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EverQuest: F2P Launch Dated
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Sony Online Entertainment has announced that the hybrid subscription-free to play model of EverQuest will officially launch on the game's 13th birthday. Beginning March 16, 2012, EverQuest players can take advantage of the "free to play your way" revenue model with many areas of the game truly F2P with subscription plans also available.
Read the full press release on the EverQuest site.
Comments
Will be nice to be able to log in and dink around in my old world. Heres to hoping someone is able to make a game anywhere near as good in the future.
Any idea if they plan on starting a new progression server that day? I have missed at least 8 or 9 expansions, and would just be completely lost.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
And like EQ2, EQ is in a "Free2Play' status where you're either severely limited in gameplay OR you MUST either
buy extensively from the cash shop
go gold
to enjoy a lot of the game.
When will SOE learn that FORCING players into the cashshop/premium is not the way and that the Turbine way is better and gives more revinue?
Doubtful, you can't even log into the existing progression servers as a free player.
I dont think they ever will learn. If they didnt have the Everquest franchise to milk for every last drop of dignity the company would be long dead.
Free to Play. Your Way. Pssssh, just as lame as their old moniker, "You're in our world now." Both indicating their disrespect for the player base. The former being misleading and the latter being a foreshadowing of developer / player interactions with the famous fights between players and guilds against the developers about content design.
I wouldn't go that far. This IS Sony we're talking about. They've got cash coming out of their noses.
I recently tried F2P EQ2 (as in "tried" I mean I tried to get the game to play). The damn game takes a good 10 minutes just to load the zone when I first log in, then it runs like crap. My old rig ran this game better back when it launched. Also yeah, the limits of the F2P model are just insane. Not even worth playing for free with all the limitations.
What?! The 16th?
(( sigh... I've been so excited to get in on this since I heard about it like a month ago.. The 16th isn't "early" in the month! It's "late" as in the month is more than half over! I was expecting a release of like... March 3rd or March 8th or something. 
Sigh... Got like 22 days of horrible boredom to go until I can play something I enjoy again. . . . and will actually run on my computer.
But when I can play, I'm never leaving. I haven't truly enjoyed myself in any MMORPG since leaving EQ in 2002. They all suck!
What you do is subscribe for a month make the classes silver wont let you and level them after a month go free and you can still play characters you created before you went free.
Really hoping they have a double or triple station cash day around then. They have one with Gamestop now, but for me its not really worth driving out that way and paying sales tax on top of that.
Regarding EQ2, did you just download the small less than 1GB install? If so, it ran like crap because it was downloading the other 12GB+ in the background. I just left mine running for a few hours before trying it.
Either way, I really wanted to be an Iksar Shadowknight again, but no way I'm paying to unlock both the class and the race.
Im ready for EQ Next. Or at least another good game, no more solo quest leveling.
Oh its not misleading at all! You are free to play as a gimp which noone will want to group with, with very restricted races and classes (on an ancient game no less). Or you can pay heaps of money to be remotely competitive.
I'd like them to make Vanguard F2P, but unless SoE learn how to do a decent F2P model where the main cash shop stuff is just cosmetic and convenience... rather than 'premioum content' people had access to at launch many years ago..... its just not going to be worth anyones time.
I would ask them to stop being such greedy bastards, but its not going to happen. Thank god for ArenaNet.
No, you cant. They will lock the characters until you pay for the race / class once your subscription lapses.
They caved in for EQ2 with 'grandfathering' which let you play any existing characters regardless of race / class, but that only applied to characters created before the F2P launch, and they still locked fabled items and master spells.
i really liked eq2 but
i dont like being forced to buy stuff just to enjoy basic gameplay instead of buying stuff like mounts and stuff i end up buying keys to unlock spells and gear or i have to subcribe in which case i get less then if i had played on a normal server since i would still be denied access to all the classes
You are so misinformed its laughable.
12.2.24
The EQ ftp seems largely an a la cart last grab. "Previous EverQuest subscribers who did not have an active subscription at the time of the free-to-play conversion will automatically be converted to the Silver membership."
The four free races included with FREE and Silver Memberships are: Human, Erudite, Barbarian and Gnome.
The four free classes included with FREE and Silver Memberships are: Warrior, Cleric, Wizard, and Rogue.
Levels are limited by the expansions owned.
Gold access is only available while you have an active subscription.
Any character you created before February 29th 2012 will be playable regardless of race or class. New characters that you create will be limited to the four available races and four available classes unless you purchase access to another race or class or upgrade to gold.
Those new to EQ1 trying it for the first time as ftp (free to play) will be limited to two chars per server within four races and four classes. Max of 100 platinum (pp) in game cash, no shared bank slots, and four bags for loot on each character.
Upgrading to silver status (one time us$5 purchase, or 500 station cash shop purchase) slightly improves the content access... four char slots per server, 500pp, six bag slots, and 15 instead of 10 active quests but still no shared bank, nor access to the two progression servers. Customer support (CS) is limited to knowledge base (no petitioning in game about problems [customer service to resolve real money transaction-based issues only.])
SoE still intends to offer EQ1 for us$15 per month to subscribers. Those gold accounts keep the normal old EQ1 access; eight char slots per server all race & class (depending on if certain expansions have been purchased) ten bag slots, unlimited in game money on char, maximum amount of quest pending and access to the Time Locked Progression Servers, Fippy Darkpaw and Vulak'Aerr and a monthly kickback of 500 Station Cash. (and full CS)
EQ mac Al'Kabor server, they tried to shut it down last January 2012, customers complained, "resulted in our decision not to sunset the" server "at this time. Moving forward, we will be removing subscriptions from EQ Mac so that it will be a free game that everyone can continue to play and enjoy."
lol, ima log in my 70 druid and pl my friends. ^_^
Kick to the Face.
Oh so you are saying that you arent limited in Spell Ranks, access to Prestige Items or Alternate Ability amounts if you are a F2P / Silver player?
Whats that? You are? Oh dear, it looks like it is you who is misinformed.
Perhaps you should inform yourself rather than being ignorant - http://www.everquest.com/free/
... Another fake F2P game...what is new to today's dumbfuck designer's these days? all they care more is money then they care about players.
Just deal with it, it's called marketing and it exists all over not just mmo's.
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Oh my got!!!
i neber see a graphic of this before,
i neber p2p any game before, but this game i must!
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We don't have to "Just deal with it", people can choose to refuse playing moneygrabbing games, or at least express their negative opinions. But if YOU think it's ok to be sheep, YOU just deal with it.
How exactly is he misinformed? While I would have used a non-sarcastic tone, just looking at the list of features for Gold/Silver/Free, it seems you are unable to equip two tiers of items nor train skills to the highest or even second highest level without paying money.
Could you elaborate on how your character isn't mechanically disadvantaged if you don't pay money? Because that, to my understanding, is the raw definition of "pay-to-win", not "free-to-play."