The Lone Raiders Forum

[Shalin]

What do you think about the changes to EQ2 that were announced today?

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?&topic_id=483444

[Bariella]

I really don't think this will have a huge effect on the live servers - admittedly some very casual players may decide to go F2P, but given the limits on equipping stuff, and spell quality, you would have to be a crafter or someone who only ever solos for it to appeal imho.

I think this is quite a cute move by SOE - they may get a few extra casuals who are prepared to buy the marketplace crap, and with the fact that gold access is priced the same as the EQ2 Live subscription, any new players who genuinely like the game are likely to come over to the live servers and pay the monthly sub.
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[Shalin]

and where will new players for existing servers come from? that is what really worries me.

[Bariella]

Via the free to play - no-one is going pay 15 dollars a month for still limited access on F2P when they could transfer to live and get all the content for the same price - I see this as way for people to try the game for free and then subscribe to live if they like it.
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[Bariella]

Ok I just re-read the FAQ - they will not allow any char transfers from the new service to the subscription service, so I guess they are aiming to move to the new model, and populations on subscription servers will decline

And gold pretty much does allow full access - same as current subscription does - they want to close our servers.
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[Shalin]

after reading the whole thread i linked, the FAQ and the announcements, i think it might even seem more benefecial to use a platinum membership on the new servers.
You pay slightly more than now (200 dollars per year, that is 16.66 per month) , get some money "back" because 500 SC every month is included, while getting 10 character slots, 20 shared bank slots and other than that the same stuff we get.

[/img]

EDIT: well looks like you have to buy some classes but maybe you can do that with the free station cash you get every month. Also you dont seem to have to buy the sentinal's fate.

[Bariella]

Yep - the only downside if you move is you don't know how they will move the goal posts with later xpacks - and you know they will move them - anyway I have no intention of going anywhere
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[Sportakus]

Only 4 default races and you buy the rest? Even with platinum? Fuck that I'll stay here tyvm.
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[cham]

This seems to be actively designed to be cutting off the new player supply to traditional servers completely, more-so when devs try to pr-speak around the important questions. There aren't any honest sounding believable answers yet for a lot of serious issues:

how do live servers get new players?
How do raiding guilds maintain rosters with no new blood?
How does the community remain healthy with no new blood?
Why continue on traditional servers what perks do we get (apart from avoiding losing a lot of gear/items wealth and paying 35dollars for every character we take off live)
do we have wallet bought characters transfered to live servers and why should they bother?
If not are people expected to start over?
14day trial being closed for traditional servers unless a new player manages to contact an existing player and ask them for a trial key, is crazy?
how does F2P plans translate to anything but population drain for traditional servers?
You admit server mergers can be a result of this plan, how do you create another merge after splitpaw and runnyeye for example are already merged?
How did you manage to release this announcement with no clue how to answer any of these questions?

[Rhim]

[Fedu]

Seems pretty stupid to me that they are not integrating this in to the exisiting servers, whether you like the idea as a whole or not. All its going to do is push any new players they get if any away from the exisitng servers
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[Sportakus]

Yeah I've saw ppl suggest that levels 1-50 on regular servers should be F2P and you subscribe if you want to go farther. That, with the rest of the freebie restrictions applied to them, would have been perfect IMO.
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[Sportakus]

From the SOE forums, a question from FF:

Question: as a raider I’m worried about shrinking rosters.
Georgeson (Smokejumper): We will have to wait and see. Who knows the free to play server may end up as the
“place to be” for raiding.

I call that 4 minutes to midnight.

Did Sony have this level of contempt for the players in EQ1?
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[Shalin]

I know, i am very concerned too

[Pone]

3 minutes to.

Everquest 3 announced.
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