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EverQuest II: SOE Adds Station Cash Mounts to Marketplace
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
Sony Online Entertainment has added an array of new mounts to the EverQuest II Marketplace, and each mount will set you back 2500 Station Cash or $25 for those of you unfamiliar with SOE's Marketplace.
If you're undaunted by the price, you'll find three new "Prowler" mounts on the Marketplace, the Eternal Prowler (Purple), the Sinister Prowler (Green), and the Ulteran Prowler (Blue). Players can select between Arcane and Fierce versions of each mount, the latter of which increases players' Slashing, Aggression, Ranged, Piercing and Crushing damage by 5, and the former increasing the player's Focus, Ordination, Disruption, Subjugation and Ministration by 5. Both the Arcane and Fierce versions of the mounts will come in at 65% run speed.
Click the image above or go here to view a new trailer featuring the Prowler mounts, and be sure to check out our EverQuest II gallery for some screenshots of the colorful felines as well!
View the official announcement here.
[Thanks Dreathor for the tip!]
Comments
$25 and they are not even per account. Supposedly the next big GU will add the ability to trade the mount through shared bank across characters, but what about characters on other servers?
As bad a money grab the Blizzard mount was this is even worse.
Wow, guess we're going to have to start calling these things 'Mega-Transactions' these days.
Makes me glad I cancelled my Station Access account the day they introduced station cash. And I'm sure at the time they said that items sold on the store would not be gameplay affecting, so whats with the +5 stats etc ? Seems only a matter of time before SOE are selling the 'Uber sword of global financial meltdown' for $50.
So sad to see games devolving into 'Box+Sub+Expansion+Items need to stay competitive'
once again WoW hurts EQ2 ;
Just another example, like cryptic, as to how cheap this SOE studio is. As I mentioned in another thread, it's not surprising that studios dont do as well as they remotely plan they will, with as out of touch with what would make a great entertaining game as opposed to a mediocer one. And to compensate for their lack of talent, they decide on other ways to fleece their existing player-base.
What a great add this new feature would have made for the Sentinels Fate Expansion pack. But not only is this a shallow means to make a buck, it's exactly the path that a lazy studio takes to compensate for a shallow following.
I think the purchasable expansion pack content adds have been fine, but this is an example of Instead of developing progressive content, features or abilities into their game that would 'attract' more, sustain more, such as a new mount trainer skill or horse farmer tradeskill/profession, they replace content and feature adds with real-money feature transactions.
So as mentioned above, its box + subscription + expansion packs + real money transaction features/perks. Give me a break.
This has always been a slippert slope with real-money game store feature/item purchases, and screams of a cheap product to me. I'd hope that this nonsense would be a final straw for a number of their players as opposed to being sheep following SOE (Shallow Online Entertainment) and buying into it. Certainly, this type of tchotchke item sales just cheapens the intefrity of the product, and if you didnt think SOE's could be portrayed as being any more shallow than they already are, well, here ua have it.
ROFL~!
so lets see, wow sell 25$ a pop mounts and make 2 mil just judst under 4 hours.
so a dumb guy sitting in SOE see this and say"hey why wont we do the same".
evercrack 2 is not wow, SOE is not blizzard. this is so lame in so many ways.
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SOE = Scum Of Earth
lolwut
I seem to recall the new producer for EQ2 claiming in an interview just after getting the position that he wanted EQ2 to focus on being EQ2, because there's no need/room for another WoW.
Then again, in that same interview he also claimed that he practically never played EQ2 before.
/boggle
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You are all getting so worked up over this.
A - This mount is the same speed and whatnot of most of the other mounts you can aquire in game.
B - They're just trying to keep up with the jones' (WoW just did the same thing, same price and everything)
C - another case of " don't like it don't buy it", it's not like it's even a better mount. Just a different looking mount.
D - they've been offering mounts for sale for some time, just under the guise of buying packs of TCG cards. Mounts were rare loot cards inside packs of cards, people would pay outragous sums trying to get hold of a rare mount.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams
And Blizzard is?
Honestly, WoW did it, all the free 2 play mmos sell mounts. SOE does it and you guys get all asshurt? Look Sony has boned me multiple times from SWG and the Jedi issue. To putting Vanguard on the back burner, or when they nerfed the necro class in EQ1 to the ground. But lets not call them Scum of The earth for tryen to save a game that needs a budget. Everquest 2 needs the money to continue running the game adding content and pushing out expansions.
I may hate Sony but I refuse to let my anger for them cloud my logic. Whats WoW's excuse for selling mounts? They could give them away for free they make billions off that game.
