Frequently Asked Questions About Heroic Characters (and More!)

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Cash, EQ2, Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance

In response to a number of questions by players about Heroic Characters on the EQ2 Forums, Caith and RadarX had some answers…

Q (by Errrorr): When will Channellers become available as heroic characters?

We don’t have a date on when Channelers will become available as a Heroic option.

Q (by Errrorr): Is it possible to have certain long and tedious questlines already completed (For example Speak as a dragon)?

Heroic characters are not going to have any quests completed for them. If a quest is so tedious as to be off putting, and is also something that cannot be avoided, I would rather look at the quest itself. I’m not sure To Speak as a Dragon would qualify in my estimation, but it’s something that we can look at.

Q: Does the Heroic Character purchase apply to the character slot, or to the character?

If you unlock a heroic character, and then delete it, it goes away. Whether that character is purchased, or unlocked as your one free, the result is the same. To unlock another heroic character to replace the one you just deleted would require you to purchase it at that point.

The reason we have a try before you buy option is to give people a chance to experiment with classes before unlocking them. Please use some care with which character you want to unlock as your free choice.

and later…

If you delete the free unlock, then no, you do not get another one to replace it.

   

Update Notes: Tuesday, October 1, 2013 — Heroic Characters, AoD a la carte, Item Unlocks Going Away

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Cash, EQ2, Expansion News, Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance, Itemization

UPDATE:

The EverQuest 2 Servers will come down on Tuesday, October 1st at 7:00AM Pacific Time* for an update. The expected downtime is approximately 5 hours. 

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL
Memberships have changed!

  • We’ve removed Item restrictions from Free and Silver accounts.
  • Permanent 10% Mount speed and 15% Coin Loot Bonus to Gold membership!
  • Destiny of Velious expansion content is now free for everyone too!

HEROIC CHARACTERS & 1 FREE HERO’S CALL OFFER
Heroic characters can now be created! Answer the Hero’s Call!

From now until Oct. 15, you can take part in our 1 FREE HEROIC CHARACTER ‘Hero’s Call’ Offer. All existing accounts created prior to Sept. 22, 2013 will have access to 1 free Level 85 Heroic Character! All accounts created after Sept. 22, 2013 will get access to 1 free account per household. These free Heroic Characters will be unlocked permanently!

Producer’s Letter: Coming Right Up!

Written by Dethdlr on . Posted in Expansion News, Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance

From the EQ2 Forums (emphasis added by me):

Mighty Norrathians!

Since SOE Live and Game Update 67: Darkness Dawns there’s been a lot of focus and excitement here about Heroic Characters and this year’s expansion, Tears of Veeshan. We’re well on our way and working hard!

To begin with, we have some date adjustments. Our expansion launch date has moved out a bit to mid-November and our Level 85 Heroic Characters are likely coming in the first week of October.

We got some great feedback on Heroic Characters and we wanted to polish it up to make it more user-friendly before we launch! We are still working on fine-tuning the details and I will have more info soon, I promise. Until we nail it down, I don’t want to throw misinformation about.

The introduction of Heroic Characters also made us change a few other things, like including EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious zones into the Free and Silver account access so Heroic Characters have a place to play! And while we are still going to offer theEverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion, we will also sell the features individually, including the Beastlord class, Mercenaries, Dungeon Maker, Reforging, and Tradeskill Apprentices. We’re still working on pricing and have some other cool things in progress we’ll announce shortly.

Our 10th expansion, EverQuest II: Tears of Veeshan, is getting closer to Beta. This team is putting together an expansion that will be something special! The overland — Vesspyr Isles, the Eternal Broodlands — is really amazing. Flying through it is incredible with more and more variety and flavor every day. The dungeons are coming together beautifully and the content is too! We appreciate all the feedback we got during SOE Live and are grateful for all the playtests of the Channeler class. We are putting final touches on that too.

When Beta opens on Oct. 15, we hope you’ll come take a look at Tears of Veeshan and give us feedback!

