Yesterday was a string of shocking announcements, one right after another. But in all the flood, the loudest cry seemed to come from the devoted followers of EverQuest and EverQuest II who saw real-money-transaction item malls suddenly appear in their game with no warning whatsoever. Most of what we've seen has been cosmetic armor and bonus experience potions, although we also saw the "armor" option in EverQuest which is a small box that generates three pieces of level-equivalent armor and one level-equivalent weapon for your character, but no further description is given.

Now that you've had some time to look it over, kick the proverbial tires, and see just exactly what is in the item mall, what do you think about the idea of SOE's adding an item mall into EverQuest and EverQuest II? Is it less about the item mall and more about the fact that it was put in without any warning to the community at all? Or does it simply concern you that this is the first step before going down the slippery slope of having people buying uber gear and weapons versus earning them by playing the game?