Starseeker After a lot of questions and a lot of waiting, we finally get an answer on what the “perks” will be for the EQ2 Live Subscription servers. This thread on the official forums outlines the perks that you get for a multi-month subscription.
Here is the new subscription registration page for the Live servers:
The perks will be one per account (not character). The text under bonus value will be updated, however this is how it is showing on the live site at the moment.
A few screen shots of the items you are able to get for the 12 month subscription:
Steed of the Blazing Sun
Cloak of the Storm
Nizaran Assassin Armor Crate
Naturally the question of weather or not these “perks” would be available to current and long time Station Access subscribers came up.
Per Amnerys:
I believe this should be for all subs.
As far as I know, those who have current multi-month subs already, you will also get the perks. In fact, I hear they’re scheduled to get added retroactively to accounts tomorrow. If you currently have a 3-month sub, you’ll automatically get the new 3-month perks, and same across the board 6 and 12 months.
And if I understand correctly, every time you re-sub for the multi-month, you’ll get those rewards again. However I’m not sure that you get them at the moment you sub…it might be as your card is billed. I’ll get clarification on that. [Edited to add: I think it cycles every 24 hours, so you should get your items within 24 hours of subbing.]
As for Station Access, unfortunately not available at this time. It sounds like we’re looking into a way to have a multi-month SA account, but it’s probably a year out or so. I don’t think it’s totally fair to say you get squat, but we can agree to disagree. SA accounts do automatically get Gold membership on EQ2X, as well as your regular monthly things that come with SA.
(I need 3 more of me today to try and answer all these questions. Phew!)
Many were upset about Station Aash not being included in the perks of a live subscription and with the news that multi-month Station Access was over a year out. Many people feel that even though they do get more character slots, in the end they are paying almost double of the normal subscription.
After several posts, SmokeJumper jumped in and stated:
The guy I need to talk to about SA perks is not in the office today or tomorrow. I’ll speak with him early next week and then come back to let you know what gets decided.
NOTE: I’m not promising anything. This is not a dev team decision. But we’ve discussed it on the dev team and you have some good points in this thread. We’ll see. More next week.
He also states in that thread:
The initial reference (website) is incorrect and needs to be changed. They (the perks) are granted once per account, not per character.
The cloak and armor don’t have stats. The Steed does have regular mount-ish stats, but is slightly faster than the current marketplace mounts (similar to BG mount speeds) and has a bonus for potency.
It was confirmed that those who have an existing multi-month subscription will be gaining the “perks” retroactively. Time will tell on whether Station Access will have the same benefits or not, or if these perks will be enough incentive to come to the Live servers over the Extended servers.
I don’t see it as outrageous to get free SC for being a subscriber. Other games and online worlds do it. For example second life gives premium accounts 300 play money to spend at will every week. This would be a good perk for me because i’d be saving it up till they drop a nice item in the store like a flying mount (lol).
What concerns me is, I don’t think that these 3 items are enough to pull someone off of the EQ2X servers. Plus, you don’t see the “perks” until the very end of registration when your getting ready to pay. I took these screen shots yesterday, I will go in and check again now that eq2x is live.
EQ2X Yearly sub perks: Full Access to the game, Free yearly expansions, $60.00 Station Cash = $200.00 a year. If you break it down: 200-$60.00 SC (that you get back) – $40.00 that you would pay for an expansion = $100.00 that you are actually paying in sub fees.
EQ2 Live Yearly Sub Perks: Full access to the game, Mount that is simular to other mounts in the game, Appearance cloak and armor, $5.00 station cash = $143.00 a year. If you break it down: $143.00 – $5.00 SC = $138.00 and you still have to dish out $40.00 for the expansion each year…making your total yearly sub $178.00.
Even if you don’t use the $60.00 of SC on EQ2x you still are paying less than the live sub.
I won’t even go into how much the Station Access people pay. It’s $32.00 per month + price of expansions.
I just took the EQ2X client for a spin and my first impression is “I have a severe distaste for the gold membership”… As a station access subscriber who has been with this game since beta, i should be entitled to playing EQ2X to the same extent i play EQ2 Live. I;m stuck having to play as a bald erudite or a homely human because they locked me out of the more enjoyable races. I seriously think a newbie is better off just paying $15 a month to play on live. Gold membership to EQ2X is the same price but live subscriptions give you so much more.
Honestly I rather have the cheaper monthly subscription then the extra station cash on eq2x. If i want I could always spend the extra cash I am saving and buy more station cash.
These perks are crap really. If you want incentives to come to live, include things like experience potions. If you are truly advertising to new players, they will have no vet rewards, so stuff like that would go a long way.
I also think they should include station cash per month for anyone willing to commit long term like that, even something trivial like $100-200 SC/month would be nice.
A real incentive to come to the live servers would be: Give the 12 month subs the same as the platinum membership in that the expansions are free. We don’t need the station cash since we just have a fluff store (for now), but then also include the perks above (mount/cloak/fluff armor once per account per subscription). Live is supposed to look “better” than eq2x imo, for there to be incentive.
aye free expansions would do it for me. Especialy as getting them in the UK is getting increasingly difficult.
Free expansions would be nice. I plan on sticking with monthly billing though. A cloak and a horse wont do it for me. I got too many mounts as it is, and 2 36 slot bags in my bank packed full of cloaks from various events.
Let’s face it. They threw these “perks” out there to get people to shut up for a little bit about them. The EQ2 Legacy system is obviously not something that SOE wants to take them into the future. We’re done. We’re history. End of story. I’m only subbed right now so that my small group of friends can make a smoother transition to another MMO in the near future.