Everything they do with the EQs 1 & 2 along with some of the f2p games is not much more that quick money and for the most part testing for EQ next they are trying to find out early what works and what doesnt.. it this f2p model works be sure its gonna show up in EQ next
I think you hit the nail on the head. This is what I call the great diversion. They want to keep folks tied up until next year, and they were worried things were going down the tubes.
I tell you what have you seen the screen shots from eqnext? Has anybody, I have and what I saw looked like WOW, thats right looked like the starting area for elves from wow, cant remember the name of that zone its been 4 years since i played wow but that is what the graphics look like for eqnext.
1. Thanks for providing the link, I was almost blown away by the comment until I read the entire article and took the quote into context. It makes perfect sense and in no way supports Sonys move to the F2P market as some are suggesting. I will pleasantly say it again ... If Sony was moving away from subscription based models they would NOT be releasing titles with a subscription based model, its a pretty simple point.
3. Verrants EQ was a mess , it was not already a success when SOE took it over. EQ was stumbling along and Sony stepped in to give it the funding, support, and direction it needed to become a wild success.
- Have you played Eq2 since the restructure a few months after launch? The game did not undergo countless direction shifts, lets not go for shock value. Eq2 changed direction one time, during its first few months... I played then and have subscribed for a few months every year since. The game has always had a substantial following, enough to consider it a success.
- Lets not bring SWG into the arguement, the game was before its time hardware wise ; failing to mention most direction and design choice mistakes were not SOE's but LA's. All in all ... SWG was a sucessful mmo, then it was ruined.
- Planetsides exspansion was wonderful for a few months after its launch, and then it was hated. All in all it was a completely sucessful game.
The only legitimate gripe anyone can have with Sony is its failure to continue pumping funds into dead titles : MxO , Vanguard , Potbs.
So Sonys sucess stories are : Everquest, Planetside , Everquest 2 , Free Realms. Thats failing to mention its other ventures that while dead now( or dieing), produced a profit and had a good run at the mmo world. EQ OA(Tons of console players were introduced here) , Vanguard ( With Sonys support ) , Potbs. Vanguard and Potbs would both have been shut down if Sony didn't take the reigns ... its not as if Sony was handed a wonderful product and then they messed it up. Sony took Vanguard, Potbs, and MxO over and for the large part gave them a longer life than they would have had otherwise. They made money off the transactions .... true they stopped funding them, but the end users got alot more time than they would have had.
Sony has the funding, the experience, and the direction to continue to produce quality titles for the mmo community. Sony has indeed stumbled a few times, but given their amount of exposure in the market ... the good far outweighs the bad. You Sony haters are simply being drama llamas.
[1]
I'm not saying soe is moving away from the subscription model at all. They are moving towards the microtransaction model and almost every single action they have taken the last few years reinforces that. Soe no longer just wants a subscription. They want subscription PLUS massive microtransactions for their products.
Don't be so black/white about the situation and you can see where this is going and how that article detailed that direction.
[3]
-Verants EQ wasn't already a success? OMG are you serious? Are you really saying the EQ wasn't a success up to and including kurnak? It ws on the cover of TV guide for petes sake. Care to rewrite any other portions of history to make excuses for soe?
-EQ2 has had multiple designs shifts and focus changes. FFS they are getting ready to redefine what each class should do and what their role should be... again! The game cannot make up its mind if it is a solo casual game, hardcore raiding game, group game or pvp game. Just look at how many times soe tried to implement pvp and then totally abandon it. How it shifted from a game of many communal zones and exploration to expansions of 1-2 overload zones packed with instances. Don't take my word for it, go listen to what other players say about the history of the game and the wowification of it. There is a reason eq2 has suffered multiple sets of server mergers. Lack of quality. It is so successful that it cannot outperform a niche hardcore sandbox pvp spave game that only allows visual representation of avatars as a space ship. Think about that. EQ ruled the market. EQ2 is just another should have been that is being bested by independant developers.
-Why not bring swg into this? It is in direct support to soe being the island of misfit mmos. Even if you want to blame lucas arts for "forcing" soe to do whatever you think they wanted done with swg, soe still failed to deliver a quality product. In no point in the history of swg was it anywhere close to a quality product and it certainly was not the fault of computer hardware. It was poor workmanship and constant mismanagment. Stop rewriting history.
-Planetside was a successful game for a short time until soe ruined it and chased most of the players away. See a pattern? It is such a success that soe didn't even update it for an operating system that came out 3 years later.
