Heroic chars are nice but what about the price of the game?

The price of this game is fine.

I have one account 19/20 exp, the other 18/20. I let them both expire from gold because i'm in a transition phase and the new job starting next week is going to cut my play time in half.

My point? My silver accounts can still go to level 100 and 95 and I can play for free and do all the same stuff...the only thing is I have to use a5 mercs instead of j5.

How amazing of a deal is that?

By the way, they charged $9.99 a month when I first started playing. (I think it was even 9.89 a month because of 989 studios). If you really think they're going to charge now what they charged 15 years ago, when now you can 10x more content, f2p options, and inflation alone. Well, don't hold out for that Ral, or Kel.

I think you are forgetting that your 15 bucks a month isn't paying for COTF. It is paying for 20 expansion + base game. We paid 40 bucks period for COTF. So yes, with a straight face I can say my monthly sub (which is 9.99) is definitely reflected in the amount of content I have access to currently.

You are forgetting the forest for the trees maybe unless.

If you are just talking about COTF then yes I am a bit disappointed by it, but not enough to regret spending 160 bucks on it.

You remember correctly. $9.89 was the monthly charge when the game launched in March, 1999.
Anyone remember the price of gas in 1999? $1.30/gal?
How about the price of a movie ticket? $5?
Of course computers have actually gotten cheaper over the years.

I don't pay my monthly fee for CoTF, I pay for access to that gold gives me. If you aren't happy enough with what you receive for your monthly fee then don't pay that fee. That's why it's a weak argument, even more so because you know what you are going to get for that fee as opposed to when you pay for a movie you may truly wish you hadn't paid to see. To continually pay each month, knowing you aren't getting what you feel is a value for that money, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

But the old content you speak of (at least a great majority of it) was during a time in which the fees actually reflected what we were getting in game at the time. However, a lot of us, me included, do not utilize that old content much anymore and would hardly notice if it were taken out of the game tomorrow. Reason being, we only play in current content and currently, current content has taken an extreme minimalistic approach and a lot of us do not feel like our pay is being reflected in game.

Its as simple as that really. Anyone with two eyes and a brain can look and realize how this game has slowly deteriorated from both a content and quality standpoint over the past few years.

If you are complaining about current content then you should be complaining about the cost of expansions, not the subscription fee.

Well, a lot of people continue playing out of habit and nothing but habit. EQ has become a routine for these people because they cant find anything else to fill that gap if they did quit EQ. Or they play because their friends currently play. Or they play because of their guild. For whatever reason, these people dont step away or quit due to these things. However, take 1 or 2 of these things away, and they would stop paying and quit and not even think twice about it. There is a dynamic going on here that is far greater than just the game itself. A lot of people that play, do not play because the game is "fun" - However, they keep searching for the fun again within these dynamics.

None of those things would justify lowering subscription fees because if they lost those things that keep them playing, a lower price wouldn't keep them here either.

Was just stating why people dont drop their Gold Status. None of what I said had anything to do with fees.....It was just explaining why certain people dont quit or drop Gold even if they arent happy.

$14 a month for unlimited playing is a good price.... since they also have a F2P option..... Netflix is $10 a month, Hulu Plus is $10 a month..... Prime Instant Video is $8 a Month... ..xbox live is $9 a month.... all of these show you that really $14 a month for entertainment that you can do unlimited is really not such a bad deal.

You really want to go there and compare EQ to WoW, a better overall game, superior engine (with fugly graphics, I'll grant you that), far less buggy, a game where you can survive and solo with any class, whereas virtually all EQ classes are group-dependent, where expansions are enormous and tend to ripple through the whole game, while EQ expansions completely ignore everything prior and Sony frequently engages in nerfs to force us OUT of the old expension (HoT experience/mission nerfs, anyone?), where you get far faster customer service replies... do I need to go on?

I didn't know World of Warcraft is the superior game. I better go play that. Anyone want my stuff?

