In theory you could buy stuff in DDO without spending money,but as I understand it it requires repeated grinding through quests, deleting a character, grinding through the same quests again, and so on and so on.
As for the microtransaction thing, Blizzard did pave the way. their trading card game was a big success strictly because of the ultra rare mounts. I know of no one that plays the TCG, but know of lots of people that buy the packs. This is even worse than mts, this is mt gambling.
SoE saw this, and ran with it. They thought outside of the box and created it as an online game, and people actually do play it (though most people buy cards just for the mounts and times as well).
Then SoE entered the mt game, and yes before blizzard. however, its been going on for what, 2 years now? theyve kept to their word, its only cosmetics. people may hate the principal, but no one truly hates the impact its made on the game.
And the big difference between SoE and blizzard with this is that SoE spends far more of their resources developing the game than Blizzard does. Blizzard release an incomplete expansion every two years and filters out their raid content over time to let people think they are getting updates all the time. Yes, they release a high quality product, but for two years between expansions they arent enough. They make 2 billion a year from wow, can make a couple million with limited effort (see sparkle pony release day), yet cant hire more of a development team? Oh but they are too busy working into their social network crap that most people do not want. How about making a game where account hacking is to the point where its *common* for a guild member to get hacked, even with a fully protected computer, *more safe* instead of *less safe*. But no, lets make everyone use their email address to log in with as opposed to a created account name.
Basically, Blizzard is a company that has seemingly just as little respect for its people as SoE yet doesnt get its bad rap. people dont reach to blame Blizzard for faults that arent their own to the extent they do with SoE. If you want to hate SoE and refuse to play their product, thats a reasonable choice. but to go off and play another MMO is in almost all cases just 6 of one, half dozen of the other.
My point was that in the turbine system it can be free to play and all the advantages of the store are offered in the game.
As for the blizzard card game, go to any hobby store and you will most likely find card games or tournaments there. I was surprised by how popular it is. However, soe was already deep into live gamer and station exchange before blizzard. They were already reselling the base game to SWG players with super perks of instant travel items from anywhere. John smedley was already posting about how he wanted soe to have 50-90% of its revenue come from non-subscription fees five years ago. This has been the long term gameplan from soe for years now.
Also soes RMT is not only cosmetic. Mounts have stats, potions offer xp perks, virtual card loot offers exclusive zones with quests/stat item rewards, etc. No they did not keep their word, but that isn't something new. Just look at this thread.
Saying soe spends more resources developing the game is a joke. Right now soe is spending the development time of the subscription game to develop the free to play game. Think about that for a second.
Yes blizzard takes forever to produce content, but when they do make something they do it right. The same cannot be said for soe. Their goal of quantity over quality is one of the main reasons their products suffer so much. You really want to complain about blizzard expansions after the last eq2 expansion? Nothing says quality like a developer using a random number generator to fill in stats for the items and not understanding why players complain about itemization. How much development time do you think is coming out of the next xpack to make this free to play system? Think about that.
Reputations are earned for a reason. Look how poorly soe is handling this free to play change for a shining example of that. They looked their long term customers in the face and told them nothing was changing, even though they were secretly working on the change and only announced it 2 weeks before it goes live. On top of that they are trying to deprive the old servers of new player by removing the free trial there.
"My issues start though with the fact that both Bronze and Silver come with huge restrictions on them that would make it impossible for anyone to play competitively and the necessary upgrades cannot be purchases individually."
SoE offers almost the entire game content for free but with a lot of gameplay restrictions,for exeample you can raid at endgame if you are Free or Silver but can't wear the raid loot, in fact if you are not Gold no raid for you.
DDO offer only 1/3 of content for free but atleast you can join a Shroud and craft your Greensteel if you bought the Vale Adventure Pack,you don't need do be VIP.
the classes and races are very limited for F2P,DDO have 6 races where 5 are free and 11 classes where 9 are free(counting Favored Soul as Pay because is impossible reach 2500 favor with the free quests)
in fact Bronze and Silver options are extend trial there no way to enjoy the better part of the game without going gold and gold still limited btw(7 char Slots 4 races)
SoE need to rework that F2P system
1-allow silver to buy acess to higher spells tier,Raid gear,and gold limit
2-Remove Platinum membership
3-change Gold membership to give acess to 10 char slots all races + 500 SC month
4-Merge EQ2X with EQ2(35 bucks per char that you want transfer from EQ2 to EQ2X thats a joke right?)
