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EverQuest: F2P Launch & 13th Anniversary Round Table
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
EverQuest, one of the greatest MMOs of all time, is ready to hit a pair of milestones this week with its free to play launch and its 13th anniversary. We had the opportunity to chat about both during a round table discussion with EQ Producer Thom Terrazas. See what we learned and then let us know what you think in the comments.
“EQ is a different game than any other on the market.” Terrazas explained. “We set the standard for all MMOs and we still think we’re the latest and greatest game out there. Our story and lore set us apart. We stay true to the game and we work really hard to keep in line. So it’s a great time for us to do the same exact thing (going F2P).” Terrazas said. “We are giving easy accessibility and able to taste every piece of content. There are some limiting unlocks on your character but nothing that limits the game.”
Read more of Suzie Ford's EverQuest: F2P Launch & 13th Anniversary Round Table.
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Comments
1st...
nice to know it F2P but at the same time i'm sad too. my 1st mmorpg way back in 1999
my first mmo to started in 99 ruins of kunark. Best memories of a game are here with this one. Good to see that it lasted more then a decade b4 f2p
F2P, the "Life Support" of the MMO genre. You can't fool anyone. I still had a sub going prior to this F2P launch, and I can tell you that only THREE servers were "fairly" active at prime time on the weekends where as the rest were low to empty. Keep in mind, "low" for an EQ server is about 50~ people, and "fairly active" is somewhere in the ballpark of 200 to 300ish.
However, their progression servers are booming with 400++ @ primetime on the weekends so yea. Overall, game was starting to dwindle rapidly. F2P can only increase the "sense" of a population, but not emulate it sadly enough.
A very sad day indeed for old EQ players.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
Any item decent for anyone anywhere near the max level is disabled without even a way to pay to unlock items for use as it stands right now apparently, so I don't really see this helping the population at all, which is unfortunate. I was actually kind of looking forward to this. I quit last year and have three level 90s and was hoping to mess around on those characters a bit, but all their equipment is broken.
cant wait...hopping on after work..thought IDK how long the nostalgia will last...prob till 8pm EST and my WoT DD grind
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
Took a look at the 3 models they are going to offer......4 classes is fine really....I'd like ot play others but it isn't gamebreaking....What I think is going to be difficult though is that the plat is severely limited to both the free and silver players....At level 80 a free player can only have 8k plat cash, 40k for a silver account (per character Im guessing but still)..... When I played EQ in the early 2000s I had over a million plat in the bank......Im going to give it a try though I think the limitations are too severe at this time.
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=29293
It's the same exact "beyond dubious" plan as EQ 2 really with just as bad restrictions and "I sure hope you enjoy playing a warrior human! Hah!!!" type restrictions..
I have a 72-ish DE nec, A 63-ish Human Pali, a 63-ish Iksar Shammy, and a 52-ish Halfling Druid spread between 2 accounts. Although I intend to fire up game, and check them out once more, there is no way I will stick with it.
My EQ yrs of 01 to 06 were magic, but more so than the game, it was the community.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
EQ...{sigh}
My main account was banned way back in '02 because of an issue between my ex-wife, myself, and a change in credit card info.
You see, my info went from the joint credit card account I shared with my soon to be ex, to a buddy of mine's credit card the next month, to my new personal credit card account the third month.
This was all happening at the height of people EBaying their EQ accounts, so Sony didn't trust how my account had changed CCs on 3 consecutive billing cycles. I contacted them and explained what was going on and they said they would be happy to turn my account back on... as soon as I supplied them with the keycodes for my original base game and each expansion I had, all the way up to Planes of Power.
All of which had been taken by the ex-wife when she left, along with a lot of my other gaming and computing stuff...
So when my main died, Sony lost my paid alt account, and the 3 other accounts I was paying them for as well. They banned 1 and lost the cash from 5 total.
When I saw EQ had gone F2P, I had a moment of hope. I downloaded the F2P client with thoughts of resurrecting Dinidain from the Void, but alas, when I tried to sign in...
Sad Panda :-(
Anyone and everyone can feel free to disagree with any or all of my opinions and observations whenever I rarely post them; it doesn't bother me one bit. Just know that I'll likely never respond to YOUR disagreement or personal attack, because I know better than to argue with idiots, especially upon internet Forums. See what I did there? -- Dinidain
I'm sorry for your loss man, that has to be like going through hell for you right now
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any gear with augments is disabled - even if its from 7 years ago
players can remove the augments to use their gear but its expensive to remove augments
and if all your cash is in your missing shared bank.... well.. heh
a Dev said they will be fixing it soon so that Deviant gear augments are not counted as prestige
EQ2 fan sites
Population seems to be doing real well so far since the f2p.....Ive seen alot of players either going gold immediately or paying to unlock classes.
