Check it out!

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/2/view/news/read/17630/EverQuest-II-Free-To-Play-Service-Coming-MidAugust.html

Interesting...too bad it's on separate servers.

Because of this I don't think I will ever buy another SOE product. There are so many better ways to implement something like this. They are effectively discouraging anyone from ever joining up in the existing sphere and forcing the current, long term customers to either switch to the RMT servers OR stagnate with the population without any new customers and slowly die off. So shitty.

Yep. I feel the same way. RMT is fine but the way they are doing it blows. And their announcement came on the heels of laying off 100 people. Screw them.

SOE seems to be ruining any good thing they have going for them. Oh well, at the rate they're going, they'll be a memory in ten years. Shame really

Of course, people were also saying that ten years ago.

Because of this I don't think I will ever buy another SOE product. There are so many better ways to implement something like this. They are effectively discouraging anyone from ever joining up in the existing sphere and forcing the current, long term customers to either switch to the RMT servers OR stagnate with the population without any new customers and slowly die off. So shitty.

Maybe i read the article wrong but is it not limited enough to encourage folks to upgrade and switch to the normal servers? other that a few limited stat micro transaction items you'll be able to play free forever but as gimp in comparison to subscription.
TBH its tempting me to give it a whirl and see. i tried the 10 day way back in the day but passed for WoW instead.

Gosh, how I am not sympathetic to people dumb enough to pay for EQ2 after SOE's performance with EQ1 :>

Maybe i read the article wrong but is it not limited enough to encourage folks to upgrade and switch to the normal servers? other that a few limited stat micro transaction items you'll be able to play free forever but as gimp in comparison to subscription.
TBH its tempting me to give it a whirl and see. i tried the 10 day way back in the day but passed for WoW instead.

yeah you sort of read it wrong.

My understanding if you are on the free server and purchase the latest xpac you have access to all the same content (including raid zones) that a normal paying subscriber has. Normally the EQ2x server will have access to all content except the latest xpac but that xpac will of course be available for you to buy. Also EQ2x is replacing the free trial. Additionally the newest and latest hardware will be on the EQ2x servers. It's pretty bleeping retarded but SOE has stated that it could change. I do know that this year's FF was noticeably smaller than previous years. They are struggling and DC is one of their last hopes at this point.

This is being discussed at length over at eq2flames (the unofficial official forums b/c the SOE official forums suck)

http://www.eq2flames.com/general-gameplay/67101-how-will-eq2-extended-affect-raiding.html

http://www.eq2flames.com/general-gameplay/67195-someone-please-explain-eq2x.html

http://www.eq2flames.com/general-gameplay/67507-whatever-happened-you-buy-game-you-pay-monthly-fee-you-have-full-access-have-fun.html

Hmm, the person I talked to to check into to the hotel commented that there were more people for this year's Fan Faire than last year's.

Thanks for the clarification Fil, yea that is dumb. DDO it is =)

Hmm, the person I talked to to check into to the hotel commented that there were more people for this year's Fan Faire than last year's.

That's odd, I was told otherwise. But I'll ask the question on flames and see what the consensus is.

Question.

Was the attendance down or up this year? (directed at those who have gone previous years)



I'd say down by at least 30 percent, and 40 percent of the vendors that usually show.


I'll post more replies as I get them.

Vendors were definitely down, that much is true.
And the EQ1 turnout was down from last year, although last year was a special case due to it being EQ's 10 year anniversary. That's a large part of how RiP got 20 people to go last year instead of the 7 people this year.
The EQ2 turnout appeared to be way up, though.

Following Prism's site, it looks like the guild (which started back when EQ2 first came out, you'll remember it from EQ1) is down to like 5 active members from the dozens when I was playing. They report the current membership levels are stable, but no new members are joining up (at most, old people who left are re-joining) and that is why they are going F2P (free? hah!). I'm sure they *need* to go this route financially - but why not do it like LotRO? Why go out of their way to fuck their current player base who are probably mostly long term customers?

I was looking forward to DCO because I loved CoH and didn't quite dig Champions - but I certainly won't be giving it a first look now.

Looks like it was pushed back to the 18th.


http://mmomfg.com/2010/08/16/everquest-two-beta-0816/

Or the 19th...

Ok it's up. http://everquest2.com/news/read/current/3654

While I agree with fil that it blows that they are screwing over the non F2P players, I am still going to check it out. It is free, after all.

