Last week's poll about the impression of Hellbound through the PTS was a mixed box. "I haven't played the PTS" led the count followed by a "neutral" response to the PTS itself --- talk about enthusiasm.
Between the negative/positive options there were more positive than negative, but they were very close.
In general I'd say the PTS failed to arouse too much excitement which it partially serves to do in co-operation with the recent advertising push.
But let's digress from that topic and onto a different type of advertising: Adena Ads. We can't deny their existence, especially now that players in-game have been bombarded by PM ads like never before. Apparently you get randomly put onto a PM list and get badgered whenever you're on. I haven't met a single person immune to this curse without going out of their way to request the sellers remove them from the list.
Furthermore, they seem to be taking advantage of free trial accounts --- making new characters for temporary periods of time just to get their ads out. That makes them immune to griefing, banning, or otherwise verbal abuse (as they are automatic and don't respond to you).
Their existence really is a menace. This new method hasn't created the problem, but it is making it much worse. It reminds me of playing Diablo and seeing their chatrooms infested with cheating advertisements. To those who already stand on shaky ethical ground, these ads could be just enough to convince them to go buy money and further ruin the game. Those players who are still committed to a pure game should speak out strongly against this offense... as it surely is to anyone who has committed so much time and energy to playing the game legit.
Anyway vote on the poll (http://l2vault.ign.com) today with the response you think works best!