EQ2 "F2P" model still sucks since they havent changed aynthing....except if you pay sub you get all basic stuff now instad askin for 200$(or so)/year lol
What will happen to Vanguard now? They would never let it compete with EQ2, so I doubt that Vanguard will go f2p now too. Its also not worth the sub atm imo. It lacks the content updates and bugfixes for a subbased game.
I think even the most diehard Vanguard fans are about to throw the towel in the ring, who can't stand the lies and false promisses anymore coming out of SOE!
SOE promised 2 large updates for Vanguard before the end of the year. So far they only deployed a tiny hotfix 2 months ago and that's it. Went silent ever since. We are halfway november now.
Right now SOE is fully focussed in trying to fix the absolute mess that is DCUO, that lies in total ruins since the F2P conversion.
The rest is now focussed on EverQuest 2 total F2P conversion, which will be the next dissaster, if by a miracle they get the same influx of new "free" players. I can already see wich servers will become totally unplayable, succumb and crash.
SOE doesn't have the manpower nor expertise and knowledge anymore to maintain their games!
With all the layoffs recents years, they lost pretty much all the good "experienced" guys. Most that is left are a bunch of interms that have no clue what they are doing.
Just take a good look at what happened to EverQuest 2 the past year! What they did with the Velious expansion. What they did with the latest Game Update. And now, just 7-8 months later, they try to do a quick and ugly money grab for another expansion, that isn't even remotely an expansion, but still try to charge full 40 bucks for it!
There are a lot comments on this. Most of which are bias. I think the problem, the span between players who like or dislike F2P is a generation issue. I know a lot out there, like me, are old time MMO playeds. I started my career back in ’97 – Any MMO at that time has a subscription model, F2P back then was not even though of, had someone mentioned it everyone would be laughing at him. Now we sit here in our late twenties and the next generation of people are accessing the MMO market. We still love the old ways a lot more and have a hard time accepting the F2P.
I highly believe that there are a younger generation out there that demand F2P while we oldies like to pay for quality. So the generation span is in my opinion the biggest problem. There are two sides of the coin F2P is both being implanted because it automatically generate more cash flow, and it generate a large player base because its free. Now back to the good old days, people were fan of a game, people were loyal, people would say “LOL only idiots play EQ1, play a man’s game come to UO” stuff like that. Everyone were subscribing to their loyal brand for several years. Now people play a game for a few months, gets bored and move to the next MMO. It’s hard to get the good old loyal player base as many of the first MMO’s had. If people tend to move on quickly, then F2P is prob. the best model for any game.
now the real question, as eq2 and by extension soe are large pieces of trash, will vanguard finally go f2p
man I hope this never happens. the reason I love vanguard so much is because it doesn't pander (nearly as much) to EVERYONE. If it was f2p, the community (whats left of it) would become the same crap as other games, which imo is one of the only reasons to play vanguard past 2-3 months.
i very much doubt the community would be bad.has vanguard is the only really well what i consider hard game..where you have to work for everything..your not goin to get 10yr olds playin this game.more likely to be players that have played it before and know what they are in for.and a few who want a real challenge.
My fiance and I have been debating on re-subbing to EQ2 over the last 2 weeks. One of our conversations last week was how great the community of EQ2 was compared to other mmos that we have played (lotro and eq1 being the other two great communities). I wonder how this move will impact one of the more positive aspects the game has going for it.
I wouldnt worry to much about it. The community wont change much. People interested in EQ2 that arent looking at TOR are already playing EQ2. People not interested in the gameplay of a game like TOR wont be interested in EQ2 anyway. Not past a couple weeks of trying the game anyway. F2P people that are interested in EQ2 are already playing the F2P version.
I reckon that most players who want to play free and are interested in EQ2 will join on Freeport actually (if they haven't already). If you have anything other than a fairly gimped character of one of the races/classes that are offered to Bronze memberships and you actually have no stuff in your shared bank, you are basically in no different boat from now on Live. You might as well just resub or go with the Passport for a weekend.