4-Merge EQ2X with EQ2(35 bucks per char that you want transfer from EQ2 to EQ2X thats a joke right?)
A very, VERY bad joke. Go back and read that part again, more closely: that $35 only gets you an incomplete copy, missing most possessions and all money.
F2P is suddenly becoming the 3D of movies it seems.
I do not approve of F2P that have other content in the cash shop. I would hate nothing more than to walk up to a dungeon and be stopped to have to purchase the content. HOWEVER if it's done in the way Guild Wars was done an a few other I'm sure (maybe LotRO is doing it the GW way) then I have no problem with it what so ever. I think F2P is great. But hate how some games try to implement it. You can actually end up spending more money in a shorter time than a constant 12.99 over the course of a couple years.
I assume this is so the delvopers can get more money now since you will probably leave the game after a few months or a couple years at most. Still it all depends on how it's done... I don't like how Sony is doing it from what I'm reading.
To be fair, the casuials have been paying for the hardcore for decades. Now, the hardcore would be required to pay for what they consume.
"In a subscription based game, you are overcharging half your playebase, and undercharging the rest".
NM
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
in fact Bronze and Silver options are extend trial there no way to enjoy the better part of the game without going gold and gold still limited btw(7 char Slots 4 races) SoE need to rework that F2P system 1-allow silver to buy acess to higher spells tier,Raid gear,and gold limit 2-Remove Platinum membership 3-change Gold membership to give acess to 10 char slots all races + 500 SC month 4-Merge EQ2X with EQ2(35 bucks per char that you want transfer from EQ2 to EQ2X thats a joke right?)
Yes that is exactly what it is, an extended trial, a game bigger than WoW,as a free or $10 Trial.
1. Keep in mind this is not the same server, the prices wont be inflated tot he same extent of the regular servers. silver membership gives you 16pp at level 80. You do NOT in any way, shape or form need spells higher than expert to do 95% of the content.
2. I dont see why people are so up in arms about this. if you have an issue, then just move over to the live servers, pay by month, and do what everyone else does.
3. SO make gold membership even better than eq2 live? Really?
4. No. No. No. This will force the extended item mall to live servers, which they DO NOT WANT. It will also give the bronze and silver members the same economy thats on live servers.
Here is what they should do, IMO.
Allow at least one bronze and Silver only servers. There will be no division between the have (gold and platinum) and have nots.
Allow an EQ2E to EQLive service. Any gear bought with station cash gets removed. $60 per character. The first character would enable the SF expansion plus one free month, any subsequent character would just be the flat $60. This is to prevent people form leveling on extended just to bring over to live.
However, the current system is not bad at all. Its less greedy than the item mall games like RoM, and really less greedy than LOTRO. The only real big thing is requiring you to pay for a year up front for the platinum membership, but again, its not like you have to do so. Theres always the regular servers.
Show me one game where you can do as much in eq2 for just $10 bucks without spending most of your game time doing something tedious to get stuff for 'free'. People spend too much time comparing eq2e vs eq2live and not enough time comparing the actual content of eq2e to any other f2p game.
Originally posted by Daffid011 Their goal of quantity over quality is one of the main reasons their products suffer so much. You really want to complain about blizzard expansions after the last eq2 expansion? Nothing says quality like a developer using a random number generator to fill in stats for the items and not understanding why players complain about itemization.
1. Sentinels Fate was EQ2s first real dud. Every other expansion has been quality. 2. WoWs itemization is really just as lazy. Maybe a little more thought out, but its all done by a formula. The iLevel system is just lazy. Oh hey look lets see what Arthas drops? Oh yay a weapon thats very similar to the one Im using with just extra points to spend on its stats. The biggest boss in the history of the game and ZERO thought was put into his drops. yep, lets just increase the dps by a little form the previous sword, add a little str, a little arpen, there good as new.
Originally posted by Daffid011 Their goal of quantity over quality is one of the main reasons their products suffer so much. You really want to complain about blizzard expansions after the last eq2 expansion? Nothing says quality like a developer using a random number generator to fill in stats for the items and not understanding why players complain about itemization.
1. Sentinels Fate was EQ2s first real dud. Every other expansion has been quality. 2. WoWs itemization is really just as lazy. Maybe a little more thought out, but its all done by a formula. The iLevel system is just lazy. Oh hey look lets see what Arthas drops? Oh yay a weapon thats very similar to the one Im using with just extra points to spend on its stats. The biggest boss in the history of the game and ZERO thought was put into his drops. yep, lets just increase the dps by a little form the previous sword, add a little str, a little arpen, there good as new.
