EQ2 Goes Free to Play too

[Rendakor]

Yea, I saw all the stuff on the payment options page about what races and classes were available. Didn't see the $7.50/3 though, thanks. I also know that you can't use legendary or fabled gear, but isn't there gear (with stats) that you can buy with SC?

[koro]

From what I understand, it's pretty much just Mastercrafted-level gear, like what you make with tradeskilling.

[Stabs]

Yea, I saw all the stuff on the payment options page about what races and classes were available. Didn't see the $7.50/3 though, thanks. I also know that you can't use legendary or fabled gear, but isn't there gear (with stats) that you can buy with SC?

The easiest way to resolve your curiosity is to fire it up. With the streaming it took about 15 minutes from first click to first kill. There's tons of guilds and they're all full of crafters, this game has always been absolutely glutted with crafters. People will just make you gear if you join a guild. I just made someone a staff, it was fun and he was delighted.

[palmer_eldritch]

I always enjoyed EQII and I'm really pleased that the free service seems to be doing well. SOE put a huge amount of effort into improving the game following launch, and for me it's a lot more fun than WoW.

I'm also confused that the "gold" package on the free servers, at $14.95 a month, appears to offer less than a standard subscription, also $14.95 a month, in that you only have access to four races unless you pay more, but maybe it evens out because you never have to pay for the client?

[Lantyssa]

Except you can almost always find some version of EQ2 for like $8 at Half-Price Books or other places.

[HaemishM]

The Gold sub on EQ2 does offer less than the same priced subscription on the regular game. If you're going to subscribe, I don't see a reason you wouldn't just buy the box and sub to the regular game.

[Stabs]

The Gold sub on EQ2 does offer less than the same priced subscription on the regular game. If you're going to subscribe, I don't see a reason you wouldn't just buy the box and sub to the regular game.

Three reasons

1) Fresh server, server firsts, discoveries. If you're the first person on a server to see an item your name goes down in history on EQ2Players. Don't laugh, it seems to matter to some people.

2) It's busy. The older servers have been stagnant or declining for some time. I have no idea how EQ2E is affecting them. At a guess I'd say they're even more quiet because half of their player base is trying the new thing.

3) The Lords and Peasants thing. On Live the poorest person has a plat toothbrush and is level 90. Here if you have a mount people are like "Wow! Where did you get that?" Many MMO gamers love being part of the privileged few.

[Nebu]

1) Fresh server, server firsts, discoveries. If you're the first person on a server to see an item your name goes down in history on EQ2Players. Don't laugh, it seems to matter to some people.

I have to confess that I've started over many times to play on a fresh MMO server.  I like playing with a young, less inflated economy where a majority of players are playing in the newbie zones for the first few weeks.

[statisticalfool]

Yeah, but the reason that soe is doing this is because they see f2p as a shakedown. There's nothing to suggest they see this as anything other than a gimmicky free trial.

So they're being awfully generous to you, letting you play for so long on a 'free' server so why don't you repay that kindness with interest when you actually pony up?

[HaemishM]

3) The Lords and Peasants thing. On Live the poorest person has a plat toothbrush and is level 90. Here if you have a mount people are like "Wow! Where did you get that?" Many MMO gamers love being part of the privileged few.

Actually, if you go through the New Halas starter area and do all the quests (or find the one quest that does this), you get a mount as a free reward, +25% speed. Of course, you can buy a mount that gives +50% speed in the Store, but it's like $20.

[Malakili]

1) Fresh server, server firsts, discoveries. If you're the first person on a server to see an item your name goes down in history on EQ2Players. Don't laugh, it seems to matter to some people.

I have to confess that I've started over many times to play on a fresh MMO server.  I like playing with a young, less inflated economy where a majority of players are playing in the newbie zones for the first few weeks.

Hell, MMO Betas are often better than they are after release for this reason.  Combined with the fact that people know everything will be wiped so they just play for fun instead of to accumulate shit.  I'm looking at you WAR.

[tazelbain]

I hope this is a success and they go full f2p, then I will return.

[Stabs]

Yeah, but the reason that soe is doing this is because they see f2p as a shakedown. There's nothing to suggest they see this as anything other than a gimmicky free trial.

So they're being awfully generous to you, letting you play for so long on a 'free' server so why don't you repay that kindness with interest when you actually pony up?

None of that will matter if lots of people play it and lots of people spend money, ripoff or not.

Listen, I'm not trying to argue that it should be successful. I'm reporting that it is successful. In many ways I'm scratching my head here as much as anyone else.

[HaemishM]

They added both the broker credits and the ability to purchase individual classes to the marketplace today. Broker credits are 150 SC ($1.50) for 10 credits. Classes are 750 SC ($7.50) per class. Not bad.

