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EverQuest II: Bang for Your Buck: EverQuest 2 Extended
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In a new series here at MMORPG.com, former F2P Survivor Guy Adam Tingle is writing Bang for Your Buck. His self proclaimed goal is to prove to our readers that there really isn't such thing as "free to play" but does claim there is such a thing as the "most free to play" MMO. In his inaugural column, Adam takes a look at Everquest 2 Extended, Sony Online Entertainment's F2P iteration of the classic MMO. Check it out and then let us know your thoughts on Adam's new column.
Today ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I am on a mission to burst bubbles, to puncture dreams, and to stamp on the face of kitten-eyed wonder. How will I do this? Simple, I will reveal that there is no such thing as the ‘Free to Play’ MMORPG. As I am sure you are all now wiping away the tears of misery and disappointment, I will now offer you but one life-line, a single beam of hope that will prick your ears and excite your loins – I am on crusade to find the most free of all free online goblin-em’-ups just so you, dear reader, can enjoy this recession and money worried time with an alternative to sticking your money to the man, and screaming in horror at your bank balance at the dreaded “$14.99 SOE MONEY BASTARDS” bill.
Read more of Adam Tingle's Bang for Your Buck: Everquest II Extended.
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Comments
That was a very enjoyable read. Honest and well written.
Well I would agree to the OP here but I cant they do offer alot for free but ass he stated it locks you out at about 25 to 35 as a bronze member and then you can ethier buy unlockers or move upto silver which I did. Really didnt help much except allowed some more space and character slots, bank space and a few extra perks not enough for a person who went out and bought the newest expansion just to have it unlocked but my loss. As for all the other things you have to pay for $7.50 to unlock 3 races and $7.50 for each class this can get you up to paying more then a sub or even a platinum sub but then bags for each toon and unlockers for items and spells and all I could see was a Asian style cash shop for pay to win in a sense. Now this is my opinion and to unlock such things as equipment and spells is $2.50 I think and for 5 of them it does not seem bad right well it comes out to $15 and up each time you want to do full upgrade. BUt hey if you feel its ok go for it.
On a side note I have always enjoyed my time in EQ from the old days to the console days of EQOA which they should remke and put in on the PS3 please SONY. EQ2x on one hand is just a fun romp around as they op stated while you wait for something better. Or pay as you want type thing but I still think Turbine had the right idea for there F2P model over EQ2x. And to those who say other wise this kind of model has been going on sense Xbox and a few other pc titles have been around pay for what you want and sorry but Lotro does not lock you out of lvl cap can still be gotten I know my wife is saving all her deed points and is max lvl has not bought anything except the riding skill and has enjoyed lvling through other means more then questing it was not easy but she did it. I on the other hand had a account and had all the content unlocked through all expansion packs with in a month buying TP on sales so unlocked all content and bags for around $80 and had 5 characters from before F2P so didnt have to buy any thing except for the new toons bags and virtue's. I made it to play with my wife.
Well to the OP was a good read but not for me to play alot of I do have 3 silver accounts tho. 2 for me 1 for the wife and we only played it for about 3 weeks maybe more.
Sherman's Gaming
Youtube Content creator for The Elder Scrolls Online
Channel:http://https//www.youtube.com/channel/UCrgYNgpFTRAl4XWz31o2emw
Not quite. You can't hit level cap without paying. Or rather, you can hit the 'free' level cap, which last I checked was a good 10-15 levels below people who bought in.
Not to mention, you can't get the higher level spells. So even if you get to the free level cap, you're still much, MUCH weaker than others. You are going to have a hard time getting invites to raids, groups, etc., because there are plenty of people your level with much higher tier spells, plus are in monumentally better gear. Because let's face it, the fabled stuff is so much better than anything below it that you can wear it for 10+ levels and still be stronger than someone who's in green gear in their level range.
That said, I don't have too much of a problem with this. They have to make money somehow. But call it like it is. It has the same off-putting restrictions as a freemium model that most other P2P-turned-F2P models have, you just get to level up quite a bit before you feel it. Unfortunately, despite there being a lot of content, it feels far too dated to justify the price for buying a la carte (which would add up quickly, if you look at the price total for bags + bank space + expansion + etc) and for those of us who try and manage only one subscription MMO at a time, there are FAR better choices.