"We want people to know that we're not just slamming out expansion packs. I think that was a mistaken strategy that we had for a while. It decreased our quality level." -John Smedley
"[We're] refocusing SOE on high quality and not rushing releases,"-John Smedley
The president of the company flat out admits that they rushed quantity over quality. Even looking back at soes new focus on quality they did not seem to make that transition did they? Sentinals Fate was just worse than most others is all.
As for itemization, yes blizzard follows a formula and a point budget for items, but that isn't lazy. The items designed for each class make sense and item progression is fluid. The itemization in the last eq2 expansion was done with a random number generator and even then left out important stats. That is why none of the items make sense and progression is a mess. I could be wrong, but I don't think this is a unique situation to this expansion.
"We want people to know that we're not just slamming out expansion packs. I think that was a mistaken strategy that we had for a while. It decreased our quality level." -John Smedley "[We're] refocusing SOE on high quality and not rushing releases,"-John Smedley The president of the company flat out admits that they rushed quantity over quality. Even looking back at soes new focus on quality they did not seem to make that transition did they? Sentinals Fate was just worse than most others is all. As for itemization, yes blizzard follows a formula and a point budget for items, but that isn't lazy. The items designed for each class make sense and item progression is fluid. The itemization in the last eq2 expansion was done with a random number generator and even then left out important stats. That is why none of the items make sense and progression is a mess. I could be wrong, but I don't think this is a unique situation to this expansion.
Regardless of what Smedley said, Kunark expansion was quality. Faydwer expansion was quality. DoF and KoS were a little weaker, but both have a lot of great content in them. I think it was more of SoE wanting to get back to the quality of EQ1's Kunark, Velious, and Planes of Power expansions, but thats a tall order because those expansions are as good as any game has ever done. I stopped playing EQ1 after DoDH but have never been upset with an expansion, with the exception of GoD at its launch. However GoD stands up pretty well nowadays. SoF was a misstep, no question.
And yes, WoW's loot designing is lazy. Again, one of the biggest bosses in MMORPG history in terms of anticipation, perhaps the biggest. And there wasnt ANY thought given to its loots other than 'tell the art team to make some weapon graphics'. After raiding in EQ1 loot in WoW is just boring. Blizzard has some great encounters, but there hasnt been a single item in all of wotlk that i said 'wow, I cant wait to get that'. And thats because Ive always had a lesser version of it. Its like when you level up in a MMO and you get Fireball rank 17. Yeah its nice, but it sure would be nice to get Firestorm rank 1 or even fireburst rank 4.
Regardless of what Smedley said, Kunark expansion was quality. Faydwer expansion was quality. DoF and KoS were a little weaker, but both have a lot of great content in them. I think it was more of SoE wanting to get back to the quality of EQ1's Kunark, Velious, and Planes of Power expansions, but thats a tall order because those expansions are as good as any game has ever done. I stopped playing EQ1 after DoDH but have never been upset with an expansion, with the exception of GoD at its launch. However GoD stands up pretty well nowadays. SoF was a misstep, no question.
And yes, WoW's loot designing is lazy. Again, one of the biggest bosses in MMORPG history in terms of anticipation, perhaps the biggest. And there wasnt ANY thought given to its loots other than 'tell the art team to make some weapon graphics'. After raiding in EQ1 loot in WoW is just boring. Blizzard has some great encounters, but there hasnt been a single item in all of wotlk that i said 'wow, I cant wait to get that'. And thats because Ive always had a lesser version of it. Its like when you level up in a MMO and you get Fireball rank 17. Yeah its nice, but it sure would be nice to get Firestorm rank 1 or even fireburst rank 4.
I'm not sure what more you need than the president of the company admitting the expansions were lacking quality, rushed out and the plan was to aim for quantity at the expense of anything else. That is a pretty clear admission of the state of how things ran for a while. Seeing how sentinals fate turned out isn't really reinforcing their commitment to high quality.
As for wows loot, ok. You may not like the style of it and that is fine, but it is a completely functional system that does exactly what a gear based progression game is supposed to do. Much like EQ1s loot system did. EQ1 worked by starving players for items which made upgrades so infrequent they were memorable. Wow works by overloading choices to give players flexibility and making certain choices memorable. Both have strengths and weaknesses. For the record I enjoyed the eq1 system a bit more as you seem to. In a sense that less is more.