Yet everquest 2 with a modest income does it to keep the game running pay its staff and yes make some profit and you wanna bitch like little girls? Thats complete asshattery and pure arrogance. Go to your basements and cry like the little girls you are. Everquest 2/SOE has many Americans employed in this country and the economy is int he shitter.
If them selling a few thousand mounts will help them keep people then by all freaking means they should do it. Just because Sony is selling consoles does not mean everquest 2 has a budget based on that. SOE runs on its own budget based almost purely off its income from Sony-station. The entire mmorpg lineup they currently control and in most cases ruin.
However Everquest 2 for most adults who actually give it a shot Enjoy the hell out of it. It's not what I wanted as the next step in the everquest IP when I left Everquest 1. However it stands on its own feet as a decent mmorpg. If it was as bad as people on this site claim, it would not exist. I'm not a Sony fan I'm just not in agreement with any of the complete asshats above.
I hate Smed and all his little bitch boys that help him ruin games, but as of yet they have not ruined Everquest 2.
A man or "gamer" should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
Typical SOE a day late and a dollar short. Just pathetic.
Well, you may see us as Asshats, and that is your perogative, but just for a moment reflect on the following.
I loved EQ2, I still think the core game is one of the best MMO's I've ever played. I played from Beta test up until the Station Cash store was announced. When I bought into the game we were promised by Smed himself that there would never be RMT ingame. So yeah, some people do feel 'Asshurt' as you put it. I invested years into playing that game, if they had announced from the start that they planned on having an ingame store I would never have bothered.
It is one thing to have a game launch where the customers know they are going to be expected to pay for Box+Sub+Expansions+RMT, it is an entirelly different thing to shoehorn it into a game that had already been established for years.
Besides, if people do not understand the basic premise as to why some people are against this kind of RMT then they are obviously blind. My problem is that by allowing the sale of digital goods for real money via an ingame store, the game itself and it's future direction become directly influenced by how much money they can squeeze out of people via RMT. It's the type of thing that has been going on for years in F2P games. I.E. they release XP pots and then design the game to be a deliberate XP grind in order to 'encourage' people to purchase pots.
Now I'm not suggesting for one moment that EQ2 is as bad as the myriad of F2P games out there, but it still shifts the future development focus away from designing things purely for the 'fun' the customers can get, into suddenly becoming focused on 'How can we encourage people to buy more things from the store'. Besides, it is only a matter of time before more and more gameplay affecting items end up on there as these companies try to squeeze the last bit of blood out of the stone. They become a game whose future direction is now dictated by suites with spreadsheets working out future RMT sales projections, instead of devs designing stuff because they think it might be fun.
In effect they are subscription based games that are splitting the community into two seperate classes, those who can afford only the monthly sub ('Lower' class), and those who can afford whatever they want with a swipe of the credit card ('Upper' class). This has always been the way with F2P games, but I think it is a really bad thing to do in a subscription based game. These games are about escapism, it is such a shame to see them sink into the depths whereby a persons real life income can impact on there progression in a game. I always thought the great thing about these games was that as long as you could afford the sub, then you were on an equal footing with everyone else, regardless of income.
No mount impacts game play beyond hey look a mount! It looks nice and it helps me get around!. Look I agree Sony and many other mmorpg company's are greedy.
However they like any other industry make decisions based on income. That is how company's work. If they did not act that way in this economy game would not come out at all in any shape or form. So no matter how much we bitch the old days of mmorpg company's is gone and out the window. They clearly can't survive on just pure subscription anymore. Look at Sonys last financial report for station 'SOE". It was not good at all.
I think we as gamers in this genre needs to put up or shut up. The gaming industry is changing based on the need to make profit not on our need to be Idealists.
I agree with what the poster above said, however this is not a perfect world and things change, we either change with it or leave the genre. Doesn't seem like we have much of a choice.
A man or "gamer" should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
EQII is a good game, but there is not way I'll pay a $15 a month subscription AND pay for cash shop items.
Currently I am still playing EQII. If the day ever comes where I am unable to play on an even footing with other players without using the cash shop, that will be the day I walk away from SOE forever. I get the feeling that day is not very far away.
If your going to have subscription & cash shop in the same game, DDO is a good example of how to manage it. The players have a choice, they can pay monthly and get full game access + a monthly TP stipend, or they can just purchase content directly.
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To be honest I don't think they're all that.