-Even free realms is a joke and players complaining about soe pulling the rug out from under their feet with nge style changes. 12 million people signed up, so it must be a success right? How many players do you think 10 nearly empty servers can support? I don't think any mmo has lost as many potential customers as free realms has. Just think of how many people have to NOT play the game in order to not add 1 new server for 11 million people trying the game. Just to note it is another Subscription + cash shop game, which is the future of soe games.
Remember that quote of 50-90% revenue from RMT. Soe wants players spending $30-50 per month average for their games through sub fees and cash shops. Now look at the games list being offered and tell me that they are quality offerings that are worth 2-3 times more than its competition.
What boggles my mind is that why would anyone pay for an Extended Platinum account when a standard Live account gives you the same stuff for 179 a year as opposed to the 200 theyre asking.
What boggles my mind is that why would anyone pay for an Extended Platinum account when a standard Live account gives you the same stuff for 179 a year as opposed to the 200 theyre asking.
Actually its 157 and some change. I pay the about 79 dollars for 6 months x2 So that's 160 for a years sub. But then I buy it in 6 month increments.
So I don't get spending another 30 bucks just so you can have access to rmt. it makes no since.
Unless those guys want the full blow store and acess to armor and stuff they otherwise could not get the honest way while grouping. Then I have to say whats the point, buy your way to the best armor and weapons then whats left to do but sit in guild chat and go hey look what I got on the sc today.
I still just do not understand the concept of paying real money to avoid playing a game via rmt cash shops.
The is the equivelent of getting a quest that says "Please help us! The goblins have stole our widgetsr. Go work at your job for 2 hours and create some new widgets. Oh yeah, bring me the money earned there and I will reward you with this sword of power"
That is what RMT boils down to. Working a real life job to earn money that is then spent in a game to avoid actually playing. If a game is so unfun to play that it encourages me to spend real money to avoid in taking part in the gameplay, then I have to question if the game is even worth playing in the first place.
It is like rewards game developers for making games less fun.
I still just do not understand the concept of paying real money to avoid playing a game via rmt cash shops.
The is the equivelent of getting a quest that says "Please help us! The goblins have stole our widgetsr. Go work at your job for 2 hours and create some new widgets. Oh yeah, bring me the money earned there and I will reward you with this sword of power"
That is what RMT boils down to. Working a real life job to earn money that is then spent in a game to avoid actually playing. If a game is so unfun to play that it encourages me to spend real money to avoid in taking part in the gameplay, then I have to question if the game is even worth playing in the first place.
It is like rewards game developers for making games less fun.
It also has the potential for rewarding the developers for creating LESS content. Just allowing people to buy items, even vanity ones, means that there will be no random mob, quest, or dungeon created to aquire such an item. So you get less game and actually spend more of your hard earned cash to do so. As I've said many times before, this concept baffels the crap out of me.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
I still just do not understand the concept of paying real money to avoid playing a game via rmt cash shops.
The is the equivelent of getting a quest that says "Please help us! The goblins have stole our widgetsr. Go work at your job for 2 hours and create some new widgets. Oh yeah, bring me the money earned there and I will reward you with this sword of power"
That is what RMT boils down to. Working a real life job to earn money that is then spent in a game to avoid actually playing. If a game is so unfun to play that it encourages me to spend real money to avoid in taking part in the gameplay, then I have to question if the game is even worth playing in the first place.
It is like rewards game developers for making games less fun.
It also has the potential for rewarding the developers for creating LESS content. Just allowing people to buy items, even vanity ones, means that there will be no random mob, quest, or dungeon created to aquire such an item. So you get less game and actually spend more of your hard earned cash to do so. As I've said many times before, this concept baffels the crap out of me.
Yes I totaly agree, it makes the dev's lazy here co code this item to sell, instead of coding content for the game. I really is sad time. What gets me is folks fall for this, and that is something I dont understand
Intriguing experiment? I'm not sure what you people are smoking, but its clouding your brains. They are screwing over all the vets. Thats not an intriguing experiment, its betraying your long term player base. Heck, its been two weeks and they haven't bothered to answer ANY of the obvious questions the players would ask. In fact, they have completely stopped replying to us on the old forums at all. They are posting on the eq2x. And if you create a new login for the eq2x forums and start questioning them there, they will ignore you there too.
This isn't an intriguing experiment, its a bunch of devs being jerks.
wait, you forgot to make a point. I can tell its a rant, but I have no idea what you are asking... if anything.