There will be lots more to come so you’ll be hearing from me sooner ™ rather than later!

Holly Longdale
Senior Producer
EverQuest II

Krono Purchase Fix in the Works

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance

So it turns out that the issue players have been having with purchasing Krono from the Broker is more complicated than we’d originally thought, as evidenced by the feedback from players who have been able to buy some of the Krono on the Broker but not others. The issue is that the game thinks some Krono are invalid and so is not allowing their sale.

From Nandy “Zoltaroth” Szots:

Krono that return the error are in a bad state and should remove themselves from the Broker. In the next hotfix, they will remove themselves automatically.  If you move down the Broker list you will find ones that can be bought just fine.

So for now, just look further down the Broker. And if you are someone who has one or more misbehaving Krono on the broker, remove them, /camp, and then replace them on the Broker and the issue should be resolved.

Krono Not Purchasable on Broker

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

It’s now 10 days since the Consignment fee was removed from buying Krono on the Broker. This was a great change, except this has unfortunately meant that certain Krono cannot be purchased from the broker, as players receive a message stating that the item is no longer available for consignment.

NOTE: If you remove one or more Krono from the broker, you will need to camp and then login your character again for the items to appear in your Inventory and/or Currency window. For now, if you want to buy/sell Krono, you’ll need to take to the open channels, or possibly the nearest convenient tunnel.

Update Notes: Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Raiding

From EverQuest2.com:

MEMBERSHIP UPDATES
The following restrictions have been removed on Free and Silver accounts:

  • Class selections (Beastlord still requires Age of Discovery)
  • Race selections (Freeblood still requires purchase)
  • Bag slots
  • Shared Bank slots
  • Active journal quests allowed

GENERAL

  • There is no longer a broker fee for buying Krono from the broker.

EQ/EQ2 Free to Play Changes Picked Up on Game Sites

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

Upcoming Changes to Free-to-Play Free and Silver Members Next Week

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

From Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson the EQ2 Forums:

Hi there, Norrathians!

You may not realize it, but we talk about you all the time. All day, every day, we dream up ways to make these games better for you, the loyal players and fans of Norrath.

EverQuest and EverQuest II have both been running as free-to-play games for a good chunk of time now. We’ve learned a lot while that’s been happening, and we can make things better for you.

So, we’re going to take out a bunch of the free-to-play restrictions that you’re used to as a Free or Silver player. Why? Because we want you to play more of the game without restriction. We think that letting you play more of the game lets you learn to love Norrath and gives you more chances to connect with the community and make friends.

As of mid-next week, we’re going to be removing the following free-to-play restrictions in EverQuest and EverQuest II. Free and Silver players will now have access to all of the following options:

  • We are opening up ALL CLASSES except Beastlords
  • We are opening up ALL RACES except Freebloods
  • All bag slots are unlocked
  • All players can now use the shared bank slots
  • The quest journal restrictions are lifted entirely. Quest away!

We hope that the Free and Silver players among us (and there are a great many of them!) will be very happy about this news. These are good things indeed!

Have fun!

David Georgeson
Director of Development, EverQuest Franchise
Sony Online Entertainment

December 2012 EQ2 Winback Program – 15 Days Free Gold Sub

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

On Wednesday, a number of players noticed that their Silver or expired EQ2 accounts had been temporarily upgraded to Gold. This turns out to be part of a Winback promotion that is granting players 15 days of Gold subscription to come back and try out EQ2 again. We’ve read through the announcement and broken this Promo down:

Former EverQuest II players!

Get in the game now and take advantage of FREE GOLD MEMBERSHIP time from 12/19/12 – 1/3/13*.

Also, enjoy a FREE Adventurer’s Welcome Pack gift just for getting back into the game.

Update Notes: Monday, November 26, 2012

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

  • Fixed a bug where items that dropped from epic monsters that were pre-adorned were not tradable when they should be.
  • Spellscrolls will now be more accurate when saying whether or not they’re locked [ed. note: Silver vs. Gold account] based on spell tier and account subscription level.
  • Auto-following while on a flying mount will now cancel your flight if the follow target enters combat.
  • Call of the Veteran is now treasured instead of fabled so that all account levels can properly use it.

