Here are your update notes for 5 October 2010:

EVERQUEST 2 EXTENDED

• Bronze members will now be able to view chat channels (Silver or higher is still required to participate in chat).
• You can now purchase Gold memberships directly in game.

MARKETPLACE

• You can now buy extra character slots in the marketplace!
• You can now redeem station cash cards directly in game by going to: Marketplace – Add Funds – Station Cash Card.
• You can now add a credit card to your file directly in game by going to: Marketplace – Add Funds – Credit Card – Add New Card.
• Check the marketplace for “New” and “Hot” items!
• Marketplace items that are discounted from normal price will now show “SALE” on the icon in both the welcome window and the marketplace window.

PERAH’CELSIS’ ABOMINABLE LABORATORY

Homicidal Madness (the charm spell) no longer affects fighters.

This just in from SmokeJumper on the official forums:

We’ve solved some technical issues recently and we can now offer character slots for sale. (Something previously unavailable.)

So as of October 5th (Tuesday), character slots will be available for purchase in the marketplace.

Here’s a couple quick facts to answer obvious questions:

1. Slots are permanent. You pay for them once and they stay on your account forever.
2. You can purchase any number of character slots. There is no limit. You want 20, 30 or even a bajillion character slots? Go for it.

Regarding Station Access subscriptions:

1. Character slots sold are *in addition to* any slots you are getting by being an SA subscriber. (Example: If you had 12 slots available as an SC subscriber and you purchase two more slots in the marketplace, you’ll now have 14 slots available.)
2. If you cancel your SA subscription, and then buy slots to replace the slots you were getting, your characters *will* still be present in those purchased slots (they won’t get deleted during the swapover).

Character slots will be available in the in-game marketplace for 1000 SC each.

This also applies to EQ2 Extended as well.

Players on standard EQ2 accounts with more than 7 characters in a region, or players on Station Access accounts with more than 12 characters in a region were locked out of accessing these “hidden” characters with a change in Game Update 57. Although intended to close an exploit, the primary motivation for this change has been to protect the monetization of character slots, which are for sale on EQ2 Extended servers.

Note: This change has been rolled back as of Tuesday, August 24th, to allow players to “get their house in order”. On Tuesday, August 31st, players who have more characters than are allowed by their account type will only have the option of deleting characters to access “hidden” characters. The /camp command will not load any character not visible on the character select screen, and changes to the character list INI file will be ignored.

If you have no more than 7 EQ2 characters on your EQ2 account, or no more than 12 EQ2 characters on your Station Account, you do not need to do anything.

For years, players have been asking for additional character slots, either for free, or as an optional one-time purchase.

Seven vs. Twelve

An EQ2 monthly subscription runs approximately $14-15 a month depending on your choice to pre-pay 3, 6, or 12 months in advance, or stick to month-to-month payments. Despite the introduction of new races, and a new expansion each year, currently, EQ2 subscribers have access to 7 character slots.

So far, the only option offered to increase the number of character slots has been to buy Station Access.  This $29.95/mo package was originally intended as a way to provide access to SOE’s entire stable of online games (EQ1, EQ2, SWG, etc.). But over the years, this deal has been sweetened with the addition of more character slots. An EQ2 player with Station Access receives 12 character slots.

It’s worth noting that those are 7 and 12 slots per region. Players can start 7 characters on US, EU, and Test servers, making for a total of 21 characters in all if you include all 3 regions.

What happens when you downgrade, and today’s changes after the jump…