The Darkened Sea Launches Tuesday, November 11th!

Sorry to hear things are changing, but it's only $40 folks. Still pretty cheap compared to other entertainment.

I do wish the Test community luck though, and appreciate what they do for live servers.

I bought it. A few other folks bought it. We are going to feel the pain from this decision also.

This change is awesome for me. I started on Test because I tend to enjoy lower population servers. And if there is one thing I can say for certain about this change is that it is going to reduce the population on test. Whether because of people leaving because Test is no longer cheap enough, or because they don't like the server rule change, or because their friends don't play, or it isn't worth it to be on a low population server etc.

Actually, the other thing I can say for certain is that it is going to be MUCH more difficult to bring back up the test server population afterwards, since even if 6 months down the road you do grant TDS, no one will know if the next expansion will have a 6 month delay, or no delay, or the standard 2 year delay.

Frankly, I wonder why SOE even maintains a 'test server.' Changes between updates on test and those on the live servers are minimal, with no time for any real feedback. It's like all that matters is that the Test server doesn't crash.

SOE Employee #1: We patched the test server this morning.

SOE Employee #2: So the patch has been live on test for over six hours and the server hasn't blown up yet?

SOE Employee #1: Nope. And the hamsters seem to be running at the same speed.

SOE Employee #1: OK, stick a fork in it - we're done. Hit design lock and prep the live servers for deployment next Wednesday.

This is not a knock on the test server pop - like Shang said, more an issue of how SOE uses Test.

If Test can access TDS for free, that provides an opportunity for people to copy toons over and 'test drive' TDS before paying for it for their characters on live servers.

I'm guessing that that would be a mixed blessing for SOE right now.

I play on test have for quit some time. I do not have a piece of gear on my toon that is copied ( I have a full cotf set a couple cotf t2 and it is easy to distinguish between gear that has been copied and gear that has not. Gear that has been copied says copied next to it . So as long as the exp bonus is not a issue it should be no problem to copy us over to a different server but no copied gear will move.

Say goodbye to all your bags and tradeskill trophies if you use 'copied' as the filter. jus' sayin'

EQ has become so repetitive and tedious for me the only thing keeping me playing is because it is free on test, it will be a cold day in hell before I ever shell out money for this game that tends to bore me so easily. Every zone in the game is the same as the one before except for graphics, there is nothing new under the sun here in Norath so they can keep their expansion and I will muddle away on previous expansions until they make us pay for them also.

lol if I go back to Live servers and leave Test, id go back like 2 years in progression. Was looking forward to my EQ1 return, ah well. Sorry but I can't afford the expansion for my boxed group and going from playing 3-4 to 1 does not interest me in this era of EQ.

Just another in a long line of terrible decisions that seem to be leading to the demise of EverQuest. For those from Live servers who are making light of the issue, imagine if they suddenly changed a feature on your server that has been going on for years without any prior warning. How would you feel & how would you like it if others gave you a hard time over it? Just saying consider things from another perspective before being snarky & condescending towards your fellow EQ players.

I play on both FV & Test for the last nearly 3 years & was on The Rathe/Prexus & Bristlebane before that back to March of 1999 & have had several paid accounts with numerous purchased expansions over the years including 2 & soon to be 4 copies of TDS & all access on 3 accounts at present with several other 3 to 6 months of all access for various boxes not to mention numerous game cards & kronos in the last 18 to 24 months.

I am just hoping that if this does in fact decimate the test population that they do offer people a way off.

I was in Kedge last night buying spells and checking things out a little bit and there was only 6 toons there (all mine).

This is on launch day during prime time so I think that says something.

I feel for the people on Test. No explanation, no warning, and not even any remorse displayed from SOE or the developers about the sudden bait and switch. It's almost disgusting to be honest.

A lot of people on Test are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Most people create an account for every character on Test and would have to buy the expansion for each character.

Not only that; they'd be paying for a server, that has a very small community, completely no economy, that has copied raid geared characters from FV, with no way off the server.