How are they screwing the vets? What "obvious" questions are being asked? You're not asking any of them ,either. Your brain seems clouded.
Had a lengthy reply in retort to Daf , Mmorpgs horrid forums ate it. We can argue later Daf ... I don't feel like replying again, had links, refrences to dates and mergers... all gone.
Use a little bit of your F2P marketing money on fixing your Forums please.
Bottom line .. you are daft if you continue to hold to the Soe stigma's. They are a quality AAA title producer, while not perfect have had more positive exsposure on the market than many others.
I still just do not understand the concept of paying real money to avoid playing a game via rmt cash shops.
The is the equivelent of getting a quest that says "Please help us! The goblins have stole our widgetsr. Go work at your job for 2 hours and create some new widgets. Oh yeah, bring me the money earned there and I will reward you with this sword of power"
That is what RMT boils down to. Working a real life job to earn money that is then spent in a game to avoid actually playing. If a game is so unfun to play that it encourages me to spend real money to avoid in taking part in the gameplay, then I have to question if the game is even worth playing in the first place.
It is like rewards game developers for making games less fun.
It also has the potential for rewarding the developers for creating LESS content. Just allowing people to buy items, even vanity ones, means that there will be no random mob, quest, or dungeon created to aquire such an item. So you get less game and actually spend more of your hard earned cash to do so. As I've said many times before, this concept baffels the crap out of me.
Yes I totaly agree, it makes the dev's lazy here co code this item to sell, instead of coding content for the game. I really is sad time. What gets me is folks fall for this, and that is something I dont understand
The whole thing started because of third party gold and item sellers, developers created MMOs with boring repetitive grinds in order to ensure long term subs so players who liked some aspects of a game like pvp or raiding but didn't want to spend their gaming leisure time basically working a second job wanted a shortcut and the farmers where to happy to oblige.
Developers saw the huge amounts of money involved and are now realising that the amount of money they can make from subs are chump change to the kind of cash selling those shortcuts themselves can rake in.
What makes me concerned for the future of the MMO genre is that there it could result in no incentive to ever deviate from the Skinner box concept and in fact make it worse as game play will be designed from the get go to be utterly boring and tedious to encourage more players to hand over £££ instead of pressing the pedal 50 times in a row all week.
The last thing most MMO games need is less fun.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush, Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light, Company of Heroes II.
Its obvious MMO worlds is going towards Turbine concept of F2P , lets call it "Western F2P"
P2P audience is limited , and 99% of them subscribe to one game only. So MMOs must conquer new audience.
WF2P is perfect way to do it.
Sony is doing the only logic step with EQ2x. They are testing if it will be profitable.
If it will be. Expect all old games to become F2P.
If not. Sony Online will probably close doors soon anyway.
IT obvious that failing mmorpg P2P try to squezze every cent out of their dieing games before they drop dead. Thye also like the hype going f2p give possibly attractign new players. But at the end of the day its not success its just a bad game costing more.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
The restriction on races and classes is a big put off for me.
Just 2 bank slots and 2 (small) bags is another major downside.
I don't want to waste time on a character I don't really want and the inventory situation would drive me nuts, as it did in another F2P that I can't remember the name of now.
For those 2 reasons alone, I won't be playing EQ2x any longer.
I agree with others, it's the most restricted F2P I ever saw and unless it changes, I can't see it succeeding in it's current format.
FTP is a model to use in MMOs that are failing or have failed.
It is not something that should be implemented in a new game aimed primarily at a western audience, as it will cause serious MMO players (any player that takes their hobby seriously, not specifically hardcore, nor particularly casual) to just look elsewhere.
For existing games, FTP is a good way to get a last little bit of cash out of a game that would otherwise die. This is what DDO did, and even Turbine will admit as much. For them though, that last little bit of cash is enough to keep the game running. For EQ2X and/or LotRO, this may or may not be the case.
One thing is for sure, an existing game going FTP will cause the existing subscriber numbers to go down. DDO would have seen this, but their subscriber numbers were too small for it to matter to them. LotRO and EQ2 both have a healthy subscription base. Not strong for either game, but enough to keep the game going, pay for regular updates, and warrant expansions. EQ2 is already seeing this, and from what I have heard, so is LotRO.
FTP has its uses, but trying to make more money off a game that is already turning a profit of any size is not one of those uses.
Don't worry people once GW2 comes out most people will leave this game and LOTRO.A one time price for all the content you can handle and a hands down better game peroid!!