ABILITIES

  • Spells that rely on increments on a target will now successfully check against your implied target if your target is in the same group/raid as you.

QUESTS

  • The visage of fear in Vanishing Act should no longer become stuck in an unkillable state.

On Beta: Coin Limit for EQ2 Bronze, Silver Players is Gone!

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance

This should help with Bronze and Silver players wanting to buy subscriptions via Krono. From the Beta Update Notes on the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL
Memberships: There will no longer be coin limits on any account types.

UPDATE: For those who doubt this is really coming to the Live servers, Massively quoted the news and then the official SonyOnline account retweeted it.

Player Poll Results: 65% Favor Self-Rez, Health, Power Potions for Solo play

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Cash, DGC Wants Feedback, Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

From EverQuest2.com:

In our last in-game poll, we asked players what they thought of us selling health, power, and self-rez potions for solo, group, and raid players.

The results are in! Overall, for all items, there was an average of 65% support for the solo versions in all three categories (and, in fact, there was only a minor variance in the percentages for each item). Group and Raid items averaged at 55%.

As we saw with the EQ2X (Freeport) server, where we sold similar items, these types of items help the solo player have fun while adventuring alone. We also added limitations to these items so they will not affect group or raid players.

Starting on Friday, May 18, 2012, you will see the solo health, power, and self-rez items for sale in the marketplace! These items will be found in the Consumable category, under Combat Skills.

   

StationCash: Cure and Luck Potions Pay-to-Win?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Cash, Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

UPDATE from Piestro:

The potions were put in on accident and quickly removed. If we do decide to reintroduce consumables we’ll certainly mention it.

Taking a page from Disney, SOE placed certain StationCash Marketplace items on hiatus a while back into a so-called “Brell Serilis vault“. This type of scheduled demand is intended to drive sales and create pent-up demand when said items are returned to the market. An example is the Prowler mounts first introduced just over 2 years ago.

We paid little attention to the unlocking of the vault announcement as SOE already does a fine job of communicating their weekly StationCash deals, to the exclusion of almost everything else about EQ2.

As a result, we missed two items which were previously EQ2X / Free-to-Play-only which slipped through. Cure Potions that cure 500 levels of any kind of detrimental, and Luck Potions that increase coin drop amounts from mobs by 25% (we are attempting to confirm if this includes or excludes treasure chests containing platinum).

The Brell Serilis Vault items are available until May 6th (we’re not sure if that is May 5th @ 11:59pm PST, or sometime on May 6th). Discuss this on the EQ2 Forums

StationCash Marketplace Evolution In-Game Poll

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Cash, Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

We’re a bit late on this, but on April 4th, a new in-game poll was added to EQ2 about the StationCash Marketplace, specifically some items that were previously only available on the Freeport (formerly EQ2X) server. This issue is being discussed on the EQ2 Forums. Here are the contents of that in-game mail:

Greetings, Norrathians!

Most players spend a lot of time exploring and soloing, or delving into dungeons with a mercenary. There are items that would be extremely useful for these activites that used to be available on the marketplace on the Freeport server. We’d like to hear your opinions about those items and there is no predetermined plan for them. We are asking to get a fair representation without forcing everyone to debate on the forums.

Safe travels,

~ The EQII development team

After the jump, the in-game poll questions about Self-Resurrect Items, Power Potions, and Health Potions.

Massively: Dave Georgeson Talks Free-to-Play at GDC 2012

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

From Massively:

Like it or not, free-to-play is rapidly coming to dominate every corner of the gaming industry. While that’s good on the surface, it also blurs the line between business and design, and it creates a lot of tension for both consumers and developers who are increasingly faced with the challenges inherent in separating monetary decisions from gameplay decisions.

