man?)

E86F8E21-583E-4794-97F9-952E00699AA2.jpeg
 

Mrniceguy

Trakanon Raider
618
335
We stopped doing Qvic pretty early. You can see here that I announced Ibodls Qvic to the entire guild as an open invite (sort of the opposite of a small man?)

Date 5/13 in your SS. 4/24 In mine.

But the thing with OW small man stuff is it's a no win situation.

If you invite everyone then people are mad about the loot rules or mad that they brought extra boxes/tracked and someone else didn't.
If you invite a private group then people get mad about not being invited or they want to kick out someone they think isn't carrying their weight.
If you say fuck it nobody is allowed to do OW then people get mad other guilds are killing the targets.

There is just no winning.