Two things were brought to my attention yesterday – and a third today. First of all please understand dear readers that I am not opposed to the LDL to Crushbone move. In fact I support it. I just wish that for those few people who were not keen on losing their role play server (even if they don’t role play much) there was another option. I actually used to play on LDL and moved off of it due to the small population. I think that this move is a good thing.
Second of all – I have never played EQ2X before or experienced the game on that server. It’s a little unfair of me to talk about it as though I am some expert when I’ve never even played it. Last night I created an EQ2X character and was really surprised at just how popular this one server is. There were multiple instances of Halas open (starting zone), people talking in channels, there were 3 different raids going on that I could see for levels 50+ and all of this on a Monday evening. It left me both excited (players are good) and disheartened (wow I wish my server on EQ2 were more like this one).
Thirdly – This comment was left by Green Armadillo:
Incidentally, you can also play EQ2EX just for the housing for free with surprising success. Your expansion accesses carry over from live, so you can get at all the crafted housing stuff. Many of the other furniture items come from world events that are available to a very low level character. Yes, you’ll need to obtain the minimal gold needed to purchase the home, and yes, your bagspace will be limited, but those are relatively small prices to pay for getting the best housing system on the market without paying a dime (regardless of whether you’re doing so to avoid giving SOE any money as a matter of principle).
The more I thought about it the more I liked his idea. The majority of my anger over recent changes has been because I feel it’s unfair to pay $14.99/m + the extra cost of game basics (ie: races). If I’m playing on the EQ2X servers the cost becomes moot since you can technically play for free. Sure, it’s incredibly limiting, but you CAN play. I also already own the expansions so I have that going for me. You can upgrade (a one time cost) for $10 and unlock the broker, a little more cash, and a few other goodies like extra bag and character slots. I lack a steady game with any real housing and I feel as though I am drifting until “the game” comes along to sweep me up. Be it EQ Next, Rift, or some other game like SWTOR. I didn’t feel right paying $14.99/m just to do housing in EQ2 – but I wouldn’t mind paying a lower cost to do housing.
See as soon as someone mentions Free to Play (or Freemium) my opinion of what I “expect” with the base game changes. In a free to play game I’m not expecting all of the races to be available. I don’t expect to be able to adventure in every zone. I expect things to be different than if I were to have a subscription. Maybe I’m cheating things a little bit here by saying Goodbye EQ2, hello EQ2X but I really DO love the housing. It’s just that – only – housing is not enough to keep me in game.
Thinking out loud, maybe I am simply having a hard time breaking free of a game that I’ve played for so long and I just need to go cold turkey. Except I can’t even really do that because my job requires me to at least keep contact and preferably PLAY the game. Oy. Some times I just wish things were different.
@Jaffa – I didn’t pay extra for Froglok. Arasai (and the expansion those came with were huge), Fae (also a large expansion, they also had their own starter zones), Or Sarnak. You’re assuming that Velious will be larger than previous expansions that did have a race introduced with them? I’m afraid you’ll be mistaken. We’re not getting more available content at all, is my point. We’re getting less. For more cost.
Sentinel’s Fate did not include a new race, has only two over land zones. Arasai were a free update and came with Darklight woods, Fae came with Echoes and that included a mesh of zones from 1-60 (Greater Fay, Steamfont, Lesser Fay, etc). “the rest of the expansion will be smaller” – in specific that you say, is wrong. Look at the expansions that came with a race vs. the ones that did not. They didn’t charge me extra for the ones that came with a race either. But now they can charge $40 for an expansion plus $20 for a race.
Anyhow, we”re not going to see eye to eye on this, so lets just agree to disagree and leave it at that. =)
You don’t get anything for free. If a new race is bundled as part of an expansion, the rest of the expansion will be smaller (assuming budget for expansion is fixed depending on expected sales; it pays for X amount of development time which can be used for a new race, or for something else). You either pay for “subscription + smaller expansion + new race bundled with expansion” or for “subscription + larger expansion + (optional) new race as separate item”. I really don’t see how it is bad that we are getting more content available than we would with just the one-$40-expansion-per-year model, and we don’t have to buy all the new content if we don’t actually want a vampire.
Is it just the marketplace/SC connection you don’t like? Would you be happier if SoE had waited a few months after DoV, packaged the vampires in a retail box and called it a bonus mini-expansion?
I understand your dilema in regards to quitting a game you have played for so many years. I played EQ1 since a few months after launch. I didn’t finally put it down til 2005 and even to this day I want to return (but I don’t because I don’t know anyone who still plays I could group with on a regular basis). Since putting down EQ1, I’ve played WoW for about a year and EQ2 most of the other 5 years. I’m not sure why I keep getting pulled back to EQ2, but there’s something about it that keeps me coming back regardless of all my rants about how SOE is killing the game. Maybe it’s the fact of having 2 level 90’s, 1 level 87, and a level 59 toon (all of which have a level 90 tradeskill). It just seems we invest so much time that we are pulled back to continue our ever-questing… Anyhow, don’t feel bad if you change your mind and return to EQ2; I keep saying I’ll quit, but I end up coming back after I try a new game and miss something EQ2 has that it doesn’t. Maybe we’ll get lucky with EQ Next and they’ll bring back the heavy hitters that made EQ1 so great in the first place!
@jaffa – I see a distinction since the races are NOT available via expansion. So you are paying for the race + expansion + subscription. If a new race is part of an expansion then that is a different story. Then you have a choice, buy the expansion ($40) or buy the race in the market ($20). But you have to buy both.
I would point out that in e.g. WoW, paying your $14.99/mo does not get you the new races. You only get the new races if you buy the expansion. I fail to see any important distinction between putting a new race in as part of an expansion (which people have to pay for), or making a new race available as a separate item on the marketplace. Indeed, if you put a new race in as part of an expansion, that could be considered unfair to people that aren’t interested in the new race, but still have to pay for it if they want the other stuff that comes in the expansion.
I don’t have time for EQ2 proper, but I do have a character on EQ2X. It’s nice to do some crafting, questing, housing without feeling any pressure.
I do think they should merge the two to inject some fresh life into the Live servers. I really don’t understand the big deal about wanting the communities to be separate. The way they’ve handled it stigmatizes the people who play on the EQ2X server for no apparent reason.
This still doesnt excuse the fact of Sonys really dumb scheme of separating the two types of games. It is clear the paid version is suffering and the F2P is not as I last pointed out on my blog before I shut it down. Sony has over and over hindered the growth of the game and this was the final step. MERGE the two game types and go to one game, like LOTRO.
The free to play servers are full of people while the paid servers are dead to anyone below high levels. Dont tilt on an excellent initial post you made because of a very vocal minority. And it is a minority. EQ2 PAID is bleeding a lot of people and has been. State what you feel, let em have it