One of the more interesting GDC 2012 round-tables featured Sony Online Entertainment executive producer Dave Georgeson, NCSoft publishing director Steve Levy, Perfect World VP John Young, GamersFirst monetization director Joe Willmon, and Digi-Capital Limited managing director Tim Merel, all of whom convened for a mind-meld on successfully migrating subscription games to F2P.

MMORPG Interviews Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance

Last week, MMORPG posted an interview with Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson.

The article is a bit light on revelations and threw a few softballs like “The Dungeon Maker is a brilliant addition to the game.  Can we expect more functionality now that it seems like the community loves the feature so much?” , it could still be an interesting read, especially players looking for any scrap of information about the upcoming fourth game in the EverQuest franchise (you didn’t think we forgot about EQOA, did you?).

Great ideas only really shine if you’re first to market with them. So we’re giving ourselves lead time against our competitors by being as close-mouthed about the game as we can until we feel like we’ve got a bit of a lead for launch. And then we’ll talk about it. You can’t imagine how much we want to talk about it. We’re bursting.But for now, all I can say are the things I’ve said before: a) It’s a reimagining of the Norrathian universe of characters and places; b) It’s utilizing the same Forgelight MMO engine that “Planetside 2” is using (and that engine is looking incredible right now), and c) this is not the MMO you’re used to playing. We aim to make something extremely different this time around. High-fantasy? You betcha.  Norrath? You bet, but expect some twists. Magic? Swords? Sorcery? Yup, yup, and yup. But beyond that…imagine all you want. Our aim is to make something cooler than what’s in your head.

Although EQNext is still pretty much top secret, Zoltaroth did post a picture of some members of the EQ2 and EQNext teams at a paintball range. Hey, we’ll take anything we can get including a pic of Rothgar’s armory.

European EQ2 Customers Waiting to Learn Their Fate

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance

It is now two weeks since the announcement that ProSiebenSat, a TV and radio broadcast firm based in Germany, will become SOE’s ‘Exclusive Partner’ in Europe. ProSiebenSat’s gaming division, Alaplaya, is mostly known for poorly supported region-locked free-to-play browser games.

The announcement immediately raised fears which, to date, have received no official (or unofficial) response from SOE beyond two posts from SmokeJumper asking for more patience:

I can’t give you the official answer yet. I’ve been specifically asked to wait until the full FAQ and everything is created for this.

However, this should be really big for EQII in Europe. Partnering with Proseiben.1 gets us access to television ads in Europe, which means we should be able to greatly enlarge our European server populations with new players. That would just be astoundingly cool for everyone involved over there.

I need to wait to talk about other details until all the p’s and q’s are arranged. (When we partner with folks, the discussions always take longer because it’s not just us making the decisions, and this is a big arrangement with many details to hash out.)

I am sorry this is taking so long, but the answers are coming soon.

After the jump, we address some of the issues that players are uncertain about:

EQ2 CM Wades into F2P Debate

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

Last Thursday we noticed a curious tweet and Facebook post from EQ2’s Community Manager Isulith regarding the Freeport server and Free-to-Play players:

Just as a friendly reminder for Facebook users on the EverQuest II FB page: please do not use the term “freeps”.

If you have been playing on PvP servers for a while (especially back when there was more than one) you probably wondered how “freep” could be offensive, since it has traditionally referred to players aligned with City of Freeport faction.

The Bazaar and Vox Server Merges & Downtime

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds

The Vox and Bazaar server merges have been rescheduled. From the EQ2 Forums:

We have an update for players on Vox, Nagafen, The Bazaar and Freeport servers! Originally, we had planned to start server merges on Friday, December 16, 2011. In order to minimize complications as much as possible, we have decided to delay the merges. Below is a schedule of the planned server merges:

  • Vox will be going down on December 18, 2011 at 11:59 PM PST.
  • Nagafen will go down on December 19, 2011 at 5:00 AM PST.
  • The Bazaar and Freeport merge is scheduled for December 21, 2011 but we do not yet have an exact time for this.
The server merges will take approximately 24 hours to complete once they have started. We will of course update you as we get any more information and updates.

