Just FYI for those recurring members who hadn't heard, we are not going to be able to buy RoF with our SC, accumulated or purchased. *.Lee of Povar
I never saw this announced by SOE in the Launcher nor in the official news and announcements forum. On a quick search, the last mention of anything related in the EQ1 realm was this post from Piestro on 06/13/2012: I purchased SC for the sole purpose of being able to buy the next expansion via the Marketplace. The date of the post above was not April 1, so what is happening at SOE?
You missed it, it was there in the announcement forums on 8/10/12. Along with plenty of responses: http://forums.station.sony.com/eqold/posts/list.m?topic_id=188111 Piestro was likely correct so far as he knew at the time he wrote that...there were no such plans until someone ran the numbers and realized how much much SC people were holding, and how much the double/triple/bonus sales had devalued it's real-world value.
Heck, they even put it back in for a week for those that wanted to buy expansions and membership for whatever SC they had.
Is there another way for folks to get the expansion? Put the expansion on a SoE card like they do the subscriptions? That way they just buy the download at any store that sells the subscription cards? Just thinking....would that be a bad idea?
Yea totally! Why waste their time with anything other than in person point of sale cash transactions! Hell, let's all go back to the 1800s, and trade pig skins for Internet service. I do think its humorous to those who think the PR team is the last people to hear about it. At any business I've work in, it's upper upper management, than to the PR team who then sends interdepartmental email blasts, but what do I know about the process, I never deal with bait and switch...
For the price of producing the cards, they get us to drive all the way out to WalMart and go in and buy them. This is valuable to WalMart because the odds are pretty low that someone going there for a game card will leave without buying anything else. In fact, last time I made it a large shopping trip that would have been elsewhere if not for WalMart being the best place to get SC.
It must be all on Wally world to produce and ship the cards then unless SoE getting more than the price on the card back.
I imagine it's symbiotic. SoE has an interest in making the cards widely available for those unable or unwilling to use a credit card online, or who have an aversion to recurring billing.
After all the issues of the hack last year, given the option I'd rather pay cash for a card, but that option was removed for Euro players, back in July.
It's not hard to think about it... expansion comes out for $50 (remember the days when it was $30 an expansion?) and $90 but people are stockpiling double and triple station cash when the promotions hit. so that $50 to pay for the expansion now gives them really 16.70 in money from a triple... and they've been giving the people who pay for their gold account 500 a month... really devalues the station cash for the expansion... the ones saving their free 500 a month could almost get it free if they hadn't nerfed it. they still have the expansion sales online, but just not utilizing station cash now... credit card, paypal (which does go thru the bank once set up)...
Year long expansions have never been $30. $30 was for the 6 month expansion x 2 a year was $60 total you paid. Versus the $40 paid now for a single year (unless you're non US at which case I don't know what pricing was/is). We actually got a reduction in price in the US for a year expansion.
The thing that bothers me the most is SOE had a triple station cash weekend then announced not too long after that weekend that station cash would no longer be an acceptable way of purchasing expansions. There really isn't much in the way of stuff in the marketplace that I want. A new mount is about it. However I did buy a bunch of station cash for the purpose of buying an expansion or two. Since that isn't an option SC is pretty much useless. What bothers me the most is SOE has been sitting on the cash I gave them enjoying the interest which as far as I'm concerned is just like giving a guy standing on the street corner money for beer......both are a waste of money.
Talk about a bad argument. Sure, expansions used to cost more on a yearly basis when we got 2 per year, but we also got 3-4+ times the content (zones, quests, fun items, raids, etc.). We now pay more for one expansion that has less content than most of the 6-month cycle expansions.
