January 2011

Things Sony Could have done Different #EQ2

stargrace January 9, 2011 6Comments

I know, by now you’re thinking to yourselves “Stargrace! Stop beating a dead horse!” but it’s not so easy to simply stop writing about something I’m incredibly passionate about. Plus a lot of my friends are still playing the game, so I hear about this subject all of the time. I wanted to name a few things that Sony could have done different to avoid the feedback from the public that they are now receiving.

In regards to the TrueFreeblood race: In order to avoid a huge amount of screaming from the public (but note, this would not eliminate all screaming; because then we wouldn’t be human) all Sony had to do was offer the race for free to everyone without conditions. Release it as a Velious race or a perk before Velious if you want (so the company at least sells a few extra boxes) but allow every player to create one without cost. Now, add all of your vampire goodies to the station market. Sure you won’t make as much money as offering the entire race for $20 early to the masses, but you’ll save yourself a lot of fallout. After all, one of the finer things that must be done is finding a balance between making money and selling things on the marketplace, and keeping players (old and new) happy. As my previous arguments pointed out I do not mind the market, but I feel that a RACE is supposed to come with the very basic $14.99/m that I pay (or an expansion). Froglok. Sarnak. Arasai. Fae. Make us pay for every little cultural extra (animations, appearance weapons, homes, mounts special to the race) but the basics should be included.

In regards to the Lucan D’Lere merger. I thought of, and discussed with Arkenor, a few possibilities for this and none of them will make sony any money which is probably the problem. Lets assume that people from LDL are upset with the news of their merger, because I know at least a few are (Arkenor, Ysharros, G33kg0dd3ss I’m looking at you three in specific). I know a good number are happy to be moving to a higher population server but I’m going to play the side of the role player in this scenario. Number one, Sony said that they could not move LDL players to AB because the population on AB is already far too high. Why not allow those who want to leave AB do so, for free. Lots of people pick a server based on its population. Due to the recent merges, I’d expect those populations to be much higher now then they were before. I also imagine there are a lot of non role play players who would not mind moving to another server. On that same note, why not allow those role players of AB who are tired of the crowds, to move to LDL for free. AND why not open up moving to LDL in general for free. The part that irks me is that although Sony has stated AB is overflowing with players – you can still pay $25 and move there. If the folks from LDL merging are adamant about staying on an RP server (and lets assume that a handful will be) they will be more than happy to pay $25 to move to another RP server instead of losing their ‘culture’ (for lack of a better term). Win-win for Sony.

In regards to the Velious Beta forums fiasco. For those who were unaware, the Velious beta forums were moved from the EQ2players web site, to the EQ2X players web site. Why? Because EQ2X players are unable to view the EQ2 forums without a regular EQ2 subscription. Now this entire time we’ve been hearing that “EQ2X will be completely separate, you won’t even know it’s there!” – except for those people in the Velious beta, because you’ll have to log into your beta forums from the EQ2X forums. Also when you actually play the Velious beta (note – I am NOT in the beta, this is through observation of others playing) it announces on Raptr that you’re playing – you guessed it – EQ2X. I realize this is because it’s using the same servers and what not, but still. For the life of me I can not figure out why EQ2X players need an entire forum to themselves. Why don’t they just have a sub topic in the EQ2 forums like the Bazaar and Vox servers do. Aside from stuff being on sale is there that much different in the basic game play? The mechanics (as far as I’m aware) all work the same for both games except one is Pay to Play and one runs on a subscription. I think Sony created extra work for themselves in fabricating these entirely new forums, and it should not have been done in the first place.

I realize it’s easy for me to say all of this stuff since I am a 3rd party, removed from any of the actual facts and decision making. I know the people at Sony work really hard and I have nothing but admiration for the Developers and the folks in Community Management because I know that a lot of these choices are out of their hands – but – someone really needs to wake up. Time and time again these past few weeks I have seen veteran players state that they no longer know the games they once loved. That things have changed, the company has changed. New direction is good; but not at the cost of your loyal veteran players.

Guest Post and Musings #EQ2 #MMORPG

stargrace January 8, 2011 5Comments

I was asked if I was interested in doing a guest post over at mmorpg-info.org regarding my decision to leave EQ2. It’s  not often I get asked to do these and I was flattered (plus I’ve been a long fan of the site) so of course I said yes. You can find the article over here: Guest Post. Hopefully with that this unpleasantness of giving up a game is behind me and I will move on to writing about other adventures.

A few notes. Since I’ve posted my goodbye things have changed even more. There is the server merge between Lucan D’Lere and Crushbone, which for those who do not know is the merge of an RP server into a non-RP server. We already saw this when Vanguard merged, and while it doesn’t affect me I do know how disheartening it is for those role players out there. I also think that this choice is better than no choice, or the choice of letting a server completely die.

Then there was the fact that all of the Velious beta forums were moved to the EQ2X forums which means those people who wanted to completely ignore EQ2X would also have to ignore those beta forums and never log in. With this move came a leak of everything that was on those forums, as they were set to public. Not only that but the old forums which resided on the EQ2 (regular) section were actually completely deleted, not transferred over. Players were requested to start their beta posts from scratch, no archives.

My question to that would be – why are there completely separate forums. EQ2X members are not allowed to view the ‘regular’ forums at all. They don’t have access. Players with a paid EQ2 subscription have access to both. This entire us verses them that I feel goes on between EQ2 and EQ2X (enforced by Sony, not the players) is just odd.

In any case, there you have it. Now, lets get back to playing games!

Safe travels.