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March 10-12 Play for free
Sony is running a promotion for their 11th anniversary. Old accounts can play for free for a few days to experience what the new expansion is like.
I know the news is late, and most won't be able to take advantage now, but I hope it helps someone.
Sony, as usual, didn't do a good job of getting the word out.
I happen to still have the game loaded on a couple of computers; so, I'm going to get them up to date and drum up some nostalgia today and tomorrow (and hopefully it extends throughout the weekend)!
Who knows, maybe I'll join for 30 days during their anniversary celebration - stranger things have happened...
Comments
Here's a link to the offer, it explains it better:
http://www.bluesnews.com/a/1693/everquest-underfoot-delivers-convorteum-with-special-offer
Free play from the 10th to the 12th! Shame the servers were down for maintenance on the 10 & 12th...
This kind of promotion is like saying 'Come to Smed's tavern! Free beer!' So you drive for 8 hours to Smed's and when you get there you find out all you get is a dixie cup-full and if you want a second cup you have to fork over $35 for a cup license and $15 for a cup rental charge.
A poorly advertised, 72 hour come-back-and-try-us promotion, coinciding with 2 server maintenances? Pure marketing foolishness.
Yeah,they should have done like Funcom, mailing their customers and give out a free week instead. They need all the players they can get and this will only show that the game is down 2 days of 3, not a great move.
Can't really blame the marketing guys that they had and emergency update today.
I agree a week would of been a better period of time to offer for those interested.
So, I went back to EQ for 3 days. (Thursday - Sunday) I had some fun messing around with a couple of accounts I had made last year. Last year, I found an EQ box in a bargain bin at Target for something like $3.48, and that came with a promotion to give a friend a free 30 day trial; so, I used that to 2-box on the test server for a month of awesome nostalgia for less than $5. I used the test server because that was the only server that had the mercs available to me with the old box of EQ, and it was great to two-box and actually have a 4-man group. I prefer to solo a lot, and there's a lot of 3 man content that was off limits to me prior to mercs.
So, I was feeling nostalgic again, and tried out the 3 day trial on these accounts. I was surprised the offer extended to the free "friend" account as well. So, after a two hour download to get my program up to date, I was off and running.
I never did get to see the new expansion. I have no clue where it is, and 3 days isn't enough time to look at any new zones; so, I just went to old haunts again. The first night I went to various Velious zones and had a good time. It's what my characters were doing last year when the 30 day period ended. I really do like just roaming around solo with my 4-man group.
The next night, I was in the mood for something a little different and I looked on the web for any ideas for a fun zone to explore. Now, I don't know when they introduced these things, but I found out they made quite a number of instances that basically replicate the older zones. It sounded interesting, so I thought I'd try it out, and it was a lot of fun! I only had time for one instance - it took 5 hours!
My 4 man group was level 55, and here I was in one of my favorite zones of all time, The Estate of Unrest. All the Mobs in there were Dark Blues, and it felt like the difficulty level was just about perfect for my group. There was no respawning, and the mission had various tasks to accomplish, but I just basically cleared the whole zone, taking on mobs two by two. The five hours flew by, I was having a blast!
I would totally resubscribe for content like that, but you have to have a three man group to get into the instance, which for me means two-boxing with a merc healer. I'm just not willing to pay Sony $30 a month. If it were possible with just one account, I'd re-subscribe, just to try out all the old zones turned into fun instances.
On the third day I took my crew into Old Sebilis, and had a little dungeon crawl which was also a lot of fun. I'd like to continue exploring Old Sebilis, and it's a zone I'm not familiar with, but at $15 a month for each account, it just isn't worth it to me. My pricepoint to resubscribe at this time would be Sony's original monthly price of $9.98. For that price I'd play two accounts for a few months, until I got bored again. Or if they opened up a new progression server, I could see playing just one account for the $15 fee. But as is, Sony isn't going to lure me back. Close, but no cigar.
Perhaps SOE was relying on word of mouth? It would gauge who all is keeping tabs on the game and perhaps where people are searching for information. I would agree with you guys that an email (Newsletter Update) would have made for a better method to let people know it was a free to play weekend.
Ironically I still get emails from FunCom to return to AO, which I've not played in 9 years, LOL. I use to get email from Mythic to play DAoC, but I've not heard from them in ages at least in reference to DAoC. I still get the Warhammer Newsletters. I've been getting a lot of emails from Turbine lately, but I have no desire to go back to LoTRO.
The Old Timers Guild
Laid back, not so serious, no drama.
All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
Well I'm glad you had fun going back into the old zones. But TBH if you wanted to explore the new expansion of Underfoot you woulda had to be max level. There are monsters hitting for 10k damage and some bosses quadding for that much. By now I people should be at 50k hp/mana. Its just getting rediculous now. When I went back to play (probably Sept 09 to Dec 09) it was fun while it lasted. I mean I met some old friends and hung out with them a few times, but people dont even want to do anything anymore other than raiding. Thats about all the people in the game they have left. Group runs BARELY exist and it just takes forever to form one. Sure you have mercs, but you need a Tier 5 merc healer or tank to really be successful at doing some of the harder things. And considering people dont even do those mission progressions anymore you're out of luck.
I probably wouldn't consider going back anytime soon not even if they were letting you play for free for a month. Its just too hard to catch up to everything and get updated in gear and progression. Just too much work.
I got an email about the three days and checked it out. I mostly just messed with new characters and old characters in old zones.