SmokeJumper Answers Questions about All/Station Access, EQ2X Platinum, SC Pre-orders, and Character Slots
Feldon SmokeJumper has answers for four of the biggest questions regarding the changes announced this week with EverQuest II becoming a Free-to-Play game rather than having a separate EQ2X service.
Okay, folks,
We promised you answers to four big questions that kept coming up on the forums yesterday. (We promised info by early next week, but we’re ready with the info now, so here ya go.)
1) Will current EQ2X Platinum subscribers get “Age of Discovery” for free?
The answer is “yes”. Platinum users technically only get “Destiny of Velious” as part of their membership, but we do remember the conversations that occurred before launch where we had talked about *possibly* giving expansions for free to Platinum. We understand why people think they should be getting AoD for free, and we are “doing the right thing” by making that happen.
However, “Age of Discovery” is the last expansion that will be given for free to Platinum members because we are now discontinuing the Platinum service after this. But enjoy!2) Will Freeport (EQ2X) players be eligible for Veteran Rewards after the change?
The answer is “yes”. In fact, if you played on Live and EQ2X both, we are merging your histories together to ensure that you do not lose any veteran status. So if you used to play on Live, but now play only on EQ2X, you will still get veteran rewards based on your Live duration as well as your EQ2X one. (NOTE: These are not cumulative. If you were playing Live at the same time as EQ2X, then you only get credit for one service against time for vet rewards.)
3) Do recurring subscriptions get a 500SC bonus grant per month?
The answer is “yes”. All durations of recurring Gold memberships (1-, 3-, 6-, and 12-month) get 500SC granted to them each month. (NOTE: This is a perk for recurring memberships only. Non-recurring memberships do not get this grant.)
4) Character slots. There are several situations that people have asked about. Here are all the answers at once:
Do I keep my character slots after the changeover?
The answer is “yes”. If you paid for it on the marketplace, we don’t take it away. You keep all character slots.If I was grandfathered in with the Station Access extra character slots when Station Access was changed [to All Access] last year, do I still keep those extra (grandfathered) slots?
The answer is “yes”.If I was playing on EQII Live *and* on EQ2X, and have tons of characters on both servers, what happens when the conversion occurs and all my characters are visible on the character selection screen all at once?
This answer is a bit more complicated, and I’ll explain, but the answer is “We’re giving you extra character slots to compensate.” Here are the details on this. Please read them carefully.
- 1. Everything you read below pertains *only* to characters that existed on your accounts on 11/10/2011. Characters created later than that date are *not* included in this solution.
- 2. This solution *only* pertains to players that have characters on *both* a Live server *and* EQ2X.
- 3. That being said, here’s how it works: You have a number of characters on Live. You have a number of characters on EQ2X. Total those two numbers together. This is your total number of characters. Now subtract from that value, the total number of character slots that purchased for your account on both EQII Live and EQ2X. Now, further subtract seven from that value. (Seven is the base number of slots that a Gold membership grants you by default.) The resulting value is the number of character slots that we will grant you for free so that you can still access and play all of your characters. Make sense? (There’s an example below, in #4, for clarity.
4. Example of #3 : Bob has 11 characters on Antonia Bayle (purchased four character slots) and 8 characters on Freeport (purchased one character slot). The total number of characters is 19. The total character slots purchased is 5. (19 – 5 – 7 = 7) So Bob will receive seven new character slots on his account on the day of conversion so that he can access all 19 of his characters without further purchase.
Also in another thread, SmokeJumper answered about pre-ordering Age of Discovery with StationCash:
AoD will not be available for pre-order via SC. Basically, because if someone pre-orders, but then spends all the SC in their wallet, it makes billing a confusing mess, and SOE really hates the idea of ever getting into a “bill collector” mentality with players trying to chase down debts owed. That’s just negative all around.
AoD will be available through the Market Place, but do they plan to offer the different features separately?