I actually am a bit baffled why SOE are doing this in this way. Offering Bronze especially on the Live servers is very strange considering that most players already on Live have either a class or race (or both) that require extra cash to be unlocked plus many restrictions that make it unappealing in my eyes at least to go that route, or many characters more than the maximum available to Bronze. The down payment is very high to get back up to the same level that just a sub fee unlocks in one go. Unless you are an extremely casual player, Bronze on Live does not make sense if you are already there.
If you are on Freeport why would you go to the Live servers that are emptier unless you like less crowded servers.
What I really hope is that they don't make the cost of subbing higher because of these changes. I pay for blocks of time which ends up making it much cheaper for me to play than going for the Gold membership. I do not want to see my subscription plan disappear...
Bah, just resubbed week ago and stopped to play after 1 (cummulative) hour in 3 tried attempts. Game have lost all my interest over years, terribly outdated. It felt like trying to play again pacman. Without very, but really heavy, face lift ... no way I'm playing again not even free. With exception of die hard fans, EQ3 is heavily needed.
I think even the most diehard Vanguard fans are about to throw the towel in the ring, who can't stand the lies and false promisses anymore coming out of SOE!
SOE promised 2 large updates for Vanguard before the end of the year. So far they only deployed a tiny hotfix 2 months ago and that's it. Went silent ever since. We are halfway november now.
when SOE made the annoucement they said within the FISCAL year (which probably ends March 2012)
It is not a surprise as Smedley made it quit clear ALL SOE [mmo] games from here on in wilkl be cash shop games.
IMo it is a really bad business model,it has only been pushed over the last couple years but already people tire of it.
SOE is building such a bad rep,i feel they are in soekm serious trouble to hang onto any kind of market share.ALL their games are buggy,they take forever IF they decide to fix bugs and memory leaks.
So they have poor game support,most bug ridden developer in the market,poor subscriptions plans too many game changes,their games are going to be ghost towns.
Ok, while I am not estatic about the changes, this is complete BS.
Game support is very subjective. In fact, SOE updates the EQs far more often than most game companies support their games. And it is odd that you bring this up in the same post as too many game changes... well which is it? Game support usually means that there are going to be changes somewhere... I will give it to you that some SOE games are not supported at all. A more homogenous game support should be offered by the SOE devs.
Their subscription plans for the normal Live service are on par with the industry average. In fact, they lowered their monthly sub about 6 months ago to keep competitive. I pay less for EQ2 than I did for EVE even though I pay for both games in euros (always more expensive for us).
There are bugs in every game, even the polished WoW and Rift. EQ2 is on par with them for bugs, therefore it is a polished game. Every game company takes ages to fix bugs, some bugs never get fixed in any game. That is just how it is. Memory leaks are also endemic to most MMOs.
I think most MMOs are going to be losing lots of players because, well, there is an economic crisis going on. Paying the high prices for an unlimited download subscription plan for highspeed internet + nice rig + box price + expansion price + sub/cash shop/whatever is getting to be expensive for a lot of people. That is, if they even have time to play anymore.
You can bash SOE for a lot of things, but what you say here is so silly in the perspective of all of the MMO industry. I agree with you about the bad business model that MMO companies seem to want to force on people.
Things I would bash SOE about:
-what they did to the SWG players around the time of implementing SWG;
-treatment of players' info and their lack of security that allowed hackers to get ahold of peoples' credit card information, bank details, etc. in some countries;
-bait and switch tactics with respect to F2P/P2P, cash shop, and doing things their players don't really want with respect to money;
-charging a huge price for a fairly lacklustre expansion pack in EQ2 that is coming up.
-bad engine in EQ2...
Unfortunately, SOE is just following the rest of the industry. I think this industry is filling up with pretty low quality business practices and money grabbing suits.
Well, splitting the community in to live and extended halves in the first place was monumentally stupid.
Unless it was done to test and adjust their F2P design in EQ2 in a controlled environment that doesn't affect the main servers, at which point it's rather brilliant.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
If you are on Freeport why would you go to the Live servers that are emptier unless you like less crowded servers.