[PalmTrees]

Edit: tip - if you have an old Sony Station account it may have Station Cash on it. I have 3 and the first one I looked at had 1250 (about $12.50). I've never bought any so they must have been giving it away at some stage. Took me straight up to Silver.

I checked mine and had 450. I wonder when they were giving it away. I never would've bought station cash during the time I played EQ2.

450's not really enough for anything except a handful of broker credits so I guess I'll let it sit there. Too bad your balance doesn't earn interest, in just a decade or two I could afford to be a third class silver person instead of a fourth class bronze.

[WayAbvPar]

I have 100 SC on my account. Wheee!

[Lantyssa]

$15 to get my Arasai SK back is still a bit more than I'm willing to pay.  Maybe if I think of it as $7.50 from the double SC sales...

[HaemishM]

There is some armor I found for like 50SC that is pretty good for my level, though I haven't bought it yet. Want to see what the broker has. Broker pickings are a bit slim to start out, but now that everyone has or can buy broker access, I'm thinking it'll pick up.

[Soln]

I might be persuaded to transfer my main, but we'll see.

I recommend joining a guild.  Any guild.  I joined Fabled and we have 200+.  Not a lot of juvenalia and a helluva lot of instance running.  I never did so much in EQ2.  Population FTW.

[Nephelim]

As a dedicated pack rat and lover of crafting in EQ2, it is the lack of bag slots that is killing me right now. I've seen the 40 slot bag for sale and been slightly tempted, but I would much rather be able to open up bag slots (and more shared bank slots) as individual purchases.

[Hawkbit]

I might be persuaded to transfer my main, but we'll see.

I recommend joining a guild.  Any guild.  I joined Fabled and we have 200+.  Not a lot of juvenalia and a helluva lot of instance running.  I never did so much in EQ2.  Population FTW.

Just to clarify, you don't actually 'transfer' your main, rather you make a copy of it.  The original stays put. 

[shiznitz]

With all gear?

[Hawkbit]

My understanding (so read the fine print) is that it makes a copy and transfers anything soulbound, sans money.  All XP/AA transfers.  Again, read the fine print because I'm not putting money into this.

[Count Nerfedalot]

R.I.P. EQ2   

Sony really has gone and pulled another NGE.  Once again in pursuit of imagined riches as they try to transform an existing game into the MMO FOTM, they've abandoned their existing player base and botched their implementation of the new version pissing off pretty much all of their customers, both new and old. 

Unbelievable.

I've cancelled my account and been playing Eve for a month now.  I'm loving it but my wife is kinda iffy on it still and looking for a new place to get her fantasy MMORPG fix from.  Anything at all out there that is PvE, solo/duo & crafter friendly for someone burned out on EQ, AC, AO, CoH and WoW, and just plain burned by DAoC, FFXI, LotRO, and now EQ2?

[Hawkbit]

While I think EQ2's flip into F2P is a failure for many reasons, I don't exactly understand how they've abandoned their existing playerbase.  If you pay $15/month you can go back to the game on regular servers exactly how it was before the switch.  Is there some part of this I'm missing?

[Numtini]

While I think EQ2's flip into F2P is a failure for many reasons, I don't exactly understand how they've abandoned their existing playerbase.  If you pay $15/month you can go back to the game on regular servers exactly how it was before the switch.  Is there some part of this I'm missing?

It will cut off any new players going to those servers and slowly choke them to death.

[koro]

While I think EQ2's flip into F2P is a failure for many reasons, I don't exactly understand how they've abandoned their existing playerbase.  If you pay $15/month you can go back to the game on regular servers exactly how it was before the switch.  Is there some part of this I'm missing?

It will cut off any new players going to those servers and slowly choke them to death.

To expand upon this point, it actively discourages new players from joining the current live servers. The 14-day free trial is gone, replaced by EQ2X, and EQ2X players cannot transfer off of the F2P servers. Plus, any money you sink into EQ2X is essentially wasted if you do move over to Live, since those extra bag slots, character race/class unlocks, mounts, auction house tokens, and other bits do absolutely nothing for you back on Live.

A person who has played a month or two of F2P and maybe bought a pack of three races, a class or two, and a couple of other miscellaneous things may decide to see what Live offers over F2P. They see that it's much cheaper in the short-to-medium-term due to all races/classes being unlocked, you have more character slots, and other various things. Then they find out that their character cannot transfer off the EQ2X server; they must start from scratch. That alone will kill most of the desire people have to switch over to the subscription game, and they'll probably either quit if they realize they're being ripped off, they'll suck it up and keep on trucking with what they have, or they'll upgrade to the "Gold" plan and get at least somewhat on par with someone who's playing on Live.

The only real way I can see bringing new blood to the old servers is through a massive organized word-of-mouth campaign from veteran players (since SOE has absolutely no incentive to do so, and probably wouldn't do it even if they did) with buddy code chains aplenty, coupled with generous donations to newbies, Goonswarm-in-EVE-style. Of course, I'm more likely to have nightly three-ways with Christina Hendricks and Zoe Saldana than this happening.

