Feldon Players have received an e-mail which elaborates on today’s contentious announcement that the 500SC/month allowance will be going away for recurring Gold and All Access customers:
CUSTOMER SERVICE NOTIFICATION
Dear EverQuest II Gold Member,
We regularly evaluate our offerings at SOE to ensure we are consistently delivering great games and products, while also offering exceptional value to our players. Given that we just started a new year it seemed like the perfect time to add more value!
The week of February 3rd, 2014 we will be making a very important change to Gold Membership in EverQuest II. The current benefit of receiving 500 Station Cash (SC) monthly will be replaced with a new benefit that allows you to select one single item valued up to 2000 SC each month. Nearly all items within the games’ Marketplace will be available for this selection. Player Studio items, bundles and additional exclusions may apply. This new benefit must be claimed each month that you are a member as it will not carry over to subsequent months.
We are also excited that Gold Membership now includes:
- 15% More Coin
- 10% More Mount Speed
- Permanent Double Tokens
- Past Expansion Items available for Loyalty tokens (coming the week of January 6th)
We appreciate our customers, especially our valued members, and therefore are excited to bring you this additional value.
Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to seeing you in game soon.
Best,
Sony Online Entertainment LLC
Except that they mentioned most of that back in the production letter so it’s not like it’s any kind of knee-jerk counter to people being upset over the SC loss.
I would much rather have my 500sc thanks. I can save it and spend it as I like, rather than being forced to “use it or lose it.” Then again, include most services, and reduce the prices to be more friendly to us goldies, and it might be alright.
I agree with you, I like having the choice of how I spend my sc. Now the only thing I did lake was double tokens, but they give us one thing and take away something else.
Obviously they are having cash flow problems with the game despite them saying things are healthy. This is a cash grab and forcing folks to buy sc who normally would not.
Just watch prices will go up and the sc prices will be like 2200 for items.
As much complaining as there’s been about losing the 500 SC, this is an example of Sony listening to players. I’ve heard a lot of people (myself included) say that they only subscribed for the double tokens, and would drop gold sub afterwards. Now they secured that playerbase.
Except that they could have kept the double tokens AND the 500sc. They don’t need to be related
I reckon its part of a plan to reduce the SC that we have – possibly for when EQN comes around.
Well, after my six month sub is up, I don’t think I will be subbing again. Also, for some time I have been unsure whether I wanted to do Next….this just made up my mind for me. I have grown weary of their poor choices. Now they have pushed me over the fence and I will not be doing so. Awesome game…one of the best ever…but the management, worst ever. Those in charge should be ashamed of how they’ve conducted themselves. I am truly sad.
I firmly believe that this “double currency” was always meant to be permanent, just like the gold rush promotion from the summertime. It really does seem like the prices in ToV were set with this in mind from the very beginning.
Not to say that I’m complaining about double tokens. Not at all. I just don’t believe for one second that this was done to appease the players upset by the change in SC each month.
In the EQ2Talk podcast, Kander said the gem prices were set with the double token promotion in mind.
So no, this was not done to appease upset players about the 500 SC – double tokens were the plan all along.
The SC change is almost certainly entirely due to EQN.
The last thing SOE wants is people stockpiling SC ‘given away’ in other games rather than directly bought and then when they play EQN they have mountains of SC and thus spend no money on EQN for months/years. Its all down to the global SC system and EQN, mark my ratty wisdom.
Ahem not all of us are going to be playing eq2n, I have no interest in the game that has a cross between tony the tiger and the lion king. I don’t play any other soe games as well. It been years since I had an all access pass, back when I played vanguard and swg. So I think they are expecting everybody to migrate, that will not be the case for me. I would rather go back to work at the police station working a beet patrol on foot.
No i won’t be either, for a range of reasons not least of which I am in Europe and won’t have anything to do with PSS1.
SOE just seem to be reducing ‘unbought’ and bargain SC from all their games and given that EQN is going to be all SC,it seems likely to be a main cause.
This change is about EQN, but not how you think. I seriously doubt SOE is concerned about the additional SC being available to players. What they’re worried about is the massive increase in Player Studio content that will come with the tools in EQN. They will have to pay players for every sale, which means that some of their subscription income will go right back out the door. Player Studio was intended to be a way for SOE to deliver more SC store content that would stimulate the purchase of SC. It was not intended to be a way for subscription revenue to leak out.
Not that I expect for one minute that any decision is going to be changed but I wish they had just separated it by saying. You get SC in EQ2 you spend it in EQ2 problem solved. Possibly having to add somethign in to prevent the free SC from being used on Player Studio. Instead of putting a wall around EQN and Landmark to keep free SC out of it they just take it away all together from everywhere.
I for one could care less about getting one big thing instead of a couple of little things. I’m just excited that I can FINALLY get the old expansion items that I (foolishly) put all on one character and then deleted……. Right before merges were announced, and Blackburrow was merged with Unrest, where all my characters are…… I’ll be glad to have those items back.
It will be interesting to see which items from old expansions. I think most of us are hoping for the dragons and likely don’t care so much about anything else.
That too, hehe 😆
How does this work if you have All Access — one 2000 sc item per game or one 2000 sc item across all games?
NM … I’m a dunderhead.
Per the All Access email, it’s 1 per game (EQ, EQ2, and PS2) and 700 ‘Loyalty’ points for DCUO (which do roll over monthly) each month. All Access VG players are a bit hosed in this regard, but there are a few complaints so it’s being looked into.
So after following 50 or so pages of this on the official forums I PMed this RadarX guy. I am even more outraged by the crappy customer service they have been showing by not really addressing the issue than the bad changes. (I don’t like them, but poor community relations is worse.) It should have been no surprise when he came back with the following when I asked if he would accept crappy service from a company he patronizes:
” To answer your question? For a service I would spend less annually on than the cost of a fast food meal for a family of 3 each month? Yes I would expect this level of service.”
Honestly, this says a lot about where SOE has gone wrong. They can’t hire a Community Manager that even pretend he cares that a large portion of the community is up in arms? It’s one thing for a company to make a mistake, it’s another when they let it rage on too long, and yet worse when their “Community Manager” says that we shouldn’t care about crappy service because we only pay $15 a month for the game.
Sincerely,
Eric
Assuming you were polite in your PM to RadarX, this really is a pretty awful response.
I get that the Community Manager is really the middle guy; he’s stuck spouting the words of the men upstairs, angering the masses below. But surely there’s a better reply than this, even if it’s just a company-approved message.
Under no circumstance is that response acceptable. However, at least you got one. Wasn’t it Dexella who posted something like 5 times on the foums in her whole time of being Community Manager? A word is better than no word at all, I guess.
I don’t think the SC decision was an eq2 or even eq decision. Was it even a SOE decision or higher, still? This may be the price of unifying the pc and console ecosystem.
From a financial perspective SC is a liability the carry that has a cash value. It’s carried across financial years for an indeterminate period. Some may be carried forever since I don’t believe it expires. By doing things as they did it clears the books monthly and works more like a rebate coupon for items with no incremental cost. It’s smart and a win-win if they include services and consumables (and drop service process a bit).
If I’m going to be bashes with SOE decisions I prefer this wet noodle over a sledge hammer.