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Actually played the game on and off for awhile, but nice try. No, im not an expert on the game by any means, but didnt know you had to be an EQ2 guru to have a little common sense. Yes, mounts do have buffs, but none that i recall that are identical to those stats, though i could be wrong there, but thats besides the point. You claimed it has no impact on the game, but ANY stat bonus = impact to the game, that was all.
As for the rest, as i tried explaining in another post, its not JUST about the mounts. Consider the mounts a bit of testing the waters to see what they can pull off. Do you really think SOE, Blizzard, or other companie swhich follow suit right behind WoW, just like SOE is, will stop at just mounts? They will continue adding more stuff at around the same, or higher pricetag, which offer, while very small individually, items that combined together give pretty big advantages to the people with the $ to spend. I could be wrong, they may stop at just mounts, but i highly doubt it, weve all seen how greedy some of these companies can get at times.
Im not against cash shops, in fact im all for them, but when you begin adding cash shops with stuff like this on top of your subscriptions, its getting out of hand. Leave the game impacting advantages to the F2P market, and let the P2P market stay how it always has been.
Many mounts have similar buffs if not identical. Sony already has a huge amount of fluff items for sale in the player shop.If you don't like Sony thats fine but posturing your opinion's based on untruths is just plain idiocy. I hate Sony and what they've done to multiple MMorpgs but AGAIN like I said above.
The game industry is changing and crying about every little thing won't change that. So either get on the wagon or go play in a different genre. As this sort of in-game cash shop is not a fad, It's here to stay folks I hate to say it.
Also on a side note at least this mount is not some retarded looking My Little Pony glowy pile of crap. Its a downsized version of the TSO mounts with a new Eye glow. Which is very popular. Besides its so damn easy to get mounts in that game anyway.
The chances of people buying it are slim Sony knows this, they are not expecting it to make 4 million bucks. They are however hoping it will stimulate the company's growth a bit or at least help pay wages.
To be blunt, stop looking at your video games with Kid eyes grow up and understand reality.
A man or "gamer" should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
I am sorry but you are wrong yet again. You don't need to be EQ2 guru but you also don't have to spread lies. These mounts have no advantage over any mounts in game. I seriously suggest you play the game before making absurd claims.
Personally could care if they have RMT in a game, I'm not obliged to buy anything. SOE if they brought a new mount that is not account based for the kind of $$ is plain stupid. But then again they do continual do some pretty lame things.
Some of the 'fluff' items in game are fun and if someone wants them buy them. If I like them, I do or would.
But the added bonus crap is why I don't play most F2P, as to be competitive it's much more than what any MMO is monthly so not F2P by any means. When I have to spend $$ to get the sword of super powers or uber gear, then that game will go on the pile of nostalgic, wasn't it great when...
As for Smedley - spot on with his 'it will never happen'. I'll still play EQ2 as I do enjoy the game, but it's dicey how long with some of the crap they pull.
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Actually, wether you want to admit or not, they do have an advantage, which i again mentioned in a seperate thread on the topic. They may not have an advantage over a level 80 mount, but i dont see any level 80 restriction on these mounts, and last i checked, not everyone in the game is level 80.
Perhaps it wont impact you on a level 80 toon, but anything below that, it has at least some, although minor impact.
Infact, majority of players are 80. And yes these pets have no advantage over any pet that you can buy in game. In the end, you are not going to be any more powerful then the next guy standing close to you ho decided not to buy the mount from cash shop. So i still don't understand why people are complaining? it doesn't make your character better whether its end game raiding or battle grounds.
$25 dollars?
I don't really know much about cash shop games but that seems a bit pricey to me, is that the case???
Yeah its the standard, f2p games charge more. However WoW seems to have set the AAA game standard at 25$.
Seen some f2p mmorpgs charge between 35$ +upkeep to 75$
A man or "gamer" should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
How is this worse? WoW is a giant cash cow with either a very small or extremely inefficient development team. EQ2 puts out at least twice the content with 1/20th the revenue. WoW was without a doubt a 'cash grab', grasping for extra millions just because they can. Maybe this is the same thing for SoE, but its not even debatable that SoE does more for EQ2 and its players given their resources than Blizzard does with WoW.
I think it is so sad and pathetic the way SOE keeps right on trying to drain more money out of gamers for worthless content. Not to mention how some companies keep trying to weasel in CS's to make people pay to have an advantage in-game over over gamers who actually earn the xp, skills, or items normally. There are obviously too many spoiled kids begging their parents to pay for CS items because I cant think of too many adults with bills to pay who can afford to throw money away like that.