And as to the pricing for the paid accounts... I thought it was ridiculous at first too, but then I started thinking about it... you're getting a game + Expansions for free. Even the $200 / year one kinda works out to the same price IMO. Although, they should have a monthly option for Platinum. I might be willing to pay a high monthly cost for a few months till the next thing comes along, but I doubt I'd be playing for a year.

So who wants to pay $10 to form a guild?

I was planning on going Silver anyway ; p

$10 one time fee for access to Expert level spells, ability to hold more money and a backpack slot is worth it IMO... and then you get the big boy chats and ability to form a guild.

Played a little last night after it (FINALLY) came up. Have to say.. I had fun.

I play on a pay server, but I have a question for you Akom. You spoke of paying to use Expert level spells. Do you still have the ability to use the Grandmaster spells that you can get in your advancement window as you level?

I'm not 100% sure what you're referring to, but my guess would be no. You get "full access" to all spells when you pay $15 / month (Gold) or $200 / yr (Platinum).

Ok.. so I got a chance to play a bit this weekend and I have to say... I really like it. I played EQ2 on release and had fun with it till around 30, but eventually lost interest. I don't know if that will happen here, but I'm having fun so far.

I went ahead and went with the silver account. For the amount of fun I'm having with the game, I feel it's well worth the $10 one time charge.

I really like the EQ2 crafting system. I didn't get into crafting the last time I played, so I don't know if it was always like this, but I really like how involved it is.

I'm not 100% sure what you're referring to, but my guess would be no. You get "full access" to all spells when you pay $15 / month (Gold) or $200 / yr (Platinum).


As you level up, every 15 levels (at least on the pay servers), you get to choose from 4 spells, and for whatever spell you choose, you get that spell at a grand master level. It's not a found or a bought spell, it's basically an AA that once every 15 levels allows you to get one of your spells at a grandmaster level. Like at level 15 as a mystic, i could get Haze 2 (grandmaster). That grandmaster slow spell was better than anything I had available until was like 50 ish and could buy a master upgrade for haze IV.

At 54 I got my best single target rune spell as a grandmaster, and that was a HUGE upgrade even over what I could purchase in the bazaar. If you have to pay to simply unlock player abilities, that would really suck.

Well... we're talking Free-to-Play here. I understand that Master and Grandmaster levels of spells are awesome but, really, beggars can't be choosers. You get the spells, but if you want the badass versions of the spells, you pay for a higher account.

I hear a lot of people talking about how lame the offerings are in the free-to-play scheme, how much you're missing out on compared to Gold / Plat / Live, but really... Free is Free. Free-to-play is a marketing scheme; everyone knows this. They have to have very compelling reasons for players to want to keep investing money into it.

I could see how a veteran EQ2 player would not be happy playing it, knowing what they're missing. But, really, this was not made for veteran EQ2 players. It was made for everyone else to try to lure more people in and get them playing.. and paying. And for me, ignorance is bliss, at least for the moment. Maybe I'll feel differently later. Right now, though, I am entertained by it and I have only invested $10.

I could see how a veteran EQ2 player would not be happy playing it, knowing what they're missing. But, really, this was not made for veteran EQ2 players. It was made for everyone else to try to lure more people in and get them playing.. and paying. And for me, ignorance is bliss, at least for the moment. Maybe I'll feel differently later. Right now, though, I am entertained by it and I have only invested $10.

I'd hardly consider myself an EQ2 veteran, but I get your point. I've been playing it for just about 2 months, and the only character I play is level 56 with 93 AA.


Here's a link to my toon: http://everquest2.com/Permafrost/Dragelen/

So you're still playing then Taleren, how is it being received on the pay servers?

Them making previously purchasable from an NPC items impossible to obtain on the subscription servers so they can sell those same items on the pay-to-play servers, like the mounts that were removed recently, is quite ridiculous.

I tried it out b/c I was curious. I was suprised at the performance for basically running as a web client but as usual no matter how beefy my computer is I can't make the game look as good as I think it should.

I think it's too restrictive vs. some other F2P games I've tried and suspect that when LoTRO goes F2P next month it might be forgotten. I hear mixed reviews from active subs, some hate it, some hope it generates interest and spurs people sub. I think allot of the active subbers are more concerned about raiding and it's affect if any this will have on that. I do know a few people who paid the $30 to copy their characters to the server also. Thus proving SOE's point that some people will pay for anything.

