2014 Membership Benefit Update

Well RadarX since were getting hosed on sc points, then I would like you to float this up, You make us use 100 points to unlock various mercenaries, and 100 to revive instantly, those need to be change to plat. As if a 2000 sc is good for one item only I don't want to spend 2000 on a 100 perc. Do you honestly not see the problem you are creating.

It depends on which "free" level you're at. On Bronze, which is totally f2p, ostensibly, you only get 2 slots; on Silver (which costs a one-time $5 fee to "unlock"), it's 4. The restrictions vary, too; on Bronze, you can't get near the Broker, on Silver, you can buy stuff, you just can't sell anything on it. On both, you get no mail from anyone other than the Powers That Be; you definitely can't send anything out, even to your own alts, but I think you might be able to receive mail on Silver (but, always, double-check me). You can join Guilds at either level, but you can't form your own until Silver (which, I think, was a cleared restriction). You can talk to just about anyone on the Chat Channels on Silver, not Bronze. There are other issues, mentioned in the official FAQs, some of which are deal-breakers for me going Silver (including ever setting foot in a Wal-Mart, which I will not ever do for any reason unless they substantially change their ways, but EQ2 has very little to do with that). Still, the restrictions being dangled in front of us in the guise of "Gold benefits" are annoying. :-/

EDIT: hey, someone enlighten me: can you use SC or whatever to buy extra character slots even on Bronze and Silver accounts?

Uwk

I guess my only request if they are doing this is to add a lot more to the marketplace. I'd like to see the vault opened more often but maybe these items will be added to the loyalty vendors. Maybe a compromise would be to put more of SC items on the loyalty vendors. Tokens accrue and are a gold benefit.

MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION

Content Access
EverQuest® II Destiny of Velious™(base game, 7 expansion packs and 3 adventure packs) Full Access2 Full Access2 Full Access2
Player Character Races Full Access3 Full Access3 Full Access3
Player Character Classes Full Access4 Full Access4 Full Access4
Player Character Levels Level 92
(Level 95 with purchase of Tears of Veeshan expansion) Level 92
(Level 95 with purchase of Tears of Veeshan expansion) Level 92
(Level 95 with purchase of Tears of Veeshan expansion)
Player Character Slots 2 4 7
Spell Tiers Adept Expert Full Access
Bonus Boost None None 15% More Coin, 10% Mount Speed
Equipment Grades Full Access Full Access Full Access
Feature Access
Bag Slots (per character) 6 6 6
Coin Limitations (per character) Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
In-Game Mail Service Receive Receive Send & Receive
Shared Bank Slots Full Access Full Access Full Access
Active Journal Quests Maximum Amount Maximum Amount Maximum Amount
Broker System Restricted Restricted Unlimited
Voice Chat (VOIP) Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Chat Ability /say, /tell, /group, /guild Unlimited Unlimited
Guild Function Join Join and Create Join and Create
Account Services
Customer Service Knowledge Base Only5(except for transaction based issues) Knowledge Base Only5(except for transaction based issues) Full Support
In-Game Pop-up Advertising Frequent Upgrade Reminders Frequent Upgrade Reminders

Another thing I'm loathe to bring up, but won't this HURT the player studio designers? If I'm getting my player studio exempt 2000 sc, I've got to spend or lose, I don't think I'll be going out and buying MORE sc on top of the $15 membership cost. I did buy sc cards time to time before, but my patience is tested now, and I don't finance companies that try my patience.

Thus, I won't be buying player studio stuff much if at all...

Or am I alone in that?

I feel badly, I like the player studio people. They seem cool. I know they are talented, just...I'm not made of money nor am I inclined to float it SOE's way any time soon...

Cool, Carribea, but might I respectfully suggest putting it in a table like Excel or even Notepad, where we're allowed to actually do Tabs, then doing a screenshot of the result to post it here (or maybe a screenshot or two of the summary page itself)? I know exactly how annoying/frustrating it is to try to show a comparison table of something directly in here... X-P

It's a wee bit confusing, and I've seen the FAQ summary page before. :-/

But thanks for trying and letting folks know the info!

Uwk
who suggests maybe also including a link?

This is an understandable concern, but would your spending habits differ based on the origination of the Station Cash? In most cases, and I'm certainly not attempting to speak for anyone, the Player Studio item is worth your Station Cash or it isn't.

