The fiction was posted three months ago on a message board not affiliated with Verant or Sony. A concerned parent complained to Verant and three months after the fact Mystere has been banned from EverQuest for life. Verant's reasoning was as follows: “If this story were about Luke Skywalker or Mickey Mouse, you'd certainly expect Lucas or Disney (respectively) to resort to their legal rights to protect their valuable property and good name; this is nothing different.” Let's, for now, ignore the fact that this is a case of comparing apples to oranges….

Supporters of Verant/Sony's decision point out that Verant's vaguely worded license agreement pretty much allows them to ban anyone for any reason and the fiction was very tasteless, therefore it serves Mystere right. Opponents point out that it was Verant who graphically describe torture and cruelty as part of the evil race in question and that Mystere was simply role-playing, which is what the game is all about. They also claim that “14 seasons” is a euphemism for “14th level.” They also argue that the controversial action didn't take place in the gameworld itself and, lets face it, anyone reading could post disgusting fiction based on Verant's gameworld at countless websites and Usenet any time we want (many players are doing this as a form of protest in fact).

To me the cogent point is that this story, however tasteless, is an act of free speech. Verant drew a vague line in the sand here and it's going to be a black eye they'll take a long time to recover from. Their game is aging and the tiny swell of customers acting offensive now and begging to be banned could grow significantly. Still, I'd like to point out to the concerned parent tattletale… why are your kids playing a rated Mature (17+) game that contains, as an in-game quest (for the Dark Elves), the tracking and murder of a pregnant halfling female character? It's a Mature game, rated and listed as such so what kind of idiot parent would you have to be to complain about fiction on a message board?

In fairness, Verant CEO John Smedley did apologize and explain his side of this story, the curious should visit Lum the Mad at: http://www.lumthemad.net/news/971011505,2075,.shtml