EQ2 for Free! (for a while)

[Signe]

Rewards Await Your Return! Experience the Living Legacy Events Now!

Living Legacy is a celebration in honor of the millions of past, present and future EverQuest®II players. Norrath will be home to an eventful summer dedicated to the heritage and progression of the EverQuest II world. Numerous rewards await the legends that return to the fight and live the EverQuest II legacy.

Come back for FREE or join now and enjoy the celebration!

    * Free Game Play Time
      All inactive subscribers (in good standing) and trial EQII accounts can play at no cost until July 31, 2008.
    * Free Rise of Kunark All-In-One Pack
      Access the latest content; keep a complimentary digital copy of this compliation version of the game when you convert to a monthly subscription plan for EQII.
    * New Recruitment Trial Program
      Future EQII legends that are invited will receive various rewards for their participation.
    * Recruitment Rewards
      Earn up to twenty (20) months of free game play added at the end of your current subscription by recruiting friends who become EverQuest II subscribers.
    * Discount Coupons
      Receive $5.00 (or local currency equivalent) off the purchase of the next EQII expansion (scheduled for release Fall 2008) if you convert to a monthly subscription and purchase the expansion through the Station Store by Dec. 21, 2008.
    * Unique Bundle of In-Game Items
      Redeem items upon initial log in and additional items with your purchase of the upcoming new expansion.
    * Player Events
      Robust game updates offering new zones, live-events, access to new themed content from the upcoming expansion pack and in-game activities.
    * Legends of Norrath™
      Free game client, starter pack, booster pack and access to competitive prize tournaments.
    * Contests & Promotional Offers
      Opportunity to participate in events to earn EQII merchandise, a free copy of the upcoming EverQuest II expansion pack, a beta invitation and in-game items. Click here for more details.

[Mrbloodworth]

Seems a good number of SOE games are doing this.

 

[HaemishM]

Play free for 2 months? I might actually consider that.

[Venkman]

millions of past, present and future EverQuest®II players

I dispute this number. Where's my charts!?!

Earn up to twenty (20) months of free game play added at the end of your current subscription by recruiting friends who become EverQuest II subscribers.

Ponzi called. He wants his scheme back*

In all seriousness though, this looks like a nice thing. I may check it out as well.

* semi-kidding. I just always wanted to use the <somebody>-called thing 

[Simond]

http://livinglegacy.station.sony.com/en/index.vm
EQ(1) as well as EQ2, if anyone is even remotely interested.

[Murgos]

I should have unsubscribed earlier, then the whole reason I quit, that I didn't want to pay extra for Kunark, would have been moot.

[WayAbvPar]

I wouldn't play it for two months if they paid me 5 times the subscription fee. God I hated that fucking game.

[Montague]

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the Sony way.
The time is gone. The game is over.
Thought I'd something more to say...

[Oban]

It's a shame that it had to be this way
It's not enough to say I'm sorry
It's not enough to say I'm sorry

Maybe I'm to blame
Or maybe were the same
But either way I can't breathe
Either way I can't breathe

All I had to say is goodbye
Were better off this way
Were better off this way

I'm alive but I'm losing all my drive
Cause everything were been through
And everything about you
Seemed to be a lie
A guiltless twisted lie
It made me learn to hate you
Or hate myself for letting it pass by

All I had to say is goodbye
Were better off this way
Were better off this way
All I had to say is goodbye
Were better off this way
Were better off this way

And every, everything isn't only
What it seemed so hold these
Words that you never told me
Its time to say goodbye
Its time to say goodbye
Its time to say goodbye
Goodbye

Bye

[Lt.Dan]

Dum dum dum
ooooooooaaaaaaaaoooooooo
aaaaaaaaa aa aa
aaaaaaaaa aa aa

[Signe]

Uh oh.  Now we have to den this thread.  It's Oban's fault!

I think I'm pretty much done with EQ2.  I bought all the expansions and I played off and on for months and months.  Sometimes even in a row!  I've even deleted it from my computer.  WoW, too.  Done done done.

[Tmon]

Gives me something to do while I wait out AOC's first month.

[Lt.Dan]

I'd play if I wasn't playing AoC.  I think I got bored somewhere in the mid 20s, so picking it up again with a few more people around might be fun for a month or so. 

[rk47]

Uh oh.  Now we have to den this thread.  It's Oban's fault!

I think I'm pretty much done with EQ2.  I bought all the expansions and I played off and on for months and months.  Sometimes even in a row!  I've even deleted it from my computer.  WoW, too.  Done done done.

won't u come and grind with meeee

[Lantyssa]

Neat!  If nothing else, I can see if my new system can handle Neriak without choking and dying.

[Murgos]

Heh, Wizards.  They're expert hunters.

Old guy in a robe with a big pointy hat is exactly the look I go for when stalking deer.  The fake beard keeps getting caught in the underbrush but it helps the immersion factor by 10x.

[Grimwell]

millions of past, present and future EverQuest®II players

I dispute this number. Where's my charts!?!

You know I can't cough up and prove it, but you'd be surprised how many people have tried EQII. EQ is (naturally) a much larger pool. This doesn't even include the accounts that were banned for being gold farmers. They were obviously not invited back.