What I really hope is that they don't make the cost of subbing higher because of these changes. I pay for blocks of time which ends up making it much cheaper for me to play than going for the Gold membership. I do not want to see my subscription plan disappear...
what this means to Freeport players is that they will now be eligible for Cross server grouping
- be it battlegrounds or an improved dungeon finder
there are many players on Freeport who do sub (like me) and have full access except for player races
they pay 15/mo w no multimonth discounts -- cannot even try other EQ2Live servers while subbed
that said, I disagree w SOE that this a good solution for everyone
some players hate any form of f2p in their games and will quit over this
I do not wish to play in a game with A|NY kind of cash shop. If real money gives people anything in a game other than equal access I am gone. I already hate the idea of playing with people who paid $10 for a special mount or whatever.
The whole "feel" of that just rips me out of any role playing.
many p2p mmos have cash shops now, even World of Warcraft (mounts and pets)
EQ2Live has had a cash shop for years, even before f2p, with mounts and exp potions
but the store offers less things than LOTRO (you wont find buy a rez on EQ2Live)
If you are on Freeport why would you go to the Live servers that are emptier unless you like less crowded servers.
What I really hope is that they don't make the cost of subbing higher because of these changes. I pay for blocks of time which ends up making it much cheaper for me to play than going for the Gold membership. I do not want to see my subscription plan disappear...
what this means to Freeport players is that they will now be eligible for Cross server grouping
- be it battlegrounds or an improved dungeon finder
there are many players on Freeport who do sub (like me) and have full access except for player races
they pay 15/mo w no multimonth discounts -- cannot even try other EQ2Live servers while subbed
that said, I disagree w SOE that this a good solution for everyone
some players hate any form of f2p in their games and will quit over this
yeah, some probably will, but some 'quit' over everything SOE does. They usually resub a bit later though once the rage passes and they miss their friends (and realise the competition is pretty weak for this type of game).
TBH though... I don't the exodus will be as bad as all that this time around... the player base has had 'some form of F2P' in this game for a long time now.... this really changes nothing for the Live servers except encouraging folks to return and give the game another go. If SOE do one thing well it's slow boiling their frogs.
I do not wish to play in a game with A|NY kind of cash shop. If real money gives people anything in a game other than equal access I am gone. I already hate the idea of playing with people who paid $10 for a special mount or whatever.
The whole "feel" of that just rips me out of any role playing.
many p2p mmos have cash shops now, even World of Warcraft (mounts and pets)
EQ2Live has had a cash shop for years, even before f2p, with mounts and exp potions
but the store offers less things than LOTRO (you wont find buy a rez on EQ2Live)
Exactly to this I guess among other things Ramzeppelin have been referring. And I also hate this in Wow. I play games with sub and want to have access to all that is possible with sub or hard work, no cash shops.
Nothing really changed. Those who want to raid have to stay subbed to the gold plan, everybody else can play for free at the raiders expense.
Welcome to all the freeloader who will never spend a dime on eq2. I got a bad fealing about this.
Yeah. Its not a good thing for someone who wants to actually play the game. SOE might be able to pick up a buck or two from the freebies but as you say the raiders will pay for those who choose to log in and just dick around. Redistributing the wealth, if you will
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
Comments
While we were amused here at my house about my above comments, I realize the tone was lost in print.
EQ2 "F2P" model still sucks since they havent changed aynthing....except if you pay sub you get all basic stuff now instad askin for 200$(or so)/year lol
I think even the most diehard Vanguard fans are about to throw the towel in the ring, who can't stand the lies and false promisses anymore coming out of SOE!
SOE promised 2 large updates for Vanguard before the end of the year. So far they only deployed a tiny hotfix 2 months ago and that's it. Went silent ever since. We are halfway november now.
Right now SOE is fully focussed in trying to fix the absolute mess that is DCUO, that lies in total ruins since the F2P conversion.
The rest is now focussed on EverQuest 2 total F2P conversion, which will be the next dissaster, if by a miracle they get the same influx of new "free" players. I can already see wich servers will become totally unplayable, succumb and crash.