I'd like to see some fantasy MMO's trying the Champions Online F2P model. No content is restricted, no level restriction, none of that. You can buy bag space yes, but I don't mind that as it's usually the cheapest cash shop item. The only real restriction is you don't get to choose your powers, your archtype picks it for you. You also miss out on 2 powers, but anyone who's played Champions Online to level cap knows how unnecessary those two powers are anyway. By 30 your build is already defined; you have your energy builder, your main AoE, your defense passive, a heal and one or two utility powers. Any extra powers on top of that is usually just for shits and giggles. Champions Online isn't for everyone, but I've enjoyed its f2p model and would like to see something similar in fantasy MMOs
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Good read,
However, I find it hard to see how the writer was impressed with EQ2X. When compared to Turbine it is blatantly obvious which F2P offering is the better "bang for your buck" and it sure isn't EQ2X.
Disclaimer: I realize that the writer wasn't making a comparison between the two in the article. This is simply for the benefit of anyone curious.
LOTRO's F2P model is far superior to EQ2Xs F2P model in every possible way. Obviously you cannot not rely on my word alone, and frankly I'm all about hard facts, so lets do a simple comparison, shall we?
(1) LOTRO gives you access to 7 classes as a free player (Burglar, Captain, Champion, Minstrel, Hunter, Guardian and Lore-Master), there are only 9 classes in the game and the two they do not give free players are expansion content and always have been.
EQ2 has 24 classes, and they give you access to 8 for free. As a free player you get access to one third of the games classes for free, where as LOTRO gives free players access to every single (non-expansion) class for absolutely free.
(2) LOTRO only has 4 races, they give free players access to every race they have in the game for free immediately.
EQ2X has 19 available races (20 if you count the new vampire race, but I'm not factoring them into this comparison), and they give you access to four for free. Forcing you to pay for nearly every race in the game.
(3) In LOTRO you can access ALL non expansion zones regardless of subscription level, it is the quest packs you need to pay for, and unlike EQ2X you can easily earn enough TP through ingame play to purchase the needed packs to unlock the content you desire.
(4) In LOTRO I can purchase a one month subscription, and retain everything I earned while VIP when my account reverts from VIP to Premium.
EQ2X locks any features you don't have access to if you subscribe and then revert back to a Bronze or Silver level. Forcing you to pay in order to regain access to those features, which is especially frustrating if you happen to have created characters while you were Gold or better that are not among the classes available at Bronze or Silver. Locked characters are pretty useless, no?
(5) EQ2X restricts a free players access to chat heavily. LOTRO does not.
(6) EQ2X restricts spell tiers. No guilds intent on doing endgame content will take players with expert level spells, this is common knowledge, you are expected to have masters by 90 and this is no exception on 2X.
LOTRO does not restrict a free players access to class abilities or spells in any way.
(7) EQ2X restricts you from wearing any gear better than Mastercrafted as a free player. Again, hindering you seriously if you ever plan to use that character at endgame for anything other than questing or running content you outlevel.
LOTRO does not restrict a free players access to gear in any way.
SOEs devs have openly admited that the whole point of the payment model on 2X is to encourage freemium players to pay for subs, which (ironicly, and in typical SOE fashion) gives you access to LESS on EQ2X for the exact same price as a Live EQ2 sub which gives you everything the game has to offer.
I fail to see how EQ2X is the better deal in any way, shape or form. There is more than enough contrary evidence to prove otherwise. The restrictions LOTRO places on a free players are lax at best, and the fact that a free player can earn the TP ingame through free play to buy the needed packs for advancement is also a massive benefit over EQ2X.
What about numbers though?
EQ2X charges you 10 dollars for a guild charter. LOTRO does not charge anything for a kinship charter.
In EQ2X, what if I wanted to purchase the classes and races they don't offer me access to as a free player? Lets check out races first, shall we?
There are five race packs purchaseable in EQ2X (DE/Troll/Sarnak, Dwarf/Fae/HE, Gnome/Halfling/WE, Iksar/Ogre/Ratonga and Kerran/Froglok/Arasai). Each of these packs costs 750 Station Cash, equal to $7.50.
It would cost me $37.50 just to gain access to all of the games races.
Classes?
Well, individual classes (thats right, no "class packs" like races, you pay per single class) are also 750 Station Cash per class. With 16 available classes that are not accessable for free, you're looking at a whopping $120 just to purchase the classes.
So, if a new player wanted access to all classes and races (and wanted to start a guild), it would cost him or her an initial investment of $167.50 to be able to achieve that goal, or would be forced into subscribing, at which point they would lose access to any characters that were created using a class that is not included with the Bronze access level once they reverted from Gold back to Silver or Bronze.
The entire goal of 2X is to get players to subscribe, they don't want Free players. That's a fact.
What about LOTRO though?
