I have a few thoughts on this. On my Live server I typcally box three, two Gold and a Silver. My Golds are my two mains, and my Silver will rotate between several classes depending on the content I'm working on and/or who needs XP to level. I'll either get a mage pet or some useful buffs/heals out of it, plus an extra A5 merc which isn't as bad as people say. I am satisfied with this arrangement, but there are a couple of things i would tweak; The AA floors for true F2P and Silver are too low. Not only are the numbers chosen unchanged in more than 10 years, they were originally set by Smokejumper, who simply copied over his parameters from the pre-existing EQ2 F2P model, without any regard to how the two games differed (and still do). Instead of 250 F2P and 1000 Silver, I'd eliminate the F2P distinction, making every unsubbed account a Silver, and give all Silvers a floor of 2500. This is enough to allow a brand-new character to play free in TSS and to traverse the Hero's Journey, which is the best content for a new free character anyway. Many players argue that the auto-grant makes AA unlocks moot, but I would still like to see a proper AA unlocker in the Marketplace. It should sell a block AA quota for a reasonable amount, say 2500 AA for 500 DBC. There are still a few of us who enjoy the progression journey of shaping our Silver alts the way we want them, even if it's one AA at a time. i don't have a problem with the Prestige system as it is. The differences between All-Access and free accounts are well-documented, and I have no sympathy for those who didn't do their homework before they let their sub lapse, and then come back some time later and complain about all the "surprise" restrictions. If you want to play with all of your existing raid gear out of the box, be prepared to re-sub. Or, you can buy a Heroic upgrade, ostensibly that's part of what they're for. I have a hard time believing these returning players are all as buck-naked as they claim. Even if they were, it's easy peasy to re-gear using Defiant up to 95, there's always visible pieces in the Bazaar on any server, and you can get non-visibles from simple Teek missions or from certain vendors. There is also non-Prestige quested T1 group gear from SoD onwards, meaning from 85. You just have to put in some time to re-gear as you want. Too impatient? Spend a few bucks. i wouldn't have a problem with a single-item Prestige gear unlocker in the Marketplace. Make it not super cheap. Let people wrestle with the choice of what they absoltely positively need to carry forward from before, and then cost that out vs. a re-sub. Finally, it would be nice if a couple more character slots per account could be purchased on the Marketplace. The current limit is three, I'd bump that up to five. This has the added advantage of allowing subbed players to get to 16 character slots, potentially one for each class, a perk only a very few from the old days have now.
I don't mind the prestige system except for the issue of requiring you to swap out a complete armor set if your subscription expires. I think it would almost be better for prestige armor to be wearable by paid or unpaid but just have the stats scale down if it isn't a paid account. That way if you are wearing NoS raid gear and let your subscription run out, instead of getting zero stats for the gear it would reduce all the stats by like 50%. I used to have 2 paid accounts but I got tired of boxing a cleric when I have a merc to use so all the prestige gear on that cleric can't be used and I had to swap out for other gear but didn't want to destroy the prestige incase I ever wanted to pay to play it again, so it would be nice if he would just get 50% of the stats of the gear instead of needed 2 sets of gear.
IMO, armor for accounts that have lapsed subs should simply scale stats down if prestige gear is already looted/worn. Players that quit for about 2 years and come back to test waters need a little more incentive to stick around. It's not the same as for new players (or those gone for so long that they may as well be new players). There are already enough of other handicaps in place anyway for F2P.
Okay, Prestige usually starts at a significant level, maybe you have funds to afford a merc maybe not, go farm grey trash acquire moderate gear, and farm your way up. We want players to be able to log in and have some fun and maybe learn and participate even when the Dollars are tight. But this is a business endeavour and free play time is to encourage continued playing. Your options is to farm your way back to relevance for your level and carry on forward, Pay to just proceed from your current position or /testcopy and advance there and never leave that server. I often help folk level up and even acquire gear, but, you got to want to be part of EQ.
F2P allows someone to get a very basic idea of the game. Honestly, if $13 a month is too much for you to manage you probably need to be doing something other than playing a video game.