SOE doesn't have the manpower nor expertise and knowledge anymore to maintain their games!
With all the layoffs recents years, they lost pretty much all the good "experienced" guys. Most that is left are a bunch of interms that have no clue what they are doing.
Just take a good look at what happened to EverQuest 2 the past year! What they did with the Velious expansion. What they did with the latest Game Update. And now, just 7-8 months later, they try to do a quick and ugly money grab for another expansion, that isn't even remotely an expansion, but still try to charge full 40 bucks for it!
Need to say more?
Did anyone really think that SOE would take care of VG? Did you really believe you would be seeing those 2 large updates? SOE does not care about VG.
F2P Vs. Subs
There are a lot comments on this. Most of which are bias. I think the problem, the span between players who like or dislike F2P is a generation issue. I know a lot out there, like me, are old time MMO playeds. I started my career back in ’97 – Any MMO at that time has a subscription model, F2P back then was not even though of, had someone mentioned it everyone would be laughing at him. Now we sit here in our late twenties and the next generation of people are accessing the MMO market. We still love the old ways a lot more and have a hard time accepting the F2P.
I highly believe that there are a younger generation out there that demand F2P while we oldies like to pay for quality. So the generation span is in my opinion the biggest problem. There are two sides of the coin F2P is both being implanted because it automatically generate more cash flow, and it generate a large player base because its free. Now back to the good old days, people were fan of a game, people were loyal, people would say “LOL only idiots play EQ1, play a man’s game come to UO” stuff like that. Everyone were subscribing to their loyal brand for several years. Now people play a game for a few months, gets bored and move to the next MMO. It’s hard to get the good old loyal player base as many of the first MMO’s had. If people tend to move on quickly, then F2P is prob. the best model for any game.
dats not fair!
RIP Orc Choppa
doesnt matter if it goes fully f2p. There are new much better games coming out.--skip
it's amazing the kind of corporate response the LOTRO, AOC, and the future GW2 numbers inspire.
i very much doubt the community would be bad.has vanguard is the only really well what i consider hard game..where you have to work for everything..your not goin to get 10yr olds playin this game.more likely to be players that have played it before and know what they are in for.and a few who want a real challenge.
I reckon that most players who want to play free and are interested in EQ2 will join on Freeport actually (if they haven't already). If you have anything other than a fairly gimped character of one of the races/classes that are offered to Bronze memberships and you actually have no stuff in your shared bank, you are basically in no different boat from now on Live. You might as well just resub or go with the Passport for a weekend.
I actually am a bit baffled why SOE are doing this in this way. Offering Bronze especially on the Live servers is very strange considering that most players already on Live have either a class or race (or both) that require extra cash to be unlocked plus many restrictions that make it unappealing in my eyes at least to go that route, or many characters more than the maximum available to Bronze. The down payment is very high to get back up to the same level that just a sub fee unlocks in one go. Unless you are an extremely casual player, Bronze on Live does not make sense if you are already there.
If you are on Freeport why would you go to the Live servers that are emptier unless you like less crowded servers.
What I really hope is that they don't make the cost of subbing higher because of these changes. I pay for blocks of time which ends up making it much cheaper for me to play than going for the Gold membership. I do not want to see my subscription plan disappear...
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
Bah, just resubbed week ago and stopped to play after 1 (cummulative) hour in 3 tried attempts. Game have lost all my interest over years, terribly outdated. It felt like trying to play again pacman. Without very, but really heavy, face lift ... no way I'm playing again not even free. With exception of die hard fans, EQ3 is heavily needed.
when SOE made the annoucement they said within the FISCAL year (which probably ends March 2012)
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/07/10/soe-fan-faire-2011-an-update-on-vanguard/
EQ2 fan sites
Ok, while I am not estatic about the changes, this is complete BS.
