Which one do you prefer: The old EQ flat rate subscription before EQ went "FTP", or the current business model ? Vumad brought up his thoughts in the "Alternate persona Monetization. Is this a joke?" thread. He does prefer the former flat rate. What about you ? Both versions do have their advantages and disadvantages. Discuss !
I've always preffered a flat rate, it is easier to budget. Since the introduction of the marketplace, we no longer have any new fun quests for toys.
I liked the middle option that we had for a while where I could have no monthlies but pay for prestige / aa cap increase / max level etc. I probably even ended up paying more than monthly sub, but as my playing time was really spread out it suited me really well - I didn't feel like I was burning cash on a game I didn't have time for
I don't understand the question. I paid a flat rate per three months before. I pay a flat rate per three months now. Nothing's changed.
I think op is trying to draw a false dichotemy. Flat rate is still an option. Nothing has been taken away from you. I personally subscribe, but why does it matter if someone else has a ftp box? The marketplace gets WAYYY to much flax by people who haven't seen the wider gaming world. The marketplace only sells fluff. SOO many games out there sell real power on their marketplace. I'm not talking a lvl 100 boost, I mean getting better than raid gear in the store. EQ should be commended for keeping the game healthy by not giving into the temptation of selling power in the store.
I have both. I subscribe to my main 3 accounts and have 3 FTP accounts to replace mercs when I've had a few beers and my alt-tabbing skills are like lightning. Then I drink a few more beers and have to go back to the mercs I'm happy with paying for gold access for the benefits it gives me, and also happy at the way FTP characters can at least be used as support characters without too much expense. I never earn enough money in game to fund Krono subscription so they will always be FTP apart from a single month when they hit 110 and I auto-grant.
Philosophically I disagree with FTP and Krono and Marketplace etc. but in reality I use them and have no problems with them.
From my quoted post, no. From the OP in this thread, the OP isn't exactly on the same page as me. My favorite mount in the game is the Bridle of the Wrulon Guardian (firescale on my mage). I have both. No one completed anything in game for my mount to exist. These were obtained by players in the game using DBC included in the monthly sub. No one paid any extra money above their sub for this item to exist, so all the debate about cost structure and earnings has nothing to do with anything I am saying. Meanwhile, the Baby Wrulon Familiar petamorph is obtained from the quest New Year: Ignite the Light and can not be obtained any other way than completing the quest. The comment I made was about how the game used to work in a way that accomplishments were a reflection of effort in game. The game content was equal for all subscribers (excluding expansions, which were also equal). Anything you had in game was a reflection of your efforts in game (excluding 3rd party platinum sales / power leveling, but that had nothing to do with game design.) The DBC store and premium expansions added many in game items that are obtained from a method other than playing the game. My statement had nothing to do with actual costs. I believe the Visage of the Elddar is currently one of the best illusions in the game. The cost could be $100, or $0.01, it's irrelevant to my comment. You swipe a credit card, you get an item. There is no quest for the item. Again, my statement is not a factor of cost, but rather effort. Even if you could quest the item in game, but you could swipe a card and bypass the quest, I would feel the same about it. Again, my Wurlon mounts did not cost anything extra over the price of a subscription but no quest was completed to create the item. To apply the Subscription model to the FTP model, applying my thoughts on the matter, people with Subs would be able to do the quest and earn the Visage of the Elddar. FTP players could buy access to the quest to obtain the Visage of the Elddar. No one could obtain the Visage of the Elddar without completing the quest. The choice in payment method is not the issue in my statement. The of obtaining the item without completing the quest is my complaint. To apply this to another standard, Subscriptions can earn AA unlimited. FTP can buy an expansion the the allowed AA. Both of these models are fine and I have no objection to FTP being able to buy a higher cap than they currently have. If however, any player, FTP or Sub model, able to actually buy AA is something I would object to. People can not currently buy AA, but I do feel that being able to buy the vanity items, which are the true end game for a lot of games, is arguably worse than being able to buy AA. I hope I have explained myself on which of my items, Bridle of the Wrulon XYZ vs Baby Wrulon Familiar, I hold a greater appreciation for. Neither of which cost me a penny extra IRL. So as for the false dichotomy statement, a game where everything has to be obtained by ingame accomplishments vs a game you can swipe a card and instantly obtain an item, are not a false dichotomy, as it is impossible for both of these to exist in a game concurrently.
