Feldon 
On Wednesday, a number of players noticed that their Silver or expired EQ2 accounts had been temporarily upgraded to Gold. This turns out to be part of a Winback promotion that is granting players 15 days of Gold subscription to come back and try out EQ2 again. We’ve read through the announcement and broken this Promo down:
Former EverQuest II players!
Get in the game now and take advantage of FREE GOLD MEMBERSHIP time from 12/19/12 – 1/3/13*.
Also, enjoy a FREE Adventurer’s Welcome Pack gift just for getting back into the game.
15 Days of Gold and Welcome Pack
Players who return during the 15 day window get the following:
Gold Membership until January 3, 2012
Adventurer’s Welcome Pack (a $29 value)
- (1) An Additional Character Slot
- (2) Superior Potions of the Advanced
To claim, click the EQII button in-game and select the Claim Rewards option. Click the Promotions tab and select the EQII Adventurer’s Pack.
Re-Subscribe and Get a Prize
Players who elect to sign up for Gold Membership before January 3, 2013 will also get to choose one (1) of these special items:
- Blood Saber Corrupter Armor Crate
- Arcane Academy Deed of Ownership
- Magical Storm Whistle
Once you have reactivated a Gold subscription, click the EQII button in-game and select the Claim Rewards option. Select the Committed Adventurer’s Treasure and click the Claim button. When you unpack the crate in your inventory, you’ll be able to choose the reward.
NOTE: This item will not be granted until two days after the promotional period ends.
Commentary
SOE has received flack in the past for being too generous with its Winback programs and not sharing rewards with players who have maintained a consistent membership for years.
- Do you plan to come back for the 15 days Gold program?
- Are you considering re-subscribing at the Gold level?
- Should there have been rewards for players who have maintained a Gold subscription?
if they are serious about winning back some people, give silver accounts access to legendary and master crafted items without needing unlockers.
“Should there have been rewards for players who have maintained a Gold subscription?”
No, SoE should continue to make their gold users feel unwanted, I foresee absolutely nothing bad resulting from that stupidity.
Past year all of my subscriptions have been covered by plat i give to people selling off Station cash.
I don’t mind them doing this. I’m not going to get antsy that some returning players are getting to choose some trinket off of station cash.
My biggest concern lies in how SoE’s marketing is setting up the stage to have no audiences attend. It’s like how they promote EQ/EQ2 expansions. They keep it in the dark and you literally have to scavenge for any remote amount of information, and its usually a week before the release of the expansion.
But a winback program usually is a tall tale signs of declining subscription base. I’m sure a lot that left EQ2 the past two years haven’t given much thought or notice that a new expansion is out.
I think this is heavily exaggerated statement. In fact, you got it the other way around. It’s Silver players who are unwanted in almost all regards in the game.
@ Honk
It may just be built up distrust for SoE after all the lies they’ve told us over the years or maybe it’s them completely ignoring feedback and pushing known broken content live for no reason, but I certainly don’t feel like SoE really cares about my $15/month right now or the games health.
Now that I just heard about this, I may install it on my new rig to see how it looks. And who knows? Maybe it will suck me in again, though it didn’t last time I subbed for a month, so…. we’ll see.
I’ll log in to claim the items since part of me still holds out hope that EQ2 will recapture my interest, but I don’t plan to actually play during this period. (I never felt that subscribing was necessary anyway, so little is actually different for me.)
Maybe, they should give the FTP below Silver level a free upgrade to Silver? To see if this can encourage them to spend their money with SOE.
My opinion is simple, they want players to return so they offer some gadget to appeal to them, spend money on ads and promotions, offer them free game time, etc… <— A bunch of BS when it comes to long term win back
The real way to "win back" customers and keep them is to take care of the ones you have. work closely with the testers, beta players, and interact with them to insure content is not buggy BEFORE it goes live, let us see you in game like we used to. We used to know the devs and their specialties and interact daily with them. Now it is a ghost town. You don't know if you are not being heard or if you are being heard and the devs just don't have the time resources etc, or if the devs simply don't give a damn. There was a time in this game when you put in a petition (stuck character for example)and you would have a toon in game answering that petition personally in 30 seconds. and the toon would see your situation and "pull you out of the sinkhole" and it was fun, it was interactive, it was engaging, and it made the frustrating times when something was buggy into something I can tell my friends about, and THAT word of mouth advertising is more valuable than a 30 second Superbowl commercial. That is how you win back your customers.
2nd put the product on the shelf where the general public sees it. the digital only is killing you because lots of people are like "Everquest? What's that?"
as an interesting side note, I logged in to see, and for some reason I have an extra 7000SC that i didn’t have when I left.
Oh, and it seems like they botched the application of this promotion. The fine print says it’s for accounts that were subscribed between certain dates, but my secondary account which has never been subscribed is included, while my partner’s account which should be included is not.
Bah, my 2nd account is a silver account, logged in and I’m STILL on a Silver account, no gold upgrade for me. Humbug SOE!!!
My answer is why not, those of us who kept a subscription running for years and years. All one can hope is they stop trying to make loyal subscribers unhappy, buy doing stupid stuff.
nope i got sick of the lies soe told.i wont come back see how desperate they are though?
You still around Saci?
If SoE really wants to win back players, they need to look at how things are working in the rest of the market. Get rid of the stupid subsciption fees all together and go to a “buy the game, play for free” plan like all the other games are doing now. Heck Planetside 2 was free to get, free to play, and is one of their most profitable games ever according to Smed. Why can’t they learn from their own game models?
Myself and several friends have been playing during the “Winback” campaign and are enjoying our time. That being said to commit to a subscription we all agree we would like access to the Mercenaries, Tradeskill Apprentices and the new Beastlord class. I am willing to cough up the $15 bucks for the subscription fee and another $20 for AOD but I’m not paying full price for a year old expansion which has already been superseded by a more current one. I will pay $35 but not paying $55, may seem like an arbitrary line to draw but there you have it. As others have said, too many other gaming options available for far less cost.
I’m came back for the free 15 days but do not intend to re-sub. Far too many other games out now that offer more for their F2P model.
If they reduced some of the restrictions on F2P (such as spells and equipment locks) then I would still be playing EQ2.
I agree with Avianna about people having no idea what EQ and EQ2 is let alone EQNext. On the flip side people are complaining about the treatment of players on EQ2 restrictions for some accounts. Lets take a look at the retrictions at the competitor WoW (World of Warcraft). That game is either free or pay there is no inbetween.
These are the restrictions for their “free” accounts:
Here is the link to read it for yourself:
https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/world-of-warcraft-starter-edition-account-faq
Now I am no fan of defending SoE and have come to mistrust them over the years over many issues, but I am not complaining about what I am offered in EQ2 compared to a game many people know about what you say it’s name (WoW).