EQ2X’s Freeport Server Buckling — Time for 2nd Free-to-Play Server?
Despite prophecies and predictions declaring EQ2X overpriced and underdelivered, it seems EQ2X’s popularity has nonetheless led it to be a victim of its own success in recent weeks. Several threads on the EQ2X forums about server crashes, instability, and lag have been created which got some reaction from SmokeJumper. Currently, EQ2X runs on but a single server called Freeport.
- Hmm, lets make SOE notice us..
- Sony, you’re going to have to allow Freeport copies to live.
- Now I keep getting flung back to character select screen….
- BING BANG SONY WAKE UP
After the jump, responses from SmokeJumper…
I do apologize that we weren’t more readily reactive. We normally are, but we’ve been tunnel-visioned getting “Destiny of Velious” ready for release next week.
We’re aware now and you should see action quickly this week.
Sorry about this. We’ll get rid of the issues as quickly as we can.
and:
The server issues will get resolved.
Currently, there are absolutely no plans to allow transfers from Extended to the regular Live service. It violates too many things for what we’ve told players on the Live servers and it’s extremely unlikely to occur. Sorry for that, but we will fix the performance issues, so this will hopefully become a moot discussion again soon.
and:
We are aware of the posts being made here, Rothgar has posted recently, and as you probably know, the dev team is pretty focused on the “Destiny of Velious” launch one week from now.
So…that being said, performance issues like this are a huge nuisance and we’ll put it on our priority stack for immediate attention. We’re locking on a bunch of stuff for DoV tonight, so we’ll be able to start looking at stuff tomorrow.
Tags: eq2x
Trackback from your site.
Comments (6)
Kulzor
| #
That’s too bad. Transfers from EQ2X to Live would add more players to the live servers to game with…
Reply
Eschia
| #
It seems obvious they will open a second server and label it Qeynos. I call it. 😛
Reply
zerigo
| #
I agree allowing players to transfer from eq2x to live seems like a good solution at first. But the idea of people rolling eq2x toons, buying suits of gear, then moving to live will cause more damage then it would be worth. Though a real simple solution would be not allowing eq2x gear to be equipped on live servers. Let em transfer, but make the gear appearance only or something.
Reply
Glenolas
| #
It’s not a surprise that Eq2x is jammed with players. Free play brings in a very high number of folks who have no intention of paying anything, or maybe one time $10 in SOE’s current system. Free Realms is a good example at SOE…tons of free players, a relatively small % who subscribe, and it’s hemorrhaging money.
SJ’s take is that unless you have a robust cash shop, FTP will lose. Unsaid is that you also have to stringently control actual costs for all those free players, and the only way is to keep a sparse server farm and near zero customer service. Too much investment in additional server cards and you’re back to losing.
Many will want to transfer to live, but won’t be allowed to, as that drops them out of the revenue stream of the FTP experiment.
Reply
cjs
| #
Every night this server drops out. It was down on the 11th , 18th..I decided not to play on Saturday…instead I played the Rift Beta…On Sunday the server dropped out again after 1 hour.. And now tonight after 2 1/2hours…Bingo Logged out…SERVER IS DOWN…. EQII is CRAP…I even spent money for some extra storage slots..but I would never Pay the $20 bucks for the Silver or any other money for other classes or races if they can’t keep there only FTP server up. Lets face it..EQII is WOW lite but without the BACKING of a real gaming company like Blizzard… LOTRO went FTP and is doing well and the servers don’t crash… the new games out like RIFT and GUILD WARS II coming out will put the final nail in the EQII coffin… Your Live servers will be the next too go…
Reply
Arcturys
| #
Actually, Glenolas, if you played EQ2X, you’d soon realize like most of us playing EQ2X realize that it is nearly impossible (not impossible, but close) to play for free AND enjoy the game. The restrictions are absolutely absurd. I went silver after 2 weeks, despite saying at the start I wouldn’t do it. Then I went gold a month later. I’d say the majority of the players are at least silver, and a the gold member population is pretty hefty too. Bronze members either don’t last long or end up upgrading before long; permanent bronze members are a very small minority.
Ironically, I’m paying more as a Gold sub on EQ2X then Gold members are paying on EQ2 Live, since Gold EQ2X access does not give you the same access as Gold EQ2 Live. Truth be told, EQ2X is a cash cow. They are making more money off the Freeport server than any single Live server, which is interesting for a so-called “free to play” server. Unfortunately, that’s the problem I believe. They are trying to milk this cow for everything they can without having to put more money into it, in the form of service, maintenance or a new server.
Reply