Even if they never did the FTP model it is very unlikely that they wouldn't have a store in which you spend DBC to buy items or have different levels of expansion purchase with different rewards. Nothing about the extras you can buy would have change without the FTP model as that is the direction that things are going in the gaming world in general.
To make it clear: Before EQ went "FTP" in March the 15th, 2012, all players needed to buy a subscription for being able to play. There was no marketplace with micropayment and special expansions around during that time. The players were able to get everything by just paying for the subscription, which is why I call it a flat rate = all inclusive. Everyone was equal because of that. It has nothing to do with subscriptions from today, which are no longer all inclusive flat rates. The do coexist beside the marketplace, perks, special expansions (i.e. family & friends), and other buyable things. It is hard to keep track of all that mess. No separate chat channels for FTP accounts (disguised as "NewPlayers" channel) and subscription accounts ("General" channel). No Hero's Forge armor, buyable mounts amd prestige gear. Players had to achieve such stuff by raids, killing named mobs, camping rare spawns, and doing quests. Big difference to now. Prestige gear and buyable AAs (by subscription or AA cap unlocker bundle) were the beginning of pay to win. House of Thule was one of the first expansions with expansion bound ingame add-ons like the garden lion mount.
Where does the Legends server fit in your premise? You are just confused because the Marketplace was inevitable. It just so happens that they introduced other tiers of subscriptions at the same time. You'd have to have an insider to tell you what was ready first - silver/ftp subscriptions or the Marketplace ... but there's just no doubt that the Marketplace was coming, even if subs didn't change. And I get the same thing I've always gotten from my paid subscription. Access to Everquest the game and the ability to wear/use all items. Nothing has changed on that front.
A couple of things come to mind after reading this thread... First, people forget that EQ2 went F2P several months prior to EQ1, and the F2P model we have now in EQ1 was copied almost entirely from how they set it up on EQ2, after a few tweaks on that side. The Marketplace existed in some form prior to the EQ1 F2P launch, because people were buying EQ2 unlockers there. Players were also guaranteed an upgrade to Silver status by buying anything at all in the Marketplace, and that had value; if you couldn't think of anything you wanted to buy, you could get the Silver update by itself for $5 worth of SC. Also, All-Access was a >lot< more expensive than it is now ($30/mo, with no annual discount), So, compartively speaking, F2P was seen by the majority of the playerbase as a blip on the radar in terms of cost. It has never been possible to buy AAs in the Marketplace, you can only buy an increase to your cap. You still have to play the game to earn AAs themselves. I do not personally see this as pay-to-win. The one major flaw I see in the current F2P model is that it is waaaay too expensive to upgrade AA cap space via the market, given the fact we now need thousands of AAs per class per expansion. Nobody buys these, the standard advice is to wait on the timing and then subscribe for a month to get the auto-grant. I think we lose some casual players that way, who would like to just grind out their progression at their own pace and tailor their AA build as they go. If it was me, I'd have the Marketplace sell an AA cap increase in units of 5000 for, say, 500 SC; however many of those they sell, it's all additional revenue. A 250 AA cap unlocker is worthless. Prestige unlockers are important. We lose quite a few potential returning players because that is missing, and there are recurring complaints about it in this forum. At the very least there should be a one-time-use unlock in the Marketplace to make all legacy gear on a returning player's account to be instantly usable, regardless of Prestige status. I don't care if that actually is pay-to-win, if it keeps costing us players, that's bad. I would not have issue with there being a single-item Prestige unlocker in the market either; people do have to actually play the game to get these drops to begin with. Let the company worry about what things cost. F2P isn't going away, it's how the industry is.
