In a promotion that is sure to confuse more than a few players, I’ve just received an e-mail from SOE for EverQuest II:
If I’m reading this correctly, then all EQ2 players with inactive accounts (no idea what qualifies as inactive but presumably a few months without logging into EQ2) are being temporarily granted All Access membership until November 10th, 2014, as well as receiving two 4 hour 100% XP potions and one 2 hour 50% Group XP potion just for logging in in the next 14 days.
This promotion looks to expire the night before the Altar of Malice expansion launches — if you are a paying All Access subscriber. At this point, you can decide if All Access is worth it to you and go ahead and sign up, thus being able to play the expansion early, rather than waiting until November 25th!
this sounds more like a philish to me
However does not seem to work on accounts that are Silver which correct me if I am wrong means little to nothing anymore. It’s not a huge deal but I think it’s kind of BS that Silver accounts are not included.
I am wondering if this is really working and if so when. I have logged in twice today and have not seen anything on either of my already all access accounts.
Is anyone else worried this will glitch and mess up present
all access accounts somehow?
So current all-access don’t get the potions?
I want potions
And the people that are already ALL ACCESS get what? Hopefully two weeks of free subscription.
Don’t know, but have not seen anything like this in my email and certainly not seeing anything like this on live.
“If I’m reading this correctly, then all EQ2 players are…”
If you were reading that correctly, then you would have noticed that the e-mail was addressed directly to “morganfeldon”, not “all EQ2 players”. 😉
This is a promotion to help bring players back to the game. The message went out to many players who have been on a vacation from Norrath. Check your e-mails!
*blink*
EQ2Wire — Demystifying confusing e-mail blasts and vague crap sent by Marketing since 2008. 😉
This response comes off a bit rude for someone who is supposed to be interacting with the players.
Remember, it’s YOUR e-mail that went out that didn’t adequately explain the promotion. If something like this were announced with the details, there wouldn’t be any confusion to begin with.
She’s pointing out the obvious, which can make some people feel silly or ashamed. She couldn’t possibly be more polite in her response.
An e-mail goes out to some players but not others. Did they really think we wouldn’t compare notes and wonder WTF is going on or where our e-mails went?
Given SOE’s history, it is not outside the realm of possibility that SOE’s servers are glitching out and only some of us got the e-mail while the rest are stuck in a queue or the DB got corrupted. It should not be up to players to go on a treasure hunt or make assumptions or guesses about what’s happening.
The e-mails should have said something to the effect of “It looks like you haven’t logged into EQ2 for a while. Come back in the next 2 weeks and enjoy All Access privileges on us, plus some XP potions.” Simple. Transparent.
Instead of clearly communicating with players, I get a snarky comment questioning my ability to read.
I’m truly sorry if you took the comment as “snarky”! Honestly, I think that’s the first time anyone has accused me of being snarky 🙁 Especially given our history, I’m surprised you took it that way : / I was just pointing out that it appears to be a direct mail offer in an effort to bring players back to game.
As always, I’m happy to read all of your feedback about this promotion and report suggestions. There doesn’t seem to be a large discussion about this in the Official Forums, so I’m here to find out what you guys think 🙂
I guess this is the problem of text communication — intent and emotion can be lost. I was surprised by what I perceived as a very negative response. I enjoyed hanging out at SOE Live and you are awesome so I’ll just take this as a limitation of the format.
I do think we’re better off than in past years where people who quit the game got even more stuff that sometimes consistent subscribers didn’t get.
If you truly want honest feedback it’s great you’re doing something to market the new expansion to old players in an effort to get people back but at the same time, as a subscriber, it’s like…you’re doing all of this for players who no longer play the game, what about people who pay $15 a month to play the game? 25% bonus XP and bonus etyma is nice, but all the other F2P MMO’s give you 15-25% bonus XP for subscribing (not an event like SOE does), and etyma is going to be replaced with a new currency in two weeks. It’s like you have a market plan in place for new players and players who don’t play anymore which is great for them and I don’t want to discourage SOE from ever marketing EQ2 to those players, but what about marketing the game to current subscribers?
Old players get 2 weeks of all access for free and potions and the 25% bonus and bonus etmya since they’ll be subscribers and all current subscribers get is 25% bonus XP and bonus of a currency that will be worthless in two weeks. I feel like, sometimes you forget people pay $15 a month to play your games, but that’s something SOE has always done so it’s nothing new. But I’d really like to see that change.
I must have an issue reading too then because I’m failing to see where it is obvious in that e-mail. No where does it state who this promotion is aimed at.
Wow Dev, you just never stop.
Afista is a nice person. I can’t imagine her getting snarkey. o.0 Poor gal is having to put up with all of us as the new employee at SOE. She’s holding up remarkably well, IMHO. ^_^ I’d have snapped long ago, having to deal with people at all. >.>
That’s cool. What about players who are already subscribed to the game? How come we don’t get potions?
It’s like past marketing promotions: Quitters win.
