EQ2 Goes Free to Play too

[Soln]

all joking aside, it's like they picked the worse set of compromises in coming up with this pricing scheme. 

[Ingmar]

SOE seems to have missed what works about the DDO model entirely. Segregating the population seems like the worst idea of all.

[Numtini]

This is like a textbook on how not to do a cash shop game.

[Merusk]

Wait, wait WAIT!! I just got it! In a moment of clarity it all came to me.

With free-to-play gameplay ... "If there is a mass exodus," says Georgeson, "That'll just prove that this is something the players wanted."

Conversely.. Since there will be no mas exodus, clearly F2P is something players don't want.  It's designed to fail and provide numbers support for continuing the traditional sub-based model.

Those magnificent Machiavellian bastards.

[koro]

One thing the budding threadnaught on the EQ2 forums brings up is that with this, any prospective new players joining the game outside of recruit-a-friend trials will be shepherded onto the Extended server, since 14-day trials for the normal Live servers will be disabled. Should this really take off (which is pretty unlikely in itself), it'll basically kill any chance of population growth for the legacy servers, since there are no transfers off the Extended server; only on to it.

[Kageru]

Even for SoE this is an impressive mess...  If it really is designed that way to sideline, choke and move the existing community onto their new charging model it is impressively evil.

[PalmTrees]

An actually decent f2p scheme might've got me to dust off my old 60 illusionist and see what's changed since I'd stopped playing. But this mess of nickel and diming gotchas? nope. If I get the fantasy mmo bug bad enough to play but not sub there's decent f2p alternatives out there where you're not ghettoized.

[ghost]

Free to play is too expensive for EQ2.  I just can't abide games with such a crappy character customization process any more.

[tmp]

Did the computers catch up with EQ2's rendering engine or not yet?

[koro]

Did the computers catch up with EQ2's rendering engine or not yet?

Yes and no. From what I've been told, the game was essentially future-proofed for the wrong future: it was designed with the expectation that processors would still be single-core and just have ever-increasing clock speeds, so it's still way too CPU-heavy. It runs better than it did, but I tried it out in a trial a couple months ago after not playing it for years and it still ran pretty poorly unless I cranked the settings way down, even on a much newer rig that can play new games like Mass Effect 2 and Metro 2033 at very high settings without a hitch.

[tmp]

Yeah, the "wrong future" thing is what had me wonder. My only experience with it was the character creator or something to this effect i tried on previous computer and it was rather painfully slow. Now this one is faster and with free play i just might be tempted to check it out but... well.

[ezrast]

Even for SoE this is an impressive mess...  If it really is designed that way to sideline, choke and move the existing community onto their new charging model it is impressively evil.

There's no reason for anyone in the existing community to move to this, though. The only reason to would be if you want to play with a friend who doesn't have a sub, but at $35 to transfer you might as well just buy them a copy of the game.

I can see myself screwing around on the free servers when I get bored but if I were going to sink any money into the game at all, I'd just spend it on a regular subscription and reroll before I'd try to figure out how best to deal with their screwy cash shop.

edit: plus, didn't they implement separate microtrans-enabled servers a while ago? Presumably, everyone who wants to pay real money for gear (or play with those who do) is *already* segregated away from the rest of the player base.

[koro]

From what I understand, the Station Exchange servers they have set up are essentially just servers where SOE plays middle-man for players selling stuff - characters, items, in-game money - to other players for real cash, with SOE taking a cut of the money. To my knowledge, the actual Station store itself currently only sells cosmetic junk, card game junk, and things like +XP potions. This new deal is flat-out Chinese/Korean cash-shop stuff: you literally buy equipment from SOE themselves. If you're on "Bronze" or "Silver" access tier (which don't allow usage of the auction house) you're essentially buying Mastercraft crafted armor straight from SOE, since there's no other reasonable way to get any of it.

[Modern Angel]

This is a shame because I was really considering heading back for a month or two to fart around with it. For the regular sub fee you MUST give people everything they had when they were paying the sub fee three months prior. Sub fee AND I have to plink away cash for stuff I used to have? Not cool.

[Kageru]

There's no reason for anyone in the existing community to move to this, though. The only reason to would be if you want to play with a friend who doesn't have a sub, but at $35 to transfer you might as well just buy them a copy of the game.

This will most likely cut off the supply of new players to the existing servers... and I believe they are already in decline.

[Modern Angel]

Wait, rereading this it's even dumber than I thought. It's better to think of this as an entirely different GAME, with a separate client and everything. So nothing changes for the subscribers, unless by subscriber you upgrade to the Gold membership with your free to play account. God

[Phred]

Still sifting through the info, but it's looking like the f2p accounts are really, really gimped.  Moreso than I would have expected or hoped for.

They get what they pay for - and the one-off $10 upgrade ungimps some of it.

I'd say the one thing you can guarantee with SOE is you never get what you pay for, just ask all the ppl that signed up for that premium server. :)

[Simond]

$200/year and you still have to pay extra on top just to get access to all the other races that you'd get access to via simply paying $15/mo on a standard live server?

Plus the $10 fee to upgrade you to "Silver" nets you almost nothing in return.

This is, like, double clownshoes.

$200/year for platinum, normal subs is $180/yr...but platinum gets expansions for free. So unlock the race or class you want, buy platinum, and you're still paying less than on the normal servers.

