The Glade 4.0

So, over the last weekend and the last couple days, Ive been playing around with the Everquest 2 - Extended service. I like it... mostly. Couple things are REALLY annoying me

1) If you've ever played the EQ2 live service as it is now, you'll more than likely be ROYALLY annoyed at some of the features locked off for a Bronze (totally free) or a Silver (one time purchase for 1,000 station cash) account. List follows

Races - 4 races are allowed to a Bronze or Silver account - Human, Erudite, Barbarian and Half-Elf. I can understand these, as these are all neutral races, and you dont have to worry about that annoying faction nonsense. Other races are purchasable in 'race packs'. I think they're about 750 station cash for 3 races. Seems ok to me here.... its actually better than the DDO model, which is 795 Turbine points for one race, but DDO seems to offer a better than 1 to 1 ratio for points than SoE offers for station cash.

Classes - only 8! Swashbuckler, Brigand, Wizard, Warlock, Guardian, Berzerker, Templar and Inquisitor. This game has like what, 24 classes? And unlike DDO, there is NO WAY AT ALL to purchase an individual class or a class pack like thing without signing up for a full Gold account (aka EQ2 live equivilant, $14.99 a month). This is one thing thats pissing me off. I was about to buy a Silver acccount until I realized you got NO extra classes OR races. Total screw up here SoE.

Character slots - 2 for Bronze, 3 for Silver. Yea, thats about right imo. You can't unlock additional slots without upgrading to Gold, which is 7.

Spells - Bronze accounts can only get Adept skills, and Silver can only get Expert... now I really dont know what this means as Ive never gotten about level 30... >_>

Equipment - Fabled and Legendary gear can NOT be used by Bronze or Silver accounts. Really annoyed on this one. I got a cloak on my newbie-ish quests in the New Halas area, and lo and behold, I can't use it... if you're going to lock this stuff off, maybe not make it for those newbie players?

Bags - 2 for Bronze, 3 for Silver and again no way to get more other than going to gold (which gets you the full 6)... really SoE, put each bag for $10 (say have to be silver to do this), and I PROMISE you'll get people to buy them. that'd be at least $10 more than you'd be getting out of me

Gold limitation - 5g per level for Bronze, 20g per level for Silver. Haven't even noticed this lol

Mail - Bronze and Silver are receive only. Anti-spammer - check. Lets move on

Shared bank slots - 0 for Bronze, 2 for Silver. Now, Im not sure if this is a bug or not, but i only have TWO bank slots (normal bank, not shared bank) on my character... im so out of room!

Broker - Bronze and Silver GET NOTHING. NOOOOOTHING AT ALL. No buy, no sell, NADA. This will kill the economy on the EQ2 Extended servers.

Subscription popups - these are pretty annoying too... DDO doesnt have them, why does SoE seem to think people need to be reminded? Also, whenever you exit, it opens a browser widnow basically saying "HEY, YOU SHOULD BUY A GOLD SUBSCRIPTION LULZ!"... again, annoying. Give one or the other, NOT both.

Station Cash store - Their "micro"transation prices are quite a bit off. The point of MTs is to get people who wouldn't normall give you ANY money to give you some. I think with the relatively high price points and the fact that most things people WANT to buy (classes, bag slots, broker access) dont exist as an option, thats a lot of revenue they're going to be missing.

Overall, its still EQ2. Its fun to poke around in there, but I don't have the time to play it full time, nor can I really afford it. Its nice to be able to play it when I want and not have to worry about paying for it... but I wish they had taken a bigger page out of the DDO/Turbine playbook with whats available to buy and their prices were a lot closer. Ive probably spent $50 or $60 in DDO, whereas before they went Free to Play, I hadnt spent a dime, even with my huge love of Eberron...

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Wow that's . . restrictive.

Silver doesn't sound too bad tho -- one time purchase of $10 is nothing.

I agree with the armor restriction being stupid. At least let Silvers use Legendary.

Ah well . . . we are talking free tho. Pretty much at their mercy.


Speaking of Station Cash -- lookie what armor set I got for my SK today:

Wow, that's awesome Rodahn.

But yeah, that sounds exceptionally restrictive.

And no ranger in the classes is completely fail.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I downloaded this a few days ago and did about 10 levels. I agree with your assessment pretty well.

The idea that you can't buy some things with station cash is really dumb. If I wanted a gold account, I would just play on a regular server. Everything (upgrade wise) should be available on the marketplace as a one-time purchase.

Wouldn't that essentially obviate the subscriptions, though? And alienate the subscribers who don't have the option of making the one-time purchase and being freed of their subscription obligations, just because they've already invested in a character NOT on the extended servers or whatever?

Or am I misunderstanding the way it works and overlooking something?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I guess my thought is, if you were going to pay full price for a subscription, wouldn't you just play on the live servers?

What Midgen said.

And I'm not sure, but even with the "Gold" subscription, don't you still miss out on features that you need the more expensive membership for?

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

From what I've read, a Gold sub is exactly the same as an EQ2 live, except it has the station cash feature. The one major thing Ive noticed is you'd need to 'buy' a guild charter item to form a guild.. everything else Ive seen is the same

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I have a current EQ2 normal live account, and I have the ability to spend station cash on in-game items. In fact the new UI bar at the bottom with the EQ2 button on the left, and the "SC" button on the right, is exactly the same on the live servers as it is on the Extended game UI.

I'm still not sure I undrestand, but that's ok. I'm old and stuff... :p

But on the EQ2 Extended Servers, you can buy almost anything with SC, from what I understand.

Mastercrafted armor and all.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.