Gilthas - Good evening and welcome to our 28th Ultima Online Celebrity Chat. The UOCC is a forum wherein we bring to you celebrity guests from the UO community ranging from OSI personnel to famous players from your very own shard. Guests drop by to answer your questions about UO, their experiences in it, and their contribution to the community.
Gilthas - Tonight's question takers are Sabin, and Destiny. All you need to do is /msg or /query a designated question taker with your question. Please do _not_ ask the other operators, or the guest your questions. They will be ignored.
Gilthas - Our guest tonight will be Markee Dragon. While we are waiting for questions, let's give our guest a chance to introduce themselves.
* Gilthas hands the mic to Markee
Markee Dragon - Hail all. I'm Markee Dragon from www.markeedragon.com . One of the many UO fan sites out there.
Gilthas - One second..
Markee Dragon - It's great to be here. I don't consider myself a celebrity but someone must. lol
Gilthas - Aww.

Gilthas - Go ahead King
KingMolson - Hrmm?
KingMolson - I was wondering
Gilthas - Ask your question. =)
KingMolson - Do you have someone get your rares information or submit it
KingMolson - or do you search it out yourself always wondered if it was a one man job
Markee Dragon - Oh I have many lackies. There are many people that help out with the site. There is no way I could do it alone. We have many volunteers.
KingMolson - cool
Gilthas - All done King?
KingMolson - sure
KingMolson - :)
Gilthas - Ok, thanks!
Markee Dragon - I tried to get NPCs from in game to help but they never really gave any good advice. :)

Gilthas - Go ahead, Queen.
Gilthas - Pssst. Queen?
Queen - MD, what's your take on the numerous hate groups that accuse you of censoring their material?
Markee Dragon - There are many groups out there that see things differently than I do. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But as far as personal attacks. Well that I think is just for attention on their part.
Markee Dragon - As far as censoring… Sure we moderate everything that happens on our sites. I think that we can not just let anyone say anything.
Queen - How have you handled your popularity in the light of these types of attacks?
Markee Dragon - We have kids that are part of our sites and I just don't let anything through that I would not want my kids to see.
Markee Dragon - Well attacks are just ignored and we move on.
Gilthas - Thanks Queen. =)

Gilthas - Go ahead, Pfredd
Pfredd - Hail Sir, In these times of declining Ad revenues, how are you supporting your web site?
Markee Dragon - Good question. Currently we have some ad revenues. But it does not cover everything. Currently we are falling short in revenue by $500 a month. I am paying that out of my pocket.
Pfredd - Ouch
Markee Dragon - We are looking for other income. I wish I could say I was making millions. :)
Pfredd - Guess you wont be writing "How to get rich hosting Fan Sites"...
* Pfredd grins
Gilthas - Anything else, Pfredd?
Pfredd - No, thanks :-)
Gilthas - Ok! Thanks.

Gilthas - Go ahead, Zypheus
Zypheus - :P Hey
Zypheus - Alright, I've got two questions./.
Gilthas - I suppose we can allow two questions. =}
Zypheus - The first is this:
Zypheus - I remember going out taming with a character
Zypheus - a few months back, named Markee Dragon on Baja. Is that you?
Markee Dragon - Well when I am playing you will know it's me because I always broadcast my game on http://www.freegamecam.com. If it does not show me live there then it's not me. :)
Zypheus - I See..
Zypheus - Secondly, on any shard, do you happen to have a rares collection on display, like at a castle or something?
Markee Dragon - I wish
Zypheus - haha
Markee Dragon - I play on Baja. But I own very few rares myself.
Zypheus - I See. Well, thanks...
Zypheus - I remember going out taming with you in t2a a few months back hehe
Gilthas - Ok, thanks Zypheus.

Gilthas - Go ahead, indwk
indwk - Ok well I have 2 questions also..
Gilthas - Hmmm. Sneaky, but OK.
indwk - Do you think that with the value of the GP dropping daily, that rares are a good or bad thing for the UO economy??
Markee Dragon - Well you hit something I am passionate about. Rares used to be a big thing. Then last year when I was at the UO faire we had talks about rares with OSI staff. They decided that it would be good to introduce rares into the game. I stated many times that this was the wrong thing to do. How can you introduce rare items without devaluating all the other rares. The rares market is ruined now.
Markee Dragon - Rares are no longer rare. :9
indwk - ok cool
Gilthas - My ribcage is still rare, darn it.

Gilthas - Go ahead, Banmaster.
BanmasterB - Why are you famous or even getting a UOCC for your site where 99.99 percent of the things you put on your site are given to you by other people?
Markee Dragon - It's not me that makes the site. It's everyone that works together to make it one large thing that serves the community
Gilthas - Ok Banmaster, thanks!