[Sky]

Unless you're like me and 2/3rds of the expansions aren't aimed at you. Since SOE bundles all their expansions with every release, I save 66% right there. I'm surprised they're still bundling all the expansions with every release, it's very non-SOE (or at least more Scott H SOE than current SOE): customer friendly. Maybe on a non-WoW game you can afford to charge for each expansion separately, I dunno. I've said in the past it's one thing that has been a barrier to re-entry to WoW for me.

[AutomaticZen]

I'm assuming this may be how DC Universe Online's free-to-play will work as well.  But with no Live service at all.

[Xanthippe]

It seems to me that the only thing Sony hasn't fucked up is Free Realms (oh wait, there's that combat change; they did fuck that up too).

I see no earthly reason why anyone would opt to play EQ2 on the F2P servers, other than to try out the game. 

[Mrbloodworth]

Well, to be be fair, "Fucked up" is kind of subjective, if they are rolling in the income, can't really be fucked up can't it?

[Ard]

Given that they just laid off 35 people, I'm not sure how true your statement there is.

[Rendakor]

This is the end of me whiteknighting for SOE. Utter fucking clownshoes.

[Mrbloodworth]

Given that they just laid off 35 people, I'm not sure how true your statement there is.

That would fall under the "not rolling in the income" section.

[Shatter]

That 0.2% of interest I had in DCU just got sucked away

[Sky]

This is the end of me whiteknighting for SOE. Utter fucking clownshoes.

Agreed. It took a serious hit when Hartsman left, but meh.

[Modern Angel]

So is it safe to say that EQ2's day in the sun was almost entirely due to one badassed developer at the helm?

[Sky]

I don't think that's quite fair to the team that worked with him, but I can't imagine his departure had a positive impact on that team.

I just wish he'd go work at Bioware Austin :)

[Yegolev]

Couldn't they have just done, for example, 2 tiers?  "FREE" and "NOT FREE".  Although, I guess since this is EQ2 we have to nuance everything into multiple skills and tiers... Journeyman, Adept, Expert, Master, Epic, Fabled, Smedleyd...  == Bronze, Silver, GOLD BITCHAS, Platinum, Existing Sub Schmuck, With or Without Station topping....  MBAlolz

This gave me a good laugh.  I have had the EQ2-resub idea roll around in my head a bit (yah, I know) and this scenario is not the least bit tempting.

[Ard]

I just wish he'd go work at Bioware Austin :)

Oh good god no.  Keep him on a team worth leading, please.  I'm still crossing my fingers on Rift.

[tazelbain]

Looks like SOE's goal is to make Turbine look good in comparison.

[Tannhauser]

At the risk of parroting others, I think this is a stupid way to do f2p.  Let me play for free then tempt me with nice-looking gear and cool misc. items. 

Hopefully SOE, during the 'beta', will make changes to make  it more Turbine-like.  I'm not holding my breath. 

[Count Nerfedalot]

Looks like whatever vestiges of independence (in the form of the ability to resist stupid shit demanded of them from the suits) which the EQ2 live team enjoyed under Scott Hartsman have finally dissipated.   From the time Scott and his team were given free reign to do whatever they felt best to salvage EQ2 from its original retarded design and subsequent bitch-slapping by WoW at release, the experience of playing the game, interacting with the live team, and living with the results of their decisions and efforts has been completely unlike that of any other SOE offering.  It's been... pleasant.  I find it impossible to believe that the people who came up with this abhorrent, ill-considered and obviously quickly slapped together agglomeration of all the worst possible ways of implementing f2p for an existing subscription game are the same people who took such careful pains to craft elegant, non-intrusive implementations of controversial print-me-more-money demands from the suits like the LoN collectible card game and the Item Shop.  This whole fiasco smells of Smedley's handiwork, although he's certainly not the only possible source of bad decisions in SOE and Sony corporate.

The best hope for this having minimal impact on the "real" EQ2 is that they've isolated the two.  The worst signs of malicious intent towards the existing game though are the one-way transfers, and the elimination of the 14-day free trial.  I hope whatever is left of the live team that hasn't fallen under the sway of the dark side find a way to mitigate the damage.  If they can isolate the core game from the game the suits created and keep it healthy, then it may yet survive this latest management blunder. 

Two ideas that might help reduce the potential damage:
    change the one-way transfers into copies, so people can try out the new world without losing their progress in the old;
and/or
    allow transfers from the f2p ghetto to the full subscription world without any items bought from the shop which aren't available from the shop in the subscription game.

While it's not the NGE all over again (so don't bother accusing me of claiming it is, Grimwell!) they need to be exceedingly careful that this exciting new business direction doesn't result in starving the old game of attention or badly needed fresh blood (possible) while having the new game flop due to its incredibly bad implementation (probable).  That would be a brand new creative way of screwing the existing customer base in the hopes of making mad money off a new set of customers.  Of course, in today's business environment, adding that accomplishment to all the other bad management decisions at SOE is likely to end up in just another promotion for whoever is responsible, and layoffs for the people who've been holding it together up till now in spite of it all.

[Hawkbit]

Not sure I'd play this, but it leaves me with two thoughts:

1.  If they do EQ1 in this fashion I'd play it.  Likely forever. 
2.  I expected that this is how EQ3 was going to be... but it just doesn't feel right for EQ2.