There probably should have been some type of grandfather system for people who played on Test before a certain period, who would still earn free expansions.

I think most people who are being honest with themselves could have anticipated this happening. If TDS was on course to sell a half million copies then it wouldn't amount to a hill of beans to give away a couple hundred to the Test server for us to play with. I think it's pretty obvious that that is just not the case anymore.

The Powers That Be decided that we on the Test server need to become paying customers in order to have access to the band new expansion. It worked for me. I bought 6 expansions for $240 that I would not have otherwise done. Personally, I don't have a problem with that.

Expansions don't make themselves. Everyone involved is drawing a good wage (I hope anyway) because nobody works for free. I don't and neither do you. That being said, a company simply cannot give away something that it had to pay to have made and expect to make money.

I'm not privvy to the sales numbers but I can guarantee you this decision was made after much deliberation. It was decided that this is what's best for the health of the entire game. If at any time EQ stops being profitable then ALL the servers go away.

Now that I've said that, I foresee the Test server post level 100 is going to die. If I'm right, then please allow me to become a paying customer again. I would go gold again on all 6 accounts if given the chance. There has to be a way.

The biggest issue as far as profits is that too much is funneled away from EQ to other SOE projects. They've claimed in the past that EQ is their biggest moneymaker & it seems to still be doing well with krono sales, game cards that translate into Station Cash & direct Station Cash purchases & all access time from EQ players.

If more was spent on EQ then EQ would generate more revenue than it already does by drawing in more players & getting current players to spend a bit more. The entire concept of spiting your successful games to create new games that may or may not succeed is a very risky proposition & it seems to be the root cause of all their cut backs & lack of dev resources that in turn make the paying players (in whatever form they contribute) upset & spend less.

Working on better communication while cutting out the negative nerfs while being consistent from month to month & year to year with "The Vision" & cutting out the sometimes sarcastic & discouraging responses on the forums from devs & management when they do respond would in turn result in better responses from the players while also keeping us playing & paying. If the plan is to continue on without any changes then Smed himself needs to come here & explain that plan instead of passing it off to Thom or Prathun or whoever. If the man has time to tweet & post on reddit then he certainly can spare the time to talk to the players that got SOE to where it is & by not doing so it feels like an insult to most of us.

What makes sony obligated to continue giving more free content to people who don't pay for it and get free gold access?

Because the said they would.

Because Test is basically in house testing that is free for SOE so they provide benefits to encourage those players to continue testing content. In order for TDS to be tested it should have been on Test a week before it went to Live like every other content release has been for the last several years so that the Test players would have caught the bugs that are getting fixed in the patch today that will roll out for Live next week.

SOE themselves are failing to utilize Test to the fullest extent so if anything all of you who are calling the Test players out should reconsider who you are upset with. There would be less issues with patches & content releases if the EQ team fully utilized Test & the raid guild there, Legions of Blackburrow like they do Realm of Insanity & whoever else they still work with.

If SOE even has profits. According to Sony's annual financial statement issued in May, between April 2013 and March 2014 SOE recorded a loss of $60 million due to "write-off of certain PC game software titles sold by Sony Online Entertainment LLC." (Apparently the three games that closed last March - Free Realms, Star Wars, and Magic:The Gathering - and possibly including Vanguard and Wizardry:Online which closed in June, but which were announced in January.)

I am sure that the front office is under a lot of pressure to generate more revenue for the SOE - hence decisions like this, which may get them dimes now, but may very well cost them dollars later. Wonder what other stuff they are doing to try and squeeze more money out of DCUO and Planetside II - those look like the big moneymakers for SOE.

Free Realms had 10 million players at one point, and closed down with two months notice a few years later - pretty volatile market.

Bingo!

I bet most of that $60 million was for Landmark & Next as the other games were in maintenance mode & didn't have high costs at that point. I don't know if they can base a loss on something they didn't make due to shutting those games down vs spending more on other games. I may be mistaken but I guess we'll find out when/if Sony decides to sell SOE if things don't get any better.