EverQuest II Introduces Drunder, the Cheater's Prison

Daybreak Games, otherwise known (by me) as the “Batman of Gaming”, who for better or worse keeps finding new ways to antagonize trolls, cheaters, hackers and all sorts of unsavory online sorts, have devised yet another interesting if strangely cruel method of dealing with the worst their community has to offer.

The game in question is EverQuest II, a 2004 MMORPG still goin’ strong (by some metrics, anyway), but like many MMORPGs, it has problems with cheaters, hackers, and the odd bot user within the ranks. Daybreak Game’s solution to these cheaters is to go full-on Australia and build a new server, Drunder, where every player caught breaking the rules of being a jerk will be banished to. Permanently.
 

Later this week we plan to release a server we are calling “Drunder,” which is a “prison server.” What does that mean, exactly? 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.

And apparently, when they say 'never,' they mean 'never.' Or at least, until they decide to let you upload a YouTube video of you asking for forgiveness so they can post it on their Twitter account. Regardless, while in Drunder, you can still play the game (and of course, pay for the privilege of doing so), but you won’t get any customer service while doing so. Interestingly, you can also petition to go to Drunder yourself, without having to break any rules or anything, but they warn that the move is permanent and must be done on an account-wide basis, so you have to really be committed if you make the jump.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I’ve always been super wary of Daybreak Games and their ruthless approach to cheaters, hackers and trolls, and this just feels like more of the same… hm. Well, I’ll let you judge if this is a good idea or not.