Feldon It seems inevitable that most conversations over the coming Fan Faire weekend will now somehow be tinged by Free-to-Play’s arrival in the EQ2 universe. I predict that Free-to-Play will be the elephant in the room that everyone is talking about. Even in SOE’s other active and in-development games. Even in other MMOs by other developers.
Enthusiastic players who take the future profitability of EQ2 seriously have barely had a word to say about the basic concept of Free-to-Play, but have instead focused their concerns on it’s implementation, and how SOE’s choices may very well lead to a fracturing of the community itself.
The question “Should EQ2 have Free-to-Play?” has taken a back seat to analysis of the avalanche of announcements and forum responses thus far from expert tap dancer Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson.
Free-to-Play: Why do it?
EQ2 has had some well-publicised issues regarding server populations and server-side performance lag, as well as loud protestations from users requesting free server transfers, server merges, etc. These players are merely asking for an environment that lives up to the “massively multiplayer online” experience.
Another issue facing EQ2 is the barren level range of 1-50. What used to be the entire game now passes in blink of an eye. With the exception of players using various tricks to acquire levels or AA’s, this range is almost completely abandoned on all but the most populous servers.
With the Free-to-Play announcement, I could not help but see an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. An influx of new players in the level 1-50 range; Some of whom might stick around to see the end game.
Why Free-to-Play is not like Free-to-Play
As announced, the EverQuest II Extended (F2P) Service seems to have an identity crisis.
Strictly as a Free-to-Play service, few games are more restrictive on races, classes, coin, and levels than the Bronze and Silver access levels in EverQuest 2 Extended (F2P). When it replaces the traditional 14-day trial, it will become the “extended Free Trial” for EverQuest 2. It seems likely that the annoyance factor will drive players to seriously consider the $14/month and $200/year packages, at which point, EverQuest 2 Extended is just another Subscription server.
Except… EQ2E is also in the process of beefing up the StationCash Marketplace to include some 400 items we’ve been told not to expect on Live Subscription services. These are powerful items which truly enhance characters and which have been considered unconscionable for live servers.
When I first heard of Free-to-Play, I thought it would follow “free-to-play, pay for what you want”. The logic seemed impenetrable. If I am spending $10-15 a month for items and potions, shouldn’t I be treated the same as a subscriber on the live servers paying $15 a month for a flat subscription?
Yet it seems that SOE President John Smedley is hoping to burn the candle at both ends and double up the revenue from players who go down the EverQuest 2 Extended route. At least until they examine their bank statements.
How Did We Get Here?
So how did we get here? Well it’s simple really…
Seriously, I think somewhere along the way, signals from the player community were missed or misread.
You may recall there was an extensive written survey handed out at Fan Faire 2009. The main questions gauged player’s tolerance limits for StationCash (RMT), as well as a spectrum of other possible revenue streams and subscriber options. The overwhelming reaction was NIMBY (not in my back yard). In short, if you are going to have Free-to-Play, put it on separate servers. Keep it all separate including forums, support, community, etc. And, based on that feedback, it seems that is the road down which the EQ2 team were sent.
But the bigger questions were not asked:
- What about pure Free-to-Play, without those disruptive overpowered items?
- How can Free-to-Play be geared to feed new players into the Subscription service, rather than funneling them away from existing worlds?
It’s not clear if the million dollar question — How can Free-to-Play improve the Live Subscription servers? — was asked.
Perspective
I started playing EQ2 shortly after the Echoes of Faydwer expansion. I’m sorry to say I’ve never experienced the <strike>grief</strike> character building of finding my avatar’s corpse, hunting for spirit shards, waiting 30 minutes on a boat, or any of those other things that made routine tasks take hours, but was somehow fun before the dawn of ubiquitous cell phones and Twitter.
Let’s face it, Natural Character Advancement stopped being a game- or server-enforced concept in Everquest 2 a long time ago. Any player can acquire gear with plat. And any player can acquire plat with real money.
It is for this reason, that my concerns about Free-to-Play, as-implemented, are not ethical, but practical. The equation doesn’t add up to more players joining Subscription to make up for the normal customer churn and burnout.
More Commentary?
The complete tagline for EQ2Wire is “EQ2 Breaking News & Commentary“. Over this past weekend, we’ve delivered mostly the latter. But fear not, for those 3-4 people who remembered “Oh hey, isn’t Destiny of Velious being officially announced this weekend?”, we’ll be there for you with news and updates!
level 1-50, srsly?
nobody cares about that. what we need is more and interesting end-game content with less lag, not more people in a level range that doesnt matter, with boring content that doesnt matter.