Lets pretend that a free player wanted to buy those quests packs needed for 20-50 instead of earning the TP ingame, it would cost him or her a grand total of 17 dollars (and some change) to gain permanent access to the needed packs for progressing through the 20-50 range.
This is the only purchase that would be required, and the users account would immediately be upgraded from Free to Premium just for making a purchase.
LOTRO is a monumentally better deal in terms of bang for your buck, as well as flexibility depending on how much a user wants to spend (or not spend).
Although LotRO and EQ 2 extended are FTP models LotRO has nowhere near the content Everquest 2 has .This is not even a debate so yes if you just compare games without that in mind you can say that about LotRO but having played both these games with a subscription Everquest 2 is by far a game that has oodles of content and choices. Housing and crafting LotRO cannot even compare they are not even in the ballpark.
I knew it wouldn't take long for someone to go off-topic....
Comparison of content available was never the point of the discussion.
The entire point of this series of articles is to determine the best value possible among the available F2P titles, hence the "bang for your buck" title. My comments directly relate to which of the two games is the better value, yours are concerning which game has more/higher quality content.
If you want to compare available content feel free to take some time to gather the appropriate information and then create a thread on it, but lets not derail this one simply because you want to profess that one game has more content than the other, when it is quite clearly not the topic at hand.
One thing I will disagree with is the game "showing its age". This game, after 6 years, looks better than just about any other MMO besides Age of Conan when all the settings are turned up. I am constantly amazed at the fact that they actually DID manage to build an engine that would keep looking better as the technology to run the game improved.
That's not to say that the character models don't look absolutely terrible, aesthetically.
All you have to do is read some of the prior posts to realize that SOE's version of free is probably the worst design in the genre. The really dumb thing is that a subscription on a free server gives you less than one on the subscription servers. That is ridiculous.
Seems a shame, if SOE had even come close to implementing it the way Turbine did, they would have derived a far better income from the game. Turbine's profits skyrocketed, while SOE is silent about theirs. Pretty good indication of a failure there.
Free 2 Play should be renamed Free 2 Log in my book. Nothing is free in this world, video games included.
How can how much content one game has over another not come in for the money you spend. If you are getting access to more content then in my estimation it is better bang for your buck. You can stick to your interpretation of the topic and I will stick to mine.
Content like housing and crafting is very important to me when I spend money so for me a game with more content will mean I am spending my money on that aspect too. I just cannot understand how it does not factor in. I got my Loremaster to almost 60 and I had a 64 level ranger in Everquest 2 so I never actually played either game to the very end so my estimation is not on the end game. It is merely on the subscription based content and I do not have any idea of the ftp so my opinion is solely based on the available content as what I would pay for as bang for my buck so to speak having played both games.
I played Everquest 2 quite sometime ago when the crafting was still complex. My experiences in LotRO are much more recent. I cannot comment on the ftp aspect as I have played neither game in that mode. However the decorating choices available in Everquest 2 for the collections of weapons which you quest for, the sheer number of vases to collect which is just one item in comparison to LotRo are mind blowing. I crafted and decorated in both games and what LotRO had was pitiful to me but that is my opinion so that is non sequitur. I won't even go into the dumb hook system which is simply sad. Item placement in EQ 2 is completely free which makes the a person with imagination able to go anywhere with ideas which LotRO cannot even compete with.
However in my opinion what Everquest 2 has in spades is content and the decorating choices is also something I would as a player interested in that aspect consider for bang for my buck. As for me bieng vague I am unable to comment on it with examples because I am only going by memory of both games and what each tallied in my head for satisfaction as far as content went. I can itemise this much. I had 7 crafters in Everquest 2 both sides included I had two homes one in Freeport and Qeynos. I had only one home in the Shire but had an explorer,historian and tinkerer and guilded maxed. The jeweller,scholar,tailor,cook,weaponcrafter and farmer . I think under the circumstances I am qualified to comment on crafting and housing.
Article was a good read but in all honesty, it actually took away any chance of me giving EQ2X a try. It obvious to me that its not Free2Play its Forced2Pay, a F2P model that I just wont go for. I think these game devs jumped too far down the line by introducing F2P models to their already exsisting games. Why not simply go with the B2P(Buy2Play) Guild Wars model instead. Buy it once get access to everything period. No questions about what I get and dont get. No comparisons on who offers this and that. B2P is a simple model that, if I were a game company CEO I would easily use over trying to convince folks that you can play without paying a dime which is almost never the case.