EQ2 does neither of these, because there is no thought put into the items. They are made without any thought or direction as numbers are randomly assigned by the computer and it produced garbage. It is not a good thing for players to be complaining for years about how poorly the game itemizes upgrades in a gear based progression game.
P.S. I've found that it helps to go to the end of a quoted post and add a blank line before removing extra quoted replies. It helps keep the formatting correct and makes things a bit more readable.
With free-to-play gameplay and access to experience point enhancing items, is SOE afraid of a mass exodus of players from the main game once Extended launches? "If there is a mass exodus," says Georgeson, "That'll just prove that this is something the players wanted."
Yes, that makes perfect sense
Yes that makes sense if those people start playing f2p version. it wil mean those paying people prefer f2p version with item shop etc. What's so hard to understand?
Yeah, because a mass exodus couldn't possibly mean that the subscribers were fed up and left COMPLETELY, now could it?
The question was not "If there's a mass exodus of paying players to the F2P servers". the question was "If there's a mass exodus when extended launches".
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
personally i don't think there will be a mass exoduss to F2P server. Why? Because of the current membership matrix of the F2P server. It is so damn restrictive and anyone with half a brain (that is currently a sub on EQ2) will know it will work out spending much more on F2P servers.
I think just the fact that the new severs will be crowded with people, albeit people who are too cheap to pay a subscription, will tempt current subscribers to reroll on the new servers. . Just so they can run old content with a group if nothing else.
With free-to-play gameplay and access to experience point enhancing items, is SOE afraid of a mass exodus of players from the main game once Extended launches? "If there is a mass exodus," says Georgeson, "That'll just prove that this is something the players wanted."
Yes, that makes perfect sense
I don't think you get what he meant. He doesn't mean "mass exodus" as in players leaving, he means "Mass Exodus" of people moving from the sub model to the hybrid model.
If current EQ2 players just up and quit, they're pretty much idiots, because nothing about their game changes.
I call removing the trial from my (now ex, as I just cancelled) EQ2 server a BIG change to the game. Since I was a recruiter for my guild I can testify that it is nonsense to say there were no new people coming in anyway, just people coming back. We relied on the newcomers to keep our member numbers stable as any guild does (or dies).
Played: Pretty much any fantasy MMO, some did not even make it to release ... Favorites: UO, EQ2, Vanguard, Wurm Online, Salem, ESO, Creativerse Playing: ESO, Creativerse, Guild Wars 2 Anticipating: (sigh) ... maybe Ashes of Creation
Whatever the outcome of the free to play service, soe is handling the announcement and information poorly.
Cutting support for the live servers by removing free trials is a very bad message to send to existing players as is not allowing extended to live server transfers. Misleading the current players by saying the subscription model wasn't going to change when they were obviously working on these changes just further causes mistrust between player/developer. Keeping this a secret until 2 weeks before it goes live just sends the message that current players input isn't valued and continues to erode the relationship between players and soe.
It is almost as if they want to cause panic and lose credibility with their customers.
Comments
My point was that in the turbine system it can be free to play and all the advantages of the store are offered in the game.
As for the blizzard card game, go to any hobby store and you will most likely find card games or tournaments there. I was surprised by how popular it is. However, soe was already deep into live gamer and station exchange before blizzard. They were already reselling the base game to SWG players with super perks of instant travel items from anywhere. John smedley was already posting about how he wanted soe to have 50-90% of its revenue come from non-subscription fees five years ago. This has been the long term gameplan from soe for years now.
Also soes RMT is not only cosmetic. Mounts have stats, potions offer xp perks, virtual card loot offers exclusive zones with quests/stat item rewards, etc. No they did not keep their word, but that isn't something new. Just look at this thread.
Saying soe spends more resources developing the game is a joke. Right now soe is spending the development time of the subscription game to develop the free to play game. Think about that for a second.
Yes blizzard takes forever to produce content, but when they do make something they do it right. The same cannot be said for soe. Their goal of quantity over quality is one of the main reasons their products suffer so much. You really want to complain about blizzard expansions after the last eq2 expansion? Nothing says quality like a developer using a random number generator to fill in stats for the items and not understanding why players complain about itemization. How much development time do you think is coming out of the next xpack to make this free to play system? Think about that.
