Legends of Norrath Free Membership Pack Changes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Cash

From Dexella on the EQ2 Forums:

There are some changes coming to the free pack program for Gold Members of EverQuest and EverQuest II.

First, the old “anniversary date” has been completely removed. Starting with the launch of Debt of the Ratonga, free member packs will be awarded on the member’s first log in that month.

Furthermore, each player MUST log in during a calendar month to get that month’s worth of packs. Packs will no longer accumulate from month to month. If you skip a month without logging in to Legends of Norrath, you will not receive free packs for that month. Any packs that have already been accumulated (but remain unclaimed) will still remain on your account; this change only applies to future months.

The Choose-A-Pack cards awarded in December may be redeemed for any regular LON booster pack from sets 1-14.

Commentary

If, like me, you login to Legends of Norrath just to unwrap the free packs in the hopes of getting a Loot card usable within EQ2, this change will hit hard. I don’t check very often, since the vast majority of the items I get are paintings, house items, and the occasional standard mount which I understand some people are very happy with. Personally, I’m going for the Rare cards and have yet to get one.

Clearly, this change is intended to drive players to actually play Legends of Norrath rather than using it as an automatic loot delivery system. It will be curious to see if this drives player behavior or not. Also, I’m not sure if this is new, but at least for the time being, the free LoN booster packs will NOT include  the Debt of the Ratonga LoN expansion being released today.

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Comments (33)

  • Kruzzen

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    LoN was a nice diversion. But overall they retire the cards so fast you can’t use decks that were once good. Getting burned for that I only log in to get the free pack. They won’t drive me to play unless they can give me something actually worth playing for.

    Reply

  • Malade

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    I swear they are screaming “Stop playing our games.”

    Reply

  • Amybelle

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    Interesting. I logged in to redeem whatever packs I have waiting before they are gone, but the client won’t connect to the server.

    Update: Tried again later, and I have an invalid client version and must repatch. Except repatching doesn’t work.

    Reply

  • thait

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    Why Malade? Because they actually require you to do something to get something? Oh the horror of you needing to put 30 seconds of effort in one day a month to get loot cards! Why you might sprain a finger or something with all that extra work they’re making you do.

    Reply

  • Lempo of Everfrost

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    I see nothing wrong with this, just have to do a /lon on each account every few weeks.

    If the reason for this was to encourage play then they continue to baffle me.
    If they want to encourage people to play LoN then there needs to be a reason, they used to have some decent rewards for doing complete scenarios, those have just gotten worse and worse and in some cases even worse.

    Reply

  • Anaogi

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    I always logged in at about the same time every month to check it anyway, so it affects me not in the slightest. I do have guildies who frequently forget to check for many months at a time, leading to the hilarity of 40+ pack openings (and sometimes to actual awesome loot cards). I admit, I’ll kinda miss that… 😉

    Reply

  • Liftik

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    oh I’ll be logging in, I need my “painting o’ the month” to canvas my walls s’more.

    (I’m with ya Feldon, still looking for those elusive Gnome-o-matic Equipment Unattuners)

    Reply

  • Prrasha

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    With this change…. still an automatic loot delivery system.

    I do have one or two guildies who play the scenarios for those rewards. I don’t know anyone who plays PvP.

    Reply

  • LoNhater

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    I was just informed there will be no more “free” packs. packs given previously can only be used in the on old LoN… not the Ratonga version.

    Reply

    • Feldon

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      Originally posted by LoNhater:
      I was just informed there will be no more “free” packs. packs given previously can only be used in the on old LoN… not the Ratonga version.

      Informed by whom? You got some bad info my friend.

      Reply

  • Le Clown

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    …and not a single ____ was given that day.

    Reply

  • Paddyo

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    I don’t see what the problem was in letting packs accumulate. I realize someone could create an account, play for a few days, quit, come back six months later to 30 free packs. So? They aren’t tradeable, they only have cosmetic value for the most part. It’s not going to effect the majority of paid subscribers who checked once a month anyway, and it was kind of a little gift to casual players or newcomers… it flies in the face of logic to be honest.

    Not allowing us to choose the new expansion packs is just commerce driven. It won’t boost sales from people who don’t buy anyway, so…

    Reply

  • LON - Debt of the Ratonga

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    If anything since changing the LON option in my opinion it will only drive ppl away from LON and dashing the already minimal hopes of looting something nice. Some ppl will just not log into LON all together.

    Reply

  • Madcat

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    Another epic fail.

    “Stop playing our games.” melody

    Beside put restriction for push people in the pit why not just do an awsome job so everyone will want be in ?

    Reply

  • Madcat

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    PS: The frostfell scenario is not that easy and totaly unrewarding. Dont wast your time doing it.

    Reply

  • thait

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    I agree with Lempo. If they want people to play more they should put some really nice rewards for playing. Maybe some really nice loot cards and rare cards that can only be gotten by playing, and wining. That would encourage people to play.

