Feldon In an interesting turn of events, Bronze and Silver players of EQ2X are being given 30 days of Gold access as part of SOE’s “Make Good” program. You’ll recall that Bronze is the free-to-play level of service, while Silver pay a one-time fee. Although players of both Bronze and Silver levels can and do buy various race and item unlocks, some have played EQ2 entirely for free. From SmokeJumper on the EQ2X forums:
Hi, folks,
We don’t want the Silver and Bronze members to feel like they’re being left out in the cold on this Make Good program that we’re running currently. Gold and Platinum members are already receiving 45 days of membership for free. So we’re going to do something similar now for Silver and Bronze members.
Obviously, Silver and Bronze members don’t pay for subscriptions, so extending “free time” to them is meaningless. Therefore, for the next 30 days (starting today), we’re going to treat all Silver and Bronze members as if they are Gold members instead.
Thus, Silver and Bronze members have 30 days to use the broker freely, equip and use items, use any class packs, etc.
All Silver and Bronze members have all rights and privileges of Gold members until June 17th.
Enjoy!
If you have been considering playing EQ2, I can’t think of a better offer. If only there was a way for EQ2X players to transfer their characters to the live servers.
* If only there was a way for EQ2X players to transfer their characters to the live servers. *
I’m hoping SOE will actually open the gates on this. They have loosened far more conversational paths to increase revenue. To deny players the ability to pay another mirco-transaction to move from an EQ2X server to a live server just seems illogical. I’m sure the monetary reward for SOE would far out-way the loss of a handful of players that would be so outraged that this would be allowed and leave.
I seem to recall hearing a lot of Live players would rather have the population infusion than not. The complaints were about the marketplace to begin with, and Live is already forced to deal with that, so they might as well get the population advantage to go with it.
The cash shop on Extended doesn’t offer anything worse than what’s on Live already, in my opinion. Experience potions are on both. Live Gamer is only available on Live. MC armor is sold for real money on Extended, but considering that can be made from materials you pick up off the ground I don’t personally think it’s that big a deal. Refer-a-friend, with all its exploity goodness, has a far larger impact on people being able to advance without putting in “fair effort,” and is only available on Live servers. (I quit Live because of the RAF exploits, and started on Extended because it seemed, at least to me, to have more integrity.) All considered, if I were still playing on Live, I’d probably want people to be able to transfer over from Extended.
But I’m not among the people who would be impacted most by this change, so my opinion doesn’t much matter.
My concern is this:
I am currently Silver status. I now have Gold status thanks to SOE. I created a new character with a class that only Gold status has access to. Now the 30 days of Gold status runs out. What happens to my character?
Also, let’s say I fill up all by inventory slots with nice expensive bags I bought with station cash (normally the last 2 slots are unusable by silver members). Now the 30 days of gold runs out again. What happens to my bags in those last 2 slots?
I think the transfer service should be there too. But to keep things clean all they need to do is make unusable any armour/rares/EQ2X items brought off the marketplace. Even if that ends up being a bit over the top its got to be done, and if people are told up front that’s fine by me.
Do as transfers were way back when. Transfer them naked (maybe with some capped amount of plat at most). Financially, though I doubt SOE would want them to convert…less revenue from live than a gold eq2x player I’m guessing.
@Tommy: When you drop back to silver, you won’t be able to log in to any characters whose race or class you haven’t unlocked. Your last two bag slots will get locked and you will be able to take things out of them but not put anything in.
And you didn’t ask, but here’s the other details: Any master spells you scribed will stay at master level. Legendary or Fabled equipment that hasn’t been unlocked will fall off. (Officially, anyway. I’ve heard some players say that the gear stayed on, but cannot confirm this personally.) Anything you have for sale on the broker will stay on the broker–you can reprice it until it sells, even.