EQN Landmark: Plant Your Flag. First.

When I read the post from Piestro, my impression was that this is: Everquest Next.
And that it is not, so any kind of references to EQN should be removed imo. So Any kind of misunderstandings would be removed.

Sad that it is so confusing...lots of unhappy people coming it would seem...

And it is silly that the dev team feels it is better to let other sites explain some of this stuff...

Aren't those vastly experienced devs suppose to have...well...experience and be able to provide some sort of clear message?

Not seeing a lot of hate...but it is a current trend model to have people pay for the development cost by using founder packs. Firefall is an example...others probably exist. Levels of $$$ to access a game that isn't even close to being done with the theory that the input of those with access will be listened to...not sure if SOE has it in them to listen to people other than the dev team...given what has been made known about these new EQ Casual games.

But to be bothered by having to pay the dev team to actually get the product done...silly. It is the new normal. Not necessarily a nice new normal but it is what it is...cheap.

If you are one that loves making things so SOE doesn't have to pay staff to make things...drop you $$$ and get in line...otherwise...wait for an actual game (EQ Casual) to come out in founder pack alpha mode to drop your $$$$. Just don't act surprised that any revenue stream option that exists today will be used to fund the development process.

Another thing people seem to be generally confused about is the meaning of Closed Beta. From the Landmark FAQ page:

Time-limited means 7 days. Period. The open-enrollment Beta lottery will dole out the same 7-day keys, if and only if they need additional beta testers above and beyond the cash-paying beta testers. If you want unlimited access to Beta, you must pay for it. There is no other way to gain unlimited access.

Wow, sounds like you have some seriously unsatisfied "customers" on your hands soe... that point that guy made about you basically enlisting gamers as slaves for content building is pretty interesting and insightful.

I cannot believe you are about to rob the good people of Al'kabor of their time and what a great thing you did by making that server free to play, therefore flooding it with when we had probably one of the most uniquely tranquil and friendly communities out there, that, by the way, seemed very happy paying before it was made free.

Listen to the people that pay you money unless you want to turn into some mommy's credit card leeching company that loses customers as fast as it tries to create new schemes via more money grubbing games to get new ones. You will end up with a revolving door of 7 year olds that is in no way reminiscent of what soe was. **cough** zynga wannabe... lol

You are lucky you still have the great games that keep the people here that say all these smart things on your forums (even though you just lost a bunch of great ones that I know) because the direction that this is going just plain sucks.

Btw... who remembers Cosmic Rift and Infantry? The glory days for sure. Man that game was fun, anyone out there want to get rogue trader going again? rift ball, chaos zone hell yea..

I hope eqnext will be as cool as they say it will be, but the vah shir look like tauren so im worried haha.

Sorry for the rant I will miss my bard dearly. Rest in Peace Impresario Opttimus Ryme <Temerity>
Al'Kabor server.

Crowdfunding obviously isn't a new concept -- Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and a throng of other platforms amass unbelievable dollars. The typical crowdfunding project is geared towards start-ups that lack funding to make dreams realities.

Sony Corporation is a multinational conglomerate with an annual revenue stream in the hundreds of billions. They don't lack funding. They just rather not pay for development themselves if they can get some other suckers to pay for it instead.

well imo that does not excuse them from totally boofing their entire gaming network and treating customers carelessly. I was not implying that it would make or break the company was just talking about SOE as a subsection and how disappointed I am in it recently.

So somewhere around 90% of game companies are desperate? Okay.

Purchasing beta and alpha keys has been around for a long time, especially for free-to-play games. It's just part of the ever-changing gaming market and one of the ways that free-to-play games make money. At least we know that SOE isn't trying to just sell us an unfinished game by pretending to call it alpha.

We all have Chris Roberts to thank for this. I knew it was a matter of time until AAA companies saw what he's making and tried to get in on it. I'd also be willing to bet Brad will be launching a Kickstarter soon, and once he makes a set amount, SoE will swoop in and take over development and the money people "donated".

So let me get this straight. Sony is too cheap to hire people to test their game so they want us to pay them to basically test it for them. No thanks!

They should just make it an official kickstarter if they want us to donate to it. I know kickstarters are very common but sony has a lot of money with all their playstations and online games with soe they do not need kickstarters for any of their games.

(hint: Kickstarters are supposed to be for people who actually don't have the money unlike sony who has lots of it. Dishonest companies can use kickstarter type things to make uber profits but they won't look good doing it when it comes to PR.) With all the ps4 sales no one is fooled into thinking sony needs the money or could not move more money to soe if they do.

Asking us to pay money to play a game before it is finished is ludicrous. Especially when its parent is one of the most profitable companies in the world. And I thought EQN and landmark was supposed to ftp not pay to play.

EDIT: Erm...nm...I think I misread the posts and stuff, heh. Removed the old post, here's the new one~

Getting into beta should be getting into beta, once you get the access. Especially once it goes to open beta.

The fact that they can have players make buildings and whatnot for EQN through this should offset any development costs as they can just take the stuff from it and put it in there, saving their own development costs for having to build it themselves.

Not interested. I retire next year, and the paid accounts, and all the SC I buy, can be used for food instead. Big drop in my income. Ah well, I enjoyed EQ while it lasted.

I thoroughly enjoy paying a company money to develop designs for them which they will later claim as their own.
This would be substantially more interesting if it were tied into EverQuest: Next, which it is not.