To help fuel the speculation and rumors... both games are ripe for this opportunity. Neither is what most folks remember, so why not do it? The 'invite your friends and get free time' idea is way overdue, I agree. I nearly gave the marketing guy a hug after hearing everything he wanted to do. Then I punched him instead. He's a good guy. :)

I'm very interested in the long term on this one. What percentage return, where their characters are at. How many of them stay along, and then stats on the levels and grouping rates of those who leave. I love data though, I'm a nerd.

[Kitsune]

I'm giving them a try.  I've been curious about whatever happened to my old EQ stuff, and it's free.  But odds are good that I'll log in, be completely lost on account of not remembering what any of my characters' items and spells do or what I was in the middle of doing when I quit, log out again, and uninstall the games.

[Ubvman]

I can see it working for EQ2 but I doubt it will do much for EQ1.

I'll just log in grab my free EQ1 loot and stuff (bribe) and see how it goes - I have the game backed up on an old DVD-R. The core problem for me is that the game is still fundamentally the same. You  can't solo worth a damn in EQ1, grind-grind-grind, SOE is EVIL, tradeskills suck, SOE HATES YOU! AND YOUR CAT TOO!  etc. etc. On top of that - WoW is doing ok for me except for the Monday patch days (which is right smack on Oceanic Tuesday prime time).

The problem as I see it is that EQ1 development has painted itself into a corner. The core game play is situated at the very tippy-tippy top of level 80 raiding with 2000+ aaxp (I may exaggerate but I don't think I am far off) - thats at least several months (if not a year's worth) of hard grind play. The learning curve for EQ1 these days is fucking Mount Everest with the corpse of zombie George Mallory smiling at you.

Two months free play at a moderately accelerated pace is just not enough to bring back lapsed obsolete old timers like me let alone gain new people. It might bring back some of the WoW crowd but will do nothing for the people trying out the new shiny in AoC.

[Azazel]

I got that email today - the EQ1 version.

I'll give it a go - I've been interested in showing my wife around the old game (and seeing how much of the old game is still left). Now that she knows how to play WoW, she'll be able to "get it" a little. She can run my druid, I'll run my SK, and then I'll 3-box my mate's cleric to rez us 

[Wasted]

I didn't get the email but according to my station account I got an active subscription till 1st of August.  Too bad I uninstalled EQ2 to make room for Conan :/

[Kirth]

EQ2 is worth giving a go if your on the fence, the few months I played it were fun. I even convinced a few friends to give it a try, but we all walked away. Its especially worth it if you haven't seen the Kunark starting areas.

[HRose]

EQ2 is off my radar since Hartsman left. At least he used to have short and long term plans. Now I really don't know in which direction EQ2 is going and AoC is probably doing what I expected, taking huge chunks off EQ2, DAoC and Lotr.

A while ago they were working on the model/animations revamp, anything new about those? Was the project just scrapped?

Playing for free wouldn't bring me back to EQ2, something new and interesting may.

[Hawkbit]

I'm dling EQ1 right now, I've actually been itching to see a bit of that world again.  I suspect all the things that used to torque me off will do so again and I won't make it a month, but morg gaming is bleak, so maybe I'll look past it. 

EQ2 really had a great xpac with Kunark.  I had a lot of fun doing the newb stuff in Kunark (1-22).  Sadly, they try to push you out into the old game at that point and it simply didn't flow like the first part.  I got lost/bored and finally quit.  Looked neat, just couldn't retain my interest. 

Since they're free, maybe I'll try both.  :/

[Numtini]

Well, just my experience with EQ2, but we probably lost 2/3rds of our guild to AOC. We went from a waiting list to get a spot on the raid team to cancelling raids because we didn't have enough people. All literally overnight.

And while I think EQ2 is an excellent excellent game, I'd share the feeling that I don't have a lot of faith in the current direction. You can get a pretty solid vibe of when a team is moving forward and looking for new interesting things and when, well, not a whole lot is happening. From Faydwer or a little before to Kunark, EQ2 had an enormous amount of effort put in and you could tell. It showed in the normal patches, it showed in the free releases, it showed in Kunark. But since Kunark, it's really felt like it was on maintenance, and even more so recently.

[raydeen]

Well, if any of you end up on Cazic-Thule (EQ1) let me know. I've got a 56 BL (Kyldaely), 30-something mage (Shinoko) and 40-something druid (Gwynyd) that need to get out and stretch their legs. Got some lowbies too that I could tool around with.

[Mrbloodworth]

millions of past, present and future EverQuest®II players

I dispute this number. Where's my charts!?!

You know I can't cough up and prove it, but you'd be surprised how many people have tried EQII. EQ is (naturally) a much larger pool. This doesn't even include the accounts that were banned for being gold farmers. They were obviously not invited back.

To help fuel the speculation and rumors... both games are ripe for this opportunity. Neither is what most folks remember, so why not do it? The 'invite your friends and get free time' idea is way overdue, I agree. I nearly gave the marketing guy a hug after hearing everything he wanted to do. Then I punched him instead. He's a good guy. :)

I'm very interested in the long term on this one. What percentage return, where their characters are at. How many of them stay along, and then stats on the levels and grouping rates of those who leave. I love data though, I'm a nerd.