“What used to be the entire game now passes in blink of an eye” – so why bother?
Posting as an article…
It is clear that there is no intention of any ‘progression’ from the F2P server to the ‘normal’ ones. Unless there is character transfer allowed – which itself is not cheap – then why would you want to move a character that you had spent a lot of money on away from its home, especially as by getting that far you have probably joined a Guild, made friends, etc?
This may increase cash into the coffers of EQ2, but will do nothing positive for existing players. In fact, as it is drawing off design/game talent in one direction, in can only be to the detriment of the game.
Speaking as a player from Day 1, with more than one account, it takes a great deal to piss me off – but this has all the makings. I’m starting to look at Rift very closely…
Thanks Feldon. I’m glad there is at least some news sites out there that don’t have their lips firmly placed to soe’s butt. =) You have covered it fine, and have nailed the crux of the issue.
I have played the game almost since day one. So I have gone through all the stuff mentioned. =) I’m not going to wax nostalgia though. The game has for the most part improved over the years, but in short what we are looking at here is not an improvement. We are looking at the great money grab of 2010 from SOE. But the funny part it isn’t really about the money for me. If Sony delivered a great expansion, and made it as fun as the old expansions were, then paying more a month for my sub would not bother me at all. What I see here though is SOE focusing not on giving players more fun things to do, but finding a way they can pull as much money out of the people on the new servers.. without doing a thing to help “Legacy” servers. Without server transfers, from the EQ2x to the Legacy servers, we will see even more decline in the Legacy servers. Server mergers may help in the short turn, but the funneling of all new people to the EQ2x servers will have only one effect. The death of the current servers.
blah blah.. I’ll stop now. =)
My opinion on this is that FTP should have utilised the tiers of the game, all that content left behind. This is how I would have done it – my bias is towards getting players to the game not short term milking them dry then discarding.
Free play up to level 80. Bronze/Silver can only access up to TSO expansion whether you have purchased expansion or not.
Gold – Can access level 90 if you own the expansion
Platinum – Receive expansion included and full access.
The current limitations seem designed to push players away – and those that stay well aren’t helping existing server populations.
RE the restrictions
The fair ones
* I don’t mind restricting coin on free accounts. 5 gold a level may be a little tight though – 10 and 25 might be better than 5 and 20
* Channel chat restrictions are a fair restriction for free accounts
* Quest number restrictions are fair
* Bank and bag slot restrictions are fair
* Character slot limits – Excellent restriction
* Others like Broker Restricted and mail receive only are fair enough. You need benefits for being a subscriber.
* Race Restrictions
Above is alot of the restrictions I agree with if it was done on the live servers. I don’t agree with
* Equipment – Legendary and Fabled Restricted – ruins the game for them I think. And us to having game balanced for treasured.
* Spell level limits – Kills off any ingame market for experts and masters. And game is balanced so low that having fabled and masters makes it god mode.
* Class Restrictions – The choices given are to restricting. And you end up with a endgame full of plate healers, wiz/warlocks, brig/swashbucklers and berserkers (who would play a guardian 😉 ) Imagine balancing a raid from that
– The 3 restrictions above are deal killers in my view. And should be axed whether FTP is kept seperate or not.
Other potential restrictions could be
* Runspeed cap – 25% free 40% silver no cap gold+
* I’d suggest appearance but that would hurt marketplace sales.
* Slot restrictions – Make Cloak and 1 Earring slot restricted to gold – hey they weren’t there in the old days
Myself I wouldn’t care if marketplace stuff was sold up to level 80 on live servers even. FTP should be about getting more players to the game not shoving them in a corner and milking them dry till they leave. Its a great game and a vibrant game to 80 will encourage people to subscribe and play to 90.
Remember me saying before “F2P would work if it was implemented like DDO did it”? I take it back. After spending 1 night on that alpha server, they took the idea of what DDO did, and raped it… DDO only restricts 2 races and 2 classes, while EQ2E limits you to only 4 and 4. I can’t see how anyone could play EQ2E with such a limit, without splurging some money for a race / class they prefer over a human or a erudite. Plus hte whole concept of making the cleric/predator classes all neutral makes no sense to me as 1 type is supposed to be evil and the other good. It’s almost as bad as if they had made the crusaders neutral. Evil pallys and good SKs. >.> The fact is there is no true neutral in this game unless you become a exile, so really they just opened the door to some really awkward character placements.