Feldon
In the aftermath of EverQuest II picking up a Free-to-Play service, count on Massively to land an exclusive interview with EQ2 Senior Producer Dave Georgeson.There, you can find his thoughts about what F2P will mean to EQ2.
Day: July 27, 2010
Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson has followed up today’s big news with a blog post over on the Station Blog on what we can expect at Fan Faire, the future of the EverQuest II Extended (F2P) server, and some hints about what’s coming in updates surrounding the Destiny of Velious expansion. You can read his post on the Station Blog here.
The EverQuest II Extended (Free-to-Play) Servers are now online and ready for Alpha testing. You may immediately start playing EverQuest II on the E2E server here. The EverQuest II Extended (Free-to-Play) Service also has its own independent Support Forums launching today.
There will be a lot of reactions in the coming days in response to the announcement. I’ve been surprised how many have had positive reactions to the speculation here and on EQ2Flames who think F2P on a separate server, or for levels 1-50 are a good idea to bring in new players and then convert them to a Subscription account. And no doubt there are many who feel that any opportunity for people to “buy” progress threatens the moral center of character advancement in this game. We’ve got a survey here on EQ2Wire that you may like to fill...
Where there’s smoke, sometimes there really is a fire. During a Stratics E3 interview in June, Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, then-new Senior Producer for EverQuest II was asked point blank: Will EverQuest II would be transitioning to a F2P setup as Lord of the Rings Online did in June? His response has been thoroughly dissected and analyzed: The current subscription model isn’t going to change. The people that are playing the game as it stands right now really like the way it is. They don’t want us to sell items for power in the marketplace. They want to be able...
Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, EQ2’s Senior Producer, has brought us a surprising announcement that EverQuest II is adding a totally separate Free-to-Play service. Hi there, Norrathians, As they say, the one thing that’s always true about the world is that it changes. That’s true of the world in general, the game industry, and it’s always been true with “EverQuest II”. The very nature of an MMO is change. We listen, we adapt, and the game grows in features, content, and fun factor as the months and years pass. Now, the expectations of gamers and the industry itself are changing around...
Rothgar has posted some additional thoughts and clarifications about the new User Interface facelift for EQ2 in Game Update 57 on the EQ2 Forums. After the jump…
Early birds trying out Game Update 57 on the Test and Test Copy servers have encountered an intriguing error message when they try to purchase something from the Broker. (don’t be alarmed by my ProfitUI broker window, it’s the message in the lower right that is worth a second look): You must upgrade to at least a Gold membership in order to purchase items from the broker.
Zoltaroth has made some changes to the automated Test Copy scripts so that characters will copy within hours rather than being on a 24-48 hour cycle as they are now. To copy a character to Test Copy, type /testcopy add on any live server. You will then need to choose to login to the Test server when starting up EQ2 with your choice of launcher.
Game Update 57 is now up on the Test and Test Copy Servers and we’ve got the Update Notes. We’ve already taken some new screen shots of the new default interface including the new pictorial tutorials for new players. User Interface – One of the touted features of Game Update 57 is the revamped User Interface. The Persona and Inventory windows have been merged into a Character window. The XP bar has become a sort of “dock” at the bottom of your screen. All buttons and window corners have been rounded off. And for the most part, everything that...