Feldon The new gryphon mount demoed at Fan Faire during the Art & Animation panel drew a lot of Oohs and Aahs from the crowd. It might be called an Incandescent Swiftwing (will we need to replace it with a Fluorescent model soon? 😉 ) but I’ll always think of this stunning mount as a Phoenix Gryphon. From EverQuest2.com:
Take to the skies and light up the night! Only an 85th and higher adventurer or tradeskiller is able to command this fiery gryphon, said to have been created by the experiments of Velketor himself. This mount is Lore, No-Trade and increases your ground speed by 75% and your air speed by 150%. Riders will also enjoy an increase of 5 to their Focus, Disruption, Ministration, Subjugation, Ordination, Slashing, Piercing, Crushing, Aggression and Ranged. 1950,- SC
Stormbringer’s Bulwark
Protecting yourself from harm doesn’t have to look boring with a plain metal shield. The Stormbringer’s Bulwark provides protection with style. This shield is Heirloom, Appearance-Only, No-Value, and Ornate. 350,- sc
Stone Gargoyle
Plush may not be the first word that comes to mind, but the Stone Gargoyle plushie is hard evidence that pets come in all shapes and sizes…and materials! Heirloom and No-Value, he can be placed in your home or Guild Hall for 300,- SC
The Shield and Gryphon look pretty cool.
No-trade (or attuneable) SC mounts == boo! I thought they already changed this once on the gliders and leapers. I wonder if they’ll change the firey griffon, too?
Throw some of your weight around, Feldon, and get into someone’s ear about this one! 🙂 Pretty please.
Oh what a surprise. SC. I bought the void prowler, then the pegasus. ENOUGH already.
Awesome Looking items! I wish they would actually design some really cool outfits though! LoTRO has Sony beat on that point. Hands down! Although, no one has Sony beat when it comes to Housing! No One!
Kalsia, that was one of the things I was most happy about that came out of Fan Faire… new outfits are finally coming (and are supposedly much easier to make now)
The two words “New Geo” during the Art & Animation panel probably slipped by most people but to me, it meant the holy grail. New Geo, plus snap-in armor, plus Character Animation Retargeting means that they have essentially accomplished the Skeletal Revamp without changing the appearance of our toons. Now they can create one outfit or animation and it works on all 26 races and sexes.
What is that super-bright shining cloud mount I’ve seen only one player riding on Butchicor?
That’s the Fan Faire mount. Almost makes me wish I’d gone. Almost.
I bought the Swiftwing yesterday, it was too cool to pass up! I had a bunch of SC left over from the triple cash thing, though.
Your pics of the other two are broken on my computer, though, Feldon.
the mounts that we must pay real life cash for should be heirloom. this was already discussed and agreed to and now they are sneaking in another. Sony will not be getting my $20 untill it’s heirloom. and even then $20 is more than a months gametime so I see that as a HUGE effin “micro”transition.
My opinion: No more than $10 MAX for any SC item (2/3 a months game time) and those items should be usable on the account not just the toon.
So Feldon throw your weight around and let SOE know what your readers want. Please and Thank You
Do away with macro – transactions and please allow station cash to drop in-game. Why should players have to pay $60-$100 plus for mounts?
Why can’t we actually just play the game, instead of buy to win?
I’m disappointed that the Pegasus and Dark Pegasus are station cash, as we don’t seem to ever get anything cool now that all the awesome stuff is for real life money, the game is becoming Farmville…
Please, why can’t we just have a chance at station cash items dropping as loot in game? Platinum to station cash conversion rates please SoE !
I’ll second that Mysticalluna!
how about for the daily quests in DoV instead of a drum or a chair everyday we could get a drum a chair or .50 SC plus give us a small drop rate of SC items in game would be awsome to pop open a chest and discover a pheniox mount snuggled up in there for me and I am sure other players would agree.
Start a free the SC campaign Feldon
LOL
Mysticalluna — Bingo, you hit it. This push to sell things — that don’t actually exist — on SC is, if SOE has any brains at all, the business model to follow. Zynga, Facebook, et. al. are making a ton of money doing this. I hesitate to spend any actual money this way, and I find it all rather stinky, but that’s where it’s going. (I’m guessing part of how Georgeson earned his promotion is that he’s good at cooking up this ways to improve Station Cashflow.)
$60-$100 PER mount? Seriously? And you bought how many?
No fun, cool items in game?
Hmm, I like my Fishbone earring; the Cloak of the Harvester; the pack pony. LOVE my leapers, iffy with the gliders yet they look so cool as a plushie on a mound of fireflies. I really get a kick out of tossing a cow out to help fight mobs. It’s pretty cool to put up a mender bot for folks.
