30-Day EQ2 Subscription Cards Not For Everyone
Paying for your EQ2 subscription has gotten more flexible over the years, leading many to migrate from providing their credit info to SOE to using 30-day game cards. But before you make the jump, realize there are a few drawbacks to consider:
- First, month-to-month players don’t get the 500SC monthly stipend which is now given to all Gold subscribers.
- Second, to use the in-game Character Transfer Tokens require an account to be on a recurring subscription.
- UPDATE: You can /petition customer service to initiate a Character Transfer.
- Third, if perchance you forget to renew your subscription at the end of the month, instead of receiving e-mails warning you that your subscription is about to run out, you might wake up to find your account at Silver. It could take some time in e-mails, petitions, or on the phone to sort out the problem. We’ve only heard this from 2 players but it’s a potential problem.
- Fourth, prior to the Destiny of Velious release, a variety of rewards were made available to recurring subscribers. Players with 30-day cards eventually won those rewards back, but it didn’t happen overnight.
So if you are on the fence about using a credit card or 30-day cards, think about whether you want the hassle of entering a card number every month, or dealing with the above limitations.
We can only speculate on why month-to-month can be a problem for SOE over the traditional recurring subscription, but spammers, scammers, and farmers are always looking for avenues to separate players and their money through fraud.
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Comments (16)
Dyadem
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I have a feeling that SOE doesn’t have to worry about too many people subbing at this time…
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Fazz
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The good thing about the 30 day cards, is you can buy them for plat. The price has jumped up considerably since AoD has come out, 300 a month ago to 700 a day ago on Permafrost, but it’s better than spending $45 a month (3 subs between me, my wife, and brother). Just gotta be careful since it’s real easy to get scammed out of plat that way. So find someone that has a good rep and stick with them, kinda like a druggie and their drug dealer, so I’ve heard, except in EQ2 you’re just out of plat instead of arrested.
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Dark
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Your second point is actually a little wrong, you just have to petition, CS will flag your account to be able to purchase the token.
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Dark
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Unless that was recently changed, I don’t know why they would do that though. >.<
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Claviarm
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Something that’s never been clear to me–the requirement for character transfers, is it that an account currently be on a recurring subscription that is at least 31 days old, or simply that the account has at some point in the past been subscribed for that length of time?
(You’d think that the latter would be sufficient to establish myself as a real person, but who knows…)
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Jrel
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They seriously need to issue e-mail warnings to members whose subs are about to run out. This has happened to me twice. I zone, and suddenly, I can’t log in; and I’ve been paying annually.
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Isest
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Yes they need to at least fire off a warning email. About 2 months back both my 6 month and the wife’s 6 month sub expired in the middle of a raid, and it took 30 minutes to get it sorted out and back in game. After we logged back in the raid had been called. I was a bit surprised as we had told it to be re-occur. But for some reason due to the hacking thing this year they took out our credit card number.
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XK
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Same issue for me… logged in yesterday and was suddenly silver with no warning or explanation (could not figure out why I suddenly had too many quests and could not adjust my aa slider)
Turns out my 1 year recurring subscription expired, and, because of the F2P change, it did not automatically recur because the billing name changed from subscription to membership.
I’m continuously amazed by how badly SOE handles even the most routine stuff.
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Magar
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I hate to ask, but can I get an official source for the /petition for character transfers? My ‘momentum’ (continuous time subbed) got reset with the merge, and the guys at the billing number told me that they could get my characters transferred (yay!) but only if I went out and purchased SC or sub cards (yes, cards!) to cover the price. I have over 5k SC, but they can’t dip into that. If they’ve changed things so they can dip into my established credit, I’ll be a much happier panda.
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chunk
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There is a thread or two in the account forum that talks about the end of gold subscription not auto renewing and logging in as a silver player.
The CSR rep did a pretty good job of explaining that because the game went F2P the “SKU” on the product had changed and they can’t automatically renew or charger your account for what on paper is a new product.
Several people did point out that once again SOE forgot to warn or let people know about this.
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Green Armadillo
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I haven’t actually tried the Walmart cards (though I know they’re still on store shelves), but these would effectively cancel out the first point – redeem the card for 2000 SC and then use 1500 to pay for your subscription.
They definitely should make sure that it doesn’t take CS intervention to reactivate a lapsed subscription, but I don’t see “non-recurring subscriptions do not recur” as purely a bad thing. If your non-recurring subscription happens to run out at a time when you’re going to be away from your computer for a few days, you can save a buck or two, which adds up over time (insert speculation on “why month-to-month can be a problem for SOE” here).
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mrdillman
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the walmart cards give either 1500sc +500sc bonus or they can be used for a 30day membership plus 500sc bonus….and for the time being my walmart still has them….i can see sony making it so they dont carry them anymore though
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Vortix
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Don’t have a credit score; therefore, don’t have a credit card. I find it depressing that poor people in this world are punished, while those who can easily afford it are rewarded (with interest).
I remember when I was playing EQ1, my parents bought me a recurring sub. After I stopped playing, my father mentioned that he had to cancel the account about a year later and was told by Sony he would not be reimbursed. Never recurring a sub again.
I guess one upside to having a recurring sub on your credit card is that you open yourself up to having your information stolen … /sarc
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Trueflight
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Debit cards are teh way to go. They work just like a CC here in the states anyway. More like a prepaid CC really as you have to have funds in the account to use it, but no credit score required, no interest fees. A great deal if you havent used one before. You can aslo limit how much money that you keep in that account just in case you are worried about security and making online purchases with it.
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Kwill
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Vortix, there are ways to build your credit score, responsibly, even as a young person. You don’t need a lot of money, either. It’s a good thing to look into. As Truflight said, debit cards are very handy, and work just like a credit card. Not that I am a huge fan of WalMart, but they do offer many alternatives for lower income people to establish credit and have a debit type card, if that’s the issue.
One thing about the WalMart SC cards though, I can’t find them in my area. They seem to be hit and miss where they are stocked.
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Rocky
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Thought I’d mention it here for anyone that didn’t notice,
http://www.everquest2.com/news/article?month=current&id=5080
the 17th is triple station cash. So i would say that sc cards are very much so the way to go considering that in game you can get a 3 month sub with sc for 4k sc.(don’t know how much the 6-month or year one is offhand, but it’s assured that it’s a better deal. So pick your poison)
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