As has been suggested before, the easy fix is to remove prestige tags from all non raid items prior to one of the higher level expansions, let's say VoA. This can easily be done right in the database by changing the prestige flag on every item which does not have a type 8 slot. This doesn't affect TLP because they're already gold accounts. Leave old school items without aug slots alone, as people don't need to be twinking f2p accounts, as there is no point. I don't think I support increasing the 1k AA cap as you should be leveling before working AA 99% of the time. And DPG needs the subs.
While I generally like that reply, we've had a few guild members who have for various health/age related reasons been unable to maintain their gold status. The other side of the coin has to do with the shear volume of other games on the market. $15/$18 for a single 30 day sub can buy a lot of games on steam.
What if prestige gear on a silver account only had the stats for the "Required" level? So if a piece of gear had a minimum level of 100, you'd only get the level 100 stats regardless of how much higher your level was. It would be a way for returning players to still be able to play, but at a reduced level of effectiveness. The benefit of allowing returning players to play without having to resub is that it increases the time for them to get re-hooked to play. A returning player has a low level of motivation and is probably not going to jump through a lot of hoops in order to play. They may be returning because they're bored and looking to screw around a bit. They might not be committed enough to subscribe. If they log in and are essentially naked, they may decide it's too much work to re-equip and just log out. But if they can still go out and do stuff, they may re-ignite their love of the game and subscribe to get the full benefit.
This would be a good solution with the Prestige bits that aren't 'active' being a different colour along with the slot being a different colour to denote what is not in effect.
I don't use any F2P characters for anything other than trade skill mules so I don't really care a whole lot about how useful a F2P character is for actual game play. With that said, I have occasionally had my membership go silver for a day or two and dealing with the prestige armor was a serious kick in the butt to get re-activated. I wouldn't mind seeing prestige armor restriction get changed into a flat reduction in value, kind of the way you lose access to rk2/3 spells and disc. No idea how much it would need to be to bring it down to the non prestige level. 20%? I'd really like to see them do another round of "hey you've been unsubbed for 12 months+, here's a free month sub" kind of deal. Time it with the 25th anniversary.
Anyone who has had All Access and been inactive for 12 calendar months should just get a free month, or even 2 weeks, when they return. Also should do a bundle where if you have been inactive for a period of time, and buy the current expansion, you can get a free month included. They'd miss the 10% discount on the expansion so it's good marketing and it only costs them $10 not $15. This solves the whole I want to come back and see the game but i can't actually play on FTP. Having prestige armor take a 50-75% penalty, making it worse than the comparable non-prestige gear is a reasonable suggestion, but I think the free sub for returning players is a better carrot than gear problems. Ultimately the goal should be to have a subscription.
If they never intend to pay thats probably a good thing. If they have experienced a paid sub before they already know what they need. This fight to make FTP better is for those who want to go FTP part of the year, those who want to have armies of FTP toons and autotbot, those that never intend on subbing. I deal with a lot of returning players as those are the folks we recruit the most in my guild. Many of them sub when they return or eventually sub. FTP as it is does not seem to be hurting things. About the only thing I would change is when someone creates a FTP account or logs in after a long time as FTP they get an email outlining the limitations with explanations as to why gear is a certain color ext. Or maybe make it an in game email. Solves the whole overwhelming issue of figuring our why certain gear isn't working etc.
I suspect part of the purpose of making the FTP gear statless is to discourage folks from going FTP part of the year. Thats just a guess though. It encourages folks to keep subbed all the time.
I agree with your first paragraph completely. Second one... sure there are a lot of games for that price but if you are trying to return to EQ that isnt any help. I still see no change to FTP though.
If you can afford $13 a month you probably need to spend some of your money to the poor, so that everyone could play EQ.
That incentivizes not keeping an account and not every paying for All Access. Inactive 12 months, free AA for a month, inactive 12 months.. etc. Though at one time they had a version of AA that was just for 2 weeks and might have been limited to 1 game but was a significantly lower price. The should have unlockers to use prestige (per item not per slot), but still requires payment, like a lot of other games (SW:TOR for one). Free sub for those who haven't been paying... Do you think Daybreak is a non-profit business?
