Depends on your level really. For new players, gold is definitely not worth paying for. Most of the restrictions dont really apply until later levels. If you are a new player 1000 aa does take quite some time to earn, and higher ranks of spells arent really an issue till higher end levels really. And for lower levels the apprentice mercs do just finely. Without silver you are limited to 250 aas, which really doesnt matter if you are just starting out. The 2 character slots is a bit restrictive if you ask me, but that is all up to your own preference whether you need more or not. Then again, silver really is only $5 dollars, which really is a great deal considering how much can get out of the game for so little. If you are just trying it out, then stay bronze, but if you plan to stay go silver then when you need the extra room for AA go gold.
Sadly this game is either Gold or go home unless you play super casually. 1k AA caps very quickly here, you really are gimped if you play Silver.
In the best sense, your question is equivalent to saying "Is the volume high enough?" Except in this case, it is difficulty level. It depends on how you want to play. Kind of like making a hand in poker with nothing wild, driving at night w/o your lights on, that kind of thing. Some people actually like the difficulty level of doing it iron man w/o any twinks or help. Most people playing now are really into the "I made 50 levels in a day!" kind of braggadocio rather then "I did it naked using only a stone knife and bear skin." The perks of being silver are fairly nice but not necessary for all classes. Silver gets you more characters per shard, four vs. two respectively, but you can just create new characters on different shards until you find one you like. There are some classes that benefit from the silver tank mercenaries more then others. If you run a damage machine or pet type character, the lower level cleric mercs you get with f2p are good enough to last quite a while. In any case, leveling to 50ish would just be faster with silver. You get more perks like loyalty points and characters per shard. Above level 50 AA points become important to the point where that will be your ultimate ceiling be it f2p or silver. You could just level characters indefinitely to ~80ish or higher but you will miss out on much of the game content.
Quantifying: "Is silver membership worth $5?" Not per month, just one-time and the account has silver privileges forever. Lots of people miss that it's not a recurring charge for silver.
There are uses for silver, an extra account for support characters, times are tough and being able to stay in touch with game comrades, work requires mobile assignments for a month or two. The drop from paying status used to mean that you were out, now you can still visit and do stuff, and of course maintain your addiction to Norrath. The option to ease into the game, to see if it is something that you and or your friends like at no $ cost, then the one time 5$ upgrade to silver is actually quite economical in todays world. Sure there are a number of things that Silver status doesn't allow, but, still a good deal, and then Gold status is probably less then the cost of going to a movie just once per month.
It is worth the one time fee of $5 just for A5 mercs. The difference between A2 and A5 is significant.
I'm going to agree with this, but it also depends on how serious you are about the game. For example, neither Free nor Silver memberships would work for me, because I'm a veteran player, restarted fresh and already my character is 66 pushing 500 AAs. Keep in mind, I'm also playing casually with my partner's (She's new to EQ) Beastlord whom is also 66 with ~300 AAs. If I were playing alone, I'd probably be pushing the AA cap for 80 by now. Overall, here's how I look at it: If you restart and cant get beyond the tutorial, stay free to play. If you don't think you'll ever get to max level, stay free to play. If you play once or twice a week, go silver. If you play every day, and will likely level to 100 - then go gold.
Start playing FTP. Eventually you will want something, such as extra character slots or more AA's or prestige gear or ... At that time you can upgrade to Silver if it solves what you want, or go Gold. When you stop paying for Gold, you revert to Silver. And it also might be that you like playing several games, in which case the new (and still undergoing changes) system might add value to Gold. They are planning to make it so that when you pay for Gold, you get Gold status on several games at the same time (Vanguard, EQ2, and various others). That's not official yet though. How much you use that or which game(s) you like changes the value of Gold for each person.
This question depends on both your class and playtime. A casually played caster can get away with silver for a month until you hit 90+ and want to break the 1k AA cap (levels/AAs come fast with dailies and such). A melee class, especially if you solo, is going to want to push past 1k AAs by around level 80. You'll also want prestige augs even earlier than that. For a tank, I'd probably go gold by level 70. You might not pass 1k AAs until 75ish if you're staying on top of them, but you're going to want to collect prestige augs asap.
Personally, the chat channel access is worth the $5. It's the whole reason I didn't stick with EQ2 f2p, although I should see if there's a 1 time fee for that in EQ2, since mostly I just wanted to see if any friends still played it that I haven't talked to for several or more years. I don't know if they still do it or not, but all my Bronze accounts I made Silver right away, since they came with 500 SC when I created them. So, basically it was free to get to Silver too. EDIT: Forgot the whole reason I wanted to reply. Shareware used to cost upto $5 and that was usually, severely limited and just to be able to try the game(s) out. Yther Ore.
All my characters join the NewPlayers channel that free players can access. I end up helping lots of people in it, but that's part of what I find fun.
Anyone who says that EQ is go gold or go home, doesn't really know much of anything about what all you can get and do on a Silver account. A Free account is pretty much good for deciding if you want to play or not, a Silver account is fine for playing at all levels unless you plan to grind AAs like crazy or insist on only using the absolute best gear. Mercs, unlimited selection of augments, the best high end gear (group and raid), unlimited AA gain rate, and the ability to set up sellers and buyers in the bazaar are the main reasons to go gold. Giving up those things can minimize how much money you need to spend. If you are AA'ing less than say 500/month and can do without the other 4 things you will be fine as Silver. Most of the other limitations of the Silver can be reduced with unlockers from the Marketplace, such as the rk 2 spell unlocker. Only classes which are heavily dependent upon their AAs really approach the "must go gold" criteria, imo. Raiding as silver is going to be considerably more difficult to pull off since you are restricted to the lower tier raiding gear and don't have access to the best of the aguments; as well as the AAs being necessary to have more often. Silver is well worth the 500SC ($5) one time price. That said, there are a number of extra that Gold members currently (500SC/month) get as well as other changes coming (All gold memberships are changing to All-Access at no additional cost) that make it more attractive to have. In the end it all depends on how you play and what you feel you need to have to play.
To add to this, you also live with the Test server issues and the test code that is left running on the weekends when there is no staff there to "fix the issues!". Not everything works all the time, yesterday it was guild hall instances that were down (haven't checked today). They add features like Gold status, bonus experience, and all veteran rewards to make up for it. I would say try it and see if it bothers you to play in a test environment.Some perks, some irritations. Personally, I like Test fine but I also play on two other (Live) servers as well.