I mean, I get they want to market EQ2 right now with the new expansion coming out but how come all access members don’t get anything? I’d love XP pots on the three accounts I subscribe with. I won’t even go into the free all-access membership they get for 2 weeks…
We’re coming to the end of a month-long all-access bonus event for xp and currency and you’re feeling neglected and lacking in 4 hours worth of bonuses?
That’s not the point. If SOE is going to reward players who no longer play in a marketing effort to get players to come back (which is great and is not the point of my complaint) then they need to balance that and offer something to people who currently subscribe. 25% bonus XP doesn’t really cut it especially when if you investigate other F2P MMO’s out there, they automatically give you bonus XP when you subscribe – not some kind of event like SOE does.
Actually I thought All Access got permanent 25% XP Bonus.
Nope. It’s an event. Would be nice if we did though.
It is an event. It was reported here back on the 6th. Members also get the xp and status weekends. As always, we’re getting regular content updates for everyone.
As for who qualifies, it’s any account where membership hasn’t been applied. I have an account I log regularly and it has the bonus.
forget that last bit. :p
Wife and I have many accounts, we only got the email on the accounts we don’t use very often. The accounts we use all the time didn’t get the offer, so this is only for in-active accounts and active accounts didn’t get the perk.
Wonder why SOE didn’t make this for everyone….
What was the subject line of the email? Trying to see if I have one across a dozen emails (no idea what one I left on my SOE account last I used it)
nope, no email for me, been “gone” almost 2 years.
i wonder if its because i “login” to the patcher on computer reboot, but never actually start the game. that would suck.
Think I’d rather play a game that appreciates the loyalty I’ve shown for 15+ years over some quitter.
Don’t forget to log in old recruit-a-friend accounts to claim LON cards, if you are into house items. I’m looking up old account info. XD
I’m so confused with SOE marketing. o.0 The people who are still active and spend a bit of SC here and there COULD be getting a couple weeks of all-access to enjoy, which doubles as a taste of all access that will disappear, leaving them with a taste for broker access, grandmasters, boney currencies, etc… What better add campaign is there than that? o.0 Not to mention , as an all access member, I would certainly not object to a bit of time added to my account. (but I also wouldn’t object to not getting the extra time, but it still doesn’t make sense not to give FTP a free sample every year or so.) Little treats to reward the loyal won’t break the bank, will curry a little loyalty, and could have been enjoyed by all, possibly resulting in more subscribers from the FTP players that enjoy it.
Instead the loyal get the cold shoulder again. o.0 so very very strange… not as strange as the CE price/lack of sale/less stuff… but still strange. o.0
Dear SOE marketing. Drugs are bad, mmmkayy?
Great, lets reward people who aren’t even playing and continue to take for granted the people who have never stopped paying.
Every day I question myself more as to why we pay for four accounts. Especially with snarky responses from SOE staff. Clearly they know we are being jerked around so they come out defensively.
Aren’t people always complaining about wanting more people on the servers and finding more people to play with? It looks as if this is an attempt to actually bring people back to game, which is a good thing! It’s nothing new either. SOE has done it before and Blizzard does it all the time as well. It’s pretty standard to try and bring back players.
What is shocking is how people are complaining about it! Honestly, these are probably the same people who complain that there’s not enough people playing. Complainers always complain. Quit whining people! Seriously, is it worth getting your knickers in a knot over 2 XP potions in an attempt to bring you more people to play with?! That’s just silly.
People are always upset about “win-back” programs that give out big rewards to people who quit the game, while giving loyal customers nothing.
Things have actually gotten a lot better in this regard though. Players now get loyalty rewards for playing and logging in and doing missions. Also, the “win-back” this time is fairly tame with just a few XP potions. Compare this to the past where people who quit the game got ridiculous amounts of free stuff for coming back. It was embarrassing what people got.
It’s a marketing attempt to bring back old players…nothing wrong with this…not sure how many of those players would return…and in some cases it would be existing players with old cancelled secondary accounts they no longer play or subscribe to.
This really sucks as my son logged in after years of off 1 day before the promotion began and doesn’t get it. 🙁
Its seems like this would be an ideal promotion for all players who aren’t subscribed. Give them All Access up to the day before the expansion is released. Hopefully, they realize how much fun EQ2 can be, they resub, buy the expansion, and we all benefit from more players.
i got welcome back promotion email. and logged in.. but nothing to cliam..
bah.. SOE liar!!!!
Ahh… working as intended.
I was thinking of coming back after being gone since January but sadly no email here either. Maybe one will arrive later
So feldon doesnt play eq2 he just runs and posts on his website about it?
I’m sure some people believe that. I readily admit I didn’t play much of Sentinel’s Fate. This site was not as good as a result.
He also runs EQ2U – I’d say the guy is the biggest EQ2 fan there is even if he doesn’t play much but then again, who could find time to play having to manage EQ2Wire and EQ2U?
Don´t know which accounts are being targetet.
For job related purposes i had to quit Eq2 during ToV back in March, but ididnt receive a “Welcome back” email so far.
I planned to return to eq2 for the upcoming expansion anyways no matter what.
Well I haven’t logged in in months and when I did so today I wasn’t one of the targeted players. Oh well I’ll stay silver until the expac comes out.