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Final act of desperation?
I checked my accounts. All of them. Every one of them now has a vet trial. I've not been able to verify this, but I was told that this trial is for 40 days. I tried to find out for myself but couldn't.
This has to be a total act of final desperation. 40 days, btw, puts this out to the end of the 2nd quarter of 2008. Given what I'm hearing about the current paid sub number, could this be the last, FINAL, desperate push to get people to come back, or else close it down?
Could be. I was very unimpressed by their future plans from the recent summit. They basically gave out vague outlines of 2 publishes, and one foozle instance. No talk at all about addressing the fundamental core problems with the NGE, nor in addressing the principal reasons why the vets don't like the NGE.
So, lots will be experiencing the NJE. I tried it myself last night, and it was everything I expected it to be (and less). Add to this the insult that the elder robe not only has been equaled, but SURPASSED by a new scavenger hunt grind robe (which is ugly as sin) I don't think that this was a very good publish to try to tempt veterans back with.
They never have done this widespread or long a free trial before. Something is up.
But from my perspective, this is great. I am all in favor of Blix's terror getting as much exposure to actual players as possible, because I am convinced that it will put off more people from the NGE and SOE. So, this is a good thing! They've had over 2 years to fix this mess and have crap little to show for it.
Comments
Haha!
I know what's happening, this is there final push for legitimacy to prove to LEC that they can still make money (which they won't) before Bioware's new beast comes out; wich coincidentally is scheduled to come out late 2008 or early 2009.
Time for $OE to
I Reject your Reality and Substitute it with My Own!
Think of the spin...
"WE HAVE LOADS OF ACTIVE ACCOUNTS"
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Ten Golden Rules Of Videogame Fanboyism
"SOE has probably united more gamers in hatred than Blizzard has subs"...daelnor
40 days seems a bit much for me, but it's not unheard of. EQ2 offered something along those lines late last year.
I'll have to check my account when I get home from work this evening, but If it is 40 days I'll lmao.
Uh-Oh!!
I think I really know what $OE is doing, based on their last poll where I think it topped out at 760 votes and seeing as how $OE themselves have said polls reflect roughly 10% of active population, they are trying to artificially inflate the player base with these kinds of trials.
If you bring up the topic of active player base, they might tell you they have 30k players, but what they don't tell you is that 23k of that 30k are free trials or whatever.
I wouldn't put it past $OE if this is what they are doing with these 40 free days.
I Reject your Reality and Substitute it with My Own!
Quadrupling their subs overnight (from trials) might make them PR spin, but it won't make them any money at all unless anyone actually pays and stays.
Chances of that? Very little. I messed with the NJE for a while last night, and there is nothing in the NGE now that wasn't there when I quit for good a little less than a year ago to make me reverse that decision. The vast majority of those who even bother to log in will likely come to the same conclusion I have.
In fact, a lot of what I saw was worse. For one thing, for 9PM, which is east coast prime time, Bloodfin (which is one of the top 2 "heaviest" servers (I use that term mockingly) was desolate. It was listed as Medium on the screen, with only Bria also being Medium.
Collection scavenger hunt grinds don't strike me as fun, but if I stayed I'd be forced to do them in order to compete since they reward (as usual) uber no trade loot. The foozle instances don't interest me at all, especially since they are linear and scripted to the point that they have only a single solution. So read a guide and press the "IWin" button. Then you have to do it over and over and over and over so as to get that, you guessed it, loot drop.
Sorry, that's not the "greatest Star Wars story ever told, my own" that I signed up for.
I don't think they are hoping, well maybe they are, for people who try the trial to resub, I think it's more of a way to start telling their investors or current player base that they are growing fast with the new publish. In $OE's mind they think people will say wow, SWG will have 300k subs again in no time and start calling back their friends who quit.
Not going to happen, but like you said, it's a final act of desperation; they've gone hail marry on this one
I Reject your Reality and Substitute it with My Own!
The irony is that if all 300K came back and actually played the servers would explode in flames because they can't possibly handle 1/4th of that due to the flaws in the combat system design
lol, yeah but don't tell that to the fanbois or $OE
I Reject your Reality and Substitute it with My Own!
I believe there was one of these threads about 2 years ago, 2 guesses what actually happened.
Call it 'Final' as many times as you can, you've been doing it for like 3 years now.
Account has been stolen, why would someone want to steal my account?
Rules 2, 3, 6, and possibly 7.
We know it's going to close someday. Considering the evidence that the subs are lower than ever (such as the pathetic forum response to that profession poll, and my own survey of Bloodfin last night) why not now?
Well, they let you log into galaxies (haven't tried yet) but they won't let you post in their forums lol...wonder why?
I Reject your Reality and Substitute it with My Own!
I would love to see that evidence.
Account has been stolen, why would someone want to steal my account?
At least this will shut the fanbois up who say oh but you haven't played for years , well now we get another free look and guess what , yep its just as we said , a steaming pile that even the flys wont touch .
I'm sorry but this is a desperate act by desperate people , please let the fat lady sing .
I would love to see that evidence.
Screenshots will be forthcoming soon.
They gave away 90 days of play time, along with all existing expansions to everyone who had a closed EQ2 account that was in good standing (ie., not banned). They gave all that and the base game to everyone who ever had a Vanguard account. It was an attempt to make the last expansion profitable since the subscription numbers were sliding at the time. Stagnant EQ2 sub numbers is the reason they decided to only make an expansion a year, instead of two per year.
Interesting. I received a vet trial about five weeks ago and used it to check out the game. After reading this thread, I checked my account and discovered I have another vet trial pending. That seems highly unusual. They don't send out trials that frequently, do they?
I'd love to see some screenies of your perception of the game.
I'd also like a few examples of collections you need to complete to be able to compete in combat.
Get an ent buff (more indepth that pre-cu) get doc buffs (I would say still less indepth since they aren't craftable) and use power-ups (effective and available) and you are ready for combat.
Having a stat'd suit is important, but it's not going to kill your ability to effectively work with a group or even 1v1.
Of course the NGE could use a huge dose of the MM in MMO to effectively play as a group.
And don't even get me started on the current buff wars of the NGE. That was one of the LARGEST thing they said they wanted to get rid off from pre-CU...Instead they took a page from Jose Conseco went buff crazy.
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Ten Golden Rules Of Videogame Fanboyism
"SOE has probably united more gamers in hatred than Blizzard has subs"...daelnor
Has SOE ever closed a mainstream MMO after it launched? I can't think of one off the top of my head. Though I could be wrong.
Thats not to say there can't be a first time. It just seems that SOE are suckers for hopeless causes these days.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
They don't need to. As long as a game is on the Station Pass Life Support System it can limp along forever being held aloft by the two games that still make money for SOE.
lmao
Decided to DL the new stuff and try and log in last night. This explains why I was able to. Had to see if my house/tombstone was still there. Most of the vet GY on corbantis is gone but some of em are still there.
$OE has been padding its acct numbers with vet trials for years. They are just cooking the sub numbers, again, for Big Daddy Sony, now that they have been sent to the woodshed, in the care of the other Sony division, of which they are now part.
Nothing new.
must check my 2 accounts ?
All of my old accounts are also in "pending" status, lol.
It looks like $OE has re-enabled a lot of old accounts. I guess they are just throwing the shit at us for free hoping that any sucker will actually subscribe in the end?
I have just one thing to say to SOE and LucasArts, don't bother with things like this unless you have pre-CU on the Test Center.
All I can say is shutdown day seems to be close at hand. Considering that it's just over 3 years since the FIRST betrayal, the CU, it's LONG overdue.