You need to stop focusing on thoes games  , and give planetside some much needed love.

You have a gold mine there, and you wont do anything with it. Get a new engine that runs better on modern hardware, keep the concepts. Improve it. I think you would be surprised at how many people would love to see a Planetside 2. And no, the agency dosn't fill the need, sorry.

[El Gallo]

EQ1 is a better game than it used to be. It's group-oriented, but the group game is much more interesting and rewarding that any time. Downtime is much, much lower and XP is much, much faster.

Unfortunately, few new players (the few that will even try the dated graphics and such an old, declining title) ever see it.  They've done some things (hot zones, big scaling bonuses to AAXP the fewer you have, much better tradeable loot, removed most key and flag requirements, etc) to make it easier to catch up. But still, it's quite a steep mountain from level 1 to level 80 with a core few hundred AAs, which is what you need to start playing the "real game" (i.e. 80, where other people actually are). That's for a non-tank, forget starting a new tank character unless you are willing to devote a LOT of time and are coming back with a group or box (the game is very good for boxing). 

Most classes can solo to 80 + respectable AA (even the hybrid tanks, but again tanks need a lot more AA and about 1,000x the gearing effort) and start playing the real game. But that's a lonely life and, while there is more quest-based advancement than before, it's far from any of the post-WoW games which made the solo grind more palatable by dividing it into chunks of ten bear asses each.

But once you get there, it's a decent game. Slower paced than the modern games, but some like that. It's not "raid-or-die" anymore. Not bad for a group of friends, a grouping-oriented family guild, or lone wolf boxers who want to progress through a fuckton of decent-to-good content.

But the 1-75 game is a cancer. They should stop beating around the bush and just eliminate it completely. Or add some easily-soloable-by-all quests designed to get characters from 1 to 75+300+baseline gear really, really fast.

[Tmon]

I think I downloaded the wrong trial, I could only choose to be a fay, is there one that lets me play any class or am I stuck?

[HaemishM]

I'm downloading the EQ2 game on the Station Launcher now. The thing that convinced me was the Kunark expansion. I always wanted to see that in ShineyVision (TM).

Hey Grim, you need to slap your web site team. Those Living Legacy pages really did a pisspoor job of explaining where to get the client if you didn't already have it installed. And since you're giving away the Kunark expansion and all the other expansions for free, your web site really needs a "Download This Package to get the Whole Thing" button. As it is, I'm still not sure I'm actually downloading the expansions with the regular game.

[sam, an eggplant]

Free everquest? That doesn't sound like a very good deal.

[WayAbvPar]

Kinda like free smallpox blankets.

[HRose]

Hey Grim, you need to slap your web site team. Those Living Legacy pages really did a pisspoor job of explaining where to get the client if you didn't already have it installed. And since you're giving away the Kunark expansion and all the other expansions for free, your web site really needs a "Download This Package to get the Whole Thing" button. As it is, I'm still not sure I'm actually downloading the expansions with the regular game.

There are checkboxes in the login thingie.

[HaemishM]

The login thingie is not on the website. The website also doesn't tell me to look for checkboxes on the login thingie. I am a web site designer for a living, and thus I know when a promotional website doesn't do a good job of explaining things. This does a pisspoor job of explaining those things.

It's pretty, though.

[Wahn]

Well, just my experience with EQ2, but we probably lost 2/3rds of our guild to AOC. We went from a waiting list to get a spot on the raid team to cancelling raids because we didn't have enough people. All literally overnight.

And while I think EQ2 is an excellent excellent game, I'd share the feeling that I don't have a lot of faith in the current direction. You can get a pretty solid vibe of when a team is moving forward and looking for new interesting things and when, well, not a whole lot is happening. From Faydwer or a little before to Kunark, EQ2 had an enormous amount of effort put in and you could tell. It showed in the normal patches, it showed in the free releases, it showed in Kunark. But since Kunark, it's really felt like it was on maintenance, and even more so recently.

I'm with you, when Hartsman was in charge, there was plenty of useful communication from him about the direction the game was taking. Now this Fergusson guy just puts out marketing blabla without any useful content. Just look at his last interview on massively.com yesterday. I would love to get something like a Producer's Letter that gives an idea on what direction the game will be taking, not just the usual "we'll continue improving the game". Imho the focus on solo content with RoK was a move in the wrong direction, there is an obvious lack in interesting group content in the end game and the raid design shows some strange ideas about what is fun about raiding.

I'm playing eq2, it's still a very good game, but I ran out of content about 4 months ago. Basically I just log in to raid now, because the people I raid with have grown into a very strong and good community over the years (we didn't take a hit from AoC). I hope that some content shows up that can keep me occupied for more than a few days. Which probably will be the next expansion.

The living legacy stuff is something SOE had done before with Vanguard and Planetside - without this marketing fluff around it - to lure players back in, giving away 2 months of free gametime. Although they never tried it with Matrix Online - there were no people to invite back anyway i guess