Reputations are earned for a reason. Look how poorly soe is handling this free to play change for a shining example of that. They looked their long term customers in the face and told them nothing was changing, even though they were secretly working on the change and only announced it 2 weeks before it goes live. On top of that they are trying to deprive the old servers of new player by removing the free trial there.
No, it means:
Why pay for another month of a MEH game when I can play the other MEH game for free.
See what I did there? I REMOVED my paid subscription and added the FREE one. With NO intention of buying anything from their game. See, see it?
Say hello, To the things you've left behind. They are more a part of your life now that you can't touch them.
this guy said something that is very QFT.
"My issues start though with the fact that both Bronze and Silver come with huge restrictions on them that would make it impossible for anyone to play competitively and the necessary upgrades cannot be purchases individually."
SoE offers almost the entire game content for free but with a lot of gameplay restrictions,for exeample you can raid at endgame if you are Free or Silver but can't wear the raid loot, in fact if you are not Gold no raid for you.
DDO offer only 1/3 of content for free but atleast you can join a Shroud and craft your Greensteel if you bought the Vale Adventure Pack,you don't need do be VIP.
the classes and races are very limited for F2P,DDO have 6 races where 5 are free and 11 classes where 9 are free(counting Favored Soul as Pay because is impossible reach 2500 favor with the free quests)
in fact Bronze and Silver options are extend trial there no way to enjoy the better part of the game without going gold and gold still limited btw(7 char Slots 4 races)
SoE need to rework that F2P system
1-allow silver to buy acess to higher spells tier,Raid gear,and gold limit
2-Remove Platinum membership
3-change Gold membership to give acess to 10 char slots all races + 500 SC month
4-Merge EQ2X with EQ2(35 bucks per char that you want transfer from EQ2 to EQ2X thats a joke right?)
yes i saw it the first time round.
but that is not taking advantage of any "system". or in other words you are not making SOE loose money because of THEIR decision.
if you wanted you could have dropped the MEH game VG months ago and gone to MEH F2P games lotro or DnD or whatever.
A very, VERY bad joke. Go back and read that part again, more closely: that $35 only gets you an incomplete copy, missing most possessions and all money.
NM
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
Yes that is exactly what it is, an extended trial, a game bigger than WoW,as a free or $10 Trial.1. Keep in mind this is not the same server, the prices wont be inflated tot he same extent of the regular servers. silver membership gives you 16pp at level 80. You do NOT in any way, shape or form need spells higher than expert to do 95% of the content.
2. I dont see why people are so up in arms about this. if you have an issue, then just move over to the live servers, pay by month, and do what everyone else does.
3. SO make gold membership even better than eq2 live? Really?
4. No. No. No. This will force the extended item mall to live servers, which they DO NOT WANT. It will also give the bronze and silver members the same economy thats on live servers.
Here is what they should do, IMO.
Allow at least one bronze and Silver only servers. There will be no division between the have (gold and platinum) and have nots.
Allow an EQ2E to EQLive service. Any gear bought with station cash gets removed. $60 per character. The first character would enable the SF expansion plus one free month, any subsequent character would just be the flat $60. This is to prevent people form leveling on extended just to bring over to live.
However, the current system is not bad at all. Its less greedy than the item mall games like RoM, and really less greedy than LOTRO. The only real big thing is requiring you to pay for a year up front for the platinum membership, but again, its not like you have to do so. Theres always the regular servers.
Show me one game where you can do as much in eq2 for just $10 bucks without spending most of your game time doing something tedious to get stuff for 'free'. People spend too much time comparing eq2e vs eq2live and not enough time comparing the actual content of eq2e to any other f2p game.
1. Sentinels Fate was EQ2s first real dud. Every other expansion has been quality.2. WoWs itemization is really just as lazy. Maybe a little more thought out, but its all done by a formula. The iLevel system is just lazy. Oh hey look lets see what Arthas drops? Oh yay a weapon thats very similar to the one Im using with just extra points to spend on its stats. The biggest boss in the history of the game and ZERO thought was put into his drops. yep, lets just increase the dps by a little form the previous sword, add a little str, a little arpen, there good as new.
"We want people to know that we're not just slamming out expansion packs. I think that was a mistaken strategy that we had for a while. It decreased our quality level." -John Smedley
"[We're] refocusing SOE on high quality and not rushing releases,"-John Smedley
The president of the company flat out admits that they rushed quantity over quality. Even looking back at soes new focus on quality they did not seem to make that transition did they? Sentinals Fate was just worse than most others is all.