I tried it long enough to remember why I stopped playing again this go round. It's just meh and the game world just doesn't look as good as other games out there. Halas looks no different or magical than any other world, the creativity stopped with KoS xpac and everyone, zone, creature, and spec looks like the same just repainted. blah. I have two raiding level 80 characters that I'll probably never play again :p

This is a cash cow for a dying IP. And it's pretty much going to be their model for everything going forward. They are trying to cash in the people who pay $1 on facebook to send birthday cakes to people. CloneWars Adventures, Free Realms, The Agency, all micro transactions. I expect to see their next MMO to be just like this too. I'm so jaded at SOE :(

fil, the game isn't a web client; iirc it kicks off through a web client and downloads the bare minimum it needs to get you started, then continues downloading in the background. You still end up with 12+ GB of HDD eaten up in the long run, though that doesn't really matter much these days.

I too think we will see more and more micro-transactional MMOs moving forward and that is because it is the only way to compete. MMO's started off with no competition, really. There was Ultima with a moderate audience and no real competition; EQ with a bigger audience and still no competition; WoW got a huge audience and had some competition but grew to a behemoth with quality.

Now, though, there are literally HUNDREDS (http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm) of MMOs out or coming out, all of which were created with one aim: to make a profit. A lot of these games are very interesting and perfectly playable. The only problem is that the average MMO gamer is only going to be willing to pay one $15 / month fee, if that. You have to be a hugely anticipated game to get a big audience willing to give you it's $15+ / month now days. SWTOR is the only game I know of that is coming out that I can anticipate being successful with a monthly fee.

The rest... the mediocre to good games have two choices: shut down or find another way to get money than charging a monthly fee. The F2P / Freemium scheme is what currently works. Is there a better way? Maybe, but we won't know it till we see it working.

You mention the people willing to pay $1 for a birthday cake on Facebook, and you're right. That's who they're targeting. Why? Because there's a LOT of them. Look at Zynga. I heard some numbers the other day about how profitable Farmville is for them. It was almost sickening, but it made me realize just how many people there are out there who are willing to do micro-transactions.

It doesn't have to be a bad thing. Unfortunately with EQ2, it does seem to be screwing over the core live players, to an extent.

Playing Devil's advocate a little, though.. I am playing EQ2X and have payed $10 to become silver. I would never have come back to EQ2 had it not been for this new scheme. The server seems pretty popular and I've seen a lot of people running around with $10 - $25 purchased items. I don't know what it costs Sony to run this, but I'm willing to bet they are making a profit on it.

I welcome the new F2P / micro-transaction scheme, if it's done right and is fair. I haven't played an MMO for more than 2 months straight since WoW, and that was on my second attempt.

Out of curiosity, I browsed through the mmorpg.com game list and found all of the games that I had invested money in and played 3 months or less:

SWG - Retail + 3 Monthly
Age of Conan - Retail + 1 Monthly
Guild Wars - Retail
Horizons - Retail + 2 Monthly
Lineage 2 - Retail + 1 Monthly


Assuming average of $55 retail and $15 / month, that's $380 spent. Now, if all of those games had been F2P with micro-transactions, even if I had made $30 worth of purchases in the time I played them, I still would have saved $230.

ahhh, shows you how long I played it. I didn't even realize it was downloading or maybe it didn't have to b/c I already have a client? who knows.

My list is a bit longer and so is my play time for each title. I've done end game in many MMOs so maybe my perspective is different. I don't really want micro transactions or RMT to succeed b/c I invest gobs of time into accomplishments. I find no challenge in playing alongside people who can earn the same things for RL $. I know it's narrow minded and I know I'm in the minortiy when you consider Zynga's business model and profit. It might just mean it's time for me to move on from MMOs so I don't get so jaded ;)

I've really been enjoying Dungeons and Dragons F2P method. I finally subbed for convenience, but...free players play right alongside paying members. You might have to either fork over the cash to download a dungeon, or save up points in game to do it. There are lots of 'neat' things to buy in the store, but nothing imbalancing (yet). As a subscriber, I get some points every month to spend as I see fit as well, which is convenient.

Recent post on the EQ2X forums pretty much sums up how I feel (though they're bronze and I'm silver):

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2x/posts/list.m?topic_id=1534

I have been really, really surprised how little restriction I've felt so far (mid 20s in crafting and adventure exp). I know that later on when I get closer to max level and Fabled+ gear is must-have it will change, but I figure if I'm still playing at that point, I won't mind paying $15 / month like I did for all the other MMOs I've played in the past.