It's nice to see that EQ is still around. I started playing back when it was still beta, and played for many years. Recently, I decided to come back and check things out. While I like some of the changes, like the ability to teleport around via the book of knowledge,the tutorial zone is nice, new quests, new zones...all great. I'm really disappointed to see that the use of the bazaar is restricted for FTP. This is a game breaker for me, and I'm sure many others. Having played many F2P games, there are things that work, and don't work. In most cases, if it's set up right, the game will make a lot more money. People can, and will pay for features, items, mounts, you name it. I would much rather see restrictions on classes / races you can play than take away a big part of the game like the ability to sell your stuff like that. You made the choice to make EQ free to play because you've seen companies do very well selling things to players. If you take away such a major part of the game from players, they aren't going to stick around, and pay for other things. I came over to the EQ with friends from another game. We all had fun, many did find the game a bit of a grind, but having played EQ from the start, I was expecting that. To be honest I found it better than it used to be. For most of us, as soon as we realized we weren't able to sell, we left. Suggestions for a better F2P model: Lets face it. Most of the people that would be coming back to EQ are going to be in an age bracket where they are working, have families, and don't have a lot of time to devote to games. You have made some great changes like giving players the ability to teleport around, added a priest that will summon your corpse, all to save a lot of time in the game. If you allow players to pay to unlock certain features of the game, buy items, mounts, special buffs, you stand to make a lot more money than having players walk away right in the beginning because they can't do something so basic like sell their goods. For free to play, the longer you keep players around, the more they will usually spend. The bazaar: Set it up so players can unlock the ability to sell with credits. Lets be real here. No one is going to go back to the day of standing there spamming your sales in chat. I spent a good bit of time standing in the EC tunnel selling. Been there done that, not doing it again, and can't imagine many would. Most MMORPGs these days have auction houses so that you don't have to waste game time doing that. You have the bazaar which is a reasonable work around for not having an auction house. Classes / Races: Most F2P models are set up so that certain races / classes are locked. You have to pay a fee to unlock these. It's quite often set up per character, so for each character the person makes, they pay again and again to unlock features. Items / Mounts: Make certain gear, and special mounts available for players to buy with credits Potions: Offer special potions for credits like experience potions, buff potions that last a few hours, and last through death.
Frankly, it's not important what other games have randomly decided to do in their own game rules. If the bazaar is important to someone, then they can subscribe. You can buy heroic characters, and can play all combinations of classes and races. They originally did what you promote, and it was disliked by everyone. So, you are going backward not forward with this one. Some items and mounts are available through LoN, which requires you pay for the cards or subscription for a monthly free pack. Potions are often on sale. And they last through death (at least mine do that on progression servers).
The bazaar characters are to some extent operated full time, and if it went to a one time pay, there would be a permanent loss of income, so expect that to never happen. All race class combos are now open. Prestige gear requires All Access, there are mounts that can be bought with SC. XP potions do not expire on death.
If you work then full access is nothing for 30 days entertainment when you want. If it kills you to pay 15 a month then just pay for the month and use your ball in bazaar skills to purchase krono from there on out.
Sony took it free to play not to be nice, but because they saw other companies doing much better financially going F2P. They were hoping to bring back old players, and show the game to new players. EQ was one of my first MMOs, I have a lot of fond memories, and would love to see them flourish again. The problem is, they won't with their current F2P model. I see some of you saying that it's working, doesn't need to change. Well guess what, it's not. Yes they still have subscribers and players, but not near what they should have on going F2P. I shouldn't be able to go zone after zone and not see a soul. That was really sad for me to see. The current setup they have now isn't working, and they need to look at change. As for paying the $14.95/m. No, people aren't going to be willing to do that just to have access to the bazaar. There are better games out there if you are going to be paying monthly fees. I'm betting the only players paying monthly are the ones that have been doing so for years.
Many pay the subscription fee for more than just access to the bazaar. Players get 500 station cash a month, better mercenaries, the ability to auto grant AA points when available and better gear later on ( 90+). It's up to YOU whether you find it's worthwhile to subscribe or not
there was no beta for EQ, it was all closed testing through Verant in house in San Diego. The only beta EQ ever released was Ruins of Kunark which Legions of Darkness from Innoruuk server was invited to be apart of.
Eq is one of the few F2P games that does not see game breaker items in the cash store, so many games let you play for free but cost a fortune just to keep up in the game. Most of the game is open to F2P, but there has to be some things behind the pay wall so to speak to keep people paying for the game. The current set up lets you try the game and see if you like it for a long time before having to pay anything is necessary.
Umm Yes there was, both my husband & I were invited to take part in it. We played for a while before it went live. We have the invite emails, screenshots ect from those days stored on floppy somewhere in the storage closet. Not digging them out. LoL The problem with how it's set up now is it's not keeping the players that come back to check it out. They certainly don't need to offer "Game Breaking", but offering things like paying to unlock the ability to sell is huge, and would keep a lot of players around. Sony saw how well a lot of other games were doing that they decided to go F2P. They didn't do it to be nice, they did it because they thought they would do better financially by doing it. Most of the people that I was grouping with at the start weren't staying. We went around checking out some of the old areas and were shocked to see all the "Ghost Towns" A classic game that's gone F2P, we expected to see loads of people, and they were few and far between. It was sad to see. Anyways enough of my rambling. Wish you guys all the best. May come back check things out down the road again.
You having been gone a while I can understand the shock of seeing the said ghost towns, however one of the big changes in the game was instanced content. Areas such as dead hills and shards landing normaly have players around all the time, these are the areas that the 95+ content is found, and 95+ is the majority of the player base today. Toons can be started from lvl 1 and leveled to 80ish very fast even without power level. Judging the game by the toons in zone of old zones like halas or Freeport is not fair to the game. From time to time these old zones are ramped up for a limited time to bring players back there, atm castle mistmore is lvl 95+ and they add some special high end drops during the event.
Do you realize how many trader would be in bazaar if we could just create multiple FTP toons to sell our stuffs...If one can not afford 15€ a month then this one should put is priority back in order.
That's good to know. I guess for me, and a lot of others I was with, we were looking to bring back a lot of old memories, and we were just hit in the face with the dead zones that were once so filled with life. I'm glad to hear they are doing stuff with some of them. What brought me back to begin with was came across the old cloth world map in the closet the other day, and just had to come back check things out No not necessarily. If they set it up that you pay to unlock the feature to sell, can't see many doing that multiple times. I'm sure the server can handle the players selling. I mean if you go back to the old days where we all stood around in EC tunnel spamming our sales, and the servers were able to handle that. I'm sure they have improved them a lil since those days lol. As for not being able to afford it. Not the issue. they are marketing the game as Free to Play, and with a main feature taken away like the ability to sell just doesn't work well as F2P.
Nothing is stopping you from selling things in the game. Like you said, back in the day, we all stood around EC tunnel and sold our wares. You can do the same thing now in PoK or trade chat, its just more convenient to use the bazaar. All F2P games lock these kinds of convenience bumps behind a pay wall. In my opinion, Sony has set up a F2P game that allows you to play the game with out much hindrance, but has still managed to make the monthly sub a great value.