What I'd encourage you to do is give us a few days to roll out a few more details. Your feedback has all been heard.

yes you can purchase them on f2p accounts with SC.

One would think if you bought an extra character slot through the marketplace on a silver account it would let you use another character but who knows. It could just be another marketing gimmick to make you upgrade to Gold.

One of my main issues in downgrading to Silver (which I actually don't want to have to do) would be the 40 toons I have right now on Gold. If I can pay to "unlock" them, that's better, though they'd still need the Broker. If I can't, and I can't have them any more if SOE goes all f2p only, complete with current restrictions, then it won't be worth playing for me at all. I don't think this "2000 Reward!1! " bit will lead to that, but one never knows until one has complete information. :-/

Uwk

Apologies if anyone else has pointed this out, but yes, there was a time when a recurring sub didn't get us any "perks", but that was before they added F2P on all servers too. While I don't begrudge those who are F2P or silver and (personally) wasn't miffed to see it coming to all servers, the addition did diminish the value for many players who'd paid so many years prior without SOE putting out the virtual hat looking for more money and it angered a great number of people who feared it was the first sign the game would move to (even) easier mode to please the influx of new people.

I think the issue that people are having is that while many adjusted to the idea of F2P being present we also don't want to feel as though SOE is trying to squeeze every nickle out of us that they can. Sure, it's fluff on the market, but every time I die now (even with a gold sub) I get a pop up to revive instantly with SC. Every time I log in, I get a pop up reminding me they want to sell me more stuff that was made to sell and not released with expansions via questing or adding to the recipe books of crafters and bought with in-game coin.

With all that in mind, I'd say that SOE started the race to the bottom with a history of making announcements first and back peddling later (eg. we were assured that F2P would -never- be on all servers) and going in the opp. direction. People cancel in response to their bad decisions, they don't call us and cancel our subs. They did it when they introduced LoN with loot cards years ago and assured everyone it wasn't a slippery slope to RMT. I'm sure anyone who's played long enough can list tons of examples.

For me it's not even that they are taking something away as much as they are spinning it and trying to blow sunshine up...you now what I mean. Someone else (sorry, so many pages, so many similar sentiments) pointed out that it's that it creates a sense that they can't be trusted. I've compared them to that bad boyfriend or girlfriend you keep going back to, against your better judgement. They are alluring they have so many good qualities, but they also have bad qualities they keep trying to make up for by buying you flowers after they've said or done something without taking your relationship seriously. They (SOE) have a long history of that as a company, but so many of us have stuck it out and rolled with the punches. I stopped going back to the bad BFs 20 years ago, so I am starting to wonder why I'm a sucker for them, no matter how much I love this game. Agreeing with everyone who pointed out that this is about EQN and that adding that I have always thought the double and triple sales were meant to get us hooked on SC, the 500 SC a smexy flirt to make us want to buy a bit more. They just didn't count on us to be so clever and hoard.

I will go out on a limb and say that most of the people here are aware of layoffs in the offices and "get" that players studio items may not be netting enough for them vs the labor it costs them to approve and put them up for sale. We understand that they need to make money on those. I think this rather bitter pill (for most people) could have been hashed out in a more effective way. As many mentioned, asking us for feedback before the company had an auto-email scheduled to drop this info on us or putting the link in the launcher and making it seem like a done deal. Maybe they didn't intend it to read like a done deal, but that is the way it reads.

In this economy though, you'll note a lot of people (like me) have also used that perk as a means to justify an income stream to the game we love, but also to offset all the times we can't log in (health in my case, not being 22 and and in college for others, change in income, etc). My concern here is mostly a lack of clarity. While I may well continue my sub (I canceled auto-renew not out of rage but because the email implied that the change wasn't tied to auto-renewed subs) it would be on a decide-each-month basis or bundled in shorter than 12 month spans. Why give them that lump of money on a service I may or may not use each month? Overall, that can hurt the company, because they won't have that money up front and, while some of us may have tossed in extra for SC here and there in the past even without the double and triple sales, they are not encouraging the warm fuzzies that made those occasional splurges attractive. It certainly doesn't help that they are timing this with the launch of EQN on the horizon, since it makes me think that they plan to focus more effort to that project and trying to sell me on that SC focused world. Looks cool with voxels and all, but if it's an all SC world and I can't unlock every little bit that's crucial, I'll pass.