Smokejumper’s post is the first I’ve heard of the third point, and I’ve been assuming he was confused and talking about Platinum EQ2X accounts. If all EQ2 subs will now get 500 SC every month, that’s actually a huge change, and it’s shocking that they aren’t advertising it. With the option to pay SC for the sub, it would effectively be buy three months, get one free (or you could apply the cash to expansions, DLC in DCUO, or whatever else you spend SC on).
As to the character slot change, are those slots permanent, or temporary and tied to the character that was occupying them as of Nov 10th? E.g. I have 7 EQ2 Live characters and 4 EQ2X characters. If I’m reading right, I will be granted four slots to ensure that I can access all 11 characters with the gold sub (which would ordinarily grant only 7 slots). If I then want to delete a character to make a new one, do I have to delete one character (freeing up one slot), or five (because my account is supposed to have seven slots and I need to get down to six before there’s an empty one)?
I cannot for the life of me understand why the whole community is not kicking off big time about the fact that eq2x platinum players are getting AoD for free despite that fact that anyone that has played from launch has handed SOE a massive amount of cash for each expansion, adventure pack and subscription.
As an EQ2X platinum player (I also have a “live” sub as well) – The benefits that were listed to entice us to become platinum in the first place were:
500 SC allotment per month AND access to the “latest” expansion content. Now with that being said, they said this way before they made plans to take EQ2 F2P across the game—but they understand that to be an honest and honorable company, they have to abide by that “perceived” promise of the “latest” expansion content. Having said that, I am guessing they probably went to their legal department and asked if AOD would fall under this classification since EQ2X will officially be no more. Their legal department probably told them, technically you might be able to get away with charging the platinum subscribers for it but it would ultimately be up to a judge’s determination if anyone (though I can’t imagine anyone would ever do such a thing) ever took you to court for “false or misleading advertising.” In the end, I think they made the choice in order to keep “good faith” with those of us who are platinum subscribers and they know it should not be an issue that arises again as our subscription model will be obsolete the next time they choose to release an expansion.
In terms of SOE’s reply to my petition, confirmed when I asked for clarity on the matter, I’ll need to buy 19 character slots on my main account to keep all my characters. This is completely opposite to SJ’s point 3 above.
Daffodil:
CS reps don’t get an instant brain download when policies change. 🙂 it takes time for a policy shift to trickle out.
EQ2X Platnium Players get the expansion for free???? WHF is this croc of SHI*. I have been playing the origional game since launch, never a break, never a pause, $15 a month every month for 7 years, I have bought every expansion. And this is the thanks I get? that the extended service (the newbies) that have not put in their loyalty are getting this for free??? I DEMAND an explanation! I am FURIOUS! I am half tempted to book a ticket to Cali so that Dave can tell me to my face that my loyalty means squat to him. and that the veteran players of this game such as my self can FUC* OFF! cause that is what his actions are telling me. So I want it clarified so at least we know.
You were not promised anything for paying the sub, SoE charged $200 for a specific service and promised future expansions for free.
@Avianna : i was a subscriber of live for some time and paid for the various expansion.
When EQ2Ex came out, platinum sub was more expensive than live subscription but you get 500SC plus expansion free. Platinum are in fact paying before the expansion is released. I dont think this is unfaire at all compared to live sub.
about the character slots: I see that, according to this post, I will have all 12 of my characters SLOTS available, but what about the characters themselves? I have been playing EQ2for 6 years. Only recently playing EQ2X cuz of the economy crunch. I love that I will be able to play wit my friend again, but will I have to pay to unlock my arasai warden (yrs old, lvl 90 main or my froglok templar or my dark elf necro? Or will my old characters be available in the slots they will be given?
@Jisca: I believe that unless you unlock or re-subscribe at the gold level that your arasai warden, froglok templar and dark elf necro will be unplayable due to the fact that neither dark elf, arasai, nor froglok race or necro or warden classes are currently available to free players.