You are right. I can't believe the audacity they have, making a game people can't play the full game for free! I can't believe they wouldn't set up a server for these people that are not doing anything to support the game! People would come back to a game if they could play it completely 100% free?!? I don't believe it. The "beta" is for EQ:Next:Landmark ONLY not, Next itself.
If you want to get full access, pay like the rest of us. Your complaints are basically you and others wanting full access for free. It isn't going to happen.
I don't expect full access to everything, I expect full access to the character/account I've invested my time in. Locking F2P characters out of newer expansions wouldn't be a terrible idea either but still giving us access to our own characters and our gear, otherwise whats the point of the whole module if you can't play it. I'm not gonna reroll on a F2P server when I have characters I already want to play but no longer have the means to pay for the character for the time being. @Tarrin, and yes that's exactly what we want want if literally hundreds of other mmos's, rts and action rpgs are doing and having been doing. Why not the do the same? 2004 SOE has been copying other mmo's and has done nothing but played catch up since then. Why not use something that actually works.
I can think of 1 worthwhile mmo that allows you to play the full game for free. Pay for power mmos do not count. Please let me see this list of hundreds of mmos that are not only allowing you to play the full game for free, but also regularly patching content, fixing bugs, have regular customer service you can petition and call, AND put out a new expansion yearly.
Wtf, is pay for powers? Lol. Well I can give you easily a small list of good free to play module games. But google is your friend. In no particular order... Path of Exile - Currently just started this one and is probably my favorite game atm Aion Terra Dragon Nest DDO Neverwinter Online Age of Conan LTRO - First MMO to successfully use F2P Rift - Motto "No Trials. No Tricks. No Traps" DC Universe Online Planetside 2 DOTA/2 LoL Smite Vindictus Might and Magic Duel Champions Runescape - which had a graphics engine upgrade recently I found NWN/DDO to be weaker F2P Modules. Well mostly DDO because it too was a P2P at first but they couldn't keep the game running and it was due to shut down until they went free to play. Obviously DoTA, LoL and Smite aren't really MMORPGS. But still incredibly successful full F2P. You might also try http://www.mmorpg.com/ and you'll see there are many many more games. That actually do it well and some not so much. But if SoE keeps trimming the fat from their staff, it'll never get fixed.
I am sorry, but most of those do not meet the basic criteria I asked for. MMORPG. -- Come on..A card game? LoL? Regularly ( at least once a year ) released expansions These are the big two. You can't compare games of different genres and a monthly price plan. It doesn't work that way.
Yes, it does and just because it doesn't fit YOUR criteria for a MMO doesn't mean it isn't. And yeah why not a card game? It works it has a great free to play system. Thats the direction most if not all new games are going now, if you are going from pay to play to free to play, you need to be considerate about your new and old player base, we have a saying in customer service, "acquire new customers is substantially greater than that to retain existing customers" And while LoL isn't a "mmorpg" it has the largest player base in gaming to date. Larger then WoW. Infact it has more hours logged then WoW, Minecraft and D3 combined. The F2P model they have very simple but it works, they don't restrict there players from playing and still encourage old players to come back. The point is you don't get that here. Yea, you still have the buy the expansions most of these games give the content for free as well, DDO calls them Modules rather then expansions, just like wow calls them Content patches, on top of regular expansions. Also we aren't talking about month subscriptions we're talking about exactly the opposite. No reason to debate the facts that are plain as day, probably should get out in the gaming world. I wish you luck.
Considering EQ doesn't offer full customer service to free and silver members, your argument is as invalid as his.
In the 10+ years I've played Everquest, Free, Silver and Gold basically get the same level of customer service. It's nothing like the Verant days that's for sure.
That wasn't the complete argument. I believe he wanted all sub rates to go away period, and EverQuest magically make the money to sustain itself in other ways. I was curious what the hundreds MMOs ( not FPSs..RTSs..etc ) are that have shown they can sustain themselves giving away all content and playing for free while still giving the same quality of service and regularly released expansions. I was not impressed with the list. If it isn't an MMO, it doesn't count. A handful of select games being the exception to the rule does not discredit the rule.
In the 10+ years I've played Everquest, Bronze, Silver, and Gold (even though they haven't been around for 10+ years) get distinctly different levels of service. If you get more customer service than your status allows, it is because the particular GM was being nice.
I was referring to the fact the customer service kind of always sucked. Haha. So the levels of customer service for between free and gold was moot. It was pretty much the same and since they fired a bunch of people at their Austin offices and one other...one? I suspect it'll better/easier to fly down walk into the SOE offices and answer my own emails when I have game issues, that is if it even play again (which I probably will if there is another TLP server)
It seems like half the people have amazing customer service, half have horrible customer service. I fall into the amazing side. I have almost always had my petition solved ( not just answered ) in under 24 hours. Often helpful in ways that made me feel stupid. Me " So, I just came back to the game from a year off, all my anchors are missing and I won't let me buy more " Them " your anchors are in X house ( that I forgot I owned ) at Y address! " While I am not saying bad cases don't happen, I just have been fortunate to not have dealt with them personally over me 6-10ish petitions I have placed over the years.
I've heard more bad then good. But then again as someone who is in customer service just in a difference capacity, I understand how it works and how it should work. I also understand why the negative can at times be more noticeable. I'm indifferent to the SOE CSR. Could be better, could be worse but fairly indifferent. Sometimes that can be just as bad though.
There's also the fact that you're obviously going to hear about the bad CS experiences a lot more than you would the good CS experiences. I've almost always had positive experiences with SoE CS...but then again, I'm probably unusually careful about things so I have to deal with them as little as possible. I think the only time (that I can remember) I had a bad experience was back during GoD when I was working on BiC and the BiC box thing to mount the pieces to create the next aug ate my BiC + the item I was adding (was the Sewers and/or Vxed/Tipt part...was in that area, at least). The GM pretty much told me I was SOL...to which I responded by taking about a year off the game in frustration because I was not going to go and do that again right then, lol (though I have since had it finished for years, but that's not the point! ).