"The character creation process is relatively sane also, the usual clap-trap of races and classes is here except for a few that are restricted"
I think you logged into some game other than eq2 extended. Seriously this is the biggest nickel and dime money sink out there. Everything in this game is restricted:money,chat,race,class,bank slots,bag slots,spell/ability levels,number of quests,broker,equipment,character slots,shared bank slots,etc.
Did you even bother trying some of the other ftp games to compare? Seems to me you just like the eq series and did zero research in declaring this some kind of value. This is the poster child of how not to do ftp.
I have commented a lot about this topic already. With respect to the Turbine vs. SoE payment plans, maybe SoE's model is not the best with Extended, but if you're like me and don't like Turbine's games, then it's sort of a moot point.
It is interesting to go into a discussion about bang for one's buck, if that is the only criterion you use to choose a game. If not, then you're pretty much stuck with going along with what the company provides as payment plans. At least with both SoE and Turbine, you have a choice of going with a normal subscription or doing micro-transactions.
I've been playing Extended since September of last year. I never did manage to play a la carte though. At the time I was first trying it out, Extended didn't have as many options available as it does now. I see some good sides and some bad sides to it.
Positives:
-One can almost play a la carte now.
-One can unlock for ever and ever certain aspects of the game and therefore pay less than a normal monthly subscription and have the features they want. If say you know you want to play a sarnak Necromancer, you can just pay to unlock that race pack and that class and have them available to you whether you pay $15/month or not. Otherwise, you do risk paying far more for the same game.
-Population is very good on this server. There is no end to groups at all levels.
-You can get the entire game up to Sentinel's Fate without having to pay extra, whereas if you're a new player joining Live, you have to spend around $40 to get the same.
Negatives:
-There are still some outstanding things that you can't do microtransactions for, and that's a serious pain in the butt. For me the largest annoyance was lack of journal space.
-If you are anything but an extremely casual player, it's best to go with a normal Live subscription and buy several months at a time to get a cheaper rate/month. For immersion purposes, going straight to Live is better in that you don't have to worry about unlocking this and that through the item shop. If you have a serious case of altitis, this is the better option too.
-Population is a little too good sometimes. I have had problems completing quests because quest mobs or quest items were being camped by too many people. Quite a few people are unwilling to group up to help get quests done and out of the way.
-Splitting the Extended and Live servers and lots of people transferring characters off of the Live servers onto Extended (with no way to transfer from Extended to Live) means that you're almost forced to go to Freeport if you are on a low pop Live server. I don't agree with this at all since copying a character over is not free, it's actually pretty expensive to do and it could spell the deathknell of low pop servers.
So in conclusion, I'd like to say that EQ2 is actually best just subbing to it normally because it's a good game if you like this style of game. It's only really economically sensible to go to Freeport if you can't or don't want to play enough to justify paying around $15/month. The only people who are really going to be disappointed from the economic point-of-view are those who are expecting to play often for entirely free, forever and ever.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
In all fairness if you were to check back through the websites history I have done a number of articles on Free to Play games.
I want to stress that this series is not essentially based on the quality of the product because I don't want this to descend into "you said nice about X how dare you think it is better than Y"
This series of articles is for those in the community who ask "how free is this game?" I'm looking for the most free of the free games and in my opinion, EQ2Ex wasn't half bad, SOE have allowed for a number of hours of free-play and while they're are restrictions, they do not restrict progress as much as they could do. As stated in the article, I spent 1 day and 8 hours in-game playing, thats a fairly decent amount of gaming for the price of nothing right?
I find EQ2X F2P to be far better.
The fact that you have to pay to level in LOTRO turned me off completely. And don't give me that "You can grind deeds" Crape because in the 15 of so hours I spent doing Slayer deed quest deeds class deeds ect I only got about 100 TP.
I have only spend about 15USD in EQX so far and that is because I wanted a Kerra Shadowknight.
I don't care about innovation I care about fun.
1 day 8 hours that could have been spent in ddo or lotr with much fewer restrictions. How much more could they possibly restrict you? 2 char slot, 4 races, 8 classes, 2 bank slots, 2 bag slots, chat, money, equipment, spell/ability caps,broker,etc etc etc. There is zero bang for your buck with this model period.
Hell if you open it to lesser quality ftp there are endless titles out there you can play absolutely free with fewer restrictions.
Surely what your saying is countered by the fact that at level 20 in LOTRO you have to pay for quest packs? For me at that point grinding mobs for exp is more restrictive than EQ2's model? I feel that your love of a certain developer is clouding your understanding of the article. I could play EQ2Ex untill level 25 without having to pay a dime.