[Count Nerfedalot]

It's been a couple of weeks and I'm under the influence of cold meds (not to mention the cold!) but the things I recall off the bat was that they've trashed the basic UI in horrible ways, nerfed the spell graphics for all players even if you had the machine to handle them, and cut off the supply of new players by eliminating the free trial and not allowing transfers from the f2p servers.  The world event content train that was in high gear up through spring this year seems to have slowed to a crawl with (inaccessible) portions of Freeport still on fire from an event that happened, what, last winter?  There are also some more changes likely coming to the f2p servers that could spill over onto the classic servers unless handled carefully.  

Overall, it's more the feeling of impending doom from many many minor cuts rather than the huge sweep the rug out from under you they did with the NGE.  Everything they are doing seems to be focused on pushing people into the free2pay microtrans realm and that combined with the asstastic implementation of that reopens all the old wounds from SWG and EQ before that.  It's like the lesson they learned from the NGE was not to avoid changing the game under the existing playerbase, but rather to do it slowly instead of all at once.

I frankly don't trust them, and will not give them another $ unless it's for something I've thoroughly vetted as being exactly what I want.  In an ironic way, they have succeeded at converting me to a microtrans customer.  I may come back for Halloween month, if they add more fun stuff to the classic servers for that event, but it will only be a one month on-again off-again thing.  Same for any other new content.  If it looks interesting I'll buy it post-release by paying a one month sub then abandon them until they produce something else I'm interested in.  I'm no longer interested in throwing money at them month after month on the assumption that they will occasionally give me new toys to play with.  Apparently, they didn't like having a reliable monthly income so now they can scrabble for funds paycheck to paycheck like the rest of us.

[Numtini]

I imagine that leaving the original servers alone was probably somewhat meant to placate the "free to play, ewwww icky people" response, but in the long run, if you're going to go to that model, you probably do need to make all the servers the same. There's a huge influx of returning players and new players in LOTRO F2P.

[Simond]

It's been a couple of weeks and I'm under the influence of cold meds (not to mention the cold!) but the things I recall off the bat was that they've trashed the basic UI in horrible ways, nerfed the spell graphics for all players even if you had the machine to handle them...

Yes, making the UI more like the market leader and reducing the system requirements/improving performance is clearly the next NGE.

[Count Nerfedalot]

It's been a couple of weeks and I'm under the influence of cold meds (not to mention the cold!) but the things I recall off the bat was that they've trashed the basic UI in horrible ways, nerfed the spell graphics for all players even if you had the machine to handle them...

Yes, making the UI more like the market leader and reducing the system requirements/improving performance is clearly the next NGE.

So making EQ2s graphics more cartoony like WoW would be a good thing too then, no?  Nevermind however many people were playing EQ2 because it didn't look cartoony like Wow? 

I have no problems with them adding more options to tone down the graphics requirements so folks with laptops can play, or make the UI more configurable so that you can make it work like game X you are already comfortable with.  I do have a problem with them taking away capabilities and functions I've been using and enjoying for years just in the hope that some new players might try it out.  See the difference there or are you some kind of Sony apologist who can't accept any criticism of Sony?

[Simond]

What capabilities and functions have been removed?

[Lantyssa]

Other than a few minor (really minor) changes, it feels like the same EQ2 I play for one month every year or so.  I'm not sure what drastic changes there are.

[HaemishM]

Let's face it, the live EQ2 servers WERE DYING. The game is not quite on Vanguard maintenance mode, but money wise, subscriptions were probably pretty flat if not slowly declining over the last year or two. I'm guessing they saw the success Turbine had with DDO going F2P, saw the money they were getting from Free Realms and figured "Hey, here's a property that never really hit the big time, is probably breaking even or making a little money but is really on the downslope, how can we spice it up with a shot in the arm." Along comes the F2P microtans model, and I'm sure it'll make more money from that in the first two months than the last two months of subscription on Live have made, just from the novelty factor alone. The F2P model is built for people to either subscribe or nickel and dime themselves into a decent experience.

Your game was dying a slow death. The Live servers will probably keep dying until the F2P becomes the only option. And the game probably gained a year of life or more out of it.

[PalmTrees]

I've cancelled my account and been playing Eve for a month now.  I'm loving it but my wife is kinda iffy on it still and looking for a new place to get her fantasy MMORPG fix from.  Anything at all out there that is PvE, solo/duo & crafter friendly for someone burned out on EQ, AC, AO, CoH and WoW, and just plain burned by DAoC, FFXI, LotRO, and now EQ2?

Since you've eliminated all the big names you might want to try some of the decent f2p games like Runes of Magic, Atlantica and Perfect World. I play Atlantica now and then. It has some annoyances but I like the turn based squad combat.