Ya know, I earned or crafted those items. Didn’t pay a cent other than the sub for playing. SC is fun for some items and not necessary for others. I buy from SC when I want to and leave it alone if none of the items interest me.
I don’t play the ‘buy to win’ game. I play the game for fun.
If EQ2 meets Facebook, it’d analyze you play patterns and personal info to throw 1/3 screen of ads at you constantly while you play while spamming you with emails when you don’t. Oh yea, I’d love that.
Lets hope EQ Next learns from all the years of EQ1 and EQ2 and makes a monster of a game that holds the game play but can produce visuals of games like Tera coming out this year.
On one hand, I do think that $15 a month should be enough to get us all the content of the game, plus $40 a year for each expansion. But so far, the SC items have been optional and not required to progress. Most of it is eye candy and unique looks. The furniture has been the best looking, putting carpenters at a disadvantage as I’ve talked about before. But the mounts, etc. are all optional.
One thing I have noticed is SOE is in our pockets more an more, want a cool new Mount SC is there! Want some cool furniture? Woot I have a level 90 carp OO wait nm SC sells better than I can ever make! LOL Why make me have to spend all my time making a crafter that cant craft the cool stuff sold 🙁 It seems the game is moving towards nickle and diming us all the death… before it stops… cuz come on we all are smart enough to see less servers, more updates for SC than the game itself or for that matter more updates for ftp than us that pay! YAY.
I realize I won’t make any fans, but even with SC it’s still a very good use of your entertainment dollar.
The incandescent was 1950 SC, which is $20 — except if you had triple station cash, that made it just over $6.
I play almost every day. In contrast, $9 gets me one movie ticket. So $15 a month is still a lot of entertainment value. Spending another $20 a month on something I enjoy this much seems reasonable to me, especially since I am not required to buy anything extra to enjoy my play time.
I attended the Game Developer’s Conference some years ago. One of the main themes was pay-to-play. Everyone wanted to hear about how to implement it. So for those who see it becoming even more prevalent in the game, you are right. The accountants see it as a way to make a lot more dollars. The revenue model works.
For those who really hate the idea of the marketplace, but do like the items, at least when they have the specials of double or triple station cash you can stock up so things are a lot less money. Obviously, that doesn’t address the core issue of paying for extra content, but as Feldon said, so far they have restrained themselves and made the SC items optional.
I can’t edit, so to clarify — I don’t buy things from the SC every month, just when something interests me.
I Agree Kwill, I’m not a SC user (except a couple character move tokens over the years), but as a boxer I have a several accounts and pay more than most on a monthly basis. I would guess more than a regular SC user would normally pay monthly keeping up on the coolest looking toys.
Paying 10 bucks here, or 20 bucks there for optional eye candy and trinkets to enhance game play I think is very acceptable. It increases your connection with your toon, and even though I didn’t buy it, I get to enjoy players who walk by (or fly by) and I get to say “Wow! that dude looks awesome!”
That said, SOE has been very careful, as they should be. To never have required or “must have” gear or trinkets in the SC Store. So as long as that doesn’t happen I’ll be a fan of them making cooler things to sell.
Farmville brings in $1 million in revenue DAILY. I have no problem with a free-to-play or pay model for additional items. More revenue means more content, ultimately, even if some of it is pay to play. You can still play the game without buying SC stuff, but for those that choose to, services or items available is a benefit to the player. It is simple economics. I would even be open to having plat purchasable if it wouldn’t screw up the entire economy.
correct we can still play without buying SC stuff, but I think u miss my point. Why am I paying to play a game, that has crafters, yet the coolest best stuff is SC 🙂 in my case the furniture for my house. I petitioned and had to PAY for a slot, to get a carpenter ( crafting toon back that I had deleted) level 55 crafter back, so I spent hours of my life crafting, only to find soe sells the NEAT cool nice stuff I would and should be able to craft…. sell stuff sure but ffs give me a reason to play? not just pay? thats my point..
Here is my opinion
1.) as far as the carpenters go yeah we got it up the rear in comparison to the SC stuff.
2.) I feel that EVERY item offered on the SC store SHOULD have a way to earn the EXACT same item in game that way if you wanna trade game time for a few bucks then go ahead but if you wanna grind away for hours you can still get the cool stuff.
3.) I think we should be able to earn SC in game I would suggest the PQ’s (in order to keep them active for newer players) could also offer a reward of .50 cents in SC. that way if I wanna $20 mount I can do PQ’s for 40 hours straight and earn myself one.
4.) And last but not least the SC store is a pay to play model that has snuck it’s way into our subscription based game. We as players should not have to have Both a sub and a store it should be one or the other. Now I already hear the flames of the naysayers telling me that those items are not REQUIRED however those items are the coolest in the game. Additional races and the like should ALL come with our subscription we should not need to pay extra to get the coolest stuff in the game that we already pay for.