Feldon 
Launched September 5, 2007, Legends of Norrath began Sony Online Entertainment’s love affair with online trading card games. With solo and multiplayer game scenarios, players were encouraged to buy LoN card packs to build decks and play to complete achievements and for bragging rights. Gameplay took its cues from its real-life counterpart Magic the Gathering, although with Legends of Norrath, no physical cards were sent out — everything is virtual.
To ensure that Legends of Norrath was always just one click away, LoN was integrated with the EverQuest and EverQuest II game clients. To further drive sales, desirable “loot cards” were added to LoN card packs which would award a powerful or popular item in EverQuest or EverQuest II. Legends of Norrath was known for its interesting and sometimes whimsical art style and, if you can get over the giant logo, produced a number of nice Wallpapers.
Although Legends of Norrath hasn’t received an expansion card set in several years, and even though the Legends of Norrath forums were shuttered without warning despite being actively used by LoN players, it had retained a small but dedicated group of players. With the announcement two weeks ago that Legends of Norrath Loot Cards would become available for purchase from the Marketplace, the handwriting may have been on the wall. Some might have expected Legends of Norrath to be sunsetted years ago. But despite occasionally being a thorn in the side of Operations who had to keep the game working, it apparently it was still earning enough revenue to justify its existence, until today.
From the EQ2 Forums:
For the past nine years, EverQuest and EverQuest II players have interacted with the world of Norrath through the Legends of Norrath Trading Card Game. Many of you have enjoyed its art, its strategic gameplay, and hopefully found that elusive Loot card granting one of our cool in game items.
Legends of Norrath has not had an active development team for quite some time and in the best interest of our company and players, we have made the difficult decision to close the servers on Wednesday, August 17, 2016 at Noon Pacific Time.
Purchasing Legends of Norrath booster packs and the monthly All Access Membership claim of Legends of Norrath booster packs will no longer be available after Monday, July 18, 2016 at 10AM Pacific Time.
All loot rewards and packs in the Legends of Norrath client will need to be open and claimed on your character prior to when the servers close to ensure that your loot rewards are available in EverQuest and EverQuest II.
We know some of you are extremely enthusiastic about some of the items that were previously introduced in the Legends of Norrath TCG packs. These loot rewards will continue to be available to players through other means. Look to the Marketplace for packs which give an opportunity for rewards from previous LON sets.
We appreciate your understanding and continued support.
After Legends of Norrath, SOE/Daybreak added two other Trading Card Games — Star Wars Galaxies and FreeRealms and we even saw printed cards produced. These games were closed years ago though…
In other news, PlanetSide 1 is closing on July 1st. The support forums for PlanetSide were closed when the Daybreak sale happened.
Any chance you can find out if the “open and claimed on your character” means your LON rewards currently listed on your EQ2 /claim or just that you have to have claimed them within the LON client?
I too need to know this urgently, I have _lots_ of stuff redeemed in LON but sitting waiting to be /claimed on my account in EQ2, mostly cos I kept forgetting to /claim it when on the right alt :/
On the forums, RadarX confirmed that it only needs to be in your /claim (moved from LoN to EQ/EQII):
RadarX: “As LON will no longer be available it will be imperative you claim any of your loot to the game of your choice before it’s closure. Once it’s in the games there shouldn’t be an issue.”
And in response to a request for clarification:
RadarX: “Yes they must be in your claim window. Legends of Norrath will no longer be available to claim them so they must be moved to one of those games by the closure date.”
(Folks have been pointing out that the confusion comes from using the word “claim”; in LoN, it’s “redeem”.)
Source: http://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/legends-of-norrath-closure-notification.570660
Once it’s in your eq1/eq2 /claim box, it’s safe. You just need to make sure you’ve redeemed it in LON to get it to your /claim box in EQ1/Eq2.
I didn’t catch it the first I read it either saber, but when I re-read it, it does state that its the loot rewards within the LON client:
Well blast. I knew this was headed our way, just makes me mad yet another perk taken away from us gold members. I wonder what they are going to do to compensate us for the loss of the long cards. We used to get 5 packs, We should get extra dbc coins not to replace the loss of the fee cards. Just my thoughts.
I’d be happy with a monthly free LON loot lottery item from the marketplace instead of the five packs. Or some number of them that’s similar to the value of five packs. 🙂
Aye, I’d like that – my chance of loot would increase significantly, although I’ll probably end up with hundreds of the same painting all over again LOL
Seconded! I’m still chasing the special rent-free deeds…
As far as I can tell, jack squat.
Sure LON will not be there, so the 5 free packs won’t exist, nor the game to play them in… but honestly… who claimed their free packs for the cards? I just wanted the houses, honestly. XD
But yah, the incentives to be a subscriber would be nice to keep at value. Maybe a free loot crate in game each month? (Yah, keep dreaming… I know.)