That's speculation on a game that isn't even released. Granted, I'm definitely getting GW2 at release, but I doubt I will ever stop playing LOTRO, and if EQ2ex is good, I will likely play it on and off as well.
Weighing in right here - Tried EQII twice, found it terribly boring both times, never got past around level 5 or so before uninstalling. Point: If you're bored with WoW, EQII is old news, and going F2P doesn't make the game any better.
Regarding the other two, GW2 definitely has my attention, and I admit that I love their business model. LotRO has been my game of choice for a long time (as in, original launch), but since I have a character in Moria, I don't expect to need more than the F2P game, and I'd be buying the Mirkwood expansion either way. New LotRO players will have the hardest time making a decision about the game -- become a VIP, pay by the pack, or grind rep for Turbine Points and hope you make enough to earn each pack as you go?
I'm trying EQ2EX as an experiment. So far, the bronze membership is going ok however I have spent some money already on the game (8 euros this month, far less than subscribing to gold). I think the game will be very difficult to play completely for free.
If one lacks time to play for the most part, bronze/silver with a few euros spent here and there is a good option as long as they can stomach the restrictions. The most restrictive thing for me has been the limitations on spell tiers for my Illusionist (unlocking the Illusionist was what I spent some money on, saving the remainder of my SC). Being limited to Adept level on my pet spell sucks. The second restriction that has bothered me at this point is not being able to Transmute/Tinker.
Comparing though what I would get if I went to the Live servers, the 8 euros I paid to unlock the Illusionist was not worth it. It's better to buy Live subscription time in blocks of several months, especially as I have been playing a fair amount (about 3 hours/day, more in some cases).
I do not understand the appeal of the gold membership. I think if someone tries out this server for a little bit and really likes the game enough to pay $16/month, there is no reason in my view that such a player should stick it out on Extended rather than Live. I really dislike the fact that the racepacks don't become available on extended for a subscription that costs the same as the highest rate on Live.
Platinum makes more sense because, even if it is more expensive than buying a year subscription on Live, you get access to SC/month and the newest expansion + more character slots. In that sense it's not bad, it comes out to $16.70/month approximately and is a great option for someone who really wants to sub to the Extended server.
What is the appeal of the Extended server? Well, it's new for one thing, and that means the broker is more reasonable. There are also lots more players in the lower level areas than I saw on Live last time I was on there.
Overall, it seems like the model Turbine went with with DDO and LotRO is better for casual players, though I dislike both games. SoE should tweek its cash shop more in favour of players and provide some means of having a more a la carte experience to truly compete with the Turbine hybrid models.
Didnt read the article but did recently try the "free" trial. Without many changes it will not work to draw people to spend money or sub to the game. All it will do is drive anyone away who tries it and starve the existing servers of any potential new blood. Way,way,way too restrictive to be playable as it is much less fun and/or inviting. Few class avail,few races avail, only 2 bag slots, only 2 bank slots, limited chat, no broker, item restrictions, and on and on. Obviously you want to deny some things in order to encourage people to spend money but starve them to the point of pissing them off? Only $oe.
Comments
I think you hit the nail on the head. This is what I call the great diversion. They want to keep folks tied up until next year, and they were worried things were going down the tubes.
I tell you what have you seen the screen shots from eqnext? Has anybody, I have and what I saw looked like WOW, thats right looked like the starting area for elves from wow, cant remember the name of that zone its been 4 years since i played wow but that is what the graphics look like for eqnext.
It is not happening for me.
[1]
I'm not saying soe is moving away from the subscription model at all. They are moving towards the microtransaction model and almost every single action they have taken the last few years reinforces that. Soe no longer just wants a subscription. They want subscription PLUS massive microtransactions for their products.
Don't be so black/white about the situation and you can see where this is going and how that article detailed that direction.
[3]
-Verants EQ wasn't already a success? OMG are you serious? Are you really saying the EQ wasn't a success up to and including kurnak? It ws on the cover of TV guide for petes sake. Care to rewrite any other portions of history to make excuses for soe?
-EQ2 has had multiple designs shifts and focus changes. FFS they are getting ready to redefine what each class should do and what their role should be... again! The game cannot make up its mind if it is a solo casual game, hardcore raiding game, group game or pvp game. Just look at how many times soe tried to implement pvp and then totally abandon it. How it shifted from a game of many communal zones and exploration to expansions of 1-2 overload zones packed with instances. Don't take my word for it, go listen to what other players say about the history of the game and the wowification of it. There is a reason eq2 has suffered multiple sets of server mergers. Lack of quality. It is so successful that it cannot outperform a niche hardcore sandbox pvp spave game that only allows visual representation of avatars as a space ship. Think about that. EQ ruled the market. EQ2 is just another should have been that is being bested by independant developers.
