Customer Service Announcement: Gold Membership

Still haven't seen a comment concerning the 30day+500sc gamecards from Walmart. Will there be a change with that bonus 500?
I'm sure I'm not alone when I state I have them sitting right next to me waiting for a decent promotion, maybe double? I'd fall off my chair if there was a triple event.
If they're going to be changed it would be nice to have an announcement instead of a surprise next month. Do I (and I'm sure others) need to spend them now?

Just because people here complain doesn't mean that's what the players want. The vast majority of players never come here, and the people that do come here are extremely negative about everything. You cannot generalize from this thread.

The cards say 500 bonus on them. They won't change (doubt they can change them.)

As has been previously asked in an earlier comment, so long as bayle marks are purchaseable with the new mechanism this will have minimal impact on me personally, I save up for those and occasionally xp pots.

HOWEVER, this is a kick in the slats for those who make regular smallish transactions such as those that create remarkable achievements with player housing and how SOE can with any conscience state:

"We appreciate our customers, especially our valued members, and therefore are excited to bring you this additional value"

Extracting urine methinks

You are not paying attention to the number of first posts in this thread. Those are the 'vast majority' players who never came here before. Yes, this is a big enough sample to start generalizing. No, you cannot dismiss it as a the 'vocal minority'. Not this time. This is a genuine community-wide disapproval.

Shared Exp 3 potions cost more than 2000 SC. How can I save enough SC to buy the Shared Exp 3 potions now? You dropping prices on those potions or digging into my pockets for more cash as a mandatory procedure to make those purchases? For one...I dont like this change if the Shared Exp 3 potions are not avail for 2000 SC or less.

Let me be clear, every single SOE employee I've ever interacted with in any way has been kind, courteous, and helpful. Piestro is all that and watching this thread (over a weekend) he's also Hard Working and a Class Act.

And if you're reading this here's something to take back to the higher ups.

-Although I realize announcing this on FRIDAY Jan 3 is exactly one month prior to the effective date. 30 days is really the LEAST amount of warning that could be considered 'fair'. You could show good will by EXCEEDING the bare minimum. Showing a little good will when presenting a bitter pill goes a long way.

-Announcing this on a FRIDAY and leaving one CSR to deal with the fallout all weekend is terrible for your image. You've got forums exploding for three days and you're not concerned about how that looks? Come Monday we'll see how many bloggers and online publications keep an eye on those forums over the weekend, and if it's a big enough story to carry.

-You would have been far better off taking away the 500sc entirely, and pointing out "It was a promotion never part of the contract you agreed to. We are now discontinuing this promotion". Trying to pass it off as "Added Value" was a severe miscalculation, and a sudden change in REAL VALUE to your station cash. Now in the players mind there are two kinds of SC, one they get for free is worth next to nothing (as I'm supposed to be willing to 'throw away' $16 of 'value' to buy a $4 shield). And then there is REAL SC that you pay for with hard earned dollars. You can call them both SC, but going forward one has vastly more 'value' than the other.

-Going forward, at least I have been reminded, all that Sony 'provides' you is subject to change without notice. How severely this decision undercuts your image as a company will be for the bean counters to quantify and the corporate suits to observe and calculate their next brilliant move on.

That's all I wanted to convey to 'higher ups'.

Don't know if it matters (personal story follows), Everquest is my game (since 2001) played for 7 years solid, took a break for 7 years, just came back a year ago. Got involved in the Player Studio program and am loving that. This change was announced, and I see it as a direct reaction to the Player Studio being open now for long enough for the tax implications to become clear to SOE. Because bottom line this has already been stated it's a tax issue, has the membership been changed over the past year in a way that would change tax liability? (no)

All the implications to Player Studio aside, I logged in to Everquest to play this morning and was so bummed I just shut it down. I'm just one person, but this singular person has really had their view of SOE crushed back to where it was 8 years ago. And you're not winning that 'brand image' back overnight.

Cancelled my gold subscription today. Already paid into EQN Landmark, you really better deliver on your Landmark and EQN promises, and give me something worth subscribing for, if you want my dollars anyway. I'll continue to take money from you via Player Studio regardless, and thank you very kindly for that.

sorry , this is not in any way an improvement.
i will consider to stop my 4 gold membership if this go live ..