Game support is very subjective. In fact, SOE updates the EQs far more often than most game companies support their games. And it is odd that you bring this up in the same post as too many game changes... well which is it? Game support usually means that there are going to be changes somewhere... I will give it to you that some SOE games are not supported at all. A more homogenous game support should be offered by the SOE devs.
Their subscription plans for the normal Live service are on par with the industry average. In fact, they lowered their monthly sub about 6 months ago to keep competitive. I pay less for EQ2 than I did for EVE even though I pay for both games in euros (always more expensive for us).
There are bugs in every game, even the polished WoW and Rift. EQ2 is on par with them for bugs, therefore it is a polished game. Every game company takes ages to fix bugs, some bugs never get fixed in any game. That is just how it is. Memory leaks are also endemic to most MMOs.
I think most MMOs are going to be losing lots of players because, well, there is an economic crisis going on. Paying the high prices for an unlimited download subscription plan for highspeed internet + nice rig + box price + expansion price + sub/cash shop/whatever is getting to be expensive for a lot of people. That is, if they even have time to play anymore.
You can bash SOE for a lot of things, but what you say here is so silly in the perspective of all of the MMO industry. I agree with you about the bad business model that MMO companies seem to want to force on people.
Things I would bash SOE about:
-what they did to the SWG players around the time of implementing SWG;
-treatment of players' info and their lack of security that allowed hackers to get ahold of peoples' credit card information, bank details, etc. in some countries;
-bait and switch tactics with respect to F2P/P2P, cash shop, and doing things their players don't really want with respect to money;
-charging a huge price for a fairly lacklustre expansion pack in EQ2 that is coming up.
-bad engine in EQ2...
Unfortunately, SOE is just following the rest of the industry. I think this industry is filling up with pretty low quality business practices and money grabbing suits.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
Unless it was done to test and adjust their F2P design in EQ2 in a controlled environment that doesn't affect the main servers, at which point it's rather brilliant.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Awesome! Things are very different when it's a huge company behind the show.
what this means to Freeport players is that they will now be eligible for Cross server grouping
- be it battlegrounds or an improved dungeon finder
there are many players on Freeport who do sub (like me) and have full access except for player races
they pay 15/mo w no multimonth discounts -- cannot even try other EQ2Live servers while subbed
that said, I disagree w SOE that this a good solution for everyone
some players hate any form of f2p in their games and will quit over this
EQ2 fan sites
many p2p mmos have cash shops now, even World of Warcraft (mounts and pets)
EQ2Live has had a cash shop for years, even before f2p, with mounts and exp potions
but the store offers less things than LOTRO (you wont find buy a rez on EQ2Live)
EQ2 fan sites
yeah, some probably will, but some 'quit' over everything SOE does. They usually resub a bit later though once the rage passes and they miss their friends (and realise the competition is pretty weak for this type of game).
TBH though... I don't the exodus will be as bad as all that this time around... the player base has had 'some form of F2P' in this game for a long time now.... this really changes nothing for the Live servers except encouraging folks to return and give the game another go. If SOE do one thing well it's slow boiling their frogs.
Nothing really changed. Those who want to raid have to stay subbed to the gold plan, everybody else can play for free at the raiders expense.
Welcome to all the freeloader who will never spend a dime on eq2. I got a bad fealing about this.
Exactly to this I guess among other things Ramzeppelin have been referring. And I also hate this in Wow. I play games with sub and want to have access to all that is possible with sub or hard work, no cash shops.
Great. Bigger starting bags, please.
This is one confusing mess lol. I think that is how they will ninja loot your wallet.
so if EQ2 is going fully F2P will be have to buy the expansions separately from the cash shop or will be get the whole game??? off the bat?
Yeah. Its not a good thing for someone who wants to actually play the game. SOE might be able to pick up a buck or two from the freebies but as you say the raiders will pay for those who choose to log in and just dick around. Redistributing the wealth, if you will
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
http://everquest2.com/free_to_play/game_overview
1 Full Access consists of game world access through EverQuest II Sentinel's Fate®.
whats not free is DOV and the upcoming new expansion, Age of Discovery
- neither raised the level cap of 90
EQ2 fan sites