-Why not bring swg into this? It is in direct support to soe being the island of misfit mmos. Even if you want to blame lucas arts for "forcing" soe to do whatever you think they wanted done with swg, soe still failed to deliver a quality product. In no point in the history of swg was it anywhere close to a quality product and it certainly was not the fault of computer hardware. It was poor workmanship and constant mismanagment. Stop rewriting history.
-Planetside was a successful game for a short time until soe ruined it and chased most of the players away. See a pattern? It is such a success that soe didn't even update it for an operating system that came out 3 years later.
-Even free realms is a joke and players complaining about soe pulling the rug out from under their feet with nge style changes. 12 million people signed up, so it must be a success right? How many players do you think 10 nearly empty servers can support? I don't think any mmo has lost as many potential customers as free realms has. Just think of how many people have to NOT play the game in order to not add 1 new server for 11 million people trying the game. Just to note it is another Subscription + cash shop game, which is the future of soe games.
Remember that quote of 50-90% revenue from RMT. Soe wants players spending $30-50 per month average for their games through sub fees and cash shops. Now look at the games list being offered and tell me that they are quality offerings that are worth 2-3 times more than its competition.
What boggles my mind is that why would anyone pay for an Extended Platinum account when a standard Live account gives you the same stuff for 179 a year as opposed to the 200 theyre asking.
Actually its 157 and some change. I pay the about 79 dollars for 6 months x2 So that's 160 for a years sub. But then I buy it in 6 month increments.
So I don't get spending another 30 bucks just so you can have access to rmt. it makes no since.
Unless those guys want the full blow store and acess to armor and stuff they otherwise could not get the honest way while grouping. Then I have to say whats the point, buy your way to the best armor and weapons then whats left to do but sit in guild chat and go hey look what I got on the sc today.
I still just do not understand the concept of paying real money to avoid playing a game via rmt cash shops.
The is the equivelent of getting a quest that says "Please help us! The goblins have stole our widgetsr. Go work at your job for 2 hours and create some new widgets. Oh yeah, bring me the money earned there and I will reward you with this sword of power"
That is what RMT boils down to. Working a real life job to earn money that is then spent in a game to avoid actually playing. If a game is so unfun to play that it encourages me to spend real money to avoid in taking part in the gameplay, then I have to question if the game is even worth playing in the first place.
It is like rewards game developers for making games less fun.
It also has the potential for rewarding the developers for creating LESS content. Just allowing people to buy items, even vanity ones, means that there will be no random mob, quest, or dungeon created to aquire such an item. So you get less game and actually spend more of your hard earned cash to do so. As I've said many times before, this concept baffels the crap out of me.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
Yes I totaly agree, it makes the dev's lazy here co code this item to sell, instead of coding content for the game. I really is sad time. What gets me is folks fall for this, and that is something I dont understand
wait, you forgot to make a point. I can tell its a rant, but I have no idea what you are asking... if anything.
How are they screwing the vets? What "obvious" questions are being asked? You're not asking any of them ,either. Your brain seems clouded.
Had a lengthy reply in retort to Daf , Mmorpgs horrid forums ate it. We can argue later Daf ... I don't feel like replying again, had links, refrences to dates and mergers... all gone.
Use a little bit of your F2P marketing money on fixing your Forums please.
Bottom line .. you are daft if you continue to hold to the Soe stigma's. They are a quality AAA title producer, while not perfect have had more positive exsposure on the market than many others.
The whole thing started because of third party gold and item sellers, developers created MMOs with boring repetitive grinds in order to ensure long term subs so players who liked some aspects of a game like pvp or raiding but didn't want to spend their gaming leisure time basically working a second job wanted a shortcut and the farmers where to happy to oblige.
Developers saw the huge amounts of money involved and are now realising that the amount of money they can make from subs are chump change to the kind of cash selling those shortcuts themselves can rake in.
What makes me concerned for the future of the MMO genre is that there it could result in no incentive to ever deviate from the Skinner box concept and in fact make it worse as game play will be designed from the get go to be utterly boring and tedious to encourage more players to hand over £££ instead of pressing the pedal 50 times in a row all week.
The last thing most MMO games need is less fun.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush,
Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light,
Company of Heroes II.