Not much plat, decoration items that have been there forever, stat food that sucks, extra char slots one time buy. Most of the ''loyal'' people have anything that matters from there. Big bags? They r 16 slot and we can make 20's now. The content need updating badly!

i have bought hundreds of dollars in sc that was added to the 500 sc i got from my 6 gold accounts (just started a 7th gold account) ... most, maybe all, of those accounts will now go to silver as i have not had a lot of time to play and only kept them up to support eq

i have bought all of the expansions, all preordered but one due to being away a lot with medical problems, most of which were premium (but still kept my gold accounts up), even tho i have not played in the last 2 expansions yet, and now i will no longer do that

i am very disappointed in soe and how they have thrown this new thing they have the nerve to call *added value* on us, and am posting here for the first time to say so, and to say i will no longer keep up my support of this type of thing, have lost interest in trying eqn, and will no longer buy sc

one thing i do want to know, will the already paid for accounts bought during the 500 sc deal, and have time left on them, still get thier sc that was part of the deal when i bought those subs?
.

OK lets try this AGAIN...

Piestro, you may want to address the issue in this fashion.

Any item that can be bought in stacks (like buying 6 LoN booster packs) at one time where the cost is less than the 2000SC grant should be considered an option. I believe this will help to appease the situation as it currently stands. The largest falderal concerning this announcement is revolving around key buzz words.

For those not getting the point.

ANY SC RECEIVED FOR FREE IS A PERK AND NOT AN ENTITLEMENT.

Yes another prime example of people wanting everything given to them on a silver platter.

SOE should just stop altogether with SC, LoN cards and everything else they are giving away for FREE, based on the level of "mass group syndrome" stupiditiy being displayed here.

I don't care how many times this gets /reported, I will continue to repost this because the problem lies with everyone complaining about something that is FREE.

Instead of spending the time here bickering and complaining non-constructively about an issue that does not affect you monetarily, go support our troops, the neighbor who needs help with their yard, that family down the street who doesn't have enough to eat.

Get the point people........

I don't want 2000 SC.
Before people could save their SC to buy bags and desirable items. What happens also if you want to buy something thats worth 100..... It says you can buy one item up to the value of..... People are going to get frustrated and disappointed. This isn't going to make the game more acessible and those who have been loyal over many years to EQ may start looking elsewhere and I can bet it won't be EQ Next.
I do hope Sony reconsiders.
We pay our subscriptions, those of us who are Gold.... so that 500SC isn't free. I've always considered it part of the package I pay for.

A number of folks have commented about something similar to this, and this idea is definitely included in our player feedback.

We've actually been talking quite a bit about adding new content to the loyalty vendor recently, I'd seriously reccommend starting a new thread with that as the topic and sending me a PM so I'm sure not to miss it. It's an area where we definitely are looking for ideas.

We haven't talked about changing them, however existing cards would still be redeemable if we do decide to change them at some point in the future. We're aware of the popularity of those cards.

We're trying to provide more value to our customers. If it's not more valuable to you please let us know how it could be. I've got the housing thing noted specifically, anything else?

Another way to think of this is that it takes 9 months currently for the SC grant to equal a Bottle of Shared Experience III. With this change you could have 9 Bottles of Shared Experience II in the same amount of time. That's equivalent to 4 1/2 Bottles of Shared Experience III. They aren't the same, but it's an example of how we are trying to increase the overall value of what we are providing. That seems like a pretty good deal to me, but it doesn't to you so please let us know why. Then I can carry your words forward and maybe we can find some solution for you.

I don't remember paying $15 for a mount ingame, I remember SoL mounts 10k-100k, as I remember I couldn't afford the 10k . It was hard times in LOIO.
You're right it's not a free bonus, I assumed that this promotion was instigated to encourage people to sign up for recurring accounts as it gave the same benefit as using a game card (non recurring).
Now it would seem that those recurring accounts have become less important, maybe next year they'll be important again, who knows?
If this move bothers you, you pay $15 a month, loyalty points are not important and you have a Walmart handy then switch to game cards.
I consider myself locked in at a decent rate so I guess I have to go with the flow on this one but I feel bad for the player studio guys and I'm sure that interest in housing will most certainly suffer. That little 500 a month came in handy, I bought 20 snowy trees (and used 5), not anymore!

And thanks for the reply Piestro

I preferred being able to save my SC for the rare occasions when there was actually something in the Marketplace that I wanted, such as large backpack bundles. Thanks to SOE's money-oriented thinking, now I can't even do that anymore, and therefore they have effectively removed "additional value" from my game. Oh wait - I still have my Claim window, Loyalty tokens, and LoN Loot Cards. I'm guessing those are next to get the axe.

piestro, please let us know if the already bought gold subs that still have time left on them will continue to get the 500 sc a month that was part of the sub when they bought them

As per the OP, all subs receiving this benefit will change over to the new benefit system. I've include feedback on this topic in my reporting.

sad face ty for your reply tho and for putting in feedback for us <3

i usually like to buy a weapon ornament, or a title when a good one comes out. This whole thing is kinda EH,so unless its something i really see that i like i wont being using this "perk". I feel bad for the player studio People who make money off of market place that i know wont be buying from due to a "restriction" soe is implementing