**Please note: the times *may* change, I will update you when we have more information!

30-Day EQ2 Subscription Cards Not For Everyone

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

Paying for your EQ2 subscription has gotten more flexible over the years, leading many to migrate from providing their credit info to SOE to using 30-day game cards. But before you make the jump, realize there are a few drawbacks to consider:

  • First, month-to-month players don’t get the 500SC monthly stipend which is now given to all Gold subscribers.
  • Second, to use the in-game Character Transfer Tokens require an account to be on a recurring subscription.
  • UPDATE: You can /petition customer service to initiate a Character Transfer.
  • Third, if perchance you forget to renew your subscription at the end of the month, instead of receiving e-mails warning you that your subscription is about to run out, you might wake up to find your account at Silver. It could take some time in e-mails, petitions, or on the phone to sort out the problem. We’ve only heard this from 2 players but it’s a potential problem.
  • Fourth, prior to the Destiny of Velious release, a variety of rewards were made available to recurring subscribers. Players with 30-day cards eventually won those rewards back, but it didn’t happen overnight.

So if you are on the fence about using a credit card or 30-day cards, think about whether you want the hassle of entering a card number every month, or dealing with the above limitations.

We can only speculate on why month-to-month can be a problem for SOE over the traditional recurring subscription, but spammers, scammers, and farmers are always looking for avenues to separate players and their money through fraud.

Veteran Rewards for All — Not Retroactive

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums:

Until now, veteran rewards were only accumulated by subscribers. That seemed fair because, we, we were all subscribers back when the program was created.

But now, there are a lot more options available to folks, and it just doesn’t make sense that a Free or Silver player shouldn’t be able to accumulate veteran rewards.

So starting from today, that’s what’s going to happen. All players will get veteran rewards based on the date of their account creation.

It’s already happening now. You’re accumulating time as we speak. Enjoy!

Discuss this on the EQ2 Forums

UPDATE from SmokeJumper. This change is NOT retroactive. So if you played EQ2 at launch and were hoping to login and get 1-8 year vet rewards, sorry Charlie.

This change doesn’t do anything retro-actively *at all*.

The veteran time that you’ve accumulated to-date is still valid and is preserved.

The change mentioned is from that date going forward. So everyone is earning time now, but this changes nothing at all for the vet time accumulated to-date.

Returning Players “Grandfathered” Characters

Written by Dethdlr on . Posted in Expansion News, Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance

When EQ2 went Free-to-Play two days ago, emails were sent out to people who had played in the past but were not current subscribers.  The emails mentioned the conversion to F2P and that they would be able to return and play at the Silver level for free.  But when a lot of these players made it back, they were hit with quite a surprise.

After installing 14 gigs worth of game files (for those that didn’t choose the streaming client) they headed to the character select screen.  That’s when they were kicked in the teeth.  Unless they got really lucky and picked a race/class combination that was free, they were staring at a list of locked characters.  In order to play, they would have to pay for race/class unlockers.  If they wanted to create a new character, they would have to delete all but three of their old characters since silver membership only has four slots.  The only other choice was to create a new account that wouldn’t have silver access.  This was not a good way to welcome back returning players.

SmokeJumper agreed.  Today this announcement was posted:

Hi, folks,

We’ve been listening to you since we launched the Free-to-Play service across all servers. One of the most frequent issues is from folks that used to play EQII Live and are now coming back to the Silver membership level and becoming very confused because they’ve never played under those restrictions. “Why can’t I play my characters? Why are they locked?”

Of course, the reason is because those players are returning to a Silver membership (which is free of charge) and those older characters are often locked behind the Silver membership race/class restrictions. There are two easy ways to get around those restrictions: Upgrade to Gold, or buy the race/class packs.

But, we don’t really want to force those decisions on returning players. It’s not a fun experience to come back to something that seemed exciting (F2P) and then get hit with a bill as soon as you arrive, just for the privelege of using your current characters.


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