You mean the quest packs you can earn through in game currency while playing any race and all but one class while talking in all chat, wearing any gear, with full storage and bags, and non capped abilities/spells? Those quest packs?
I guess playing any race and class a game offers without gimped abilities and running to sell every minutes is more important to me than you.
My understanding of the article is on point and has nothing to do with a developer or game. I actually think eq2 is a better game than either ddo or lotr but that isnt the point of the article is it? Sadly it appears you dont understand the point of your own article. Bang for your buck indeed.
You get more bang for your buck with LOTRO. However EQ2X is more F2P in terms of content.
I don't care about innovation I care about fun.
No....EQ2X is a better deal...with or without spending money. The world is huge and the content beats the crap out of LoTRO.
But hey...everyone has their favorite.
That is a bunch of malarky! The differences in content are minimal at best. The sad thing you can't figure out that a lot the content in EQ2 is NOT available to the free player. Better luck next time.
"No....EQ2X is a better deal...with or without spending money. The world is huge and the content beats the crap out of LoTRO.
Huh? If you took the time to read Kost's post, he lays it out in black and white, it is blatantly obvious. Numbers don't lie.
why let them nickel and dime you.
thre's no sense arguing about eq2x vs free LOTRO. both are much better enjoyed with the sub (in fact as pay to play games i think they're both OUTSTANDING). no getting nickeled and dimed, the way turbine will do with the quest packs and $ony will do with the, well whatever they possibly can.
the only online games you're gonna get for free that offer what a sub game offers will be:
1) a game like guild wars where you've got to pay for the game itself and then for expansions
2) a game like Diablo 2 where it's not really a persistant mmo world but rather game servers a la battle.net
3) a game with heavy advertising to raise revenue since the game devs are not getting any from the players per se.
in LOTRO (again, i love LOTRO) sure you can earn turbine points for free by playing, but if you factor in the hours involved, you're working in game 2 or 3 hours for what, 5 bucks worth of points? you could likely put in 1 to 2 hours (if not less) at your job for 15 bucks, then you're working an hour for a month's sub nstead of working 2 hours for 5 bucks worth of turbine points, or eq points or whatever points. I'm no wealthy person (i'm a grad student) but i dont mind putting in 3 hours a month for an eve sub and a $ony station pass (yeah, even $ony's subscribers think they're greedbags heh) it's actually a really efficient use of my time, since between them i probably get 80 to 90 hours of entertainment a month.
sorry to get all high horse but i needed to get it off my chest re: free to play games.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
I really wish everyone would stop saying Lotro lvl locks you and does not let you past lvl 20 or 25 thats a joke. Your only locked on quests after abut lvl 30 or 35 if you do it right even lvl 40 is easy to get F2P. I have characters I have gotten all the way to lvl 40 just questing through lone lands and doing some skirmishes then I am off to the Misty Mountains and doing the books helps get you to about lvl 37, 38. So dont go saying that it lvl locks you it does not do that. As for content yeah EQ2 has alot but like one said its not possible to do all of it with the restrictions in place then its pay to win. In Lotro you pay to unlock content as in quest hubs and questing areas nothing more and thats about $30 to $40 dollars give or take a few TP sale's and those have been going on alot.
Well as I said the game EQ2 is a good one but there F2P isnt near as good as Lotro because they dont lock you out of skills and gear which makes no sense to do anyways. And as for class and race locking on EQ2 they call them premium classes and races why because they think what they offer for free meets the trinity set up on classes and there races they offer equal all they same ones I get with most F2P games anyway so. Now for me I have beta tested both games way back when and even there F2P betas and knew turbines model was way better. During the EQ2x beta they had it locked even more till most of the player base complained till they gave us the option for more for the money.
So keep this in mind also not everyone likes ethier EQ2 or lotro some like games that we all didnt mention and theres well go look the list is alot more then the P2P games. But hey EQ2 might be more for free but locks you out worse then even Runes of Magic does and those players from that game understand what I mean. RoM can cost into the thousands to be end game but EQ2 just does it in a way they make you thing its cheap when you add it up it costs way more. But in lotro you pay to unlock it it unlocks across the board all but virtues which are in no way a skill tree sorry but no. So you do that math say a total of $80 for Lotro and what $150 to $250 dollars for EQ2 and thats the first time not including all the extra stuff when you want to upgrade gear and spells that you have to spend about $15 dollars for a full unlock not sure on spells so still a guess it might be more.
Sherman's Gaming
Youtube Content creator for The Elder Scrolls Online
Channel:http://https//www.youtube.com/channel/UCrgYNgpFTRAl4XWz31o2emw