That said, I would have taken this all with a grain of salt if they'd worked it as such: keep the current perk until your recurring sub expires, send an email letting us know that the deal would change with the next renewal period. I don't care about the Astrix that warned me it could change (hey, read that a ages ago when the new perk started). Astrix are bad business in general, kind of like those drug ads with a long list of things that can kill you when you take it. That Astrix is there, but the minute I feel the side effects, I'll discontinue use. I would have also been fine if they had converted it to a diff currency as has been frequently suggested, even if it stays at 500 and rolls over has reasonable exclusions, or if they gave us a cart checkout.

I'll see what's coming down with the line with the implied "oh crap. you're even madder than we thought" that's come up since. How likely I am to stick around may or may not depend on what they offer, but they had better make that one fine bouquet of WHOOPS, forgive us? to keep many people coming back. I do have more than 35 Steam games, scads of Humble Bundle games, books, and more to turn to if the give us a gas-station panty-rose.

In theory (and unless they change the rules) you should be able to unlock all those alts. That's what I did when they put SWG in its grave and the old Station Pass was useless to me. I had the max number with that sub type and unlocked all of mine when I went to EQ2-only. Don't hold me over a fire if it's wrong of course, but I am pretty sure I was silver when I did it.

I'm actually ok on characters in that regards, I only really play one character and have 2 others that I craft on a little. Silver membership won't really affect my play style.

Although I do feel sympathy for your plight Uwk. I'd probably be too frustrated to keep playing if i had to deal with this nonsense if I had that many characters and I'd move onto another game. Then, maybe I'd check back in a year or two and see if SoE had finally figured out what a boneheaded move this was. (Assuming I wasn't still happy where I was at)

"Gas-station panty-rose"? Lovely expression, Daicia, and I get the gist; just never heard it before!

(and leave poor Astrix out of it; he's still going strong with Obelix in their own comic, though that world would make for a fun game...I think it's asterix [oh no; you must have the same spell-checker I do...hang on...ah, my bad; it's "asterisk"; thank heavens for pen-n-paper dictionaries!] for those "fine print" things we all live to hate ["Your results may vary, including death." >blink< "WHAT?!"])

Good points, all; it's just reminding me of that lovely day back in January of 2012, iirc, when we were told about a wonderful, lovely, set-in-stone-and-that-stone-is-diamond-matrix-granite deal that SONY itself did to the players in Europe...most of the customers were angry not only at the implications, but also at all the unanswered questions and lack of information. Let's hope that's fully rectified in a week. :-/

Uwk

Yes you can unlock those chars. You would need log them in/out in a certain order based on who you wanted access to first (assuming you will unlock them a few at a time)

So you could take the 15$ you spend a month on gold sub and buy a Wal-Mart card (if you can get them) that would unlock 2 chars at a time.
As far as the broker, you would stuck buying broker credits or using other options.

No Wal-Mart for me, thanks; but it would cost the same amount to unlock them as to buy a new slot? Hmm...that might still be worth it. Once I got them all freed up I'd be more than happy to buy broker credits. ;->

Uwk

Correct, buy a new slot and the game should unlock the most recently played locked toon. Only trick when have that many is make sure you log out the ones you want access to first .....last. So they are the most recently played. If that made sense....

Kinda, yeah; I see that operating if I select a character from the Launchpad to go directly into. ;->

Thanks! But I think we better get back on-topic, or the Radar will start pinging in our direction...

Uwk

I've played this game since March of 2005. After about a year I paid for a second account. Then later a 3rd. That was $14.99 a month x3 for a good 6 years. And $40-60 for every expansion for each of those accounts. I felt SC was a bad idea from the start, although I enjoyed getting subs & xpacks with it. Course that did not last. SOE is a corporation. They are interested in making money & yes, squeezing it out of you. They are not interested in your opinions. I haven't paid a penny since the Krono, & will not again.

I even consolidated back to 1.

And how do you consider this an improvement of the Gold membership? You're doing nothing more than nickel and diming your subscribing members by taking away their ability to use their accumulated SC. Instead you think using 2000 SC for "ONE" purchase per month is an improvement??? What the &^*& type of business school did you clowns go to? I'm guessing the one that teaches you how to alienate your customers and drive your company out of business.