Zam.com Q&AFollow

I'm so happy I quit posting on these forums a few months back.

Later, Allatards.

So how long before the premium goes up and free content becomes increasingly and increasingly limited?

everyone needs to stfu and get over it, if you dont like it, take your own time/money and invest in your own website. Make your own sacrifices, take your own risks, then maybe you can decide how to run things. But until you do, nobody here has the right to criticize whats going on.

Dont like something? stop crying and do something about it.

With all the corporate sponsorship, investors and whatnot, I'd expect Premium subscriptions to go down (if not away altogether), not up. I like the idea of forum posting only vs. gaming utility subscriptions being differentiated.

Mind you, this is completely disregarding my opinions on the actual idea of the "corporate merger" itself. Relating directly to the correlations already given, I consider myself a casualty of the shenanigans pulled by Altria/Kraft/Nasbisco/Philip Morris (as well as IBM, though that's a different matter).

My girlfriend, being a hardcore EQ2 raider, uses OGaming very frequently so this merger will go a ways to bring my girlfriend and me closer together. Strange.

plenty of the people in this thread have invested considerable time and small amounts of money in allakhazam's.

and yes, we have the right to criticize what's going on.

Despite everyone fearing that we would support RMT via buying premium, I find myself believing that RMT even at their lowest income would put anything Alla could produce to shame. I highly doubt the money we put in as a community would support them in anyway. On that note others dislike the idea that Alla and Co. Are using RMT’s “Dirty money” to improve things for the rest of us.

Well, I don’t care. Our/My government (US) seizes property to aid the law enforcement all the time. If they take a Drug dealers car and turn it into a undercover unit well sweet. If a guy just robbed a bank and gave me $100 I’d walk away with a smile on my face. If what Alla tells us is true then we won’t see adds, no pop-ups and a continued bans on character selling then dammit, go for it.

In the end, It’s all taste, if you have a strong moral objection to sharing a house with the bad guy instead of living in the shanty then I’m sure you can find the door. Until I see this place go to hell or proof that our dollar is helping out RMT then I will continue to use Allakhazam

No one has mentioned this, either.

IGE is giving your Mystery Company money, which you're taking to improve the site. their money is comping here.

Allakhazam is part of "dirty" money.

[:Barf:]

Either way there has to be some some connection.

~Blix

Sir, I appologize if I've offended you in some way as that was not my intent. I was simply stating my opinion. And while that may differ from yours that's hardly criteria for dismissing its validity or insulting my inteligence or worth. I understand that you're angry, and you have a right to be I was merely offering another perspective on the matter but in no way did I intend to belittle or berate you if thats the impression you got.

Congratulations!

you have definately earned it... I have watched this site grow from nothing in the early days of eq and watched as more games were added and the traffic increased.

I am sure you are enjoying your new found wealth.

That being said...

I will not come back to this site. I am completely against your parent company ige and everything it stands for. As such I will regret losing this site as a source of information for (currently) WoW, just as I regret losing thottbot to them last year.

and so my search begins again for a site with content, not run by gold farmers... any leads would be nice!

later

t

Sorry, Alla. I'll believe that you aren't a sell-out when the parent company divests themselves of IGE.

I always liked the Alla forums because they were easy to navigate and (for the most part) ultra-friendly and helpful. I've never used any other forums but these and now to be quasi-affilliated with IGE is kinda disturbing no matter how you try to sugar it up, an affilliation is an affilliation.

Perhaps the best thing to come out of all of this is everyone's new avatars.

IGE must be happy though, they now have that affilliation with yet another major forum for many MMO games, thus (them hoping) to expand their profits, which in turn expand profits for those sites who directly or indirectly support them.

$ > *

A lot of things are happening lately, bothing in game an out, that make me question how fun this even is any more. The more I think about it the more distressing it becomes. Perhaps the solitude of ffxi.cannotlinkto and the comfort of my friends in my LS forums will suffice for now. Everyone seems to be digging these ffxionline.com forums, maybe I'll even check them out.

I'm kind of glad I kept questioning myself every time I almost bought a premium account. Hmm, since I never have been paying for a premium account, perhaps my opinion may not matter and is falling on deaf ears.

Mr. Allakhazam, sir, your forums were well maintained and always a big source of my morning, afternoon, and night time browsing. The community was fun and laid back, making everyone feel welcome and giving a home to those who chose to join and stay at Allakhazam's place over others such as Killing Ifrit, et al. I will truly miss them.

In the words of David Bowie, "Damn Zam, thank you ma'am." ...or something like that.

/disgusted

/cry

Note to self - change Internet Explorer's home page.

EDIT - From a business standpoint, congratulations and I wish you the best. Buisiness-wise this may have been a very smart move and will expand the Alla network and serviced many, many times. I'm sure even with a few cancelling their premium accounts you still still prospire due. But it's the standpoint of not supporing the RMT industry and then eventually joining with it which is the kicker to most. :-\ I dunno, great site, always seemed like great guy, great admins, and great community...but face value it seems like a poor decision to make a few more bucks.

Edited, Thu May 4 00:36:41 2006 by Mikaal

Like I said in my last post I didn't intend to offend you, and I oppologize if I did.

And I agree that Alla is more likely to listen to paying customer than a non paying one actually. It's just common sense.

I was simply stating my opinion, that is all.

Changes I'd like to see:
---Better interface and site customizability. FFXI gets this boring blue background 24/7.
Mini-forums for all quests, regions, items, etc etc etc(all things game related that can possibly be in the database) should remain intact. Not sure on any specific changes, but yeah.
---A few things are 'off' and 'inconsistant'. More accuracy in database entries would be nice. A small example: some MNK items are labeled 'counter+' while others are labeled 'counterattack+', whereas there is no such difference in the game. The stat calc on the character stats generator is inaccurate.
---New idea! Incentives! A particular forum-goer or site user types up a guide or mini data sheet on a particular gameplay element, he/she gets a 1 or 2 dollar reward if the information is good! Its got good intention written all over it, but I could see problems with it being abused. You would need a different rating system that is unbaised to a users' karma level; rating to achieve 'incentive level' would require a significant amount of 'yays' over 'nay' votes. This would however, encourage highly accurate information straight from the player's mouths. (no more guessing! need i remind ye of brady games failure at all of their walkthroughs?)


I can't think of anything else for now. I definitely want to stay optimistic and see how the changes go over the summer. One thing you need to realize is that ffxi.allakhazam excels over all other forum community sites because of its forum interactivity with every item in its database. Users can post comments and chime in on every single quest, mission, NPC, Monster, armor, weapon, area in the game- and compare their tips and opinions with the site's data. All on the same page you're looking at!

With a few tweaks it'll go from '#1 for user input, but #3 for 100% accurate data', to #1 stop for all of it.
I don't know how ffxi.cannotlinkto does it, but their database is alot better. If you had their database accuracy and the opinion/forum options of allakhazam, you'd be set. Mysterytour still beats out all of 'ya for fast, up-to-date, super accurate data.







But I still wouldn't pay premium. What's in it for me besides avatar and flashy colors? =)

-Lac