Feldon
Is it time to just rip off the Band-Aid™ and be done with it? Unannounced in this week’s additions to the StationCash Marketplace were the addition of in-game merchant-bought arrows (no great shakes compared to woodworker-made ones) to the StationCash Marketplace. When prompted on the EQ2 Forums, EQ2 Senior Producer Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson had this response: They’re just the basic arrows you can get from merchants. It’s a convenience thing for folks that run out of arrows in the field. and later in a similar topic in the Tradeskills forum: It’s pure convenience. Some players are willing to spend...
free-to-play
Dethdlr
SmokeJumper just announced some changes to the bronze level chat channel restirctions on the EQ2X Forums: As of Tuesday, October 5th, the chat restrictions for Bronze players will be eased somewhat. Bronze players will now be able to *see* the chat that’s occurring in broadcast chat channels (like /auction, /Level 1-9, etc.). However, they will still be unable to *send* chat in those channels. In theory, this allows Bronze players to hear what’s going on in the world, and opens up a huge pool of potential customers for Silver and Gold players that are /auctioning items in chat. (Bronze players...
EQ2X is no longer in beta. From the ashes of the EQ2 Live servers comes the newly launched F2P server. At least that’s what seems to be implied by the free “Staff of the Rising Phoenix” available for a limited time on the EQ2X server. From Everquest2.com: It’s official! SOE has removed BETA from the logo and is proud to announce the official launch of EverQuest II Extended. To celebrate the launch, EQ2X players can claim their free Staff of the Rising Phoenix from the in-game Marketplace on the Freeport server. The staff is an appearance-only item, depicting a...
Starseeker
Everquest2 Extended has launched into beta. I was curious to see what a new person to Everquest2 would see. When you first go to Everquest2, you do get two options, just as we were told:
Sorry for blurry pics. Here’s what I got. I also recorded the first part on video, but didn’t get the Q&A. 🙁
It seems inevitable that most conversations over the coming Fan Faire weekend will now somehow be tinged by Free-to-Play’s arrival in the EQ2 universe. I predict that Free-to-Play will be the elephant in the room that everyone is talking about. Even in SOE’s other active and in-development games. Even in other MMOs by other developers. Enthusiastic players who take the future profitability of EQ2 seriously have barely had a word to say about the basic concept of Free-to-Play, but have instead focused their concerns on it’s implementation, and how SOE’s choices may very well lead to a fracturing of...
Starseeker is another new contributor to EQ2Wire and wanted to share a viewpoint on the aftermath of EQ2’s F2P announcement. This is my commentary on Free to Play. I have to get it off my chest. EverQuest 2 is an old game, 6 years, that is a long time for an MMO. I have been playing this game since launch. I remember the days when you would have spirit shards, and experience debt that would take away XP instead of just give you a % penalty. I remember when your guild could lose levels, and when there was heroic...
So far we’ve had over 550 responses to our EQ2Wire EverQuest II Extended (F2P) Survey and we’d like to share the results with you! We asked for your initial impressions of the new F2P service, whether you would move either a primary or secondary characters to the service, what effect you think it will have on the game, and finally whether you would recommend such a service to new players. We now know that the 14 day Free Trial will be going away, and the Recruit-a-Friend service will be receiving some type of revamp or nerf going forward. New...
There has been a lot of anger towards the new Free-to-Play service. Not the least of which has been from players currently on existing servers that continue to struggle with lag. Thus far, we’ve heard that Free-to-Play will be launching with one server initially from an existing stock of decommissioned servers, with other servers to follow, possibly old EQ2 servers as they are upgraded to new hardware. In mid August, the Antonia Bayle and Nagafen worlds will find themselves within the comfy confines of a brand new server.
TenTonHammer has landed another exclusive interview with Dave Georgeson on EQ2’s new Free-to-Play service. You can read it here.
The EverQuest II Extended (Free-to-Play) Servers are now online and ready for Alpha testing. You may immediately start playing EverQuest II on the E2E server here. The EverQuest II Extended (Free-to-Play) Service also has its own independent Support Forums launching today.
There will be a lot of reactions in the coming days in response to the announcement. I’ve been surprised how many have had positive reactions to the speculation here and on EQ2Flames who think F2P on a separate server, or for levels 1-50 are a good idea to bring in new players and then convert them to a Subscription account. And no doubt there are many who feel that any opportunity for people to “buy” progress threatens the moral center of character advancement in this game. We’ve got a survey here on EQ2Wire that you may like to fill...
Where there’s smoke, sometimes there really is a fire. During a Stratics E3 interview in June, Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, then-new Senior Producer for EverQuest II was asked point blank: Will EverQuest II would be transitioning to a F2P setup as Lord of the Rings Online did in June? His response has been thoroughly dissected and analyzed: The current subscription model isn’t going to change. The people that are playing the game as it stands right now really like the way it is. They don’t want us to sell items for power in the marketplace. They want to be able...
Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, EQ2’s Senior Producer, has brought us a surprising announcement that EverQuest II is adding a totally separate Free-to-Play service. Hi there, Norrathians, As they say, the one thing that’s always true about the world is that it changes. That’s true of the world in general, the game industry, and it’s always been true with “EverQuest II”. The very nature of an MMO is change. We listen, we adapt, and the game grows in features, content, and fun factor as the months and years pass. Now, the expectations of gamers and the industry itself are changing around...
On Friday June 4th, 2010, Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO) made news by announcing that the entire game was going to a Free-to-Play (F2P) model. Players can maintain a subscription, and receive most of the game and game items, but they’ll need to spend real money to get access to new items which appear on their marketplace. This begged the question of whether other games such as EverQuest, EverQuest II, or World of Warcraft would move to a F2P model, and if they did so, whether it would be gamewide or if we would see the addition of...