I suspect there are a number of us that claimed them in the off chance we could get one of the “insert rare” loot cards here.
I claimed them for the pictures, and the odd chance at getting a free house, and I had several of those. So to me there was value even thought it was hard to get.
@sabershadowkat I would think that “opened and claimed” would be ‘available in the EQ2 client’ on the /claim window, since it’s already in EQ2 as an asset. You wouldn’t want it sitting in LoN when that server goes down, as they’ll disappear.
Would like to be very wrong, but little things like this point to the housekeeping/repackaging done to a company before it’s resold. Give or take around the two year mark.
Of course this can be completely wrong. After all Jason Epstein, a Columbus Nova Senior Managing Partner, bought/owns Harmonix (Guitar Hero). A property that’s ongoing with him since 2010.
Then again check on the state of Columbus Nova’s other property, Chat Republic Games.
Daybreak Games 2017 should be interesting.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/02/02/sony-online-entertainment-sold-to-investment-firm-now-daybreak-game-company
“Sony Online Entertainment, newly rebranded as Daybreak, is a great addition to our existing portfolio of technology, media and entertainment focused companies. We see tremendous opportunities for growth with the expansion of the company’s game portfolio through multi-platform offerings as well as an exciting portfolio of new quality games,” said Jason Epstein, Senior Partner of Columbus Nova, in a press release. “The recent Early Access launch success of H1Z1 is just one testament to the talent and dedication of the studio’s developers to create great online gaming experiences.”
February 2015
http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/4/28/8503731/daybreak-games-sony-online-entertainment-history-future
“Cynicism is easy, and a cynic could look at public proclamations about making games “with ambition and passion to inspire and bring together lasting communities” and feel their eyes roll out of their heads. “We take our relationship with our players and each other seriously,” another part of its multi-part mission statement reads. “The conversation is open and focused on the pulse of our players and of the industry.”
But speaking with those behind Daybreak, that idea of embracing communities — building roofs — feels sincere. It’s what Daybreak thinks is right, for its business, for its employees, for its games, for its communities.
The strategy is nothing new. Of course, it’s practical, too. Daybreak makes games that demand dedicated communities. If it fails to serve its players, it will be no more. But Daybreak’s leaders really do seem to believe that measuring success is more than just making games. Building communities around its games is an extension of how Daybreak sees the world and how it understands its place in it.”
April 2015
https://hbr.org/1998/11/how-venture-capital-works
“The idea is to invest in a company’s balance sheet and infrastructure until it reaches a sufficient size and credibility so that it can be sold to a corporation or …”
The frightening term “chop shop” comes to mind, has ever since SOE was bought. I’m actually surprised we’ve lasted this long. Kinda had my hopes up EQ would be the “kept heifer” XD Still do have a little bit of hope… but not going to set my hopes to high with this “$20 worth of product priced at $350/$400” nonsense. That screams desperation. 😥
Going forward I think the most practical thing any of us can do is limit the amount of money we spend on EQ2. If I continue to play I am going to stop all marketplace purchases and pay my sub on a month to month wait and see basis.
It’s sad seeing so many games sunsetting the past couple of years.
Even though I was never a fan of LoN, I gotta say that I would have done the complete opposite. I would be promoting the game right now if I was DBG. Card based games seem to be the latest craze right now. Every since Hearthstone came out. But then again DBG/SOE was never very good in the advertising department.
It is a game from a different era.
It came out to compete with MTG (which still doesn’t have good online play), and the WoW TCG and as such is more complicated slower game with strongly developed resources. It is generally boring to watch and takes a while.
It was also hampered by having people pay physical card pack prices for virtual cards.
Hearthstone has packs for like a dollar, faster more spectacle based game play and similar.
I wonder if we are just going to lose forever all of the customer rewards that were given out at the higher ends of the early mission chain things. The arasi dreams painting and golden cockatrice come to mind as examples.
It would be nice if they added them as purchasable but I expect they will just disappear only to be available to those that either worked hard or got luck enough to get them..
Bah, custom rewards even…
More ‘gambling boxes’ if anything..
They can always offer them for 100 bucks a pop!!
Damn. Now I’ll never get that key to the Secret Treasure Zone.
This was poorly managed from the beginning. It would have been a cash cow if it added relevant in game loot instead of stupid fluff crap.
Typical Sony / Daybreak fail. No surprise here.
“Relevant game loot”?
If LoN rewarded raid quality gear, I’d have deleted EQ2 and never looked back. The uproar was huge when they awarded items almost as good as Ward of Elements x2 gear.
If you have to put powerful items in game B to manipulate people to pay game A, game A sucks.