Should bad-behaving players be segregated from the general population? Apparently, EverQuest II studio Daybreak Games thinks so, because it’s trying an “experiment” with a “prison server” called Drunder, as the game’s producer, Holly Longdale, explains in a new forum post.
“Ultimately, players who are caught breaking our rules and disrupting EQ2 live server gameplay will be flagged for this server, and no others — ever. Characters on these accounts will be copied to Drunder (the ‘prison server’) and can never leave or transfer to another server,” Longdale writes.
“This is a server our Customer Service Game Masters have requested over the years in order to manage disruptive players. They will determine who goes there.” Players who wish to join the server can get permanently transferred there, too.
This isn’t the first significant, punitive action from an MMO developer against troublesome players; Gamasutra contributor Katherine Cross wrote about a Guild Wars 2 developer’s “execution” of a hacker called DarkSide, and in particular other players’ adulation for the action taken.
Positive reactions abound in Longdale’s forum thread, too. One poster writes: “I absolutely love the idea!! If you can’t live by society’s rules then you don’t deserve a place in it!” Others, however, are more skeptical of the move.
Either way, Daybreak’s new strategy is a significant step — an entire quarantine zone for those the developers themselves consider incorrigible.