    Reply

  • Cloudrat

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    For ages many have asked for a more simplified tutorial because we wanted to play but that hasnt happened. There seems to be too much let’s make them do this instead of what do they want us to do attitude.

    Reply

  • Chiteira

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    They can’t put anything worthwhile in LON coz that might affect EQ gameplay. And people paying for the privilege of playing would then start looking at other online games…of which there are many.

    Reply

  • Madcat

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    they can and they do, it’s a mercenary they put in the new set ?, the one we cant have with our free choose a pack….

    And it dont affect more gameplay than collector or marketplace…

    Lot of thing can be nice rewarding without break anything.

    Reply

  • din

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    Is the choose a pack card this december, or last december ?

    its not clear to me if we only need to log in once a month, or log in and claim once a month ?

    Reply

  • din

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    I should have read the entire link. You only need to log into LON, U don’t need to claim them every month

    Reply

  • Avianna

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    so the game that was not worth it in the first place receives a nerf to make it even less worthwhile, to get a reward that is meh… at best. Hmmm, this is a trend lately with SOE. They’re on a roll.

    Reply

  • Arcos

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    @Amybelle – I hadn’t been able to get into LON ingame for months so downloaded the stand-alone version this morning and it works.

    Reply

  • Charn

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    Kruzzen said:

    . . . overall they retire the cards so fast you can’t use decks that were once good. Getting burned for that I only log in to get the free pack.

    I’m with Kruzzen on that. They keep retiring cards so I HAVE TO buy the new sets to make my decks “valid” again.

    What burned me the MOST was, I still had not completed the early scenarios with my original deck (which was valid in those old scenarios) but when they retired the first set, suddenly I could not continue doing ANY of the scenarios without changing my deck . . . even though my deck was valid the day before for a scenario and the deck used by the AI itself IN the scenario is technically invalid now because it’s using retired cards . . . Brilliant.

    That coupled with an ever-decreasing quality of loot cards (mostly appearance gear and house items, nothing even FUN to use (I’m looking at you, ice cream cart, Vhalen’s Band, and Goblin Giggle-Giver)) has made me not want to buy packs anymore.

    Now if I could only remember to log in more often . . .

    Reply

  • Nessari

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    I’m about ready to forget LoN loot cards altogether, because out of 60+ packs I’ve gotten a grand total of ONE loot card. This change just makes it more annoying, since I can’t use /lon to run the game, that crashes my eq2 client (and the LoN and eq2 clients don’t play well running together).

    Reply

  • Madcat

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    As european player, LON started to lost interest when doing tornament dont reward at all… I was not able to win anything so, the game lost interest quickly.

    Remove previous teir was too much for this small game too.

    Reply

  • Madcat

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    Next step is no more veteran reward (look like they think to it), and what next ? no more 500 SC every month for gold sub ? (no more 3 gob ticker too ? :P)

    why not no more marketplace ? 😛

    Anyway this change wont help LON at all or SoE.

    Reply

  • striinger

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    With the trend to minimize the inclusions to increase micro transaction frequency I have to wonder how all of the subscribers on our discounted SC gold sub “honeymoon” will react once it’s over and our mini transacted online lives once again have a $16+ surcharge attached.

    Reply

  • badcat

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    I never played lon, could not figure out how to win or play it. I just use it to get the loot cards. All this change does is make me log in once a month or more to see if I have free cards, I loged in last night and had 40 packs, and not one loot card in them.

    Reply

  • Loch

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    For those who are opening 40+ packs without getting a loot card…

    I’ve noticed that there is a significant difference between the sets as far as odds of getting a loot card goes. The more recent expansion, Estarim, has BY FAR the best odds. I have never received a loot card in the many packs I’ve opened from other sets. But I made the switch to Estarim completely when that set came out and I always get at least one loot card out of the 5 packs per month. I don’t think that it’s just good luck.

    Reply

  • Anaogi

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    @Loch, random number generator is…well, not truly random, but you get the picture. I’ve gotten loot cards from all 14 expansions prior, and expect to get them from Debt of the Ratonga as well. Admittedly I seem to have done slightly better with Estarim–I already have 2 of the 3 mounts, and got the wings first pack I opened from the set–but I’ve seen stuff of varying levels of coolness from every set. And that’s just from my usual 5 a month.

    Reply

  • Fyrestorm

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    I am pretty upset atm. I just found out about this today so I logged in to get all the packs that I have been saving up. About the only thing I have really wanted was an unattuner from Dragonbrood. When I logged in today, having about a years worth of decks saved, I didn’t have ANY decks on my account. My son probably had even more saved up, maybe even two years worth on his account, because he rarely plays anymore and we just keep the account going for him. Not one single claimable deck. SOE will be hearing from me this morning…:/

    Reply

  • zyxoreturns

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    So people have a problem with the FREE packs. Suggestion: Stop giving away free packs. Next to no one is playing LoN anyhow. You’re wasting your time and ours.

    Reply

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