Gilthas - Go ahead, Metallica
Metallica - Ummm... good evening Markee
Metallica - I've been a fan of your site for some time. But I don't understand what the "shatteredcrystal" network is or how you got started...
Markee Dragon - I started my site just as a guild site in 1997. Then as more than just my guild was using it I decided to make it as useful as possible, It's turned into this monster. As for the Shattered Crystal Network. That is the umbrella site that houses all of the fan sites we have. Currently we have 12 or so sites in production.
Metallica - Wow, I havn't seen others really devoted to UO... are their other games your interested in?
Metallica - Sorry for a second question...
*grins*
* Tink thinks he isnt RELLY sorry
Metallica - SHE tink
*smiles*
* Tink apologizes
Markee Dragon - I love many games Met. :)
Metallica - Okay. Thanks!

einnad-PoL-GL -From looking around on the web.. auction sites especially.. it appears that GL is by far the rares and items trading shard, why do you think this is?
Markee Dragon - GL just happens to be a very active shard. I think that all shards are very busy with trading and collecting rares. But GL seems to be very organized. Guess I should be playing there. :)
Markee Dragon - BTW: (Shameless plug) If you are on ebay take a look for the Markee Dragon Auction. It's a fund rasier for our network.
Markee Dragon - :)
* Tink slaps MD's hand for the SHAMELESS plug
Markee Dragon - Anyone who wants to kill me should bid

Quantum - I want to ask him what's his stance on Purple items and the fact that they're illegal after so long of being OK?
* Mag grins
* Gilthas pokes Markee
Markee Dragon - Purple sandals and a purple shield was the only items available in that color before the bug. I don't believe we could ever own them. I agree it's not right to ban people over owning them but OSI should have fixed the mistake right away and that would have taken care of things.

Taear - What prompted you to make your rares database in the first place? Was it curiosity, or something more?
Markee Dragon - I used to sell houses for a living in the game. When I realized that was a dying market I looked around and thought that rares would be the next big thing. I took a chance and was right.
Markee Dragon - I just wish I owned more of them. :)

Lord_Wyse[ATL] - i seriously have a question about pricing charts on markeedragon.com. They seem a little outdated.
Markee Dragon - If you are referring to the rares prices. They are all player submitted. So we depend on people like you to keep us informed. If you are referring to our other price lists. Yes they are out of date. Look for an announcement tomorrow on the databases that will replace them.

Whisper - I have a question for Markee, with the decline of UO players and the seeming final months of UO what are your plans for the future in gaming?
Markee Dragon - I will not play or support UO forever. Right now I do see a decline in the number of player playing UO. But there are new games out there that we are currently supporting or will be. Horizons, DAOC AO and others are on our list of games to play and support.
Markee Dragon - Any MMORPG that is good will be on the list of games we cover

Aini_SP - Do you have any past games that you played before you got into UO?
Markee Dragon - Well that's an easy question. I played Ultima 1-8 before UO came out. :) I also played a few of the old Sierra games like space quest.
Markee Dragon - Now days I'm playing UO, AO and WWII Online
Metallica - How will you cover all these games?? You said before you have people helping you. Could you elaborate?
Markee Dragon - We currently have over 70 people that help out on all of the sites. I by no means have the ability to cover everything myself. I'm just the leader of the pack so to speak.

Alfred - Do people like you get to have special relationships with companies like OSI and do you work with other sites like Stratics?
Gilthas - Give Markee a moment, he's churning up a responce as we speak.
Gilthas - Well, as I speak..
Markee Dragon - No you do not have to have support to do a fan site. I am a prime example. I started a fan site. Then I also started a bug site. OSI found out it was me running the bug site and banned me from the game. I was banned and continued to support the UO community even though I could not play the game and OSI blocked me from doing most anything. They then saw what a wonderful job I was doing and unbanned me. To this day I get NO support from OSI other then the occasional reply on a news item from them. I get upset when I think about how hard we all work supporting the community to have nothing extra thrown our way to help support the players.
Markee Dragon - So the answer is NO you do not need the game companies support.

Nist - Would you ever consider charging for using your database?
Gilthas - Last question, folks.
Markee Dragon - No unless I had to. Currently I would rather pay out of my pocket than have that service for a charge. But if things got real bad it would be an option.

Gilthas - Once again I'd like to apologize for having to retreat to a UOHoC format for most of the chat. We had some pretty vocal and inappropriate users tonight.
Gilthas - This concludes tonight's _Ultima Online Celebrity Chat_. Thanks to all of you for attending tonight, and special thanks to our guest for coming and answering questions, and our question takers for their work.
Markee Dragon - It was a pleasure to be here tonight. I'm sure you all know that you can catch me at http://www.markeedragon.com . Thanks to Stratics for the chance to be a part of this chat. Also thanks to all of the volunteers that work at all of our sites. Without the volunteers our sites would not be what they are today.
Markee Dragon - G'Night
Gilthas - Thanks Markee!
Gilthas - Thanks for coming everyone.