That's what happened with me. EQ just became a habit. Eat dinner, come fire up the box crew. Then I had an interruption: Steam had Tomb Raider on sale for $4.99 and Might and Magic X came out, a game series I loved years ago. Plus a cold stopped me playing. Once I recovered, I played TR, loved it, played MMX, hated it (boy they pooched that game) and now play StarCraft 2 pvp after being away for a year. After several weeks of no EQ, I just don't miss it, or the hassle of playing 5 toons at once because there are no groups.

Of course, SC2 multiplayer makes you play so fast it feels like multiboxing but that's another story.

No, 75% of the content was just made obsolete with an AA grant and heroic characters, nevermind the fact that previous expansion and new expansions don't tie into one another AT ALL, even the ones with no lvl cap increase.

Exactly. WoW expansions are holistic and felt throughout the game. EQ expansions are bolt-ons with new zone entrances from the old zones. And they had to do the silly AA grant because they never went back and fixed AA, like when the previous expansion had 7-8-9-10-12 and then it raised to 7-9-11-12-12, etc.

WoW was used as an example in this case but it is a great game with only one fatal flaw for me. Hit max level and then its merely grinding for gold. I played WoW through vanilla, and then just before Lich King launched I picked up Burning Crusade and before I'd visited all the new cities I max leveled and all that exp went to waste. I never did pick up Lich King, not enough replay factor imo.

That said, what they've done to EQ recently has reduced its replay value and I too think that warrants a price reduction, it may even lure myself back one day down the road after I've cooled off a bit.

I have no problems with the current price of the game. I do have a problem with them trying to rush out expansion after expansion while completely ignoring basically all old content, plus now with the heroic characters coming it's almost like they're trying to encourage the players to just ignore the older content as well. Say what you want about WoW, but at least they don't ignore all their older content. In fact the Cataclysm expansion completely changed a lot of the game's original content, while EQ mostly just updates the graphics on some of their older content.

Sure EQ has a lot more content than WoW, but how much of it is actually experienced by players anymore? I won't try and argue over which game is better, because I play and enjoy both games, but I will say I enjoy WoW a bit more because while it doesn't have the amount of content EQ has it definitely seems to make better use of what it does have. Quality over quantity.

I'll take it npnp =)

I'll even keep it gold, Enough plat for an extra Krono should be doable.

Ok, it's all yours. Just promise you'll never illusion me as a halfling or a vah shir. Although I need to finish the last two achievements I have first, which are in Chapterhouse 1. I tried to box it like ten times but couldn't do it because I am bad at boxing. I haven't thrown my mouse on the floor in disgust in a long time.

Aren't the monthly subscription fees more about the regular, on going operating costs that are incurred in order to keep the game operational? The fact that the monthly subscription fees compare to other "newer" games is logical then. It's the average cost for keeping servers going, bug fixes, etc. Makes sense to me.

Also the comparison to the cost of a movie, dinner out - not sure where you guys eat or if you're sneaking your own popcorn into the movies.....the cost for me and my family (total 4) to go to a MOVIE alone with popcorn and drinks is easily $80. For that, yes, I get to see what's hopefully a good movie, but after those 2 hours, my investment is over. For $14.99 a month, I get to play as much as I want - I probably average maybe 20 hours a month. If you're not having fun playing the game, then why would you insist that a cheaper subscription would influence your experience. Doesn't it just make you feel a little less guilty about not hitting the cancel button? Would I like a cheaper subscription? Sure. But putting it in perspective for what that monthly fee covers, I accept that cost.

Now the cost of expansions for what we're getting/what I'm using, that's a completely different conversation to me. I do run multiple accounts and I will typically buy the expansion on at least one of the accounts (to see what is new), but since I don't personally even play my level 100 crew any more, unless there's something for the people that are less than 100 (like clickies from inside bags), I don't rush to buy the latest expansions for all my accounts. Of our six accounts (5 paid), only 3 have the latest expansion.