Re: Free LoN packs. SOE, you need to try HARDER

SOE, Devs, whoever is responsible for this...

Just about every time I'm in a conversation about how to get the five free LoN packs Gold/All-Access members are supposed to earn via paid subscription, someone inevitably says something along the lines of "man, then I've missed a lot of packs!" because of the change where you now have to log into the LoN client every month to claim what you're paying for.

These are a selling point of paid subscription. Word of this questionable change has obviously not gotten out as thoroughly as it could.. Either make a stronger effort to make people aware of this change, or revert the system back to it's prior iteration, where we got 5 packs a month regardless of whether we logged into LoN.

We're paying for this. Do better.

(Note: I myself haven't missed any packs that I know of. It's just shameful how often I hear of paying customers that have missed out on their fair share of a selling point of paid subscription. I feel this should be rectified on SOE's end.)

How hard is it to log into LoN once a month to get five free packs?

Maybe players need to try HARDER to establish a routine. First of the month, log into LoN, collect and redeem packs, log out. Rinse/repeat every 30 days.

It's very hard if the subscribers never find out that they should do anything like that. Jonny Panic's point is that one feature of the All Access subscription is very poorly advertised.

does the in client Norrath Casual Strategy Game (what LoN is called now) at least in my membership info work for eq and such anymore it always used to crash if it wasn't that I needed to download the standalone it would be a lot easier to remember sometimes it is closer to the end of the month I remember unless someone says something then I remember but if the in game client worked it would I am sure make it much easier for people also

three simple words : Sony doesn't care

we are paying for the account and not for the LoN packs...Thank you SoE to give us something extra from our subscriptions. We really appreciate it! Well... at leest those that are able to log in once a month

If you don't bother logging in for them, then you really don't care too much, so why does it matter?

No it is not very hard for subscribers to find out. All they have to do is keep up with their game of choice. If they are too lazy to read the bare minimum of what is included in all access then it is the player's fault, not SoE's. The information has been there since before this change went in.

Biggest inconvenience for me about the way it works currently is that many times I'll get Login Failure to LoN. Then I have to relog or even reboot to be able to log in. If inconvenient to do such at that time then I have to make sure I remember to try again when I do have the time and patience.
So it can take me out of my routine.
It is annoying that I can't always log into LoN the 1st time I think of it and then be done w/ it for that month. There are times I need to think of logging in it several times w/in the month. That ups the possibility of that month slipping by.
It would be nice if logging into LoN would be more reliable. Perhaps my login failures are linked to having the game nearly always running?


Even now I have the login failure on 2 accounts but it's late and not feeling up to relogging just now

I was crashing often loading loN from in game been windowed... downloaded the stand-alone version and never had problem sicne then.

For LoN you really should download the stand alone version. The in game version for EQ is buggy & has been crashing the EQ client for many years now. They never have mentioned an attempt to fix it so they either are ok with it or unable to get it resolved.

you guys do realize LoN is a dead game thats being phased out, right?

enjoy it while its here but its day has passed. only remote chance of survivability it has now is if sony tries to cash in on hearthstones success via LON with EQN's release. even then i wouldnt put it past them to scrap the whole thing and start over...

If you use the standalone version (which seems to be the only version to work anyway), then you should disable all LoN-related downloads in the EQ Launcher : click on the gears icon ("Advanced tools"), go to "Select Game version", and uncheck "Legends of Norrath".

LoN is pretty dead at this point. Since it was released in the end of 2007, there were 3 expansions each year between 2008 and 2011, then 2 expansions in 2012, only 1 expansion in 2013 (Drakkinshard was released in august, more than one year ago), and 0 in 2014, with nothing being announced.

On january 24th, in his Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), someone asked John Smedley if LoN would be sunset. His reply was :

So, either it's gone for good, or they're secretly working on a major upgrade.

I haven't really paid attention to the status of LoN. I just claim the free packs when I can. My only interest in it is getting cards I can use in EQ. Just so long as they don't eliminate it altogether,as I still have a bunch of packs I'd have to open.

I'm sure their finance department is responsible for the change, not so much the devs. They just implemented the requested change. I would imagine that having players not care about SC for 6 months at a time, suddenly remembering it and cashing it out was a huge financial burden for SOE. Something that would cut into quarterly earnings without them being able to predict it. Throw in pending legislation for taxing digital money like this and its no wonder why they did it.

They could have just taken it away, like so many other things.

Some folks here got it, some didn't. These people don't know. A LOT of people don't know. I've gotten the same response from new and returned players, casual regulars and hardcore raiders. A lot of people who play a variety of playtimes have no idea that this is a thing. They don't know that they need to log in and get free LoN packs and, every time the conversation occurs, they wish they hadn't missed out, because they'd like a shot at some mount or illusion or potions or ornaments... they would have liked to participate.

And yes, the free LoN packs are something SOE uses to promote All-Access paid subscribing. Therefore it's part of the package All Access subscribers pay for. They need to do a MUCH better job of making sure the word gets out. If they can advertise shrouds as part of the game experience in our loading screens despite shrouds being years out of date and unmaintained, then they can do this... add information about claiming one's free LoN packs in a loading screen.

I have an idea. Every time a player logs into the game they should have to acknowledge that there is a forum, a homepage, a FAQ, and a knowledge base...each with a separate acknowledgment button before they play the game. Even better, it should have a pop up box that says "Are you sure?"

just log every month stop being lazy lol

Put all LoN cards in the marketplace already, with past beta rewards.

No, LoN are not something SOE uses to promote All-Access.

When LoN was launched no one received free packs. Cards and packs dropped in game from non-trivial mobs. Some people complained a lot about it, because they never saw them, others liked that method because they could swarm and get more than 5 a month, or buy other people's with plat.

So it was changed, to giving everyone in eq 5 free packs a month (and shortly after they were account locked).

YEARS later, eq added a free to play mechanism. Not getting 5 LoN packs a month is just a consequence of them not making that part of the ftp/silver account abilities. They never added the packs as an incentive to pay for a subscription, because everyone already was "gold" at that point because there was no free to play.

I don't have a problem with asking for more information about LoN, but the problem here is, Everquest developers have nothing to do with LoN. LoN was a completely separate division that was shut down. EQ devs didn't make the items, and didn't make these decisions, and they probably don't give 2 red cents about it. And it isn't something that they use to encourage people to pay for their subscription.

We should just be happy we still get the packs and can use our accounts, considering the game is dead and all their developers were fired or reassigned. One day, well before eq dies off, they will shut it down completely, probably give us a little notice so we can claim anything on our accounts.

We've been getting free packs since October 2008. That's a heck of a lot of time for people to learn about a feature of the game they play.