I played EQ back in the day. It was my first MMORPG and I loved it. After that, I went to DAoC and then to EQ2 when that launched. Great times in all the games.
When EQ did their Progression servers I hopped on board and had fun for a couple of weeks, then I lost interest. You can't really experience the magic again, and its dated..everything..are really evident. It was a brief moment of nostalgia, and I realised it is better to keep the memories in my head. Tromping around old, tired Norrath after playing modern MMO's for years just made the experience very sad.
Besides all that, I will never sub or play a SOE game until Dave Georgeson leaves the building. He's the worst producer in the history of that company and is cheapening the game by milking every drop he can through the F2P model. The last 2 years that he has been influencing EQ2 have been the worst years that game has ever seen.
Additionally, he and $medley are selling off the EU customer base to a very shady German business, ProSeiBenSat1 (PSS1)/AlaPlaya. This deal has been in the works for 3 months and not once have they addressed the multi-thousand (2,500+) post feedback thread of angry and concerned paying customers. Not once. The degree of contempt towards the community and unprofessionalism is absolutely staggering.
So, no, SOE will never gain one more cent from me.
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Why is this a sad day? It's just an old game, you're talking about it like an old friend of yours died or something.. It's just pixels
There's no reason why anyone should care about this silly game anymore
It's sad that the game has lost its old subscribers, but now it's available for old a new players for free. I think that makes the day a happy one rather than sad. It's a 13 year old game. It's amazing that it has survived until now, and this might let it survive a little more.
there's people all over on xegony
I know quite a few who want to try it out again but are wary of logging into their old accounts for several reasons
1. All Augmented gear is unusable (I mean seriously gear from 7 expansions ago which has an aug in it isn't usable.. WHY!!!)
2. The Shared bank slots are supposedly losing items on login (If any of the shared bank slots have a lore item that the first character you log into has. those items are deleted, and most people will log into their primary first, also I'm not sure what happens to your extra plat that you had in the shared bank which you cannot access)
3. The plat cap. Even my account as a silver account has a cap of 500 plat per a level. That is LOW!!!!! I know quite alot of people who had 100k+ plat. And now they can't gain more?, While thats not too bad last i played the cost of many items for a character exceeds the plat cap for the level that they are usable.
4. Merc's of journeyman or higher just don't function anymore unless your gold (and there is no way to pay to unlock that). Basically you can only have 1 merc at a time. They cost quite a bit, But the problem is you can't get one that will function on your silver account unless you take a huge plat loss.
Basically it seems to me that for it to be worthwhile at all (even for a nostalgia trip) i'd have to upgrade to gold. And then its not really free to play at all..
I didn't bother with my old accoutns as I'd end up having to go gold right away to play it....Starting fresh is no big deal.....I'm trying the newest server and it is packed......Crescent Reach is so crowded there are barely enough mobs for everyone.....I didnt even try the tutorial.....THe 4 free classes solo like crap except for the wizzie so people will most likely have to group up at some point......The f2p plat cap is a killer but I think I'll just reinvest the plat into jewelry making or some other cash sink.
Was more player in PoK when i was on the other day then in Stormwind on my WoW server, says a lot
Not at all F2P more like freemium, not only can you not use prestige items (all raid items and most augments) if you are free or silver members but you also only get a few hundred AAs out of a possible 10k+ AAs, 4 bag slots (which i understand for F2P but 4 is crap seeing as most continaers are 10 slot at most), you get ad popups all the time while on the game popping up in your face telling you to subscribe, you only get to play the basic 4 classes out of 15+ classes and only 4 of the races, you also only get to use rank 1 of spells/melee disciplines out of a rank of 3, and you are only able to use the worst mercenaries in the game if you are free or silver. This game is extremely restricted, no were near considered a F2P game. There are tons more restrictions but them are some of the key ones, i came back on my old account and all my gear was yellow and i couldn't use any of it cause it was prestige.
It's not remotely close to a free to play matrix. It's designed to force you to subscribe. EQ was my first mmo back when it was released, and I was very excited to see it go ftp, because I really wanted to support the effort, but the way they have done it, makes me remember why we all stayed away from SOE in the first place.
I hear if you play on a Mac though, the game is completely free, everything included, no cash shop, no ads, etc.. Al Kabor server....the irony is too much.
I need to buy a Mac! lol.
Everquest bless you but not with my coin!