As for itemization, yes blizzard follows a formula and a point budget for items, but that isn't lazy. The items designed for each class make sense and item progression is fluid. The itemization in the last eq2 expansion was done with a random number generator and even then left out important stats. That is why none of the items make sense and progression is a mess. I could be wrong, but I don't think this is a unique situation to this expansion.
Regardless of what Smedley said, Kunark expansion was quality. Faydwer expansion was quality. DoF and KoS were a little weaker, but both have a lot of great content in them. I think it was more of SoE wanting to get back to the quality of EQ1's Kunark, Velious, and Planes of Power expansions, but thats a tall order because those expansions are as good as any game has ever done. I stopped playing EQ1 after DoDH but have never been upset with an expansion, with the exception of GoD at its launch. However GoD stands up pretty well nowadays. SoF was a misstep, no question. And yes, WoW's loot designing is lazy. Again, one of the biggest bosses in MMORPG history in terms of anticipation, perhaps the biggest. And there wasnt ANY thought given to its loots other than 'tell the art team to make some weapon graphics'. After raiding in EQ1 loot in WoW is just boring. Blizzard has some great encounters, but there hasnt been a single item in all of wotlk that i said 'wow, I cant wait to get that'. And thats because Ive always had a lesser version of it. Its like when you level up in a MMO and you get Fireball rank 17. Yeah its nice, but it sure would be nice to get Firestorm rank 1 or even fireburst rank 4.I'm not sure what more you need than the president of the company admitting the expansions were lacking quality, rushed out and the plan was to aim for quantity at the expense of anything else. That is a pretty clear admission of the state of how things ran for a while. Seeing how sentinals fate turned out isn't really reinforcing their commitment to high quality.
As for wows loot, ok. You may not like the style of it and that is fine, but it is a completely functional system that does exactly what a gear based progression game is supposed to do. Much like EQ1s loot system did. EQ1 worked by starving players for items which made upgrades so infrequent they were memorable. Wow works by overloading choices to give players flexibility and making certain choices memorable. Both have strengths and weaknesses. For the record I enjoyed the eq1 system a bit more as you seem to. In a sense that less is more.
EQ2 does neither of these, because there is no thought put into the items. They are made without any thought or direction as numbers are randomly assigned by the computer and it produced garbage. It is not a good thing for players to be complaining for years about how poorly the game itemizes upgrades in a gear based progression game.
P.S. I've found that it helps to go to the end of a quoted post and add a blank line before removing extra quoted replies. It helps keep the formatting correct and makes things a bit more readable.
Yeah, because a mass exodus couldn't possibly mean that the subscribers were fed up and left COMPLETELY, now could it?
The question was not "If there's a mass exodus of paying players to the F2P servers". the question was "If there's a mass exodus when extended launches".
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
personally i don't think there will be a mass exoduss to F2P server. Why? Because of the current membership matrix of the F2P server. It is so damn restrictive and anyone with half a brain (that is currently a sub on EQ2) will know it will work out spending much more on F2P servers.
A lot of people are already talking about canceling their subscription and playing on the extended servers.
I do agree with you that the pricing structure sort of screws players over, but people will migrate to where ever the player population is at.
I think just the fact that the new severs will be crowded with people, albeit people who are too cheap to pay a subscription, will tempt current subscribers to reroll on the new servers.
.
Just so they can run old content with a group if nothing else.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
I call removing the trial from my (now ex, as I just cancelled) EQ2 server a BIG change to the game. Since I was a recruiter for my guild I can testify that it is nonsense to say there were no new people coming in anyway, just people coming back. We relied on the newcomers to keep our member numbers stable as any guild does (or dies).
Played: Pretty much any fantasy MMO, some did not even make it to release ...
Favorites: UO, EQ2, Vanguard, Wurm Online, Salem, ESO, Creativerse
Playing: ESO, Creativerse, Guild Wars 2
Anticipating: (sigh) ... maybe Ashes of Creation
Whatever the outcome of the free to play service, soe is handling the announcement and information poorly.
Cutting support for the live servers by removing free trials is a very bad message to send to existing players as is not allowing extended to live server transfers. Misleading the current players by saying the subscription model wasn't going to change when they were obviously working on these changes just further causes mistrust between player/developer. Keeping this a secret until 2 weeks before it goes live just sends the message that current players input isn't valued and continues to erode the relationship between players and soe.
It is almost as if they want to cause panic and lose credibility with their customers.