IT obvious that failing mmorpg P2P try to squezze every cent out of their dieing games before they drop dead. Thye also like the hype going f2p give possibly attractign new players. But at the end of the day its not success its just a bad game costing more.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
The restriction on races and classes is a big put off for me.
Just 2 bank slots and 2 (small) bags is another major downside.
I don't want to waste time on a character I don't really want and the inventory situation would drive me nuts, as it did in another F2P that I can't remember the name of now.
For those 2 reasons alone, I won't be playing EQ2x any longer.
I agree with others, it's the most restricted F2P I ever saw and unless it changes, I can't see it succeeding in it's current format.
FTP is a model to use in MMOs that are failing or have failed.
It is not something that should be implemented in a new game aimed primarily at a western audience, as it will cause serious MMO players (any player that takes their hobby seriously, not specifically hardcore, nor particularly casual) to just look elsewhere.
For existing games, FTP is a good way to get a last little bit of cash out of a game that would otherwise die. This is what DDO did, and even Turbine will admit as much. For them though, that last little bit of cash is enough to keep the game running. For EQ2X and/or LotRO, this may or may not be the case.
One thing is for sure, an existing game going FTP will cause the existing subscriber numbers to go down. DDO would have seen this, but their subscriber numbers were too small for it to matter to them. LotRO and EQ2 both have a healthy subscription base. Not strong for either game, but enough to keep the game going, pay for regular updates, and warrant expansions. EQ2 is already seeing this, and from what I have heard, so is LotRO.
FTP has its uses, but trying to make more money off a game that is already turning a profit of any size is not one of those uses.
Weighing in right here - Tried EQII twice, found it terribly boring both times, never got past around level 5 or so before uninstalling. Point: If you're bored with WoW, EQII is old news, and going F2P doesn't make the game any better.
Regarding the other two, GW2 definitely has my attention, and I admit that I love their business model. LotRO has been my game of choice for a long time (as in, original launch), but since I have a character in Moria, I don't expect to need more than the F2P game, and I'd be buying the Mirkwood expansion either way. New LotRO players will have the hardest time making a decision about the game -- become a VIP, pay by the pack, or grind rep for Turbine Points and hope you make enough to earn each pack as you go?
I'm trying EQ2EX as an experiment. So far, the bronze membership is going ok however I have spent some money already on the game (8 euros this month, far less than subscribing to gold). I think the game will be very difficult to play completely for free.
If one lacks time to play for the most part, bronze/silver with a few euros spent here and there is a good option as long as they can stomach the restrictions. The most restrictive thing for me has been the limitations on spell tiers for my Illusionist (unlocking the Illusionist was what I spent some money on, saving the remainder of my SC). Being limited to Adept level on my pet spell sucks. The second restriction that has bothered me at this point is not being able to Transmute/Tinker.
Comparing though what I would get if I went to the Live servers, the 8 euros I paid to unlock the Illusionist was not worth it. It's better to buy Live subscription time in blocks of several months, especially as I have been playing a fair amount (about 3 hours/day, more in some cases).
I do not understand the appeal of the gold membership. I think if someone tries out this server for a little bit and really likes the game enough to pay $16/month, there is no reason in my view that such a player should stick it out on Extended rather than Live. I really dislike the fact that the racepacks don't become available on extended for a subscription that costs the same as the highest rate on Live.
Platinum makes more sense because, even if it is more expensive than buying a year subscription on Live, you get access to SC/month and the newest expansion + more character slots. In that sense it's not bad, it comes out to $16.70/month approximately and is a great option for someone who really wants to sub to the Extended server.
What is the appeal of the Extended server? Well, it's new for one thing, and that means the broker is more reasonable. There are also lots more players in the lower level areas than I saw on Live last time I was on there.
Overall, it seems like the model Turbine went with with DDO and LotRO is better for casual players, though I dislike both games. SoE should tweek its cash shop more in favour of players and provide some means of having a more a la carte experience to truly compete with the Turbine hybrid models.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
Didnt read the article but did recently try the "free" trial. Without many changes it will not work to draw people to spend money or sub to the game. All it will do is drive anyone away who tries it and starve the existing servers of any potential new blood. Way,way,way too restrictive to be playable as it is much less fun and/or inviting. Few class avail,few races avail, only 2 bag slots, only 2 bank slots, limited chat, no broker, item restrictions, and on and on. Obviously you want to deny some things in order to encourage people to spend money but starve them to the point of pissing them off? Only $oe.